Shelly's Second Chance (The Wish Granters, Book One) (8 page)

“Just some piece of trash,”
he said and dropped the paper. It blew up and over his head and landed in the
water pool made by the fountain where it bobbed around and around.

“That’s strange because in
Transition I found a scrap of paper that had names on it of people I’d known
and an old address from when I was a child.”

Joe leaped to his feet and
reached out as far as he could to retrieve the soaked paper from the pool. He
held the dripping sheet away from his body as if it might bite him.

“It’s a list of client
names,” he whispered. “Of people I defended. The ones I got off. Except for
this last one. There’s not enough of it to tell what the name is. What the hell
do these guys want from us anyway?”

Chapter Fourteen

Shelly marched up to the
counter with more confidence than she’d ever had. She slid three of the
vouchers across to the cashier. The woman’s reaction wasn’t quite what she’d
hoped. Apparently three hundred dollars—while a major, potentially
life-changing stake for someone like Shelly—was chump change here in Vegas.
Within seconds the woman slid a bucket of quarters back toward her, too bored
to even bother meeting Shelly’s eyes. The bucket was so heavy Shelly had to
carry it with both hands as she headed straight for the slots. The glamour
games like blackjack and craps weren’t for her and, after her poker loss years
ago, she’d steered clear of cards. Nah, she was a slots girl. Pump in the coins
and push the button. No waiting, no fuss. Somehow she wasn’t at all distracted
by the bright lights or all the noise. These were, of course, designed to break
down any resistance to the temptations of the game, but Shelly’s defenses
didn’t exist anyway, so she plunged in head first and started swimming.

 She had a system for picking
her machine. Her birthday was June 8
^th
so she walked to the sixth
row of slots and counted her way down to the eighth machine. Luckily it was
empty. If she’d found the eighth machine on the sixth row occupied, she’d
switch to the sixth machine in the eighth row, a distressing alteration in the
plan. Shelly was methodical and superstitious, something that GA had taught her
was true of most gamblers. One night the sponsor had suggested rearranging the
folding chairs and it had thrown the whole group into a tizzy.

 She slid onto the chair,
wedged the big bucket of quarters between her feet and then bent down with one
of the small plastic cups they kept stacked beside every machine to scoop up a manageable
pile of quarters. Some people played a line at a time or ran a whole board,
even the diagonals, but not Shelly. She was a slot machine purist. Besides, the
statistician in her required certain tools and programs to figure complex odds.

Bam, she pushed the first
button and a line of lemons dropped down one after the other, snap, snap, snap.
Shelly let out a little whoop, and a batch of quarters poured out, nearly
filling the slot tray. This was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. She
felt a thrill. Not the usual high that came with the uncertainty of an outcome.
This was more like holding a secret. She had power now—an edge. And she was in
the driver’s seat for the first time in her life.

“Wow! Must be twenty-five
bucks here. And on the very first play.”

She vaguely noticed Alanna
move to the machine at her left and Joe arrive at the other side.

“Well,” Shelly said under her
breath, popping in another quarter. “I’m the chosen one, right? So it’s
supposed to be easy.” The machine ate that quarter and she reached
automatically for the next and then another and soon she was feeding the
machine as if it was a hungry mongrel.

 “Chosen one?” Joe said with
a smirk. “Well I guess you are, honey, but it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Chosen by who?”

 “Whom,” Alanna said. Joe
laughed and shook his head. Shelly reached for another quarter and looked down
at her bucket. There were five quarters left. She had doubled her initial
chips, lost half of them, won again, lost again, won some more, and now had
nothing to show for her effort. It was impossible to tell the time in here.
Impossible to know for sure how long she’d been at it. But the way she felt was
familiar. Like she’d been had. Spent. Depleted. The bright-colored high was
long gone and in its place was a gray sort of feeling. Joe was at her side. He
looked into the bucket and shook his head.

