by V R Tapscott
“What is that stuff on your waffle, Olive?”
“Fresh blackberry jam. Mmm ... don’t you wish you could have some?”
“Nah, not really. I don’t like the seeds.”
“My blackberry jam doesn’t have seeds, sugar.”
“Sacrilege!”
“No, just no seeds.”
“Oh. Ok. That’s fine then.”
They both grinned like madwomen and chomped on their waffles. Bailey had a second one and Olive mirrored it. Then, Olive had bacon on her plate and Bailey sat back, disappointed.
“I can’t believe I forgot the bacon.”
Olive shrugged, which was eye catching, considering the tight shirt and shorts she was wearing today. “Just toss some in the microwave for a couple minutes. It comes out pretty good.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea.”
She grabbed the bacon package and threw four slices in the microwave, then tapped her foot impatiently while the bacon cooked. When the timer dinged, she grabbed at the bacon, burned herself on the steam and dropped it on the counter. “Ow.”
“You need cookin’ lessons, darlin. Maybe get that Dale man t’ help.”
“Psh. I cook just fine. You liked the waffles, didn’t you?”
“I have to admit you did good on th’ waffles.”
Bailey smiled complacently. “Thanks. Next time you should try them with syrup.”
“Sounds like a plan. You gonna wake up next to me next time?”
Bailey stuck out her tongue at Olive. “Not in THIS lifetime.”
Olive made with a slow smile. “I got plenty of time. I’ll check back next lifetime, then.”
Bailey changed the subject. “Ok, so today we need to hunt down Laney. She’s probably at her dad’s house. Jane told her we would be there today, so at least she knows we’re coming.”
“Hey, how about our gambling trip?”
“I wouldn’t miss it. But we’ll wait till later, business first, missy.”
Olive made some uncomplimentary sounds under her breath and Bailey chose to ignore it. Sometimes Olive acted more like a young child than the 25-year-old she appeared to be. Bailey figured it was natural for someone just adjusting to being a ... being.
Out in the garage, they piled into the Z3 and took off along Anime Street. Bailey still had to laugh at the name. Summerlin is about 25 miles from Henderson, and it was all freeway driving, so Bailey had a chance to open up her new toy a little. Speed limits are high in Nevada and it was fun to whip along the highway at 80mph.
20 miles goes by fast at 80mph though, and soon they pulled off into neighborhoods, making their way to the address on Sonatina Drive. Shortly after, they pulled up in front of a pretty house, with obligatory Spanish tile roofing, and stone and brick accents. It was painted in soft desert colors, with a pop of personality in the bright yellow door. The personality didn’t stop at the door, either.
Bailey rang the bell, they waited awhile, then Bailey rang it again. They could hear it clearly inside, but no one came. Puzzled, they started to leave, but turned back for one more punch on the doorbell. Finally, sound of movement inside and the door opened on a stunning young woman dressed in a skimpy coverup, her long amber hair dripping.
“Hi, you must be from Washington? Daddy said you’d be by.”
With that, she turned and set off toward the back of the house. With no invitation, the pair on the steps trailed along behind her, not sure if they’d been invited or not.
Bailey turned to Olive, “My, what a warm welcome. She’s going to be stellar on the front desk job.” Olive nodded grimly, for once the two of them being in perfect accord.
Out the back sliders they followed the girl, who dropped her coverup and made a perfect ten of a dive, then proceeded to do laps across the long end of the pool.
After a bit of standing awkwardly, Bailey and Olive stepped over to pool chairs and sat, silently waiting for Laney to finish her entrance. Or whatever it was she was doing.
Finally, she finished her laps apparently and surfaced near the ladder. She said to Bailey, “Sweetie, could you get me a towel?”
Bailey, already in a slow burn, grabbed a towel and tossed it to her.
Laney paraded around the pool apron, drying off and getting her hair up in the towel, then sitting at the table where the other two were. She lit up a cigarette and looked at them.
