“It is scary,” I said. “And it makes me sad to be away from home.” The women next to me laughed so hard it started to worry me. Could you die from laughing? Could you use up all your breath?
“It’s not a little bit fun?” she said.
I had not thought about it before, but it was kind of fun. The not-knowingness of it all freaked me out. But it was like playing a game, too. I felt like every new person I met, every new city I visited, the farther I got away from my past, I would be making a move. The lies, too, were moves. I had not told any big ones yet but I had told a few, and I knew I would have to tell more before all of it was over.
“It is a little fun,” I said. “The most fun of all is letting yourself go. When you just decide to do what you want to do and not listen to anyone else at all—”
“Yes,” said Jenny. “That’s what I wanted to know.”
Maybe it was not a good idea to tell her that. Jenny did not need any more help being wild. But it was the truth. I could not tell her where I was or where I was going, but I could tell her one truth.
We whispered goodbyes to each other and I promised to help her when I could. She asked me when I was coming home and I told her to hold tight. I was lying though. I could not face going home. I did not have it in me.
Traffic moved me slowly down the block and I was suddenly tired. My legs and back and ass felt bloated and sore. I thought about pulling into Paris or New York, but I did not feel I belonged there. I did not belong anywhere. This was a false land. But I had to stop somewhere. I could not drive forever. I neared the end of the strip and I had no choice left. I pulled into the driveway of the giant pyramid.
4.
It was dark and cool in the Luxor Hotel, like someone had flipped a switch and made it nighttime, even though there was still at least an hour left till sundown. There were a dozen long lines of people waiting to check into the hotel. I slid in behind someone. I was happy to be standing still for a moment. But then the soft tinkle of the slot machines wormed its way into my head, and I could see already there were too many traps here. Also, I could not shut out the voices around me. I was in a sea of strangers. I saw and heard everything at once.
The couple to the right of me was fighting. Loud. They did not care anymore who heard what. The man leaned in real close to her face and his lips moved fast. He was fat, and his polo shirt stretched tight against his belly, and great bunches of dark hair came out of the top of his shirt. The woman had nails that were long and red and she pointed one at his face, the curved tip of it coming close to his nose. He moved away from her. “Enough,” he said. “Of you and the way you feel.” I thought he was just going to take one step, but then he kept on going. He left her standing there with two suitcases. Her mouth was open as she watched him leave. I wondered if they were checking in or out.
The couple to the left of me wore matching blue wind-breakers and blue jeans. I wondered how it made them feel, to match like that. His head was shaved clean and her hair was wound in rows of tight braids close to her head. She was telling him a story about her grandmother worrying about their flight. There was a late-night phone call involved. The grandmother had offered to pray for them, but she would need to know the flight number, the time they were leaving, and the time they were landing. That would help the praying, the woman told the man. Every few seconds he broke into a big laugh and he would rub her shoulder or brush up against her cheek with the back of his hand. His teeth were bright white in the dark of the hotel. He would never get lost in the dark with those teeth. They were excited to be here. I thought they would have a good weekend. I wished them well.
There was a woman in her wedding gown, much older than me, maybe late forties, blond hair swept up and pinned back with pearl-clustered barrettes, who stood still clutching her bouquet, while her husband leaned in at reception toward a clerk. She did not look deliriously happy, like I did on my wedding day. Older brides are just happy to be there, I guess. She looked calm and content. Her lips were tight against each other. She was not breaking out of her home and leaving her parents behind like I had been.
Her parents were there, with her, I noticed. Her father was blind, and her mother was stroking his arm and speaking directly into his ear. They were tiny and old, shrunken versions of the way they used to be. I bet he called her “mother” and she called him “father” and when they slept next to each other, they would turn together perfectly in the night.
I started to cry, missing Thomas’s touch in the mornings. I shaded my eyes with my hand. I did not want people to stare. I looked at the ground. My jeans were dirty. I tapped my foot and waited just like everyone else. People went back to their business, the business of having fun. Someone walked by with a cigarette, and my nose ripened with it. I looked down the lines of people. They were thinning out, things were coming to an end. I shuffled forward with my bag, one step closer to a bed, a shower, a door I could close, a room I could call my own.
