Road to Paradise

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

  “You had sex w
ith strangers for free,” said 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 three hundred 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?”

  3

  Cave, Cave, Deus Videt

  It was all well and good to lament Candy’s gallivanting, to judge her, to moralize while sitting by 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 miniskirt 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 got 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 miniskirted, 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. No one could tell that behind this breezy girl 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 giggled I couldn’t muster even a grimace. The further 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 2,500 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 6,000 dollars back and forth.