Back to the Fajitas

by Leena Clover

  He took my arm and led me out to the car. Jeet had already taken our bags out and loaded the car.

  “I can drive now,” Jeet was telling Dad.

  “Maybe later,” Dad said, getting behind the wheel.

  I stooped and shuffled into the third row, a blank expression on my face. I would stay quiet about Leo, but I wouldn’t be jumping with joy. Even Dad couldn’t expect me to be so callous, could he?

  Chapter 19

  Dad stuck to the speed limit on I-40 West but the car still ate up the miles. No one spoke for some time. Then Motee Ba began with some small talk, trying to get everyone to answer her. She’s very good at this.

  Sally joined in. It’s amazing how she never misses an opportunity to suck up to Motee Ba.

  I needed something to munch on and I needed Doritos. The ones that are smothered in that orange dust. We stopped somewhere and I jumped out without giving anyone a second glance. I wanted those chips and I wanted a calling card. They weren’t selling any.

  Stress eating is a boon. A bag of chips or a tub of ice cream can give me temporary amnesia when I desperately crave it. I sat at a picnic bench, expending all my angst on the chips.

  “Don’t bust a molar,” Tony said lightly, dropping down on the seat beside me.

  “Where did he get the sleeping pills?” I asked, buoyed by the sudden insight from a salt and carb rush.

  “Did he have a prescription for insomnia? Did Charlie? Hunh? Did anyone check on that?”

  Tony shook his head and stared at some point on the horizon.

  “You need to wipe your face,” he said.

  So that’s how it was going to be. I didn’t want to pull out my index cards in front of everyone. But I made a mental note to myself.

  “Are we still in Arizona?” Jeet asked, looking at a map.

  “Of course we are still in Arizona, Jeet. Where do you think the state border is?”

  Dad had found a new target for his anger.

  “I don’t know,” Jeet said, sounding bored, and looked out of the window.

  “Don’t they teach you anything at school?”

  No one answered that. Dad wasn’t done.

  “Maybe the question is don’t you learn anything at school?”

  Sally looked at Dad, trying to catch his eye.

  “The state border is at the Hoover Dam!” Dad raised his voice in frustration. “It straddles Arizona and Nevada.”

  “Whatever!” Jeet said in a tone only a teenager can produce.

  Silence reigned for a few more minutes.

  “What about lunch?” Pappa asked.

  He looked at his old watch and frowned. Pappa always frowns when he looks at his watch, no matter what the time is. He does things by the clock even though he hardly ever goes anywhere.

  Amidst all the chaos, we had skipped going to the supermarket for sandwich fixings. We had also forgotten to pack lunch. We had worked through most of the snacks we had brought with us.

  “We’ll stop somewhere, Pappa!” Dad dismissed.

  “But where?” Pappa wasn’t one to concede the floor easily. “That’s what I want to know.”

  We spotted signs for a diner and Dad pulled in there some time later. I didn’t have much of an appetite. There wasn’t much on offer anyway. Someone ordered a chicken sandwich for me and Motee Ba forced me to eat it.

  They weren’t offering the tour for the dam that day due to some technical reasons. Dad was going to sulk the rest of the day. We stood on the line between the two states and took pictures.

  “You’re in two places at once!” Tony exclaimed, reminding me of a movie we had watched together a few years ago.

  The Hoover Dam is so vast, we were all speechless for a while. We stood at the railing and gazed down at the humungous wall of the dam, and the still waters of Lake Mead. The Colorado river snaked it’s way deep down somewhere on the other side.

  I walked along a small sidewalk, lost in thought. Something flashed before my eyes for an instant. I searched around and spotted a familiar sight. It had been etched into the wall, and I wondered why. I looked around for Tony and tipped my head, calling him by my side.

  “Do you see that?” I asked, pointing to the small doodle.

  “What?”

  “That right there, that doodle etched into the wall.”

  “That triangle like thing?” Tony asked.

  He gave me a look. It said I was losing it.

  “What about it Meera?”

