Vegas Girls

by Heather Skyler

  Inside, the store was bright and empty save for the clerk, a young girl filing her nails as she leaned against the cash register. Ramona picked out the generic brand pregnancy test and held it up for Jane’s approval.

  “Why don’t you just take it here?” Jane said. “In the bathroom.” She pointed to the door marked LADIES ROOM right beside their aisle. She had the notion that if Ramona were not pregnant they could continue on with the night as planned, filling themselves up with mindless fun all the way back to the Golden Nugget.

  “I can’t do that,” Ramona said, shaking her head.

  She paid at the counter then they were back out into the night, which had grown very windy. Great, warm gusts sent dead leaves and debris flying against their knees as they trudged back up the street toward their hotel room.

  Jane laced her arm through Ramona’s and pulled her friend closer, wanting to shield her from the wind, to protect her from the elements and also from the possibility of pregnancy. A baby for Ramona did not strike Jane as happy news.

  Once they were back under the canopy, the wind slowed, and Ramona tugged gently away from Jane’s grasp.

  “Why did you leave tonight?” Jane asked her. “Why would you just sneak out without saying good-bye or anything? I thought you liked my family.”

  “I do like them,” Ramona said, then added only, “I’m sorry.”

  “Was it because they made you play a song? Is that it? They sort of put you on the spot there, I know.”

  Ramona shook her head. “No, that was fine. I didn’t mind.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  They walked in silence for a while, and Jane saw the great crown of the Four Queens pulsing with lights, then the arched sign of the Golden Nugget.

  “I’ve been looking for my son,” Ramona said, keeping her eyes forward as they trudged together up the sidewalk.

  “Really?” Jane stopped and turned to face her. “Any luck?”

  She shrugged. “I have one more name to check on. The other two didn’t pan out.”

  “Wait a minute. You’ve been doing this while you’re here?”

  Ramona nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you let us help?”

  Ramona shrugged again and gave her a half-smile. “You can come with me tomorrow if you want.”

  “Of course I want to,” Jane said. “I just don’t understand why you’ve been so secretive. This is big news.” She smiled to soften this and understood that she was being secretive as well. No one but Rex knew the real reason she’d been fired or that she and Adam were separated.

  They resumed walking but Ramona stopped near the hotel entrance and said, “I think I’d rather take the test in the morning. You’re supposed to do it first thing when you wake up, right?”

  “I think you can do it any time of day.”

  Ramona clutched the paper drugstore sack and frowned. With a braid slung over each shoulder and her face free of makeup, she looked suddenly very young and scared, and Jane remembered the day in high school when Ramona had pulled her aside and told her she was pregnant. Ramona had been crying then, with stripes of black mascara crisscrossing her pale cheeks. Jane had pulled her friend against her body and held on tightly. She had no idea what to say to a pregnant friend then and realized she still didn’t know the proper words to offer. “Do you want to be pregnant?” she asked Ramona.

  “I’m not sure,” she said, then laughed a weak, nervous laugh and added, “I guess I’m not sure about much of anything today.”

  “Well, let’s go find out, then you can be sure about one thing.” Jane took her arm again and led her inside.

  Waiting on the bed while Ramona was in the bathroom, Jane tried to keep her thoughts neutral. It seemed important not to impose her wishes on the pregnancy test, even though she knew her thoughts could hold no sway over whatever was happening inside Ramona’s womb. If she is pregnant, Jane decided, I’ll suggest we celebrate. They could order up room service—french fries or chocolate ice cream, something Ramona loved—then sit cross-legged on the bed and talk about the future.

  If she were not pregnant, Jane decided she would talk Ramona into the night of drinking and gambling Jane had previously envisioned. Her friend would protest, she knew, but Jane could persuade her.

  She rose from her position on the bed and went to stand at the window, imagining Adam wandering through the rooms of their house in Wisconsin. Even though it was after midnight there, he would still be awake, either watching TV or reading a magazine in the big red chair by the window. He had often been the one to tend to Rocky or Fern in the middle of the night since he was usually up anyway and Jane needed her sleep for work in the morning.