I turned to my left and saw a woman standing alone with a bag. She said something to herself, but it was more like she was just reminding herself than having a conversation. She looked tough for a moment, even though she was wearing a strapless black dress held up high on her chest, and heels that sparkled with rhinestones. The muscles in her arms wove through them like they were in a race to the finish. A few men standing in a group near the front of the line turned back and looked at her, quick, like they were monkeys. A woman traveling alone is suspect, I thought. But she looked like she could take care of herself. All of her was this mix of being beautiful and strong. Her cheeks were drawn high up on her face like there were invisible fingers holding them, and her skin was smooth and pretty and tan, and there was not a freckle or a blemish anywhere on her. She was one hundred percent smooth. But there was this bold nose in the middle of her face that was so wide it almost seemed crushed. I thought of a boxer after too many rounds. Like she had taken it, and was still standing. Then I let my eyes linger on her bright red hair. There was something wrong with the way it lay flat against her shoulders. She rocked back and forth on her heels and it did not move. It was a wig. Was she undercover just like me?
The line moved forward again. So far I had spent most of my time in Las Vegas in line. It was a wonder anyone had any fun here at all. It was supposed to be so hilarious and nutty and wild, but it seemed like all people did was just stand around waiting for something to happen, or they were walking on their way to somewhere else.
At last a clerk motioned me forward. His hair was shiny, but thinning, and there was a hole in his ear where an earring used to be. He wore a name tag that said his name was Rico and he was originally from San Diego. That seemed like a lot of information to be giving out to a complete stranger. I did not know if I trusted him like he trusted me. I felt uneasy giving him my name. It was all jumbled up in my head, which name I should pick. Was I Moonie? Was I Catherine? Was I someone else entirely? Finally, I gave him my maiden name. I waited to tell him a little bit too long. He looked at me and blinked a few times. Then he asked me for a credit card.
“I can pay in cash, right?” I said.
“Yes, it’s just for incidentals,” he said.
He typed on his computer. We were both silent. The woman in the red wig was giggling with the clerk two booths over. “I know—can you believe it?” she said. I strained to hear more but I could not.
“The hotel is almost fully booked,” said the clerk. He had no accent. He was flat. He could have been from my hometown. I bet he wasn’t even from San Diego. “What with it being the holiday season.” I looked at him. His face was tan, but the tan could not hide the pockmarks. He was so put together, but so ruined, too. “Most people plan ahead.” Now I realized he was trying to make me feel bad, or stupid at least. He was putting me down so I would accept what he would have to say to me. “All we have remaining are suites.” He tapped at his computer. “The starting rate is at five hundred twenty-nine a night.”
“Whoa,” I said. That w
as more than the month’s rent I paid to live over Timber’s diner. Even though I had all that money in the suitcase I was holding, I did not feel quite right spending it.
“That’s the best we can do. I can’t imagine there’s anywhere else in town with much that’s cheaper.” And then he stopped talking because he had nothing else to say to me unless I was ready to pay $529 a night.
“Well . . .” I said. I was stumped.
“I can assure you the suites are quite nice,” said Rico. “Or you could always drive to the airport. There might be rooms there.”
I did not want to drive anywhere ever again, was how I was feeling. So that is how I ended up staying in the most gorgeous room I had ever seen in my entire life.
THOMAS WOULD HAVE LOVED THIS ROOM, that was the first thing I thought, of course. Two days away from town, three months away from our separation, and still I was running anything new through some sort of Thomas filter. I tried to turn him off in my head every damn day. But I knew him so well; it was hard not to look at things like he would. I pictured him walking through each room—there were four of them, a living room with a kitchen attached, a bedroom, and a walk-in closet as big as the bedroom, and a bathroom with a bathtub for two—lifting up the pillows and sniffing them, pounding his fist on the bed, turning each available switch off and on, the lights, the ones that opened the curtains, the Jacuzzi jets on the pool, which whirred helplessly without water to churn, until finally he settled on the couch in the living room, remote control in hand, flipping the channels looking for porn.
