Sammy Keyes and the Showdown in Sin City

My jeans are worn and tattered to begin with, and now they’re also muddy and still kinda wet. My high-tops are splitting out the sides, my T-shirt and sweatshirt are frayed around the edges, and I haven’t brushed my hair since this morning—which suddenly feels like a hundred light-years ago.

  So yeah. Obviously I’m from a different universe than Queen-of-Drama Lana.

  Obviously Heather is much more what a surprise daughter should look like.

  “Uh, no,” Lady Lana says, and she’s now beet red. “That’s her friend.” And I guess she’s embarrassed by the way I look and the way I’m “glowering,” because she starts making excuses for me, saying, “She’s upset because her grandmother told her before I could.”

  “Grams did not tell me!” I snap. “Grams has nothing to do with me being here!”

  “Then …” She looks from me to Heather.

  “I didn’t come with Heather, either! She came with Candi. They drove, I flew. But we’re all here because we thought you’d come to Vegas to marry Warren.”

  “Who told you that!?”

  Everyone in the room is dead quiet and staring at me, but I don’t care. I give my mother a hard look. “When you don’t answer questions … when you shut off your phone … when you have a history of hiding things, people jump to conclusions! And since I didn’t want a second dad when I didn’t even know who—”

  “Samantha,” my mother begs, “can we please do this later.”

  “No! You always want to talk about things later, and we never do! And I want you to know that to get here … to get here and finally get some answers, I stowed away in the McKenzes’ car to get to the airport, because Marissa and her mom were taking an emergency trip here to bail her dad out of … out of a jam, and while they went through airport security, I bought my own ticket pretending I was with them, and when we landed in Vegas, I told Mrs. McKenze that you were supposed to pick me up, and when you didn’t show up, I went through this big, complicated chess game of moves so that I would have a place to sleep, but instead of sleeping, I went through the phone book looking up wedding chapels trying to find where you were registered and—”

  “But I wasn’t coming here to get married! I came here to talk to Darren! Warren came along for moral support!”

  “So why would he buy expensive jewelry right before coming here?”

  “Jewelry? What jewelry? And how did you hear that?”

  “Yeah,” Heather says to me. “How did you hear that?”

  I zoom in on Heather and say through my teeth, “You want me to tell her your mom was having your dad investigated?” That shuts her up quick, so I turn back to my mom and say, “The point is, you never tell me anything! And since your phone was off, obviously you didn’t want to be disturbed! So I called a friend of mine who’s an Elvis impersonator here and—”

  “You have a friend who’s an Elvis impersonator?”

  “It’s something that happens when you get sent to the market at midnight because your blackmailing neighbor needs Tums.”

  “What?”

  “Which of course you know nothing about because you’re too busy being you to worry about me and my blackmailing neighbors.”

  “Blackmailing neighbors?” Heather asks.

  “Never mind!” my mom and I say at the same time. Then I turn back to Lady Lana. “But it’s a good thing I got sent out for Tums in the middle of the night, because my Elvis got all the other Vegas Elvises to be on the lookout for you.”

  She gives Darren a wide-eyed look. “That explains a lot!”

  I frown at her. “Yeah, well, I’ve been all over the Strip chasing down tips that cost me fifty bucks each about where you’d been. And when I finally figured out you were inside this place, I stole some catering shirts and trays of food so we could sneak in the back door because we’d already been booted out the front door. But we still got chased down by security Gorillas, and when I did find you and figured out who this guy is, all you could do is tell me to watch the show! Like I care about a concert?” I turn to Darren. “No offense, but I don’t want a rock star dad. I’ve already got a diva mom.”

  “Samantha!” my mom gasps, and I can tell—she’s going to hate me for the rest of my life.

  But when I look back at Darren, there’s a little grin tugging at one side of his mouth. He’s also sort of checking me over—my high-tops, my skateboard, my grungy jeans—and his eyes are definitely twinkling.

  Not like he thinks I’m a joke.

  More that he’s decided he likes me.