  The day she had found out she was pregnant with Rocky, Adam had brought her a giant chocolate milkshake to celebrate. They sat together on the back porch sharing the shake, Jane on Adam’s lap, and he had made jokes about how she would soon be too heavy to sit this way. Jane thought of that day, sometimes, as the highest point of their marriage. Every detail had been exactly right, and for once, the weight of her worry had been so much lighter than the solidity of her joy.

  Jane crossed the room to the bathroom and knocked lightly. “Almost done?” she asked.

  “Almost,” Ramona said. Her voice sounded faint and shaky.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I’m going downstairs for a sec,” she told Ramona through the door. “Give you some privacy.”

  Down in the lobby, Jane was uncertain of her purpose. She had come with the idea of a drink, but it seemed depressing to sit alone at a bar, so she wandered to the gift shop instead, thinking to buy something for Ramona and maybe for Ivy too. The small shop had several gaudy baubles with the Golden Nugget logo—shot glasses, ashtrays, blinking key chains, and glittery snow globes. All of these items were obviously wrong as gifts, but Jane picked each thing up anyway, turning it over in her hands as if seriously considering a purchase. There were a couple of racks showcasing T-shirts and extremely short dresses, then half a wall of stuffed animals. What did you buy a person who may or may not be pregnant?

  A shelf of piggy banks caught her eye and she wandered over and hefted the weight of one in her hand: I LOVE LAS VEGAS was written in red on the side, and the pig’s tail was a curly dollar sign. This was the one for Ivy, a match for the gift they’d found in her stroller yesterday.

  A pig was not a good choice for Ramona’s gift. If she were not pregnant, the childish gift would seem like a slap, and if she were pregnant it was too small an offering.

  There was a rotating cylinder of birthstones on the checkout counter, and Jane considered the garnet earrings, but Ramona was not one for adornment and would likely never wear them. A series of embroidered coin purses were pretty, but not Ramona’s style. Finally, Jane settled on a single red rose in a small tube of water, the kind a guy might buy for his prom date. She wound her way back through the crowded casino, holding the rose out in front of her, then caught the elevator back upstairs.

  Inside the room, Ramona had pulled the curtains closed over the sparkling night and turned on a lamp. She sat in the armchair by the table writing, and Jane stopped and waited for her to look up. When she did, her eyes were red and slightly swollen but her smile was luminous. “I’m pregnant,” she told Jane. “I’m going to have another baby.”

  REX

  The date was not going well. Jessica was a friend of a friend he’d agreed to go out with weeks ago, but from the moment he’d picked her up the whole thing felt wrong. For one, she had a large tattoo of a hibiscus flower displayed on her bare left shoulder. It was a deep pink with green leaves and very nicely done, but Rex had never liked tattoos, especially now that they were ubiquitous. It seemed wrong that this young woman—a third-grade teacher, for God’s sake—would choose to permanently ink an image onto her skin. Then there was the perfume, something spicy and rich that drifted over to him across the
front seat of his car and made him sneeze. He couldn’t picture kissing a woman who smelled this way, or even sitting close beside her in a restaurant, but he had managed the restaurant—a Thai place she’d suggested—and now they were wandering Fremont Street, seeking out a lounge she’d heard about at the Golden Nugget.

  This was only his second date since the divorce, and it still felt strange walking beside someone other than his wife. Jessica was tall, close to six feet he guessed, and sturdily built with long red hair, freckled skin, and a loose, pretty smile. He wondered if he should take her hand as they strolled, but decided he didn’t want to.

  “Almost there,” she said, and pointed to the Golden Nugget on the corner. “My friend Becky—well, you know Becky—told me they have this great piano player. Sort of cheesy but good.”

  He nodded and smiled, allowing her to grab his hand and pull him more quickly through the crowd. He had no idea who Becky was.

