by Natasha West
As the plane’s wheels lifted from the tarmac and took off into the sky, Emily Bartlett thought, ‘What the fuck am I doing?’
Two
On the other side of the world - not in Vegas but close - an American, Ruby Knight, drummed her fingers against the plush leather chair in her manager’s (and secondarily, her mother’s) office. She was bearing down through yet another lecture. Ruby knew the worst thing she could do in this situation was make a smart remark. It would only draw it all out. If she could shut her mouth, this might be over in anything from three to ten minutes, conservatively.
‘I don’t understand it, Ruby. I really don’t. Do you know what it took to get you a ticket to that premiere? All you had to do was walk up a stretch of carpet, flash your teeth and walk in. It was an easy gig. You didn’t even have to watch the movie. Why did you feel it necessary to talk to that awful man? I know you’re not stupid. I didn’t raise you to be stupid’ Denise growled.
‘Nope. You raised me to make you money’ Ruby said. Goddamn, why could she never resist? Why couldn’t she at least fake being a good little girl? She was a professional actress after all. So why couldn’t she put on a show for ten minutes with her mother?
‘Oh, you wanna get into that?’ her mother asked. ‘Because this was your dream, not mine. You think I want to be dealing with these sharks? You needed someone to protect your interests. A stranger wouldn’t do that.’
‘Yeah, it was totally my dream not to eat all day so I could get into couture and stand around like a mannequin.’
‘Such a rebel!’ her mother cried. ‘Well, you know what? That’s part of the game. You wanna make the jump to the next level? That means showing up and shutting your mouth. Not getting into public arguments with some lowlife tabloid man.’
‘He was asking for it’ Ruby said, though she knew there was no point.
‘I don’t give a shit. He’s got a video of you telling him to go fuck himself. It’s on YouTube. People are watching it. That’s exactly the kind of shit we don’t need right now. You’re a TV actress, on a nothing show, on a nothing network, who wants to do movies. Do you have any idea how many girls just like you there are?’
‘How many?’ Ruby asked with no interest in the answer.
‘Thousands. Tens of thousands maybe. Jesus, the amount of shows there are now, I could be underselling it.’
‘Sorry I’m so basic, Mom’ Ruby smiled.
‘You don’t listen, do you? I can get you there. But you have to do what I say, or all this? It goes away very quickly.’
‘So next time some sleazebag photographer asks me to flash my tits, you’re saying, what? I should just go ahead and whip ‘em out?’
Denise took a deep breath. ‘Ruby, for Christ’s sakes-’
‘Denise, I’ve got Barry on the line for you’ said the intercom on Denise’s desk.
Denise froze and looked at her daughter. ‘OK, I’ve got some damage limitation to do. Get out.’
‘Sure. Just my career you’re discussing’ Ruby said, getting out of her chair and slipping out of the room to hear the start of the conversation. ‘Barry!’ her mother said in a sweetened tone that made Ruby sick to hear. ‘Did you get the gift basket?’
Ruby headed out into the lobby, past her mother’s ass-kissing intern Chad and into the lifts of the office building where her mother had a tiny square. She was alone. Once the doors slid shut, Ruby put her handbag to her mouth and screamed into it. She’d been doing this, or some form of it, since she was old enough to understand that her mother viewed her as a meal ticket. She’d started out screaming into sofa cushions. She supposed a Louis Vuitton was an upgrade.
Once she’d finished letting off steam, her mind went to what Barry Curtis was telling her mother. Maybe she was already out. From rumour, she understood that there were bigger actresses than her up for the role. But her mother said that was their secret weapon. Ruby would be a lot cheaper than the others. The studio just had to believe she could carry a big budget franchise flick. Since they were taking a chance on this book adaptation anyway, it was prudent not to spend too much on the first movie. Not before they knew for sure it was a franchise with legs. So it was up to Ruby’s mother to sell her as the underdog, the rising star. Not to mention, a bargain.
That was a problem. Because some people thought that Ruby wasn’t the most reliable person. She had something of a reputation in LA. She wasn’t exactly wild, nor did she have rehab on speed dial. But she tended to clash with assholes who thought it was alright to walk up to her and take her picture without asking. So yes, hot-head was a phrase that swirled around Ruby. According to her mother, this was making negotiations around her big breakout movie harder. ‘No one wants to work with a flake who can’t control their temper’ she said.
Ruby didn’t think that word was fair. She was always on time for work, and when she was there, she worked hard. She didn’t have dumb arguments with crew, none of that shit that made someone truly difficult to work with. But this was LA, home of heroes and villains. You were either a perfectly behaved good girl or you were just another difficult actress whose demands outweighed their talent.
Currently, she was a twenty-seven-year-old playing eighteen on a teen drama, Wolfwater Cove. It wasn’t good. Three years on that show felt like a decade. She wished she could be doing something better, something that stretched her. But her mother assured her that better didn’t pay. What paid was mass appeal. Blockbusters. Movies like Time Guardians. Ruby hadn’t seen a script, but she thought it sounded pretty fucking stupid.
Then again, who did stupid better than she?