  Then Drumsticks chuckles and says, “I know you gotta do a paternity test, but, dude, that girl is yours.”

  Darren eyes him and grins. “A real Troublemaker, huh?”

  “A paternity test?” Heather gasps. “Are they saying he’s your …”

  And that’s when I actually look at Darren Cole.

  First it’s his eyes.

  Then it’s his teeth.

  And then something clicks and I can just tell.

  He really is my dad.

  It’s a weird take-your-breath-away, knock-your-knees-out feeling, and I can see that he’s just been hit with it, too.

  I really am his daughter.

  All of a sudden I don’t know what to say, what to do, or what to think, so I just stand there like an idiot, staring at him, and he just stands there, staring at me.

  Then finally, real softly, he says, “It’s nice to meet you, Samantha.”

  I nod and choke out, “It’s Sammy. With a y.”

  The corner of his mouth tugs up again. “No heart on an i for you, huh?”

  I give a little grin back. “Exactly.”

  He puts out a hand and says, “Well, I’m Darren. With two r’s.” But as I’m shaking his hand, Heather cuts in with “He’s your dad? You’re her dad? When did this happen? How did— What is going on?” She squints at me. “And if he’s your dad, then … This doesn’t make any sense! Who have you been living with? And what’s there to blackmail?”

  I might have said, Wouldn’t you like to know! or pulled a Lana and said, Can we please talk about this later? only right then someone walks through the door.

  Someone who does not belong in Las Vegas.

  Or at the House of Blues.

  And absolutely positively not at a rock band’s after-party.

  “Grams?” I gasp, and then Hudson appears behind her, followed by …

  “Casey?” Heather gasps.

  So okay. Any minute I know I’m going to wake up on the couch in the Senior Highrise with my cat sleeping on my head giving me weird dreams. I mean, there’s no way this can be reality. And something about understanding that gives me this huge wave of relief. Of course! The whole trip has been a dream! The Elvis Army, teaming up with Heather, sneaking into the House of Blues, Darren Cole being my dad …

  It’s all just a dream!

  Hallucinations from suffocation!

  All I have to do is wake up and, poof, it’ll be over.

  So when Grams sees me and goes, “Oh, thank God!” and Lady Lana sees her and cries, “Oh God, no!” I just smile. Serenely. Calmly.

  I’m onto this.

  It’s just a dream.

  And when Heather gasps again and says, “Oh my God! You live in that funky seniors’ building with her?” I just keep smiling.

  It’s only a dream.

  But then Casey’s there, hugging me, and he’s warm and strong and feels so real.

  “Am I dreaming?” I ask in his ear, and I can feel my smile start to fade.

  He laughs. “No.”

  But in a dream that’s exactly what he’d say, right?

  And then everybody starts talking all at once.

  Just like they do in dreams.

  And somehow Casey eases aside my backpack and skateboard and he and Heather and I wind up in our own little zone where the two of them have a conversation about moms and dads and who said and did what. They’re not fighting. Just talking. In a big, excited blur of words.

  Somewhere
in the middle of them talking I pinch myself—which actually really hurts—and I wake up to the fact that this is not a dream.

  Casey really is here.

  Darren Cole really is my father.

  And Casey just said—

  “What?” I ask.

  “My mom says it’s fine that we see each other.”

  My jaw drops. “She did?”

  “She says to tell you thanks.”

  “She did?” I ask again.

  And what that means is that the only thing standing in our way is …

  We both look at Heather, who puts her hands up and says, “Do not make me say it. This whole thing is way too weird as it is. I’m not going to say it.”

  I eye her. “So what happened in Vegas …?”

  “What did happen in Vegas, anyway?” Casey asks. “All I know is Mom’s talking to Dad, and Darren Cole’s your father.” He puts a hand to his head like just the thought might blow his mind apart. “Darren Cole!”

  I heave a huge, puffy-cheeked sigh. “We definitely need a new song.”

