The Chapel Wars

by Lindsey Leavitt

  Chapter 22

  The other businesses closed fast. Going-out-of-business sales and boarded-up shops came and left overnight. Our area was already a little dead, but now the block looked like a welcome party for the apocalypse.

  Dax and I made a grand show of frequenting each business on their last day—eating mediocre Thai, buying thimbles at the cheap gift shop. I wasn’t old enough for a tattoo, and would never get one if I was, but Dax had been talking about it for a while and felt like Tattoo Wonderland was the place to do it.

  “Argh, they never say how much it hurts when they show this on TV,” Dax said as the artist poked away.

  “It’s a needle leaving permanent dye in your skin. It’s not a massage.” I spun around on the barstool across from the tattoo chair. “So this isn’t your favorite spot in Vegas?”

  “No. Argh! No.”

  “I still think you should have done a moth. Or maybe a cute cupid on your ankle.”

  “That stupid costume is already burned in my memory, it doesn’t need to live on for eternity on my foot.”

  The tattoo artist wiped at Dax’s left rib cage. “There you go, buddy. Take a look.”

  Dax held the hand mirror across his body, reflecting the scrolling letters of his dad’s initials. I peered closely at the tattoo. “VOC? What was your dad’s name?”

  “Victor. But he went by Vince.”

  “Oh.”

  Dax stared at the tattoo in the reflection. “Poppy’s middle initial is G, if that’s what you’re thinking. So it’s fine.”

  “I didn’t say anything.” I took the chance to get a full scope of shirtless Dax. “It’s your body.”

  “You don’t need to say anything.” Dax stuck his shirt back on. “I haven’t talked to him for three weeks now. Trust me, I’m not immortalizing that man.”

  We stood in the doorway of the tattoo shop and took in the dingy store. The funny thing was, we were saying good-bye to places we’d never even patronized. Except for the Carl’s Jr. around the corner. I was going to miss their French toast sticks.

  Ever since Valentine’s Day, things had been different with Dax. There were so many land mines we had to jump around in conversation now that we never really talked. Not like we did before. I worried something might trigger him to drink again, more worried that trigger might be me. And I had this rage boil up at the mere mention of his grandpa. Even if Dax wasn’t talking to him, the fact that Victor Cranston even existed made me see red spots.

  So we started this Sam/Camille dynamic where we goofed around a little and made out a lot. Sometimes more than I was comfortable with, actually, but I didn’t know how to stop. I liked it, I liked him, but for me, the physical was just a way to put off discussing, well, anything. The fissures were widening in our relationship, and the only way to mend the tension was to kiss it all away.

  “Where to next?” Dax asked as he slid his hand into mine. Mom and Dad had a “talk” with me after they found out about Dax, but for the first time ever, I played the divorce card and asked them if they ever dated. Dad got so flustered, I was never punished. They didn’t exactly bestow a parental blessing, but it was enough that Dax and I didn’t have to be so stealthy in our affections.

  “I think we need to give a formal good-bye to the Twilight wedding room,” I said solemnly.

  “Can’t.” Dax looked away. Who says ‘can’t’ to a chapel makeout session? “Poppy has a meeting with some of the demolition guys.”

  My stomach sank. “Yeah? How are they … how are they doing it?”

  “They’re doing a wrecking ball on the smaller buildings.”

  “What about those condos? They’re brand-new—no one’s even lived in them.”

  “All forty floors. Those are getting imploded. Waldon needs something big so he can do his whole Phoenix theme for the hotel. A party, fireworks, the big countdown. Boom.”

  “Oh.”

  I still had two weeks until the bank could seize our chapel. We were still in business, but without the miracle I’d been praying for, nothing would change.

  “I wouldn’t mind going to the Neon Boneyard again,” Dax said. “Actually listening to the tour this time.”

  “Maybe,” I said absently. I was picturing myself walking into Victor’s meeting and laying the smackdown. James wasn’t the only one in this family who could break a hand.

