Road to Paradise (47 page)

“I’m gonna be at the pool,” she said. “I’ve got no other plans.”

I waited for five minutes until she was gone. Then another ten to get my courage up. When I realized no courage was forthcoming, and my heart was ready for a coronary, I picked up the phone and called Eddie collect.

The operator said, “Will you accept a call from—Shelby Sloane?” You could almost hear the stunned exhale. “Yes,” he said. His voice was just as I remembered and my heart hurt to hear it. “Hey,” he said. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, yes,” I said. “Hey. Everything’s fine. Well, actually, it’s not really fine.”

“Is Gina okay?” There was quick concern in his voice.

Mine became colder in response. The heart beat a little slower. “Yes, she’s fine. But …” What was I thinking? “Eddie, we need your help. We were robbed.”

“You was what?”

“Robbed. A woman took all our money, and now we’re really broke.”

“What woman?”

I told him. Reno is in a valley, and behind every gas station the snow peaks of the Sierra Madre mountains rise. I noticed how large they were, how good the air smelled. Dry. Clean. How could there be snow if the temperature was a hundred degrees? Dog days indeed.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Reno.”

“You’re broke in Reno?” He softly laughed. “There is no justice in the world.”

“None.” If there was justice, I would not be standing here like an idiot at a dusty, rusted phone booth, calling him under all kinds of pretenses, wanting
nothing
but to hear his voice.

“So what’s Gina gonna do?” He paused. “What are
you
going to do? Don’t you two still have to drive twenty-five hundred miles back home?”

“Yeah. We’re in a bit of a pickle.”

“I’ll say.”

“Which is why I’m calling. Eddie …” I hemmed. “Can you help us?”

“I got no money, if that’s what you mean,” he said quickly. “I’m between jobs at the moment. Just got fired from Long John Silver.”

“No, I understand.” Money would’ve been nice. Is that what I was doing? Begging my old lover for a handout? “Maybe you could come here, meet Gina? She’s come all this way to be with you, and now we’re all out. If you came to get her, she’d feel a whole lot better. I’m calling for her, really.”

“Is
that
why you’re calling?”

I stammered. “Yes.”

There was silence on the phone. “You see, Shel,” said Eddie, “problem is, I ain’t got insurance for my car, and until I get a job, I can’t pay to have it reinstated. I don’t got any gas. And Bakersfield to Reno, that’s probably two, three hundred miles, no?”

A sigh of heartache left my chest. “More like four hundred.”

“Four hundred!” he exclaimed. “How am I going to do that? I mean, if Gina could pay for the gas, then that might work.”

“If Gina could pay for the gas,” I said, “I’d just drive her to Bakersfield, like I planned.”

“Right, of course.” He had nothing to say after that.

“Can I put her on the bus, Eddie?” I asked. God will forgive me. I was only eighteen and I wasn’t thinking with the utmost rational mind, but why would I, after asking this question, feel regret that I wasn’t going with her so I could see him, even from a distance, for a few seconds? Hot truth is, I could not accept that
Eddie had left Larchmont for good, and if I put Gina on the bus, there was a betting chance I would never see Eddie again.

“The bus?” Eddie said. “To go where?”

“Well—to Bakersfield.”

“Ugh—I don’t know, Shel. You said she’s got no money. How is she going to get back home? I thought you were coming with her. You come, visit for a while, then drive back. That’s what Gina told me. I just—I don’t—if she comes by bus, what’s she going to do?”

“I don’t know, Eddie,” I said. “She was thinking of coming and staying.”

“Staying
where
?” He sounded horrified. “I live with my mother.”

“I know.”

“Shel, I really don’t think it’s the best idea. Honest. I’d tell you if it was. Maybe if she got some money. Came with a round-trip ticket. She could stay for a day, maybe two, then ride back. What do you think? Can you get some money from somewhere? Maybe you can talk to her.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll talk to her.” I stared down at the desert sand under my feet. “Well, look. I better get going, all right? Thanks again, though.”

