Vegas Girls

by Heather Skyler

  “You’re crazy,” Ivy said, and the three of them all started to laugh.

  When Jeremy appeared through the sliding glass doors with a Tupperware container a moment later, the three of them were laughing even harder.

  “What’d I miss?” Jeremy asked.

  “Nothing.” Ivy waved a hand through the air. “Inside joke.”

  “I was reminding Ivy of what an asshole you are,” Ramona said.

  He smiled uncertainly, and Ivy shook her head. “She’s kidding.”

  Jeremy nodded and lifted the lid of the Tupperware to reveal three neat rows of peanut butter cookies with candy kisses pressed into their centers. Ramona looked at Ivy, who had begun to tear up, so she called Jane’s kids out of the pool to come and eat the cookies, to distract her sentimental friend.

  “You remembered,” Ivy said to Jeremy, picking up a cookie.

  “Of course,” he told her.

  For a moment, it looked as if Ivy and Jeremy were together in a private room, and Ramona watched them with a deep sense of foreboding. She remembered the night Ivy had found him with another girl at the park by their apartment building. He and the girl had been lying together inside the tunnel slide, the girl’s pants pushed down around her ankles. Ivy had run to Ramona’s apartment sobbing, calling out for her at the top of her lungs until Ramona answered the door and Ivy fell against her.

  Somehow they had gotten back together after that night, but Jeremy had failed her again and again: cheating on her, showing up on her doorstep half out of his mind on drugs, leaving town for a week without letting her know. Ramona had a list of the grievances in her mind but she wasn’t sure Ivy had the same list. She wasn’t sure Ivy really remembered how awful he had been.

  “So what’s your story, Jeremy?” Ramona asked. “Did you ever get married? Have kids? Go to college? Not necessarily in that order.”

  “Ramona,” Ivy scolded. “He’s not here for an interview.”

  “Actually, he sort of is,” Jane said.

  “No, it’s all right,” Jeremy said, then sank down in an empty chair under the umbrella and stretched out his legs. “Married once, a million years ago. No kids. No college. I cooked in restaurants after high school and started doing this on my own about two years ago. It’s actually going really well. I quit my day job about six months ago.”

  “So that wasn’t your wife I saw you with yesterday?” Ivy asked.

  “Her?” He waved a hand through the air dismissively. “We hang out off and on. More off than on I’d say. She’s not really my type.”

  “So your career as a punk rocker never took off?” Ramona asked him. She could hear how mean she was being, how invasive, but couldn’t seem to stop herself. It felt instinctual to drive him away.

  “No,” he laughed. “We were terrible, I admit it. I hear you made it all right though. I actually bought your first album. Not my thing really, but I could appreciate the artistry of it.”

  Ramona sat down, still holding onto Lucky, and began to bounce him on her knee. “Thanks,” she said.

  “Are you going to do another one?” he asked.

  “Working on it now.”

  “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

  She shrugged and could feel everyone watching her. “A few years.” She didn’t add that the indie label, which had released her first album, had gone bust, her drummer had a baby and quit the band, and the bass player had recently gone back to school to study patent law. Now it was just her and Eric, but they were the core really, and both of them still enjoyed sitting on his porch in Long Beach writing songs, though playing in local clubs was starting to get old. Luckily, she raked in a decent income teaching private guitar and piano lessons.

  Lucky suddenly began to cry, a long piercing wail she’d never heard from him before, and Ramona quickly handed him to Ivy, who excused herself to put him down for his nap.

  Ramona expected Jeremy to leave since Ivy was gone, but he reached for a cupcake and popped it into his mouth. “What’s it take to get a drink around here?” he asked, looking first at Ramona, then Jane.

  “I’ll grab you one,” Jane said, standing up. “Beer?”

  He nodded and she disappeared through the sliding glass doors. Fern and Rocky were back in the pool now, and Ramona watched them closely.

  “Was it something I said?” Jeremy asked Ramona, smirking just enough to reveal his dimple.

