Vegas Girls

by Heather Skyler

  Virginia came into the kitchen and helped him carry out the drinks, then followed him back and said, “Can you stay for a while? A few of my friends want to book you for things and they have some questions.”

  “Oh, sure,” he said, wiping his hands on the apron around his waist. There was a promise hidden in her words, but he wasn’t sure if it was just about the extra work, or if there would be something else expected after everyone left. He couldn’t really fuck this woman, could he? He was with Gretchen now, and he had just found Ivy again, and he didn’t even know this person.

  She touched his shoulder. “Okay. And feel free to make yourself a drink.”

  He did make himself a margarita, and he sipped at it as he waited for the women to finish eating, then he cleared away the plates and serving pans and washed them all by hand in the sink, looking out at that green lawn. He was not expected to wash this woman’s dishes, only what he had brought himself, but the warm water over his hands was soothing, and the view of that lawn in the slanting orange light was something he could watch all day. He could hear laughter from the other room now. Everyone was loosened up from the alcohol, and their bellies were full of his good food. This was the part of the job he liked best: feeding people something that brought them happiness. He had not made many people happy over the years, but now he was able to do that. His food could do that.

  Later, driving home through the dark streets, he tried to remember that feeling he’d had at the sink, of doing good, instead of Virginia’s soft mouth against his neck in the hallway, his hands up under her shirt and down the back of her jeans before his head cleared and he politely refused her. She had given up easily, but he did worry she would bad-mouth him now. He would deserve it, he guessed, for having let things go as far as they did, for leading her on.

  The worst part of the night, however, had come before that. After talking to several of the women about parties they were having or planning to have, he had gone to gather his things in the kitchen, then turned to find Kristina watching him with a creased brow and narrowed eyes. “I remember you now,” she said in a soft voice, no longer friendly. “I do remember you.”

  IVY

  “I think you should give him a call,” Frank said, sipping his gin and tonic. “What the hell? It will make the party more interesting, that’s for sure.”

  Jane nodded. “Yes, definitely more interesting.”

  “Plus you need some help,” Frank said. “It’s a sign that you ran into him. Call him. Book it.”

  The three of them were sitting around the pool drinking in the moonlight. Jane’s kids and Lucky were asleep. The night was balmy, perfect. Jane was stretched out on a deck chair. Frank sat on the pool’s edge nearby, swinging his legs through the water. Ivy was sprawled out in a chair beside Jane, drink cradled in her lap.

  This was not the way Ivy had imagined the conversation going when she brought out Jeremy’s card, brandishing it in the air before her friend and husband. There had been wine with dinner. Two drinks since then. She had almost fallen into the pool after swinging the card around over her head, and when she sank down into the deck chair the sky spun very slightly above her.

  As she looked up at the sky now it seemed to widen, then narrowed to the white, pocked half-moon, then widened again to include the only two stars she could find. “But I thought you hated him,” she said to Frank.

  “No,” he shook his head. “Water under the bridge.”

  “You used to call him a loser.”

  Her husband shrugged. “He was kind of a loser.”

  “I always sort of liked him,” said Jane.

  “But he was a loser, admit it,” Frank said.

  “Maybe,” Jane agreed.

  “He was also kind and talented and smart,” Ivy said, frowning at Jane. What was she doing taking Frank’s side?

  “Okay, take it easy,” Frank said, smiling. “That’s enough praise.”

  Jane laughed. “Remember that time he talked us into skipping school and going to the hot springs? We couldn’t get the cooler down that sort of cliff thing, so Ramona rigged up a rope and Jeremy waited at the bottom with Kevin—is that who I brought?—and the cooler came loose and crashed, and all the Cokes inside it exploded?”

  “But the rum bottle didn’t break,” Ivy said.

  “I know, it was some kind of miracle,” Jane said.

  “A fucking act of God,” Frank smirked. “Meanwhile, I was busy learning calculus so I could get into a good school and then get a good job so I could win you in the end.”

  Ivy laughed. “Is that what you were doing?” She watched her husband smile over at her. Unlike Jeremy, his appearance had changed a great deal since she began dating him eighteen years ago during their senior year of high school. His hair, once lush and wavy, curling over his forehead and down to the collar of his shirt, had thinned and was now cut short, befitting his position of authority as a principal. His jaw had softened a bit as had his stomach, and he’d long ago traded his faded-out T-shirts with ironic sayings for striped polos and khakis.

  Despite these changes, it was obvious women still liked him. The secretary at school greeted him with a certain smile. Waitresses always straightened up in his presence, tried to hold his gaze even when Ivy was sitting right across from him.

  “So you think Ramona is going to show?” Jane asked. “I hope so. I haven’t seen her since Fern was born.”

  “I don’t know. She reminded me that she hasn’t set foot in this town since high school. I guess I didn’t realize that.”

  “Well, her mother made it pretty clear she didn’t want her around,” Jane said.

  “But she’s been dead for five years now, hasn’t she?”

  “Six,” Jane corrected.

  “She did say she had a great present for Lucky,” Ivy said.

  “I bet she sticks it in the mail and writes a funny note,” Jane said.

