“God I hope this week is better than last week,” Norah muttered to herself as she slid into the driver’s side of her Lincoln town car. She’d been assigned to the airport today, which suited her just fine. The fares were easy; quick runs which usually resulted in a lot of five and ten dollars tips that could add up to a pile of money if it was busy enough.

“Any conventions in town this week?” Hadley had asked her that morning.

“The Star Trek convention is here!” Norah smiled over her mug of instant coffee. “Gotta love those Trekkies.”

“Maybe you’ll meet a hunky nerd,” Hadley replied with a wink. “One with money. Maybe a Bill Gates type.”

Norah rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’m so sure they’ll be all about the dorky limo driver in her cheap chauffeur uniform.”

“I’m pretty sure they’ll be all about anyone with a vagina,” Hadley said. “And they’ll be in awe of you. Anyway, I hope you make big tips today!”

“I’ll be at McCarran all day,” Norah said, piling her hair on top of her head and putting a pen through it to secure it. The pen would also come in handy for credit card transactions. No one could accuse Norah of lacking resourcefulness.

“That’s not so bad,” Hadley said. “Lots of short runs. And people are always happy when they’re first arriving. They haven’t gone bankrupt yet.”

“Exactly,” Norah said, leaning over the counter to grab a banana. “So hopefully they’ll be tipping. I have student loans to pay.”

Hadley sighed. “I feel like if you didn’t finish college you shouldn’t have to pay the loans back. Right?”

Norah laughed. “If that were the case, I’m pretty sure half of the people that started college wouldn’t have to pay anything back. And that would more than likely cause a financial crisis of some sort.”

“Yeah, but at least we wouldn’t be broke all the time,” Hadley said. “I hate Sallie Mae. She’s such a bitch.”

Norah stretched out her legs as she chewed. She had a good feeling about today. She’d make money. If she thought it and believed it, it should happen, at least according to Hadley. Hadley was a big believer in the law of attraction. Norah had never bought into it, otherwise she’d have to blame herself for all the wrong turns her life had taken. She wasn’t willing to do that.

“I guess I’m off to start the day,” Norah said. “Get some sleep, okay?”

Hadley nodded. “Will do. Make some money, honey!”

“I’ll try,” Norah replied as she closed their apartment door behind her.

* * *

And now here she was. The hot leather of her seat stung the backs of her thighs, even through her black slacks. It was 109 degrees today in Las Vegas, and bound to get hotter before the day was done.

She shifted the car into drive and pulled out of the yard and into another day of Las Vegas traffic. Every year it seemed to get worse and worse.

“Or maybe I’m just getting tired of this town,” Norah said to herself as she switched through the stations on the radio, eager to find a song to get her in a good mood.

Good moods had been hard to come by in the last few years. It had only been recently, after moving in with Hadley, that Norah had been motivated to get out of bed, much less work and interact with the outside world.

Hadley had suggested driving limos as a way of making Norah talk to other people.

“I love you, girl,” Hadley had said. “But you need to be out there again. Staying shut away isn’t going to change the past and it’s definitely not going to lead to a brighter future.”

At first she’d been resistant. What did Hadley know about anything? What had she ever lost?

But Norah knew that Hadley only had her best interests at heart. Besides, driving a limo also meant she had a lot of down time, especially when she was staging at a casino waiting for rides or if she was taking people out to Red Rock Canyon. She’d sit in her car with the air conditioning on, reading or scribbling in her notebook while her customers climbed large red boulders for a couple hours.

And she’d tried to forget about what had happened at Red Rock years ago. When life had fallen apart.

Anyway, it wasn’t all work. Being a limo driver was mostly a lot of sitting around waiting for people.

She always brought an eReader, a notebook, and a paperback with her, just in case she had a long ride. One time, a large movie studio had booked her for an entire week and used her exactly one time; to go pick up catering at a deli downtown. The rest of the time was her just sitting in valet with her books and a tablet. She watched a lot of movies that week.

But today she’d be working for her money.

In her first hour alone she did five runs from the airport to various hotels sprinkled up and down the strip. One newlywed couple fought about which buffet they were going to eat lunch at. One businessman barked into his cell phone the entire ride, but tipped her a twenty. One group of older girlfriends asked if she could take their photo in front of the Welcome to Las Vegas sign in front of Mandalay Bay. (She happily obliged. They each tipped her five bucks.) Two young men sat in silence the entire drive, but thanked her in what she thought might be Russian once she dropped them at the Wynn. And finally, a local couple had just come back from a trip to Hawaii. Locals were the best. They always tipped well. And this couple was going to the Bellagio to meet up with friends who were in town, so it was a nice short ride. The best kind.

Norah had made almost $75 in just over an hour. It was going to be a great day.

She decided to stop at Ellis Island and treat herself to a burger and fries. It was on the early side of dinner so it shouldn’t be too packed. This way, if things got super busy this evening, her hunger wouldn’t distract her. Ellis Island was famous for their cabbie and limo driver discount, and she always tipped a minimum of fifty percent to her waitress, a woman named Deenie who had been working there probably since the place had been The Village Pub back in the ‘60s.

“Hey, sweetie,” Deenie said to her as Norah slid into a booth with cracked, burgundy leather seating. “Burger plate? Fries? Diet Coke?”

“Yep,” Norah smiled. “Quite a memory.”