  He laughs. “No kidding.” Then he says, “And all that’s plenty crazy enough, but you two?” He looks back and forth between Heather and me. “What happened?”

  Heather and I kind of shrug and sneak looks at each other, and at the same time we both say, “We teamed up.”

  “Whoa.”

  “So?” I ask her after we’ve stood around all awkward for a minute.

  She frowns. “I don’t know, all right? It was easier when I hated you.” She looks at her brother and finally says to both of us through her teeth, “I’m at my very first after-party, okay? I want to meet people. Can we just talk about this later?”

  I shrug. “Sure.” But when she takes off, Casey stands on his toes and calls out, “Hey, Troublemakers!” Then he points to his sister and says, “She’s only thirteen, okay?”

  “I hate you!” Heather yells back at him.

  Which for some reason makes all the Troublemakers laugh and makes me feel like I’ve finally, finally gotten back to an edge of reality.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Somewhere in the middle of the strangeness that was the Troublemakers’ after-party, it dawned on me that I’d been really harsh on Grams. She’d known the real reason my mother was coming to Las Vegas and was just trying to hold it all together for a little while longer.

  I tried to block out my guilt over how I’d treated her, because I also needed to apologize to Casey for being such an awful girlfriend. And even though I was interested in everything he’d told me—like how Grams and Hudson had tracked him down and how they’d all pieced together what had happened and then how he’d stowed away in Hudson’s car and hadn’t shown himself until it was way too late to turn back—in the back of my mind I was fretting about Grams.

  But then he says, “Your mom was actually trying to do the right thing, Sammy,” and I kind of snap out of it.

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, I overheard a bunch of stuff before they knew I was there.”

  “Like what?”

  “He …”

  His voice just trails off, so I ask, “He who?”

  “Do you want me to call him Darren or your dad?”

  “Darren!”

  “Okay. Well, his first album was just getting traction, he was touring, she was nuts about him and went out to see him on the road to break the news about you and discovered he was doing the typical rock star thing. So they got in a huge fight and broke up, and she was done with him.” He eyed me. “Single moms scraping by have a tough time chasing their Hollywood dream. But your grandmother promised she’d help raise you … which is why your mom felt like she could leave you at the Highrise.”

  Hearing this from Casey was somehow easier than hearing it from Mom.

  Or Grams.

  From them, things always sound like excuses. From Casey?

  They sounded … tragic.

  Betrayed by the love of her life, woman returns home to have baby, whose eyes and smile are just like her cad dad’s.

  I wanted to change the subject fast because I always seem to get burned when I find some sympathy for my mother. And since Casey was just holding my hands, kind of waiting for me to say something, what I said was “I’m sorry I’ve been such a rotten girlfriend.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s Valentine’s Day? Or at least it was? I stood you up, I didn’t get you a present.… I was really possessed about my mom getting married when I should have been thinking about you.” I give him a guilty look. “I tried to call you. Really, I did.”

  “My cell?”

  “I thought your mom confiscated that.”

  “She did, but I knew where she stashed it, so I dug it up before I stashed myself in Hudson’s car.” He grins. “Which is how I got in touch with my mom and how I found out about your talk with her.” He digs something out of his jeans pocket, saying, “So you managing to get her to say it’s okay for us to see each other is a way better present than this”—he loops a chain around my neck—“but this is all I have.”

  On the chain is a little skeleton key.

  And a silver heart.

  They’re both tarnished, with cool scrollwork … like they’ve been around forever and will last forever.

  My eyes brim full of tears. “This is the coolest necklace ever.”

  Now, at that moment I had completely forgotten my guilt over Grams. But then I hear, “Excuse me for butting in …,” and when I look up, there’s Hudson. “Oh, Hudson, I’m so sorry!” I tell him. “I can’t believe you drove all the way here! And in Jester? I didn’t think you were supposed to drive classic cars that far.”

  “The car and I held up just fine. Your grandmother?” He cocks his head and gives a tisk. “That’s another story.”

