What Stays in Vegas

by Labonte, Beth

  - 9 -

  On the following Tuesday Kendra didn’t show up for work. Nobody in the office had heard from her all morning, and by ten o’clock Chris and Dan had entered into panic mode. Nothing short of death was excusable for missing the weekly Dorfman meeting, even if you were the boss’s daughter. And without Kendra, Chris and Dan would have to face the meeting, and a furious Rob Dorfman, all by themselves. He would take her not being there as a personal insult and proof of our incompetence. Richardson-Fleiss would soon have a new client on their hands.

  I stood in the window of Chris and Dan’s office, looking out over the city.

  “What if something happened to her?” I wondered aloud. “Has she ever done this before?”

  “No,” said Dan. “ She’s flakey but she’s always the first one here. And she would never be late on a Dorfman day.” His left leg bounced up and down like mad.

  Chris was hunched over his drafting table, red pen in hand, frantically marking up a set of Jiggly Kitty plans. “You’d better try calling her house,” he said over his shoulder.

  “I already tried that,” I sighed. “Nobody answered.”

  I left their office and reluctantly walked over to the reception desk. If Kendra had called in, Roberta would be the first to know. I found her reading a copy of Woman’s Day, opened to a recipe for rack of lamb.

  “Are you making that tonight?” I asked.

  She looked up at me like I had just suggested she come to work naked next Thursday.

  “Oh goodness, no,” she said. “I just like to look at the pictures. If I so much as smelled a meal like that I would gain twelve pounds.” She turned the page with her bony wrist.

  “You know, Roberta," I said, "you’re very skinny. You really don’t need to worry about your weight so much.”

  She shot me that look again - like I had suggested she come to work naked wearing cowboy boots.

  “You sound just like my doctor,” she said. “Poor thing is at least twenty pounds overweight.”

  My brain screamed at me to end the conversation, so I changed the subject and asked if she had heard anything from Kendra. She had not. I wished her luck with her rack of lamb and decided to go see Charlene in the lobby.

  “But I’m not making it!” Roberta shouted after me.

  I found Charlene watering plants by the front windows.

  "Hey!" she said. "You just missed Fartz! He looked pretty hammered this morning, like he's been out all night - hey, what's wrong? You look like a wreck."

  I thanked her for the compliment and then explained the predicament I was in.

  "The little squirt's going to murder us if Kendra's not here." I pinched the leaves of a fern tightly between my fingers.

  “Why don’t you swing by her house?” she suggested, gently prying my fingers off the plant. “I have home addresses for everybody in the building in my computer. Makes you feel safe, huh?” She rolled her eyes and put the watering can back under her desk. She wrote the address down on a purple post-it note.

  I thanked her for the help, and pushed my way through the heavy glass doors, onward with my mission.

  ***

  Over the past few days I had grown to expect glamour and excess around every corner, so I was probably not as shocked as I should have been when I pulled into the driveway of 6 Whispering Palm Drive. I parked behind a blue BMW, which I assumed to be Kendra’s, and surveyed the outside of the house for signs of burglary. I didn't really want to walk in on something I would regret. Everything seemed normal. Well, everything except the sheer enormity and gorgeousness of the place.

  How do I even begin to describe it? The house was made up of mostly windows. Five arch shaped windows lined the front wall of the second level, and below them was the front door, nestled between two sets of massive bay windows. To the left, the house jutted out into a circular room topped off by a turret. The house had a turret for Christ sake. The turret alone was larger than my entire apartment back home. A rolling green lawn, landscaped to perfection and dotted with palm trees, topped everything off like a cherry on a very expensive cake.

  The street was eerily quiet as most people had already gone to work. The only sign of life came from a man pulling weeds across the street.

  “Excuse me,” I shouted. “Have you seen anybody come out of this house today?”

  The man stopped what he was doing and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his gardening glove.

  “Just Mr. Stoltz,” he shouted back. “ He left about eight o’clock with a suitcase. Haven’t seen his wife today though. Everything okay?”

  “I’m not sure. Thanks!” I walked up the front steps and rang the doorbell.

  Nothing.

  The last thing I needed to start my second week of work was to find my boss murdered by her psychotic husband, as I’d seen happen in plenty of Lifetime movies. Some of those are based on true stories, you know. Or maybe she had fallen down the stairs and was laying in a grotesque heap on the floor. Maybe she had committed suicide in the bathtub and what I was about to see would traumatize me for life! Maybe I should just get back on a plane and go home to Massachusetts, just pretend I was never here, just -

  Oh don't be such an idiot.

  “Kendra? Kendraaa?” I gave up the doorbell and started knocking on the door pretty loudly.

  Still nothing. Then, in a stroke of genius, I tried the knob. It turned, and the door opened. An unlocked door was not necessarily the best sign, but at least I was in. I immediately checked the bottom of the staircase for a mangled body, but there was nobody there. So far so good. Now to check all the bathtubs.

