Neon Burn

by Kasia Fox

  “It’s that American Prizefighter guy,” the security guard on the golf cart said. He looked to Tessa for recognition and found none. “You know, that big fighting organization? The boxing league on pay-per-view? That’s his company.” When Tessa still failed to look suitably impressed, he seemed annoyed by her ignorance. “He’s a big deal in this town.”

  “Him and Wayne Newton.” Tessa gazed up at the property. It was a beautiful house.

  The security guard dressed in black returned. “Excuse me, miss.” His tone had completely changed. Now he sounded friendly, even welcoming. “I’m sorry to have detained you… but,” he added quickly, before she could reply, “but, if you are free, Mr. Quinn, the owner of the property, would like to speak with you.”

  “Uh.” Tessa looked to the chubby security guard, who was already mounting his golf cart. He raised a hand as a goodbye salute. “Don’t run on the golf course anymore, you hear?” he called before he buzzed away.

  “I guess I’d want to know why?”

  “He said to tell you’re not in trouble.”

  “Why would I be in trouble? All I did was touch a fence.”

  “Please, Miss Paul.”

  The guy looked worried that she might say no. Tessa looked up at the house. She was curious. “Okay, fine. I have to leave soon. My dad will wonder where I went,” she added, just to feel what it felt like to say the words “my dad” to someone else.

  The guard unlocked a gate and let her onto the property. A private golf cart trail led up to the house. She followed behind him, wiping the sweat from her hairline with the sleeve of her t-shirt. Movement on the upper level of the house caught Tessa’s eye. A blond woman stood behind the glass door to the balcony, watching. The two women made eye contact and instantly the blond turned and disappeared into the depths of the room. When they crested the incline, Tessa saw, standing shirtless near the pool, the hot guy whose car she’d jumped into the day before. Cal. She blinked in surprise. When he’d been sitting in the car, she hadn’t been able to appreciate the man’s size. He was several inches taller than her. His huge delts, chest and arms glistened with sweat, like he’d just worked out. All he wore was a pair of sneakers and black athletic shorts. Yesterday’s disorienting attraction flashed through her, hot and dizzying. The brief, secret thrill at her good luck in stumbling upon his house was doused by the bucket of cold-water that were his words: I’m in no hurry to get mixed up with a daughter of yours.

  Still, Tessa was too shocked to say anything more than, “What are you doing here?”

  “I live here. Why were you climbing my fence?” His face was fixed in a frown, yet his tone and eyes hinted that he was trying to be playful.

  “Would you tell him I was not trying to climb into his yard?” she said to the security guard.

  “If you need anything, Mr. Quinn, I’ll be by the back door,” he said.

  As she watched the guard retreat to the house, Tessa’s nostrils flared in anger. “I barely touched the fence, Mr. Quinn.”

  “That was a joke,” Cal said. “You look thirsty.”

  “Not as thirsty as some,” she snapped back.

  Cal looked down at his bare chest.

  “I worked out.”

  “So did I. And I managed to keep my shirt on.”

  He shrugged. “It’s warm.”

  “Ever notice how it’s always ten degrees warmer for people who have a body that they want to show off?” she retorted. Her voice had an edge to it, and the words came out meaner than she intended. “Is that all?” she said, looking at the flagstones. “Can I go now?”

  “Sorry about Nisai questioning you. He’s being careful. I’ve had a few… incidents lately.”

  “Women jumping the fence trying to see you?”

  “Actually, yes.”

  She was still looking at the ground. His feet moved toward her. The closer he got, the higher her body temperature rose. A physical pull drew her to him; she had to fight it to stay in one place.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  A spark of anger flared in her. She looked up, directly into his eyes. They were slate gray, squinting at her face as if Cal were trying to figure her out. The look Tessa gave him was one of pure fire.

  “I’m the girl you’re in no hurry to get mixed up with,” she said.

  Cal opened his mouth and said nothing. Clearly he’d grown unaccustomed to women speaking rudely to him.