  “No, she’ll show,” offered Frank. “She’ll want to see Lucky.”

  “You should have seen her with him in LA,” Ivy said. “He was only two months old then, and she wouldn’t set him down except to go to the bathroom or when I had to nurse him. She even held him on her shoulder during meals.”

  “She should have a kid,” Frank said.

  “Another one, you mean,” Jane reminded him.

  “How old would her son be now?”

  “Nineteen,” Ivy said. “His birthday’s this week sometime. I remember it was almost the same as Lucky’s. That would have been weird, if it had been the same day.”

  “Wow,” Frank shook his head. “Can you imagine having a nineteen-year-old son?”

  “We will one day,” Ivy said.

  “True.”

  The three of them were silent for a moment. Ivy tried to imagine Lucky eighteen years from now. Would he look like Frank had in high school? She thought he would look more like her because he resembled her now. She hoped her too-big eyes and wild hair would work better for him than it had for her. She had grown into the hair and eyes eventually, but it had taken a long time.

  “Sometimes,” Jane said, “I imagine leaving the kids and returning when they’re twenty or even twenty-five. When they’re grown. That seems like it will be the rewarding part, having grown-up kids who are out of all the bad and awkward phases and just beginning to appreciate their mom. We can meet for a cocktail, go out to dinner, talk about current events, books, movies. It will be great, I think. That part.”

  “I love this part,” Ivy said.

  Jane shrugged, and Ivy noticed again that her friend didn’t look quite right. She was too thin and angular, thinking of something else even when they were talking.

  Later, lying in bed next to Frank, Ivy whispered, so as not to wake Lucky several feet away in his crib, “I’m sort of worried about Jane.”

  “She seems good,” Frank said.

  She turned onto her side and saw her husband’s profile etched against the dark. “Earlier, when Rocky was sitting on her lap after dinner,
Jane looked like she wasn’t listening to him at all. She was in a different world. And she usually doesn’t drink as much as she did tonight. Also, she’s too skinny, and what’s with that pink stripe in her hair—is she in junior high?”

  “I like the stripe.”

  “You would,” she said and lightly pinched his leg.

  “And maybe she’s just tired from her trip. And we all drank a lot tonight.”

  “True,” she agreed. “Why do you have to be so reasonable? Why can’t you just let me worry?”

  He turned on his side and faced her, though it was too dark in the room to make out his eyes. “Okay, go ahead and worry.” He put a heavy hand on her hip and pulled her toward him. She turned onto her side, facing away, and they fitted their bodies into their customary position: spooned together, his hand cupping the soft skin of her stomach, knee matching knee. Later, they would separate and sleep on their backs, and later still Lucky would cry and she’d carry him to bed and set him between them, where he would nurse then flop onto his back, deeply asleep, and stretch out his arms as wide as he could, taking up more room than it seemed possible for a baby to occupy.

  Ivy tried to recall the position she’d slept in with Jeremy, in her single bed in that depressing bedroom all those years ago. After her father had gone out for the night, Ivy would sneak Jeremy in and they would have sex on her small bed, then curl into each other and sleep until the sound of her father coming in late and bumping into things woke them.

  They had faced each other in sleep, his head tucked just beneath hers, his warm breath on her chest and throat. His arms would be curled up, fists beneath his chin, and her free arm flung over his shoulder. Her knees had been bent into his smooth, white chest. Even though she had been the one home alone, her mother already gone, it had seemed as if she were protecting Jeremy, cradling him against her for comfort.

  She had loved him then almost as if he were a child, wanting to keep him close and safe from whatever dangers he faced outside her door. Usually she loved him with just plain infatuation, with teenage passion and intensity, but during those nights her love had been different, tender and mature. She’d stroke his back, his spiky hair, murmur to him as he slid toward sleep. It was not clear to her how this dynamic had developed, or if she’d even noticed it at the time, but she had liked it. She remembered that. It had felt like a relief after the back-and-forth passion. It had felt like she was learning to be a grown-up.

  Frank was close to sleep; she could tell by the way his breathing slowed and steadied, and she was almost there too when a long whimpering cry sounded nearby. Ivy was up on an elbow and swinging her legs over the side when Frank pulled her back down. “That wasn’t our kid.”

  “Are you sure?” She padded over to the crib and peered down at Lucky, who was soundly asleep.

  In the next second, they heard Jane’s voice. “Shhh,” her friend said. “It’s okay, sweetie. Just a dream. Be quiet or you’ll wake up Rocky.”

  Ivy resettled herself against Frank and listened closely but the voices were quieter now, a murmur coming through the bedroom door, which was slightly ajar. She wondered if she should get up and help Jane, then decided against it.

  “Told you,” Frank said and pulled her closer. She wondered how she could have possibly mistaken Fern’s cry for Lucky’s. This error struck her as a flaw, tiny now, just a tear in the fabric of her role as mother, but as she lay there listening to Frank breathe, she imagined the tiny tear growing wider. Maybe that was how it had begun for her own mother: first she didn’t recognize her child’s cry, then she didn’t care whether she did or not, then she no longer even listened for it.