“Yeah, nice to talk to you, Shelby. Hey, maybe you two can take the bus together? She’ll have some company then.” He paused. “And I could … see you. I’m sorry things turned out the way they did. I hope I didn’t hurt you too bad.”

Fame
!
…
people will see me and cry
…

I hugged the curb for half a numb mile down Virginia. It was noon, one, maybe, and stiflingly, agonizingly hot. Not a bird flew in the sky. They’d all gone north for the summer. I was honked at half a dozen times in ten minutes of walking. Maybe a dozen. A honk every half a minute, and believe me it wasn’t because I was so striking and tanned, invitingly smiling. I wasn’t painted a come-hither yellow like my Shelby ’Stang. Maybe it was the blonde hair.

The barely cleaned pool was in the middle of the courtyard, right off Virginia. Gina was lounging in a chair, her ample boobs
spilling from the sides of a tiny black bikini. “How did it go?” she asked. “Your phone call?”

“Not great,” I said, motioning to her. “Come with me.” In the room, the shades were drawn, and Candy was still sleeping. We sat on the other bed, opened the shades, made some noise. Finally she woke up. “What did you give me, an hour?”

“You want more?”

“Go swim. Suntan. I can’t function on an hour’s sleep.”

“Maybe if you slept like the rest of us, during the night,” Gina snapped, “you wouldn’t be sleeping now.”

“Maybe,” returned Candy, “but then we’d be completely penniless, wouldn’t we? Who’s going to earn some money? You?” She stretched. “Well, I’m awake now,” she said, sitting up. “What are you two going to do? Sit here and look at me?” She didn’t even bother covering her bare body. I was the one who threw a modest sheet over her.

“What do you think we should do?” Gina asked.

“You’re in Reno.” Candy paused, giving me a meaningful glance, then sighing. “There are 500 bars, 500 restaurants. Go work a week at the Village Inn. Make thirty bucks. That’s enough for a bus ride to Bakersfield.”

I coughed too loudly, and apologized.

“Oh, is that what you made last night?” Gina asked.

“No. I made more. But you don’t want to do what I do, do you?”

“Oh, God!”

“That’s right.” Candy threw on her clothes, short shorts, a white top without a bra and high wedge sandals, and in the next breath she said, “Well, why are you standing here in what looks like my black bikini? I thought you were all set, checking out and going your own way. You better hop to it. Buses to Bakersfield don’t run every hour on the hour.”

Gina became quiet. The room was dark, but outside the Nevada sun burned like a bonfire. “I thought Shelby was going to drive me,” she said.

“Shelby,” said Candy, “has no money. She doesn’t have a dollar for gas.”

There we stood, the three of us. Gina said in the beseeching voice of a chastised child, “Maybe we can win a little at the tables. My luck was pretty good at the Argosy.”

“Unless there’s something I don’t know,” said Candy, “you don’t have a dollar to gamble with.”

Gina just stared at Candy. “Come on, Cand,” she whispered. “I was just mad yesterday.”

“And I,” said Candy, “am going to Paradise to get my kid. That’s my only goal. I have two more days to work, and then I’m out of here. I’m not sticking around while you win enough money to get back home, or to Bakersfield, a losing gamble if I ever heard one.”

“Which one?” asked Gina. I pointedly said nothing, not even a cough, changing into my navy string bikini in reply.

Gina and I were by the pool when Candy came downstairs, dressed for the evening, though it was three in the afternoon. “Come, help me,” Candy said. “Come work for your supper. It’s just one night out of your whole life. The three of us could make so much money, and then we’d be done. We could leave tomorrow. You on your way. Me on mine.”

There is nothing so trashy that gambling can’t lower another small ladder-rung into the sweltering sewer. How was that possible? Perhaps it’s just the places we’d been. Maybe Las Vegas is classier. I don’t know, I’ve never been. All I know, is that from the boat on the Mississippi, to the Argosy, to Nevada Hotel, to Reno, I’ve watched hypnotized couples in polyester pants or joyless, glazed young men looking down at the felt tables, wondering all night whether to hit or stand, double or split, give their money away slowly or quickly.