  “I’m also a woman who’d never jump a fence for a man as inconsiderate of other people’s feelings as you are.” Tessa’s newfound bravado combined with her thirst had a dizzying effect. She had to leave before she fainted. “And since we both know that you have no legal right to keep me,” she added, “Tell me how to get the hell out.”

  11.

  Dry ice smoked up from a cocktail glass. In one hand, Skinner held an oozing, overripe peach. In the other, a jar of pickled onions. “Shake!” the judges screamed. “Shake!” The basket in front of him was supposed to have four ingredients but there were only two items. He kept pleading with the judges they didn’t give him the right amount, that it wasn’t fair, how was he supposed to make a good cocktail out of this garbage? The lady judge, who was also his mother, kept saying to him, “Jason, you get what you get and you don’t have a fit.” How had he made it on this show? The red numbers on the clock ticked down until an alarm reminiscent of an emergency alert in a nuclear reactor sounded. Errrrnt! Errrrnt! Errrrnt!

  The phone. His phone was ringing. Disoriented, Skinner rolled over and fell off the couch. Reaching up, he patted the surface of the coffee table until he located his phone. It was the Alarm ringtone which meant the boss was calling. Skinner retched loudly and spit into an empty Mountain Dew bottle before managing a froggy hello.

  “I need you to look for the girl. I woke up and she’s gone,” Ron said.

  “Where’d she go?” Skinner yawned.

  On the muted television screen, an Asian chick in granny glasses was icing a cookie to look like a flamingo. When he’d fallen asleep, Bar Wars had been on.

  “Get over to the airport and look for her, numbnuts. If she looks like she’s about to get on a plane, stop her.”

  “Sure, sure. Just gimmie –”

  “Hang on, hang on.” There was shuffling on the other side of the phone. In the background he heard Ronnie murmuring to someone. Skinner sat up and rubbed his eyes. He’d been bouncing at Baby Girl, Ronnie’s scummiest titty bar, until three a.m. Then he’d stayed around drinking until almost five a.m. Ronnie got back on the line, his voice low. “Listen, she’s back.”

  “Got it,” Skinner yawned and crawled back onto the couch. “Abort mission?”

  “Yeah. But call our friend up north and tell him to go ahead.”

  “Will do.”

  “And then you’re gonna have to swing by here this afternoon. You need to have eyes on her the rest of the time she’s here, got me?”

  Skinner sat back up. “Sure. Got it. Say the word and I’ll be there.” He stifled a yawn.

  “Good boy,” Ronnie said. “When all is said and done, I want her to move to Vegas. It could be good for me, having the kid around. She’s a great girl.”

  “She’s pretty hot.”

  “It should go without saying, Skin, and yet I still feel compelled to say it: Keep your hands off.”

  “Ronnie, please.” Skinner had already pictured his hands all over those firm round tits. Back in the airport they’d had a moment there. What kind of cocktail did a girl like that drink? A Long Island iced tea maybe. Seems basic but a lot of shit goes into a Long Island. Complicated drink.

  “I’ll cut your dick off, Skinner. Consider yourself warned.”

  12.

  Ron was visibly distraught when Tessa returned from her run. At the sight of her on the front step, he looked relieved. He confessed – kind of adorably – that he’d woken to find her gone and worried she’d changed her mind and gone home.

  “Next time write a note,” he said. “Be on t
he safe side.”

  “Is this a rough part of town or something?” Tessa asked, remembering how Cal hadn’t wanted to let her off the day before. She explained how she’d been running on the golf course, omitting the part about being detained by Cal’s security detail. After seeing Ron yell at him yesterday, she didn’t want to cause any more tension.

  When Tessa got out of the shower, Ron had made coffee. They sat together in the bright kitchen, talking about his family. Both his parents were dead. His mother was Italian and his father French Canadian. He had a brother in Phoenix who had two boys.

  Cousins. She had cousins. The abundance of information fascinated Tessa. For the last twenty-four years, half of her history had been shrouded in secrecy. He talked about coming to Las Vegas and working in event production and promotion. He’d had an opportunity to buy a gentleman’s club. In the beginning he’d purchased it with the intention of turning it into a classy nightclub with live music. Business was so good, it never happened. Tessa’s mother got tired of waiting for him to return to his original plan of running a classy place and left him.

