Jenny Sparrow Knows the Future

by Melissa Pimentel

  The bartender picked up a cocktail shaker and started spinning it around in his hand. ‘Sure thing, beautiful,’ he said, tossing the shaker in the air and catching it behind his back. ‘What’s your poison?’

  ‘Just somewhere fun where we can drink and maybe dance a little.’

  ‘Gin? Tequila? Bourbon?’

  ‘All of the above,’ she announced.

  ‘Center Bar is pretty great – Drake was in there the other night – or the Apostrophe Bar. It’s guest list only, but I have a friend who works the door.’ He tossed two limes in the air along with the cocktail shaker and juggled them for a few minutes.

  ‘I think we’re looking for someplace a little less fancy,’ she said. ‘Maybe even a little dirty. We like to get dirty, don’t we, Jenny?’

  He lost his grip on the shaker and it bounced off the marble bar top with a clang. ‘Shit,’ he said, scrambling to recover it. I saw Isla’s shoulders start to shake from laughing and mouthed the words STOP IT at her.

  The bartender jumped back to his feet and swept his hair back with his hands, strategically flexing his biceps in the process. ‘Sorry about that. Uh, let me think …’ He started juggling the shaker again. Brave man. ‘The Bourbon Room is pretty cool. They play a lot of 80s’ rock – Bon Jovi, and that kind of thing. Or – wait, I know exactly where you guys should go.’

  ‘Amazing! Where?’

  The bartender flashed a triumphant grin. ‘Benny’s! They do these huge fishbowl drinks, and after 10 p.m., all they play is 90s’ hip hop.’

  Isla’s eyes widened. ‘It literally sounds like nirvana.’ She turned to me. ‘What do you think?’

  I nodded. ‘Let’s do it.’

  ‘Benny’s it is! Thank you so much!’ Isla reached across the bar and high-fived the bartender, who did a passable job of hiding his delight.

  ‘Glad I could help. You know, I get off at eleven tonight. I could meet you guys over there, if you were into it …’ He reached up into a tactical stretch, revealing a slice of toned midriff in the process. He was unassailably hot, I’d give him that. I nudged Isla and tried to catch her eye, but she ignored me.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘it’s kind of a ladies-only thing.’

  The bartender cast an appraising eye over the two of us and nodded approvingly. ‘Oh, I get it,’ he said, though it was pretty clear that he didn’t. ‘Cool. Well, if you change your mind, here’s my number.’ He grabbed a cocktail napkin out of the holder and scrawled down a set of digits. ‘Drinks are on the house, by the way.’

  ‘You’re too sweet,’ Isla said, folding up the napkin and tossing it into her bag. She leaned across the bar and kissed him on the cheek. I swear I saw the man go weak at the knees.

  ‘I will never get used to being out with you,’ I said as we waited for our Uber to arrive. It was dark out, but the night air was still steamy, and I felt sweat begin to pool underneath my bra.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean the way that men fall all over you. What’s it like, wielding that kind of power?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘They do not fall all over me.’

  ‘Isla, I just watched that bartender perform circus tricks to get your attention. They absolutely do fall all over you.’

  She sighed. ‘Well, it’s nice, I guess. I mean, it can get annoying sometimes, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the attention.’ She gestured towards her silver jumpsuit. ‘As if I need to explain to you that I’m attention-seeking.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it attention-seeking,’ I said. ‘More like confident.’

  ‘Thanks. But just for the record, men fall all over you just as much as they do me. You just don’t see it.’ She rummaged around in her bag and pulled out a cigarette and a bright pink Bic. She lit up and took a deep drag.

  I frowned at her. ‘Those things will kill you, you know.’

  ‘Honestly, babe, when you’ve seen the kind of shit I have, you stop worrying about how you’re going to die. The other day, I had a woman come in with an arrow in her head. A goddamn arrow! She’d been in her backyard – which happens to back onto an archery center – and a stray arrow got her right in the parietal lobe.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said. ‘Is she alive?’

  She took another drag and puffed out a series of perfect smoke rings. ‘We managed to get it out without too much damage, but now she can’t taste anything and she keeps talking with a Spanish accent. Can you imagine?’