“That’s a brand-new flat screen,” he would have said. “Not as nice as ours but it’ll do.”
And I would have said, “The one in the bedroom’s bigger.”
“You think? Looks about the same to me,” he would say. “Should we go check it out? You hinting at the bedroom because you’re trying to lure me in there, Mrs. Madison?”
“Maybe I am or maybe I am.”
I threw myself on the bed. The mattress bent with me gently at the same time. The comforter was like a mattress all on its own, it was so thick and plush. I took the remote control from the bedside and turned on the television set to a movie channel.
Bruce Willis saving the day, a movie I had seen as a child, one that I was not supposed to watch at the time but did anyway. He talked like he had a cigar in his mouth. There was an explosion—a car turned around and over in the night sky before crashing down below on a shimmery highway—and I shut my eyes, and I saw the explosion behind my eyes, and then I slept.
When I woke it was two hours later, and it was dark outside, but the lights of the city kept my room bright, like a gigantic night-light. The city that never sleeps, I thought. Or was that New York? What was Las Vegas? What happens here, stays here. Where else would it go? Bruce Willis was gone from the television set, but there was Rio DeCarlo, an old movie, one of her first, when she was still up on the big screen instead of making TV movies of the week. God, she was gorgeous. Her lips were real then, real and lush, and these sweet little dark bangs framed her face, so all I could do was stare right into her eyes. She was someone’s high school girlfriend in this one. Her boyfriend went off to military school and that is where the trouble started. If I remembered right, she wept at his grave at the end of the film.
I lay right there, still, hands flat against the bed, back perfectly flat, jaw soft, thighs and calves pressed into the bed. I watched Rio hug the boyfriend from behind as he leaned over a trunk he had just packed. They seemed frozen. It was easier that way, to not move. I did not want to leave that room.
I could not turn myself into stone, though, however much I tried. There was blood rushing through me and a bruised heart and an empty stomach that made noises like a monster. My stomach yowled, angry I had let it go to pot those past few days. I went to the bathroom and dropped my robe. I got into the shower. The water pressure was so strong. It pushed up against me and I flattened myself against the wall of the shower. The water beat down on me like some sort of penance or reward. I dropped to my knees and worshipped it. Holy Jesus, was this a nice shower. I scrubbed expensive shampoo that smelled like mint into my hair. I washed myself with honey soap, my breasts and legs and face. I was clean.
I got ready in no time. I wore my favorite short denim skirt and a tight tank top and flip-flops. It was nice to pretend it was summer again. I looked at myself in the mirror while I dragged a comb through my long clumps of hair. The bones below my neck stuck out like a picked-over chicken wing. Once I was pretty. I would be again someday.
DOWNSTAIRS THERE WERE the same lines as before at reception, the same endless flow of traffic, people carrying drinks or luggage or babies ready to rest. I had never seen so many people in my entire life. It made my heart beat faster. My hotel room had made me feel calm, but now I was just like everyone else again. I stepped into the rush of traffic and started walking. I did not know what I was looking for. There were too many places to go and everything forced you to walk through a maze of casino. I need a bar, I thought. I veered off the path of slot machines, up some stairs to a gloomy cocktail lounge. There was a long line of video poker games installed in the bar. It was impossible to avoid them. There were traps everywhere. I sat at the bar and ordered a beer. After the first sip I felt drunk. I knew then it would be a long night.
The bartender was named Phillip and he was from Tampa and his teeth were big and yellow, but everything else about him seemed quiet. I watched him move down the bar, serving people quick, and then leaning back against the same spot on the wall. Nothing seemed to move about him except for his hands and it was as if his feet were on some imaginary dance floor behind the bar.
I drank that beer right quick and it felt good.
When I was done I put a five-dollar bill into the video poker machine. I quickly lost it. I ordered another beer, but Phillip waved my money away.
“You play, you drink for free,” said Phillip. I felt myself being sucked in. I let the city suck me. I put in another twenty, ordered another beer.