  It felt good to step inside the dim casino after the neon, crowded street. The Rush Lounge was only half full, pulsing quietly with ambient music. A baseball game played on the plasma TVs scattered throughout the dark, amber-colored space of the bar. They slid into a booth, and Jessica looked around and pouted her lips. “Damn it.” She pointed to a small sign by the bar. “The piano guy’s only here on the weekend.”

  Rex smiled, beginning to relax. He hated piano music. “Maybe we can catch him next time.”

  She nodded, smiling back at him, and he realized he’d practically promised her another date, a promise he wasn’t sure he would be able to fulfill.

  They ordered drinks from a waitress in a short, slinky black dress—a pomegranate martini for her, a beer for him—then talked for a while about her job, his kids, what he thought of the school. “It’s done us right so far,” he said, and shrugged. “Some girls were bullying Polly last year, but the principal took care of it, and she’s been happy this year.”

  “Oh, the principal is amazing. He was new last year and the school has just transformed under his care. Frank Jacobsen. Have you met him?”

  He nodded. “At open house.” He couldn’t quite remember the man’s face, but he did recall a charm emanating from his ordinary presence. He remembered the man’s wife better, her slightly plump, luscious body, those beautiful gray-blue eyes. She had the name of a plant. Fern. But no, that was Jane’s daughter’s name. Something else.

  “When I started there, I had such a difficult time of it. No support at all for discipline issues, but all that’s changed. I’m so happy there now,” Jessica said.

  He nodded. “Great. Liking your job is a good thing.”

  “Oh, I know. I was so miserable there for a while that I was no fun to be around. That’s why Matt and I broke up, I think, because I was so pissy all the time after work. But now, I’m just in heaven.”

  There was something else woven into her words. A crush, Rex decided. She had a crush on the new principal. It struck him as sweet but also slightly sad. Jessica was no competition for that wife. Ivy, her name was Ivy. Then another detail: she was Jane’s friend, the one who lived in the house with the red door. For some reason, this connection pleased him immensely.

  Their drinks arrived and he took a swallow of beer. It was warmer than he liked it, but it didn’t matter. He would only have this one, because he was driving but also because he didn’t want to get involved more deeply with this woman because of alcohol. That’s what had happened on his first date, and he still regretted it. Sandra, the manager of the coffee shop he’d been going to for years, had always flirted with him, but their date was awkward, too long. The sadness he’d felt after fucking her, when his buzz had worn off and he lay beside this woman who was at once familiar and a complete stranger, had been overwhelming. Maybe that’s what you had to do though: get through a certain number of new women before you could cleanse the old one, the true one, out of your system.

  “Oh, look,” Jessica said, pointing out into the casino. “See that guy with the ball cap? The tall guy? We used to be engaged.”

  “Matt?” he asked, proud to have remembered the name of her last boyfriend.

  She shook her head. “No. Someone from a long time ago.”

  He doubted she was a day over thirty, so it couldn’t have been that long ago, but he didn’t press it.

  “Oh no, he’s coming over here. Don’t look at him.” She picked up her martini and took a long swallow, avoiding the gaze of the man walking toward them through the casino and into the bar.

  “Jess,” the man said when he reached their table. “Long time, no see.”

  She smiled up at him and said hello, then introduced Rex as her “friend.” Rex stood and shook the man’s hand, taking in his lean, brown face beneath the ball cap, the narrow shoulders inside a white T-shirt. His name was Jamie, and he looked like a tall ten-year-old, though Rex guessed he was somewhere in his twenties.

  “Why don’t you have a drink with us?” Jessica suggested.

  Rex assumed the man would protest—wasn’t it obvious they were on a date and Jessica was just being polite?—but he immediately slid into the booth beside her and took a sip of her martini. Jessica looked over at Rex and shrugged, with a small frown on her face.

  The waitress returned, and another round of drinks was ordered. Rex got another beer, against his better judgment, then finished off the first one quickly, listening as this man who used to be engaged to his date explained his new job setting up networks for local companies. Jessica looked interested, but Rex was bored, and also slightly relieved to no longer bear the burden of conversation. He excused himself to the bathroom and left the bar, deciding to wander a bit before returning. He found a restroom off to the side of the craps tables, and when he was finished, he walked a bit further away from the bar, thinking he might not return at all.

