by Julia Kent
“I think Marie’s bowels are,” Amanda mutters as Mom sprints for the facilities.
“There was breast milk in that latte?” Pam asks me, her voice anemic and shaky.
I shrug and whisper, “I’m sure Anterdec would never—”
“Of course,” Lüq says. “Research shows that it is a vital source of anti-aging nutrients. I drink it every day.”
Amanda gives me a look. “It halts your aging?” The guy is easily in his fifties, so—
“Yes. I am eighty-one years old. Do I look it?”
“You’re eighty-one and you dated Jordan?” Amanda is still stuck on this, while I’m left wondering if pregnancy and lactation might hold some key to immortality. “Jordan’s in his forties!”
“I might have to rethink that whole breast-milk-drinking thing,” I mutter. My stomach seizes, rising up in anarchy. Okay. No. I’ll take the wrinkles.
“Love knows no age,” Lüq sniffs.
“No age. No gender. Love doesn’t know shit, does it?” Amanda whispers to me.
“And Jordan Montelcini is a blood-sucking little worm.”
“Agreed!” Amanda crows.
“What did he do to you?” I ask Lüq.
“He broke my heart.”
I pat Lüq’s hand. “It happens to all of us at least once. Sometimes love just isn’t enough.”
“Ain’t,” Mom says, returning to the group.
“Ain’t what?”
“Sometimes love just ain’t enough. If you’re going to quote cheesy love songs, get the titles right.”
I ignore her.
“Why do you hate him so much? His very existence bothers you?” I ask Lüq.
Lüq gives me hu’s compete attention, my eyes falling into hu’s. “Do you not understand, child? Only from great love can come such anger. We find ourselves impaled by rage only when we feel betrayed by big love. If we are lucky, we experience so much love that one day—” Hu’s voice hitches with emotion and I’m overcome, grabbing the first person I can touch, needing connection.
The hand I squeeze is Mom’s.
“—that one day, we burn with hatred like Hades himself, consumed wholly by the power of all that is vile, wishing our former soulmate a pain-filled, loathsome death worthy of a beggar stewed in excrement.”
That went in an unexpected direction.
“Jordan Montelcini is an ass,” Lüq sobs. “But he was my ass, and now I have to go through the rest of my life assless.”
“Me, too!” Mom wails. “It all just flattens out like a fat pancake after fifty.”
“That’s not what hu meant, Mom!”
“But it’s true! I could bend over and you could use my ass as an end table, honey. I could sell this ass as a level in the tool department at Home Depot.”
What’s the SKU number for whackadoo?
“It’ll happen to you, too, honey. Genetics.” She gives Amanda a sympathetic blink. “And you.”
“Me?” Amanda squeaks.
“Just look at Pammy,” Mom says, shaking her head with pity. Poor Pam reaches around the back of her chair to pat her own ass.
“What about my tushie?” Pam is alarmed.
“It’s been more than twenty-five years,” Lüq says with a sigh, hu’s eyes glassy and unfocused as hu interrupts. Hu is clearly caught in the reverie of the ’80s. “His mother made him break up with me, and then that wretched wench destroyed my floral designing career. She wanted Jordan for herself.”
Amanda looks like she just licked the top of her Turdmobile.
Lüq claps, switching gears like nothing. “The ladies are here for a relaxing spa day, not a tour of my broken heart’s four chambers. You, my dear,” Lüq adds, touching my hair, lifting the long strands like they’re drugged snakes being readied for medical testing, “need a complete intervention. Top to bottom.”
“Bottom?” I gulp.
“Anal bleaching,” Mom whispers, then winks. “It’s a thing. Guys love it.”
I start to dry heave.
“Anal bleaching is soooooooo 2013,” Lüq says drolly, making Mom redden and turn to hu in reverence, all ears to learn what this year’s trend might be, and how to use it as a form of torture against me.
“Let us start with the top,” hu says. “You poor, poor child,” hu mutters, pulling me over to a hairstyling command center. “What on earth happened to your hair?”
