Neon Burn

by Kasia Fox

  “It’s not safe to walk.” He eyed the rearview mirror and moved to the center lane to execute a U-turn. She started to protest, and he spoke over her. “I’ll feel better this way.”

  In fact, Cal wanted to be around Tessa longer. She was light and bright, without pretense. As they pulled through the residents’ gate at the community and neared her street he felt a sense of unease that this might be the last time he’d see her. Up ahead, Ron Doucette was on the phone, pacing his driveway.

  “So, you’re going to be staying with Ron for a while?”

  “I’m supposed to be here four days. We’ll see.”

  “Stick around. Try your luck in Vegas.” Instantly, he cringed at this comment. Vegas was a city with the worst clichés attached to it.

  “It seems nice enough here but I suspect I’m not a Vegas girl.” Before the car fully stopped, she’d unbuckled her seatbelt and thanked him for the ride. Ronnie approached, phone pressed to his ear with one hand, a cigarette dangling from his lip. Before Tessa could reach for the door handle, Cal grabbed her wrist.

  “Be careful, okay?” There were rumors about Ronnie Doucette. But it wasn’t Cal’s place to tell her. Weren’t there rumors floating around the city, around the internet about him? He’d already involved himself too much in their family drama. Tessa seemed like a smart girl. She knew how to handle herself. She looked down at his big hand circling her slender wrist. “I will. Thanks,” she said, and patted his hand. Cal let go of her wrist.

  Ronnie propped his hand on the roof the car and leaned in the window. “What do you think you’re doing, Quinn?”

  Cal waved the cigarette smoke away. “She jumped in. What was I supposed to do?”

  Tessa stood outside, holding the passenger door open. “Sorry for the trouble,” she said to Cal. “See you around.” Then she gave him an assessing sort of look before closing the door and crossing the street to her father’s house.

  Before he followed Tessa, Ron muttered under his breath, “She’s my daughter and if you know what’s best for you, you’ll steer clear.”

  “Don’t worry, Ronnie,” Cal said. “I’m in no hurry to get mixed up with a daughter of yours.”

  Still, as he peeled off down the street, Cal couldn’t resist a look at her in his rearview mirror.

  7.

  “That guy is a thug.” Ron pointed at the sleek, navy car rounding the street corner. He strode past her toward the house. Tessa understood that she was to follow.

  I’m in no hurry to get mixed up with a daughter of yours.

  The words stung so badly, Tessa didn’t mind so much that Ron had yelled at the man in the car. Her grandad had raised her in his quiet and steady way; “Turn the other cheek” was an oft-quoted phrase from her childhood. For the first time in her life her actual father had leapt to her defense. He’d been her protector. Even if she didn’t need protecting, it felt sort of nice.

  They went to the kitchen. Ron asked Tessa if she’d like water. Absently, she said yes as she wandered back to the view behind the piano top. The woman who’d been sunbathing topless next to the pool was gone. If it weren’t for the bikini top still resting on the pool deck, Tessa might’ve thought she imagined her. Ron called for Tessa to sit on one of the stools at the massive marble island. She remained were she stood. Ron came up behind her, nudging her shoulder with cold bottle of water.

  “Why doesn’t that guy like you?” she asked.

  “Because he knows I don’t think much of him, and I’ve had occasion to tell him so to his face.”

  “What was the occasion?”

  “The guy is too big for his britches. He got really successful and screwed over every little guy who helped him get to the top. Made it big and told everyone who helped him and his family to go fuck themselves. Pardon my French. That really shows the measure of a man. How he behaves when he finds success.”

  I’m in no hurry to get mixed up with a daughter of yours.

  “He did seem… aloof I guess. And he warned me to be careful here.” Part of Tessa felt guilty about disclosing this information to Ron. His face reddened at the news.

  “Some people don’t approve of my business.”

  “Which is what exactly?”

  “Yeah. Uh huh.” He heaved a big windy sigh. Then he motioned to the wide blonde wood dining table off the kitchen and suggested they sit. Once they were seated across from each other, he spoke. “I was hoping we could get to know each other a bit before I had to tell you. Because how I made my money… it’s why your mom didn’t want you growing up around me and my lifestyle. I own and operate a few gentleman’s clubs.”

