Praise for Heather Skyler’s
The Perfect Age
“Skillful, sensitive … traces the twin trajectories of a mother aching for change and her budding teenage daughter.”
—Elle
“Effortlessly graceful … astute.”
—Marisa Silver, New York Times bestselling author of Mary Coin
“A gorgeous debut.”
—Ann Hood, bestselling author of The Obituary Writer and The Red Thread
“A lovely, winning novel, full of moments of startling emotional truth.”
—Jessica Shattuck, author of The Hazards of Good Breeding
“Sultry, reflective … perfectly captures the languid heat of long Las Vegas summers and the irresistible temptations of love at any age.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[A] beautifully wrought coming-of-age story … rich, smart, and nuanced … brutally realistic and starkly honest.”
—Library Journal
“Sensitively explores family dynamics, particularly the line between privacy and secrecy.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A compulsively readable story.”
—Wisconsin Trails magazine, Editors Pick
“A compelling read.”
—YM
“An author to watch.”
—Spring Grove Herald (Minnesota)
Also by Heather Skyler
The Perfect Age
Copyright © 2016 by Heather Skyler
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.
First Edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].
Skyhorse® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.
Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Skyler, Heather, author.
Title: Vegas girls : a novel / Heather Skyler.
Description: First edition. | New York : Skyhorse Publishing, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016015717 (print) | LCCN 2016029530 (ebook) | ISBN 9781510710832 (hardback) | ISBN 9781510710856 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Female friendship--Fiction. | Secrets--Fiction. | Families--Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Contemporary Women. | FICTION / Family Life. | GSAFD: Bildungsromans.
Classification: LCC PS3619.K95 V44 2016 (print) | LCC PS3619.K95 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016015717
Cover design by Laura Klynstra
Printed in the United States of America
For the three most important women in my life: my mother, Juliet; my sister, Jennifer; and my daughter, Lux.
The past beats inside me like a second heart.
—The Sea, John Banville
MONDAY
IVY
Her first instinct was to try and hide. She was at one end of the frozen foods aisle, right by the ice cream, and Jeremy was down at the other end, peering into a freezer with a washed-out blonde in a long, flowing skirt clinging to his arm.
Ivy’s son, Lucas, was sitting in the front of her cart, chewing on a piece of torn-off French bread, happy for the moment, but who knew how long that would last. She pulled a gallon of chocolate out of the freezer, plunked it into the cart, then began to make her escape when she heard his voice behind her.
“Holy shit. Is that Ivy Jacobsen?”
She turned, and Jeremy and the blonde were standing in front of her. He was smiling, but the blonde looked out of it, her eyes watery and slightly bloodshot, stoned. He hadn’t changed that much since she’d seen him last, over ten years ago now at least. His black hair was still spiky from his days of trying to be a punk rocker, and while she was happy to note that he no longer wore his customary black eyeliner, his eyes still gleamed a bright, cracked-glass green. His body was as lean and wiry as it had always been, and he wore his same uniform of black T-shirt and skinny black jeans. A silver chain around his neck held a green pendant partially covered by his shirt, and Ivy couldn’t decide whether it was a marijuana leaf or a turtle.
“Hey Jeremy,” she said, trying to sound surprised and pleased. “Wow, what are you doing here?”
“Um, I live here. Remember?” He laughed. “You’re the one who moved away.”
“Right, of course. I meant on this side of town.”
“Slumming,” he said, then both he and the woman beside him laughed. “Taking in the lame part of town.”
“That’s for sure,” the woman added in a low, smoky voice.
It’s all lame, Ivy thought, but said, “We moved back to Las Vegas a year ago. Frank’s mom was dying.” She nodded grimly, then added, “She’s dead now.” Her words floated out and hung over the head of her child, making her feel like a crass, terrible mother. This was her son’s grandmother she was talking about. The good one.
“Sorry to hear that, about Frank’s mom,” Jeremy said.
His tone was sincere, gentle, and Ivy recalled with sudden clarity the kindness he had often shown her, the tender way he’d cradled her in the old blue chair after her mother ran away. The peanut butter cookies he made for her with a chocolate kiss pressed into each one’s center.
“So who is this little pudgeball?” he asked, leaning to peer into Lucas’s face. He straightened up, then added, “This is Gretchen.”
The woman nodded. “Pleasure,” she said, in a mildly sarcastic tone.
Ivy introduced Lucas, who would be one this weekend, then tickled his chin to make him smile. “We call him Lucky,” Ivy added, then immediately wished she hadn’t. The revelation of her son’s pet name struck her as too intimate.
“Lucky,” Jeremy seemed to roll the name around in his mouth, tasting the flavor. “That’s a really cool nickname.” He smiled the crooked, flirtatious half-smile he’d cultivated in high school. “Though that sort of seems like something you should name a cat.”
“Our cat’s name is Ferdinand,” she told him, hearing for the first time how ridiculous that sounded. A cat named after a bull from a children’s book. A baby named after a cat.
