How Hard Can Love Be?

by Holly Bourne

  “Is that going to be your answer to everything for the next twenty-four hours?”

  “It’s Vegas.”

  I chased him and hit him with my bag.

  “That’s not funny at all.”

  “Vegas.”

  “I’m going to run away and marry someone else at the Elvis chapel.”

  Kyle grinned. “How very Vegas.”

  “Stop saying Vegas!”

  The dudes in the uniforms stunned us by both cheering “VEGAS” at the same time and giving us a thumbs-up.

  I was so surprised and impressed I gave them double tips.

  Kyle queued up to get us a room, telling me to hover rather than queue with him, just in case they twigged I was underage. I watched him flirt with the hotel receptionist, and saw the way she warmed instantly to him, the way everyone did with Kyle.

  I remembered Mum’s warning – everyone falls in love with Kyle… But I didn’t want to think about her, not in this strange new adventure…

  Anyway, not everyone has Kyle fall back in love with them.

  He dragged his bag over, smiling with every bit of his face. “Good news,” he said. “I got us an upgrade.”

  “What?” I squealed. “How?”

  He picked up both our cases and steered us through to the elevator. It was just…nuts inside the hotel. Giant gold statues of Romans adorned everywhere, the sky was decorated with ornate gold everything, huge marble columns held up all the garishness. Even the lift, once we got in, was insane. There were so many buttons I felt like I was in Willy Wonka’s Great Glass Elevator.

  “It’s quiet season because it’s so hot in summer,” he said. “So it’s always worth trying your luck. I just told her I would try the other hotels if she couldn’t offer me a deal. Instant upgrade. I read it was worth a try online. It worked.”

  The elevator pinged open and we emerged into a long corridor. It was more hotel-looking up here – just lots of doors and red carpet and parked cleaning trolleys. We walked and walked and walked until we found our room. Kyle jammed the card into the card reader and I pushed the door open.

  “Oh my nuts,” I said, walking in.

  “Oh my nuts?”

  “I got stuck between saying ‘Oh my God’ and ‘this is nuts’.”

  The hotel room was the size of a country. Not one, but two beds, both bigger than my bedroom back home dominated the space. But there was a wall to ceiling window showing us a great view of the strip.

  “Oh my nuts, the bathroom.” I dropped my bags and ran inside. There was a jetpool bath that could fit my entire family in. And a rainforest shower thing.

  I came out to find Kyle flopped backwards on one of the beds, his arms above his head. His eyes closed.

  I climbed on top of him, kissing his face and neck.

  “You tired from the driving?”

  He opened his eyes, smiling, and put on his shit English accent. “I’m bloody knackered.”

  “I’ll let you nap a while.” I went to clamber off, but he made a noise of protest and dragged me back. I giggled and we started kissing, all the energy from the car going up an octave, filling the room with lust and longing and no way was touching each other doing anything to satisfy it.

  “Don’t we need to go see The Vegas?” I asked, between breathless kisses.

  “You felt the temperature outside. No one goes out in Vegas until at least sunset. We’d melt.”

  “And how long until sunset?”

  “An hour or two.”

  I kissed his ear, finding myself biting it – I wasn’t sure where it came from, but Kyle seemed to like it anyway.

  “What we going to do until then?” I teased.

  Kyle flipped me so he was on top of me, and rained kisses down on my face and body. I closed my eyes and sighed – feeling like life couldn’t feel any better than this, like my heart couldn’t ever feel this full.

  “Have you not met the bath, Amber? You must surely want to meet the bath?”

  And I squealed as he hurled me over his shoulder, and carried me, yelling with faux protest, into the ginormous bathroom.

  We lolled in big white towels afterwards, on one of the big beds and watched the hazy sunset. The city around us lit up like a pinball machine.

  “When can we see the city then?” I shuffled through my things, wondering what to wear. I only had the one dress, the green one. It would have to do.

  “Now, I guess. It will have cooled down some. What do you want to see?”