  “Do you think it’s related to those other symbols I showed you?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said flatly, and turned away.

  “Maybe there are more of these around here,” I pleaded, clutching his arm.

  “Time to go, I think.”

  Dad was waving his arms, summoning the family to the car.

  I skimmed the wall rapidly, and the sidewalks and any other structures I could spot around me. The small doodles were part of a puzzle, I was sure. They had to mean something, and I wanted to know what.

  Dad asked Tony to drive and sat next to him. I was squashed into the back with Sally and Jeet.

  “How are you doing today, Mom?” Jeet asked, leaning into her.

  She smiled.

  “Aren’t you excited about going to Vegas?”

  Sally produced one more smile, the kind that said yes.

  I looked out of the window at the cars passing by. I noticed something on a car window and it reminded me of my doodles. There wasn’t much traffic and I tried to build different scenarios of what the drawings might represent. It distracted me from the real things on my mind.

  I got tired of looking at cars after a while and my thoughts drifted to Leo. Had he spoken to Sylvie at all yesterday? Why hadn’t he gone to her place with his stuff? Maybe he had never had any intention of going there. But he had told me he would. Was that a lie?

  Only Sylvie could tell me if she had talked with Leo. I didn’t know how sick she was. If she had something contagious, she might have asked Leo to stay put at Charlie’s for a day or two.

  I also wondered about Joyce Baker. Did that old lady know something? Or was she just trying to grab attention? Lonely people often do that. Show they know more than they do, so people go and talk to them again and again.

  I just hoped I would remember all this until I had a chance to note it down.

  The excitement in the car was contagious. We entered the city of Las Vegas, Nevada and every face broke into a smile. Dad entered the downtown area and merged onto Las Vegas Boulevard, the famous Strip. We craned our necks to look up at the Stratosphere Casino. It shot up into the sky, promising unforgettable views.

  “We’re going to the top and doing that ride,” Jeet exhaled.

  Tony and Jeet had talked endlessly about a ride at the top of the Stratosphere. You took a deep vertical plunge and were suspended mid air, hundreds of feet above the Las Vegas skyline.

  We passed Circus Circus and The Mirage and Dad was pulling into our hotel lobby. Dad had splurged for rooms at the Bellagio, one of the pricier hotels on the Strip.

  “Can we see those fountains from here?” Pappa asked Motee Ba. “We’ll see them at least twice, Hansa. Once in daylight and once at night.”

  Jeet was staring wide eyed at a massive Eiffel Tower replica on the other side of the street. People of all ages and ethnicities milled around. Old men and babies in strollers shared sidewalk space. Cabs rolled into the hotel’s porte cochere in rapid succession. Dad ordered us to help with the bags. There were bellboys around, but we had a lot of bags.

  “We are on the same floor,” Dad said, handing out room keys after we had finished checking in.

  “Your room faces the fountains, Pappa. You can watch them all you want.”

  He turned toward us and spoke to Tony.

  “Your room is pool facing. But I’m not sure if the pools are open at this time.”

  The elevator whisked us up to the 29th floor and I felt a smidgen of anticipation. The view from the highe
r floors was going to be fantastic. I had never stayed in a room that high up.

  We burst into our room as soon as Tony swiped the key card. Our mouths dropped open. The room was huge and done in soothing colors. It was as lavish as I had imagined. No money had been spared in decorating it.

  The bathroom had a spa tub with jets, the TV was huge and the mini bar was stocked with plenty of snacks.

  I wanted to get away from it all.

  I emptied some colorful bottles that lined the tub. I banged the door shut in the boys’ face before they could say a thing. Opening the taps wide, I drowned out their voices, flinging my clothes off. Slowly, I let myself sink into the tub, hardly feeling the hot water burn my skin.

  The tears started flowing again and I succumbed. Judging by Dad’s mood, he would probably forbid me from crying. I couldn’t figure out why he was being so unfair. The lavender and lemon scented water began to soothe me and I almost fell asleep in the tub.

