“Where are we?” His voice was tight, controlled, his face stiff to match.
“My mother’s house,” I whispered.
Teeth grinding, he rolled his eyes and released me. “Your mother’s house. Your mother who lives in Las Vegas?”
“Yes.”
“The city you suggested.”
“Yes,” I squeaked.
Nate nodded and put his hands on his hips. Kicking a rock from under his foot, he continued his interrogation. “This is a good idea why?”
I opened my mouth and closed it, saying nothing. He sighed again, disgust flying off him. For several long moments he just stood there, shaking his head, working out something in his man brain that made his jaw work. I took a quick peek around to see if anyone was paying attention to our little domestic dispute. All appeared to be quiet.
Finally, one finger traced my arm, making me flinch. “I’m sorry. I probably bruised you.”
In more ways than one. He pulled me into an urgent embrace, turning my already raddled brains to mush. “Don’t do this again. I can’t help you if I don’t know where you are.” His breath stirred the hair on top of my head.
“Samantha?” We jerked apart and turned to face Diego, my mother’s young, hot, young, dancer, blond, hot, young husband—a full garbage bag in his hand. Diego smiled. “Hey! Why do you have red hair?”
My return smile was wan. “Hi, Diego. Is my mother home?”
“Yeah, Suzie’s inside. Do you actually have a boyfriend? That’s my girl!” Diego had a habit of treating me like a surrogate daughter, which was only creepy because he was younger than me.
I stole a glance at Nate. Nate narrowed his eyes, but grabbed my hand in a boyfriendy manner and marched towards the white door of the happy yellow house. Diego had left it open. I knocked a few times and went on in.
“Mom?”
Bustling around the corner came Suzie Lytton, the Blanche Deveraux of Las Vegas. Perky, pretty, playful—Suzie was an older copy of me, only blonder. And happier. And thinner. Dressed in pink clam diggers, a pink button-down tied in front and pink kitten heels, she swished like a swizzle stick.
“Samantha!” she squeaked in a Southern drawl and gave me a dainty hug, barely squeezing me. “What are you doing here?”
“Hi, Mom.” I hugged back, sinking into Suzie’s smell—powder, lilac and the illusion that Mom could make everything all better.
Suzie released me and picked up a lock of my hair with two horrified fingers. “Red?” I cracked a hopeful smile. Cocking her head, Suzie laughed. “I hope that’s not permanent.”
“Um”—I kept smiling—“no. It’s just for fun.”
“Oooookaaay.” The word dipped and peaked like a rollercoaster. Suzie turned to Nate, who’d slunk bravely into the corner amongst Suzie’s Gone with the Wind collection of porcelain dolls, complete with burning Atlanta. “Who is this? Your kidnapper?”
Nate flashed a megawatt, winning, moms-love-me smile and said, “Do I look like a kidnapper?”
I choked on my own spit.
Suzie tittered. “No way! I knew the police made a mistake. I mean, who would kidnap Samantha?” She laughed more, hands flapping and gaze bouncing between the two of us for confirmation.
I swallowed, my eyes bulging. Here it comes. I braced for impact. Three, two, one—
“So, honey, have you had any acting jobs lately?” Suzie turned to Nate and added conspiratorially, “Samantha thinks she’s an actress.”
Nate’s eyebrows rose while his brain attempted to dissect her last sentence. I sank into myself the way I’d spent my entire high school career doing.
He decided to parry. “I’m Sam,” he said, holding out his hand to Suzie.
“Sam. Oh! That’s cute! Sam and Samantha. I’m Suzie.” Suzie used to be Susan, back in North Carolina. Suzie paused, surveying him head to toe a bit too thoroughly. “How in the world did Samantha catch someone like you?” Suzie laughed merrily as Nate floundered in confusion. “Did you meet my husband Diego?”
“Y—” Nate did a double-take. “Husband?”
“Yes,” agreed Diego, coming into the living room and grabbing Suzie’s ass. Suzie chirped. Wishing for death, I sank onto the sofa. Nate joined me and drummed his fingers on his knees. Diego sat in an easy chair as Suzie toppled into his lap.
An anvil settled on my chest. Why had I come here? Because I’d forgotten. Because I began to miss her when I hadn’t seen her in a while, and then she one-two’d me with her metaphorical fists of failure.
