by Nancy Warren
Most of the people on the bus seemed excited to be going to Vegas. Like they were going to come back millionaires or something. A group of loud guys in their twenties joked about driving back home in a limo. Yeah, right.
They were passing around a bottle. One of them tried to pass it to her, but his buddy said something to him. All she heard was jail bait. And after that they left her alone.
When the bus finally pulled into the station in Vegas, she was exhausted, a little car-sick — bus sick, she supposed — -and her stomach was so clenched she was having trouble breathing.
She was almost glad the fat woman beside her was taking her time packing up her stuff. It gave Tiffany a few extra minutes to pull herself together.
Finally, the fat woman hauled herself up with a lot of huffing and Tiff got out behind her.
She was hyperventilating when she walked through the grimy doors into the bus station.
Stop it, she mentally yelled at herself. Of course he’d like her. She was his daughter, wasn’t she?
He’d found her on Facebook, that’s how he’d finally got in contact. She’d immediately messaged him her phone number and he’d called her right away. It was like a Disney movie in real life. When he’d called she’d almost cried. He sounded so happy to talk to her. Dwayne had told her on the phone that he’d wanted to see her for a long time but her mom had stopped him. She wouldn’t even give him Tiffany’s cell phone number.
Tiffany had always suspected her mother was partly to blame for her having no dad, not even a weekend and summer vacation dad. Other kids might complain about having stuff at two houses and drama between the exes, but at least they knew their own fathers.
It had seemed like such a good idea to avoid the inevitable fight with her mom. Get on the bus and tell her mom after. Easier to ask forgiveness than permission, Dwayne had said with a chuckle. Now she kind of wished she’d waited.
It was just nerves, she reminded herself. She glanced swiftly around the waiting area almost sick with excitement, but unless he’d changed gender, race or gained a hundred or so pounds, Dwayne Diamond wasn’t among the handful of people obviously waiting for her bus.
She gave him ten minutes and then wished that at least she had her cell phone with her. She’d seen on TV how easy it was to trace people with cell phones and her mom was dating a cop. But it would have been comforting to have her phone with her.
Could he have forgotten? Got sick? Been in an accident?
Worse, had her mother somehow found out and used her cop connections to have Tiffany’s father thrown in jail or something?
Wild thoughts chased around in her head as she fidgeted on a hard bench until finally she noticed a pay phone stuck to the wall. She’d never used a pay phone before. She had to read the directions twice and then she fumbled and dropped the money before getting the hang of the thing. She’d written down her father’s cell number, but she didn’t need to look. She’d memorized it.
“Darlin’,” he said, picking up right away. “I’m on my way. Hold tight, I’ll be right there.”
Twenty minutes later, the door opened and her father walked in. He wore a white Western style shirt, jeans that were pretty tight and cowboy boots. His smile was so big she felt warmed by it. She rose, thinking it was going to be okay.
When he saw her, he slapped a hand over his heart and took a step back. “Can this be my baby girl?” he yelled.
She nodded, stupidly shy.
He looked so happy to see her she felt her shyness melt. Especially when he held out his arms wide. “Well, come on over and give your daddy a hug!”
This is my father, she thought, as she found herself squeezed into a hug. He felt warm and solid. He smelled like cologne. She thought it might be the one called Stetson.
He grabbed her bag and threw it over his shoulder. When they walked out of the bus station Tiffany noticed the bored-looking woman at the ticket counter checking her dad out. She felt a flicker of pride that he was so hot.
There were a few cars parked outside, but when she saw the vehicle he was headed toward she cried out involuntarily. “Omigod, is that yours?” It was a cherry red, long ride that was so retro she felt like she needed big sunglasses and a silk headscarf tied under her chin to sit in it.
He chuckled. “Sure is. My pride and joy. This here’s a 1965 Corvette. You know anything about cars?”
“No,” she said, running her hand over a red fin.
“You drive?” he asked her.
“I just got my license,” she said, not without pride.
“All right then. Tomorrow, when you’ve got your bearings a little, you can drive.”
She smiled at him gratefully. She thought she’d probably be too nervous to drive his pride and joy, but it was nice he’d asked. They cruised down a busy street with the top down. She had an impression of noise and color and more glitz than one of her mother’s makeup conventions, but mostly all her attention was on the man beside her. The man she’d been dreaming about and weaving stories about since she was old enough to dream.
“Now tell me everything I’ve missed in the last sixteen years,” he shouted over the wind.
She held her long hair back in a fist to stop it whipping in her face. She wasn’t sure what to tell him. Her life seemed like a lot of not much, and she really doubted he wanted to know about when she got her first tooth or walked or what childhood diseases she’d suffered. Finally, she said, “I’m pretty good in school. I’m on the honor roll.”
He grinned over at her. His teeth were so white she suspected he had them professionally whitened. “Smart girl, huh? Good for you. You popular?”
Not even to impress her father would she lie. “No. Not really. I have a few friends, but …” She shrugged.
“You got a boyfriend?”
She snorted. “The boys in my school are complete losers. “She didn’t want him to think she was pathetic, though, or totally awkward around boys, even though she was. So she added, “I’ve had a couple of boyfriends, but there isn’t anyone now.”