“I, uh—”
“And these fingernails!” Lüq picks up my index finger on my right hand like he’s plucking a leech from a cadaver. “Tartan? What abomination is this?”
Mom slowly slides her hands under her pancake ass.
Gagai picks up Amanda’s hand and points.
Lüq’s eyes widen and hu gives us all sympathetic looks. “Who is the Scottish monster forcing this crazy pattern on you? You are tartan hostages who need love, sympathy, and a proper fill to recover from the psychic trauma of these hands, which scream desperation and haggis.”
Mom doesn’t say a word.
I love Lüq.
* * *
Two hours later, I need a break.
When I return to our hotel suite, I mistake it for a high-end boutique and back out slowly. The room is filled with eight racks of women’s clothing, forming a corridor behind the sofa. A gold-painted vanity is in front of the left side of clothing, and I see three distinct stacks of shoe boxes on the floor beneath the hanging clothes.
“I’m so sorry! I must have the wrong room!” I call out, hoping I haven’t offended the occupant.
“Mrs. McCormick?” The voice is female, with a French accent, but one much more cultured than the spa pixie.
“Um, not yet. This is Shannon, though.”
“Mrs. McCormick, I am Evie.” A rail-thin replica of Coco Chanel herself, circa 1920, reaches for my hand, warming it between both of hers. Dark hair coiffed in a retro wavy look that frames her face. A suit that is Tiffany Blue, a color I now know. Pale, unlined skin that is timeless. Warm brown eyes. The kind of cultured appearance that could make her thirty or sixty.
“Mr. McCormick leaves his regrets—he is at a business meeting—but he asked me to assist you in finding the wardrobe that best suits your needs.”
I’m going to kill him. An image of Hello Kitty in a Georgia O’Keeffe painting slams through my thoughts.
“Declan sent you? You’re a professional shopper?”
“I prefer the term stylist.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Great. There’s a vocabulary for this. It’s one thing to have undeclared behavioral expectations when it comes to buying new clothes, but now I don’t even have words.
I’m a Fashion Preschooler.
Evie moves like her feet are a hovercraft, her bones in perfect alignment. I am an injured giraffe in comparison. I reach up, wondering what I look like, feeling oily skin and ragged hair. Lüq had me do all the spa treatments first, then let me come up here to grab a book so I could tolerate another three hours in hair-color hell before getting a cut and style and having my makeup done.
“I do know that Lüq is expecting you, Mrs. McCormick, so I will not take much of your time. We need your measurements, your weight, to take a small scraping of your skin, and to pluck some hair samples.”
Horror fills me. “Why? So you can clone me?”
She laughs. “Non. We can best find colors that enhance your skin tone, the contours of your body, and to allow shadow and light to work for—and not against—you.”
“You realize I buy most of my clothes at Savers and the Salvation Army.”
She gives me a blank look. “Are those new boutiques? You are from Boston, I know. Perhaps these are local to you?”
“They definitely have an eclectic set of offerings,” I reply. “And a diverse clientele.”
She reaches for a smartphone and taps on the glass screen with—of course—perfect nails. “I will investigate. Thank you for the information. I am certain we can find you some outfits that are as nice as those you find at Savers and the Salvation
Army.”
No kidding, lady.
Bang bang bang.
Someone pounds on the door, the racket so loud you’d think the hotel was on fire.
“Shannon! Open up! I know you’re in there!”
Mom. Surprise.
“If you think sneaking out of Mr. Lüq’s spa before you’re done is going to work, you’ve got another think coming. Declan told me to babysit you and make sure you get every single treatment on the spa menu!” she bellows.
“Your mother?” Evie asks, sympathy filling her voice.
I nod.
“And that includes the vajacial!” Mom shrieks.
Evie looks like she’s about to faint. No worries about Hello Kitty fashions from her.
I wrench open the door to the suite and grab Mom by the salon drape, yanking so hard she flies face-first into a dressmaker’s bust. Mom’s getting highlights and lowlights, so her head is covered with foil. She looks like she belongs in Roswell, New Mexico, at an alien encounters convention. A cigarette with a long ash and a story involving anal probes and she’d fit right in.