“I thought you were supposed
to make my wish come true,” Shelly mumbled. “I’m beginning to think you and
that . . . ” she jerked her thumb over toward Alanna, “are just a couple of
weirdoes following me around for some reason.”

“Don’t get discouraged. You
have time. You don’t always win in the first round. I’ve done some time at the
casinos. You have to be in it for the long haul.”

Shelly perked up a bit.
“Where are you from, anyway?”

“Let’s not talk about me.
Y
ou
need
some sleep. The
casinos may stay up all night but there’s no reason why you should.”

“I’m hungry. Where’s the
restaurant?”

“Good idea,” Alanna said from
behind Shelly. “We could all go together.”

“Do you gamble too?” Shelly
turned to Alanna.

“No. I think this must be my
first time in a casino. I don’t get it. All these people sitting around and
basically pouring their hard earned money down a toilet. It doesn’t make sense.
What exactly is fun about this anyway?”

They moved down the aisles,
past an old woman wearing bifocals, a scruffy looking man with a day old growth
of beard, men in loud print shirts with stubby fingers, women with bleached out
hair, young, old, middle aged, all of them staring intently at the screen in
front of them, pushing buttons, feeding quarters, oblivious to the world.

“They do look kind of sad,”
Shelly mused after they reached the lobby. She glanced back at the casino. “Is
that the way I look?”

“What do they look like to
you?”

“
Z
ombies.” Shelly shook her head.

“Yeah, they do,” Joe said. “I
never played the slots. Poker is my game. Now that’s where you have to employ
skill. You’ve got to understand people
, be able to read them, to find their tells
.
It’s like life. You can’t
just sit there and let it happen. You’ve got to participate. There’s luck
involved but there’s a lot more. Those machines,” he jerked his thumb back
towards the bank of slot machines, “are for suckers. Sorry, Shelly. But be
honest. The odds are really lousy in there. You should know that better than
anyone.”

Chapter Fifteen

“I want a steak. And red
wine. Whatever you think is good. And a baked potato—loaded.” Shelly handed the
menu to the waiter. “I had no idea I was so hungry.” She sighed and leaned back
in her chair, surveying the restaurant. “Or how late it was.” Turned out she’d
been standing at her so-called lucky slot machine for three hours. “How about
you two?” She looked at Joe and then Alanna. The waiter did what his title
implied.

“I’m not sure,” Alanna
hesitated. She was thinking that a not-drink would be really good right now but
Joe ordered a bottle of red wine for all of them and he told the waiter to bring
the chateaubriand for two—it was the kind they sliced at the table complete
with flaming brandy. He figured what the hell, as long as they were on the tab
of whoever had sent them here, they might as well go all out.

“You do eat meat, don’t you?”
he suddenly thought to ask Alanna
,
but before she could even think about what
she was saying she blurted out an answer that sent the whole conversation in a
different direction.

“I’m not sure. That’s one of
the things I can’t remember. I’m pretty sure I never gambled before but I don’t
know what food I liked.”

“How can you not know what
kind of food you like?” Shelly looked mystified, missing the past tense
entirely, and then brightened. “I get it. You have amnesia. Right?”

“Yeah,” Joe answered before
Alanna had time to explain. “We both have amnesia. Can’t remember much of
anything.”

“What are the odds of that?”
Shelly asked as the waiter showed up with their salads. “Oh you guys are just
kidding me. But really, where are you from? Are you a couple or what?” She dug
in as if she hadn’t eaten for days.

 “We’re just friends,” Alanna
deflected. “And, yes, he’s kidding.”

She took a bite of salad. It
tasted flat. Like cardboard. She ate a few forkfuls and pushed it aside. Joe
drank a glass of wine and that seemed to enhance the food for him so Alanna did
the same but it didn’t help. She began to feel that pressure again. This would
be an awkward time to suddenly find herself in front of Morgan. What would
Shelly think if Alanna simply evaporated?