“Well, daddy said you’d probably wanting to make a job offer, but really, I’m planning on staying in the area and working this summer and I doubt you can match what I’ll be making here. Sorry it was such a long trip for nothing.” She shrugged helplessly, a ‘what can you do’ gesture.
Bailey paused a beat, then said, “Oh, I completely understand. Washington is quite some distance away and I’m sure that you’ll be making more at your new job than the year’s tuition and books that Jane was offering.” She stood, followed by Olive, and they both started off toward the still open slider door. They made it almost to the door, when the voice came behind them, sounding a little strangled.
“Y-you’re offering a year’s tuition AND books for a couple months work?”
Bailey replied, “Oh no, darlin, that’s what Jane WAS offering. Obviously, you have better things to do. And better places to do them.”
With that, they both marched through the door, slid it carefully closed and then walked through the house, opening and closing the front door firmly. They had just made it to the car when the door flew open and Laney, with her towel hanging down in a disheveled mess, dashed out the door.
“Hey, uh, wait a minute! I’m sorry, I didn’t understand - I was busy with ... um.”
Bailey turned toward her, the fire showing in her eyes. “What did you want to say? I thought everything had already been said. Eloquently.”
Laney had the grace to blush. “I’m sorry. I really am not usually this rude. I was reacting to my dad calling and telling me he’d found a job for me. He’s got a habit of trying to control my life and I was ...” She ended it there.
“You were being a rude little career ending bitch to get back at him? Is that what I’m hearing?”
Laney puffed up like she was going to explode, then stood down her DEFCON level, looked at her feet and said, “Yes, ma’am. I guess I was.”
Bailey glared at her. She said, evenly, “If you weren’t Dale’s daughter, I’d be leaving you here in the dust. The offer for the books is withdrawn and you pay your own flight. If you’re in Chelan five days from this minute, you’ll have a job for the summer. In return, at the end of the job, UNLV will be paid directly by Jane’s accountant for a year’s tuition. And I’ll be starting you with a toothbrush in the bathroom.” Without another word, she turned on her heel, got in the car and started the engine. Olive barely managed to get in the car before it was flipping a U-turn and screaming back up the road they’d come in.
Olive’s eyes were the size of dinner plates and she didn’t say a word all the way back to Jane’s house.
Chapter Eleven
May the Odds Be Always In Your Favor.
When they got back to Jane’s house, Bailey winked at Olive. “Did you like the show?”
“Show? Whatta ya mean?”
“With Laney - the blowup and threats and stuff?”
“That was a show? An act??”
“Of course. You don’t think I’d really loose it over a silly job interview, do you?”
“Um. I never really thought about it.”
“Well, trust me, you never lose your cool, especially with your employees. But now Laney thinks I’m a loose cannon and will tread gently.”
Olive sighed. “I’m never gonna understand humans.”
Bailey changed into a tight grey silk tee shirt and black jeans; and made ready to go to the casino. Olive made a statement with a black tee shirt and fashionably ripped jeans along with glaringly red shoes, and they called for a limo to pick them up.
While waiting for the car to arrive, Bailey said, “I have a confession,
Olive. It wasn’t all act. I shouldn’t have let the little brat get to me in the first place - I’ve been breaking girls like her for years. It was just unexpected, since I was making the assumption that Dale’s daughter would be as nice as him. Apparently, Jane’s initial assessment of the wife was more accurate than we knew, since it seems that Laney has had someone else to use for a role model than Dale. I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, but even with the ameliorating circumstances of her mother dying, I’m having a hard time excusing that much angst.”
“Uh huh. I thought she was a bitch too. Um, Bailey ... “
A breath. “Yes, Olive?”
“Do I ever come off sounding like that?”
Bailey laughed. “Well, no, but you are a bit trying at times.”
“Oh. I thought I was just being funny and edgy.”
Gently, “Too much evening sitcom watching, dear. It’s bad for you. Real people don’t really live on nasty one-liners their whole lives.”
“Time for me to grow up?”