  “I gotta go talk to her,” I tell Casey, but then I notice she’s standing with my mother and Darren and they’re all looking pretty glum. “Uh … maybe later.”

  “No,” Hudson tells me. “You should go now.”

  If there’s one adult in my life I can count on to always give me good advice, it’s Hudson Graham. So I nod, and I’m about to head over when Casey says, “Wait up.” So I do while he reads a text. “Sorry, but I gotta go,” he says. “Mom wants Heather and me to meet her at the hotel room right away.”

  “Glad you’ve got your phone,” I tell him as he sends a text back. Then we give each other a big hug, and in my ear he says, “I guess I’ll see you back in Santa Martina?”

  “Don’t let your mother drive too fast,” I whisper back.

  He gives me a quick kiss, then goes to pry his sister away while I head over to where Grams is still standing with Lady Lana and Darren Cole.

  “I’m sorry, Grams,” I tell her straight up, trying to focus on just her. “It was a big hodgepodge of emergencies and misunderstandings and—”

  “Samantha, I’m done with hodgepodges of emergencies and misunderstandings. My heart just can’t take this anymore. It is too exhausting for me to be looking after a teenager.”

  “Especially such a troublemaker,” Darren says with a grin.

  Now, I can tell he’s just trying to lighten things up a little, but obviously he’s clueless about how serious this is sounding. “Hey!” I say, pointing at him. “You stay out of it! If you hadn’t gone and broken my mother’s heart, none of this would be happening.” He looks at me like, Ouch, and my mother stares at me like, Wow, so I look at her and say, “Casey just told me.” Then I turn to Grams and drop my voice when I ask, “What are you saying?” ’cause my gut is all topsy-turvy over what I’m afraid she’s saying.

  She pinches her eyes and shakes her head. “You staying with me was never supposed to be long-term. You and your mother will have to figure it out.”

  “No!” I cry. “Please, Grams! Please! I promise I won’t stow away in any more cars or jump on any more planes or … or do anything I’m not supposed to!”

  “I can’t do it
anymore, Samantha. Now that Heather knows? It’s unworkable.”

  “Grams! No! Heather and I are having a truce. Things will be fine! You’re just tired. It’s one in the morning! You drove a long, long, long, long, long, long way! We’ll get a room, we’ll get some sleep, and we’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay?”

  She shakes her head and sighs. “Where’s Hudson?” And all of a sudden there he is, putting an arm around her. “I’m glad you’re safe,” she says to me. “I was never so worried in my life.” Then she strokes Hudson’s cheek and says, “Let’s go.”

  “What? Wait! You can’t go!”

  Hudson gives me a reassuring look and whispers, “She’s exhausted.”

  But I can tell—this is different than all the times before.

  Grams means it.

  And then they do go.

  “They have rooms at the MGM,” my mother says, holding me back as I go to chase after them. “I’ll get us one there, too, and we’ll go see them in the morning.”

  And since I’m now crying and being the total after-party downer, I tell her, “I’m going to go sit out there for a while.”

  “Out where?”

  “I don’t know! Somewhere out there,” I tell her, pointing through the door. Then I look at Darren and say, “I’m sorry. I really am. I know this is weird for you, too.”

  All he does is give a little nod—probably ’cause he’s already learned that if he says something, I’ll bite him for it. But two steps out the door, there he is, walking next to me.

  “Brave guy,” I tell him with a scowl.

  “I may have been young and reckless,” he tells me, “but I’m no deadbeat dad.”

  And that’s when a thought slams me upside the head. It’s so big and so complicating that for a split second I forget everything else. “Are you saying I have … brothers and sisters? Or you know, stepbrothers and -sisters?”

  “No!” He laughs. “At least not that I know of!”

  I eye him.

  Like, Very funny, you jerk.

  “Look, it wasn’t like that with your mother. We were in love. Being on the road …?” He shrugs. “I can’t make excuses for my behavior back then, but I have grown up some.”

  We’re at the edge of the stage now, so I sit down with my feet dangling, and so does he. “Well, how many wives have you had?”