Downstairs, Ruby got in her car and drove out onto the I-5. She kept thinking about all the expectation her mother was laying on her. If she got this job, she knew all that would only get worse. More people, investors, the studio head, all standing on her back.
Ruby drove through Burbank, intending to go home and get in a hot bath with a large drink. But for some reason, when she came to a junction that indicated Vegas on the next off-ramp, she got on it.
Why did she do it? Why did she take a different road? Hard to say. Because Ruby kind of hated Vegas. It was cheesy. But it was also close-ish - a four-hour drive - and it wasn’t Los Angeles. She could get a hotel room, turn off her phone, play some slots, get a little drunk, maybe break her diet for once. Unplug for twenty-four hours. Christ, why shouldn’t she? She worked hard making a bad show slightly less bad. And her weekend off had so far been spent getting screamed at. She deserved fun.
As though sensing that Ruby was about to do something nice for herself, Denise called. Ruby bit her lip as she looked at her mother’s name on the car’s Bluetooth display. She was probably going to harangue her some more, tell her how hard she made her job by not being perfect, how she’d had to stick her tongue right up Barry Curtis’s butthole to keep her in the running.
Ruby cancelled the call. She knew there would be a price to pay for that later. But not today. Today, she was going to the capital of all that was sinful and wrong.
Three
Emily was sitting in a casino, at a bar. There were no windows, no clocks. It could have been midnight or noon, she couldn’t have guessed.
According to her watch, it was four in the morning, UK time. If her calculations were correct, that made it about eight in the evening in the current time zone. It was cool in here, which was a mercy. Outside on the pavement, (sidewalk?) it was insanely hot, the kind of heat that made car bonnets perfect to fry eggs on. But the casino was a perfectly balanced temperature. Emily was struck by how everything in this building seemed geared to make you forget about the outside world. Aside from housing a hotel and casino, there was a collection of clothes shops, restaurants, several theatres, even a bank. You could stay in this one building for days, having your every need met.
Emily thought she just might do that. She felt like she was stranded on a neon desert island, adrift from anything even remotely familiar. Inside was crazy but outside was sheer lunacy.
Everything so bright, so hot, everything trying to get your attention and your money. Shows, sex workers, it didn’t seem to matter what was being sold. It was all in your face. Emily hated it. In fact, she was hated Vegas in general. It was not a place for her.
But her flight didn’t go for eighteen hours so she would stay here and watch the roulette wheels spin while she tried not to think about the disaster that had befallen her not too many hours ago. Fucking Katie. How could she just turn around after all this time and… No. Emily was not going down that rabbit hole right now. That was the point of this if nothing else. She was far from the real world right now, in some kind of adult playground. And if she was in a fantasy, reality could stay where it was, at home, in her empty flat. She was putting a delay on feeling all of that. She wasn’t Emily Bartlett right now. She was a woman who got on a flight spontaneously to the capital of all that was garish and tasteless. Screw Katie.
‘Can I please have a whiskey, erm, neat?’ she asked the man behind the bar. He poured it and left it on the bar, dashing off to attend someone else who had just sat down at the other end. Emily regarded her drink. She didn’t drink whiskey. She was more of a gin and tonic girl. But if she wasn’t going to be Emily Bartlett for a few days, she had to at least shake up her drink. She took a sip and gagged. Why did people drink this? It was vile.
Emily half heard the woman at the other end order a beer. Damn. That was what she should have ordered. She turned to see the beer orderer and was somewhat taken aback. Though the woman was sat on a barstool, Emily could see she was tall from the way her legs hung. They made up about half of her length. Her honey blonde hair looked coiffed, like someone on TV. Her profile was delicate, with a high nose and not a spare inch of fat on a set of high cheekbones. She had a great mouth, plump, sensual lips. Around the mouth was a line that suggested a sarcastic personality. Emily would have loved a look at her eyes, but she was wearing sunglasses and that was where she lost Emily. What kind of tosspot wore shades indoors, at night?
She turned away from the woman and back to her horrid drink, taking another sip. Yep, the second taste was as bad as the first. But Emily didn’t like waste, so she kept drinking, resentfully.
She chanced another glance at the shades-wearer, hoping she’d taken them off. She hadn’t. She was now looking at her phone while she sipped her beer. The great mouth had slipped somewhat into a grimace. She sighed and turned it off, putting it into her pocket.
As she did so, she happened to glance at Emily and Emily quickly looked away. But it was too late. She’d been caught staring.
‘Jesus’ the woman said. ‘If you want to get a picture, just say so.’
‘What?’ Emily asked.
‘But I don’t do videos. I don’t care who it’s for. I’m not waving and saying hello to your brother Steve from Utah’ she said dryly in an American accent.
‘I don’t have a brother named Steve. His name is Phil and he is most certainly not from Utah. He lives in Oxford’ Emily replied, feeling herself get quite British.
The woman paused. ‘Shit. You don’t actually have any clue who I am, do you?’ The woman whipped off her sunglasses and it had been worth the wait. Emily had always loved green eyes. And this set had a clarity to them, a sparkle that went beyond the colour. It was quite saucy. Shame the bearer was a bit of a dickhead.
