Out of Aces (8 page)

Irina sounded really suspicious. “Okay, I just want to know one thing. Is the only reason you went to church because you’re worried about Mi
cah?”

I sighed and tipped my head against the wall. The answer was
yes
. But suddenly the line Steve gave me earlier—
Because I love you
—popped into my head. “No,” I said. “Not the only reason. I already told you why over t
ext.”

There was a silence. “Well, what did you th
ink?”

“I liked it. It was relax
ing.”

“Relax
ing?”

I knew she wanted more—I could feel it. But this was serious, not something to gloss. I mean, I’d been in the place for twenty minutes. Not long enough to get much of an impression. And her question had another question inside it, an unspoken one:
Are you open to my religion?
I didn’t know what I thought about that yet. “It was pretty. I liked the singing.” That was
true.

“That’s cool.” Irina’s voice was softer. “So who texted that stuff about icons and fast
ing?”

I laughed. “Oh, these Greek guys. I told them about Micah and they knew he was hitting on
you.”

“Will you
stop
saying t
hat?”

“Just promise you’ll kick him in the nuts if he tries anyth
ing.”

Irina cracked up on the other
end.

I decided it was time for a romantic move. “I already have enough tips to buy you a ticket. I’ve been looking on Orbitz, and I think I found some good o
nes.”

“Alre
ady?”

“Yeah. I was thinking the first weekend after New Year’s. Is that too s
oon?”

Irina made a little Russian sound, an approving sound. “Definitely not. Like Friday night to Sunday ni
ght?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Can I pull the trig
ger?”

“Yes,” she said. I could hear the excitement in her voice. We were both quiet for a minute. I couldn’t stop smiling. Then she asked, “So, did you check out the website I sent
you?”

The happy feeling melted away. “Irina, come on, I told you it’s not dysle
xia.”

“Well, did
you?”

“No,” I admitted. She’d sent me a link to the American Dyslexia Association. I didn’t even click on it. It spooked me to think I could get a label like
that.

“Why are you being so weird about this? There’s a quiz on the homepage that tells if you’re dyslexic. Just ten yes or no questions. It would take you, like, five minu
tes.”

“Why?” I said. “What difference would it make?” I knew she was disappointed that I’d dropped out of school. And this labeling thing was part of a master plan to get me back in t
here.

“It would explain a
lot!”

“Like why I’m stu
pid?”

Irina almost never raised her voice, but she did now. “No! Leonardo da Vinci had dyslexia! So did Thomas Edison! And
Einstein
!
So it doesn’t mean you’re stupid! But you’re so stubborn, I’m starting to think you
are
stu
pid.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’ve obviously done a lot of research on t
his.”

“Only because you wo
n’t.”

I tried to make my voice calm. I really didn’t want to fight with her, not with Micah nipping at my heels. “Even if I do have it, maybe I don’t want to know,” I said. “Don’t I have the right to decide t
hat?”

She sniffed. “I don’t k
now.”

When we said our good-byes, I knew she was still annoyed. So was I. I felt cornered. Pressured. If I did have dyslexia—and I didn’t think I did—I really
didn’t
want to know. I already felt bad enough about myself. I didn’t need to add something
new.

CHAPTER EIGHT

A
re you going home next week for Christmas?” Rob asked as he stacked glasses. It was early Friday night and the bar was still pretty me
llow.

I thought about it. Christmas alone in Vegas seemed like a bad idea. But I’d already told my mom I wasn’t coming, and there was no way I wanted to deal with Phil’s trashed face messing up our family holiday. I could just picture the pile of Victoria’s Secret bags under the Christmas tree. I’d miss seeing Irina, but I’d gone ahead and bought her tickets like we’d talked about. So I only had to wait two weeks to see
her.

Finally I said, “No, I’m staying h
ere.”

“You had to think about t
hat.”

“Yeah. My mom’s boyfriend is an idiot. I’m not doing Christmas with
him.”

Rob opened the fruit tray, made a face, and dumped the whole thing in the trash. “Good for you. Biological family is enough of a pain. Anyway, Christmas in Vegas could be c
ool.”

“Or pathetic,” I
said.

“No, man. Cool in a Hunter S. Thompson kind of
way.”

I smiled. “Okay, I could see that. What about you? What are you do
ing?”

“MacNamara and Shaugnessy clans are getting together.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I have a k
ilt.”

“No, you do
n’t!”

“Yes, I do. My dad paid a lot of money to get our plaid shipped and fit
ted.”

