I just stand there blinking like an idiot.
She laughs, then says, “You’re the one who should take up gambling. Nobody gets this lucky.”
It did seem incredibly lucky. And maybe for once it was my turn to have a little luck, but I’m not used to it, so it felt more like a mirage than something real. Like any moment, poof, it would disappear.
I tried not to question why I was having good luck instead of bad. I just tried to think about what my next step should be.
And what in the world I would say to my mother.
SEVEN
It didn’t seem to faze Mrs. McKenze much when she found out that my mom hadn’t checked in yet. “Just come with us,” she said, marching across the shiny marble floor. “You two can keep each other company while I figure out what I’m going to do.”
Marissa gave me a little thumbs-up and a grin, but I was too busy with the knot in my stomach to appreciate that we’d just pulled off Step Four.
Which was weird.
I mean, here I’d escaped my grandmother, stowed away in a car, jumped a plane to Las Vegas, weaseled my way into Mrs. McKenze’s hotel room … and I was freaking out about seeing my mother?
I guess that tells you something about my mother. Don’t get me wrong—it’s not like I was worried about her raging at me.
Lady Lana raging?
Please.
But I was there to mess up her wedding. Or at least that’s what would happen when I appeared out of nowhere and raged at her. Because you know what? I’d had enough. If she didn’t tell me who my dad was, I wasn’t going to let her marry me a stepdad—especially not my boyfriend’s father—without a fight.
And somehow getting ready for that battle scared me more than anything else I’d done so far. I mean, hadn’t I ruined her life enough? Hadn’t my just being alive gotten in the way of … everything? She’d almost died once trying to cover up that I was her daughter, because she thought it made her seem too old for a part she was auditioning to get. And she’d almost married some guy who had no clue I existed, because he was a Hollywood hotshot who was crazy over her and she felt like she had to. And when I’d asked her if she loved the guy, she’d frowned and said, “We can see how far love’s gotten me.”
So yeah. I’ve felt like a burden for a long, long time. And the only consolation—the only actual clue I’d gotten—was that whoever my dad was, she had been in love with him at one point.
So me being alive wasn’t my fault.
Still. My brain was good at finding ways to forget that.
It was also good at wondering if I wasn’t jumping to wrong conclusions. Maybe she’d just said that bit about being in love to protect me from the truth. Maybe my father was actually a violent criminal. A horrible, heinous man, and just the sight of me reminded her of the terror she’d gone through.
Or maybe he was a weirdo who’d kidnapped her and held her on some remote property in the redwoods. Maybe he’d brainwashed her into believing she was in love with him. Maybe she’d left me with Grams so she could escape her past. Escape the memories. Escape what I represented.
But then what was his catcher’s mitt doing in Grams’ closet?
So maybe she’d run away to a commune to escape Grams and her rules. Maybe the commune held big softball tournaments with other communes, and she’d fallen in love with the catcher from another commune and had joined it to be with him!
And that’s how my brain runs off to the Land of Maybe and gets hopelessly lost. I can never seem to find my way out, and it’s exhausting being in there. I’ve spent so many nights wandering through dark alleys and down dead ends in the Land of Maybe that I’m just sick of it. I don’t want to go there anymore.
But the only way out is through answers.
Real answers.
And that’s what I was going to get.
So as we marched along behind Mrs. McKenze, I decided that once my mother was checked in, Step Five was going to be to park at her door and not let her leave until she told me the truth.
Even if that meant pinning her down and mussing up her fancy wedding dress.
Mrs. McKenze had obviously stayed at the MGM before, because she led us out of the giant lobby toward a carpeted area with slot machines and then took a sharp right down a wide hallway without even slowing down. The place was packed, so Marissa and I had to dodge and weave around people just to keep up.
Near the end of the hallway, we passed by a little convenience store and entered a sort of walking roundabout with a huge tiered water feature in the middle of it. The roundabout had a bunch of hallways coming off it, and Mrs. McKenze made a beeline for one that led us to a bank of elevators.
Now, okay, it was Friday night of a long weekend in Las Vegas, but good grief, there were people everywhere. People with drinks, people with luggage, people decked out in rhinestones, people in swim cover-ups and flip-flops … And they were all going someplace. I felt like a lost little minnow in a river of salmon that were all swimming in different directions.
“Come on!” Mrs. McKenze called from inside an elevator. The thing was already completely full, and there was no way Marissa and her stuff and me and my backpack and skateboard were going to fit. But Mrs. McKenze gave us a fierce look and held the door, so we said, “Sorry! Sorry!” and squeezed inside.
We got off at the fourteenth floor and started down a hallway that was, like, two hundred feet long. I didn’t know how far we were going, but I was really tempted to throw down my skateboard. “It would be way faster to ride,” I whispered to Marissa.
“That would be very rock ’n’ roll of you,” she said.
“Don’t you dare go rock ’n’ roll on me!” Mrs. McKenze said over her shoulder. “I don’t need more problems than I already have!”
She was sounding kinda frantic, so I held on to my board and told her, “Don’t worry, I have no plans to go rock ’n’ roll on you. And I’ll make sure Marissa doesn’t, either.”
