Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes (25 page)

He thought about it for a minute. “If they do,” he said, “it doesn't matter. Maybe they'd be doing me a favor.”

“Not if they break your legs when they fire you, they won't.”

“Huh? Never mind. What I want to know is, what happened down there before?”

“Well, first there were these shoes, see. It all started with these shoes.”

Having told my story once to Tom Jones, sort of, I was now ready to tell it to the world.

“Wait a second,” Chris said, pushing the elevator button. “Let's go outside for this. I've been cooped up in here for hours. Wouldn't you like to just go outside and get some fresh air?”

“Well, it'll probably be freshly polluted air, but sure. Why not.”

Before I knew it we were on the elevator, off the elevator, across the lobby, and then…

It felt odd to be outside in Las Vegas.

Sure, I'd gone to Red Rock Canyon with Billy earlier in the day—God, that seemed so long ago now, another lifetime—but with the exception of the walk from the limo to the hotel when we'd first arrived, this was the first time I'd been outside. And despite everything that had gone wrong with the day and night, it felt terrific to escape the hermetically sealed confines of the casino. It was like being liberated.

As we walked down The Strip, Chris took my hand. It wasn't a girlfriend-boyfriend type of hand-taking, more like two gal pals linking arms in an old-fashioned storybook or maybe he could just tell I needed whatever support I could find.

“It all started with these shoes,” I started to say again.

“Wait,” he said. “Let me take you to my favorite spot on The Strip and then you can tell me.”

His favorite spot on The Strip turned out to be the exploding volcano in front of The Mirage hotel.

“Damn!” he said, looking at his watch. “I forgot, it's after midnight.”

“And that's a problem, Cinderella?”

“Well, yeah. The volcano stops exploding then. You should see it when it's going.” His eyes got all excited, just like a little kid. “After a few moments of foreboding silence, the cascading water begins to churn and a low rumble emerges from the heart of the once-dormant volcano. Then, the eruption kicks into high gear as bright orange flames leap about one hundred feet above the water, illuminating the night sky. As the fire spreads across the lagoon, those standing close enough can feel the temperature rise. Several smaller explosions erupt, and eventually the volcano goes quiet once more.”

“And this is your favorite spot on The Strip?”

“Well, yeah,” he said again, as if his reasoning should be obvious. “It's not every day you get to see a volcano erupt in the middle of the desert.”

Huh. “Well, when it is working, how often does it erupt?”

“Every night at thirty-minute intervals from 8:00 p.m. until midnight.”

“So then actually you
can
see a volcano erupt every day in the desert.”

“Well, no, actually you can only see it at night.”

“But every night.”

“Well, yeah.” He ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture that said his hand expected to find more hair there. “I guess I'm not really very good at this sort of thing,” he admitted.

“What sort of thing?”

“Talking, in general. Talking to damsels in distress, in particular.”

I wanted to tell him he was doing fine, that all the talking about the nonerupting volcano had distracted me from my own problems, had distracted me from Billy for at least five minutes.

“Well,” I said instead, “I suppose we could just stand around here and watch it
not
explode.”

“Tell me about the shoes, Delilah.”

“See, I was washing windows for this wealthy fading movie star—”

“Is that what you do for a living, wash windows?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That's good. I was worried you might be a professional gambler. I do keep running into you in casinos. And at least you do something that makes people happy.”

“Clean windows makes people happy?”

“Of course. It's almost as good as being a donut salesperson. Everyone loves a donut salesperson.”

“They do?”

“Well, sure. What could be better than being the person who gives other people a dozen assorted donuts?”

“I don't know. Washing windows?”

“Exactly! Their windows were dirty, now they're clean, you're the one who did it for them. What could be better? But getting back to the shoes…”

“Right. Those shoes. Those damn Jimmy Choos. So, anyway, I was cleaning Elizabeth Hepburn's windows—”

“
The
Elizabeth Hepburn?”

I nodded.