“Still married to old what’s his name?”
“Yep,” Ivy said. “I guess my dad was wrong. It was smart of me to marry my high school sweetheart after all.”
“I thought I was your high school sweetheart,” Jeremy said, leaning closer.
She laughed again and glanced at Lucky, then Gretchen. Neither one appeared to be paying attention to this conversation. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I guess you were.”
He held her gaze for a moment, then said, “I heard you were working for a big drug company or something.”
“Oh, I was in sales at Elysian for about five years or so. I just quit to stay home with Lucky.”
“Selling drugs.” He smiled again. “Did I make it on your resume as a mentor or something?”
She frowned. “Very funny.”
“Hey,” Gretchen said as she tugged at Jeremy’s arm. “Let’s get out of here. I’m starved.”
“O
kay,” he said, glancing down at her as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Motherhood suits you,” he told Ivy. “You look great.” He reached into his back pocket, then pressed a card into her hand. “Keep in touch,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said, sliding the card into her back pocket without a look, and watched as they turned and walked away, back down the frozen foods aisle, Jeremy swinging the empty red basket beside him.
Back home, Ivy warmed up some brown rice mush for Lucky, then made a cheese sandwich for herself, feeling jangled and off-kilter from her run-in with Jeremy. Every day, something here reminded her of her old life, the one she’d left almost twenty years ago when she moved to Wisconsin to go to school. Usually it was only something small: the sight of a bright pink oleander bush, the dry smell of creosote, a locust shell clinging to the mulberry tree out front. She realized that despite having been back in Las Vegas for a year now, this was the first time she’d run into an actual person from her old life.
She had agreed to move back here only if they could live as far away from her former neighborhood as possible. She never wanted to see that old apartment building again, never wanted to drive past the Charleston Mall, now called something else, never wanted to eat at El Burrito, never wanted to hang out in Jaycee Park, never wanted to risk running into her mother, though who knew where she was living now—maybe as far away as Paris.
Despite the fact that they were only renting this house, the move now felt permanent. Frank had been offered a job he loved, principal of Grant Elementary School, and now that Frank’s mother was dead, Frank’s father would be bereft without them.
This was how Ivy found herself in a part of Las Vegas called Anthem where every house was new and looked exactly the same: stucco, red tile roof, swimming pool, cactus garden, palm trees. Frank loved all of it: the warm weather, the pool, the nearby mountains, the lizards and snakes and wide streets. It was definitely a “nice” neighborhood for Lucky, Ivy had to agree, but it was sterile, lifeless.
Through the window over the sink she could see a mourning dove sitting on the branch of the acacia tree. She considered picking up Lucky and carrying him to the window to see the bird—this is something she would typically do—but she couldn’t summon the energy.
After lunch and cleaning up the dishes in the sink, Ivy remembered the card Jeremy had given her and took it out of her back pocket, staining it with warm water and soap. Black gothic letters in the center of the sky blue card read: JEREMY BURNHAM, CATERER. Beneath that there was a phone number, email, and website.
Frank had tried to convince her to hire a caterer for Lucky’s birthday party since the guest list—mostly adults with a few toddlers and infants thrown in—was nearing fifty already. She had argued against the expense, pointing to her own skills in the kitchen plus the fact that people mostly just want cake and booze at parties. But now, holding the card in her damp hands, she considered the idea.
She imagined Jeremy walking through the sliding glass doors carrying a tray of food, sitting down in the hot sun to pass out his peanut butter chocolate kiss cookies. He would look out of place in his black outfit. She would feel uncomfortable around him in her bathing suit. Frank would interject some sort of snide comment about the food, or Jeremy’s clothes or demeanor, anything that offered the opportunity for mild, sideways ridicule.
No, it would be a bad idea to invite an ex-boyfriend back into her life, to invite a person who’d caused her so much trouble and heartache. Jeremy had always been able to persuade her to do things against her essential nature, and she could feel his tug now, even from the small blue rectangle in her hands. She shook her head and set the card on the small shelf above the kitchen sink, unwilling to put it in the garbage can where it belonged. She could show it to Jane later; that was reason enough to keep it. They could laugh together about the idea of him catering a kid’s birthday party. What would he make? Mini pot brownies? Tiny shot glasses of rum?
JANE
It began to snow. Bluish-white flakes as big as moths landed on the new grass of the backyard, then disappeared. Jane watched through the kitchen window with disbelief. She’d been planning to wear sandals on the plane.
In the living room she could hear Rocky and Fern trying to wake Adam to say good-bye. She should go and say her good-byes too, but the snow held her, its strangeness this late in the year unsettling, somehow sinister. A robin hopped out from beneath the redbud tree and looked up at the sky, then spread its wings and lifted into the air.
In the living room, Jane found her children hovering over their father’s sleeping form. The two of them looked like urchins with their straggly hair and smudged, puffy coats. Fern’s purple tights held in her chunky, child’s legs like sausage casings. Jane thought she had combed their hair, and she had definitely washed their coats just last week, but their grubbiness persisted.