  “Kendra?” I made my way slowly into the house and walked around the living room to the right of the stairs. Despite the dread I felt I couldn’t help but notice how gorgeous the place was from the inside as well. Hanging over the fireplace was a painting of the same style I had seen in Kendra's office. The colors matched the room as if the room had been planned around it, or vice-versa. The initials KS once again graced the corner. Several framed pictures lined the mantel, but several others lay broken on the floor. I turned one of the frames over and saw the faces of Kendra and the scum bag I recognized from the Christmas party as her husband Todd, smiling at me from the rim of the Grand Canyon.

  I put the frame back on the mantel and headed up the stairs. I stepped carefully around a trail of men’s shirts, belts, watches, and other personal items that appeared to have been dumped off the second floor balcony.

  Burglars?

  My heart racing, I ran back downstairs and grabbed a poker from the fireplace. I held it poised over my right shoulder as I returned to the second floor and began peeking into room after room. I was fully prepared to club the son of a bitch who had murdered my boss, when I stumbled upon the master bedroom. There in bed, staring at the ceiling, but undoubtedly alive, was Kendra. She lay on top of the blankets wrapped in a huge pink bathrobe - her face was splotchy from crying and her hair was spread out in a tangled halo on the pillow. A snowstorm of pink tissues littered the bed and the surrounding floor.

  “Hey,” I said, knocking gently on the open door and lowering my weapon. “There you are. We've been worried sick.” I took the approach of sounding like my mother, or like I was talking to an elderly person, as I wasn’t exactly sure what else to say. Kendra didn’t even look at me or seem surprised that I was there in her house. She just kept staring up at the ceiling. I looked up there too, in case I was missing something, but it was just a ceiling.

  “He’s gone,” she said to the plaster swirls.

  “Who?” I asked like an idiot. Of course I knew who, but what else could I say?

  “Todd. My husband.” She emphasized the word husband not in a “you should know who Todd is” way, but rather in a pathetic “how could my husband do this to me” way that made my heart go out to this woman whom I barely even knew. I moved the rest of the way into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. I may have hardly known her, but she had made every ef
fort to make sure that I felt welcomed and comfortable in my new surroundings, and I felt that I owed her some compassion. She moved her head slightly and looked up at me for the first time since I’d come in.

  “He left me, Tessa. I got up this morning and he had his suitcase packed, and he told me it was over.” She started crying again as she spoke, so I gingerly put my hand on her head and smoothed back her hair, just as my mother had done for me back in high school. It’s funny how we learn these things.

  “Did he say why? Were you two having problems?” Another dumb question. I mean, the man had asked me to play Twister while his wife was in the ladies room.

  “He...he said,” she took a deep breath and bit her bottom lip, “ he said there’s someone else. He has a girlfriend, Tessa. That’s where he went, did you know? He went to her house, to stay at his girlfriend’s house. Probably some stripper slut from The Jiggly Kitty.”

  The words Jiggly Kitty triggered something inside my brain and I suddenly remembered the reason I had gone over there in the first place. I looked at my watch. 11:15.

  Shit.

  “Um, Kendra,” I said, twisting one of her curls around my finger. “I hate to bring this up right now, but I actually barged into your house because the guys were worried about you missing your eleven o’clock with Rob.”

  “Rob can go to Hell,” she said, turning over onto her side.

  “Yes, well, that’s definitely an option.” I respectfully held back a giggle as I wasn’t completely sure she was kidding. “Let me just make a phone call so they’ll know you’re not coming.”

  I stepped out into the hallway and called the office. Roberta put me on hold while she pulled either Chris or Dan from what was likely the worst meeting of their lives. When I heard Chris's voice pick up the phone I wished I had better news.

  “Are you serious?” Chris asked. “Tessa, the man is about to rip us limb from limb. He doesn’t care if I had a 3.95 GPA in college, he thinks my drawings suck.”

  “3.95?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood. “You didn’t feel like going for the full 4.0?”

  “I didn’t want to seem unapproachable. Now tell me what the hell is wrong with Kendra?”

  “I can’t explain right now,” I said. I didn't feel right announcing Kendra's marital problems to her coworkers after only working with her for her one week. “She’s okay, but she’s having a bit of an emotional crisis. I’m probably going to stay here for a while to keep her company."

  "It's Todd isn't it?" asked Chris.

  "I really can't say," I said. "But, you know, you've met the guy..."

  "Oh, Jesus. Couldn't he have timed this better?"

  "Look, just call my cell if you need anything. I really should get back in there to check on her."

  “I will,” said Chris. “I’d better get back in there too, or else Dan’s going to be having an emotional crisis of his own."

  I apologized about fifty-seven more times before hanging up. I wished that it had been Dan who answered the phone. For some reason giving Chris that kind of news made me feel awful, especially since I knew he was subconsciously blaming everything on the secretary. I threw my phone into my purse and headed back to Kendra’s room.

  “The worst part,” she said, picking right up where she'd left off, “is that I didn’t even see it coming. The thought never even crossed my mind, you know?” She blew her nose and threw the tissue to the floor.