  ‘Jesus. That’s awful.’

  ‘I know, right? So really, in the grand scheme of things, there’s no point in wondering what will kill you in the end. The main point is that something will. Or it will at least fuck up your life pretty good.’

  We were silent as we let this thought sink in. Isla took a final drag and stubbed out her cigarette underneath her heel. ‘Come on,’ she said, grabbing my hand. ‘That’s our guy in the black Prius.’

  Driving down the Strip at night was surreal. The lights glinting off the windows, the people streaming past, the moon shining above, casting its glow across this vast desert. I let myself wonder about Christopher, just for a minute. Like Fievel the mouse, I wondered if he was sleeping underneath the same big sky. Then I remembered that it was 7 a.m. in London. He was probably up already and off on his Sunday run. I forced myself to push the thought of him aside. I couldn’t allow myself to become maudlin, at least not this early into the night. I owed Isla that much. From the way she was just talking, I suspected she needed a carefree girls’ night out just as much as I did.

  Besides, he was probably having a whale of a time on his own in London. The vodka coursed steadily through my veins. Maybe he wasn’t out for his Sunday morning run. Maybe he was still in our bed, a tiny blonde called Tiffany wrapped around him like a baby monkey. Maybe he hadn’t thought about me this whole weekend. Not even once. Maybe he was glad I was gone. I leaned back and watched the night sky sail past.

  Benny’s, it turned out, wasn’t on the Strip at all. It was tucked behind a Walmart supercenter, the only clue of its location a small, worn wooden sign illuminated by a single flickering lightbulb.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ I asked Isla. Even the Uber driver looked nervous about leaving us there.

  ‘If it sucks, we’ll just go someplace else,’ she said, climbing out of the car.

  The driver and I exchanged a look. ‘I’m not coming back here,’ he said firmly. I nodded my understanding and closed the door.

  I followed Isla out of the car and the two of us linked arms as we headed for the door. The ground pulsed beneath our feet as we approached. ‘Well, at least they have a decent sound system,’ Isla said.

  She pulled open the door and we were both hit by a wall of thundering noise. ‘Holy shit,’ I whispered.

  ‘WHAT?’ she yelled.

  ‘I SAID HOLY SHIT!’

  We made our way down a flight of stairs and into the cavernous bar. Cavernous wasn’t just an adjective in this case – the place was literally a cave. It seemed as if it had been hulled out of the rocky desert floor, the ragged stone walls sweating gently from the heat of a hundred or so bodies pressed tightly together, the only light coming from a few fringed chandeliers hanging dangerously close to the dance floor.

  ‘This place is insane!’ I shouted.

  She nodded and tugged me towards the bar, where a tall, muscular man with a tattoo of a snake curled around his neck was doling out shots. Isla propped her elbows on the bar. ‘Bourbon or tequila?’ the tattooed man asked her.

  She turned around and repeated the question.

  ‘Um, do they have any beer?’ I asked.

  She glanced back at the bar, which was stacked high with bottles of Maker’s Mark and Jose Cuervo. ‘I don’t think that’s an option.’

  ‘Bourbon, then. On ice, please. Just a small one!’

  The man poured out four fingers into each glass and pushed them across the bar. ‘Ten bucks,’ he said, and Isla handed him a twenty and told him to keep the change. ‘J
ust make sure you keep them coming.’

  ‘Bottoms up,’ she cried, though I could see the fear on her face as she lifted the glass to her lips. She sank it in two gulps. ‘Jesus, that burns!’ she shouted, and then turned back to the bartender. ‘Another, kind sir!’

  ‘Don’t you think we should slow down a little?’ I asked, taking a tentative sip. She was right, it did burn, all the way down my esophagus and into my too-empty stomach.

  ‘Are you still thinking about Christopher?’

  I shrugged. Of course I was thinking about him.

  ‘Then it’s not time to slow down.’