“Oh, Olive. Never grow up. Just learn more when it’s time to be edgy and when being edgy is just being a jackass.”
Olive nodded, appearing to be actually listening. The doorbell rang and the driver was there with the car. They picked up their oh-so-tiny purses and split up. Bailey made her way to the long black Cadillac limo, and she was on her way. Olive cheated and simply vanished. Why walk anywhere when the teleport was available?
The driver pointed out the sights along the way once the car entered the Las Vegas Strip area, and finally deposited her in front of the Bellagio, its fountain in full glory with a medley of show tunes for the background music. Bailey had been to Vegas before on various junkets associated with being part of the publishing scene, but had never been in the Bellagio. Vegas seldom fails to amaze. She walked through the main concourse and down the hallways to the casino, where she stopped at the players club to sign up for a card. As long as she was going to spend money, she might as well get some free stuff for it. Her new card in hand, she walked along the various machines, starting easy with a $5 machine. The black card worked fabulously, and it wasn’t long before she’d gotten lost in the daze of losing money just slightly faster than she won money.
Meanwhile, Olive had lifted off from the garage area of the house and angled her flight toward the Strip. She was still fascinated by the whole concept of the place. Sure losers all, they flocked to the Strip and begged to be fleeced of their rent money. She landed someplace inconspicuous between the Bellagio Hotel, and the casino. She figured it was about as close as she could get without someone noticing the air was very hard in this location.
She walked wide-eyed through the doors and up the long stone ramp to the main casino floor. It was a little difficult to walk among the people and keep from touching them or being touched by them - people may be unobservant, but running into a pretty girl and having her NOT be there would be disconcerting and might cause some kind of panic. She gave up and took on the wisp form, and flew the rest of the way to the casino area as a small ball of light, almost invisible among all the other balls of light in the Bellagio. Arriving inside, she looked around, lost in the overwhelming feelings of the people she was surrounded by. She had to turn on dampers for her sensors to keep from being overwhelmed. This made it harder to zoom in on Bailey, but she finally found her. She was playing slots and, of course, losing. But in such small amounts that Bailey could almost fool herself into thinking she was winning.
Olive came up alongside Bailey and whispered in her ear, “Spread it around a little, don’t just stick to one machine. And make it look like you’re just wandering, looking.”
Bailey jumped and nearly dropped her drink, which sloshed over the edge and down her hand. “Hey, warn me next time!”
“I did warn you, I whispered in your ear.”
“That’s not warning, that’s whispering in my ear.”
“Stop already, people gonna think you crazy, talking to yourself like that.”
Bailey shrugged and went back to the machine. “I’m doing really well, I won a $5000 jackpot!”
“Yeah, but you spent $6000 winning it.”
“That’s beside the point.”
“We can’t win at slots, it’s too hard to influence the computer. So, play across the way until you stumble on the roulette wheel. Then, be fascinated by it.”
“I AM fascinated by roulette. I have a system, I can win!”
“Uh huh. I bet. Ok, then you just hustle on over there, slowly, and win.”
Bailey pulled her money out of the machine and tried another one, a $10 machine this time. She managed to win another $5k jackpot, only spending 9k to get it. Another machine brought her amazingly close to being back to breaking even, she still had nearly 90k of her limit. She was laughing internally about considering only being down ten thousand dollars to be “breaking even” and began to get a better feel for those people who did this kind of thing all the time.
She wandered closer to the roulette wheels, and finally stepped up to one of them and asked for some chips. She’d done a bit of roulette playing before, but nothing more than two or three hundred dollars at most. She took a breath and asked for $1000 in chips. She immediately put $200 on 22 black, and lost. Quickly. Mustering her thoughts, she started using her foolproof “system” and lost the entire $1000 in a few minutes. Annoyed, and knowing it was only a matter of getting the right rhythm, she bought another $5000 in chips. It took a few more minutes this time, but she lost all that as well. She frowned; a bit discouraged.
Then the voice in her head said, “Ready to try it my way?”
Afraid to nod much, Bailey thought, “Ok, I guess.”