  Umm, I tried to remember things I knew about Vegas. “Erm, those dancing water jet things I guess?”

  “The Bellagio fountains?”

  “What you said.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I’d like to see at least one real poker game. To try and work out who’s bluffing.”

  Kyle stood up, took off his towel, and began to root around in his clothes too. His temporary toplessness rendered me all incapable.

  “We’re too young technically to be in the casinos. If they think we’re underage, they’ll move us on. But we can try.”

  “Bugger, we won’t be able to drink, will we?”

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  I thought of the night with Russ’s whiskey. “Probably just as well.”

  I locked myself in the bathroom to get ready and stared at my reflection a while, turning this way and that, to see if I looked any different now. If the outside world would notice what had happened in the last two hours. I twirled all my hair up on top of my head, letting a few loose pieces hang down. And I half-heartedly dabbed mascara on and a bit of lipgloss. I felt clown-like though, after a summer of not bothering. So I wiped the lipgloss off and just kept the mascara on.

  When I emerged, I stopped, and stared. At Kyle. A posh proper shirt had arrived on his body out of nowhere, and he looked so yum that I forgave him for putting clothes on at all.

  He stopped and looked at me.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, at the same time as I said, “You look nice.”

  We both laughed.

  “God, we’re disgusting,” I said.

  “Too cute for words. I hate us. You do though, look beautiful I mean. I like that dress.”

  We kissed, collapsing on the bed.

  “Am I going to see any of America on this road trip?” I asked, between kisses. “Or just see the inside of motel rooms?”

  “All right, all right, we’ll go out.”

  We untangled our limbs, got my little handbag sorted, and veered out into the corridor.

  When we closed our hotel door, we didn’t see the red light on the phone flashing.

  SITUATIONS THAT ARE DESTINED TO FAIL:

  The Vegas

  +

  An academic understanding of “Raunch Culture”

  Thirty-five

  I, almost instantly, didn’t like Vegas very much.

  “Why are my hands full of porn?” I asked, as we waited on the steaming pavement to cross the road. The moment we’d left the hotel, we’d entered a gauntlet of roadside hustlers, all with stacks of porn phonecards. They shoved them into your hands before you even had a chance to say no.

  “Do you not want hot girlz direct to you?” Kyle said. “Because they are plentiful.”

  We dropped the calling cards on the already-littered pavement.

  The light turned green and we joined the throbbing crowd crossing the road. It was madder than London, the pavements were jammed. Fifty per cent of everyone was drunk, though it was only like eight o’clock. The other fifty per cent wielded massive cameras with lenses poking out almost into my eye.

  We’d had a look in the shopping area of Caesar’s Palace, where I’d marvelled at the spiral escalators and rode up and down them twice.

  “I take her all the way to Vegas, and she’s excited by some revolving stairs,” Kyle’d said. But now I wanted to see The Venetian, hoping that maybe it would have a bit more class. We’d asked for directions and they’d said it was only a few hotels over. But
I hadn’t realized each hotel was the size of a continent. We’d been walking through the busy street and porn gauntlets for ages.

  “Ahh, there it is.” I pointed to an Italian looking tower. It took longer to get to it than we’d thought. Like a desert mirage, the tower kept seeming to get further and further away. Eventually though, we crossed the fake Rialto bridge and got into the guts of the hotel.

  “Holy moly,” I said, looking around. “It’s almost like being in Venice. Well, what I think Venice is like.”

  There was a fake sky, painted to look just like a real one, like an Italian version of the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall in Harry Potter. There was an actual real-life canal, with actual real-life gondoliers punting people along.

  “It’s so over-the-top,” Kyle said.

  “Let’s at least pretend we’re in Italy.” I took his hand.

