6
Isla appeared in the doorway of my room, mug of coffee in one hand and pain au chocolat in the other. ‘C’mon,’ she said, setting the mug down on the bedside table and pulling open the curtains. ‘Time to wake up!’
Sunlight streamed into the room and I batted my eyelids in a futile attempt to defend myself from it. ‘What time is it?’
‘Almost noon,’ she said. ‘You’ve been asleep for twelve hours.’
I sat up and rubbed my eyes, which were puffed up like a pair of hamburger buns. The previous night came flooding back: the gambling, the sunburn, the crying … ‘Oh God,’ I said, pressing the heels of my hands into them. ‘How bad do I look?’
‘Here,’ she said, reaching into her back pocket and pulling out a tube of hemorrhoid cream. She tossed it onto the bed and I picked it up between thumb and forefinger.
‘Gross. Why are you giving this to me?’
‘It’s the best thing for swollen eyes. Which makes sense, if you think about it.’
‘I don’t want to think about it,’ I groaned, unscrewing the top and patting the thick lotion under my eyes. ‘Does it have to be so bright in here?’
‘Come on, look at that sky! Not a single cloud! I’ve got to go back to work tomorrow, which means twelve-hour days without so much as a glimpse of sunshine. I’ve got to get my vitamin D in while I can. You too, by the way. Although …’ She peered at the blistered red skin covering my back. ‘Maybe you should stay in the shade.’
It was only then that I realized I was just in my bra and underwear. ‘Did you undress me last night?’
‘Of course I did! I couldn’t risk you getting strangled by that weird linen muumuu you were wearing. Where did you get that thing, anyway?’
‘Greece!’ I said defensively.
‘Well, it looks like you stole it from my Great Aunt Mabel. Which I don’t recommend you do, by the way, because that woman has one hell of a temper.’ She threw herself down onto the bed and cupped her head in her palms. ‘So, are we going to talk about it or what?’
My hand reached for the mug of coffee and nudged my cell phone off the table in the process. I stared down at the lit screen. No new calls or messages. ‘Talk about what?’ I asked, taking a sip. The coffee was hot and strong and furred the tip of my tongue.
‘The NAFTA agreement. What do you think?’
I rolled out of bed and wrapped a terrycloth robe around me. ‘I’m going to take a shower.’
‘Fine,’ she said, lying back on the pillow and taking a bite out of her pain au chocolat. I watched as flakes of pastry fluttered across the duvet. ‘You take a shower, but don’t think we’re not going to talk about what’s going on, because we absolutely one hundred per cent are.’
I shut the door to the bathroom and turned on the shower. The water was only lukewarm, but on my scorched back it felt as if I was being pelted with boiling-hot water. Tomorrow, I thought with some relief, I’d get on a plane and go back to London. What a mess this weekend had turned out to be. Three days with my best friend and I’d wasted most of it miserable and sunburned. And I still hadn’t heard a word from Christopher. What could he be doing? Was he even thinking about me? Maybe he was in the flat right now, packing up his things. I’d come home to find the place cold and empty, filled with that strange musty smell of abandoned spaces.
Wait, he owned the place. It would be my things he’d be packing. Shit.
I closed my eyes and pictured our flat – the enormous cast-iron radiator that hissed and spluttered, the separate cold and hot water taps in the bathroom basin that meant I had to alternate between the two when washing my face, the front door that always stuck no matter what the weather. The battered leather sofa that Christopher and I curled up on every night. The old brass bed we slept in together. What would I do if it stopped being ours? Where would I call home?
Nothing was turning out the way it was supposed to.
There was a knock on the door. ‘You okay in there?’
‘Fine!’ I croaked. I hopped out of the shower, toweled off and ran a comb through my hair. The mirror was fogged up, so I wiped a circle clear with the flat of my hand and peered at myself in the glass. My eyes were puffy and bloodshot, my skin blotchy and pale, and I could see nests of blisters cresting on the tops of my shoulders. ‘Jesus Christ,’ I muttered. I slathered myself in moisturizer, but it didn’t make much difference. I wrapped the robe around me, trudged out of the bathroom, and flopped back onto the bed, where Isla was reading People magazine and drinking Diet Coke through a straw.
