I spit into my hand and held it out. Victor made a face of disgust.
“One more thing. Can you send Dax over here?” I asked.
“Get him yourself.” He smoothed back a strand of oily hair. Maybe I didn’t hate him. Just … disliked.
“Victor?”
“What? Fine. I’ll get him. Want me to call in the Royal Army too?”
“No. Just … thank you.”
The words tasted better than I would have ever thought.
Dax finally appeared in the parking lot eleven minutes later. We hadn’t seen each other for four days, unless you count the parking-lot encounter earlier. And I didn’t want to count it; I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want that moment to exist.
“Hey.” I slipped my hand into Dax’s. My skin sang upon contact. “I want to show you something.” We ducked our heads under the archway to the back rose garden. I’d sprinkled a few petals on the cobblestones, just to throw Dax off.
“Holly, I know it’s been a while, but I don’t have time to hook up right now.”
“That’s something old married couples who sleep in separate beds say to each other.”
“Then do you want to give me a script so I can say the right thing?” Dax pinched a rose petal, crushing it in his hand.
“Nope. I want … magic. Just a moment of magic. Can we do that?”
“Do you want to talk first? I know you saw me today. With Daphne.”
Dax and Daphne? Matching names were the worst. They had a 0.26 percent chance of relationship success.
“I saw you, and so did my five best friends. Who was she?”
Dax’s face reddened. “She’s a girl I used to date. She came by because she heard the chapel was closing.”
“That’s fine. I don’t know why you had to hug her in the parking lot though.”
“I don’t know. You’ve been distant. I didn’t think you would care.”
“Are you kidding?”
Dax smacked his forehead. “I was checking to see if you would care. I was baiting you, and you didn’t even bite. If I saw you standing in the parking lot with some dude, I’d be out there in a flash. I might even go into a rage. But you didn’t even get jealous. And I don’t know if I should take it as some sort of sign that you’re just not that into me.”
“Are you going to see her again?”
“Do you want me to?” Dax asked.
“Yeah, I’d really like you to start spending some time with your ex-girlfriend. And maybe you two could go to a strip club together? Make a party of it. Of course I care. I want to shoot that girl in her perky butt, but I have a little more control over my emotions than you do.”
“That’s the problem. You have too much control. Except for when we mention the chapels, then your eyes go hard and you look at me like I’m the one holding the smoking gun.” He frowned. “Then you sprinkle some rose petals on the ground and you think that does it? You keep making all these doomsday comments that we aren’t going to last. I’m starting to believe it.”
“Just shut up. I’m sorry, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I really am.”
“I believe you.”
“Good. Now I want to show you something.” I’d concealed Grandpa’s old toolbox under a rosebush. There were likely better, indestructible containers out there, but I hadn’t had much time to prepare and had to go with whatever was left in the chapel. The lid creaked to life, rust flaking off the side. “This.”
“That’s a toolbox,” Mr. Obvious said.
“No, it’s not.” I slowly spread out my treasure. A T-shirt from the Neon Boneyard. A U2 CD, a matchbook from the Golden Steer, a chipped piece of marble, a brochure, the chapel picture of my family James took, and an Elvis figurine I’d found at one of the soon-to-be-destroyed gift shops. “This is a time capsule. In loving memory of the Rose of Sharon.”
Dax’s face melted to butter. “But Neon Boneyard … is us.”
“You’re part of the memory for me now.”
“This is … you are … amazing. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. We’ve both done stupid things.”
“But I was stupider.”
“We aren’t going to argue our stupidity now.” I scooped up a few rose petals and sprinkled them into the box. I couldn’t look at Dax, had to focus on the words so they came out right. “That grass spot I took you to isn’t my favorite spot in Vegas anymore. It’s all in here. We’re going to dig a hole so deep so that the demolition crew and Stan Waldon can’t touch it, and then this spot will be all the good of Vegas and us.”
“Do you want to know my favorite spot in Vegas now?” Dax cupped my face.
“The tattoo parlor?”
“No. You are. Wherever you are, that’s my spot.”
I wiped at my eyes, as surprised with the tears as anyone in Vegas ever is about rain. “You can add something in here too, if you want.”
“I want.” He opened his wallet and took out the picture of his parents. Wordlessly, he slid the photo into the box.
“And this is for you.” I slid a folded piece of notebook paper across the cobblestones.
Dax unfolded the sheet. “It’s just a bunch of numbers.”
I inhaled. Life is just a bunch of numbers, but it’s what those numbers add up to that matters the most. “Thirteen = number of official dates we’ve been on. One hundred fifty-six = number of couples we’ve married here since the funeral. Two hundred thirty-seven = number of times James threatened me with that photo of us.”
“What about the nineteen?” Dax asked.
The blood evaporated from my body. I crumbled into myself, crumbled into Dax’s arms. “That’s the number of times I’ve tried to say I love you. I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I’ve felt it.”
He grinned. “You should add one hundred twenty-two to the mix.”
“What’s that?”
“Number of days since I first met you.” He brushed his lips against my ear. “And one. Number of girls I’ve loved. Yeah, numbers girl. I can count too.”