  “She wanted to raise you a certain way. She wasn’t wrong. After she had you, we didn’t even get to spend one Christmas together as a family. It’s the great sadness of my life.”

  “The two of you are so different. It’s still so hard for me to imagine the two of your together.”

  Believe it or not, Ron said, he’d once been just as religious as Lily. They had in fact met at church.

  “Well, that story checks out,” Tessa said. “I can’t imagine my mom meeting her husband anywhere else.”

  “Lily was beautiful. Pretty face. Gorgeous physique,” Ron shook his head a little at the memory and sipped his coffee. “We were drawn to each other, physically. But she wouldn’t go to bed with me until we were married. In that way, we both let the business of the bedroom override common sense. We were a bad match right from the start.”

  Even though this was nothing Tessa wanted to hear, she appreciated what was probably the origin story of her mother’s many, many cautionary tales concerning men.

  “She wanted to raise you right. Raise you in the church,” Ron said. “What did I know about raising a kid even part time? Vegas was no place for a little girl. I shirked my responsibilities and let Lily take the reins. I tried to see you a couple of times over the years. Felt guilty. You can’t imagine the guilt.” He squeezed his big hairy fist on the table. “She didn’t want anything to do with my dirty money. All she wanted was for me to stay away. How would I have told my little girl how I made my money? I wouldn’t have been able to look you in the eye.”

  “Ron.” Tessa put her hand on his fist. “It wouldn’t have mattered to me. I thought about you so many times. I just wanted a dad. Instead I had this big mystery.”

  “You must be pretty pissed with me, huh. I don’t blame you.”

  “I’m not angry.” When Tessa said the words, she realized she wasn’t. A life trying to toggle back and forth between church socials in Minot and strip clubs in Las Vegas would’ve been impossible. Her mother would’ve died of stress way before she died of cancer. There would always be a vacancy in her life though, the blank space where a father should’ve been. That hollow ache that set in when she heard one of her friends referred to herself as a daddy’s girl.

  “Like you said yesterday, you’re all I’ve got now. So I guess we’re stuck with each other,” she said.

  Ron grinned. He’d finished his third cup of coffee. They’d been talking at the table for hours. Tessa sat up straight, perfecting her posture.

  “So,” she said, “in the spirit of starting over, what should we do today?”

  “Listen. I have a couple of work obligations I can’t get out of. I’d tell you to tag along but I don’t want you hanging around that scene. I want to honor your mom, at least in that way.”

  “That’s fine. I’m happy to stay here.”

  “Berkley said the two of your really hit it off last night.”

  At the mention of Berkley’s name, her face flushed. Last night, she’d been giddy from drinking so much alcohol on an empty stomach. When Tessa woke this morning, she wondered if her dad’s girlfriend had actually been flirting with her, or if she had simply been drunk and misread Berkley.

  “She’s really nice,” Tessa said.

  “Ha!” Ron collapsed back in his chair as if moved by the hilarity of Tessa’s comment. “I don’t know if I’d call Berkley nice. She is a lot of fun though. And while I’m tying up a couple things, work-wise, she’d like to take you out to see the city. Have some girl fun. Shopping. Lunch. If Berk’s involved, there’ll be drinks.” Ron reached into his pocket and pulled out a two-inch stack of money, bent in a horseshoe. He counted off several bills and dropped them on the table in front of Tessa. “Here. For you. Vegas is an expensive city.”

  “Oh, god, I couldn’t –” she protested. Ron wouldn’t hear it.

  “I haven’t spent a dollar on you in twenty-two years. Consider it a graduation present.”

  He considered her running clothes. “You look like maybe you could use a few things anyway.”

  As Ron got ready to leave on business, Berkley materialized. She yawned as if she’d just woken, though her dark red hair had been styled into loose curls flowing down her back, and her face was perfectly made up, eyes circled in black liner and smoky shadow incongruous with daytime. She wore a pair of faded skinny jeans distressed to look like she’d done some sort of manual labor in them to make the knees wear out prematurely. She wore off-the shoulder blouse that grazed the waistband of her jeans, offering glimpses of her flat, tanned stomach.