“Buy 10k and let’s see what happens.”
Bailey bought another 10k worth of chips, shocked at how fast that seemingly huge 100k had gone down. She chose 22 red, for variety, and put a thousand on it. She won. She smiled and let it ride. And again. And again. The table began to quiet, and people were staring. She let it ride again. And again. Finally, with complete silence around her, she held up her hands and pulled her winnings out. She smiled at the croupier, and left a stack of chips in front of him. One of the casino employees carried her winnings to the Redemption Center and helped her shove them through the window. She smiled at the girl and gave her several tokens, then waited for her cashout.
She’d won $1,430,000 after the tips. Of course, taxes still had to come out, and she spent a lengthy time in the casino offices, verifying her win. In fact, she was there all night and well into the morning. Since she was deep in the bowels of the casino by the time she got to that point, she didn’t even have any moral support from Olive, she was on her own. She noticed they were polite in the extreme, someone kept bringing her drinks or bits of food. Some perfectly cooked prime rib served by a chef in a white hat. A nice jacket with the MGM lion on it. But one thing she noticed, there was never any thought that she might leave. She was sure they were going over every inch of film they had on her, trying to find some reason to disqualify her wins. But in the end, they congratulated her, even gave her one of those giant checks and took her picture with it.
They were also offered all kinds of comps, and she had a great few days on the town, limo rides anywhere she wanted, and tours of all the MGM properties. Drinks with famous people and a blur of fashion and food. Sadly, Olive wasn’t able to join her on most of her tours, she “stayed in their room” and “ate room service.” However, Bailey did not spend one thin dime of her winnings at the gaming tables, and while many low-level employees got extremely generous tips, Bailey had learned her lesson about gaming. The house never loses. At least without help.
Finally, when the end of the fairy tale arrived, she bundled herself back on the plane and flew out of McCarran with a light heart. Of course, having a big bunch more money in her retirement account helped with that a bit.
Chapter Twelve
Meanwhile, back at the ranch.
Ihave to admit that
with the house empty of people, it was kind of lonely. I’d gotten used to Bailey and Olive being around, and before that Kit had been my constant companion. And Dale, as well. Today though, it was just me and Jandice. So, I sat on the couch and petted the cat, and wandered outside and sat in the perfect mid-afternoon sunshine, listening to the faint sounds of the people at play down by the lake, and the distant noises from the waterpark down the way.
My thoughts turned to Cai Shun and what he might be wanting to see me about. I assumed it had to be something to do with Kit and the part of the ship that Mister Shun had been such an instrumental part of acquiring. He’d always seemed to be interested in me, and thinking about it, it was possible that he’d known far more about me than he’d ever let on. I suppose that he’d had plenty of time to run as many checks on me as he wanted to, what with me sending him a letter of introduction and asking questions. As soon as he or his staff had seen “Jane Bond” on the letterhead, they must have been full of questions. I could see them in my mind’s eye looking at Facebook pictures of me and poring over questions and answers I’d given to various and sundry sources over the years. Once something is on the internet, it’s always there. The only thing you can hope for is to live a life of obscurity and hope no one ever noticed you. Obviously, having a prophecy about you (or at least someone who looks like you and has your name) would make you a person of interest.
Still, I suppose there’s very little I can do except wait here and see what he writes back - and what he says when he arrives. Who knows, he might just want to pick up some apples at the source.
As Olive might say, “Yeah, right.”
It is a little hard to believe. You don’t fly thousands of miles for some apples you could order on Amazon - or send a minion to pick up. I’ll have to make sure to take him down to Cashmere to visit the orchard owned by a friend. She and her husband have been together making apples for most of the last 20 years, and the orchard has been in the family for generations. The apples won’t be ready to eat, but they’ll definitely be big enough to see on the trees. She says they’re changing over to pears, which is inconvenient since I don’t like pears as much as apples. That didn’t seem to make a dent in her wishes though, she said something about making more money. No one thinks about MY needs.