The Delivery Man

by Joe McGinniss, Jr.

  The four of them are waiting in line outside Curve when Michele comes outside and they all introduce themselves and Michele kisses Julia on the cheek as she takes her hand and leads them to the bouncer and says, “They’re okay—they’re mine.” The bouncer nods and unfastens the velvet rope. Michele knows everyone working at Curve and tells a built Asian bartender in a leather vest with blond spiky hair to send someone over to table seven and the group dutifully follows Michele to a large semicircular booth in the corner of the room.

  As predicted, Michele focuses on Julia, explaining her graduate work and what she wants to do for the immigrant women who can’t speak the language but need health care and child care and help with all sorts of bureaucratic bullshit. The music is loud so she’s talking over it and Chase can barely hear her but he’s sure Michele mentions a PhD and Chase thinks he hears something about an MBA and definitely hears “UNLV” and “scholarship” and “completely paid for.” Julia seems impressed enough to ask Michele questions about El Salvador and Michele tells Julia that she came to Vegas when she was nine and that she walked across a desert. At this point Michele throws her leg onto the table and slides her jeans up over her calf to show everyone the scars from the sidewinder that bit her.

  “And some man I didn’t even know sucked the venom out of my leg. I was this close to being dead. I was nine.” She shakes her head, running her thumb over the condensation clinging to her glass.

  The conversation hits a lull after that and no one says anything. Michele stares at Julia for an unusually long time but Julia doesn’t notice and sips her frozen drink through a straw as Michele’s eyes glaze over and then shift to Chase and she’s still not focusing but Chase grins at her anyway and Michele smiles back weakly and then stops when she realizes Julia is watching this exchange. Michele doesn’t know that Julia is holding Chase’s hand under the table.

  “So, Chase tells me you’re a prostitute.”

  Julia says this in a normal tone and Chase can’t ascertain if Michele heard Julia but he studies her face for a reaction. Michele’s expression doesn’t change and she casually shakes her head and leans forward and asks innocently, “What did you say, sweetie?”

  Julia looks at Chase and he squeezes her hand—a small warning—and Julia relents and says to Michele, “So, Chase tells me you’re in a movie?”

  Relieved, Michele rolls her eyes and leans back. “I agreed to let a guy I kind of see follow me around and record what I do. His name is Bailey. Honestly, I don’t really get it. I think he’s kind of obsessed and uses it as an excuse to be near me. There are clearly a lot more interesting things to film than me doing laundry or calling my mother but, hey, it’s his movie.”

  “Does this guy, Bailey, film you while you work?” Julia asks.

  “Work?” Michele asks. “What do you mean?”

  “When you’re … giving massages?”

  Michele glances at Chase and then turns to Julia and forces a grin. “No, sweetie.”

  “Why not?” Julia asks. “I would think that would be pretty entertaining.”

  “Well, not a lot of men are willing to be filmed in that setting.” Michele’s eyes move to Chase and before he can respond her eyes shift back to Julia.

  “But are you?” Julia asks. “Willing to be filmed, I mean?”

  Michele laughs and her hand lands on Julia’s knee. “I’m not a hooker or a porn star so the answer is probably not.”

  “Chase seemed to think you’d get upset if I brought it up,” Julia says.

  “Do I seem upset?” Michele asks, lifting her arms up. “This girl is having a blast tonight.”

  “That’s because she’s high,” Hunter says. “The girl isn’t upset because the girl is high.”

  Monique watches Hunter while sipping her drink, suddenly conflicted about the night’s prospects.

  Chase stands up, glaring at Hunter, who simply shakes his head at him. Chase asks Hunter to go to the men’s room with him, and Hunter—recognizing the tension he has caused at the table—nods, slides out of the booth, and follows Chase.

  Standing next to Hunter at the urinal Chase tells him, “I’m a little freaked out and you’re not helping.”

  “Your past and future side by side—is that it?” Hunter asks.

  Chase realizes he can’t urinate standing next to Hunter.

  “Look,” Hunter says, “you’re fine. Julia’s just cutting her down. If you’d relax a little bit it’s actually kind of fun to watch.”

  “What exactly is fun to watch?” Chase asks.

  “Michele squirming around these women who are actually out in the world doing something.” Hunter spits into the urinal and shakes his dick off before zipping up.

  “Why do I feel the same way?” Chase asks.

  “Because you’re drunk and you’re scared because you’re about to leave Vegas, dude.”

  “How drunk do you think I am right now?”

  “I think you’re pretty drunk—at least as drunk as I am.” Hunter smiles. “But Monique smells nice. Monique keeps rubbing her leg up against me.”

  “That was me, dude.”

  “Monique sobers me up.” His voice trails off. “I want to dance with Monique, the freak, so unique, so chic …”

  Ice is on East Harmon between Paradise and the Strip and Michele knows all the right people so they don’t have to wait in line.

  “It’s very impressive that you can get everyone in to all of these places,” Julia says.

  Michele accepts this as a compliment. “Vegas is really small if you live here. It just seems bigger when you visit.”