  She realized she’d been frowning over at the pool and turned to him now, willing herself to relax, to forget who he had once been. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Sorry for grilling you. It’s just being back here, I guess. I’m not very fond of this city.”

  “Oh, c’mon. It’s not so bad. There’s some really cool clubs now and more of an art and music scene. There’s even a museum at the Bellagio. It’s much better than when we grew up.”

  She shrugged. “Okay, I’ll take your word for it.”

  “You know, I think I saw your mom a couple of months ago. Does she still work at the Golden Nugget?”

  Ramona shook her head. “She died six years ago.”

  “Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

  “It’s all right.” She had booked a room at the Golden Nugget for the night, wanting a place of her own for this trip, for the search she was about to begin. Jane and Ivy still didn’t know that she wouldn’t be staying here with them.

  Jeremy shook his head slowly. “Remember all those times me, you, and Ivy hung out at your place?”

  “Drinking my mom’s wine.”

  “Exactly. Remember that time she came home and caught us? She was so cool about it, didn’t even scream and yell like my mom would have. She just took the empty bottles off the table and put them on the kitchen counter, then asked me and Ivy to leave.”

  “Then she yelled. At me,” Ramona said, though the truth was she couldn’t remember her mother ever really yelling. Instead, she exuded an air of disappointment, of utter silence and contempt, which managed to be worse than any shouting.

  Ramona would have done anything to make it up to her, to have her forgiveness.

  Jane emerged from the dim house holding three beers and passed them around. Ramona shook her head and handed hers back, wondering how long it would take for someone to ask why she wasn’t drinking.

  Jane set the third beer between her and Jeremy. “We can share this one,” she said.

  He nodded. “Perfect. Wow, this tastes good.” He tilted his head back and took a long swallow. Ramona watched him, noticing that he had aged slightly. She could see it in the lines around his mouth, the worn look of his hands around the glass bottle of beer. Still, he was mostly intact, a perfect relic of her past.

  By the time Ivy came back outside, Jane and Jeremy had finished off the three beers and the kids were settled onto their towels, laid out neatly by Jeremy alongside the edge of the pool. Fern lay facedown on her belly, and Ramona guessed she was asleep, thinking it was fortunate she had Jane’s olive skin so she wouldn’t burn to a crisp out here. Rocky, however, was another story. He had his father’s pale skin, and his shoulders were turning lightly pink. Jane seemed to notice this at the same time because she called him over and held him on her lap in the shade of the umbrella.

  “You need some more sunscreen,” Jane told him. “Or maybe a break.”

  “Why don’t I set the kids up inside with a movie?” Ivy suggested. “Then we can hang out and finish off these samples. Lucky will be out for a couple hours,” she added.

  “Actually,” Jeremy said, standing. “I have to take off. I’ve got a gig at the Rotary Club tonight. Just desserts, but still, a lot of them.”

  Ramona could see disappointment spread across Ivy’s face like a shadow, but her friend smiled and said, “Okay, I’ll walk you out.”

  When they were gone, Ramona turned to Jane and said, “This is a bad idea, you know. Her spending time with him.”

  “No,” Jane shook her head. “It’s fine. Since when did you become such a worrier? He’
s changed anyway. Maybe they can become friends so Ivy doesn’t feel so alone here. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.”

  “Don’t you think that would bother Frank?”

  Jane shook her head. “Nope, not at all. Frank is secure. That’s always been one of his best qualities. Besides, Ivy loves him like crazy.”

  “Who do I love like crazy?” Ivy asked, walking back onto the patio.

  “Frank,” Jane told her.

  “Oh, I do. That’s true.” She smiled, then ate one of the cupcakes.

  Later, after dinner and books and bedtime rituals, Ramona drove the three of them downtown for a drink. It was a little after eight o’clock and the sun was gone, but its light still tinted the sky a pale tangerine. Shredded rose-colored clouds were scattered along the horizon like petals. Ramona’s duffel bag still sat in the trunk of her Mustang, and she planned to call a cab later for Jane and Ivy, then check into her hotel room at the Golden Nugget. They would try and talk her out of it again, she knew, but she looked forward to the single, empty room with its absence of smells or personality, its utter lifeless quiet.

