Vegas rich

by Michaels, Fern

  "I just want us to be a family."

  "It ain't gonna happen, at least not the way you want it to happen. When something doesn't work, you make do, you pull up your socks and get on with it. You'll get up to bat when it's your time. Sit down."

  Sunny's heart fluttered in her chest. She'd never seen such a serious look on her brother's face. She put her hand over her chest and took a deep breath.

  "What's going on?" Billie asked from the doorway. "Want some cocoa?"

  Birch nodded. Then, alone again, he put his arm around his sister's shoulders. "Look, last year Sage and I went to town to have a talk with Dad. We had seen Mom crying out in the studio, watching his car go down the mountain. She called Aunt Bilhe in Texas. Yeah, we eavesdropped. We know what Dad said because she repeated everything. Dad said if she tried to get a divorce, he'd say she was unfaithful and sue for custody of us. He called her all kinds of names and said she was like Grandma and that he was sorry he ever married her, stuff like that. She told Aunt Billie she still loved him. Sage and I couldn't figure that out, so we called Uncle Simon."

  "You told Uncle Simon!"

  "I told you, we didn't know what to do. He's a great guy, I wish he was our father," Birch said wistfully. "You don't need to go blabbing this, but we call him all the time. He told us to go talk to Dad. He didn't tell us what to say, he said we'd know when we got there. The only other thing he said was to remember that Dad was our father. We took that to mean we had to show respect, which we did. That's where we were going that day you heckled us for wearing suits and ties. Jesus, it was like standing in front of the principal. Something died in me that day. Sunny, I swear to God. Dad looked at us like we were strangers. The funny thing was we were eyeball-to-eyeball. He had this wary look, like he just discovered we were all grown-up and we matched him in height and weight. He took a step backward. Because there were two of us, I guess. Maybe he felt threatened. The worst thing I said, I swear to God, was that I wished he was more like Uncle Simon. He whacked me so hard across the face I thought I was going to black out."

  "What else did you say to him?"

  "We told him we heard Mom's conversation with Aunt Billie. We told him it was all bullshit about him trying to get custody of us. We flat out told him we wouldn't go with him. He said he'd get BilHe. She'd just turned thirteen and we weren't sure if that was true or not, so we kind of backed down a httle. He called us sneaks, litde turds, things like that. The whole thing was damn awful."

  "You shoulda told me," Sunny muttered.

  "Maybe I should have. Let this be a lesson in patience to you. Stop going off half-cocked and stop all that cussing."

  He gave her one last hug. "Friends?" he asked.

  "Yeah," Sunny said.

  "Sallie, I need to talk to you about something," PhiHp said. "Do you have some time this afternoon?"

  "I always have time for you. You can come over now if you like. I'll give you some lunch."

  Sallie saw immediately that her husband was worried. "Let's be decadent and have some wine with our chicken pie. It's Ash, isn't it?"

  "You always could read me. The boy isn't happy, Sallie."

  "Ash isn't a boy. He's a man, a married man. A man who has ig-

  330 Ferin Michaels

  nored his marital responsibilities. I can't condone that. Tell me what's bothering you, maybe I can help."

  "Actually you are the only one who can help. Ash came to me the other day and told me something that shocked me. I guess I've been so caught up in the chicken business that I haven't paid too much attention to what's been happening in town."

  "What did Ash tell you?" Sallie asked, with an edge to her voice.

  "He told me he stopped by the Silver Dollar on Wednesday evening and there were only three people in the lounge when you sang, and one of those three people was Devin Rollins. The palaces are no longer productive, Sallie. Ash was right when he told you years ago that you needed to move with the times. The other places have headline shows, classy decor, new equipment. Your operation is outdated. It's 1961, Sallie, not 1923. It's thirty-eight years later and you're pretty much in the same place as you were then. That shouldn't be."

  "I don't like change, Philip, you know that."

  "What does that mean?"

  Sallie's eyes burned with unshed tears. "I guess it means I don't know what to do."

  "That's not true. You do know what to do, you just don't want to do it. I don't see that you have many choices right now."

  "What do you suggest?"

  "Go to Ash, and you will have to go to him. He'll never come to you, you must realize that. He was right, but he won't rub your nose in it. Be honest, sit down and talk. You can still be a viable contender in the gaming business if that's what you want. If it's not what you want, close up shop, retire, and help Fanny with her business."

  "What about all my people?"

  "I can give a lot of them jobs, but they'll have to work for their money. You don't owe them anything, Sallie, you carried them these last ten years."

  "Just like that?"

  "Just like that. By the way, Ash doesn't know I'm here, and I'd like to keep it that way. If you decide to go ahead and make changes, he needs to believe it was all your idea. He's a hard worker, and he has good ideas. I don't much care for what he does in his personal life, but he's a man, and if he wants to screw up his life, I'm not going to change his mind."

  "He's a rotten husband and a miserable father. Don't get the idea Fanny runs to me with tales, she doesn't. I'd have to be blind not to

  see what's going on. How is it possible to be blind to one thing and not another? Don't bother to answer that, Philip. I'm glad you had the guts to come here and tell me this. Why didn't Devin say something?"