Come to think of it, that pretty well summed up all of life, not just Reno.

But the voluntary surrender of hard-earned cash seemed to open
men up to every one of the seven deadly sins.
Avarice
: More, more.
Sloth
: Their shoes were never shined, their belts opened an extra notch, shirt buttons loosened to allow for the deep breaths needed after putting their remaining nickels on number 23, and hearing, “No more bets.” Cigarette butts spilled by the dozen from ashtrays and they left their garbage behind, dropping empty buckets on the floor as they kept walking.
Gluttony
: They drank to excess for free, partook of buffets, and, in exchange for this feckless feast, gladly threw away their money.
Envy
: Everyone is winning more than me. I want that kind of night, those should’ve been my numbers.
Pride
: I can control my own fate. I’ll just put down another hundred on number 17 and all my troubles will be over.
Wrath
: I can’t believe number 17 failed me again. It’s always been my lucky number. What do you mean, no more bets? What do you
mean
?!
Lust
: They flirted both with bankruptcy and the barely-clad waitresses. Why did the waitresses need to be so scantily dressed to bring money to the prisoners on bar stools? If they sashayed up fully clothed, would the drunk boys leave? They didn’t have the look of people about to head for the exits. Many looked as if they were never leaving. And why did Madam Prostitution go hand in hand with drinking and gambling? Not easy women, but paid-for women? As if the men had any money left to spend on sex. They couldn’t even afford a drink! Had the casinos been smarter they’d have hired the women themselves, provided the sex for free, like alcohol. The men wouldn’t leave the casinos at all then, and Candy could have permanent employment.

Yes, indeedy, a real nice town, Reno, for Tara to grow up in.

And yet here was Candy, asking if we’d like to go with her tonight, get dolled-up, canvass, stroll, flirt with the straightjackets.

“No, thank you,” I whispered in my smallest voice.

“You’re crazy,” said Gina, I hope directed at Candy, not me.

“You gave it to those boys for free,” Candy said to Gina. “Give it up now, but for a few bucks.”

“For a few bucks?” Gina exclaimed. “I’m going to have sex with strangers for a few bucks?”

“You had sex with strangers for free,” repeated Candy.

“Yes! A world of difference. I can’t believe you’d even ask me. Right, Shelby?”

I said nothing.

Casting me a meaningful glance from above her drugstore sunglasses, she said, “Ask Gina what she’s willing to do for a million dollars, Sloane. I’ll see ya.”

I didn’t ask Gina; it was going to remain one of those unanswered questions. But what I knew this afternoon was this. Had Gina not been sitting next to me suntanning, ready to judge me, though firmly encased in a glass-house herself, I would’ve gone with Candy. I would have rather gone with Candy than ever admit I had called Eddie and asked for money. I would have rather gone with Candy than have Emma go to the bank manager and ask for a miserable extension on her overdraft so she could wire me 300 bucks, which still would not be enough to get me home. I’d feel less humiliated parading down the Reno strip naked. But Gina was sitting right there, and the pull of conformity was great. How could I face the shame of high school reunions where Gina would forever be telling the story to anyone who would listen: “Guess what our little cross-country runner, Harvard Alum Shelby did in Reno?”

I didn’t move, said nothing, and steadfastly (that was me, steadfast!) avoided catching Candy’s eye. I furtively watched as she wobbled toward the strip in her short shorts and high heels. Cars honked in loud appreciation. One jostled to the curb and Candy disappeared inside. Gina and I were left alone.

“She’s crazy,” said Gina.

“Like a fox,” I agreed.

“Yeah? Then why did we get robbed, if she’s like a fox? And if she’s so foxy clever, has she thought for a second where Erv Bruggeman is waiting? Does she think he’s still searching for her on the Interstate? Doesn’t she understand he’s in Paradise now?”