‘Feel better?’ she asked.
‘Not really.’
‘Okay, well, I have a plan. First of all, we’re going to sit down and you’re going to tell me all about the existential crisis you’re having, because let’s face it, not talking about it doesn’t seem to be working for you.’
‘I really don’t think—’
‘Did I mention this plan is not optional?’
‘Fine,’ I grumbled.
‘After we’ve figured out what you’re going to do with your life, we’re going to go downstairs to the spa and you’re going to have a facial and a massage and whatever else it takes to get you feeling better.’ She squinted at me. ‘And looking better, too, no offense.’
‘None taken.’
‘And then we are going to have a full-on, knock-down, drag-out crazy last night in Vegas. It’s going to be like Girls Gone Wild except for the creepy guy with the camera. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ It wasn’t, not really, but I could tell I didn’t really have a choice in the matter.
‘Okay.’ She tossed the magazine off the edge of the bed and shifted herself around to face me. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’
‘You know what’s going on. Christopher doesn’t want to marry me.’
‘Look, I know that Christopher said that thing about getting married, but he loves you – I know he does. If now isn’t the right time for him, that doesn’t mean it won’t be someday.’
I swallowed, hard. ‘It’s more than that. When he dropped me off at the airport, he said we should go on a break.’
‘A break? What do you mean, a break?’
‘Like, a break as in a break from each other, obviously.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘Well, what did he say?’
‘He told me to forget it.’
‘So you’re not on a break?’
‘I don’t know! I haven’t heard from him at all since I’ve been here. Not once.’
‘Have you called him? Texted him?’
I stared down at my hands. The pads of my fingertips were still shriveled and pruney from the shower. ‘No.’
‘Okay, so maybe he thinks you want a break.’
I sighed. ‘All I know is it’s not working out the way I’d planned. He’s the love of my life, Isla. We’re supposed to get married this year!’
‘Oh my God!’ Isla threw herself back on the bank of pillows. ‘Jenny, you have got to let go of that stupid life list!’
‘It’s not stupid – it’s important! You’re a doctor now, aren’t you?’
‘I’m not saying the list wasn’t helpful. I know for sure that it gave me focus when I was a kid, and you’re right, maybe without it I wouldn’t have become a doctor.’
‘See?’
‘But we were thirteen when we wrote it. We didn’t understand what it meant to be an adult. Life doesn’t come neatly packaged the way we thought it would. You know that more than most,’ she added gently.
‘There’s nothing wrong with having goals,’ I muttered.
‘I’m not saying there is,’ she said. ‘I’m saying that it’s not healthy to let something you did when you were a teenager hold you hostage like this.’
‘It’s not holding me hostage. It’s guiding me. I mean, look at this.’ I picked my bag up off the floor and rummaged around until I found it. ‘Here,’ I said, handing a piece of paper to her.
‘Wait,’ she said, holding it up to the light, ‘you laminated it?’
I nodded. ‘It was getting torn and frayed in my bag.’
Her eyes widened in disbelief. ‘You carry it around with you?’
‘Of course! I need it to keep me on track. Remember this one?’ I leaned over and pointed to Number 6 on the list: Live in a foreign country before turning twenty-one. ‘Without it, there’s no way I would have gone to Colombia junior year.’
‘Didn’t you end up with dysentery?’
‘That’s not the point! The point is, I was super scared of leaving home, and the list made me do something I normally wouldn’t have done.’
Isla tapped a fingernail on the list. ‘How’d this one work out for you?’
Number 17: Have an affair with an older man. ‘Professor Michel was a gentleman.’
‘A gentleman who had sex with you during office hours and then gave you a C in French Literature?’
‘He could recite Molière from memory! Doesn’t that count for something?’
Isla wrinkled her nose. ‘Not when his ass is saggy, no.’
‘Okay, fine. What about this one?’ Number 13: Sing with a band.
‘You have never, ever sung with a band.’
