Vegas Girls

by Heather Skyler

  The idea surfaced, quietly at first, then with more persistence as he watched the crescent of yellow moon overhead, that he had taken a lot from Kristina over the years—her love and kindness, her time, her patience—and then left her empty these final years. He had imagined she had endless reserves, but it turned out she didn’t. Maybe nobody did. He felt empty now too, as if she’d scooped out his insides and taken them away. His heart pounded in a cavernous, echoey chest. His gut was sucked in with starvation. His eye sockets felt dry and fragile. This evening, holding Jane in the hallway had momentarily filled him up once again, but now the emptiness was more prominent, having met its opposite.

  Rex sighed and closed his eyes, then felt Callie set the baby on his chest.

  “He won’t sleep,” she told him. “Do something.”

  “This is dumb,” Polly said. She rose and returned to the car, then shut herself inside.

  Rex covered the doll with his hands and hummed, pretending to comfort it, stroking its smooth, plastic back. The weight of this toy was so unlike the feel of an actual baby. He could remember lying in bed with Polly on his chest, humming to her exactly like this. She had softened against him, matched her breathing to his, and fallen asleep. He’d loved resting like that during Polly’s very first year, closing his eyes and feeling the rapid heartbeat of his daughter, her steady breathing, the small stripe of drool she left on his T-shirt. When Polly’s fists unclenched, Kristina knew she was truly asleep and transferred her to the crib.

  The horn honked, and he startled, sitting up quickly and sending the doll to the grass. It was Polly, leaning over from the backseat and pushing on the horn. “Stop it,” he hissed loudly, not wanting to shout on this quiet street. He leapt up and ran to the car, then opened the door and pulled his daughter’s hands off the horn. “Do you want to wake the whole neighborhood?”

  Her angry face stopped him cold. She had not been cowed at all by his stern tone. “I want to go home,” she said in an even voice. “Now.”

  “All right, fine. Okay.” He returned to the step where he folded the blanket, then took the doll from Callie and set it on top. They were halfway home before he remembered the note, still shoved into his pocket. But it had been meant for him, in some sense, hadn’t it? It could have been an exact line from a fight with Kristina. He could even picture her red mouth forming the words—You pretend to give, but all you do is take and take. And he could hear his anguished response as well: I didn’t mean to, he would shout back at her. I didn’t know what I was doing.

  THURSDAY

  IVY

  In the morning, they drove out to Red Rock Canyon, then parked at Sandstone Quarry, hiked in, and found a flat, salmon-colored stone large enough to hold all five of them. Ivy dumped her pack of food at her feet, then stretched her arms overhead and looked toward the V in the distance where two mountains of rock met. Their deep rust color, cut through with paler shades of carnation and beige, revealed the sky to be bluer than she thought possible. That is where she would like to hike, she decided, to that V and then up as far as she could go. At the top was a shallow pond, if there had been enough rain this spring, and beyond that pond a view of the city. She wanted to see the water, then sit on a shelf of red rock and look out at the city.

  Frank had stayed home with Lucky today, and Ivy experienced her third heart-racing moment of worry that she’d forgotten the baby. She had grown so accustomed to having him attached to her chest or resting on her hip that she was unbalanced without him. Instead of feeling free, she was oddly panicky. The view from the top would calm her. She knew this from experience.

  Jane appeared beside her and dropped another backpack onto their home base, then sank to one knee to tend to Rocky’s untied laces.

  Ramona stepped onto the rock next, helping Fern climb up before turning to spread the green blanket over the wide, pale stone. She sat down and smiled. “Perfect,” she said. “A perfect day.”

  “I know, the weather’s just right,” Ivy said. “Not too hot—not too windy. I think we can make it all the way up today if we help the kids.”

  “That might be a little out of Fern’s league,” Jane said, releasing Rocky’s foot and turning to watch him leap off the rock. “Besides, she’ll want to jump in that pond if there’s water.”

  “I’ll stay with her,” Ramona offered. “I don’t like heights anyway.” She kissed the top of Fern’s head, then looked up at Jane. “There’s a pond here?”