  “Berk’s not a morning person, are you, old girl?” Ron patted his pockets for some unknown object. He searched the counters, muttering, “Where is that goddamn thing?”

  Berkley grunted and turned on the faucet, drinking directly from the flow of water. When she righted herself, a droplet of water ran from the corner of her mouth and down her chin. Berkley licked at it. Still hunting, Ron kept saying, “My memory is shot. Never volunteer to be punched in the head every day, girls.”

  “Men are terrible at finding anything,” Berkley said. “He wants me to help him find his phone. Helping would only enable him.”

  Tessa laughed, because she was pretty sure this was supposed to be a joke.

  “That’s because men weren’t meant to be tied to anything. Especially a phone.”

  “Then every star shall sing to me/ Its song of liberty;/ And every morn shall bring to me/

  Its mandate to be free,” Tessa quoted.

  “I like that. That’s me right there,” Ron said. “Who said that?”

  “It’s a poem. Robert Service. My granddad liked him. When he was first diagnosed with dementia his doctor said one thing we could try at home with him, to keep his mind sharp, was to get him to memorize stuff.”

  “Did it work?” Ron asked.

  “It was too late for him. But I thought I’d do it.”

  Ron opened a drawer, reached down and then held his phone aloft. “Found it.” He hitched his pants and looked from his daughter to his girlfriend.

  “Everything good? Your girls going to have fun? Be good?”

  “We’ll only do gateway drugs, promise,” Berkley said.

  “Funny girl.” On his way out the door, Ron told them he’d catch up with them later for dinner and drinks. More drinks? Tessa had consumed more alcohol in the last two days than she’d had all year.

  “So.” Berkley leaned over, elbows on the island, resting her chin in her hands. “I have a fun idea.”

  “Okay.”

  “Ever heard of a yes day?”

  Yet another thing in life she didn’t know about. Tessa confessed that she hadn’t.

  “It’s a day where whatever it is you want to do, the other person has to say yes to it. Usually it’s for kids I think, but the whole reason I didn’t have kids was so I could have all the fun.”

  “I’m up for whatever.
”

  “I’m talking total hedonism here.”

  “When in Vegas…?” Tessa hoped she didn’t sound too worried. She wanted to ask what Berkley’s definition of total hedonism was. Dev would probably joke that Tessa’s was a frappuccino with the whipped cream still on.

  Berkley clapped her hands in excitement. “This will be fun.”

  “I don’t know Vegas at all so I don’t know how fun my suggestions will be.”

  “We’ll take turns. You go, I go.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief, “And remember, no matter what, you have to say yes.”

  “I thought I was coming here for a funeral. Anything fun is a bonus. Honestly, we can just do your stuff if you want.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Berkley righted herself and straightened her top. “This is all about you. We want you to be happy here, Tessa. So you get first pick.”

  For their first activity, Tessa said it was probably going to be boring for Berkley, but she wanted to drive up and down the Strip.

  “Yes!” Berkley grabbed Tessa’s hand and tugged her to the door front door. “Ronnie got us a driver for the day. He’s waiting outside.”

  “Right now? I have to change,” Tessa protested.

  “Don’t worry,” Berkley said. “One of my yes day activities is definitely going to be buying you a new outfit.”

  13.

  “I know I wrote it down here…” Nisai flipped open his notebook and scanned the scrawled words. Cal waited, trying not to look impatient as the man consulted its pages. They were standing in the foyer of Cal’s house. Nisai’s brow relaxed and he nodded. “Got it. The name she gave me was Tessa Paul.”

  Tessa Paul. A generic name. Probably yielded a million hits online.

  “Were there any other details she mentioned?” Cal pressed. Nisai did a good job of pretending it was totally normal that his boss was pressing him for information about a woman who’d looked into his backyard for all of two minutes that morning.

  “I asked her for identification. She said she was out for a run and didn’t have it on her. That’s when you contacted me on the radio.” Nisai paused, as if he were unsure whether to continue or not. “For what it’s worth, Mr. Quinn, I believe she was honest when she said she was getting a look at a fancy house.”