  I wasn’t sure if it was the bourbon or the thumping bass shuddering through my ribcage, or the image – stubbornly vivid – of his limbs entwined with Tiffany the tiny blonde’s, but a sense of righteous indignation suddenly roared through me. My life, as I’d known it, was quite possibly over. I might as well enjoy myself. ‘You’re right,’ I said, tossing my head back and swallowing the contents of the tumbler in one go. ‘Fuck it. Let’s get fucked up.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ she said, and handed me a fresh glass. I made short work of that one, too, and then pulled her out onto the dance floor.

  The night, from there, took on the quality of a stop-motion film. Dancing beneath the flashing disco lights. Isla’s face beaming at me. More bourbon. Pushing my sweaty hair out of my face. Reapplying my lipstick in the dingy bathroom mirror. More bourbon. The music pulsing through me as I twirled and twirled.

  And then the gaps in my memory become longer until it’s just one long blank expanse. Scene missing. Scene missing. Scene missing.

  7

  I woke up in a vast tangle of 400-thread-count white cotton sheets, a feather from a down comforter stuck to my lower lip. My mouth was cottony and filled with my parched, swollen tongue, and a hundred marbles pinged themselves against the walls of my skull. I opened an eye and squinted into the bright daylight.

  I was in a hotel room. I picked my head off the pillow gingerly and gazed dazedly at my surroundings. It wasn’t my room. It wasn’t Isla’s room, either. A floor-to-ceiling window looked out across the Strip, and I flinched at the sunlight that glinted off the various highly-polished surfaces. An enormous flat-screen TV stared at me with its blank black eye. I noticed a pile of clothes thrown haphazardly across an armchair. A blue button-down shirt. A brown leather belt. A pair of jeans.

  Oh God.

  I lifted the covers and looked down at my body. I was wearing an oversized gray cotton T-shirt featuring a bright orange bull’s skull and the word LONGHORNS written across the chest. I shoved a hand down into the sheets and felt a wave of relief: I was still wearing underwear.

  I heard noises coming from the next room. A toilet flushed and a shower turned on. A man cleared his throat and I leaped out of bed like a startled wild animal.

  ‘Shit,’ I whispered to myself. I searched the room for my things. My bag was shoved in a corner next to a pair of men’s sneakers – ‘SHIT!’ – and my clothes were in a tangle next to the coat rack. I pulled on Isla’s dress and shoved my aching feet into my heels, all the while trying to distract myself from the increasingly urgent need to throw up. The man in the next room started to sing, a deep, warbling bass. I heard the shower turn off just as I shut the door behind me.

  I stared at my reflection in the mirrored cocoon of the elevator. It wasn’t pretty. Dark smudges encircled my bloodshot eyes, and my hair sprang in unruly tufts from the top of my head. I’d say I looked like a prostitute, but I suspected prostitutes were better groomed. In truth, I looked like what I was: a thirty-one-year-old woman who’d just woken up from a bender in a strange man’s hotel room.

  The thought was too much for my delicate stomach, and my throat burned with bile. How could I have let this happen? Regardless of what had been happening with us, I loved Christopher. He was the man I was destined to spend my life with! And yet apparently half a bottle of bourbon was all it took to get me into bed with another man.

  I fumbled around in my purse until I remembered that Isla had confiscated my phone. This was all her fault, really. She’d been the one to drag us to that stupid bar and pour liquor down my throat like it was going out of style. A vague memory of her pushing a glass of water in my hands surfaced, but I pushed it away. So what if she’d given me a glass of water? She’d still got me into this mess.

  I charged through the marble-floored lobby, ignoring the smirks and arched eyebrows and heading straight for the taxi rank. ‘The Paris Hotel, please,’ I told the driver in my most dignified voice. The driver looked at me in the rear-view mirror. ‘Lady, it’s not worth the fare,’ he said, and pointed across the street to where the Eiffel Tower loomed over us.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, opening the door and climbing out with as much dignity as I could muster. ‘Thank you.’

  I had no way of telling what time it was, but I knew it must be close to midday – the sun was so hot it made the pavement sing. I crossed the street and walked through the foyer and into the elevator and down the hallway and opened the door to the suite, where I found Isla, ashen-faced, with her ear pressed to her telephone. ‘Hang on, she’s just walked through the door,’ she said, before hanging up and tossing the phone across the room. ‘Oh, thank God!’ she shouted, charging towards me and gathering me up in her arms. ‘I’ve been so worried about you!’