“A pretty girl like you is only single by choice.”
She liked that notion, so she nodded as though it were true.
“You ever been to Vegas before?”
“No,” she said, reminded once again that he knew nothing about her, this man who was responsible for half of her genetic material.
“You are going to love it. It’s like a party all day and all night, every day. I work hard, don’t get me wrong, but I play hard too. I’ve got a lot of friends I want to introduce you to. Places I want you to see.”
He drove as though he didn’t have a destination and didn’t care. As though all he wanted to do in the world was cruise around talking to her. She thought about how crazy busy her mom always was and then felt a pang of guilt. She knew her mom would be pissed. Also worried. She’d have to email her the first chance she got.
“Is there an Internet café around here?”
He sent her a sharp look. “Honey, you’re on holiday. What do you need the Internet for?”
She hesitated. “I should email Mom and let her know I’m okay.”
He drove on for almost a block then said, “Why don’t you leave your mom to me. She’s already called and left a message.” He shot her a sideways glance. “I’m going to tell you right now, your mom ripped me a new one.” He shook his head. “I haven’t been called some of those names since, well, I guess since she threw me out back when you were a baby.”
Tiffany stared at him. She felt as though her world had tipped a little from its usual orbit. “Mom always told me you left us.”
He pulled over, wheeled the big car to the curb and stopped so he could turn to look at her, such sincerity in his eyes that she couldn’t look away. “How can you think that I would ever leave you?” He shook his head. “Now, your mom is a wonderful woman and I will not say one word against her. I admire what she’s done, I truly do. But, you know what they say. There’s two sides to every story. I’m not sa
ying your mother was wrong to throw me to the curb, and I’m not saying she was right. But I deserve a chance to get to know the child I never knew.”
“But . . . I . . . —She should have told me the truth.”
“I agree. But let’s not worry about that now. You hungry? I bet you are. I know a great place where the burgers are the best you’ll get outside our home state.” He pulled back into traffic while Tiffany’s mind reeled.
His cell phone rang a lot, she noted. Obviously, a ‘65 Corvette didn’t come equipped with Bluetooth, so he checked call display and either ignored the calls or took the calls while driving. A big no-no in driver’s ed.
Only one call caused him to pull over and stop the car.
“Dwayne Diamond,” he said in a fake cheerful voice that reminded her of the Lady Bianca ladies practicing cold calls. He glanced over at her and whispered, “I gotta take this. I’ll be a second.” Then he pushed open the car door and walked a ways down the sidewalk. He walked in front of a peep show, then a pawn shop and finally a discount liquor place, then he turned and paced back again. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she got the sense that he was getting some bad news.
She tried to interest herself in her surroundings, but she was getting a sense of unease deep in her stomach, the way she felt facing an exam she hadn’t studied enough for. He’d left the car engine running and his CD was playing, the same one she’d listened to coming in on the bus. As one track ended and there was a pause before the next began, she heard him snap, “Yeah, I’m on it. You’ll have your money You’ve got my word on that, sir.”
She wanted to ask him if everything was all right, but the second he was back in the car he started telling her about all the people he wanted her to meet. “My friends, they’re as excited as I am to have you back in my life.”
“Me, too,” she said.
He pulled the big car into a gravel lot outside a roadhouse called Buck’s Steakhouse. “Wait until you try the burgers. They do one with blue cheese and bacon that will knock your socks off.”
She climbed out of the car and followed him inside. The place was half-full. A woman with the platinum ringlets and freckles stood near the front. When she saw Dwayne, her face lit up. “Darlin’ Dwayne,” she cried and threw her arms around him giving him a big, smacking kiss right on the mouth.
“Marlene, I gotta introduce you to my daughter. This here’s Tiffany.”
Her round eyes grew rounder. “You got a kid?”
“Sure do.”
“Pleased to meet you,” she said, looking at Tiffany as though she couldn’t imagine how Dwayne had fathered someone so much less gorgeous than he was himself. “Right this way.”
She led them to a table near the bar. Dwayne said “Hi” or “Howdy” to half a dozen people before they were seated. The woman brought menus, but he motioned them away. “Two of the choicest burgers you got, the ones with the blue cheese and bacon.”
“Fries or salad?”
“Actually,” Tiffany said, “could I just have the salad?”
Dwayne stared at her. “You’re not some kind of vegetarian are you?” he asked in the same tone he’d use if she were an extraterrestrial, a zombie, or a communist.
“‘Fraid so.”
He shook his head. “I never would have thought any daughter of mine would become a vegetarian.”
“I can do you a dinner salad, no meat,” the waitress said.
“That would be great.”
“Well, I’ll have the burger. And bring us a couple of beers.”
The woman glanced at Tiffany, who was five years away from twenty-one, and said, “Sure thing.”
“What did you think of Marlene?” her dad asked when the woman left.
“Is she your girlfriend?”
“Hell, no.”
“Good because she looks like an Albino Raggedy Ann doll.” She wished she’d bitten her lip. Why did she always blurt out those stupid things? It was like she thought them and out they slipped.
But instead of being offended, her father threw back his head and laughed. “She does. That’s exactly what she looks like. Ha-ha.”