It was all well and good to lament Candy’s gallivanting, to judge her, to moralize while sitting at a pool in a concrete courtyard on the Reno strip in too-small bikinis. But she left us no percentage of her earnings, we had no gas in the car, and hadn’t eaten. What were we going to do?

I cursed myself, cursed Lena. I cursed the sun, and the pool, and Reno. I cursed it all. Gina just cursed not being able to go and gamble. She wished not for food money, not for gas money, not for bus money, but for gambling money. She wanted our seventeen-year-old money-making protector in white shorts to give her a small stipend so she could sit fully turned to the metal lever. “Maybe,” said Gina, with a small chuckle, dipping her toes in the water, “I should’ve taken Candy up on her offer. Maybe she’s right. I do it for free without a lookback. What’s the difference between doing it and getting a little scratch for the slots, huh? Maybe we wouldn’t even have to leave the pool? What do you think, Shelby?”

Shelby pretended to be asleep, so Gina wouldn’t see my perverse little sideways gaze. Just so I was straight: not money for the bus to see her fiancé, or to get back home, but she was advocating becoming lot lizards so we could put money in a poker machine.

“Gina, yesterday you said you weren’t going back to Larchmont with me. Are you going to help get Candy to Paradise?”

She shook her head. “I can’t go to Paradise, Shel. Erv’s in Paradise. I just can’t.”

“We don’t know that for sure.
She
doesn’t think so.”

“She’s a fool.”

“So what’s your plan, Stan? Where are you headed?”

“I guess as soon as my mom gets home in ten days and wires me some money, I’ll take a bus to Bakersfield.”

I didn’t have the balls to tell her about Eddie.

At nine in the evening, Candy came back. She was like mercy. Like Jesus doling out healing to the lepers and the blind. “Look!” she said happily, throwing twenties on the bed. “Sloane, you must be starved. I found us a fantastic buffet. And Gina, you simply have to come with me to Circus, Circus. It has to be seen to be believed. Come on, get dressed quick, and let’s go. I’m not taking no for an answer.”

“About that …” I said.

Gina interrupted. “I’ll be ready in fifteen. Thanks, Candycane. God, thanks a lot.”

She disappeared into the bathroom, but I continued to sit on the bed, looking up at Candy. She smiled. “Say nothing. Come on, just get ready.”

After hitching a ride in the back of a rowdy convertible Thunderbird full of raucously unsober men (oh, if Emma could see me now, getting into a car driven by drunk strangers), we got dropped off in front of the glittering Circus, Circus and made our way to the casino floor. I don’t know how Candy faked being over eighteen. She looked like a baby even with all that black around her eyes, even in her tottering platform heels and mini-skirt as if she were a sixties throwback. All that was missing was the long straight hair. She looked so mod with her piercings and tattoos, the joy streaks of blonde and bleach. She crossed herself before stepping onto the casino floor, surreptitiously, as if she hoped no one would notice.

“What are you crossing yourself in secret for?” the tactless Gina asked. “Are you hoping God won’t notice?”

“I was kind of hoping He’d be the only one who would.”

I wondered what prayer one could possibly mumble under one’s breath at the particular moment of entering a casino in the hope of getting a large quantity of men to have sex with you for money. A little later, during a moment of rare respite, I asked her. She smiled. “What else can you say?
O Lord Jesus Christ, son of God,
have mercy on me, a sinner
. My father taught me to repeat that prayer to myself incessantly.”

“Do you?”

She turned to the blackjack table and ordered another drink, saying, “I’ll split these nines.” To me she said, “A million times a day.” And when she won the split, making eighty quick bucks, she said, “Sometimes, though, I think, God stays far away from casino pits like this. I figure He thinks that if you’re getting off at Circus, Circus, you already know you’re going to be absolutely up to no good, and so He leaves you to your petty corruptions and busies himself in hospitals, where the sick pleading for Him are at least hoping to get out.” We both looked over at Gina, sitting two stools away, a joyous smile on her face, having lost fifty dollars of the hundred Candy had given her. “Who’d want to help her?” Candy said. “She wants to be here.”