  “Just this scooped-out rock area that sometimes fills with water. I guess pond is the wrong word. You’ve never seen it?”

  “I’ve never been here before,” Ramona said.

  “Really?” Jane said. “That can’t be possible.”

  “I only came here because Jeremy brought me,” Ivy said.

  “I guess I only came here with my family,” Jane said. “I was sure we’d brought you along once or twice.”

  Ramona shook her head. “Nope.”

  “Wow, that’s so sad,” Jane said.

  “No, it’s not,” Ramona frowned. “Don’t act like I was deprived because no one ever took me to Red Rock. Big deal.”

  “But you were deprived!” Jane said, sitting down beside Ramona. “There aren’t that many things of beauty here, and this is one of them, and you never even drove the thirty miles to see it.”

  Ivy was the only person still standing, and she looked down at both of her friends. Ramona caught her eye and an old, familiar understanding passed between them. It was one they had never vocalized, but it was still there, solid as a wall: Jane lived on a separate plane from the two of them. Growing up, they had both envied her well-kept, middle-class neighborhood, her attentive and kind parents. Did this difference still matter, Ivy wondered. Had it ever?

  “Sit down,” Ramona told her, and Ivy obeyed. “Let’s have a snack, then you two go up that giant rock, and Fern and I will explore down here. Rocky’s already halfway there.”

  “I’m not hungry yet,” Ivy said, turning back to Ramona. She pulled a bottle of water from her pack and took a long drink.

  Both she and Jane tried to convince Ramona to hike up with them, but to no avail. Ivy offered to stay with Fern, and so did Jane. They explained that it was a fairly easy hike, that she didn’t have to go to the edge and wouldn’t notice the height if she hung back a bit, but Ramona was not going. So Ivy and Jane set off with their backpack of water bottles and a camera.

  They caught up with Rocky quickly, then followed his pace through the maze of boulders, smaller sandstone outcroppings and flat dusty ground toward their destination. Small manzanita bushes grew up between the rocks, their red branches covered with the pale green leaves of spring, and in some of the shaded crevices, lichen grew with neon vividness.

  “Why is she so stubborn?” Jane asked when they stopped at the foot of the mountain for a drink.

  “I don’t think she liked being called deprived.”

  “Well, she was deprived. Besides, she picked that word, not me.”

  Ivy smiled and shook her head. “Was I deprived too?”

  Jane shrugged, then tilted the bottle of water and drank deeply before passing it back. “I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “That’s right. You don’t.” Ivy agreed pleasantly enough, though she felt irritation flash through her.

  “She had no one to show her things,” Jane continued. “Imagine if Lucky didn’t have you or Frank to take him places and teach him about the world.”

  “He’d figure it out.”

  “How can you say that?” Jane frowned and shook her head.

  Ivy tucked the water bottle back into her pack without answering, then pulled the arm straps snug and started climbing up the first ledge of the mountain, motioning for Jane and Rocky to follow her lead. Jane was right, of course. Compared to Lucky, Ivy had been deprived, but she felt unwilling to admit this out loud, at least to Jane.

  The climbing grew more difficult the higher she went, so that in a few spots she needed to g
rip the rock with her hands and pull herself up to the next plateau. Below, she watched as Jane assisted Rocky, letting him climb first, then boosting him up when necessary. Jane had come home after dark from her walk last night, smelling of beer and seeming happier and more relaxed than she’d been the entire trip. Her story of looking through the neighbor’s telescope with the kids sounded innocent enough, but Ivy knew something more had happened.

  They were halfway to the pond now—if there was a pond today—and the climbing was easier now. Ivy stopped on a solid rock and turned to look down, then out toward Ramona and Fern, who were small, faraway figures sitting on a patch of green blanket. Ivy waved and shouted out “Ramona!” and her voice echoed nicely but didn’t appear to reach them because no one waved back.