  They parked in the Golden Nugget’s lot, then walked outside and up the road to Fremont Street. Ramona had heard about the Fremont Street Experience, basically a giant arched screen that now covered the entire length of the street, but seeing it was more depressing than she’d thought it would be. The covering shut out the darkening sky. It dampened the effect of the giant neon cowboy atop the Pioneer hotel, swinging his thumb back and forth, beckoning. The covering had also helped to dispel some of the street’s seediness, and Ramona missed that too. There were too many families wandering back and forth along the street now, children running in circles and stopping to gaze at the dome above, which had begun to show images of race cars speeding around to loud music. Couples strolled together holding plastic cups of beer. Where were the derelicts of her youth? The men drinking from paper bags? The homeless woman with the red lipstick and pink crocheted beret who always stood outside the Four Queens?

  “This is ugly,” she said to Ivy and Jane.

  “Let’s go drink it away,” Jane suggested, pulling them toward the entrance to the Golden Nugget.

  Inside, they quickly found a place called Rush Lounge and settled in at a curved glass table where they had a good view of the casino. Ivy ordered a margarita, Jane a gin and tonic. Ramona asked for a club soda with lime.

  “What’s the matter?” Ivy asked. “You’re not driving.”

  Ramona shrugged and leaned back, avoiding the eyes of her friends. “My stomach’s upset. It’s probably from something Jeremy made.”

  “I bet there was some kind of narcotic in those cupcakes,” Jane said. “They were almost too good.”

  “Stop,” Ivy said, but laughed.

  Ramona laughed too, then sat up straight and smoothed out her jeans beneath the table. She’d taken out her braids, and the sweep of hair against her arms and the bare top of her back felt alien, almost as if another person were touching her. The casino was crowded and loud, and she put a protective hand over her stomach. This night of noise and secondhand smoke could be harming her child right now. She would take a test in the morning to confirm her missed period, then she would know for sure.

  She wondered what Nash was doing right now back in Long Beach. It was likely he was sitting in a bar with his friends too, the one he liked to go to on Seventh Street that was dark and gloomy with fishing nets strung around the ceiling. The nets held shimmery stones and fake fish, and if you drank too much the effect was both disconcerting and somewhat magical, those stones glinting in the dim light like treasure overhead, those fake fish with their pale, sickly bellies reminding you of death.

  This place had nothing to remind you of death with its updated gleaming façade and packed game tables, and that seemed to be the point. There were no clocks, no dingy corners, no pockets of stillness. It was too artificial—even more so now that the place had been refurbished and glamorized. The white marble and chandeliers of the lobby, the deep red walls of this bar with its black leather chairs were a bit too perfect, and Ramona began to doubt her commitment to staying here instead of with her friends.

  “So tell us about your new boyfriend,” Ivy said, as if reading her thoughts.

  “He’s not actually that new,” Ramona said. “We’ve been together almost a year.”

  “Practically an old married couple, then,” Ivy said.

  Something in her friend’s tone irritated Ramona. “I hope we’re not like that.”

  “It’s not such a bad thing to be,” Ivy said, shrugging as she took a sip of her drink.

  “Yes, it is,” Jane said.

  “Jane,” Ivy said. “You’re supposed to be on my side here.”

  “I wasn’t aware there were sides,” Ramona said.

  “Just a joke,” Ivy said. “Of course there aren’t sides.”

  “Nash is sort of a cross between Mark and Adam,” Ramona said, trying to smooth out the discomfort she could feel knotting among the three of them. “He has Mark’s solidity or reliability I guess you’d call it. Or what I remember as Mark’s reliability—we were only seventeen after all—and he has Adam’s nature thing going for him.” She nodded to Jane when she said this. “He’s always taking me out of the city on these crazy hikes, showing me places I’d never even heard of before. We went to the Santa Monica Mountains last weekend and hiked for about an hour to this gigantic waterfall. It was amazing.”