‘You’re forgetting the freshman year talent show. Remember? I was Jem, and a bunch of girls from the soccer team were the Holograms?’
‘That does not count. My point is, there are things on that list that you might never accomplish, and that’s okay. There also might be things on that list that you no longer want to accomplish, and that’s okay, too.’
I folded my arms across my chest. ‘There is nothing on that list I don’t want to accomplish.’
‘Seriously? How about number 11?’
I looked down at the list. Number 11: Make out with James van der Beek. ‘Still valid!’ I said triumphantly.
Isla sighed. ‘I just feel like you’re putting too much pressure on yourself for no reason. I know that you want to get married this year, but honestly, I don’t know if it’s because of the list or because you actually do want to get married.’
‘Of course I want to get married!’ I said defensively. ‘I love Christopher and I want to spend the rest of my life with him.’
‘Are you really sure about that?’ She shifted over to be closer to me. ‘Look, I like Christopher. He’s a nice guy and he’s good to you, and like I said, I think he really does love you. But you haven’t seemed all that happy since you moved to London.’
I shrugged. ‘It takes time to adjust to a new place.’
‘You’ve been there for three years now. Do you have friends over there? A support network at all?’
‘I have Christopher,’ I said. ‘And my colleagues are nice. I guess I’d consider Ben a friend.’
‘I just worry about you, that’s all. I worry that you’re chasing after a future that you’ve decided is fated for you without taking the time to consider whether or not it would actually make you happy.’
I hugged myself more tightly and fixed her with a steely gaze. ‘Marrying Christopher would make me happy.’
‘I’m not saying you shouldn’t marry Christopher. I’m just saying that the sky won’t fall in if you don’t marry Christopher. Nothing bad will happen to you if your plans change.’
‘I know that!’ I spluttered. But somewhere deep inside my chest ached as if a very soft bit of me had been prodded with a very sharp stick.
Isla hesitated. ‘Jenny, what happened with your mom …’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I snapped. That was the problem with friends you’d known their whole life: they’d known you your whole life, too. It made you vulnerable.
She held up her hands. ‘Okay, okay, I’ll leave you alone. I just want you to remember that there’s a whole world out there, my friend. Let yourself consider the options it gives you.’
‘All right,’ I said quietly. I didn’t believe a word of it, but I was sick of sitting in this damp robe and I wanted the conversation to be over.
‘Good. Whatever happens when you get back to London is going to happen – there’s nothing you can do about it right now. We’ve got one night left in Vegas. I want you to forget about Christopher and marriage and the whole fucking life list and just have fun. Okay?’
I nodded sullenly and plucked at an errant piece of thread unspooling from the cuff of my robe.
‘Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but I’ll take it.’ She hopped off the bed and bounced towards the door. ‘Meet me in the living room in fifteen,’ she sang. ‘It’s spa time, bitches!’
We were rubbed. We were buffed. We were scrubbed. We were steamed. We were painted and polished and blow-dried and fluffed. And finally we emerged, groomed and purring like a pair of Siamese cats.
‘Okay,’ Isla said, tilting her iPhone to get the best angle on her cherry-red lips. ‘What do you want to do first?’
‘Umm …’ The truth was, I was still feeling a little woozy after the massage, and my neck ached from the weight of the elaborate up-do the hairdresser had fashioned on the top of my head. What I really wanted to do was drink a bottle of pricey coconut water and take a nap, but one look at Isla’s expectant face told me that wasn’t an option. ‘Get a drink?’ I offered.
‘Yes! But we should get changed first. They won’t let us in anywhere in these clothes.’
I glanced down at my terrycloth shorts and my newly polished toes hanging over the edge of a pair of dollar flip-flops. ‘Good point.’
‘Pre-party!’ Isla sang when we got through the door of the suite. ‘Vodka or tequila?’
‘Uh … maybe I’ll start with a glass of wine or something.’
‘No way. Wine will make you sleepy. Vodka will perk you up. That’s just science.’ She poured two neat shots and handed one to me. ‘Bottoms up!’