“Are you okay?” Nate whispered, putting his arm around my shoulder.
My smile was the worst piece of acting I’d ever done. “Sure.”
“Samantha, why are the police telling me you have been kidnapped? I hope you’re not wasting their time.” Suzie twitched her eyebrows in the direction of a forehead that did not wrinkle. At all.
“It’s just a mix-up. But”—I leant forward—“could you please not tell anyone I’ve been here? Please?”
“Samantha, perhaps you should talk to the authorities, young lady,” Diego intoned. He must have been taking notes during reruns of Leave It To Beaver.
“Of course.” Nate pulled me back to sit in the crook of his arm. “She already has. It’s a huge misunderstanding. We don’t want anything confused by you getting involved, so it’s better not to mention we were here. I have everything under control with the police.” Nate, King of Bullshit, presented a stern, manful face to Suzie, who batted her eyelashes at my handsome boyfriend.
“Sure, Sam. Whatever you say.” Suzie toyed with the beads in her nubile-for-her-age cleavage. It was new—a wedding gift from Diego. I didn’t begrudge her the new set of tits. After all, I’d ruined the old ones with my incessant need to eat.
Nate walloped her with a pair of green peepers and a dimple. “Thank you, Suzie.”
Suzie nearly plotzed.
“So, Mom, how are you?” I tore my eyes away from Suzie’s trembling beads and found my voice again.
“Oh, I’m great! Diego just got a new show at the Mirage.”
“Congratulations.” I smiled at Diego, who rubbed Suzie’s knee.
“Yeah, it’s a lead.” He nodded and flexed.
Suzie nodded, “Of course it’s a lead! We only have winners in this house!” She and her husband fist-bumped.
“Of course,” I agreed. I elbowed Nate, who vaguely joined the nodding as he cased Suzie’s living room, awash in pulsating pinks and yellows. Kissing, frolicking flamingos lined shelves above overstuffed floral furniture that was too hard for comfort. One flamingo was dressed in a Jazzercise outfit, including crocheted legwarmers. Beside him—her?—were the Beatles, with John Lennon sporting wee eyeglasses and standing on one leg.
I stood up quickly from the sofa—fashionable in 1986—briefly losing my balance, but catching myself on a fringed lampshade. “Well, we gotta be getting on.”
“You just got here!” Suzie arranged herself into a ‘silly you’ pose. “I’ll get us some drinks, and then you can tell me why you’re letting yourself go that way. A few pounds can make the difference between getting a Sam and keeping one. Do we need to have the makeup discussion again? Mascara should be your best friend, otherwise people will think you’re a lesbian.” Suzie’s rail-thin self sashayed into the kitchen, Diego at its heels.
“My best friend is a lesbian,” I called. “And she wears mascara.” No reply. I slumped as well as I was able into the terrible couch cushions, staring like a zombie.
“Holy shit.” Nate grabbed my hand.
“Yes.” I squeezed back.
“Does she—?”
“Every time.”
“Then why are we here?”
“Because she’s my mother.” My face fell into my hands.
Nate collected me into his lap, despite my protesting glance towards the kitchen. Turning my chin, he bored into my eyes and whispered, “After we leave bizarro world, we are going to the nearest lingerie store so I can cover your ‘letting yourse
lf go’ ass with the sexiest piece of nothing money can buy, just to strip it off you later.”
I grinned and buried my face in his neck, a surge of heat flowing through me in a southerly direction, as was only proper for a Southern girl.
His breath teased my ear. “We’ll shop for shoes. Pretty ones. Ones I cannot afford.”
I laughed and stole a glance at him. The look in his eyes was purely male, predatory, brimming with ownership. He kissed me then, teasing my lips open with his own, full of the promise of a long, leisurely escapade ahead.
“Hey, watch that, kids.” Diego chuckled. We pulled apart with a jerk, and I slid off Nate’s lap.
Suzie followed soon after, bearing a tray full of cocktails. “Bloody Mary?” she twinkled at Nate.
“It’s ten a.m.,” he replied, eyebrows up.
“I’ll take one.” I grabbed one off the tray and sucked down half of it under Nate’s surprised gaze.
Drinks clutched in hand, we all smiled awkwardly at each other.