  As he was passing the gift shop, a blonde head bent over the glass display case caught his eye, and he slowed and watched as Jane straightened up then plucked a rose from the carousel by the cash register and paid for it. She didn’t see him standing there in the hallway, and he wanted to go over and say hello but couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was as if he were at that Mormon dance again, watching her from a distance, wanting to talk to her. Their kiss in the hallway two days ago had circled through him again and again. Just watching her now ignited his body with desire. She was not even all that pretty, really, but there was something about her that he wanted to crack open and reveal, a hidden self he’d seen briefly, beside the telescope and then again in the hallway.

  He watched as she left the gift shop through the opposite entrance, then he looped around the outer edge of the shop and followed her through the casino. It was crowded here, but he found it easy to keep her in his sights: her blonde hair lifting above her slim neck, the bright white of her shirt. She moved through the crowd with ease, then stopped in the space between the banks of elevators and waited. Before he reached her, she stepped out of view and was shuttled upstairs.

  He decided she must be staying here, or maybe visiting a friend. The thought that she was meeting a man bothered him, and he allowed a picture of her in a hotel bed with someone else to flicker through his mind, before the image faded and went dark.

  Back in the lounge, he found Jessica sitting alone, staring into her martini as if it might speak to her, her broad shoulders slumping a little, causing the tattoo to curve and catch the light.

  A flash of guilt shot through him for having left her alone. “I’m sorry,” he said, sitting back down. “I ran into a friend.”

  She smiled, as if genuinely happy to see him, and pushed another beer and a shot of tequila toward him. “Here. I ordered you this.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “But I won’t be able to drive if I have tequila. You take it.”

  “I was thinking,” she said, twirling her glass at the base and avoiding his eyes. “Maybe we should just get a room. My friend works here and she could comp us, then we wouldn’t have to worry about driving home either.
”

  He nodded slowly and leaned back in his seat, then took a sip from his new beer, deciding. Half an hour ago, he would have said no, without question. An excuse would have arrived without effort. But seeing Jane had stirred him up, made him dread his empty house, his large, unmade bed.

  Kristina had the girls tonight, and he imagined them all sitting on the couch together, watching TV with Peter. He hadn’t seen Kristina’s new place, but she had taken their orange velvet couch to her apartment, so he could picture this part clearly, his daughters’ pale limbs against the brilliant, plush fabric, huddled together. Callie would be leaning against her mother, who in turn would be leaning against her new boyfriend.

  “Okay,” he said, and shot the tequila down his throat then sucked on the lime beside it. “Sounds like a plan.”

  The room was dark and sleek and smelled of nothing. The ruby curtains were pulled open, but a sheer, white fabric was closed over the night, so that the lights of the city were muted and distant. Jessica turned on the lamp by the bed, then pulled her yellow blouse over her head and stepped out of her flats and jeans. Her underwear was white cotton, as was her bra, and the sight of these simple garments filled Rex with relief. Racy lingerie would have been too much for him to bear in this situation. He felt uneasy enough as it was, having never slept with a woman, other than Kristina, in a hotel room. The setting struck him as tawdry and secretive, and Rex wished he’d had more beer and tequila or that he’d been raised differently so this situation wouldn’t seem so unnatural, but he’d left the rest of his drink on the table, and it was too late not to be a Mormon.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and fluffed out her long, red hair, tossing it over her shoulders so that the tattoo was completely covered. His first girlfriend back in high school had also been a redhead. Laura, a girl from his church who’d given him his first hand job in a car overlooking Lake Mead, an act for which he remained eternally grateful. After graduation, they’d had sex a couple of times the summer before she left for college, but it was that moment in the car he remembered most vividly, the moon skimming over the lake as he felt her cool hands wrap around him. The silence of the night. The dark shapes of the bluffs in the distance.