  “Strip clubs you mean?” Of course her mom hadn’t approved. Lily Paul was such a prude she wouldn’t even let Tessa dress up as Madonna for Halloween.

  “Before you judge me –”

  “I’m not judging you,” Tessa said quickly. “That’s not me.”

  “— this is Las Vegas. These aren’t brothels we’re talking about here – although outside Clark County those are legal too, you know. You can see why your mom wasn’t too happy with me. When we met, I was working in the oil field, you know.”

  “I don’t know actually. I don’t know anything about you or what my mom was like then.”

  “Now see? Here’s your chance. I can answer whatever it is you want to know.” Ron’s face lit up. He nodded vigorously, his mind running faster than his mouth could keep up. “Yeah. This’ll be great. Whatever it is you want to know. I’m at your disposal.”

  The thing Tessa desired about all else – above money or a great guy or an inheritance from a long-lost father – was answers. Half of who she was had been a mystery to Tessa her entire life and now that she could have the answers she wanted, there was no way she could fly back to North Dakota. Tessa told Ron she would stay.

  “For how long?”

  She laughed at his eager happiness. She told him her return flight was in four days and that she’d booked a hotel room. But Ron wouldn’t hear of her staying in a hotel.

  “This place is the Four Seasons practically. I’ll hook you up with my lady friend and she can show you around some,” he said.

  “I’m tired,” Tessa said. “I’d like to lay down, and then maybe we can talk?”

  “Sure.” The flesh of Ron’s jowls waggled from his vigorous head nodding. “You do that. Have a sleep, because – and you gotta know I hate to do this –I have to run into work, even for just a little bit tonight. So you nap, I zip into work, check in, and I’ll be back and you can ask me anything, how’s that sound?”

  Tessa said that would be fine. He led her down the hallway. The guest bedroom where Ron set down her backpack had a high ceiling and a king-sized bed made with pale lavender and white linens. It had its own bathroom and a television and was almost as big as her studio apartment back in Minot.

  As he turned to go, Ron said that his girlfriend Berkley would be in and out of the house if Tessa needed anything. She thanked him. He went to the door and lingered there, holding the knob. When he spoke, it was with his back to her.

  “I want you to know how proud of you I am,” he said. “For your school. I hear you got good grades. Went all the way to a master’s degree. Not to scare you, but I’ve been keeping tabs on you a little bit.”

  “I’m glad you were.” She thanked him. Ron closed the door gently behind him.

  As soon as he left, Tessa locked the door, stripped down to her underwear and crawled into the big, soft bed. The events of the day overwhelmed her. The shock of having a father. The paternal pride. The forced connection. Now she wished she’d been firm about staying in a hotel. When Ron came home, she would ask him every question she had. If she still felt uncomfortable, early in the morning she’d slip out of the house and go home.

  Knowing she had this plan calmed Tessa. Soon fatigue drifted her into dream territory and her thoughts turned to the man in the car who’d almost hit her. Cal, his brother had called him. Her mind gathered all Cal’s features back into
the man himself: his close clipped beard, messy sand-colored hair, his square jaw and broad shoulders, one muscled arm dangling out the driver’s side window. At first sight of him logic had abandoned her; she went to him acting on impulse, on the sense of safety emanating from him. Her attraction to him was that disorienting.

  Despite years of her mother’s helicopter parenting, Tessa had been in Las Vegas for all of one minute before she climbed into a car with a perfect stranger and drove off without a phone or wallet. No wonder her mom had been so overprotective. She must’ve sensed something in Tessa, a quality that marked her as being one of those women who lose all logic and reason around a good-looking, charming man. Not that he was all that charming.

  I’m in no hurry to get mixed up with a daughter of yours.

  Her phone buzzed with a text from Dev: How RU? Hanging in there?

  Even though Dev was one of those people who likened actual phone calls to incoming mortar attacks, this conversation warranted more than a text. Tessa called him and for once, he actually picked up.