  Staring at girls dancing inside elevated cages, the five of them are pressed together at the bar and can’t hear one another over the music and Julia gently pulls Chase’s head down and yells into his ear that she and Monique are going to the restroom. Hunter stares sadly at Monique as she leaves and seems to realize that somehow he’s blown it (she has been frozen since the remark Hunter made at Curve about Michele being high) and Chase suddenly looks around and realizes that Michele isn’t with them anymore. Chase asks Hunter where Michele went and Hunter grimaces and shakes his head and when somebody bumps into Chase he’s surprised—and saddened—that it’s not her.

  It’s after three and Chase is seriously buzzed. They all are. He can barely hear Hunter mumbling something in his ear over the din of conversations in Hookah Lounge. No one wanted to go back to the Hard Rock after leaving Ice and they had been standing around in the parking lot when Monique got a call from the dark-skinned guy who had grabbed Chase’s wrist at the party on the fake beach. The guy and some of Julia’s business school friends wanted to meet up with Monique and when Monique mentioned this after clicking off, Hunter yelled out “Conflict of interest!” and started making this crude siren sound over and over yelling “Conflict of interest!” Chase was surprised to see Monique laughing and when she asked if anyone knew a good place to just chill, Chase hesitated and then from behind him he heard someone say, “I know a place.” It was Michele.

  But Hookah Lounge is too dark and Chase doesn’t know any of the guys sitting with them grouped around a series of low tables. Michele is across from Chase and whenever they make eye contact Chase keeps looking away, focusing on Hunter who is sitting slightly apart from the group, glaring at the two guys from Wharton at whom he mumbled “cockblockers” when they claimed the hassocks on either side of Monique. Michele has sunk deep into a couch, looking small and sipping a Moroccan beer. Julia leans tiredly in to Chase.

  The ambient music drifting through Hookah Lounge means Chase can hear voices though he wishes he couldn’t because somehow Michele is in the center of things. She inches forward, out from the darkness into the blurred orange glow of recessed light directly overhead. Looking around the circle Chase notices that everyone is staring at Michele. She’s the only one any of them can see clearly: her face shiny with traces of body glitter on her cheeks and forehead, the crucifix stuck to her chest with sweat. She’s talking about re
al estate even though Michele knows nothing about real estate. But she’s saying she does because one of the guys—short, brown-skinned, from New York, works at Goldman—had asked her with lascivious interest what she did and Michele’s answer was: “I wear a lot of hats.”

  “What does that mean?” he asks, leaning closer, actually breathing heavily. “Are you, like, a hat model?”

  The urge to leave overwhelms Chase when he hears Michele mention “investment properties” and at that point the other conversations wind down and Chase wants to tell Michele to shut the fuck up. She keeps going but the vibe is off now and Michele seems somehow unaware of this. Goldman understands that this girl is a poseur: he sits perfectly still, considering Michele, plotting his next move. He still wants to fuck her (that vibe isn’t off) but he also knows she’s probably full of crap and he’s wondering just how far he’ll go tonight.

  “Like Ghost Bar at the Palms, only a little more sophisticated,” Michele says.

  “What is?” Goldman asks, still staring.

  “The development,” Michele says blithely.

  “Your development?” Goldman can’t mask his incredulity. He looks around at the group to make sure people are watching this.

  “It’s not my development per se. I’m just in on a lot of aspects. You have to be. There are a lot of opportunities here. If you lived here you’d know.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s a total sellers market here.”

  “Is it?” Goldman asks.

  Monique looks quickly at the guy next to her, a faint smile on her face.

  “Hey, what are you getting your PhD in again?” Monique asks Michele, trying to move the conversation in a different direction.

  “Women’s health.”

  “And … real estate?” Goldman asks.

  “And … cage dancing,” Hunter says.

  “I think that’s really impressive,” Monique says, sounding like she means it.

  Michele shrugs. “I like to have lots of iron in the fire, so to speak.”

  There’s silence. Michele meant to say “irons.” But it’s past that now.

  “Who’s financing your … property?” Goldman asks, then adds, “per se?”

  “Wells Fargo,” Michele says. “They’re putting a lot of it up. We’re still working on some things.”

  “Wells Fargo?” Goldman asks. “Wells Fargo is putting a lot of it up? It’s investing in this property? Here? In Vegas?”

  Michele nods, her face completely flushed. Nervously she tucks some hair behind her ear and crosses her legs, a foot twitching wildly. Chase stares at her pedicure—white tips, French-style—and the Jimmy Choos with thin leather straps that wrap around her smooth, toned calves. Michele loves being the center of attention but right now she’s only the entertainment—a cartoon.

  “Okay, what do you really do?” Goldman asks, again leaning forward in his chair, only inches from her, “because now I’m actually curious. I think we all are.”

  “What do you really do?” Michele counters.

  Goldman sits perfectly still with his eyes locked on Michele. “The funny thing is,” he says, head tilted, “Wells is a client of ours.” He wraps a thick hand around Michele’s knee. “And as of two years ago, they don’t do real estate in Nevada.” He pats her knee and removes his hand. “So why don’t you try again.”

  Chase is barely aware of Julia squeezing his hand.

