CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I’m stunned to hear Jason make this declaration. First Pop, then my mother, and now my husband. What is up with my family members? It’s as though everything that used to be true about them is changing. That’s more than a little disconcerting.
I’m thinking I may have to take Sally Anne’s words to heart.
This is Vegas, baby. Roll with it.
“Almost done,” Jason tells me a few seconds later as I sit there like a lump watching him do crunches. “After I shower, you wanna get dinner? Your Sparklettes show is late, right?”
“It’s at 11. I have to be there by 10.”
“So we have time.” He leaps to his feet and winks in my direction. “Care to join me in the showers?”
“Can we talk first?”
“Uh oh.” He grabs a towel and loops it around his neck. “That’s never good.”
“It’s just … are you really serious about moving out of Cleveland?”
“We have to at least consider it, right? After all, what else am I going to pit school for?”
“Because it’s something you’ve always wanted to do. Because it’ll make you a better mechanic.”
“You know what, Happy?” He comes closer. “I don’t want to talk about that now.” Closer still. “Let’s talk about it later.” Close enough to kiss me.
“How about how grody you are?” I manage to ask a few seconds later.
“I don’t care if you don’t.”
I realize I don’t.
Jason’s lips are soft and warm. His arms are strong and enveloping. He’s the man I’ve loved since I was 17 years old, and as he pulls me along after him it’s as wonderful as Sunday morning with Rachel out of the house for a few hours.
I ignore my cell when it rings—because I have better things to do—but eventually I fetch it and check my voicemail. “Trixie called to say that she and Shanelle took Mom out to dinner,” I report to Jason. “Trixie remembered you were getting in this afternoon and figured we were”—I pause—“occupied.”
“We were occupied.” He comes close to brush my lips with yet another kiss. “I guess it’s true what they say about Vegas.”
“I guess it is.”
“I’m starving. I could eat a cow.” He brushes my hair off my forehead. “I wonder how that happened.”
“I need to eat, too. It won’t look good if I faint during the performance.”
“How about I run down to that deli across the street and pick up something? You get ready in the meanwhile.”
“Good idea. But can I tell you something first?”
I guess our being together like this has put me in a confessional mood. We settle against the bed’s plumped-up pillows and I tell him about Cassidy’s murder and how I have been “snooping around” as he puts it. I include every last painful detail about Hans.
He listens without saying a word. Then, “It bothers me that you know how I feel about this and you do it anyway.”
“It’s important to me to prove that I can. Even though—” I stop.
“What?”
“I’m not really sure that I can. I know I figured out who killed Tiffany Amber but I’m kind of nowhere when it comes to figuring out who killed Danny and Cassidy.”
“That’s because you’re not a cop! You don’t have their resources, you don’t have their training—”
“I know.” I don’t want to hear all the reasons I’m coming up short. I already know them all too well.
“Can’t you just be happy you solved that murder on Oahu and leave it at that? That cleared your name. That let you be Ms. America. Isn’t that enough?”
It should be. It really should be.
Jason gets out of bed. “I’m gonna go to that deli.”
“Okay. I’ll shower. And I’ll try to reach Rachel before she goes to bed. I missed her this morning.”
Even though Jason and I aren’t exactly on the same page, I feel better that we caught up on everything that’s been going on. Then I’m doubly pleased when my daughter is willing to take a break from
Titanic
—which she seems to adore beyond all other movies—to chat with me.
“I’ve decided that Maggie isn’t all bad,” she declares.
“Maggie? Is that the name of Grandpa’s …” My voice trails off. I can’t bring myself to say “girlfriend.”
“She did my nails with this airbrushing technique. It took like hours but they look really good. They’re lime green with gold dots.”
I’m taken aback. “That sounds kind of girly for you.”
“They’re not
pink
or anything. Ryan thought they looked really cool, too.”
That does not qualify as high praise in my book.
“And she totally gets what I mean about college,” Rachel goes on. “She didn’t go to college and she owns her own business.”
I restrain myself from making all the less than generous observations that pop into my brain. “That’s great that she owns her own nail salon but I hardly think that means that college isn’t incredibly worthwhile.”
“She just gets that there’s no reason I have to go
now
. She understands why I want to do that program overseas next year.”
“Rach, as I told you before, that program sounds worthwhile. But I’m afraid that if you put college off, you’ll never go.”
Life may intervene. It has a way of doing that. The last thing I want is for my super-bright daughter not to get a college degree. It’s bad enough I still don’t have mine.
My daughter is smart enough to change the subject. “I’m glad Dad got to go to Vegas. He’s gonna see your show, right?”
We talk about noncontroversial subjects for the few minutes I can spare before I’ve got to jump in the shower. The pounding water starts to calm me down and Jason finishes the job.
“Don’t get all worked up about what this Maggie has to say.” He hands me a sandwich. “I got you turkey and guacamole on whole wheat. For all we know she’ll be out of the picture in a month.”
That is sage advice. Plus I have something more immediate to worry about: my debut with the Sparklettes.