“So what about your acting career, dear?” Suzie said ‘acting career’ in air quotes three feet tall.
“Nothing lately, Mom.” Another quarter of the Bloody Mary sloshed down the hatch.
“Well, that’s to be expected. It’s a tough business—unless you’re beautiful, of course.”
I silenced Nate with a hand on his knee. He frowned, but contented himself with slurping his drink.
Suzie angled her legs towards Nate and asked me, “Did you tell your boyfriend I was a model?”
“No, I forgot. My mom is a model.”
“I have a modelling talent agent here in Las Vegas. I shot a brochure for a yogurt place last week.”
“That’s great,” Nate murmured.
“They put Suzie in the thirty-five to forty-five age range.” Diego leaned over the arm of his cheery pink chair and took Suzie’s hand.
I averted my eyes as Diego stroked my mother’s elbow and made a kissy face at her.
“So,” Nate said too loudly. “Modelling.”
“Yes, I enjoy it. I finally feel like I’m living the life I was meant to live. Hopefully our little Samantha can do the same. Some day.” Suzie smiled at little Samantha, who finished her little Bloody Mary. “What do you do, Sam?”
“I’m a doctor.” My eyes grew three sizes. “An oncologist.”
Suzie squealed. “Really? A doctor! I bet you’re always surrounded by tall, sexy nurses!”
“Yes, Mom, they follow him home and perform nude gymnastics on his lawn to gain his favour.” I grabbed the Bloody Mary out of Nate’s hand and took a pull.
Suzie grimaced at me, her lips pursing. “I’m sorry, Sam. Sarcasm is the lowest form of humour. Besides jokes about”—her voice fell to a whisper—“farts. I read that in Oprah’s magazine. So, how did you meet my daughter?”
“Well, Mom—can I call you Mom?”
Face falling as much as the botox would allow, Suzie said, “Sure.”
“Great. Well, Mom, I was walking down the street one day and passed Samantha. I was so struck by her astonishing natural beauty and sexual charisma I stopped, got on my knees right there on the sidewalk and begged for her phone number. I haven’t let my darling out of my sight since.”
Diego’s jaw dropped. Suzie’s mouth formed a perfect O of surprise. I lit up in an impish grin, put my cocktail on the table and gave Nate a boozy kiss. A happy dimple rewarded my efforts, if not my Bloody Mary breath.
“Isn’t that nice.” Suzie nodded, yet appeared to be confused.
I threw my head back and let out great guffaws of laughter.
Nate, smiling, took my hand. “We should probably get going. I need to go buy Samantha a lot of expensive shoes, among other things.” He liberated my cocktail and hauled me unceremoniously to my feet.
I gave the dazed Suzie a hug. “I love you, Mom. I’ll try to lose five pounds.”
“I love you too, dear. You should go for ten. A good manicure wouldn’t hurt you. And please get rid of that whorish hair colour.” She leaned close to my ear and loudly whispered, “Doctors don’t marry fake redheads!”
Nate shuffled me out of the door with a sigh of relief.
“Are you drunk on one Bloody Mary?” He laughed in amazement as we squinted in the bright Las Vegas sun.
“I’m a cheap date. It’s part of my charm.” I threw my arms around Nate’s neck and rubbed against him. “Well, that and my whorish hair.”
Nate grunted and pulled back. “You should stop. This is a nice family neighbourhood.”
“Are we going for slutty underwear now?”
“Yes,” he agreed, his eyes luscious and his voice deep. “Yes, we are. But nothing in pink.”
* * * *
Piles of frothy, useless lingerie were charged to the card of one Samuel Bennett, wielded by one Nate Brown. I, slightly headachey, yet having a wonderful time, guiltily pushed stolen-credit-card wonderings out of my head and smiled as gorgeous lace, chiffon and satin lingerie sets flew into a tissue-filled bag.
“You should have let me into the dressing room with you,” whispered Nate warmly into my ear with a squeeze to my backside.
I shivered from the ear tickle. “The sales woman was watching. Besides, it’s fun to torture you and make you wait.” I tugged at my bottom lip with my teeth, deliberately taunting him. The sales lady still watched. And rolled her eyes. And snorted in disgust. I was half of one of those couples people hate, and I loved it.