“No TVs out the window, Mom, promise,” Marissa said with a laugh.
Mrs. McKenze’s head just wobbled. Like, Please, Lord, save me. But when it turned out our room was the very last one on the right, Marissa and I eyed each other.
It would have been way faster to ride!
Anyway, the room was big. It had a bedroom with its own sitting area, a living room with a huge couch and two cushy chairs, a kitchen area, and a huge bathroom. It was three times as big as Grams’ apartment.
“You’re serious?” I whispered to Marissa, ’cause I’d never been in any place like it.
But Marissa sighed and shook her head like this was a miserable excuse for a hotel room. “We used to get a deluxe suite.… You should have seen it.”
“Well, that couch looks pretty comfortable to me,” I whispered, and it did. A lot more comfortable than Grams’ couch.
And that’s when it hits me.
Grams!
“Uh …” I look around. “I need to find a way to call Grams.”
Marissa hesitates. “Does she know … anything?”
“I left her a note, but it just said I didn’t know when I’d be home and that I’d call.” I spot a digital clock next to the couch. “That was five hours ago!”
“So what are you going to tell her?”
Just then Mrs. McKenze comes out of the bedroom scrolling through her cell phone as she says, “I’ve got to make some calls, so please just give me a few uninterrupted minutes,” and before we can say a thing, she’s closed the bedroom door tight.
“Quick,” Marissa says, “do it now!” She hands me the room phone and punches in Grams’ number, and as it’s ringing, she whispers, “Good thing you guys don’t have caller ID.”
But the truth is, I’m not sure if I care if Grams knows where I am anymore. I mean, it depends. If she knows Mom’s getting married, then I’m furious with her, too. But if this is another case of Lady Lana not caring how what she does affects me or Grams, then I don’t want Grams to worry about me being in Las Vegas
.
All of a sudden there’s no time to think about it. “Hello?” Grams says on the other end.
“Hi, Grams, it’s me. Sorry I couldn’t get to a phone sooner.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m with Marissa.”
She hesitates, then hrmphs and says, “We all know what that can mean.”
“What are you saying?”
“You know exactly what I’m saying.”
She was leading me down a sidetrack where I didn’t want to go, so I brought it back to the reason I’d called. “Well, I just wanted to let you know I’m fine, and that I’m spending the night with Marissa.”
I can practically see her eyebrows go flying. “You’re telling me, not asking me?”
I take a deep breath. “Marissa’s all stressed out about her dad, so please? I promise you, I’m safe, and Marissa’s mother is here, so you have nothing to worry about.” And since she’s not arguing and it feels like I may have miraculously worked this conversation so I won’t have to tell her where I am, I decide it doesn’t matter at this point if she already knows what my mother is up to. “So … I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
“Wait!” she says, and I can tell her granny radar has kicked in. Probably because she can tell I’m trying to get off the phone. “Are you at their house? Why did it take this long for you to call me?”
My brain races around for an answer and finally I tell her, “This was the first chance I had to call.”
“So where are you?”
“With Marissa and her mom.” And because I know that’s not going to cut it, I add, “In a hotel.”
“In a hotel? Where?” And then, like a crack starting across a sheet of ice, she asks, “What if your mother calls wanting to … wanting to talk to you?”
I can feel myself drifting away from her. “When’s the last time she’s done that?”
“Samantha! Why aren’t you telling me where you are?”
“Maybe because you didn’t tell me about Mom’s little weekend getaway?”
It comes out cold.
Hard.
There’s a moment of silence and then I can feel her start to panic. “Samantha … Samantha, please tell me you’re not in Las Vegas.”
And just like that, my whole body is shaking, chattering away.
She knew!
“But I’m not supposed to lie to you, remember?” I tell her through my teeth.
“Samantha!” she wails, but I’m totally iced over. Her being upset just slides right off me. She knew! After everything my mom’s put her through, she’s still willing to keep her secrets. Still choosing her over me. “Sorry, Grams, but I’m done listening to you stick up for Mom. Her getting married is stupid and selfish and mean, and I’m done just taking this.”
“Her getting—”
“I didn’t want you to worry about where I was, but since you’ve known about this all along, I don’t know why I even cared!”
“Samantha—”
“Maybe if you’d stood up to her sooner, I wouldn’t have to sneak into cars and hop onto planes and weasel my way into other people’s hotel rooms!”
“Samantha, please—”
“No! I’m done!” I shout. “I can’t believe you kept this from me!” Then I slam down the phone and burst into tears.
“Wow,” Marissa says, putting an arm around me. “Are you okay?”
“No!” I shout at her. “I’m not okay! Grams knew! She knew.”
Marissa looks over her shoulder at her mother’s bedroom door and tells me, “Shhh!”
“Sorry,” I mumble, but I just feel so … betrayed.
“What in the world is going on?” Mrs. McKenze cries, flinging her door open.
“I’m sorry,” I whimper. “I’m really, really sorry.”
And I’m not thinking about anything but being betrayed, but apparently Marissa is. “Would it be okay if Sammy slept on the couch tonight?”