Actually, now that I think about it, the only thing she’s missing is the cigarette.
“No one is getting anywhere near my labia with steam or anything else!” I declare. “And that includes Declan,” I add in a low voice.
“Saving that for the wedding night?” Mom whispers with a wink. “Smart girl. Make him hold out until he wants it even more. And a fresh set of lips will really—”
If I pretend she isn’t real, she’ll go away, right?
Hold on.
She’s carrying a coffee.
From my favorite coffee shop next door.
“Where did you get that?” I’m more outraged that she didn’t get me a yummy latte than I am by her comments about anal bleaching, which is not happening. Nope.
“Lüq got it for me, Pammy and Amanda.”
“What about me?”
She lifts one shoulder and imitates his accent. “He said that if you didn’t care to stay, why should he get you the divine nectar?”
“I’m here to get a book! To have something to read while I go through all these treatments.”
“You always have to be different, honey. Lüq has plenty of things to read in the spa.”
“They’re all pictures of hair styles or magazines in French.”
“You took middle-school French. You should be able to read them.”
“The pictures make it clear the magazines are all for high-colonic industry workers.”
Evie gives a low sound of acceptance. “Everyone has a fetish.” Her hand moves in a distinctly French way, the nonchalance so engrained, the lift of one corner of her mouth imperceptible.
Mom looks at her as if finally noticing her and grins nice and wide. She looks like an extra on Steel Magnolias. “Yes. Everyone does. Hello. I am Marie. I’m Mr. McCormick’s mother-in-law.”
“That’s how you’re introducing yourself now, Mom? Not as ‘Shannon’s mother’, but as ‘Declan’s mother-in-law’?”
“I’ve got to use my connections, dear. Declan has more clout here than you.”
“Listen to yourself! That’s so shallow.”
“Oooo, Prada!” Mom says. Clothes are a shiny for her. She’s like a magpie. “What’s this all about?”
“Declan’s forcing me to work with a professional shopper.”
“Stylist,” Evie hisses.
Mom beams. “Will she get you another outfit like the last shopper? The one who dressed you in that gorgeous Hello Kitty outfit?”
Evie nearly faints again.
“No,” I say curtly, offering Evie a glass of sparkling water from her little snack station, which she gulps.
“Mom, I’m coming right back. Promise. Evie’s going to take my measurements and I’ll be right back in the spa.”
“Ooooo!” Mom says, giving Evie an about-face and pouring on the charm. “Can I get measured too? What’s Declan buying us?”
“Me. Declan’s buying me something. Not you.”
“How do you know? There are an awful lot of clothes here in an array of sizes.”
“Because Declan told me he wanted to do something special. For me. And only me.” Territoriality emerges in the strangest way. Evie listens to Mom intently, eyes bright, cheeks pink, as she nods encouragement.
“Your mother is wise,” Evie urges. “Let Mr. McCormick do this for you.”
“Considering most of your non-work wardrobe comes from second-hand stores, this is a quantum leap for you, honey!”
Thump.
We look down.
Evie has finally fainted.
Chapter Fourteen
After experiencing more processing than a Kraft cheese product, I return to our suite with a new hairdo, every pore of my skin exfoliated and moisturized, body hair intact where I want it intact, though the negotiations over that issue rival the Paris Peace Accords and boundary lines.
A note on the bed reads: Business mtgs still. Sorry. See you @7 for dinner w/ parents. <3
I check my phone. Same basic text from Declan.
And, to my surprise, one from my dad, left just a few minutes ago.
Can we talk before dinner, honey?
I text him back and within five minutes, I’m in a giant bear hug with Dad, embraced between slot machines and a baccarat table.
“Look at you!” he says, his voice hitting three different octaves of marvel. “My little tomboy’s all grown up.”
I blush. “The stupid spa. Declan and Mom made me.” I can’t help but be a little pleased, though.