  We walked along the canal, looking at the people who could afford a gondola ride and eat at the pricy hotel restaurants (we’d grabbed a McDonald’s on the way there). Kyle’s hand was warm in mine; the way our bodies linked, just with entwined fingers, made everything inside of me feel safe and nice. We stumbled into the casino and managed to loiter enough to catch a high roller poker game. It wasn’t fun though. No one was laughing. There was no joy in the room. It was hardcore gambling. The air felt cold. The lighting was all off. It was impossible to know what time it was.

  “Why are those grannies plugged into the slot machines?” I pointed at a row of old biddies who were all strapped into some bleeping machines.

  “To keep them upright, so they don’t fall asleep.”

  “That is quite a commitment to gambling.”

  “Yep.”

  “How much do people win?”

  Kyle shrugged. “Sometimes hundreds of thousands.”

  “And how much do they lose?”

  Another shrug. “The same.”

  We left The Venetian and crossed over the strip to check out some pirate ship hotel that Kyle said he’d heard about. But it was just the same as the other casinos, though maybe the staff here wore even less clothing.

  From what I could tell from my short time in Vegas, everything had to ooze sex. And not the classy kind of sex ooze – like a deep slit in a posh evening dress, expensive perfume and good linen. No, it was the other side of sex. The blatant, in your face, thrusty thrusty, raw, caveman, belts-as-skirts, look-at-me-rub-myself kind of sex.

  From the outside, these hotels were grand over-the-top marvels of human imagination. But, on the inside, they were all the same. Bleeping machines. Zombie-like gamblers. Waitresses in essentially their underwear carrying trays of drinks to encourage y’all to stay longer. I couldn’t help but crinkle my nose a bit, but stayed quiet, in case Kyle thought I was un-fun.

  We stepped back out into the beyond-balmy night.

  “You want to see the volcano that erupts every hour?”

  I couldn’t help but pull a face.

  “You don’t like The Vegas,” he said. “Do you?”

  We were arm in arm, dodging more porn gauntlets.

  “It’s okay…” I said. “It’s just very in your face.”

  Kyle burst out laughing. “That is one way to describe it, for sure.” He put his arm around me, saying “no” firmly to a guy shoving another call card in my hand. “Come on, let’s go to the Bellagio fountains, I think you’ll like those at least.”

  My feet ached by the time we got to the enormous curvature of the Bellagio hotel. There was already a two-deep queue around the big swimming pool and fountain area.

  “It goes off every fifteen minutes.” Kyle pushed me in front, so he could hold me around the waist from behind again. “A different song each time.”

  “Great.” I leaned back into his body, pondering if it was wrong that I’d rather be in a nondescript room with him, feeling his body against mine, than standing in front of an iconic tourist attraction.

  “You know what?” he whispered in my ear, sneaking his arms tighter around me.

  “What?” I whispered back, still in disbelief about the number of actual bumbags worn around me.

  “You’ve passed a secret girlfriend test by disliking Las Vegas.”

  “I like it just fine,” I said. Hang on, GIRLFRIEND??

  “Amber, I can see you don’t. And, as I said, I’m glad you don’t. I only came here once before, as a kid. Even then I found it seedy and I was too young to even really understand what was going on. I thought you would want to see it. I mean, everyone wants to see Vegas. But, as I said, I like that you don’t like it here. It makes me like you more.”

  Just then, the music started and the water began to dance. For the first time since we’d arrived, I found some beauty in Las Vegas.

  The fountains were magical, the way they moved and twisted with the music – reaching insane heights as the song built to a finale. I gasped, and snuggled closer into Kyle. When it was over, everyone applauded and dispersed, making room for the next queue of people. I stayed put.

  “You like it?”

  “I love it. Can we watch another? Please? Please? How many different songs do they do?”

  “Of course.” We took the empty spaces of the tourists who’d left, and leaned against the wall to get the best view.

  “You called me your girlfriend.” I didn’t dare look at him in case he said, “Whoops, my mistake”.

  “I did.”

  “Am I?”

  “I don’t think I’m the only one who gets to decide that.”