I giggled and started playing fake bagpipes, making a little moaning s
ound.

“What the hell are you doing?” said Nick from behind
me.

I whipped around. The guy had a se
nsor.

“He was making fun of my Scottish heritage,” Rob said with a straight
face.

Nick couldn’t help it—he smiled. Rob could make anybody smile. “Gabe, two security guys called in sick. I need you to take a bouncer shift. Lars will handle your bar.” Nick was looking sharp, as usual, in a tailored sports jacket and j
eans.

“Okay, sure.” I wiped my hands on a towel. I’d never bounced before, but I wasn’t too worried. There had only been one fight since I started working there, and the guys were so wasted they were swinging air pun
ches.

Nick took me to the main door. The bouncer stool was at the entrance, in front of a velvet rope that split the VIP from the regular line. Both lines were already wrapping around the building. Lars had a strategy of making people wait, even if it was dead inside. Terrell, head of security, was sitting on the stool, checking IDs. He was a menacing dude, at least two-fifty, with a face that never changed expres
sion.

Nick tapped Terrell on the shoulder. “Gabe’s covering for Frank. Show him the ropes, then you can staff the rear.” He disappeared in
side.

Terrell looked me over, and he didn’t seem too impressed. “You ever bounce bef
ore?”

I shook my
head.

“Just check the cards and send them to the cage.” He pointed to the window where customers paid cover. April waved at me from behind the glass, and I smiled at her. Maybe if things got slow, I could talk with her. Although on a Friday night “slow” wasn’t too li
kely.

“What about VIPs?” I a
sked.

“Check their VIP card and ID. Make sure the names match. If they don’t have a card, they’d better be on the list.” He handed me a clipboard and got up from the stool. “You c
ool?”

“Um . . . I think
so.”

“All right. If they look like trash, don’t let ’em in. If they’re a bunch of stags, don’t let ’em in. If they look like tourists, don’t let ’em in. If they’re hot women or they’re famous, you know what to do. You need help, ask Marilyn here.” He pointed at April in the cage and trudged into the club. I sat down and looked at a couple of guys climbing out of a taxi. I smiled to myself. This was the most ironic job in the universe for me to be d
oing.

I thought bartending was hard, but bouncing on a busy Friday was hell. There were the jerks who were already drunk, saying dirty stuff to the girls in line; the hot women who thought they should get to skip both lines; and the tourists who tried to give me tens or twenties to get in the VIP line. The first time it happened, I was so surprised, I took the money and let the guy through. April tapped on the glass. “Not for less than this,” she called, holding up a Benj
amin.

A couple hours in, I was starting to channel Terrell: no eye contact, no face movement, not even for hot women. They were a dime a dozen, anyway. Besides, April was hotter than any of them, not that I had time to talk to her. Then a guy in the VIP line stepped up and shoved his card at me, and I got an eyeful of bare, sparkly chest. Dude’s shirt was hanging open, and his abs were covered in some kind of blue ma
keup.

“Um, that’s against the dress code,” I said. “You have to button
up.”

He raised his eyebrows. He had white-blond hair spiked with gel. “You know who I
am?”

I shook my head and looked at the card in my hand.
Marcus Clayton.
“Sorry, man, I never heard of you,” I said, and the girls behind him in line giggled. He glared at me—and started shrugging off his s
hirt!

I stood up, blinking nervously. Was he saying he wanted a
fight
? He wasn’t that huge, but then again, the kind of people who wear sparkly paint also usually do drugs, and I wasn’t looking to fight somebody who couldn’t feel pain. I looked around for security, and I could just make out the back of AJ’s blue jacket way in the far corner of the
lot.

Marcus threw his shirt on the ground, and the front half of the line cracked up. He looked like a member of Blue Man Group. Wait, what if he
was
Blue Man G
roup?

“Okay, man,” I said. “Calm down.” April was fanning herself in her box, she was laughing so hard. “Listen, you should pick up your shirt—you don’t want it to get di
rty.”

“No,” said Marcus. “Nobody tells Marcus w
hat—”

“Cops!” a guy yelled. Every head in line turned, and we stared as a cruiser nosed up the drive from the street. Then another. There were more cars streaming into the back of the lot, and I knew without looking that they were cop cars,
too.

The line broke up so fast it was like there was already Mace in the air. Guys darted away, girls clattered off on their heels, and normal cars drained out of the lot as fast as the cop cars pulled in. My heart was hammering like it wanted out of my chest, and there was an acid taste in my mouth. All I could think of was how many laws I was brea
king.