“One time, during the years that John Travolta's career was in the crapper, my mom took me to see him do a dancing exhibition. His partner was Ms. Hepburn and even though she was already pretty old at the time, man, could she dip.”

“Anyway, she gave me this Chick Lit book, see,
High Heels and Hand Trucks: My Life Among the Books—
”

“Great title.”

“And I started reading the book…”

I proceeded to tell him my story, getting as far as Billy following me to Atlantic City…

“His talisman? Isn't that a little…hokey?”

I thought about it for a moment. “Well, yeah.”

“And that didn't bother you?”

“Yes. No. I don't know. I mean, I was flattered. He seemed so suave, so debonair and even though most of what we ever talked about was gambling, I felt as though he was really interested in me. You know. As a woman.”

“Who wouldn't be interested in you as a woman?”

The list was so long, I wouldn't have known where to start, so instead I barreled on.

“Then Billy started to pressure me into going to Vegas with him after admitting he was a professional gambler—”

“You mean to say he told you he was a professional gambler and still you kept on with him?”

“I guess that was stupid, huh?”

“Well,
yeah.
Why did you do that, Delilah? Why, why, why?”

“Because my mom stuck by my dad? Because he was exciting? Because I wanted those damn shoes?”

“Go on.”

“I'd done well at Atlantic City…” I continued, ending with, “then my dad got involved with a woman who made him go to Debtors Anonymous.”

“I think you must mean Bettors Anonymous.”

“That's what she said. Plus, Stella was worried about Elizabeth Hepburn's evil servant, Lottie—which, truth to tell, so was I—and Conchita and Rivera weren't talking to each other anymore—”

“Wait a second. Stella? Conchita and Rivera? I don't think you've mentioned any of them before.”

“My boss and the other two window washers who work on our crew, respectively if not respectfully. Conchita and Rivera are lesbians, by the way.”

“Well, of course. Why wouldn't they be?”

“So—” big finish “—I finally came to Vegas with Billy and it was wonderful! At first. But then he kept wanting to gamble and for some reason I really didn't, so I talked him into going to Red Rock Canyon with me this morning, and that was a bust, and then when we returned the car John Belushi claimed we put a dent in it—”

“The real John Belushi?”

“Well, no. So then Billy said maybe I wasn't such a great talisman after all, because he had to forfeit his hundred-dollar deposit and I realized I had to put up or shut up, so we hit the casino and won big—you saw us do it—which was great and afterward he took me shopping and bought me these clothes and these shoes, which are pretty even if they're not Jimmy Choos, and he told me we'd get married in the Sunrise and Sunset Chapels tomorrow—”

“He asked you to marry him? What did you say?”

“I don't exactly remember saying yes, but I didn't say no, either. And then he said we'd get married the next day, but that first we needed to double our winnings—”

“And that's when I saw you again, when you lost all your chips.”

“It was everything I had, except this.” I produced the crumpled fiver from my cleavage.

“And then Billy just took off?”

“Uh-huh. He said I wasn't his talisman anymore.”

“And you haven't seen him since?”

“Nope.”

“I've got one question for you, Delilah—did you love him?”

“I don't know. I mean, I thought I might have. Sort of.”

“‘Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.'”

“You know Shakespeare?”

“Doesn't everyone? And I know one other thing, too, Billy's a creep.”

“Oh, I guess we all know that by now. Me more than anybody. If the names
The Rat
and
The Weasel
weren't already taken, he'd be those, too.”

“I think you need to be sure you're over him.”

“How do I do that?”

He didn't say anything. He just leaned down slowly, pressed his lips gently to mine. His lips tasted just like something fresh, with maybe a hint of lime.

Oh, boy.

“It's a start,” he said. “How long did you say you're in town for? When do you go back home?”

“I didn't say, but I go back on Monday. I'm stuck here until Monday with just my plane ticket back and this five-dollar bill. I don't even know how I'll eat. Not that I feel like eating.”

“You have to eat. I'll talk to the guys in the kitchen, make sure room service brings up a few meals to you, on the house.”