“Declan and your mother joined forces on an issue?” Dad’s eyebrow goes up, his mouth down. “That’s frightening.”
We share a very, very understanding laugh.
“What’s that?” Dad asks, pointing to the “High Limit” sign in front of a private door.
“I think that’s where the really wealthy players go. Baccarat? Declan likes that game.”
“Huh. I played that years ago.”
“You did? Are you sure? Declan says it’s a game for international jet setters.”
“What? I don’t look like a billionaire playboy?” He mugs for me.
I laugh. “Seriously, though—you know how to play?”
“Just the basics. Before you were born, I worked for three months at the first casino in Connecticut, right after they opened. A temp job. Learned most of these games there.” He just nods to himself, his eyes flicking back to the door, then focusing on me.
“Oh, Daddy, thank you for doing this. I need a break.”
“From your mother?”
“From everything.” I look around the casino in marvel. “Isn’t this place amazing? It’s so...”
“Awful.”
“What?” I laugh, giving him a conspirator’s smile. “I know it’s a bit much.” Dad’s not the kind of guy to be negative about pretty much anything. Go with the flow is more his style.
“It’s a ‘bit much’ the same way that I’m ‘a little in debt,’ honey.”
There’s that damn topic again. Money. I guess it’s natural. We’re in Vegas, on a casino floor. For the first time, it occurs to me that it’s Monday. And Mom and Dad have been staying here the entire time. I’m assuming Anterdec is comping their rooms, so they don’t have to pay for that. What about food, transportation, and all the rest?
Talking about that seems too prickly, especially given Dad’s rare frown. I tuck my questions aside for later and pick something safer.
“Declan designed this resort. It was one of his first jobs at Anterdec.”
“And he did a fine job. It’s just not my style. How about we get out of here and go outside. There’s an ice cream shop across the street on the Strip.”
“You’re remarkably fluent in my language, Dad.”
“We’re in the land of milkfat and honey, Shannon.” He gives me a side hug. “I’d better be, after all these years.” We walk through the casino, which starts to feel like it nev
er ends, a repeating pattern of fake Persian carpeting and marble-like wallpaper on the high walls giving the appearance of eternity.
Dad takes a deep breath. “Do they pipe in some kind of money scent?”
I shake my head.
“Focus-group-determined aromatherapy designed to convince people it’s safe to keep gambling away.”
Horror fills Dad’s features just as we reach the main lobby. A twenty-foot ceiling with a skylight the size of an ice-hockey rink is covered with stained glass.
“What? Quit joking.”
“I’m serious.”
“This place is so fake.”
Relief pours through me, and I bump his shoulder, a nudge meant to convey approval. “I know. I can’t stand it.”
He gives me the side-eye. “Good girl.”
We walk down the curved sidewalk that wraps around the enormous fountain outside and reach the main sidewalk. Other than my quick trip to the drug store and my foray next door, I haven’t actually walked outside, in daylight, along the Strip. This is the famous Las Vegas, the center of decadence and luxury.
And the first person I encounter on the sidewalk is wearing a billboard on a backpack, the picture flashing a topless woman crouched over the mouth of a man with a one-hundred dollar bill between his teeth.
“GIRLS!” he screams, forcing a small business card in my hand. “Free shuttle to see the girls! Getcha booty on!” Dad gets the same treatment, recoiling and dropping the card.
“Geez,” I mutter.
“At least in Boston the street hawkers are more polite,” Dad mutters.
“I know!”
“They’re just doing their job,” Dad adds, his voice changing. “I remember those days. You’d get a chance at a few bucks to stand on a corner handing out flyers and that helped you make rent.”
A woman about Mom’s age, wearing a neon pink shirt that says “ALL GIRLS ALL NIGHT” hands me a flyer.
I take it.
Over the course of a single city block, I stop counting the hawkers when I reach twenty. Beggars dot the walk as well, in wheelchairs, sitting on blankets next to dogs wearing bandannas around their necks, and all of them call out to us.
With each encounter, my unease increases. Daddy’s expression turns into a scowl.
We reach...an escalator?