The liquor burned as it made its way down my neck. It occurred to me that I should have eaten more than half a chicken salad wrap that day, but the thought was swiftly pushed aside by Isla charging past me towards my bedroom.
‘What are you doing?’ I called after her.
‘Seeing if you have anything other than giant linen tunics to wear!’
I followed her into the bedroom and found her already elbow-deep in my suitcase. ‘You brought a turtleneck to Las Vegas?’ she asked, holding up the offensive item.
‘I thought it might get cold in the evenings!’
‘It’s the desert, dude. Okay, what have we got here? Jeans. Jeans. Maxi-dress. Mom shorts.’
‘They are not mom shorts!’ I cried, snatching them out of her hands.
‘Jenny, you could fit two of you in those things.’
‘They’re meant to be slouchy!’
She tossed the remaining few scraps of clothing onto the bed and threw up her hands. ‘We’re going to have to go to plan B.’
‘What’s plan B?’
‘My suitcase, obviously.’
I was seized with panic. Visions of myself squeezed into Lycra like so much sausage meat danced in my head. ‘There is no way I’m going to fit into any of your clothes.’
‘Of course you will – look at you! You’re tiny!’ She took my hand and pulled me towards the door, but not before my eye caught the silvered gleam of my phone charging on the nightstand.
‘Wait one second,’ I said, straining to reach it. ‘I just want to check—’
‘No!’ she shouted, launching herself onto the bed and snatching the phone away. She unplugged it and shoved it in the back pocket of her shorts. ‘You’ll get it back tomorrow.’
‘Come on …!’
‘Tonight is about you and me having all of the fun and giving zero fucks – remember? And that means you not mournfully checking your phone every five minutes to see if Christopher has been in touch.’
‘Can you at least see if he’s texted me?’
She slid it out of her pocket and pressed the home key. The screen lit up her face as she frowned into it. ‘No,’ she said softly. My heart sank. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘No, it’s not. He’s being a douche. But you know what?’
‘What?’
‘Fuck him. Zero fucks, remember? Tonight we give zero fucks. Say it with me now.’
‘Zero fucks,’ we chorused. Mine was a little less heartfelt than hers.
‘That’s right. Now, let’s go get you all sexed up and then let’s get a motherfucking DRINK! This town isn’t going to know what hit it.’
After a long and lively debate – punctuated with vodka shots and the occasional creative curse word – Isla managed to convince me to squeeze into a little black dress of hers that even I had to admit didn’t look half bad. (She wore a silver jumpsuit slashed to the navel, and a pair of platform heels: standard). We headed down to the hotel bar, ordered two espresso martinis, and sat tall on the bar stools as we plotted out the rest of the night.
‘Apparently there’s a bar with mermaids,’ Isla said, sliding an olive off a toothpick with her teeth.
‘Mermaids?’
‘Yeah. They swim around in a giant fish tank.’
‘How do they breathe?’
‘I think there’s some kind of central breathing tube they can take breaths from,’ she said with a shrug.
‘I think I’ll pass.’ I was a nervous swimmer, and the thought of being trapped in a fish tank with a fake tail strapped to my feet was enough to make me break out in a cold sweat.
Isla signaled to the bartender, who took one look at her and hurled himself across the bar to get to her. ‘Can I help you?’
‘You sure can,’ she said, flashing him her best smile. ‘It’s our last night in Vegas, and we were hoping you could point us in the direction of a few great bars.’
The bartender picked up a cocktail shaker and started spinning it around in his hand. ‘Sure thing, beautiful,’ he said, tossing the shaker in the air and catching it behind his back. ‘What’s your poison?’
‘Just somewhere fun where we can drink and maybe dance a little.’
‘Gin? Tequila? Bourbon?’
‘All of the above,’ she announced.
‘Center Bar is pretty great – Drake was in there the other night – or the Apostrophe Bar. It’s guest list only, but I have a friend who works the door.’ He tossed two limes in the air along with the cocktail shaker and juggled them for a few minutes.
‘I think we’re looking for someplace a little less fancy,’ she said. ‘Maybe even a little dirty. We like to get dirty, don’t we, Jenny?’