“Well, honey, you’re as predictable as the weather here in July,” Deenie winked at her. “And just as hot.”

Norah laughed. “You know how to charm a girl. I found a couple gray hairs this morning so I don’t know how hot I am. I’m pretty sure I’ve peaked.”

“We all do,” Deenie said, tucking a pencil behind her ear. “But not you, sweetie. You’ve gotta lotta miles left on those tires. Live it up. Pretty, sweet girl like you shouldn’t be driving. Leave Vegas, have an adventure!”

Norah smiled as Deenie walked away. Deenie always told her this. She said Las Vegas was a town where people came when they had no other options.

But Norah couldn’t tell her why she stayed. She didn’t need to ruin both their days.

* * *

She’d eaten half her burger before getting a text from dispatch that the airport needed more cars stat, that her lunch break needed to be over now.

She threw a ten on the table, took one last swig of her drink, and headed out to her car. As soon as she walked out of the frigid air conditioning of Ellis Island, the Las Vegas heat smacked her in the face, causing her to wince.

“Jesus, I hate summer here,” she muttered to herself. “It’s late afternoon. It shouldn’t be so hot.”

Within a minute she was on Paradise, heading south towards the airport.

Who would she meet tonight? That was always the fun part of her job. She worked for the tips, but it was more than that. She had missed people the last couple of years. She was an aspiring writer, after all. What was any story without its characters? And Vegas attracted them all.

Last week she’d driven two young guys to the brothels out in Pahrump. They were good looking and in their early 30s. There was no reason they needed to pay for sex, and the drive was long so Norah had struck up conversation. They both seemed a little nervous and slightly embarrassed. They needn’t be. Norah had seen it all and driving two guys to the brothels was nothing shocking. They existed for a reason.

“You two are good looking guys,” she said to them, glancing back at them in her rearview mirror. “Why pay for it? You could go to Tao or Moon or any other club in Vegas and get it for the price of some drinks and good conversation.”

One of the guys looked at the other and shook his head. “I guess to just have the experience. To see what it’s like.”

And Norah understood that, in a way. She didn’t judge her customers. Las Vegas was where people came to be people they couldn’t be back at home; to meet people they would never meet back in Ohio or Illinois, to have the kind of sex they wouldn’t even dream of having in their towns and cities.

But good Lord, the drive back from brothels was always awkward. Though Norah thought it was completely worth it; the brothels gave incredible kickbacks to drivers for bringing “clients.” Enough to pay Norah’s rent and all her bills for a month.

But still. The customers weren’t nearly as chatty on the way back. She wished they could only know that they weren’t doing anything plenty of men hadn’t done before them.

Not all men felt ashamed or awkward. Actually, the worst were the men who were proud of themselves. Who talked about how ugly the “whores” were, how it was ridiculous that they laid on their backs for a living, giving it up to anyone who was willing to pay them. As if the men were somehow superior to the women they had just paid to have sex with.

Norah hated those men. They were the worst kind.

Anyway, it was doubtful she’d be picking anyone up from the airport who would be going straight to Pahrump. Nine out of ten people were going to the Strip. So she hoped to at least double or triple her tip money tonight.

The limo line was moving fast. Her company owned the second door in departures. Limo companies bid on doors at the airport to stage at. The mafia had gone from once running the casinos to now running all of transportation. But Norah didn’t care about any of that. She just cared about money. And however the behind-the-scenes operations happened, was none of her business.

She drove straight to the curb where she could see plenty of new arrivals standing around holding suitcases and cell phones, talking to Ricky, the guy who decided which customers would go into which cars. Being that she was driving a town car tonight, she would probably only get single people or couples. Maybe three people at max. Any amount of customers over two and they tried to talk them into a stretch limo or one of the black, sleek, SUVs.

Norah figured it would be a bit before anyone was put in her car since she was the last one they pushed on people to keep them from getting in the cab line. She checked her face in the mirror to make sure there were no remnants of her Ellis Island burger on her face. She piled up her long brown hair on top of her head again and pushed her pen through it to secure it. As she did this, she heard Ricky opening the back driver’s side passenger door for her next customer, who she could tell was a guy as he told Ricky where he needed her to take him.

“Norah!” Ricky called to her. “This one’s going to a local place. Over by UNLV.”

Norah rolled her eyes. Dammit. She hated going anywhere outside the Strip. But at least he’d probably tip okay. And UNLV wasn’t too terribly far.

“Okay, thanks,” she said as she called into dispatch to let them know she had a ride and where she was taking him.

She could feel the weight of the man as he sat down and without glancing back at him she said, “Hello! Welcome to Las Vegas. Are you going to a residence or a casino?”

The man didn’t answer her right away so she turned around, in case he hadn’t heard her over the hustle and bustle happening outside her car.

“Sorry, did you have the…” her voice trailed off and her heart started beating hard and fast against her chest.

The man in her car was someone she knew. Not just someone she knew. But someone she really, really knew.

“Is it you?”

His voice hadn’t left her memory. It never would or could, even if she’d wanted it to.

“Macon Moultrie.” She said his name out loud for the first time in at least a year. Hadley had kept bringing him up to her and Norah had told her that if she mentioned him again, she couldn’t be roommates with her anymore. That was the deal. Norah would try to rejoin the world if Hadley never brought up Macon Moultrie’s name ever again.

But now here he was.