  Girlfriend… Despite all my feminist priorities I’d always wanted…always worried I’d never be anyone’s…and yet, here, just like everything else, Kyle gave me something without effort.

  “You’re my gal.” He put his arm around me. “You totally rock my world, Amber.”

  “That is another contender for the most American phrase of all time.”

  “So, am I your boy?”

  “People don’t belong to people,” I said, teasing him by quoting Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

  “Riiiight. Is there any more feminism you’d like to get out the way before you can say I’m your boyfriend and we can make out before the fountains start again?”

  “You know what, no. Not for now.”

  We watched five more water shows, each one totally dramatic and yet totally with its own personality. I reckoned it was worth coming back to Vegas, just for the fountains.

  It was getting just about late enough to make up an excuse to go back to our hotel room. Anticipation hung in the air like heavy fog. Every part of my body fizzed.

  Kyle kissed me in the elevator as we rode up to our floor.

  “How about we get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow and drive off before sunrise?” He asked. “We’re heading towards Utah. It’s just mountains and rocks.”

  I closed my eyes as he moved to kiss my neck.

  “Ooooh, keep saying mountains and rocks.” We both laughed.

  “No porn gauntlets in Utah, I promise.”

  We kissed as we waited for our floor. We kissed in the corridor. We kissed up against our room door before we’d even got in.

  Then we tumbled onto the bed, Kyle on top of me, as we giggled into each other’s mouths.

  He opened his eyes and paused over me.

  “What is it?” I followed his stare.

  He looked at the phone.

  He rolled off me.

  “We have a message.”

  I rolled over and stared at the phone too.

  “How? No one knows we’re here.”

  My tummy dropped to my ankles, like I’d just swallowed five cannonballs in one.

  “Maybe it’s just reception, saying we left something down there,” Kyle suggested.

  “Maybe.”

  He reached over and pressed play.

  Of course, of course, it was my mother’s voice.

  “Amber, I’m here. In Vegas. In the Caesar’s Palace lobby in fact. I know you’re here. Come down. We need to talk. I won’t leav
e until you come down…”

  SITUATIONS THAT ARE DESTINED TO FAIL:

  Your mother

  +

  Alcoholism

  +

  Even though you’re both trying your hardest

  Thirty-six

  My hand shook as I pressed the button of the elevator. So much that I accidentally pressed the wrong button, and had to detour to a different floor before the doors slid open to the lobby.

  There was too much fun around me. People were stumbling around drunk, the ching ching ching of a winning fruit machine, the whoops of the winners…

  This was not the time. This was not the place.

  She had come anyway.

  It wasn’t hard to spot her in the expansive lobby. My hair. She had my hair. She sat, with a book, and a clear drink in front of her.

  Mum didn’t jump when I sat down across from her.

  “Amber.” She looked up. Her face unreadable, as it always is.

  I pointed to the drink.

  “I hope that’s not a vodka.”

  Mum’s eyebrows pulled together. I could tell there was at least a little bit of “angry” hidden in there.

  “It’s a soda water. I’ve been here for hours… I did think about it… Out of all the places you picked to run away to, you would have to pick the most triggering place for a recovering alcoholic, wouldn’t you?”

  I blew out my breath and shook my head in disbelief.

  “You are SO manipulative. How did you even know where I was anyway? It’s not like I want you here.”

  She was tarnishing everything, like she always did. This was one place that was free from her, free from my guilt and pain and longing, and yet she’d just rocked up anyway.

  “Your friends told your dad…”

  My mouth fell open. Evie, it would’ve been Evie. Argh, she was always so sensible!

  “They did the right thing. You can’t just run away like that, Amber.”

  I crossed my arms.

  “So what, I ran out on some stupid summer camp. You ran out on your only daughter…” I wasn’t going to cry, I wasn’t going to cry…

  But Mum did start to cry. It was a small, hollow sob that she tried to cover with a sip of her drink. But that didn’t hide the tears that streamed silently from her eyes, like long rushing rivers.