“Do
you
want to be here?”

“No,” she said. “I want my Tara, that’s all. This is just a means to an end.”

It was smoky and loud, the sounds of roulette tables, people shouting, and dealers calling out, “Shuffle!” like the din of a thundering waterfall, and I said, my own smile fading, “Was I just a means to an end, too?”

Candy touched my hand, her smile fading also. “Forgive me, Shelby,” she whispered.

I may have won some money with Candy’s generous donation of a hundred dollars. I don’t know. Gina eventually won. Lost, won, and lost again. Roulette, blackjack, slots, drinks, young men flirting like mad, falling over. At one point, Candy had three natural blackjacks in a row, and the dealer, a Filipino woman
named Min, said she’d never seen that in twenty years. Candy smiled. “I must be lucky,” she said, raking another $75 for herself.

The men swarmed to her like bears to honey, as if they could smell her. Was it written all over her face, her body? Why didn’t they push closer to me, inch their stools toward mine? I was made up and skinny, I was bleached and mini-skirted, too. What vibe didn’t I have? I tried to remind myself of things, comforting things, like: this isn’t love. This isn’t even lust. It’s just availability. She somehow projects an I’m available message and they flock like seagulls. Soon they’ll go, and still there will be no love. But I watched with envy. I wished I could be cool like her, all smiles, her sweet friendly eyes lighting up, her laughter heard at all tables. Candy looked as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Her hair was up, her lips wet, her eyes sparkling. She giggled like a schoolgirl (ironic), demurely lowering her eyes when a drunk football jock whispered something clearly inappropriate into her eager ear. Who could tell that behind this breezy air, stood a fanatic set on killing her for a stolen reel of film depicting things I couldn’t think about, much less talk about, a father who prayed six hours a day for his only daughter’s soul, a dead boyfriend, and an innocent child who waited for her mother to come. While she smiled I couldn’t muster even a grimace. The farther away the smile, the more money I lost. “Shel,” Candy finally said, “you gotta stop this. You gonna make us broke again. Go away, sit out a couple of rounds.”

“Yeah, baby,” said the linebacker, jocular and jowly. “Don’t you know the rules of the game? When you’re hot you gotta play like you’re on fire, like your cute little friend over here. And when you’re cold, stay away from the money, baby,’ cause it’s sure gonna stay away from you.” I took their advice, and walked away.

Candy grabbed her chips, blew a kiss to the quarterback and came after me.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. What time is it?”

“I’ve no idea. Casinos have no clocks.”

Slowly we pushed our way past one filled table after another.
Candy purposeful, like she was trawling. She came to a stop at a table with a dealer and two players. Table had a $500 minimum. Watch, Candy said.

We watched a business-suit-clad gray-haired gentleman lay down 500 bucks on an 18, and lose.

We watched him lay down another $500 on a 10, double, get 20 and lose to a dealer 21. Ouch.

“This is the time this guy needs to stop playing,” Candy whispered to me. But she didn’t walk away. Moving from straight behind him, she angled herself at his shoulders, patted his back when the dealer finally bust and he won. He turned his head and smiled. She smiled back. He lay down another $500 chip. “Good luck,” she said, moving closer. “Have you been watching me?” he asked. “I’m gonna need it. What’s with me tonight?” But with her by his side after a lucky bust and a double, the man had won 2500 dollars. In three minutes from start to finish, he had won the sort of money it had taken Emma and me years to save. I was guilty then of one of those deadly sins.
Envy
. I wanted what he had, although in this case, it wasn’t his money I wanted, it was his steel balls. The man hollered and whooped, gave the dealer a $100 chip and Candy a big hug, saying she must have been his good luck muse. We watched him play another fifteen minutes, and in that time exchange 6000 dollars back and forth.

“Don’t think for a second it’s bravery,” Candy whispered to me. “He bets because he doesn’t care, because he has the money to lose. That’s not bravery, it’s indifference. He’s reckless, and because of that he wins. Cards love reckless gamblers. Casinos love careful gamblers. They know, the more careful you are, the more you’ll lose.”