  "I guess because he loves you too much to want to hurt your feelings," Philip said in a choked voice.

  "I guess I should thank you, Phihp. How . . . what. . . ?"

  "Do what your heart tells you, Sallie. Meet your son halfway, and the rest wall fall into place. Know this though, if you turn things over to Ash, you have to step aside and let him do things his way. You can't interfere the way you did before."

  "We didn't even touch our lunch," SaUie said.

  "Another time."

  SalHe allowed herself to be kissed on the cheek before she walked back to her sitting room and rang for a pot of tea. She sat quiedy all afternoon sipping her tea and smoking. She was still sitting when the sun started to set. She waved away her housekeeper when she announced dirmer, but she did accept another pot of tea. She was still sitting in the dark when the doorbell rang at nine-thirty and again at ten-thirty.

  At eleven o'clock when she climbed the stairs to her room she felt old beyond her years. She wished she could cry so she would feel better, but her eyes were dry. She should call Devin and ask him a few questions. She took a deep breath, then dialed his number.

  "Did I wake you, Devin? No, that's good. Devin, I need to ask you something. Philip was here this afternoon and we had a long talk. Listen and tell me what you think."

  A long time later, Sallie said, "Devin, how did I allow this to happen? Do you know? Am I a fool? I thought I was being... I thought my customers would be loyal and come back when all that . . . that . . . neon, that noise ... It won't ever wear off, will it? People like that kind of atmosphere. Ash was right. The question is, what do I do now? Devin, why didn't you say something to me?"

  "Because you were so happy. I didn't want to spoil that for you. It was selfish of me. It's not too late, Salhe. Shift into high gear and take charge, make hard decisions and don't look back. Call Simon in the morning and talk with him before you commit to Ash. It might be a good idea for both of us to take a stroll through the casinos to see what you're up against. We'll do it when you're ready."

  "I want you to shut everything dowTi first thing in the morning. Give all the employees a month's severance pay."

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  "Good for you. That's the first step. And then?"


  "I don't know. I'm going to Sunrise. I'll call you in a few days."

  "Now you're talking."

  "I'm going to hang up now, Devin, I have a lot of thinking to do."

  "I'm here if you need me. I love you, sweetheart. Remember that."

  SaUie looked around her empty bedroom. There was a huge four-poster with a lacy canopy that matched the lace curtains on the window, brocade and satin chaise longues, a dressing table with an exquisite skirt, hand-sewn by Fanny, hand-carved night tables, a magnificent Bavarian crystal chandeher. It would always be an empty bedroom, no matter how much furniture there was. .^n empty-room—empty of emotion, empty of love. Empty.

  Sallie bhnked when she reached for the petit point pillow Fanny had given her for Christmas so many years ago. She counted the pillow among her few rare treasures. She'd cried that year, cried because someone cared enough to try and preserve a memory for her. How appropriate it was that Fanny had been the one to do it. Her sister Peggy had sketched a drawing of Ragtown just after Sallie's visit home, and mailed it to her. It was so detailed, so perfect, right down to the rags stuffed in the door, that she had to run from the room to be alone. Fanny had taken the drawing and stitched it to perfection. Sallie cradled it to her breast now, her eyes filled with tears.

  Her past. The past that had brought her to this point in time. If only she knew what the future held for her.

  "Sage, wake up. Sage, get up," Sunny hissed into her sleeping brother's ear. She shook him, yanked at his covers, and then swatted him on the face. "Get up, come out to the hall. This is important." . "What time is it?"

  "It's four in the morning. C'mon, get up."

  "Go away. Why are you whispering, Birch sleeps through anything."

  "C'mon, I want you to sec something. Fm losing sleep too."

  In the hallway, Sage rubbed at his tousled hair. "So, show me already so I can go back to sleep. This better be good. Does your hair always stand straight up in the air when you sleep?"

  "Shut up! I haven't been to sleep yet."

  "Huh?"

  Sunny pushed her brother into her room and closed the door. "Watch where you're walking. I can't turn the light on. Look! I thought it was Mom when the car's headlights arched on the wall. It's Grandma!"

  "What's she doing in the cemetery at four o'clock in the morning? Something must be wrong."

  "Sage, you don't think something happened to Mom, do you?"

  That was exactly what he did think. "No, of course not. How . . . how long has she been out there?"

  Sunny stretched her neck to look at her bedside clock. "Forty-five minutes or so. I sat here and watched her for a while. I didn't know if I should go down . . . what's she doing there?"

  "I don't know. It must be important... to her. I don't think she would appreciate it if we . . . intruded. People who go to cemeteries in the middle of the night must want privacy."

  "I already figured that out," Sunny snorted. "I wish Mom was here."

  "She doesn't appear to be moving at all. How can anyone sit that still?"

  "Maybe she's in shock. Maybe it's something terrible and the cemetery is giving her comfort. Her parents are buried there. That's part of what I always try to tell you guys. You only have one mother, one father and . . . and you always in the time of need go back to that one person who loved and comforted you. I think that's what Grandma is doing. I don't think it has anything to do with Mom. What do you think we should do?"

  "Nothing. I think Grandma wants to be alone. Why else would she come here in the middle of the night?"