  Michele: weak smile, eyes locked on Goldman’s.

  “You know—” Michele starts and stops. “Maybe it was another bank, we’ve got so many people it’s impossible keeping track …” Michele trails off, mutters something about Saturn.

  Chase cringes, closes his eyes, and hopes no one heard, and just as he’s about to say something to change the subject it’s too late.

  “Your what?” Goldman grins.

  “It may be Bank of America and not Wells and there are other investors and all sorts of zoning issues and specs to work out and nothing about it is easy—and it’s not supposed to be. It’s a completely transitional time and a structural change and it wears on you but it’s all about growth.”

  “What is?” Goldman asks. “What in the fuck are you talking about, girl?”

  “Tell me,” Michele leans toward Goldman for the first time. “What year were you born?”

  He tells her 1977.

  She considers this. “You’re okay. I’m ’81 and I’m not okay. My Saturn is in return, which can mean drudgery. Which means it takes time and it’s a growth period—only it’s drawn out so you feel fatigued and exhausted and depressed a lot of the time … unless you manage it. And most people don’t. I do. You have to plan and adjust and work through it. Everything is about change and going through the process of living in an entirely different way.”

  Goldman nods with a mock-serious expression. There is nothing Chase can do now. No one says anything. Everyone watches Michele.

  After a long silence Goldman rests his hand on Michele’s knee.

  “If you’re going to make up some shit about what you do—all your ‘business’ and ‘development plans’—don’t be doing it with this group,” he says. “I don’t give a damn where your Saturn is. Just don’t fuck with this group.” Goldman is now glaring at her. After an icy silence the guy grins and squeezes Michele’s knee. “But you could definitely be selling something.” He removes his hand and slides his Centurion card across the table, then falls back in his chair, laughing and giving the pound to the other guys around the table. Michele starts to ask Goldman a question but catches herself and glances at Chase, who can’t mask the sadness in his expression. She winks at him and reaches for her drink and brings it to her lips and only when she tips it back does she realize the glass is empty.

  * * *

  And then the five of them are standing in a parking lot. Julia and Monique try to keep their hair in place but the hot wind is too strong and won’t allow it. Michele doesn’t care about her hair and stands apart from them checking her cell and Chase catches her glancing up at Julia and then averting her eyes.

  “Ready?” Julia has his hand.

  “Can I borrow him for a second?” Michele asks Julia.

  Julia nods but Michele has already pulled Chase’s hand from Julia’s and is walking Chase back to the entrance of Hookah Lounge.

  “I’ve got to go to this guy’s house tonight,” Michele says.

  “Another party in the Lakes? You need me to drive? Are you kidding?”

  Michele closes her eyes for a long time and then remembers to open them. “Come by later and I’ll give you the rest of your money.”

  Chase is too tired to respond.

  “You’re leaving, Chase.” Michele sighs. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”

  Chase laughs but wants to touch the side of her face. He wants to brush the hair from her eyes. And he would if Julia weren’t watching. Chase realizes he also wants to walk Michele to the Mustang and drive her wherever she needs to go. He wants to sit outside the house in the Lakes and turn the music up and smoke a cigarette and wait for her—which is what it has always been about: waiting for her. Chase wants to go with Michele back to the suite on the twenty-second floor of the Palace and take off his shoes and stand at the window overlooking the Strip while she showers, the television on, room service on the way, Hunter showing up drunk and making them all laugh. Chase realizes that he should want to go back to the Hard Rock with Julia and not with Michele. So he doesn’t stand with Michele too long and he doesn’t touch her hair. Instead, he shoves his hands in his pockets and cuts the conversation short.

  “I realized two things tonight,” Michele says.

  “What?”

  “The first thing is that your girlfriend is fucking beautiful.”

  “Don’t do this tonight.”

  But Michele isn’t listening. “The second thing I realized”—Michele looks away and her lips are trembling and then she looks back at him—“is that I’m not loved …” Chase
knows what she’s going to say next. Michele grabs his face and turns it toward her and squeezes it. “… by anyone.”

  It takes a minute before Chase realizes that Julia is watching them.

  It was summer again. The girls, Carly and Michele, had summer school then one more year before they graduated. Chase, Hunter, and Bailey had two years left and summer school as well. They were all relieved that it was vacation but three weeks lay ahead with nothing to do before summer classes started. The heat was insane and for that stretch they would go outside only at the end of the day and lie around Bailey’s pool or drive out to Red Rock Canyon and sit on the edge of the striped rocks drinking Coronas, smoking marijuana, letting the drug wash over them. They were all bored and dared each other to do various things. For instance, they would play the Pain Game. They watched as Bailey held a lighter under his hand, the flame licking his palm as he counted out loud until his face was red and everyone could smell his skin burning and he screamed when he got to twenty-seven. Bailey and Hunter and Chase were good at this game because Hunter did construction work for his father and Bailey lifted weights all the time and Chase’s hands were callused from stretching canvases and painting all day. The girls felt shut out of the Pain Game so suggestions for other games were made: the Lust Game or the Rage Game or the Fear Game, which finally convinced Michele and Carly to play. They decided to start with Fear.