  “There was a shirt I liked in that gift shop too. That old motel.”

  “The La Concha,” I said. The La Concha. The old motel they moved two miles down the Strip when the land got bought out for another hotel.

  The La Concha.

  I was already making a list. I’d have to ask what it cost to move a structure like that. We’re a historical building—maybe if I filed something with the national registrar I could get a grant. The bank could give us a deal since it was the land they wanted anyway. “Dax! The La Concha! You’re brilliant!”

  “So you do want to go to the museum?”

  I pecked him on the cheek. “We’ll move it. Do a big drive to raise money, play the historical, save-old-Vegas card. We could, like, donate ceremonies in exchange for help from the city.”

  “You’re talking … the wedding chapel? You want to move an entire wedding chapel?”

  “Or Donna! Donna knows this ninety-year-old rich guy and we could find another spot. A better spot! There are hardly any nice chapels on the south side of the strip anymore, we would stick out—”

  “I don’t know,” Dax said.

  I frowned. I’d broken our unwritten rule, but this could be the miracle I’d been hoping for. Dax knew how much I’d been hurting, and he couldn’t even pretend enthusiasm? “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “It just sounds like a lot of ifs. That balloon payment wouldn’t just go away. You’ve got two weeks to come up with the same money you made in three months. Moving that building would take even more money. And they’re doing the implosion in a month or two.”

  “They’re not imploding my building. I still own it.”

  “For now.”

  I dropped Dax’s hand. “What’s your deal? Why aren’t you supporting me with this?”

  “Are you kidding? All I do is support you.” Dax stuck his hands in his pockets. “I just think you have to accept reality here. It’s over.”

  “Like your chapel is over. What, you don’t want to suffer alone, you want me out too?”

  “Holly! Listen to yourself.” Dax rolled his eyes. I don’t think I’d ever seen him roll his eyes. “Why does everything have to be so difficult with you?”

  “You think things are difficult?”

  “Well, they sure haven’t been a walk in the park. You analyze every word I say.”

  “Whatever.” I knew “whatever” wasn’t the best way to end an argument, but I had nothing else I could say. Actually, I had a lot I could say. The space between us grew to a gap as we walked down the street toward our chapels. Dax was two paces in front of me. I counted seven cracks, stepping on the last one and pretending the childhood saying was true, except it was Victor’s back I broke. I kept my vision on those cracks as I spoke. “Donna asked me something and I really want to know the answer. How did Victor know that we were in trouble with the bank? I mean, that’s confidential info, right? The bank can’t even share. Yet they’re moving forward with this project like they are one hundred percent sure that they’re getting our land. Like they know.”

  Dax slowed his step. “I’m sure you’ve told people that.”

  “Just you. Did you tell him?”

  “Who?”

  “Dax. Seriously.”

  Dax stopped. “I don’t know? I don’t think so. Would it really matter if I had?”

  “You know it matters.”

  “Are you looking for a reason to be mad at me? Is that what this is? I haven’t talked to one of my closest relatives for almost a month because of you. A month. And you’re going to get mad because I might have made some comment that you were in financial tro
uble when anyone in a two-mile radius would have known that?”

  “So you told him.”

  “Yes I told him!” Dax threw up his hands. “We weren’t in on some master plan. I told him when I was yelling at him for selling my wedding chapel. Remember that? I got screwed also. I was on your side.”

  “Was?”

  “Oh God. Am. I am.”

  I swallowed. “But if you hadn’t said something, Victor wouldn’t have known when our loan was coming up. We would have gone to the bank, and they would have given us an extension.”

  “Extension for what? You can’t keep the chapel. Loan or not, this building is going down. For both of us. There is no one you can talk to, no amount of ceremonies you can sell that is going to change that.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said.

  “And you’re hardheaded.”

  We’d walked over to the parking lot by now, not far from the purple line my grandpa had painted to divide the spaces. The line snaked up around our ankles, up our stomachs, across our hearts.

  There would always be a line. “Is it going to stay like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Never mind. I’m sorry I said anything.”