“You like those better than the slots?” I heard someone say. It was the woman who had been standing in line, the muscled woman in the red wig. She had on a blond wig now. She changed wigs just for fun, I thought. She had a funny idea of fun, although maybe I would like it, too. She had changed her dress, too. It was blue and had sparkles across the top of it. It looked nice with her eyes—it was hard to tell in the darkness of the casino, but I thought maybe they were violet, and I had never seen eyes that color. Her eyes were so pretty it made you forget about her nose. And anyway I was starting to like her nose; I could see how it fit in well with all of her, her tough muscles and big breasts and firm voice. And I liked the way her face was powdered and smooth, and the little diamond drop earrings that hung from her ears. She looked really classy. There I was thinking I was looking good in my denim skirt and tank top, and she had just shot herself through the roof of the pyramid. I pictured little stars falling all around her.
“I don’t know if I like either that much,” I said. “It’s my first time here.”
“Slots are way better,” she said. “You can win bigger. This is just for passing the time.”
“You think that’s true?” I said.
“I know it is. Once I won five thousand dollars on the slots.” She picked up a glass of champagne that sat in front of her on the bar and swirled it. Then she downed it. “And my mother won ten thousand dollars last year. We’ve got a lucky family.”
“You are lucky,” I said.
“It’s in my blood,” she said. She ran a hand across the bare part of her chest. There were light bluish-purple veins running across her. Her nails were clean, but they were bitten down to her fingertips, the skin peeking over the tops of the nails like little sunrises. She said her name was Valka, and I said I was Cathy. It sounded like a nice, normal girl name. A girl to pal around with. Definitely not a girl running from her ex-husband with a suitcase full of cash.
We shook hands like we were
equals. I knew right then she saw me as just like her. We could be friends. She had more makeup on and prettier clothes but we were both women alone, in the same bar in Las Vegas. She did not know anything about my past, and I did not know anything about hers. I felt myself unwind the tight spot down deep in me just a little bit. We were strangers. Maybe we could be free with each other. I let Valka lead the way.
5.
I began to love the ringing of the slot machines. The gentle repeat made me feel comfortable and safe. Valka and I favored the Wheel of Fortune slots. Every once in a while we—or someone near us—would hit a bonus spin, and the machine would play the Wheel of Fortune crowd shout from the beginning of the show, and Valka and I would say it along with the machine and giggle. Then we would both stop and look to see if whoever had hit the bonus round was making big bucks. Someone had won five hundred bucks so far, that was it, the rest of them just picked up twenty bucks here and there. “No luck,” Valka would mumble under her breath. Then we would order another cocktail. I lost count of how many times we had another round of drinks.
Valka was here to see the Hot Stars in the City show, she was telling me. She and her ex—Peter Dingle, was his name, no one ever called him anything but both names together, she said—used to come here all the time to see it. For years, they had driven from Santa Monica for a nice weekend of drinking, slots, and celebrity impersonators. Valka’s favorites were the Beatles. I was too young to know much about them besides that one Beatle being married to the lady with the fake leg from the motorcycle accident. The dim lights of the casino hid Valka’s age from me, but it turned out she was a lot older than I thought.
“My mother saw them on the Ed Sullivan show,” she said. She sipped her Bloody Mary, pulpy bits of tomato sticking to the side of the glass. “And she loved them and used to play them for me all the time. But I didn’t love them like she did. Like I liked them fine. Catchy songs, whatever. But she was crazy about them. And then one day, I think I was like thirteen or something, I stayed home sick from school. Or maybe it was rainy out, I don’t remember exactly. But I was bored and just laying around on the couch, I remember that. And my mom threw this tape of A Hard Day’s Night at me and I was just that bored, to watch something my mom thought was cool. There was this scene at the very beginning where they’re running, all of these fans are chasing them, these teenage girls just screaming for them, and there was something about that moment, the looks on their faces, the way they were all just having a good time, it reminded me of me and my friends. They were so young and free. And I just fell for them. Head. Over. Heels.”
The Melting Season Page 4
