What Stays in Vegas (21 page)

Burping pickle guy, along with everybody else who had been listening intently, let out a collective murmur of agreement, and then, just like in a movie, slowly began to clap. 

The sound of applause seemed to bring Megan out of the daze from which she had been listening to me, wide eyed and unblinking.  She jerked her head up and down in what I hoped was a sign of forgiveness, or at least a sign that she wasn’t going to rip my heart out of my throat.

“This is unreal,” she murmured under her breath.  She looked up at her husband, and, having the final word in the matter, told him that it was time to go.  

I half expected her to drag Nick out by his earlobe, but he willingly trailed after her, hands jammed into his pockets.  Before they exited the restaurant he turned and mouthed something to me.  Maybe it was "sorry," or "help me," but in the dim light I couldn't be sure. 

People were still clapping, whistling even, as if I has just put on the performance of a lifetime.  I knew somewhere inside me was relief and pride at what I
had just done, but at the moment neither of those things were able to break through the utterly depressing thought of being left alone at the table with two plates of half eaten cheesecake and cold coffee. 

Burping pickle guy muttered something to me about “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” and I told him that if he didn’t want a certain part of his anatomy to remain in Vegas he would mind his own business.  I gathered up my stuff as quickly as I could, nodded appreciation to my fans, and headed out to the street to look for a taxi.  I saw Nick and Megan standing at the curb to the right, so I headed left as fast as my legs would take me. 

***

Kendra’s house was dark when the taxi dropped me off.  I pulled the spare key out from under a potted palm on the back porch and let myself in, making sure to turn off the security system.  The last thing I needed was to make another scene tonight.  The guest bedroom was on the first floor and I stumbled into it, not bothering to turn on the lights.  Clothes and all I fell into bed and pulled the covers up over my head.  I took my cell phone out of my pocket, the numbers glowing green under the covers.   

“Hello?” 

“Hey, Kara,” I said.  “I think he’s on his way.”

***

Someone was crawling into bed with me. 

“Mmmmmmpphh,”  they mumbled into the pillow.

“Kendra?  Is that you?”  I whispered.  I couldn’t get my eyes to focus in the dark.  I hoped to
hell it was her, otherwise I was in trouble.

“Mmmmmhmmmmmph,” they said.

“How did you know I was in here?  What time is it?”  I sat up on my elbow.  At least the mumbling seemed to be female.

“You dropped your purse in the hall.  It’s like six a.m.  I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“Um, okay, can you give me a little warning first?”

“Mmmmmmph.”

I laid back down and stared into the darkness.  The curtains in the guest room were so thick that an atomic bomb could go off in the backyard and you wouldn’t see a thing.  A vampire could watch The Price is Right at eleven o’clock in the morning in this room and be totally fine. 
Six a.m. 
The night before started to slowly come back to me.  I had left Kendra with Rob and Jasper and proceeded to either ruin or fix Nick's marriage, I wasn’t quite sure.  Now it was six a.m. and Kendra was just getting home. 
Oh no
!  I sat back up and shook her.

“Ken! Wake up!” I said.  “Please tell me you didn’t just now get back from showing Jasper a good time?” 

“I said I felt sick, didn’t I?”  she mumbled. 

“Oh God.  That's so gross.”

“At least we’ll be getting our zoning approved.”

“You realize he’s only one of seven Board members don’t you?  He still has to convince the other six.  Or did you sleep with all of them?” I asked.

“I’m such a slut.”

“No, you’re not.  You were drunk.  I never should have left you there.”  Another repulsive thought entered my mind.  I was almost afraid to ask, and maybe if there was some light in the room so I could see her face, I wouldn’t have.  “You didn’t do anything with Rob did you?”  I scrunched my face up in the dark, expecting the worst.

“Ugh, no way.  Once the little pervert saw that I was all over Jasper he crawled back into whatever hole he comes out of in the morning and I never saw him again.”

“Good,” I said.  “Because if you sleep with Rob Dorfman it’s kind of the law that I have to murder you.  Sleeping with Jasper just earns you a mild beating.”  I punched her under the covers.

“Please just murder me anyway.  This is bad Tess, this is
really
bad.  I think I might have a serious problem.”

“So sleeping with Jasper was rock bottom for you?” I asked.

“Sleeping with Jasper would be rock bottom for a prostitute,” said Kendra.

“What about sleeping with Rob?”

“That would be rock bottom for the pink algae that grows out of your shower head.”

“You have pink algae growing out of your shower head?  I thought someone with your money would have a maid.”

Kendra ignored me.  “God I need a shower.  Jasper fucking Quick!  How thick were my beer goggles?”

“You had a pretty good set going,” I said.  “So, uh, did he live up to his name?”

“I couldn’t even tell you, honestly.  And don’t try to make me remember, I’d rather not.” 

“If you think about it he’s really not that much worse than Phil Baxter, and you find Phil Baxter sexy.  You told me so.”

“Do
not
put him in the same category as Phil.  You know how I feel about him.”  The sheets rustled as she rolled over onto her back, or maybe her stomach.  I still couldn’t see in the dark.

“I’m just teasing,” I said. “But seriously, you agree with me now that we need to cool it with the drinking?”

“I...am...never...drinking...again,” said Kendra.

“Give me your hand."  I waved mine around in the dark.  I found it and she limply shook with me on the deal.  “Tomorrow morning, which I guess is right now, we’re going to start over as respectable people.  We’ll give your house a good cleaning, starting with those shower heads, and then we’ll go to the spa and get one of those cleansing treatments, you know, like Tom Cruise gets.”

“What the heck are you talking about?” Kendra mumbled into her pillow. 

