I leave him a note saying I’ve gone out looking for him and signing off with just please let me explain. I search the Paris casino looking for Richard’s familiar face. Outside on the sidewalk, despairing of the midday sun, I walk up the Strip as far as Caesar’s Palace and then back, dipping in and out of air conditioned hotels and casinos along the way.
When I get back to the hotel I open the door to the room, terrified that Richard’s bags will be gone. I find him slumped on the bed, watching the TV again. He has a shiner on his cheekbone. He lets me sit next to him, doesn't register that I am even there when I stroke the good side of his face. I am scared to speak. I don’t know what he will say.
“You have a bruise - does it - shall I get you some ice?”
He says nothing. Registers nothing.
So I just start talking, not really knowing what I will say. I gently tell him that I am sorry about the dream, I don’t know what to say, everyone has horny or weird dreams from time to time. I say that the note was to remind me to pick up some tickets but that I didn’t want to tell Richard because it was supposed to be a surprise. His face tenses, then seems to relax a little. Then he frowns.
“So why did you leave me alone to fight in the street, hey?”
“You freaked me out, Richard! You were so angry, then you started fighting and I just don’t know, I didn’t mean to leave you there, I...”
I sigh.
“I love you Richard. Really I do.”
Silence.
“So you were getting tickets to what?”
“To the Rio, the... the...” I grab the tickets and thrust them into his hands, “the VooDoo Lounge”.
Finally he speaks.
“Cool.”
“Can you forgive me Rich?”
He is thinking again.
Then, amazingly, he pulls me into his arms and we hold each other. We stay like that until it’s so dark that he gets up and switches the lamp on. He walks to the bathroom, putting the tickets in the bin as he passes. I get up and make him a cup of tea.
I look down at the tickets, wondering if Joel would have used them. Wondering if he expects me to be there. If he will be there, watching, waiting.
Later, after we have talked and talked, we seem OK. I am almost dozing but Richard is fidgety, restless. He seems to feel a bit better than before but he's obviously preoccupied.
Midway through stroking my hair, he stops and jumps up. Stretches, yawns. "I need a change of scenery!" He exclaims.
He fishes the tickets out of the bin. “Get dressed Beth,” he orders. “It’s our honeymoon. We’re going out.”
I get through the night on adrenaline. We ride a glass elevator to the top of the Rio hotel. We enter the rooftop bar. It is really bright and colourful, with crazy people and sparkling coloured lights strung up around a dancefloor in the centre that’s been decorated to look like the surface of the moon. There are floor to ceiling windows looking out onto a roof terrace. The windows frame the most jaw-dropping views of the city.
Richard buys the drinks. I imagine for a split second that this is a date with Joel then, feeling guilty, I down the first shot of tequila quickly and follow it up with another. Then another. The music is loud and the beat infectious. Pretty soon Richard and I are dancing, laughing, swaying, doing our own thing on the dancefloor and I suddenly don't care about Joel any more. I have had enough. There will be no fight from Joel for me; he is married. I am married.
I drink until I don't feel Joel’s presence, until I barely know my own name and we stumble madly back to the hotel in time to see the sun rise through the plate glass window.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The muscle man is wearing a tutu and holding a feather duster as he gyrates in front of me, then tries to lick Richard’s face. We are at a show billed as “Raw Vegas with a twist” and to my horror it seems to require audience participation. Richard seems to find it funny.
This is the third and final night of our stay in Vegas. Tomorrow we will fly back to the UK and forward in time by eight hours. I travelled all this way across the Earth and I will not have seen Joel - a thought I try to cast out of my mind.
Richard and I got on really well today; he seems to have accepted and feel rather embarrassed about the confusion yesterday. This has made me feel guilty for yet another deception. But I don’t have time to dwell on that. I have so much fixing to do in this relationship.
I am blanking out my feelings as best I can and concentrating on getting through this honeymoon with my thoughts cemented in reality. Here and now. Me and Richard. Team Married.
The muscle man catches me off guard; reaches out to me, grabs my hand and hauls me up onto the stage. I protest, to no avail.
Oh horror.
A hundred or so faces stare back at me from the audience, as he brings out a guy dressed as a magician, holding one end of a truly massive snake. The rest of the snake is held by a cat-suited woman walking some twenty feet behind. The snake’s scaly skin glows red under the lights. This thing is seriously about ten inches thick in its body.
I am red with the shame of having all eyes on me but laughing nervously all the same. A full length mirror is placed behind me, and then I am manhandled round to face the mirror, my back to the audience. Then a soft purple sheet falls like chiffon on top of me. Suddenly the lights go out and, simultaneously, I am led out from the sheet, through the pitch darkness and down what feels like a small flight of stairs. The person leading me opens a door and navy coloured light floods in from the street outside. I turn back to see that she is a dark skinned lady in a leotard. She has purple lipstick, almost ultraviolet. She smiles, revealing perfect white teeth.