  Watching their distant forms, Ivy recalled a picnic with her parents when she was no older than five or six. She didn’t think they had come here, but somewhere similar, a place with red mountains and Joshua trees, wildflowers creating small flags of color in the dusky, pebbled ground. She remembered her mother that day as plump and happy, her blonde ponytail shiny against the fair skin of her back in a halter top, her brown sunglasses goofily large on her face. She had made ham salad with pickles—Ivy’s favorite—and brought three giant oranges that Ivy’s father peeled then passed around. Between each offered slice of orange, Ivy held her mother’s hand, or pressed her palm to her mother’s leg, or played with her ponytail. It was as if even then Ivy understood her mother’s presence was temporary, insubstantial.

  “Tired?” Jane asked, climbing up beside Ivy. Rocky kept going.

  “No. Just taking in the view. My parents took me on a picnic somewhere near here, I think. When I was little. Where do you think it could be?”

  “Maybe Spring Mountain Ranch?”

  “No, there weren’t any picnic tables, or grass or anything. Just rocks and wildflowers.”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask your dad?”

  “He won’t remember,” Ivy said. It was actually very likely he would remember, but he would not want to be asked about anything having to do with her mother. It was an unspoken rule between them not to mention her name.

  “Lucky really looks like your mom,” Jane said. “Around the mouth, and his eyes too, don’t you think?”

  “He has Frank’s eyes,” Ivy said, hearing how defensive she sounded.

  “Oh, I can see that, I guess.”

  The only sound for the last part of the climb was her own breathing. Ivy shook away thoughts of her mother and concentrated on getting the correct hand and footholds to lift her onto the plateau. When she pulled herself up the last section of rock, she could see that there was indeed a small pond. Rocky already crouched beside it, peering into the water’s shallow depths.

  “Fish,” he said, pointing.

  Ivy walked over to him and took a look at the water. “Actually, those are tadpoles.”

  Jane appeared at the top of the ledge and joined them by the pond. “If there are tadpoles in here now, how come we never see frogs on our hikes?” Jane asked.

  Ivy shrugged. “Good question. It’s too hot for them here. They must die.”

  “Then why would they be born here in the first place?” Jane asked. “That doesn’t make evolutionary sense.”

  “Where’s Adam when you need him?” Ivy asked. “He’d be able to explain it.”

  Jane nodded, looking uncomfortable. “That’s true. He would.”

  Ivy watched her for a moment, then turned back to the pond. The scooped-out crater of water looked as if it could be on the moon, or Mars, with its red shelf of rock rising up on the far side. Only the small boy, kneeling beside the water, made the lunar landscape human.

  Ivy circled the pond and climbed up past the crater to the flat space beyond, then stood surveying the valley below. The city winked in the distance as sunlight struck the tall, glassy hotels. The easiest one to pick out was the Luxor, its black pyramid further proof of this place’s strangeness.

  Up here, thoughts of her parents vanished, and Jeremy replaced them. He had taken her to this place on several occasions. They had sat together on this very piece of rock and watched the city’s dim, daytime glow as they shared a beer or a joint. Later, they had sex standing up against a flat, hidden rock near the pond. It was the only spot not immediately visible when you first climbed up. Ivy recalled the surprisingly cool feel of that rock against her back and how nervous she’d been that someone would discover them. She had never much enjoyed the outdoor sex, but she had loved this spot, this view, her feeling of being someplace very far away from home.

  “I don’t think I ever climbed up this far,” Jane said, appearing at her elbow. “Wow, look what I’ve been missing.”

  “Now who’s been deprived?” Ivy asked, and they both laughed, the tension between them finally drawing tight and snapping so that Ivy felt the relief as something physical, a loosening inside her chest. They sat down together and absorbed the view without speaking. Rocky appeared behind them, then sat down on Jane’s lap.

  “So when do you think Ramona’s going to tell us she’s pregnant?” Ivy asked.

  “What?” Jane’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s not drinking. She’s moody. Her skin’s glowing like a beacon. What other clues do we need?” Ivy asked.

  Jane nodded, as if going over the information in her mind. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right. I just want to know why she won’t say anything.”

  “Too early?” Jane suggested.