I ignored her.  I knew exactly what I was talking about.  A fresh start.  No more hangovers, no more pining away for Nick Trask.  And at the center of my fresh start was Chris - hopefully still waiting for me to make up my mind.  Megan, the woman I had wasted so much energy on hating, had done me a huge favor by showing up and taking Nick away.  What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, they say.  And Megan, to my surprise, hadn’t killed me. 

He’s not coming.
 

I glanced down at my watch and checked my cell phone for the billionth time.  Sunday was a busy day at the bumper boats and with every passing minute I prayed that nobody else would sit down on our bench.  That was
his
spot and it needed to be empty when he showed up.  He was now ten minutes late and hadn’t even replied to my text message asking him to meet me here, so I was starting to get nervous. 

Five more minutes passed.  Since the time we had last shared this bench somebody had broken one of the legs so that it wobbled dangerously under my weight, but I didn’t care.  Until somebody pried it out of the cement and threw it into the bumper boats I was not going to budge, and even then Chris might find me smiling and waving as I slowly sank to the bottom of the pool.  That is if he showed up at all.  Which he would.  He just had to.

It was 11:30 a.m. when I finally crawled out of bed that morning, Kendra’s guest room still a pit of darkness.  Kendra was still asleep, snoring lightly, and I tip-toed out of the room allowing her a few more minutes of peace before awakening to a lifetime of the fact that she had slept with Jasper Quick.  My big plans of cleaning and spa treatments were scrapped when I realized how late it was.  As soon as I had showered I sent Chris a text. 
Bumper boats in twenty?  Please? 
I didn’t wait for a reply, I just got into my car and headed over on faith.  As I drove I thought about the short list of guys I had found myself in love with over the years. 

I dated my first love, Sam, for three years in high school, fooling around in the art room after school behind leftover props from Jesus Christ Superstar.  We thought we would be together forever.  Being fifteen years old we were
grown-ups
for God’s sake, how could anything ever change between us?  We even went off to the same college, but it wasn’t long before Sam turned into a beer guzzling frat boy who actually allowed other men to spank him on the ass with a paddle, and refused to tell me any details of his initiation. 

I watched in horror as the Sam I loved and had planned my entire future with turned into somebody I would not even choose to be friends with.  His room in the frat house was despicable and I refused to sleep over, which may have been the reason he found several other girls who
were
willing to sleep over.  But it was okay, because giving up your independence to become a mindless lemming was unacceptable to me. 

I soon discovered that college was a big place full of new guys and new art rooms to fool around in.  Dorm rooms too.  We broke up two months into our second semester, and so followed a parade of mostly unremarkable boyfriends and the occasional walk of shame.  Eventually I was spat out into the real world, still alone, and three years shy of meeting the second love of my life, Nick Trask.  I do not need to tell you how that one turned out.

The third try would be a charm, I just knew it.  The only catch was that Chris needed to show up.  I was about thirty seconds away from drowning my sorrows in a bag of cotton candy, when my end of the bench rose up like a see-saw as somebody much heavier sat down next to me.

“You come here often?” asked Chris.

Just the sound of his voice began to magically dissolve the weight that had been parked on my chest for the past week. 

“I do, actually,” I said.  “This lame guy I know thinks it’s cool to bring girls here.” 

“You want to hear lame?  I used to come here with a girl who makes stick figures out of paperclips.”

“Sounds like genius to me." 

  A refreshing mist from the bumper boats blew over us, reminding me that I had been waiting in the sun for nearly half an hour in what felt like 150 degree temperatures.  My arms were already quite red.  I stole a sidelong glance at Chris, but he was staring straight ahead.   

“So, um, that guy Nick, he's gone now,” I said, determined not to waste another minute.  “I, um, I made it quite clear to him that I met somebody else.  Plus his wife flew in last night to get him.  It was kind of a big scene.”

“Yeah?”  Chris looked over at me for the first time in a week.

“Yeah.  It was pretty humiliating, actually.  But I deserved it.  I even deserved the week of silent treatment that you've been giving me.  I mean, I had a crush on Nick for years, and you can’t be mad at me for that because I didn’t even know you then.  But when he showed up here I should have sent him home.  I should have told him about us right away, but I didn’t.  I'm so sorry, Chris.  I was a stupid, idiot, moron."

“Nah,” said Chris, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.  “I overreacted.  Like you said, we weren’t even officially dating and I got all psycho possessive over you.”  He tilted his head and looked at me sideways.  “We've barely even known each other a month, do you realize that?"

"Of course," I said, starting to worry about what he was getting at.  "It's only been a month, so if you don't want to - "

"It's only been a month," he cut in, "and I already can't stand the thought of not being with you.”

I felt my cheeks get warm without any help from the sun, and then even warmer as Chris leaned in to kiss me. 

“Nothing happened
between Nick and I
,
just so you know,” I said quietly.

Chris ran his hand through his hair and looked at my sheepishly.  “So, stopping off at the  Bunny Ranch on my way here was a bad idea?”

"Yes!"  I playfully jabbed him in the stomach.  "Even though I probably would have deserved it!  Oh Chris, I can't believe I almost messed all of this up.   I’ve never met anybody before who was so much -”  I struggled to find the words.  “Well, who was so much like
me
.  You’re
me
but you’re a boy!  How often does
that
happen?"  I shook my head.  “What an idiot I was.  You should just fling me into the bumper boats.”

“As much as I would love to watch you sail through the air,” said Chris, “how about we just forget any of this ever happened?”

“Deal,” I said.  I sidled a bit closer to him on the bench and we sat in silence, thinking over what had been said, and soaking up each other’s company which we had missed all week. 

“So,” said Chris,  “want to ride the boats?”

“Ride them?  You mean instead of just sitting here trash talking everybody?”  I looked at him in mock horror, which wasn’t one hundred percent mock.  I wasn’t exactly dressed for water sports with my brand new sneakers and thin white tank top.