  TUESDAY

  JANE

  When she woke at seven, the house was still quiet and her first thought was of Adam—or, rather, Adam’s absence. It had been a long time since she’d woken up in a home that didn’t also contain him. They hadn’t slept in the same bed for the past two weeks, but his presence could still be felt from the moment she awoke until he left the house for the bar at three. She couldn’t decide when he had begun to grate against her insides so that she could barely breathe. The simple act of brushing her teeth and going downstairs to make coffee in the morning had become an agonizing routine.

  Downstairs, Adam would either be asleep, his body emanating a sort of primal heat through the French doors of the living room, or awake in his chair by the window listening to his headphones and eating a piece of toast.

  She knew that part of his oppressiveness was brought on by her own guilt over what she’d done, but another part of it was just about him, about who he’d become during their eleven years of marriage.

  Here at Ivy’s house, despite the inkling of a hangover, Jane already felt lighter, and she got out of bed and stepped over Fern’s sleeping form on the air mattress, then wandered out to the kitchen.

  At the table, she found Rocky seated beside Ramona, both of them eating cornflakes. “You’re here!” Jane said, and moved around the table to embrace Ramona, who rose and opened her arms. “I didn’t even hear you come in.”

  “This kid let me in.” She pointed an elbow to Rocky. “I could see him watching cartoons through the window, so I just knocked lightly and he heard me.”

  “You’re not supposed to open the door without an adult nearby,” Jane scolded.

  He shrugged. “I could see who it was. I know her.”

  “You don’t think he should have let me in?” Ramona asked.

  “No, of course not, sorry.”

  Ramona smiled and sat back down to her bowl of cornflakes. Her skin was tan and her long black hair hung in her usual two braids halfway down her back. Her sky blue tank top had LONG BEACH MUSIC FESTIVAL printed on it in white cursive letters.

  Jane started a pot of coffee. “We weren’t sure you’d make it,” she told her friend.

  “I know,” she said. “Me either.”

  “But she has a boyfriend named Nash, who told her she should go,” Rocky said.

  “He thought it would be a good thing for me. A healing thing.” She smirked, then shrugged and ate another spoonful of cereal. “Rocky thinks Nash is smart.”

  Rocky nodded. “He is.”

  “But he has this goofy walk—more of a strut really—and I don’t think it’s going to work out,” she told both of them.

  Jane laughed. “A strut. That’s not too bad.”

  “You haven’t seen it.”

  “Musician?” Jane asked.

  Ramona shook her head. “He has his own company, something to do with heating and cooling.”

  “Age?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Sounds serious,” Jane said, pouring herself a mug of coffee before the pot was finished brewing. The sizzling sound of hot liquid hitting the base of the coffeemaker jarred her, and she quickly slid the pot back into its space, then sat down between Ramona and Rocky.

  Ramona shrugged. “He’s very sweet. And he has these laugh lines around his eyes that sort of remind me of the rays of the sun.”

  “So he’s old?” Jane asked.

  “No.” Ramona shook her head. “Weathered. He used to surf, I think. He’s cute, trust me. Except for the strut.”

  Rocky laughed, then cleared his bowl and disappeared back into the family room.

  “I like your hair,” Ramona told her now.

  “Thanks.” She pulled on the stripe, then lifted the pink section of hair toward her eye for a better view. “It’s fading now, so it looks better. It was hot pink at first, really fucking bright. You should have seen the face Ivy made when she saw it. She pretended to like it but I saw the look. You know which one I mean.”

  Ramona nodded. “Sure. I’m thinking I should chop mine,” she said, pulling a braid around to the front and yanking at it. “I’m a little too old for braids.”

  Jane waved a hand dismissively. “You look great.”

  “You don’t look so good.”

  “I drank too much last night, after Ivy and Frank went to bed I
kept going. Big mistake.”

  She had gone inside the house with the two of them, put on her short red nightgown, and brushed her teeth. She had even gotten into bed beside the air mattress that held her two kids. Then Fern had cried out for her pillow and Jane had been required to lie down beside daughter until she fell asleep. Rocky slept beside his sister, already unfolded into a splayed-out and delicious-seeming slumber. She had felt resentful then for Fern’s need to have her nearby. It was midnight and Jane considered herself off the clock. But of course a mother was never off the clock, especially with Fern, who was a light and troubled sleeper.

  When Fern’s breathing deepened and slowed, Jane had slunk carefully off the air mattress, as cautious as if she were leaving a crime scene, then wandered out to the kitchen and poured herself more gin with a little tonic. She downed that one quickly, then poured another and stepped back out onto the pool deck. Around three in the morning she woke up on the deck chair, still half blasted, under a sheet of moonlight so brilliant it hurt her eyes.

  “I drank coffee all night playing at this club,” Ramona said, “then couldn’t sleep, of course, so decided to leave around three in the morning.”

  “Why were you drinking coffee?”

  “To avoid drinking booze.”

  “Why?”

  Ramona looked toward the window, then back at Jane. “Just trying to be healthier, you know? Also, I think I sing better with coffee, something about the warm liquid soothing my throat. I suppose decaf would do the same. Or tea. It didn’t occur to me at the time.”

  “How’s the new album coming together?” Jane asked, then immediately worried the question would be unwelcome.