  "She's crying, see her shoulders are shaking."

  "This is your show, kiddo," Sage said. "What do you want us to do?"

  "Nothing. I think we need to sit here and watch so that she doesn't. . . she would ... we need to watch. I can go downstairs and make some coffee. I can do it in the dark."

  "Toast too."

  "If she moves or... or anything, run down to the kitchen, okay?"

  Sage nodded.

  The two kept their vigil. They were still sitting on the floor by Sunny's window, their eyes glued to their grandmother, when they heard the sound of their mother's car just as dawn began to break.

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  "WTiatever it is, it's going to be all right now," Sunny said in a relieved tone. "Don't go back to bed yet. Let's see what happens."

  They watched as their mother sat down, Indian fashion, opposite their grandmother.

  Fanny's heartbeat quickened as she sat next to her mother-in-law under the massive cottonwood tree. "Fm a good listener, Sallie. I stopped by your house twice last night but there was no answer when I rang the doorbell."

  "I didn't feel like . . . Fm sorry, Fanny. I was wondering, would you mind if I stayed with you for a little while? I won't be in the way, Fll sleep in my old schoolroom."

  "Of course you can stay, as long as you like. The children will love it that you're here. We're family, Sallie, this is where you belong. How long have you been out here?"

  "I wasn't paying attention to the time. At eight o'clock, Devin is going to shut down the Silver Dollar and all of the bingo palaces. I screwed up, Fanny. Isn't that how the young people today say it?"

  Fanny nodded. "It's not a bad thing."

  "It means I failed. Because I was stupid and vain. I think it broke Philip's heart to tell me."

  "What can I do?"

  "Be my friend."

  "Always," Fanny said.

  "What were you doing in town last night?"

  "Ash and I had a row. Actually, that isn't true. The children . . . there was this bike race and Sunny beat him. He threw his bike in the bushes and took off like a dragon was on his heels. All of a sudden I couldn't take it one minute longer. I looked for him all over town. I called the ranch, but Philip said he was here at Sunrise. I went by your house, and then I sat on the front porch all night long waiting for him to come home. I spent hours making excuses for him, lying to myself, searching for things that would make things right again. I don't think they were ever right and that's why I . . . It's a big mess. It doesn't matter anymore. I feel confident that I can go it alone as long as I have my children. We can talk about me anytime; you have a crisis in your life, and we need to work on that. I see you brought the pillow with you."

  "It gives me great comfort, Fanny, because it was from your

  heart. There are very few things in this life that I truly treasure. Money can't buy happiness, Fanny."

  Fanny thought she'd never heard a sadder voice in her life. "I know that." She had told Sallie, finally, about Jake and the 8200,000. The two women had laughed together; each of them had had a windfall of money. Then they had stopped laughing, remembering that neither windfall had brought happiness.

  "Are you getting a good return on your money?" Sallie asked, as she had often asked before.

  "It's not my money, Sallie. But, yes, it is getting a good return."

  "We should get Simon to invest the money for you. Fm sorry you never got to meet him. I wish he would come home more often. I can count the times on one hand that he's been here in the last eighteen years. Three times. All three times you were in Pennsylvania visiting your family. At least he got to meet the twins, and then the girls. I might call him to come home. All of this ... is too important to discuss on the telephone. Do you still love Ash?"

  Fanny picked at a blade of grass. She placed it between her two index fingers and brought them to her mouth. An ear-piercing whis-de was the result. "Try it, Sallie."

  "So that's where Sunny learned to do it. Is this one of those things that takes practice?"

  "Depends on how loud you want to whisde. You should hear my brother Daniel. Your ears ring for hours when he does it."

  "I never wanted Cotton's money, Fanny. It scared me out of my wits. I tried to do what he would have wanted me to do. I married a good man so he would give me children. The only problem was I didn't love him. Cotton didn't say anything about lodng him. It enabled me to do things
for other people. I wanted to be as good and kind to others as Cotton was to me. The single most wonderful thing was helping my sister and finding Seth. I still haven't found Josh, and I don't know why that is. I guess I shelved it and . . . I'm making an excuse for my laxness."

  "I understand, Sallie. I never really initiated a search for my mother. I wrote a bunch of letters, that's the sum total of what I did. I didn't follow through. Life got in the way, that's the best way I can explain it."

  An ear-piercing sound ricocheted around the cottonwoods.

  "Sallie, that was wonderful! Let's do it again. You a betting woman, SaUie?"

  "Two bits," Sallie said.

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  'You're on. On the count of three! "It's a draw. Again," Fanny said.

  "One more time," she said after the second try that resulted in another tie.

  "Three out of three," Sailie said.

  "And the winner is . . . Sailie." Fanny whooped.

  Upstairs behind the curtains. Birch grabbed Sunny by the neck. **You got me out of bed to watch our mother and our grandmother whistleT'

  "You are so stupid. I can't believe some coUege is letting you in their doors. Mom just made it right for Grandma. The whistle is like when she used to give us a Popsicle. Remember how good it felt when she smiled and handed it to us? No matter how bad it was, that always made it right. Whatever happened down there was serious."