  “Have you been in touch with Mark?” Ivy asked.

  “I was just making a comparison,” Ramona said, her irritation flaring again. “I haven’t spoken to him since graduation.”

  “I heard he’s a policeman in North Las Vegas,” Jane said. “That’s kind of sexy, don’t you think?”

  She was smiling, and Ramona could see that there were, indeed, sides. It was her and Jane against Ivy. Ramona returned her smile. “I should go find him and ask him out. Start the whole thing all over again. Then I could move back here just like you, Ivy, and we could go on double dates and relive our high school days together.”

  “Cut it out,” Ivy said. She frowned and slumped a little in the booth, then reached for what was left of her drink and cradled it close to her chest. “I was just asking. You don’t need to get so defensive.”

  Silence shrouded the table again, and Ramona wondered why this was so difficult tonight.

  “Maybe we should go dancing somewhere,” Jane suggested with a look of despondence. She was hiding something too, Ramona decided.

  “I don’t feel like it,” Ivy said.

  “Me neither,” Ramona agreed.

  The waitress hadn’t yet reappeared, so Jane went up to the bar to get another round of drinks for her and Ivy. Ramona was still sipping at her club soda, wishing she could add a couple shots of vodka, thinking that maybe alcohol would help to loosen the hard knot of anxiety that had formed in her stomach during the last hour. She looked toward the bar and saw that Jane had wedged a spot for herself between an older woman with a gray twist in her hair and a young guy who was leaning close to hear something Jane was telling him.

  Jane had a way of drawing people toward her. Ramona remembered this about her now, the way a certain type of boy had flocked to her in high school, hoping to coax a hello out of her. This guy beside her was a grown-up version of those boys: dark clothing and chunky black glasses. His floppy, artist’s hair covered half of his left lens. Jane had long ago shed her costumes—tonight she was in jeans and a white tank top—but she still managed to evoke an aura of knowing things nobody else did, of having entrance to a hidden world. It was the sealed-off quality of her presence, Ramona decided. She was the opposite of welcoming, revealing nothing with her expression or gestures.

  Ramona had been drawn to her too, when they’d shared an art class freshman year. Jane sat in the back of the room wearing a wide-brimmed black hat. Her lips were painted bright red. A peacock feather the size of a thumb was painted on the skin of her cheek
. When Ramona sat beside her, Jane didn’t say hello, didn’t smile or even glance her way, but she wasn’t unfriendly or cruel either. Somehow Ramona was certain of this. Later they’d worked on a project together, making stained glass, and something between them had opened wide.

  She and Ivy, on the other hand, had been friends for much longer—since the third grade, when her family moved into the same crappy apartment building where Ramona lived with her mother—but right now they seemed to be having trouble finding things to say to each other. Ramona tried to make an effort. “How’s your dad?”

  Ivy shrugged. “Okay, I guess. He finally remarried. Did I tell you that?”

  “I think so. Some lady from his church, right?”

  “He met her at the library, and now he goes to her church. She’s actually very nice but the complete opposite of my mom. I guess that’s a good thing though. He doesn’t need someone else skipping out on him.”

  “Your mom had good qualities too.”

  “Sure. I know.”

  They were quiet again, the noise of the bar churning around them, and Ramona thought she’d probably misstepped once more by mentioning Ivy’s mother.

  “I think I saw her the other day,” Ivy said quietly, not looking up from her hands on the table. “A woman getting into a car at the park reminded me of her. It was just a feeling, but it was a strong one.”

  “Wow. Really? Did you tell your dad?”

  “There’s nothing to tell really. I just had a feeling that someone across the park looked like my mother, but how would I even know what she looks like since I haven’t seen her in twenty years? She could even be dead by now. Who knows?”

  “I don’t think she’s dead,” Ramona said, then instantly regretted it. She didn’t have any idea whether or not Ivy’s mother was still alive.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, I guess.”

  “Of course it matters,” Ramona said. “Dead is different than absent. A lot different.”