“Voila! You ‘ave disappeared my luff! Iss Magic!”
I squint at her, confused.
“But I was with my... my husband,” I stammer.
“Ah but you can re-enter ze show and tek your pless again, juss follow ze vay you came in,” she says.
With that the door closes and I am alone on the sidewalk. I try to halt the voice in my head that is telling me to run, to take this opportunity to run to Joel, disappear from my life for a few hours at least.
I don't even know where he would be. Or if he would want to see me.
Instead I wander round the side of the building, following the wall until I am back on the main street, by the casino entrance. Richard is there waiting for me.
“Where did you go, Missy?” He asked, his eyebrows raised in a comical, quizzical way. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” I say, linking my arm through his. We go back to the Paris hotel and spend a couple of hours in the casino, gambling and drinking margaritas.
That night I lay in the queen-sized bed, tossing and turning. I feel a bit sick. The clock says:
01:24.
01.25.
01.26.
Richard is asleep but I can’t relax. It’s like the edges of my brain are burning. There is a gnawing, almost itching sensation in my head that I just can’t shake off.
I crave cold water. I know there is an ice machine out in the hallway by the lift. I put on my dressing gown and slippers and sneak to the suite door. Well I try to sneak but I am so drunk it's not quite ninja... I wedge the door open with an empty suitcase because I don’t have the key to get back in.
I grab a glass from the bathroom and stagger down the hall to the ice machine. I struggle for a few moments with the controls before realising it must be broken. I sigh in frustration. I can’t get it to dispense anything. My head is pounding. As I argue with the machine, the lift doors open and a young bellhop is revealed. He has a GI haircut and a nervous face.
“Isss there anotherice macheen on this floor?” I slur.
“No ma’am, sorry. One on each floor,” he replies, and then the doors start to close. “Have a great evening,” he projects from the lift as he disappears from view.
I stumble back into the suite and pull on a pair of jeans and t-shirt. I scribble a note to Richard in case he wakes to find me gone.
> Can’t sleep, bad headache, ice machine broken, back in 5.
I grab the room key and try to shut the door really quietly. Further down the hall, I pass a couple snogging outside a room door and avert my eyes. I make straight for the lift.
The ice machine on the floor below works. Having dispensed the ice, I suddenly feel so terrible that my head is pounding and I slump down, resting the side of my face against the cool concrete wall. My vision starts to become disturbed, like I am watching through a camera that won’t focus. My ears suddenly stop hearing as much, as if I have earplugs in them. Then there is a high pitched whining noise. I feel so hot, like I can’t breathe.
Everything goes black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I can hear Joel. He is talking quietly, too softly to make out the words. I hear beautiful falling and rising vowels and consonants. They dance in my head. How I love hearing his voice. It’s smooth and almost Southern in its inflection. Like melted chocolate... Ooh I could listen all day. I feel him stroking my cheek. Bliss.
Just another dream, I think. I want it to last. I want to stay asleep as long as I can; so I do.
I wake up to find Richard fussing over me. I am lying on the massive bed in our suite at the Paris. It takes a minute for me to remember what happened. The last thing I recall is getting ice from the corridor. Then nothing.
“What happened?” I ask, groggily. My lips feel so dry. “How did I get back?”
“You passed out in the corridor downstairs,” he says softly, stroking my hair back from my face. “Too much booze, not enough water or sugars, silly.”
“So how did you find me? You were asleep...”
“You won’t believe it, Beth,” he says, smiling. He leaps up. “Have a sip of this pineapple juice and I will tell you the most amazing thing ever!”
Oh dear God.
“You will NEVER guess who found you in the corridor!” Richard yelps, excitedly.
Ooh dear, I feel cold and shivery all of a sudden. Oh my God. Joel. I am about to see Joel. He rescued me! He must have felt my distress. Come to my rescue. Shit, shit, shit.
“Go on, have a guess!”
What do I say? What do I do? “Just tell me. As you said, I’d never guess.”
His eyes are shining.
“Just tell me Richard,” I say with steely resolve. I will not react. I will not react. I will not -
“Alright, keep your hair on. You were rescued by none other than – God, no one is going to believe this - the King of Rock ‘n Roll!”
“Who? The King of - ?”
Now he is killing himself laughing. “You can come out now,” he shouts to the bathroom. A man emerges. He’s old, at least sixty. Oh - he is wearing a tight, white suit. With rhinestones...
I was rescued by Elvis. My face breaks into a relieved smile. And do you know, it’s possibly the only thing on Earth more ludicrous than being rescued by my own psychically twinned – slash - imaginary rock star.
“Thanks mate. I always knew you weren’t dead,” says Richard, mock seriously.
“H’well. I’m sure glad y’all right, liddle lady,” says Elvis, taking my hand and kissing it earnestly.