  “It’s like you’re waiting for me to say the wrong thing so you can have a reason to get mad.” Dax rubbed his foot along the line. “Look. You know I love you.”

  I said nothing, just like I’d said nothing this whole time. Every “I love you” bothered me, like he was challenging me to say something back, pushing me further away from a declaration, further from that feeling. It made me lose this argument, when I couldn’t say the words back.

  “I just hope that the thing that was keeping us together isn’t going to break us apart,” I said.

  “Is that what you want?” Dax scratched at his head. “I don’t know why we’re having this conversation. Are you in this or not?”

  “That’s a stupid question,” I said.

  “It is. So why am I asking it?” Dax shoved his hands into his pockets and turned his back to me. “Honestly, I hope you save your chapel. I really do. I know that’s what makes you happy.”

  No, you make me happy! I do know what I want, I want you. I want the Neon Boneyard and Golden Steer and Bellagio and the wonder of us. I said these things, six times in my head, as Dax walked twenty-four steps back to his chapel.

  Chapter 23

  Donna’s investors came by the chapel the next day. Mr. Nottingburg, with a walker and a velvet house robe. His wife, Mandy, forty years younger and full of design ideas.

  “Could we wallpaper these walls?”

  “The urinals are painted gold. Tacky!”

  “Those floors … we’ll knock them out. Do a nice travertine tile, maybe?”

  I gritted my teeth as she flew through suggestions, basically insulting every corner of the chapel. If we were going to make a deal, we needed to do it before the old man died. Each breath sounded like wind through a chimney.

  “Well, what do you think?” Donna asked. She had on a brandnew suit today, fuchsia. It worried me that she chose today to expand her color wheel.

  “About the chapel in its present condition,” Dad added. He’d been gargling back insults each time Mandy made a comment. If they didn’t leave soon, my dad was going to choke to death.

  “So, Stan Waldon is building around here?” Mandy clanked her bracelets together with a flick of her wrist. She did a lot of wrist flicking.

  “All around here,” Donna said. “But we still own the land and chapel.”

  “But his big old hotel will be in the way.”

  Donna raised a manicured nail. “Not if we move the chapel. Mandy, we could do a fun show of it! A parade. Get newspapers, all the charities to come while we have a big truck scoop us up and move us to a much more desirable location.”

  “Like over by Caesar’s Palace?” Clinkity-clank. “I love those men in togas.”

  “What did you say?” Mr. Nottingburg asked.

  “I said I LOVE MEN IN TOGAS,” Mandy yelled. She smiled at Donna. “That’s going to cost a lot, right?”

  “Yes, but this chapel is almost eighty years old. Did I tell you, this was originally a preacher’s home; couples were married in his parlor. We’ve filmed multiple movies here. There isn’t another chapel like it anywhere in the world. You would have a one-of-a-kind investment.”

  Mandy sized me up, then scratched her nose. “We’ll think about it.”

  “Eighty-five percent!” the old man hollered.

  “What’s that?” Donna asked.

  “We get eighty-five percent. We pay off the rest of your loan. We pay to move this place, and we get eighty-five percent.”

  “Eighty-five percent, and you pay all expenses?” Dad asked.

  “You wait too long and I’ll make it ninety, son.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. When I’d heard the word “investors,” I thought they would give us money and then be, like, silent partners. Give us our money and go away. Fifteen percent … what would that mean? What kind of power would we even have? Mandy was already talking about knocking down the urinals. I loved those urinals—not that I used them, but it was nice to know they were there. “We’ll get back to you.”

  “Or we move the building but lose the weddings. Make it a theme restaurant! Oh, so much possibility.” Mandy’s bracelets chuckled in approval as she waved good-bye.

  Donna closed the door and whirled around. “Well? What do you think? I’ve been to their house; Mandy has impeccable taste. She’s crazy to think we could ever get land by Caesar’s, but maybe by the Riviera? They’re doing another revitalization over there soon—we could become a landmark.”