  “Maybe. Or maybe she’s not going to keep it so she doesn’t want to tell anyone.”

  “She’d still tell us, I think,” Jane said.

  “Maybe.” Ivy could feel the pull of tension again. She considered badgering Jane to tell her about Adam but didn’t have the energy. To fill the silence, Ivy began pointing out landmarks to Rocky—the Strip, Las Vegas Boulevard, Sunrise Mountain across the valley—then the three of them rose and started the trek back down the rocks.

  It was on an easy part of the hike back, climbing over the last cluster of boulders before the straight sandy run to the picnic rock, that Ivy slipped and fell, cutting her bare leg open on an oddly shaped, sharp rock. Jane was kneeling beside her in seconds, along with Rocky, and Ivy tried to offer a smile of reassurance that she was fine, but the sight of blood seeping out of a long gash on her left inner thigh stopped her, and tears beaded in her eyes.

  “Go get Ramona,” Jane told Rocky, and he ran off.

  Jane pulled a long-sleeved shirt out of her backpack and pressed it to Ivy’s wound, then wrapped it around her leg and tied it before helping her up. “I think this will need stitches,” Jane said, helping her over the last of the rocks and down to flat ground.

  There wasn’t much pain, but Ivy did feel dizzy. She had always hated the sight of blood. “No, it’s not that bad.”

  “Yes, it is,” Jane said.

  It turned out Jane was right. In the emergency room of Spring Valley Hospital, Ivy got twenty stitches in her leg. Jane took the kids home, but Ramona stayed and was sitting beside Ivy’s bed now, gazing up at the television screen only partially visible due to the curtain separating Ivy’s bed from the other two patients in the room. “Go ahead and pull my curtain back a little,” she told Ramona. “I don’t care.”

  “No, I’m not really watching,” she said, turning her gaze back to Ivy.

  Ramona’s face floated before her, soft around the edges as if growing out of focus. They had given Ivy a drug of some sort, to dull the pain that she hadn’t felt at Red Rock but had come surging through her in the van on the way here, and Ramona’s voice felt far away and inconsequential. The stitches were done, and now they were waiting to be seen by one other doctor before her release.

  On the other side of the curtain there was a girl and her father. The girl had hurt her ankle skateboarding and was waiting for an X-ray. Jane and Ivy had heard the whole story while they waited for the first
doctor to arrive.

  “Where’s Mom?” she heard the girl ask now.

  “On her way,” the father said.

  Through the haze of the drug, Ivy imagined her own mother rushing to be here. What did she even look like now? Ivy’s mother had tried to leave them twice before the last and final time: Once when Ivy was in the third grade, her mother had disappeared for two weeks without a word, then returned with no real explanation; the summer before Ivy started junior high, her mother had walked out again, this time for three months. The third time she left, during Ivy’s junior year in high school, Ivy was certain she’d be back. It was just something her mother needed to do: spend periods of time away from her family. But then a year passed without a word, then another, and Ivy had graduated from high school and moved to Wisconsin with Jane.

  “Do you ever miss your mom?” Ivy asked Ramona.

  “Sure,” Ramona said. “Of course.”

  “Me too,” she admitted. She closed her eyes again, falling into the drug’s sleepy pull, and thought again of the picnic with her parents. Later, her mother had set up her easel and painted several wildflowers. Ivy had still been young enough to think that her mother was exceptionally talented, though the truth was her paintings were amateurish and choppy. Ivy still owned one of them, an oil of the fountain in the courtyard of their old apartment building. The lines of the painting were coarse and unskilled, but the colors were right. She had gotten that pinky orange sky exactly, and the blue shadows beneath the tiers of the fountain were true. It was in the back of Ivy’s closet, wrapped in brown paper. She hadn’t looked at it in years.

  “Hey, look who’s here,” Ramona said, nodding toward the door.

  Frank appeared at the edge of the curtain, looking pale but smiling. He moved toward her and found her foot beneath the thin sheet, then held onto it.

  “You didn’t need to come,” Ivy told him. “I’m fine.”