“What if you're fired after running out on the job like that?”

He shrugged. “I can always drop off meals for you myself. What do you like to eat?”

“Cocoa Krispies for breakfast, Amy's Cheese Pizza Pocket for lunch, Michael Angelo's Four Cheese Lasagna for dinner. For drinks, I like Diet Pepsi Lime and Jake's Fault Shiraz.” I shrugged. “You know, the kind of stuff everyone likes.”

“Done.”

For good measure, he kissed me again. No pressure, just something light with a hint of promise in it.

“I can't believe you did all this,” he said, “and you never even got your Choos.”

“Me, either.”

“What will you do with the rest of your time here?”

“I don't know.” My last full day, Sunday, was already here. “Maybe go to church and watch other people get married all day.”

“I've got an idea,” he said. He took out his wallet and from there produced a business card. It said Las Vegas Library with an address.

“What's this?” I asked.

“Just be there tomorrow at two. Look for the Storytime Room. And dress casual.”

After Chris walked me back to the hotel, giving me one more kiss just outside, I took the elevator up, made the long condemned-girl's walk down the corridor to the room I'd shared with Billy.

On the bed, so well made up by the housekeeper it looked sterile, he'd left my plane ticket and a note:

I got the silver dress and shoes off me quicker than you can say “a natural Twenty-one beats everything else,” and tossed the offending clothes in the garbage. Then I climbed into bed naked where I dreamt of nothing but Furthest Guy. Only now he was center stage and he wasn't dropping any of his yo-yos.

T
he Las Vegas Library looked nothing like the libraries back home. Instead of wood or brick, it was off-white painted stone, presumably protection against the desert heat, and there wasn't a Doric or Ionic or Corinthian column in sight.

I had no idea what to expect there.

I'd smiled while eating the room-service breakfast of dry Cocoa Krispies that had been delivered to my door with a Diet Pepsi Lime chaser. Sure, it had been too early in the day for soda, but I'd forgotten to mention to Chris about the milk. And I'd smiled even more when lunch came at noon, Amy's Cheese Pizza Pockets, with yet more Diet Pepsi Lime, only this time there was an added treat on the tray:
Men Are Not The Only Heels,
the latest brand-spanking-new Shelby Macallister Chick Lit novel.

But now that I was in the library, finding my way to the Storytime Room, I wasn't smiling any longer because I had no idea what to expect.

The Storytime Room was brightly decorated with children in mind and had a capacity of about thirty people, judging from the seating setup. Most of the seats were already taken and I had to search for a minute before finding the last vacant seat in the middle of the third row. Seating myself between a grandfatherly man and a fiftysomething woman in a business suit who was reading a book while waiting for whatever was supposed to start to start, I noticed that in front of the first row of seats, down on the ground, were a couple of rows of small children.

The grandfatherly man had a hearing aid on the ear that was to my side so, worrying that if I asked him I might still have to shout, I leaned toward the woman on my right, started to whisper, “Do you know what the program—”

But before I could finish, a librarian type of woman wearing a laminated name tag on a lanyard made an announcement.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, we here at the Las Vegas Library are pleased to welcome back today Chris Westacott, yo-yoist extraordinaire!”

Everyone clapped politely, with the exception of the woman to my right, as Chris took the center of the nubby gray carpeting. Gone were his slick dealer clothes and while he obviously couldn't grow his shaggy hair back overnight, his whole appearance was more like the version of him I'd originally met. Instead of black pants, he now had on low-slung long khaki shorts that came to the knee. Instead of a cummerbund, he had on a brown leather belt that was barely holding up the khaki shorts. Instead of a crisp white shirt, he had on a maroon T-shirt that said Spanky Ate Here.

Chris took the microphone from the librarian and gave a slight bow to his audience.

“Thanks,” he said. “First, I'm going to do a few tricks and, in between, if there are any questions, I'll be glad to answer them. Actually,” he smiled winningly, “I sweat so much under these lights that if you ask me questions, you'll be doing me a favor.”