  “Are you okay?” Tony’s gentle voice sounded outside the door.

  “I’m fine! Go away!”

  Tony generally has my back. But he had seemed to agree with Dad today. Was he just trying to keep the peace, or did he really think I was being foolish?

  “We’re going down to get a snack,” Jeet yelled.

  The door slammed behind them. I sighed with relief. I showered and wrapped myself in a fluffy robe. It was soft and thick, and any other day I would have snuggled into it with joy. Today wasn’t that day.

  I looked forward to a long quiet nap. Maybe I wouldn’t wake up until tomorrow. I grabbed the tiny bottle of moisturizer from the marble counter and opened the door. Tony leaned against the wall, arms folded, waiting for me.

  “What’re you doing here?” my mouth twisted in a grim line.

  “You didn’t think I was going to abandon you?”

  The tears started fresh and I made no effort to stop them. Tony opened his arms wide and I rushed in, feeling the pain of losing Leo all over again.

  Chapter 20

  When you’re in Las Vegas, the real fun begins at night. Or that’s what people say. I was about to discover that the excitement never let up in this city, whether it was day or night. Inside the casinos, there was no sense of time with the bright lights and the allure of hitting the jackpot. Old ladies lined the aisles of slot machines, feeding coins and yanking the levers. Their eyes swelled with anticipation one moment, and their shoulders slumped in another when the numbers didn’t line up. Once in a while, someone at a table would win big and a cheer would go up.

  Tony and I walked across the casino floor, taking it all in. He couldn’t wait to try his luck.

  “Let’s grab a bite real quick,” he urged, pulsing with excitement.

  “You better hand over your cash and credit cards, cowboy!”

  “Don’t say you’re not going to try your luck, Meera!”

  I looked around, ignoring Tony, trying to spot some place to eat. We walked to what looked like a food court and I grabbed a table. A bowl of Lo Mein sounded good to me.

  Motee Ba and Pappa had decided to rest. They would just go down once and see the fountains light up. But other than that, they were having an early night.

  Dad and Sally were checking out the shows the hotel had to offer. Dad insisted we watch some circus, and Sally wanted to book our spa appointments.

  I shoveled the hot noodles in, thinking about what I wanted to do. A young girl was refilling the paper napkins at the tables. I caught her eye and beckoned her.

  “Where can I find a store that sells batteries?”

  “You can get batteries at the small kiosk over there.”

  She pointed her finger somewhere in the distance. Her voice dropped a level.

  “But they overcharge.”

  She giggled at her choice of words and I gave her a wan smile.

  “There’s a Wal-Mart a couple of miles away.”

  “Don’t you have convenience stores? Smaller shops?”

  “Hard to find on this section of the Strip,” she shook her head. “You’ll have to go downtown, or go away from the Strip to one of the gas stations.”

  I thanked her. Getting my hands on a calling card looked tough.

  “We can go tomorrow,” Tony said, guessing what I was up to. “I really don’t want to head out again.”

  “I want to call Stan. I’ve already waited too long.”

  “Look, let’s just stroll along the Strip. We just might find a small store somewhere.”

  My chances of hitting the jackpot sounded better.

  Jeet joined us as we headed out.

  “Where have you been? You can’t go into the casinos, can you?”

  He ignored me.

  The Strip was lit up like a string of diamonds. There was a palpable excitement in the air. Casinos soared into the sky, each offering something unique to the visitors. The lights on the Eiffel Tower twinkled, and the fountains danced to classical music.

  “It’s beautiful!”

  “Which way?” Tony asked.

  “The pirates’ show,” Jeet said right away. “It’s on every hour, I think. We’ll just wait until the next one.”

  “That’s North, toward downtown,” Tony pointed.

  I fell in line. My chances of finding a small store were better as we went closer to the heart of town. The pirate show was just beginning. We didn’t get a spot near the water but it didn’t matter much. The show was a blur for me. My thoughts strayed back home while my eyes scanned every spot on the street, trying to find a store. I spotted a man ripping open a pack of AA batteries.