Adam stirred beneath their gaze but didn’t wake, so Jane moved to shake his shoulder. His skin was pale from the long winter, and the shadow of beard on his chin only served to emphasize his handsomeness, which annoyed her.
This morning in the mirror her own face had been drawn and tired, the pink stripe she’d added to her blonde hair after getting fired last week an obvious mistake. Its brightness broadcast her neediness, her desire to live another life.
“Adam,” she said in her normal voice, shaking his shoulder again. “The kids want to kiss you good-bye.”
He stirred then and opened his eyes, which were blue and surprisingly clear despite his bad habits, namely, drinking too much and sleeping too little. He smiled and reached for Fern, who was closer, then pulled her against him in a hug. Rocky perched on the futon beside him, and was given the second hug. “Your turn, Mom,” Rocky said, when the kids were both standing again.
She bent to kiss her husband on the cheek, but he reeked of beer, and she could only bring herself to kiss the air beside him. He gave her a wry smile, and she shrugged, then said, “See you in a week, I guess.”
Jane worried that the flight would be canceled, but it wasn’t even delayed, and she wondered if she’d imagined the snow, but there it was when she leaned to push up the rigid shade, still moving past the plane’s window as they waited for takeoff.
Their seats were near the back of the plane. Jane had an aisle, Rocky was beside her in the middle seat, and Fern was flying free of charge on Jane’s lap. The cutoff for flying on a grown-up’s lap was age two, but Jane had lied about Fern, who had turned three several months ago but was small for her age, in order to save money. It looked as if they might luck out and the window seat would be vacant, but right before the doors closed, a tall, middle-aged man with thinning gold hair scooted in beside them.
Jane nodded hello and the man nodded back, then looked at Rocky who was making soft explosion sounds. Up close she saw the man was younger than she’d thought, perhaps closer to her own age, thirty-six.
“I didn’t expect to see any kids on this flight,” the man said in a jovial way.
“Why is that?” Jane asked.
“Well, Las Vegas,” he shrugged and raised his palms. “Not much of a family destination, is it?” His voice was crisp, with the jauntiness of a Brit’s but he didn’t have a trace of accent as far as she could tell.
“I’m from there,” she said, trying to sound conversational rather than irritated. “Don’t worry, you won’t run into us at the craps tables.”
He smiled slightly, and she saw that he had terrible teeth. For some reason this cheered her. “Craps isn’t my game either,” he said. “Just going for a friend’s bachelor party. Which isn’t really my thing either. But he’s a friend.” The man shrugged again, then buckled himself in and pulled a magazine out of his briefcase. Jane tried to see the cover, wanting to know what he was reading, thinking it would tell her something essential about his personality, but he held it on his lap in such a way that it was impossible.
As the plane rose into the air at last, Jane felt a lessening of the pressure in her chest: t
hey’d made it. The plane lifted, floating past the snow, tunneling through the heavy clouds, until finally they emerged into yellow sunshine. It came through the window, warm and reassuring as a hand on her shoulder. It occurred to her that she hadn’t felt the sun on her face like this in many days, and she looked forward to the week ahead. She would spend as much time as possible lying beside Ivy’s pool, absorbing enough heat and light into her skin to slough away this past winter, which still clung to her like a living creature, something damp and cold with a haze of gray fur.
“I’m hungry,” Fern told her, so Jane retrieved a bag of goldfish crackers from her bag and handed them over. Fern pushed it away with a frown, so Jane dug out the chocolate chip cookies and handed her two, hoping the rush of sugar would put her to sleep in an hour.
An elderly woman wearing giant glasses sat across the aisle, and she leaned close to Fern now and said, “Isn’t that a yummy breakfast?”
Jane nodded, offering the old woman a wan smile. Her voice was sugary, but Jane could tell her words were meant to judge. That was a Wisconsin specialty, saying things to kids that were meant to be a jab at the parents. Jane could still remember carrying Rocky in the Baby Bjorn around the Art Fair on the Square on a humid summer day, and the older woman who had leaned into his face and said, “Oh, you look so hot in there.” The woman never met Jane’s gaze, just talked to the baby on her chest, then walked away.
Maybe she was being unfair, calling it a Wisconsin specialty. Perhaps old women everywhere offered up criticism in this way. She suspected, however, that if she still lived in Las Vegas no one would ever speak directly to her babies. And would this be any better?
She could hear the couple in the row in front of her talking softly. “Wait until we get to the hotel,” a woman’s voice said.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” she said firmly, though her words were followed by a laugh.
Jane imagined they might be on their honeymoon, and an image of her own honeymoon, spent in a top floor of the Flamingo hotel flashed through her: She stood undressed in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, Adam behind her, holding on to her hips. Las Vegas had been a dusky pink in the early morning light, soft and lovely in a way it never was from a regular vantage point during an ordinary time of day. Her life, in that moment, had felt uncomplicated, gauzy with love.
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