And then he went to work, much of what he was doing being things I'd seen him do before: round the world, walking the dog, the two-handed yo-yo trick. But there was a difference between seeing him here and the times I'd seen him performing in the lobbies of casinos. Oh, he still lost control of his yo-yos here occasionally, but there were no Billys to heckle him and the crowd, young and old alike, were so entranced with what he was doing that no one seemed to mind if he made a few fumbles.

“Isn't he terrific?” I asked the lady next to me as he made a hot-pink yo-yo go round and round.

“Oh, that's one word for him all right,” she said.

Chris finished the trick and he paused, obviously hoping someone would ask him a question. A little boy in the front row obliged.

“How many hours a day do you practice?” the boy asked.

“That's a great question,” Chris said, wiping his brow. “Eight, if I can get it in. Yo-yoing, if you want to be good at it, is a full-time job.”

He did another trick, this time turning out the lights and using glow-in-the-dark yo-yos so that it was like two ghouls revolving in the night.

“Can you make a living at what you do?” a little girl asked during the next break.

“It's not easy,” Chris said, “but I suppose that if a person could fill their calendar with enough jobs and was willing to travel all over the country to do libraries and exhibitions and things, sure, why not? Now watch this…”

But when Chris tried to do his next trick, it turned out there was a competing performer in the room: a little girl, about five years old, with long brown hair, big brown eyes like chocolate drops, and a pink Lycra halter dress on with yellow-and-green trim, who obviously thought her half-executed cartwheels were an entertainment match for the yo-yo-meister. Even though she was interrupting Chris's show, he didn't seem to mind, and I smiled along with him as she cartwheeled in a misshapen circle around his performance area. I'd never given any thought to having kids of my own before, but watching that energetic girl, with her personality brighter than a shooting star, I suddenly wanted one.

“God,” I said aloud, “I'd love to have a kid like that.”

“That's
my
kid up there,” said the lady to my right.

“She is?” I was surprised. The lady would have had to have had her when she was in her late forties at least, if that was indeed her little girl.

“Not the girl,” she said, eyes focused on the performance area, where Chris had started to do yet another trick. “The boy. Or, I guess I should say, man.”

“The guy with the yo-yos is your
son?
”

I mean, it wasn't exactly like meeting Mary, mother of you-know-who, but it was close enough.

I looked at her more closely: steel-colored hair, matching glasses, gray eyes. She didn't look a thing like Chris and not just because of all of that. It was the suit. She looked like she'd been wearing a suit for thirty-five years. Well, maybe not the same one, but you get the picture.

“He's my son all right,” she said, and I couldn't tell from her tone if she was proud or not.

“You must be very proud of him,” I said.

“You think? I just thought I'd come here today to see how he was doing. I don't get to see him perform very often. Usually, he does it too far away or it's during hours when I'm working, but this time it was right at home…Of course, I couldn't get his father to come.”

“You must be so proud of him,” I said again, eyes glued on Chris and realizing how much I meant it. “You and your husband must both be so proud.”

“Why?” she asked earnestly, as if she really didn't know.

“My God,” I said, “look at him.” I gestured. “Look at
them.
” I pointed to the rows of kids, each face enraptured by whatever the heck it was Chris was doing with that oversized yo-yo. “Your son creates real
joy
in the world. He makes other people
happy.
I mean, I don't think those kids could be any happier if he'd given them each a dozen donuts and I don't think the adults could be happier if he'd washed all their windows.”

“Huh?”

“Think about it,” I said. “He's smart. He could have been a doctor or a lawyer or a businessperson—” “Which is exactly what his father and I wanted him to be.”

“—but instead, he does something that brings genuine happiness into the world to everyone he performs for. Well, so long as it's not in casinos. Honestly, what better job could he possibly ever have? He makes people
happy.
”

“Huh.”

Before leaving for the airport the next day, I tossed my copy of
Blackjack Winning Basics,
by Tony Casino, in the trash.