Dax added a few more things to the Rose of Sharon and Cupid’s Dream time capsule. A dusty carnation. The bandanna to his cowboy outfit. One of the pictures of Victor and a forgotten soap opera star. And this letter, that he let me read before we sealed our beginnings and endings into a creaking metal box, forever.
Dax (short for Daxworth, I hear. What the hell was your mother thinking?)
If things go as I’d planned, you’ve met my granddaughter, Holly Nolan. Maybe she’s standing in front of you right now, tapping her foot, demanding you tell her what’s in this letter. Don’t. The things I want to tell you are things she needs to learn for herself first.
I asked her to deliver this letter to you for a few reasons. I wanted you to meet her. I wanted her to meet you. I want the stupid rift between Victor and me to end. Everyone likes Holly, you can’t help but like her, so maybe you can not hate her and she could not hate you and our chapels can finally be at peace.
I don’t know you, Daxworth Cranston. I’m hoping your character is much like your father’s and very much unlike Victor’s. I met your dad the day Victor bought the chapel. He came in with a basket of smoked sausage and crackers, of all things, saying he was excited to be in the neighborhood and that he’d married his wife in Cupid’s Dream. If you’re going to have a competition chapel next door, might as well have this guy there. That was before I met your grandpa, of course, and everything went to pot.
Your dad and I went out for drinks a few times when he’d come work at the chapel in the summers. I saw you as a baby. Your dad talked about you 87 percent of the time. He loved you, probably in the same way that I love my granddaughter. He was a proud father and a good man. I know his death was tragic, but his life wasn’t, and that’s what matters.
Not many men get the luxury to write these things to strangers. They don’t get a dying request, but you’re getting mine. Be kind to my granddaughter. Be her friend.
Help her through this time that I know you understand all too well. That wedding chapel is her everything, and she’s probably going to lose it. I didn’t tell her that, of course, but I’m a realist. She’s a fixer, and by putting her energies into fixing this, I know it will help her with the loss. Staying in business isn’t what matters. I just want her to be happy.
She’s a good girl. She deserves goodness. If you have any of that in you, please help her. Help me. You’ll be helping yourself.
Jim Nolan
Acknowledgments
I want to thank my childhood, and most everyone in my childhood, for the bike rides, suburban freedom, field trips to the Strip (wherein our teachers mapped out the fastest route through smoke-filled casinos), and friends “macking” in the Forum shops, wherein little “macking” actually ever occurred. Las Vegas, you’re an odd home, but you are mine, and so much of who I am is a result of the weirdness that is you.
I especially want to thank Lynn at Wee Kirk o’ the Heather Wedding Chapel, a chapel quite similar in my mind to the fictional Rose of Sharon, for answering questions for hours and hours. Also Chapel of the Flowers, Little Church of the West, and Elvis impersonator Shane Paterson for help with all things Vegas.
For tidbits on everything from class schedules to balloon payments: Katie Erickson, Kim and Ken Scriber, Eric Taylor (okay, fine, I’ll call you Dad), Rachel Hawkins, Lisa Schroeder, Tera Lynn Childs, Cailee Kelly, Emily Wing Smith, and the Neon Scribblers.
Paige Bledsoe, Jessica Wilcox, Kassidy and Paige Gammel for childcare. My family and friends for always being there, even when you probably didn’t want to be—especially when you didn’t want to be.
Sarah Davies, a solid agent who helps me keep my head on straight.
Caroline Abbey, an editor and friend, in equal order.
And to the fabulous team at Bloomsbury: Patricia McHugh, Amanda Bartlett, Beth Eller, Linette Kim, Courtney Griffin, Elizabeth Mason, Emily Ritter, Erica Barmash, Catherine Onder, Jenna Pocius, Holly Ruck, Jennifer Edwards, Claire Taylor, Vannessa Cronin, Mark Von Bargen, and Jennifer Gonzalez.
Viva Las Vegas!
Also by Lindsey Leavitt
Sean Griswold’s Head
Going Vintage
Copyright © 2014 by Lindsey Leavitt
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
First published in the United States of America in May 2014
by Walker Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.
E-book edition published in May 2014
www.bloomsbury.com
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Walker BFYR, 1385 Broadway, New York, New York 10018
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leavitt, Lindsey.
The chapel wars / Lindsey Leavitt.
pages cm
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Holly’s grandfather leaves her his financially strapped
Las Vegas wedding chapel in his will, along with a letter asking her to reach out to
Dax, the grandson of her family’s mortal enemy and owner of the chapel next door,
who is both cute and distracting.
ISBN 978-1-59990-788-8 (hardcover) • ISBN 978-1-61963-232-5 (e-book)
[1. Wedding—Fiction. 2. Family-owned business enterprises—Fiction.
3. Family life—Nevada—Las Vegas—Fiction. 4. Inheritance and succession—Fiction.
5. Las Vegas (Nev.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L46553Ch 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2013045821
ISBN 978-1-6196-3232-5 (e-book)
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