  “Where’d you get those?” I asked.

  He pointed vaguely toward the downtown area.

  “Let’s watch this again,” Jeet said wide eyed as the show ended.

  I feigned boredom and started walking away. They fell in line. The crowd started thinning after a while and Tony moved closer to me.

  “Maybe we should turn back.”

  I opened my mouth to protest and I saw a tiny cluster of stores up ahead. A souvenir shop butted against a sub shop which was right next to an electronics store. I rushed in and started hunting for calling cards.

  “What kind of phone you looking for, lady?” the man at the counter asked.

  “Actually, I want a calling card.”

  “Don’t keep them anymore,” he said. “Most people have them cell phones. What with nationwide calling and all, no one’s using calling cards no more.”

  I gave him a brief nod and walked out. Tony and Jeet were trying on a bunch of baseball caps. And there, next to mugs and shot glasses on an adjoining shelf, I saw a sign for calling cards.

  I bought a couple from the man at the counter and walked out.

  “Hey Meera! Don’t you want one?”

  Jeet and Tony had bought matching Las Vegas T-shirts and had pulled them on over their clothes. Jeet was holding one out for me.

  “You look like a silly tourist.”

  Jeet’s face fell into a hurt expression.

  “I am a silly tourist.”

  I shook my head and whirled around, eager to get back to my room. Tony paid up quickly and the boys followed, urging me to put the T-shirt on. I gave in, just to make them shut up. They put their arms around my shoulders and we walked arm in arm, the boys humming some silly song.

  Until I came up short a few steps later. We almost stumbled and fell.

  “What was that, Meera?” Jeet wailed.

  I felt a shiver run up my spine. I pointed to the sidewalk, and stammered as I tried to get Tony’s attention.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “Do you see that?”

  There was a charcoal drawing on the sidewalk, roughly two feet by two feet.

  “That wasn’t there when we walked by earlier.”

  “So?” Tony raised his eyebrows.

  “Don’t you recognize it? It’s from the photos.”

  Tony straightened and looked carefully.

  “I didn’t look at them t
hat closely,” he admitted.

  “What are you guys talking about?” Jeet asked.

  I explained how I had first noticed the doodles, and how we’d seen them around rest areas, gas stations, almost every place we stopped.

  I didn’t say anything about the cars I had noticed earlier today.

  “Haven’t you heard of graffiti, Meera?” Jeet asked. “Looks something like it.”

  “These are too small. And there’s some kind of pattern here.”

  “We talked about this, Meera. So they’re some kind of puzzle. Nothing to do with us.”

  “You’re in enough trouble already,” Jeet reminded me.

  “But this wasn’t here a few minutes ago!” I insisted.

  “Someone drew it just for you, to make you think you’re crazy.”

  “Thanks for that sarcasm, Tony.”

  We walked on, the boys signing to each other over my head. I bet they thought I was losing it.

  “A good night’s sleep is what we all need,” Tony droned.

  “Okay, grandpa!”

  “We’ve been on the move for six days now, Meera. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted!”

  “Hey, doesn’t our hotel have room service?” Jeet asked with a wicked grin.

  “How about some mac and cheese, hunh?” Tony asked, knowing I’ve never turned down a plate of cheesy pasta in my life.

  “And a banana split!” Jeet added.

  My mouth watered but I managed to keep a straight face.

  It was late when we entered the hotel. The place was like a busy airport. Jeet turned me around and pointed toward something in the distance. Dad and Sally were framed in a restaurant window, having dinner. A glass of wine lay in front of both of them. Dad leaned forward, saying something. Sally looked down and blushed.

  I grabbed Jeet and we went to the elevators. Tony had placed the room service order by the time I changed into my jammies.

  “I’m sure Uncle Andy won’t grudge us some food,” he grinned wickedly.

  There was a knock on the door a few minutes later and a uniformed man pushed in a trolley full of dishes, just like in the movies. There was a dome shaped lid over each of them. He pulled up each lid with a flourish, announcing the names of the dishes.