“Er, yeah thanks for helping me,” I say. I don’t know if I’m relieved or gutted. “What’s your real name?” I add in a stage whisper. He looks at me like I’ve spoiled his birthday.
“Your real name?” I restate.
“It’s Elvis, ma’am.”
“Better make sure she di’nt hit her head, Sir.” He adds, backing away. “Gotta be rushin’ along now, I was booked for a two am serenade an’ I’m mighty late.”
“Thanks so much... er, Elvis,” Richard calls after him as Elvis lets himself out.
Richard looks over at me. “Elvis has left the building!” He dissolves into a fit of laughter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
We grab a few hours’ sleep. The alarm wakes us at eight o clock. My headache has calmed down a bit. I lay there, thinking we’ll have to start packing by nine because we have to check out by 10 am.
Richard jumps up and grabs a quick shower and while he does that I swiftly check that the letter from Joel is still in my hand luggage bag on the floor where I hastily stuffed it as we got ready to go out the night before.
Yep, it’s there. I don’t know what to do with it though. I can’t let Richard find it. I click my tongue on the roof of my mouth while I hastily think.
Brainwave: I reach up and grab a Paris Hotel envelope and a pen from the desk and stuff the letter inside. I write on the front “Nat West” so if Richard sees it he will think it’s a cheque to my bank to post or something. He doesn’t have a Nat West account so there’s not much danger that he will post it for me. He wouldn’t know where to send it.
I stick the envelope (and pen) in my bag, grab a few more envelopes (well I have paid for them) then collapse back on the bed. So tired, so very tired.
I am somewhere between asleep and awake when Richard comes out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel and clutching complementary toiletries. He deposits them in his open suitcase then turns to me, his head cocked quizzically.
“Help me out here, Beth. Is this our honeymoon or what?”
“Yeah,” I reply, so tired it hurts to speak.
“So do I get some nookie before we check out then?”
Oh God, I think.
“Come on Beth, you know you want to make the most of this nice big bed!”
“Hmmm.” I stretch out, trying to wake myself up at a cellular level. Feeling repentant, I decide to take one for the team. Team Married.
“Hell yeah, stud!” I enthuse. “Come on over, big boy!”
Before I can even think, he’s on top of me and it’s actually kind of fun.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Joel
I paid Elvis two hundred dollars in cash to deliver Beth to her suite. He stuffed it down the crotch of his tight white leather pants. It was a mighty lucky he was passing when I found her.
I am buzzing from a barrage of feelings. I can’t tell you how it felt to see her there, to actually hold her hand, to touch her cheek and brush her hair from her face. There were – are still - so many conflicting emotions resonating through my body. I just can’t explain. I don’t even know what I think. I feel like a cheater. But more than anything, I feel alive. It’s like the first time I played a stadium. It feels momentous.
I am not proud to say it but yes, I was keeping tabs on her, checking up on her periodically both in my mind and by way of my assistant, Baz. He’s the guy who gave her the letter and tickets outside the Bellagio. After that, I had him stakeout the Voodoo Lounge with instructions to see she got back safely. He then checked into the Paris and managed to talk his way to getting a room just down the hall from her. I told myself I was keeping tabs so that I could be sure she would leave town. He tailed her the next night too, then called me to say she was back at the Paris with Richard at about one am and to tell me he was turning in for the night.
To be brutally honest, as I only can be with myself; Yes, I almost hoped she and Richard would have a second fight during their stay. If she was alone for a significant amount of time I could perhaps meet her. I hate myself for admitting it but it’s true. The thought was only fleeting though; if I am to keep Georgia and Harry, I need for Beth and Richard to be happy. I need for her to leave and stay out of my life.
Beth could cause a lot of trouble for me if she was running around trying to split Georgia and me up. She might actually have a chance of ruining everything.
After Baz called I just couldn’t sleep. I felt sick and I started walking, my hat pulled down low so no one recognized me. And before I knew it I was at the Paris. I sat at the slots, feeding dollar bills for a few minutes, when suddenly I knew she was in trouble. I closed my eyes and ‘saw’ her collapsed in a heap outside room 1628. I ran to the lifts.
And when I got there... God, it didn’t matter that she was drunk or ill or not my ‘type’. She could have been fa
t or bald and it wouldn’t have mattered. I just... I just... I just felt this overwhelming love for her. I wanted to protect her. Like she was ‘mine’ or something. It was like someone had mixed the way I feel about Georgia with the way I feel about Harry. Dangerous stuff; intoxicating and damn freaky.
I sat with her for only a few minutes in the corridor before 'Elvis' showed up. It saved me the trouble of having to wake up Baz and anyway I could hardly have him knock on their door after his fight and Richard’s previous suspicions. So I convinced the Elvis impersonator to help carry Beth to her room. I knew the number because her room key lay on the floor where she fell. And there I left her, fleeing as soon I saw the door open.
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