I felt better. “Hey, you want to get going?” I asked.

“No way. He’s my blackjack.”

“I should probably check on Gina.” I wanted to avert my eyes. “We’ve left her alone too long.”

“Shelby, Shelby, Shelby,” Candy said, holding on to my arm. “You’re so thick. Why do you think she hasn’t left as she threatened to yesterday? If Gina could, she’d gamble alone in the closet.
The last thing she wants is to have you standing over her shoulder watching how she’s blowing my money.”

I took a step back.

“Stay with me,” Candy said soothingly, one hand on the Reckless Man’s back, the other on my hand. Reckless Man looked neat and sharp Wall Street, middle-aged trying to look late youth.

Candy couldn’t play at a $500 table, but Reckless Man placed a chip in front of her and said, “I’ll take a gamble on you. Go ahead. Bet. See how you do.”

“Thanks,” she said, and without blinking got a 10 and wanted to double. Amused, he gave her another chip. She won a thousand bucks. He told her to keep her thousand, and placed a chip in front of her again.

“You play until you lose my $500, okay?”

Candy got blackjack. The next hand she split two 9s (with his money) and won both hands. After eight straight winning hands, she finally lost one, and gave him back his chip, gave the dealer $10, and had earned three thousand dollars for herself!

“Cand, let’s go. Quick,” I whispered. “Look how awesome you did.”

“Awesome for what?” she said, pushing me slightly away. “If you and I split that money, it’ll be just enough for you to get back home, but what will it do for me? Go. Go, check on Gina. Come back in twenty minutes.”

“How do I know when twenty minutes are up?” I said grumpily, watching as Reckless Man got her a premium drink, and they toasted, flirting a little. He looked besotted, so I bowed out and went to find Gina. Wasn’t hard to find her—she was in exactly the same place we’d left her hours before.

“Money holding out?” I asked, sipping my drink, my fourth or fifth. I felt myself getting tipsy.
Gluttony. Avarice. Sloth. Pride
. I can handle it. I can have more. I deserve it. I haven’t had any fun. I deserve some fun. I’m worthy of fun. I ordered another screwdriver.

“Barely holding out,” said Gina. “What about you?”

“Got a few hundred and intend to hold on to it.”

“I won $700,” said Gina, “but I’ve lost almost all of it now. I’m waiting to get hot again. If I won that much, so quick, I could win again. And more. God, this is the best place. How’s Candy doing?”

“Pretty good. She seems to have all the luck.”

Gina laughed at the unintended irony of it. I didn’t laugh because suddenly Candy was behind me, pulling me away, spilling my drink. “Listen to me,” she said in a low voice. I could barely hear in the din of the casino floor, but she refused to speak louder. She was very close; her hair tickling my ear. “Listen, Reckless Man has offered you and me a thousand bucks each if he can watch,” she said.

“If he can watch what?”

She just looked at me. How dense I must have appeared to her, thick to my ankles. How naïve. I even repeated my question. It was the look in her eye that eventually gave me my answer, but I would not have guessed on my own without her help.

My eyes widened. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Shelby. Are
you
out of your mind? A thousand bucks. Combined with the few hundred in your hands, that’s enough to get you home, no? Come on. He pays up front. We close our eyes, we think of England. I promise you, it’ll be the fastest 1000 bucks you’ll ever make.”

“You have gone mad,” I said. “Absolutely not. Not in a million years. Never.”

A million years is a long time.

Never is a long time.

“Just to point out,” I said, when we were in the elevator, going up to his penthouse suite on the fourteenth floor of Circus, Circus, “he dropped more cash on two rectangular pieces of paper with pictures on them than on us. Just pointing out we rate less than paper.”

“Laminated paper, but okay, your point noted. So?”

“Cand, you just won 3000 bucks. For God’s sake, take the money, and run.”

“I’m not doing it for me, Sloane,” she said. “I’m doing it for you. So you can get home.”