  I extricated myself and folded my arms across my chest. ‘I hope you’re happy,’ I said.

  ‘Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve been going out of my mind here! I was just on the phone to the police to report you as a missing person! Are you okay? What the hell happened to you?’

  ‘You mean you don’t know?’

  ‘Of course I don’t know! One minute you were talking to that guy, and then the next minute, I turn around and you’re both gone!’

  ‘What guy?’

  She looked at me closely. ‘The guy from the casino.’ I blinked at her. ‘You know, the blond guy with all the pockets?’ she prompted. My mind remained stubbornly blank. ‘You really don’t remember?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘He showed up with his friends and they bought us a round of drinks. Remember? One of them was wearing that sheepskin jacket and we were all calling him Lamb Chop?’

  I shook my head again. My brain was in place-holder mode. ‘We’re experiencing technical difficulties. Normal programming will resume shortly.’ At least I hoped it would.

  ‘Well, you and the blond guy with the pockets were totally loving each other.’ She caught the look on my face and frowned. ‘Not like that. It’s not like you were making out or anything – I wouldn’t have let you do that. You were just having fun, that’s all. It was nice to see. Until you pulled a disappearing act on me, and then it sucked.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I ran out of the bar and looked for you, of course. His friends did too – they were calling him and calling him, but he didn’t pick up. That’s a lie – he picked up once, yelled something about you two going to see Elvis, and then the phone cut out.’

  I couldn’t believe any of it. Me and the pockets guy loving each other? Us running away together? The Elvis bit was the weirdest part. I hate Elvis.

  ‘So where were you?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but I woke up in a hotel room that wasn’t mine. I’m guessing it was his.’

  She let out a low whistle. ‘Do you think you two …?’ She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger and poked her other forefinger through it.

  ‘OH GOD!’ I wailed. And then, sheepishly, ‘I don’t know.’ The admission made me wince.

  She threw an arm around me. ‘Oh, honey.’

  A thought occurred to me, and a fresh wave of panic washed over me. ‘What time is it?’

  She checked her phone. ‘Quarter to three.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ I leaped to my feet. ‘My flight is in two hours!’

  ‘Shit! Okay, don’t panic. You get in the shower, I’ll pack y
our stuff.’

  ‘I don’t have time to take a shower!’

  She shot me a look. ‘I’m saying this because I’m your friend. You do not want to travel looking like you do now. They will escort your ass off the plane for the fumes alone.’

  We drove to the airport at breakneck speed, Isla leaving a chorus of honks and curses in her wake as she screeched into the departures lot. ‘You’ve got an hour and fifteen,’ Isla said, peering at the dashboard clock. ‘You might have to throw some elbows going though security, but you should be fine.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I opened the car door, but couldn’t bring myself to get out. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said finally.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For ruining this vacation by moping around the whole time and then disappearing with a stranger on our last night together! What do you mean, for what?’

  ‘Jenny, stop. I had a great time! Anytime I get to spend with you is great time, even if you’re moping or shitfaced on bourbon. Honest.’

  I nodded. ‘I love you, you know.’

  She reached across the armrest and pulled me in for a hug. ‘I love you, too. Now you better bust your ass or you’re going to miss your plane.’

  I thought about what might be waiting for me at the other end of the flight. ‘Would that be such a bad thing?’

  ‘Well, not for me, because it would mean I could kidnap you and bring you back to New York with me. But I don’t think it would be great for you.’

  ‘I really fucked up, didn’t I?’

  ‘No, you didn’t. Whatever happened last night, just forget about it. It doesn’t matter. It’s Vegas – nothing that happens here counts.’

  ‘I don’t think Christopher would think that way.’

  ‘Well, Christopher doesn’t need to know about it. Anyway, you guys have bigger fish to fry than some drunken night out in Las Vegas.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Just keep an open mind. Whatever happens when you get off the plane, remember that you have a choice. I know you want to believe that everything’s set in stone, but it really isn’t. You’re in charge of what happens in your life. Now go!’ she said, shooing me out of the car. ‘Call me when you land, okay?’