Page 51 of 28 Summers
“Why don’t you come here next weekend?” Ursula says. “I think you’d actually like it.”
When Jake lands in Vegas, it’s 111 degrees. He flew coach because he didn’t feel right using Ursula’s miles to upgrade to first class when he was contributing exactly zero to their household income. He arrives tired and foul-tempered and therefore finds nothing to appreciate in either the desert landscape or the skyline, which looks, from a distance, like some kid forgot to pick up his toys. Jake’s taxi cruises past the iconicWELCOME TO LAS VEGASsign and within moments they are on the Strip. Jake’s taxi driver, Merlin, takes it upon himself to act as Jake’s personal tour guide. (Merlin can tell that this particular fellow will be difficult to impress. Merlin concedes that Vegas isn’t for everyone, but that doesn’t stop him from flexing his powers of persuasion. He points out the Stratosphere with the roller coaster at the top; Circus Circus; the Mirage, where the white tigers live; Treasure Island, with a pirate show out front every hour on the hour; the Venetian, which has canals winding through it and singing gondoliers; Caesars Palace; Paris; New York–New York, with a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop inside; Excalibur; Luxor; and Mandalay Bay, which has a Four Seasons Hotel in one of its towers. Merlin pulls up to the Bellagio. “This is the jewel in the crown,” Merlin says, and he believes it. Sometimes he smokes a joint and watches the dancing fountain show out front three, four times in a row.
He hands the fellow a card. “Fifty percent off Cirque du Soleil,” Merlin says. “Call me.”
“Thanks,” the fellow says. His voice is flat but that doesn’t mean he won’t call, Merlin thinks. It can take time for Vegas to grow on you.)
At check-in, it’s discovered that Ursula has forgotten to put Jake’s name on the room, so the front-desk clerk, Kwasi, can’t give him a key.
“But I’m her husband,” Jake says.
“I understand your position,” Kwasi says. “And I hope you understand mine.” (Kwasi’s position is that maybe this guy is Ursula de Gournsey’s husband, maybe he’s not—but even if heisher husband, she might not want him in her room.) Kwasi slides a ten-dollar poker chip across the desk, which Jake accepts before he even realizes what it is.
He says, “What am I supposed to do with this?”
(Kwasi thinks,If you have to ask…) He smiles. “I recommend the roulette wheel.”
Jake finds a pay phone and calls Ursula’s cell. He gets her voicemail and hangs up. The point of her cell phone, he thought, was so that people could reach her night and day. But likely she’s cloistered with her team in meetings—except that it’s six o’clock and Ursula told him that morning, which now feels like three days ago, that she would wrap up at four because Silver needed to catch a flight back to his family.
Jake decides to sit on the banquette by the main elevators and wait. He has a book with him—Plainsong,by Kent Haruf, which is spare, haunting, and precisely the opposite of what he should be reading when he’s already feeling abandoned. To pull it out and read amid the exuberant go-for-broke atmosphere of the lobby, with its lights and sound of raining coins, its smoky haze and smell of rye whiskey, would make him seem hopelessly square. He has a ten-dollar chip. He should use it.
He doesn’t know the first thing about gambling and he’s worried about making an ass of himself if he sits down to blackjack or tries to throw craps. The slots don’t interest him in the slightest. What did Kwasi say? The roulette wheel.
It’s as easy as placing the chip on a number, right? He watches the ball drop and wheel spin three times—twenty-three, four, thirty-five. What number should he pick? He thinks about Mallory’s birthday, March 11, but he’s never been with her on her birthday or, per their arrangement, even called her on it.
He chooses nine for their month, September; he sets his chip down on the red nine and thinks,All or nothing.It was free money, anyway.
And guess what.
Nine wins.
It wins.
Jake lets out a whoop as his one chip turns into a pile of chips. That was incredible, right? Ha! His very first try, he won!
“I won!” he says to the woman next to him. She’s older, smoking a cigarillo. Her lipstick has bled into the lines around her mouth. “And that was the first time I ever gambled!”
(The woman’s name is Glynnis. She wants to tell this kid that beginner’s luck isn’t just a Santa Claus myth. It’s more predictable than death.) “Do yourself a favor,” she says. “Cash out.”
But Jake doesn’t cash out. Instead, he takes half his chips and places them on five, for May, which is the month of Ursula’s birth, and twenty, which is the day.
The number that wins is, again, nine.
Jake blinks. Nine again? His money is swept away.
Glynnis exhales a stream of cigarillo smoke and says, “This town runs on fools like you.”
It has taken Jake less than five minutes to experience the highs and lows that Vegas has to offer. He returns to the pay phone, tries Ursula’s cell again—voicemail. He supposes the natural next step is to go to the bar and wait. The Bellagio is actually quite lovely. There’s a Dale Chihuly glass ceiling,Fiori di Como,that he could be very happy staring at as he sips a bourbon.
But his present state of mind is one of exasperation. He came all the way here to see his wife and not only is she not answering her phone but she neglected to add his name to the room. Her consideration for him is nonexistent. It has alwaysbeennonexistent. Why has he tolerated it for so long?
Well, no matter now. He’s leaving. He’ll catch the redeye home.
But he can’t find the exit. He can’t even find the front desk to ask where the exit is. He must have made a wrong turn and now he has been engulfed by the casino proper—rows and rows of slot machines, acres of blackjack and Texas Hold’em and craps and the now-dreaded roulette wheels. There are cocktail waitresses wearing black satin bustiers gliding around like they’re on skates. Three of them ask what he’s drinking. He says he’s looking for the nearest exit and they turn and glide away.
I give up,Jake thinks. How about a bar, then, just a good old-fashioned bar? But in this part of the hotel, those seem to have disappeared as well.
Miraculously, he finds his way back to the main elevator bank and that’s it, he’s staying put. He pulls out his book, wondering exactly what Ursula thought he would like about this place.