  Dev’s hello was followed up by an awful tearing sound in the background.

  “What’s that? What are you doing?” she asked, keeping her voice low because she was supposed to be sleeping.

  “Packing tape.”

  “Noooo! I don’t want to hear it.” Now that school was over, Dev was getting out of Minot. His career plans involved, specifically, moving to Los Angeles or, as a safety, accepting a job in any city that had a fun gay scene and didn’t require the purchase of snow tires.

  “You’re welcome to come too, you know,” he said. “But I want to hear about you. How was the funeral?”

  “There is no funeral. My dad has risen from the dead. No wonder my mom was so into him.” Tessa went on to tell him everything that had happened since she arrived in Vegas. At the end of the story, Dev was silent.

  “There’s a chance I’ll come home tomorrow.”

  “What? Why? Tessie, you’ve been wondering about that man for years. You were shook to find out that he died. And now that he’s alive – and, hello, rich and otherwise childless – you’re just going to come back to North Dakota and forget he ever existed?”

  “He acted like I didn’t exist for the last twenty-four years.”

  “Oh get over yourself. How great do you think life would’ve been for you if he’d gone for custody? In many ways he did you and your mom a huge favor.”

  “If I had a child, nothing would keep me away from seeing her.”

  “I get that. But listen: here’s your chance to ask him why he made the decisions he made. Give yourself permission to connect with him. If it feels wrong to stay in the morning, leave.”

  “That’s what I told myself too. I just keep thinking that if my mom is looking down–”

  “Stop thinking like that. Your relationship with your dad has nothing to do with your mom.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “Who knows? Maybe he’ll be a dyn-o-mite daddy. Maybe you’ll want to stay for a little vacation, blow off some steam. Go cruise the strip for some hot guy to blow.”

  I’m in no hurry to get mixed up with a daughter of yours.

  “Dev!” she said. “Be serious.”

  “Serious is not what you need right now. You need fun. Go have some. I can give you permission for that.”

  Tessa said she’d let him know if she needed him to pick her up at the airport, and then she signed off. She changed into her pajamas from her backpack: a pair of terrycloth shorts and an MU t-shirt from when she ran track freshman and sophomore year. Then she stretched out on the bed, breathed in the foreign scent of the house, and crossed over into sleep.

  When she woke, Tessa had no idea how long she’d been out. The room was dark, though light bled in from the backyard. The house was silent. She turned on the bedside lamp. Her stomach growled. To distract herself, she attempted to read one of the books she’d packed – a collection of poems by Sara Teasdale called Love Songs. The book had belonged to her mother and was one of the few Tessa had kept after she died. She read, at random:

  CHILD, child, love while you can

  The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man;

  Never fear though it break your heart --

  Out of the wound new joy will start;

  Only love proudly and gladly and well,

  Though love be heaven or love be hell.

  Child, child, love while you may,

  For life is short as a happy day;

  Never fear the thing you feel --

  Only by love is life made real;

  Love, for the deadly sins are seven,

  Only through love will you enter heaven.

  Love Songs might’ve belonged to her mother, but the poem didn’t seem to share Lily Paul’s philosophy. Tessa closed the book and abandoned it on her night stand. Laughable, really, that the poem had made her think of the man in the car. Cal. What was she pretending, even to herself, that she didn’t know his name? Outside she heard a splash in the water. She turned out the bedside lamp and went to the window. The sky outside was navy. Golden lanterns dotted the yard. The pool glowed aqua in the night. The water rippled as a figure swam from one end to the other. Hidden by the shadows of her room, Tessa watched. The swimmer was a woman. When she rose from the water, Tessa recognized her as the woman who’d been sunning herself by the pool earlier that day. Water streamed from her dark wet hair, slipping over her round bare breasts. The woman’s nipples formed tight rosebuds from the chill of the pool. Her bathing suit bottom was not quite small enough to be considered a thong, but only just. As if sensing her, the woman suddenly turned and looked toward the house. Tessa ducked. There was no way the woman could’ve have seen her standing in the shadows.