The cops were smooth as sharks, and they knew exactly what they were doing. They poured out of the cars with dogs on leashes and surrounded the club in less than five min
utes.

An officer said to me, “Step over there, please.” I walked numbly to where he pointed—to the smoking area, where April was already hugging herself against the cold. She was wearing a white dress, the famous one in the picture where Marilyn is standing over a subway grate. Her arms were covered in goose b
umps.

“You okay?” she asked, looking at me curiously. “You don’t look too
hot.”

I nodded, clamping my hands under my arm
pits.

“Relax. This happens a couple times a year. If they find anything, they’ll shut the club down for the night and we’ll get to go home early.” April fished a cigarette and lighter out of her purse and flicked a few times, her hands trembling in the cold. Finally she got it lit and inhaled, her cigarette glowing cherry red in the
dark.

I breathed out and watched the cops surrounding the club, wound up tight and ready to nab people. They couldn’t get me, I told myself; my TAM card was real, and my license had been made by a friend at the DMV. But I was sha
king.

The main doors opened and light poured out of the club. No more beats; they’d shut down the music. In little knots, clubbers walked out the doors and passed through the ring of cops. The shepherds strained at their leashes, ears pricked up, sniffing crotches. It was spooky quiet except for the crunch of footsteps. Twenty, maybe thirty clubbers made it through the ring, when suddenly one of the shepherds gave two sharp barks, nosing a girl’s leg. She shrieked and took a step back, but a cop appeared next to her and said, “Over here, ple
ase.”

More quiet. More people passing through. Two more barks, and they took away a guy in a
suit.

The next batch of partiers came out. A girl with pink hair wearing some crazy latex club gear screamed when she saw the dogs and tried to run back into the club. It took the officers about two seconds to bring her back out. Four or five dogs started barking as the cops hustled her
past.

“That one’s going to need a cavity search,” remarked April. “She’s not wearing enough to hide anyth
ing.”

“That’s twisted,” I said, but I couldn’t help smi
ling.

“So, is that meathead still bugging your girlfriend?” she a
sked.

I glanced at her. She sounded like she actually cared. So I gave her a real answer. “Yeah. But she doesn’t think he’s bugging her. She likes hanging out with
him.”

“Hmmm,” said April. “Just as frie
nds?”

“That’s what she s
ays.”

April blew a thin stream of smoke into the air. “That’s what my ex-husband said about the woman he cheated on me with,” she rema
rked.

The comment fell like a stone, sending out ripples. It seemed like a terrible prediction of the future. Then I thought,
Wait, April was married?
She looked too young to have been married. And too hot.
Who would be dumb enough to cheat on her?
But immediately I remembered how many nice, pretty girls I’d cheated on—Irina was actually the first I’d been loyal to. Cheating says more about the person doing it than the person getting cheated
on.

“What an idiot,” I
said.

“Yeah, he was, but I got rid of him.” April made a little kicking motion with her foot. She was acting cocky, but her eyes were sad, so I decided to change the sub
ject.

“How long do we have to wait here?” I a
sked.

“It took almost an hour last time. Then they’ll bring us inside and lecture us for a while. Nick and Lars will have to pay huge fines.” April lowered her voice, glancing at the closest cop. “LVPD is cracking down. My friend’s boyfriend is with Homeland Security, and he says too many drugs and minors are getting into Vegas cl
ubs.”

I was getting tenser with every word she said. I pulled my phone out of my pocket. It was funny; I was checking texts more and more lately, especially if I was nervous about something. It was like my version of a cigarette. Kyle had sent me a picture from a party at our friend Forrest’s house. It was him, Forrest, and three girls who I didn’t recognize. They had taken a selfie, a blurry crowd in the background.
Wish u were
here.

“Who’s that?” April asked curiously, peering over my shou
lder.

“My old friends,” I said.
I looked at the wet cement, at the uniforms everywhere, and thought,
I wish I was there, too.
Lately, texts from my Washington friends were making me feel depressed. We’d been on a road together, and then I’d taken a major fork. I could still see them in the distance, but my road was going somewhere totally different. I had a feeling that soon, I wouldn’t be able to see them at
all.

The cop held out an eight ball of coke on the flat of his hand. He had a Santa sack open on the ground in front of him, except it was made out of gray plastic and wasn’t exactly filled with presents. “Your bottle runner tried to sell this to my agent earlier tonight,” he said. He bent and tugged open the bag: there was a crazy amount of baggies and vials in there, like somebody had robbed a pharmacy. “Quite a haul this t
ime.”