He lost his grip on the shaker and it bounced off the marble bar top with a clang. ‘Shit,’ he said, scrambling to recover it. I saw Isla’s shoulders start to shake from laughing and mouthed the words STOP IT at her.
The bartender jumped back to his feet and swept his hair back with his hands, strategically flexing his biceps in the process. ‘Sorry about that. Uh, let me think …’ He started juggling the shaker again. Brave man. ‘The Bourbon Room is pretty cool. They play a lot of 80s’ rock – Bon Jovi, and that kind of thing. Or – wait, I know exactly where you guys should go.’
‘Amazing! Where?’
The bartender flashed a triumphant grin. ‘Benny’s! They do these huge fishbowl drinks, and after 10 p.m., all they play is 90s’ hip hop.’
Isla’s eyes widened. ‘It literally sounds like nirvana.’ She turned to me. ‘What do you think?’
I nodded. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘Benny’s it is! Thank you so much!’ Isla reached across the bar and high-fived the bartender, who did a passable job of hiding his delight.
‘Glad I could help. You know, I get off at eleven tonight. I could meet you guys over there, if you were into it …’ He reached up into a tactical stretch, revealing a slice of toned midriff in the process. He was unassailably hot, I’d give him that. I nudged Isla and tried to catch her eye, but she ignored me.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘it’s kind of a ladies-only thing.’
The bartender cast an appraising eye over the two of us and nodded approvingly. ‘Oh, I get it,’ he said, though it was pretty clear that he didn’t. ‘Cool. Well, if you change your mind, here’s my number.’ He grabbed a cocktail napkin out of the holder and scrawled down a set of digits. ‘Drinks are on the house, by the way.’
‘You’re too sweet,’ Isla said, folding up the napkin and tossing it into her bag. She leaned across the bar and kissed him on the cheek. I swear I saw the man go weak at the knees.
‘I will never get used to being out with you,’ I said as we waited for our Uber to arrive. It was dark out, but the night air was still steamy, and I felt sweat begin to pool underneath my bra.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean the way that men fall all over you. What’s it like, wielding that kind of power?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘They do not fall all over me.’
‘Isla, I just watched that bartender perform circus tricks to get your attention. They absolutely do fall all over you.’
She sighed. ‘Well, it’s nice, I guess. I mean, it can get annoying sometimes, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the attention.’ She gestured towards her silver jumpsuit. ‘As if I need to explain to you that I’m attention-seeking.’
‘I wouldn’t call it attention-seeking,’ I said. ‘More like confident.’
‘Thanks. But just for the record, men fall all over you just as much as they do me. You just don’t see it.’ She rummaged around in her bag and pulled out a cigarette and a bright pink Bic. She lit up and took a deep drag.
I frowned at her. ‘Those things will kill you, you know.’
‘Honestly, babe, when you’ve seen the kind of shit I have, you stop worrying about how you’re going to die. The other day, I had a woman come in with an arrow in her head. A goddamn arrow! She’d been in her backyard – which happens to back onto an archery center – and a stray arrow got her right in the parietal lobe.’
‘Oh my God,’ I said. ‘Is she alive?’
She took another drag and puffed out a series of perfect smoke rings. ‘We managed to get it out without too much damage, but now she can’t taste anything and she keeps talking with a Spanish accent. Can you imagine?’
‘Jesus. That’s awful.’
‘I know, right? So really, in the grand scheme of things, there’s no point in wondering what will kill you in the end. The main point is that something will. Or it will at least fuck up your life pretty good.’
We were silent as we let this thought sink in. Isla took a final drag and stubbed out her cigarette underneath her heel. ‘Come on,’ she said, grabbing my hand. ‘That’s our guy in the black Prius.’
Driving down the Strip at night was surreal. The lights glinting off the windows, the people streaming past, the moon shining above, casting its glow across this vast desert. I let myself wonder about Christopher, just for a minute. Like Fievel the mouse, I wondered if he was sleeping underneath the same big sky. Then I remembered that it was 7 a.m. in London. He was probably up already and off on his Sunday run. I forced myself to push the thought of him aside. I couldn’t allow myself to become maudlin, at least not this early into the night. I owed Isla that much. From the way she was just talking, I suspected she needed a carefree girls’ night out just as much as I did.