  Back in bed, Tessa closed her eyes. Her stomach made a strange creaking sound. The last time she’d eaten was back in North Dakota. All at once, her hunger bordered on painful. Still she stayed in bed listening to sounds the woman made. The back door opened and closed. A television played for a half hour or so and went off. It was so quiet she heard, somewhere, the flick of a light switch. Tessa clutched at her stomach. Twenty minutes of silence passed. Then she rose and went to the door, listening. Turning the knob, she opened the door and peered out into the hallway. Except for the lights from the backyard coming in through the windows, the house was dark. The stone floors were cool beneath her feet. Tessa padded down the hallway to the kitchen. In the middle of the gleaming marble island sat a bowl of fruit. From it, she plucked an apple and bit into it. Liquid ran down her chin. She wiped it up with her hand and sucked the juice from her fingers. She circled the island, searching for a refrigerator that she eventually realized had been disguised to look like the rest of the cabinets in the kitchen. Opening the fridge door, a cool blue light spilled out. Inside, there were shelves of drinks. Cold bottles of white wine. Champagne. Bottles of water, flat and sparkling. Coke. A few condiments. Otherwise it was clean and empty of food.

  “You won’t find anything good in there,” a woman’s voice said.

  The woman stepped from behind the door and stood in front of Tessa in the rectangle of bluish light. Her hair still looked damp. She was older than Tessa thought when she’d first seen her by the pool that afternoon – maybe early forties – and yet she was one of those women whose age didn’t decrease her sex appeal. She smelled like a musky body wash. Her hair dampened the fabric of her short, ice-blue satin robe. Beneath the thin fabric her nipples were hard.

  “Ronnie doesn’t cook and I don’t eat,” the woman said. “I would’ve been prepared but I only just found out you were coming. I’m Berkley.” She held out her hand. Her nails were long, manicured into pointed ovals and painted pink. The name didn’t suit a woman with those nails.

  “I’m –”

  “Tessa. Ronnie’s daughter. I know.” She smiled. “You put him in a very bad mood this afternoon.” She wagged a slender finger at Tessa. “I like you already.” She had a practiced, velvety voi
ce with an amused lilt.

  “Yeah, well, he told me he was dead.”

  “Ronnie can be ruthless to get what he wants.” Berkley reached into the fridge and pulled out a bottle of champagne and closed the door. “But I’m glad you’re here. Let’s have a drink and celebrate Ronnie’s new baby, shall we?”

  Tessa felt like a dumb baby, standing there with an apple core in her hand.

  “I haven’t eaten. Alcohol would go right to my head.”

  “That’s the point of champagne.” Berkley popped the cork with the ease of someone who’d done it a hundred times. She pointed to a lower cabinet. Tessa understood she was to open it. It pulled out to reveal a garbage can. Tessa tossed the apple core inside and licked her fingers.

  “You like champagne?” Berkley asked. The kitchen was dark. The only light now was a shifting aquamarine coming from the pool.

  “Should we maybe turn on some lights?”

  “I like it like this,” Berkley said.

  “Who are you?”

  “What did Ronnie tell you?” She set the champagne bottle on the counter and narrowed her eyes.

  “I think he called you a lady friend.”

  Berkley shrugged. “Fine. That works.”

  “So you and Ron…” Tessa trailed off, hoping Berkley would finish the sentence.

  “We live together,” she supplied finally. Opening a cabinet, she reached up to the top shelf where rows of champagne glasses were lined up. As her body stretched, Berkley’s robe rode up, exposing the bottom curve of her ass. Tessa looked away.

  She poured the champagne and handed a fizzing flute to Tessa. The bubbles were sharp. The drink wasn’t as sweet as she thought it would be, all the times she’d seen in on TV.

  “Oh, but we didn’t even toast yet,” Berkley said, watching Tessa’s face as she swallowed. Tessa apologized. Berkley raised a glass. “To Mary-Therese. The one woman Ronnie Doucette couldn’t never have. Until now.”

  The champagne glasses made a ringing sound when they met. They sipped. Tessa wished she’d taken the apple in her bedroom to eat. Now she felt buzzed from two sips of alcohol. That and Berkley made her uncomfortable.