She sipped her beer slowly and ate her salad while her dad wolfed down his burger, tearing into it with strong, white teeth. He offered her a fry. “Or are you a frytarian too?” he teased.
She laughed and helped herself to his fries, dipping them into a blood-red pool of ketchup.
He finished his beer and ordered a second. “You want another?”
She shook her head. She liked beer but she didn’t want to get wasted on her first meeting with her father.
When they were done, Marlene appeared with the bill. “Put that on my tab, will you, honey?” he said. He pulled out a five and dropped it on the table. “And this is for you.”
“Oh, Dwayne,” she said, sounding less than thrilled, and she took the bill folder away with her, leaving the cash on the table.
“Okay, sweet pea. Let’s go,” he said, rising and pulling on his denim jacket.
“Dwayne!” a man called. “Hold up.”
Her father turned, held out his hand, looking delighted. “Holman! Good to see you.”
Holman grabbed the hand briefly. He held the bill folder in his hand. “Look, Dwayne, we can’t—”
“I want you to meet my daughter, Tiffany. She’s visiting her old dad for a few days. Isn’t she gorgeous?”
The guy named Holman stared at her with hard, black eyes. “You really his kid?”
“Yes.”
She felt a weird vibe between the two men and she didn’t like it. After a moment, when the guy named Holman fidgeted and mumbled under his breath, he finally said, “You’re right, Dwayne. She’s a beauty. Call me tomorrow.”
“Sure will, old buddy.”
“This town is all about who you know,” Dwayne told her as he started the car. “You see, I send a lot of business Holman’s way. He hasn’t let me pick up a dinner tab in months. That’s how it works in Vegas.”
“Oh.” Hadn’t looked that way to her.
“Now, I perform at a little club in a casino. I’d be honored if you’d come and watch your old man perform. Be a real thrill for me.”
“Yes. Of course. Sure.”
“The old homestead’s not much,” he warned, “but I’ve got all my capital tied up in a business venture. When the deal closes, the first thing I’m going to do is buy you your own convertible.”
“That’s okay. You don’t have to.”
“I’m your father. I want to. A smart girl like you, who works so hard at school, should have a reward.”
“Thanks.”
“Thanks what?”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“That’s better. You keep on calling me Dad. We’ve got a lot of time to catch up on.”
He turned and gave her his heart-melting grin.
Tiffany had never been to Vegas before. Well, truth was, she’d never been much of anywhere. A couple of lame school trips, a road trip to Florida with her mom and a truly humiliating pilgrimage to Dollywood in Tennessee for her grandmother’s birthday one year, that was about it. So, she was excited to see what all the fuss was about. Most of the musicians who’d played Vegas were legendary. Elvis, Sammy Davis Jr. and even Celine Dion. She knew her father wasn’t a legend, obviously, but she was ready to see him perform. Even try to get past her distaste for country music.
She hadn’t loved the tracks he’d sent her, but she suspected her dad was the kind of performer who was meant to sing live.
Slowly, he backed the Corvette out of its parking space and began to move forward. Then something hit the car with a crunching sound of metal on metal and she was thrown back against her seat. Her father’s smile turned to an expression of shock and rage. “What the hell?”
A black Cadillac had hit them. As Dwayne jumped out of the driver’s side door and strode over to the other vehicle, a red-faced guy got out. Dwayne stopped when he saw the guy. “What the hell, Grant? You could have kil
led me. And my daughter.”
Grant didn’t seem too concerned. “You got something of mine and I want it back. Next time I won’t play around.”
“I don’t know what that crazy wife of yours has been saying, but you know I would never—”
Two really big guys got out of the car, front and driver’s side. She didn’t like the look of them. They were like extras out of a thug movie. She grabbed her bag, scrabbling for her cell phone to call 9-1-1. In a panic her fingers grasped and searched, scraping over ancient pieces of gum and loose change, before she remembered she’d left her cell phone back at home.
“Help,” she screamed, already pushing open the car door, thinking to run into the restaurant. Even as she moved, the door to the restaurant opened and Marlene came out, followed by the owner.
In the slow motion horror of a dream she saw that scene from a bad thug movie get played out in front of her. The two guys stalked forward.
“Come on, guys,” Dwayne said. Then, “Grant!” before thug one grabbed his arms and thug two slugged him in the gut.
As he doubled over and his legs buckled, he cried out, “Not the face. Please. I gotta perform tonight.”
Chapter Four
“There is nothing safe about sex. There never will be.”
— Norman Mailer
Luke showed up at Toni’s that night with a pizza and a bottle of red wine. There were times in a woman’s life, Toni mused, when a man with a pizza box under his arm was a very welcome sight. Especially when the man was Luke Marciano.
He’d obviously stopped off at home to change, and when he pulled her in for a kiss, she could tell he’d showered. His hair was still a little damp and she could smell his shower gel.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“I’m okay. As much as I would like to slowly strangle Dwayne right now with one of his prized bolo ties, he is her father. He’s not going to let anything happen to her.”
Luke’s mouth twisted in a hastily suppressed grin. “Seriously? Bolo ties?”