We grab my mother from her room and manage to make it to the theater on time. I wonder how my mom and Jason will coexist by themselves for the hour until the show starts. I hope we don’t have a third murder in the theater.
Backstage, some of the dancers are already well into their warm-ups. I join Trixie and Shanelle and limber up with some stretches. No doubt thanks to this morning’s cryotherapy—not to mention Jason’s ministrations this evening—I’m feeling pretty darn good even though we’re near the end of a very long day.
“You look happy,” Trixie observes with a wink and a giggle.
“I am happy,” I reply, though I’d be way happier if I’d nabbed a killer or two.
“You go, girl,” Shanelle says.
“By the way, did you get to talk to Frank after the cryotherapy this morning?” Trixie wants to know.
“Did I ever.” I lower my voice. “I kept him from skipping town. And he told me Danny gave him money, money we know is probably stolen.” Explaining the Frank escapade, and my backstage encounter with Travis Blakely, takes us through our squats, lunges, and barre work.
I don’t mention my get-together with Mario. I judge it best not to think about him too much.
Shanelle laughs as she executes a few jump kicks. “Just think, Trixie. All we did this afternoon was shop for souvenirs.”
Trixie lights up. “I got a black Vegas baseball for Tag”—she kicks—“a pink Vegas Princess beach towel for Tessa”—she kicks again—“and red fuzzy dice for Rhett.”
“Nothing for yourself?”
She bends over, panting. “We ran out of time.”
That’s Trixie for you, always thinking of herself last.
Trainer Elaine hustles us through a few drills before we race to the dressing room to slap on more makeup and don our opening costume, the Sparklettes version of Top Hat and Tails.
Squeezing into the black and pink ruffled corset makes me think of Cassidy. “Detective Perelli told me Cassidy’s body was taken to Phoenix today, where her family lives,” I whisper to Trixie and Shanelle.
“She never did make it to L.A.,” Trixie says.
“I do feel bad for that girl,” Shanelle adds, pulling on the thigh-high black fishnet stockings. “I get the idea it was Danny who created the mess and Cassidy mostly got sucked into it.”
I agree with that assessment.
“What about Cassidy’s cat?” Trixie asks me.
“Detective Perelli told me her mother wants to keep it.”
“That’s good.” Trixie faces a mirror and straightens her top hat. “Can you believe we’re about to go onstage as real dancers?”
I can’t. But we are. Elaine leads the eighteen of us to the stage and we assume our start-the-show positions. A few minutes later the drumroll signals that the curtains are about to part. I’ve been so distracted all day I haven’t had the chance to get nervous. Now I feel the adrenaline rush I know so well from pageant competition.
“Good luck, ladies!” Elaine races past high fiving Shanelle, Trixie, and me. “You’ll do great!” She scampers aside just as the curtains pull back.
The audience cheers and claps. A jazzed-up version of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” fills the theater. We start busting out our moves. I beam at the invisible crowd beyond the klieg lights. Jason is out there, and my mom, and I’m reminded yet again how very lucky I am that my crown allows me to do so many fun things that I’d never get the chance to do otherwise.
We dance and twirl and kick up a storm and then it’s costume change time. Into our Madonna-style bustiers and beauty-queen sashes, all in the 78 seconds allotted. This time we start with “Vogue” and two-thirds of the way through Shanelle, Trixie, and I take center stage for our “solo” routine.
Greta Garbo, and Monroe,
Dietrich and DiMaggio,
Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean
On the cover of a magazine.
Grace Kelly; Harlow, Jean,
Picture of a beauty queen.
Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire
Ginger Rogers, dance on air …
The crowd goes wild. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun performing. Every other time I’ve done a dance number it’s been during pageant competition. Since tonight that pressure is off, it’s pure joy.
“We nailed ‘Vogue’!” Trixie shrieks when we’re backstage again, this time for our final change into the diamond costume of black spandex and silver lame.
“You were right, Elaine!” I shout. “It’s a huge rush out there!”
“Wait till you do the final number!” she yells back. “You’ll get chills!”
She’s right. I do. We do our showstopping 36 straight eye-high kicks to Donna Summer’s “Last Dance” and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so exhilarated in my life. It might even be better than cryotherapy. One of the Sparklettes told me the final kick lines are addictive and now I know why.
I can’t believe it’s over when we finish our encore and strut off the stage.
Backstage Shanelle lets out a whoop. “That was the fastest ninety minutes of my
life
!” she hollers. “Let’s go back out and do it again!”
“Tomorrow night we will!” Elaine says. “Right now I need you to cool down and stretch and soak your feet in ice. But before that let’s put our hands together for Happy, Shanelle, and Trixie, who rocked that stage tonight!”
We three queens are only too happy to take our bows.
By the time we’re released to find Jason and my mom outside the theater, I’m fading. But Jason says, “Who’s up for drinks? I’m buying!” and before I know it we’re at an outdoor nightclub that mimics a Paris street scene.
We order a vegetable tart, canapés with smoked salmon, and warm camembert on crackers. One French martini later—Chambord-flavored vodka and Chambord liqueur, pineapple juice, and fresh raspberries for garnish—I am ready for dreamland.