Sweaty tourists jostled us outside the store. Amidst the human traffic inside the mall at Caesar’s Palace, Nate roughly pulled me in and kissed me. Delicious anticipation flowed from his lips to mine. “Back to the hotel?” he asked hopefully. Mossy green pools of lust enveloped me.
I shook it off. “No. I need a dress.”
“We just bought you all the clothing you need.” Impervious to watching stares, he tugged me against his pelvis. I did not mind. Maybe the hair dye really had deposited ‘whore’ along with ‘red’.
I revelled in a hormone-and-Bloody-Mary-fuelled sense of power. Toying with the neck of his shirt, I explained, “I need a dress because you’re taking me out.”
His eyebrows came together. “Why am I doing that?”
“Because you didn’t pack me a dress from my apartment.” I took a step back. “Now, I am a feminist who does not typically allow men to buy me clothes, and then have their way with me. But! Seeing as I have been forcibly removed from my wallet and its funds, I must rely on you for the moment. Or Mister Bennett. Whoever that is.”
Nate groaned. “Alcohol makes you chatty.” He said the word ‘chatty’ as if it were ‘nuclear winter’.
I made a rude gesture.
“I meant”—Nate grabbed my errant finger—“why am I taking you out?”
I made a theatrical show of being very, super perturbed. “You are taking me out because—because!”
“Oh, that clears it up. All right, come on. I’m sure there’s some cleavage-baring thing I can pour you into, Gloria Steinem.” Grabbing my hand in the alarming boyfriendy manner he had employed at my mother’s house, he led me down the twisting lanes past the cheapo shops and into Michael Kors.
My eyes grew wide. I felt like I’d walked into a chick lit book. Next I would pose with a cosmo and faux-complain about my improbable job in fashion. I pulled back and protested, “No, I can’t let you drop this kind of money. Especially with a stolen credit card. The underwear was bad enough.” I flushed with belated shame.
Nate’s face soured into a grimace. “Can you please say ‘stolen credit card’ louder?” he hissed, quickly flashing a charming smile at a passing shopper. “It’s not, so shut up and put on something pretty.”
“It’s not?”
“No.” Nate shoved a black silk shantung sheath into my hand.
I blinked. “So,” I paused for dramatic effect, “is your name really Samuel Bennett?”
“Try again, Drunky.” He added a gorgeous polka dot dress to my pile. “I have more names
than you have annoying habits. Doesn’t mean I don’t pay the bills. Put this on. Now.”
“Okay. Saaaaaaam.” I said the name long and slow, as a proper lover would.
Nate gave me a little shove towards the dressing room. “You’re not half as cute as you think you are.”
“Oh, no!” Reality slammed into me like an unpaid bill. “That means we really are Sam and Sam.”
“You will drive me insane, you know that? Nate will do fine.” He threw up his hands and stalked away into the next row. The furious sound of clacking hangers followed in his wake. Pert sales persons swarmed nearby, giving me dirty looks, which was very unfair. A moment later, Nate returned. “Try on this one, too.” This one was red.
The red one should have clashed with my hair, but it didn’t. I turned around and around in the dressing room, feeling like sex on a stick—all tight curves and stacked assets. With undisguised female glee, I observed his jaw drop when I emerged from the changing room.
“We’ll take it,” he stuttered to the associate.
Chapter Ten
Wearing My Heart on My Cleavage
In the end, Sam/Nate/Sam purchased genuine designer grey pants and a blue button-down for himself, causing his non-stolen credit card to spontaneously combust. Such was the American way, even for crooks.
He donned said outfit while I put on makeup and marvelled at myself much too much in the vanity. I perched in an ivory silk bra and panties, garter belt and seamed stockings, feeling like a bona fide Vegas Vargas girl.
Nate studied my every movement and buttoned his shirt three times before he got it right. “Are you sure you don’t just want to order room service again?”
“Yes.” I stood up and bent over to blow out my hair.
Whimpering, he turned a stiff back to me. And maybe a stiff something else. Ba dum dum.
Flipping upright, I brushed through my new red hair, put on my new red dress and felt like the sexiest woman in the history of the world. Except for Sophia Loren. Even I would hit that.
“Are you ready?” I touched Nate, who sat on the bed and concentrated on the television with glassy eyes, on the shoulder.
The Dimple of Doom (Samantha Lytton) Page 12