  Dad wilted. “I’m glad my dad is already dead.”

  “I don’t think this is right,” I said.

  “It’s the only hope we have of keeping our jobs.”

  “What jobs? Mandy would run the show,” I said.

  “I bet she’ll ask me to take pictures of her dogs,” Dad said. “Women like that always want dog portraits.”

  “We’d just be their employees, and we’re not getting hard cash out of the deal.” I melted into the seat next to Dad. It was so much work. This was all So. Much. Work.

  “But you would save the chapel.”

  “I would save the building,” I said. “And maybe not even that, once Mandy is through with it.”

  Donna slid onto the brocade sofa. “I’m trying.”

  “We know you are,” Dad said. “You’re like family to us, Donna.”

  “This chapel is like family too.”

  “So, now what?” Dad asked.

  “I don’t think Grandpa would want Mandy Nottingburg touching his urinals.” I drummed my fingers on the arm of the chair. I was calmer than I thought I’d be, calmer than I’d been in some time. I did what I could. And it wasn’t enough. “I’m calling it. We’re going to euthanize this place. Let it die with some dignity.”

  “And no more Elvis?” Donna asked.

  “Elvis who?”

  So we went out. In grand fashion. We closed our doors on Grandpa Jim’s birthday. Besides Victor’s, we were the last place open for blocks.

  We gave away weddings. If a couple came in with a marriage license, we gave them the same royal treatment that we’d always given our customers. Plus free flowers, free minister, free wedding cakes.

  And there was not an Elvis in sight.

  I gathered everyone together before our first ceremony. I’d stolen the easel from the photography lounge and stuck up a portrait of Grandpa Jim from the late seventies. His hair was still red then, his mustache wispy. He hated that picture.

  “So. Thanks everyone for coming in today, to work or help out.” I stood on the tufted ottoman, in front of my employees. Donna, Minister Dan, my family, and my friends. “I know this isn’t how we wanted to celebrate Grandpa’s birthday. I know this isn’t much of a celebration. But we did accomplish our goal. We saved this place.” I glanced at Donna. “Even if we
lost it right after. Grandpa hated cheesy so I’ll let Bono do the talking.”

  I hit play on a CD player and the song “Beautiful Day” filled the room. We sat and listened for four minutes and six seconds, some of us crying, some stoic.

  Around the minute-and-a-half mark, I let my mind wander to Dax. It’d been four days since we had that fight. We texted. I called him, he called me, our conversations fizzling out after ten minutes. We didn’t talk about us or what had happened or what was going to happen. The chitchat was excruciatingly close to my parents’ communication style. Part of me wanted to run across the street and kiss him, begging for forgiveness. Part of me wondered why he wasn’t offering more. Either way, we stayed on our sides of the line and talked sports and schoolwork and how Sam and Camille still weren’t talking, even though, ironically, Dax and I weren’t talking much either.

  When the song ended, everyone left to their post except for Lenore. Lenore, who’d flown in for the big event and had worked exactly five days in the chapel her whole life, had no post.

  Lenore pawed through the employee fridge and came up with an apple. “This yours?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, this building is going to blow up anyway.” She bit into the fruit. “What do you want me to do today?”

  There was no sense cleaning. The couples had the attention of Mom. We didn’t need to advertise. “Nothing. There is nothing for you here.” I let out a shaky breath. “Nothing for me either.”

  “Ah, chin up, little sister.” Lenore flicked my arm. “You can actually do something with your predetermined life, now that the chapel is gone.”

  “I do something with my life every day,” I said.

  “Yeah, but you can choose what you want to do.”

  “What I wanted to do was the chapel.”

  She snorted. “So much for that ambition, huh?”

  I rolled my eyes. Camille acted more sisterly than Lenore. Maybe we just took after our separate dads. “You’ve switched your major five times now, so who are you to talk?”

  “Isn’t it liberating?” Lenore breathed in an exaggerated breath. “I have all the time in the world to decide. And so do you.”