“Slept on the …” Mrs. McKenze moves in closer. “What happened?”
Marissa heaves a sigh. “Her mother.” Then she shakes her head a little, like, Don’t even ask.
So Mrs. McKenze takes a deep breath and says, “It’s fine. And, Marissa, sweetheart, I’ve got to fill out forms online for your father—getting him out is not going to be as easy as I’d hoped.”
“Why?”
“Because we have to post bail, and I don’t know if I do that at the justice court or the district court—I don’t even know the difference! And I can’t talk to your father, because inmates are not allowed to receive calls.” She holds her head like it might explode. “Inmates! Your father is an inmate!” She lets go and says, “And we can’t visit him without filling out forms … but first I have to register, and I’m not sure how or where to do that.” She shakes her head and whimpers, “I feel like Sammy—I just want to cry. And I have such a headache.” She gives Marissa a pleading look. “Could you two go down to that little store by the water fountain and get me some aspirin and maybe get us all some sandwiches? We completely missed dinner.”
As upset as I was about Grams, I knew I was also just hungry. And I guess Marissa was, too, because she grabs me by the arm and yanks me off the couch and says, “Sure.”
“Promise me you’ll stick together, okay?” She hands Marissa some cash. “And please come right back.”
So off we go, down the corridor to the elevators, down the elevators to the water fountain, and past the water fountain to the convenience store. And since Marissa is either blocking it out or in denial about her dad being in jail, she keeps asking me what I’m going to do instead of talking about what she’s going through.
And the truth is, I’m kind of glad, because it feels good to just walk and talk with Marissa and plan out how I’m going to confront my mother. Marissa even makes me laugh a couple of times, which helps a lot. And we do exactly what Mrs. McKenze asked us to—we buy the aspirin and sandwiches and head straight back.
Which, if you ask anybody, qualifies as a minor miracle.
On our way back up we’re the first people on the elevator, which I discover is actually worse than being the last. People keep cramming on and we keep squooshing back. And just as we’re sure the elevator can’t fit any more people, we hear a voice cry, “Hold the door,” and someone actually does.
And then in squeezes a woman with a huge red suitcase.
Marissa grabs onto me and gasps, and like a ton of turds it hits me.
My luck had been just a mirage.
EIGHT
I turn away from the elevator door and duck while people squoosh in tighter. Marissa stoops, too, and we look at each other all bug-eyed as we hear, “Excuse me … excuse me … oh, thank you … I’m sorry … we’re getting off at four … can you …? Thank you.”
Then the door closes.
I don’t dare look as the elevator goes up, but I’m pretty sure I know who the other half of “we” is. Then the elevator stops, and I hear her voice go, “This is it, Mom,” and I know I’m right.
“What are they doing here?” Marissa mouths.
I’m just working out that the reservation for Acosta must not be for Warren and my mom, but for Warren’s ex and the last person on earth I want to deal with—Heather.
But them being in Las Vegas actually does make sense. “Probably the same thing I am,” I whisper to Marissa.
Marissa shakes her head. “Wow. Your mother has no idea what she’s in for.”
The doors are open, and since Heather and Candi are already off the elevator and there’s no time to think, I grab Marissa and announce, “Excuse us, we have to get off here, too,” and push forward.
“No!” Marissa whispers, yanking back.
I drag her along. “Yes!”
The fourth floor looks just like the fourteenth, with a short elevator hallway that leads to an open area with a bunch of long corridors branching off it like the spokes of a wheel. Heather and her mother are already out of sight, so I hurry toward the open
area and catch a glimpse of a big red suitcase disappearing down a corridor to our right. “There they go!”
But Marissa stays put by the elevators.
“Come on!” I whisper, waving her along.
She finally takes a few steps forward. “Why? I don’t want to talk to them! And I promised Mom we’d be right back! What are you going to do if my mother gets mad and kicks you out?”
I move forward so I can peek down the corridor. “I just want to see where they’re staying, okay? Nothing else.”
She finally gives in and we watch as Heather and her mother stop at a door about a third of the way down the corridor and slide their card in about six different ways before unlocking it and going inside.
Since the doors down the corridor all look the same, it would be easy to lose track of which room they went into, but there’s a tray with dishes outside the room right across the hall from them. So I’ve got my mark, and the second Heather and Candi’s door closes, I jet down, read the room number, and jet back. “Four fifty-six,” I pant when I join up with Marissa.
“So now what?”
“Now we get back to your mom!”
Once we’re on the fourteenth floor and don’t have to worry about people in the elevator hearing, Marissa says, “So if they’re here and your mom’s not, how are you ever going to find her?”
I don’t have an answer, so I just march along saying a whole lot of nothing.
“Well, do you think Heather knows where they’re staying? They wouldn’t have come clear out here if they didn’t know more than we do, right?”
We’re practically running down the hallway to make up for my little detour, and it’s hard to run and think and be in shock. “I don’t know! But she’s sure not going to tell me!”
“So true.” Then when we get to the door, she whispers, “So do you want to look up wedding chapels and start calling around?”
“Now?”