Besides, he was probably having a whale of a time on his own in London. The vodka coursed steadily through my veins. Maybe he wasn’t out for his Sunday morning run. Maybe he was still in our bed, a tiny blonde called Tiffany wrapped around him like a baby monkey. Maybe he hadn’t thought about me this whole weekend. Not even once. Maybe he was glad I was gone. I leaned back and watched the night sky sail past.
Benny’s, it turned out, wasn’t on the Strip at all. It was tucked behind a Walmart supercenter, the only clue of its location a small, worn wooden sign illuminated by a single flickering lightbulb.
‘Are you sure about this?’ I asked Isla. Even the Uber driver looked nervous about leaving us there.
‘If it sucks, we’ll just go someplace else,’ she said, climbing out of the car.
The driver and I exchanged a look. ‘I’m not coming back here,’ he said firmly. I nodded my understanding and closed the door.
I followed Isla out of the car and the two of us linked arms as we headed for the door. The ground pulsed beneath our feet as we approached. ‘Well, at least they have a decent sound system,’ Isla said.
She pulled open the door and we were both hit by a wall of thundering noise. ‘Holy shit,’ I whispered.
‘WHAT?’ she yelled.
‘I SAID HOLY SHIT!’
We made our way down a flight of stairs and into the cavernous bar. Cavernous wasn’t just an adjective in this case – the place was literally a cave. It seemed as if it had been hulled out of the rocky desert floor, the ragged stone walls sweating gently from the heat of a hundred or so bodies pressed tightly together, the only light coming from a few fringed chandeliers hanging dangerously close to the dance floor.
‘This place is insane!’ I shouted.
She nodded and tugged me towards the bar, where a tall, muscular man with a tattoo of a snake curled around his neck was doling out shots. Isla propped her elbows on the bar. ‘Bourbon or tequila?’ the tattooed man asked her.
She turned around and repeated the question.
‘Um, do they have any beer?’ I asked.
She glanced back at the bar, which was stacked high with bottles of Maker’s Mark and Jose Cuervo. ‘I don’t think that’s an option.’
‘Bourbon, then. On ice, please. Just a small one!’
The man poured out four fingers into each glass and pushed them across the bar. ‘Ten bucks,’ he said, and Isla handed him a twenty and told him to keep the change. ‘Just make sure you keep them coming.’
‘Bottoms up,’ she cried, though I could see the fear on her face as she lifted the glass to her lips. She sank it in two gulps. ‘Jesus, that burns!’ she shouted, and then turned back to the bartender. ‘Another, kind sir!’
‘Don’t you think we should slow down a little?’ I asked, taking a tentative sip. She was right, it did burn, all the way down my esophagus and into my too-empty stomach.
‘Are you still thinking about Christopher?’
I shrugged. Of course I was thinking about him.
‘Then it’s not time to slow down.’
I wasn’t sure if it was the bourbon or the thumping bass shuddering through my ribcage, or the image – stubbornly vivid – of his limbs entwined with Tiffany the tiny blonde’s, but a sense of righteous indignation suddenly roared through me. My life, as I’d known it, was quite possibly over. I might as well enjoy myself. ‘You’re right,’ I said, tossing my head back and swallowing the contents of the tumbler in one go. ‘Fuck it. Let’s get fucked up.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ she said, and handed me a fresh glass. I made short work of that one, too, and then pulled her out onto the dance floor.
The night, from there, took on the quality of a stop-motion film. Dancing beneath the flashing disco lights. Isla’s face beaming at me. More bourbon. Pushing my sweaty hair out of my face. Reapplying my lipstick in the dingy bathroom mirror. More bourbon. The music pulsing through me as I twirled and twirled.
And then the gaps in my memory become longer until it’s just one long blank expanse. Scene missing. Scene missing. Scene missing.