“Well how did Joe know I was
going to win that ticket? I never even heard of a Vegas Chance ticket before.
”

“Just think of us as your
guardian angels. Temporarily,” Joe smiled.

“So far you’re not doing such
a great job.”

“Give us time. We’re kind of
new at this.”

“What Joe means,” Alanna
broke in, “is that we never expected you to win big the very first night. You
have two more vouchers, bigger ones, and two more days and nights. Anything can
happen.” She found herself wishing she knew more about gambling but she really
couldn’t remember anything about it. And what if Shelly failed to win in that
time? Would they have to stay out here longer? The hotel was posh but the rest
of this locale was definitely not Alanna’s cup of tea. Without realizing it she
was overwhelmed with the feeling that she was lying on her back floating, up
and down, up and down. It was a pleasant feeling but she couldn’t quite
remember what it was. Or even if it was a memory. Maybe it was the wine. But
her glass was not even half empty. Maybe she was about to be pulled back up.
But no, she was still in the restaurant at the table with Joe and Shelly.

Shelly looked downright glum.
“You two may have the luxury of waiting, but I’m up against a deadline.”

“Meaning?” asked Joe, his
mouth full of bread

“This is my last chance to
win big enough to pay off my debts and start over. I promised myself I’d repay Ben
for our engagement weekend. If I don’t do it, I’m sure he’ll call off the
wedding and I don’t know what’ll happen to me.”

“You say you’re engaged,”
Alanna said. “But you’re not wearing an engagement ring.”

Shelly gave her a sour little
smile. “Trust a woman to notice.”

“You hocked it,” Joe
ventured. Shelly nodded, and Alanna turned away, a bit shocked despite herself.
How desperate would a woman have to be to hock her own engagement ring?

 “Ben thinks I’m getting it resized,”
Shelly said, “But he’s not going to buy that excuse forever and what happens to
me when Ben figures that part out? I’ll lose my condo, I’ll lose my job, I’ll
lose my fiancé. You’ve seen my car. It’s not worth anything. I have no other
assets to sell. My family already told me not to come begging. I’m all alone.”
Tears welled up. Her eyes reddened. She sniffed loudly. “You guys are my very
last chance.” Then the tears really started to flow. “And I don’t even know who
you are or why you’re here.”

At that moment two waiters
wheeled over a side table and set down a domed dish with the chateaubriand under
it. One of them lifted the cover with a broad hand gesture—evidently he doubled
as a dancer in one of the shows or perhaps a magician’s assistant in an all-gay
cabaret—and, right on cue, the three of them turned to watch the presentation.
Shelly wiped her eyes and gamely took another swig of wine. A bit of razzmatazz
and a burst of fire, then within minutes they all had steaming plates of beef
in front of them. A silence fell over the table as they began to eat.

Alanna ate a little bit but
still nothing had any taste. Joe wolfed his down as if he hadn’t eaten for
years. Just like a man, Alanna thought and, as the thought formed, she had
another feeling behind it, a sort of gentle happiness, a sense of being buoyed
up by something, of being safe and cherished but also a feeling of being
stifled. It was a confused mix.

“Okay, I’m really tired now,”
Shelly said, pushing back from her seat with a sigh, “ I’m going back to my
suite and fall into that big bed. Wherever you came from and whoever you are,
just make sure you’re around tomorrow because you promised I was going to win.
I didn’t come all the way out here to prove everybody was right about me being
a loser.”

They all stood up and, with
an elaborate sigh, Shelly turned away and wobbled toward the door. Alanna and
Joe simply de-manifested.

It says a lot about Vegas
that not a single soul noticed they were gone.

Chapter Sixteen

When Shelly passed a large
mirror and got a good look at herself, she was horrified to discover that
indeed she did look a lot like those other people who’d been plying the slots
for days on end. And she had just started. Instead of going straight to bed,
she found the beauty shop nearby—open
24 hours
every day—and pulled out the hotel upgrade
certificate. S
helly
marched in and told the first beautician in line to fix her up.