‘I thought you were looking at me’ the woman said, starting to look embarrassed.
‘I was’ Emily said. ‘I mean, I wasn’t looking looking. I was just, you know… Looking.’ Emily stopped talking then. That sentence had gotten away from her.
‘Yeah, don’t worry about it. I was being an ass’ the woman said and turned back to her beer.
Emily turned back to her disgusting whisky, wondering what had just happened. Her conclusion was that this had all been a bit too awkward and she should go. She drained her whisky in one last pull - trying not to gag too obviously – put some dollars on the counter for the drink and got up, ready to wander. Maybe she could try blackjack. Of course, first of all, she’d have to learn what the bloody hell blackjack was but…
‘Hey, can I buy you a drink?’ the green-eyed woman asked.
Emily turned in surprise. ‘What? Why?’
‘Why does anyone ever buy another person a drink?’ Green Eyes asked with a raised eyebrow.
‘Because they’re trying to have sex with them’ Emily said automatically. And then she said, ‘Oh. No. I didn’t mean-’
‘Direct. I like it. But let’s start with a drink and see how things go?’ the woman asked with a wolfish grin. Emily was thoroughly flummoxed. Was she being hit on or being made fun of? She honestly didn’t know. It was always like this with the gorgeous ones. All so easy. Because there was nothing at stake for them. If Emily walked off now, Green Eyes could take a peanut from the bowl on the bar, throw it over her shoulder and whoever it hit would be very happy to go to bed with her. Emily had never had it so easy. It had always been hard work talking to women. Even Katie had made it difficult. They’d met through mutual friends and Emily’s crush had been immediate, but it was a full year before Emily had even suspected there was any attraction coming back.
She didn’t know why it was always this way. She didn’t think she was any less appealing than a lot of girls who seemed to do alright in the romance department. She was smart enough, pretty enough, nice enough. She made a reasonable living, she was reliable, she could hold a conversation, she was punctual, mature. She knew none of that was very wowing but still, it should have been enough to get someone like Katie, who had been something of a work in progress in several departments. But no, nothing was ever easy. It was always an uphill struggle to get someone to really see her.
Sometimes Emily felt the problem was that she cared. If she decided on someone, it mattered. She put all her eggs right in the basket. People seemed quite turned off by that. Emily knew that was because it made her no challenge, which was apparently dull. What you were supposed to do was diversify your affections, be illusive, wanted by all. But that wasn’t Emily. Never had been. She’d made peace with never being some sexy bad girl.
Speaking of which, Green Eyes – who might well have held that mantle, time would tell – was still waiting on her answer. While Emily overthought and pondered and dissected, this person was just saying, ‘Have a drink, let’s see what happens.’
And Emily was a Brit in a foreign land, she reminded herself. She was taking a holiday from herself. Green Eyes had more potential than a brown drink. ‘Alright. I’ll have a gin and tonic.’
‘Weren’t you drinking whisky?’ Green Eyes asked.
‘Yes. It was foul. I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would drink that for pleasure.’
‘So why did you order it?’ Green Eyes asked, bemused.
‘I’m on holiday. Trying new things’ Emily said, embarrassed.
‘I see’ Green Eyes smiled and turned to the barman, ordering the gin. The drink appeared on a napkin and Emily picked it up. Green Eyes lifted her beer. ‘To new things.’
Emily raised her glass and took a sip. New things indeed.
Four
Ruby hadn’t intended to pick anyone up. She really hadn’t. She didn’t do that very often anyway. She didn’t need to. Women hit on her all the time. Was it because she was famous, even in a small-time sense? She never really knew. That was what had intrigued her about the Brit. She didn’t know who the hell Ruby was. She didn’t know about the show. She didn’t know about the tabloids. She didn’t know her rep, deserved or not. She didn’t know about her mother’s attempts to send her into the stratosphere. It was refreshing. Not only because if this person agreed to have a drink with her, she wasn’t doing it for the story, but because she was far removed from Ruby’s world, she could tell. She lacked that polished edge, that veneer of confidence that everyone in LA had, everybody always trying to fit in a town no one came from. It could be an exhausting energy to be around, particularly if you felt a pressure to match it.
But the Brit, she looked so thoroughly out of place in the hotel bar, lost as you please. There was no bravado, it was all right out on the surface as she gagged cutely on that whisky. Oh, yeah, that was the other thing. She was cute as hell. She was a petite, caramel brunette with thick bangs that sat atop eyebrows that were permanently set in a light frown. Underneath that were a set of big brown eyes, a button nose and heart shaped mouth. She was pale, nicely so, with roses in her cheeks. She was dressed all wrong for the thick heat of Vegas, swaddled in a thick dark sweater with a white shirt with black polka dots underneath.
Ruby took all that in and right away, she was into it. Until the stranger started peeking at her. Ruby felt herself bristle. Could she never get away from people saying, ‘Wait, aren’t you…?’ Even incognito in her shades, they still seemed to find her. So despite the pleasure she’d taken in this woman’s outward appearance, she found herself chewing her out. ‘Jesus. If you want to get a picture, just say so.’