  I honestly didn’t know. I mean, I’d met the man for five minutes and could have told her that he was a cheating dirt bag. How could she not have seen it? Kara once dated a guy she met at the bar we hung out at after work. The first night they met he had been fired from his job, and for the duration of their six month relationship he failed to find another one. He made fun of the rest of us for being “working class suckers,” and borrowed money off of her practically from their first date. For six months she rolled her eyes and said “Men!” whenever she spoke of his situation, as if all men on earth were useless bums. Nothing I said would convince her that there were good men, better men, out there, because who was I to judge? I didn’t even have one myself. But I knew they existed. Megan Trask had managed to sink her hooks into one, hadn't she?

  “You don’t need him, Kendra,” I said, ready to preach to a captive audience. I took off my heels and climbed into the bed beside her. God it was comfortable. “Look at you - you’re young, you’re beautiful, you’re a successful engineer. Pretty soon he’s going to realize he’s made the biggest mistake of his life. But you know what? It won’t even matter, because you’ll have a hundred better guys lined up at your door like five minutes from now.”

  Right on cue, the doorbell rang.

  “What did I tell you?" I said, climbing back off the bed. " Go put on something cute and I'll let them in."

  Unfortunately, it was only the gardener from across the street standing on the doorstep and not the brigade of Marines that I had promised Kendra. He had come over to make sure everything was okay, and looked a little disappointed when I assured him that we were both just fine. I sent him on his way and wandered into the kitchen to make some tea, and also to do some gawking. Sunshine poured in through the kitchen skylights and I looked in awe through the sliding glass door and into the backyard. The swimming pool blended into the landscaping, nestled amongst rocks and palm trees and other tropical looking vegetation. Sunlight sparkled off the water. A large grill and full sized bar was set up on the patio, and I could see Christmas lights strung along the fence. It reminded me of a resort I had once been to in Jamaica, except this was where Kendra lived.

  A vision of myself, scraping ice from my windshield on a February morning, left me with such a stark comparison that I moved from the window, literally shaking my head to clear the image before it became unbearable. I had gone into the kitchen to find some tea, not to wallow in self pity. There was a woman upstairs in a much worse situation than myself, regardless of how much money she had, and I should be thankful that at least for the moment my life was good.

  I made two cups of tea and brought them upstairs along with two boxes of Girl Scout Cookies that I spotted on the counter. Kendra had made some progress while I was gone. She had moved into an upright position and was no longer staring listlessly at the ceiling.

  "For you," I said, placing the tea on her bedside table. "And for us." I shook the boxes of Girl Scout cookies and climbed back into bed next to her with a pile of napkins.

  I bit into a peanut butter patty and thought that maybe a change of subject might raise Kendra's spirits. I asked her about the paintings that I had noticed in her office and over the fireplace. She told me that against her parents wishes, she had been an art major during her freshman year of college. Though being the only child of Sean Flamhauser, and future heir to the company, she gave in to the pressure after only one semester and switched to a major in civil engineering. With all the talk from her friends and teachers about how difficult it might be to find a job after graduation, it seemed the only logical choice.

  College was also where she had met her husband Todd. They were married shortly after graduation and moved to Las Vegas where her father set her up as Branch Manager. Todd had been provided with a comfortable position as Director of Business Development, but as of this morning she believed he had abandoned his job along with his marriage.

  I told her that I too had been an art major, but saw it through to the end and had the dusty diploma hanging in my mom’s basement to prove it. I told her about my love of turning what most people perceived as garbage into things of beauty. And I told her, with sadness, that the only art I had created lately was made out of paperclips and pushpins. She laughed and told me she had a nervous habit of folding origami paper cranes out of anything she could get her hands on. She picked one of the tissues up off the bed. It was hard to make out, but there it was, a wet, droopy pink crane.

  Despite her tangled hair and tear-streaked face, she looked happier when she talked about art than when she was a
ll glammed up discussing business. I no longer felt like I was alone in thinking that there was more to life than pushing paper. If this rich, successful, woman was not even satisfied with the life she had chosen, then I, in my position as glorified slave, had every right to feel the same.

  At twelve-thirty Kendra silently stood up, walked over to a large bureau, and opened the bottom drawer. She grabbed a stack of boxer shorts - apparently where Todd had gone he didn’t need underwear - and without a word, tossed them out the bedroom window. At one o’clock we watched Days of our Lives, which turned out to be both of our favorite soaps, and ate ice cream straight from the carton. At two o’clock we cut Todd out of several hundred photographs, and at three-thirty we took the pile of smiling Todd faces and burned them on the back porch.

  Years worth of female bonding was forged in a matter of hours. It was four o’clock, and we were back in front of the television, when I decided that I had better return to the office to make sure that Chris and Dan hadn't set the building on fire. I dreaded facing them.

  Kendra thanked me for staying with her and then apologized for being, as she put it, a blubbering ball of shit.

  “All in a day’s work,” I said, handing her the remote control. “And the only ball of shit around here has his entire collection of underwear out on your front lawn. Call me if you need anything okay?”

  “Please come back after work,” she said. She flipped through the channels and landed on a woman in short shorts and a flabby gut screaming about paternity tests. “We’ll eat pizza and ice cream for dinner.”

  I assured her that I would come back, and then stepped outside into the late afternoon sun. It felt like I had been away for days. I plucked a pair of green boxer shorts off the antennae of my car, and headed back to work.

  ***

  Chris and Dan looked like they had been through a war.