Page 1 of What Happens in Vegas..
Chapter One
Carissa
I forcemyself to keep the smile on my face. “Welcome to the Happy Bean, where we strive to give you a cup of jo that will make your day brighter. What can I get started for you?”
The blonde woman in front of me doesn’t even bother to take off her sunglasses as she stares at the menu over my head. She’s a regular and orders the same thing every time. However, every day, like clockwork, she comes in at two in the afternoon and stares at the menu for what feels like forever. I find it rather ironic that her name is Caren spelled with a C. If you get it wrong, she’ll have no qualms stirring up a shit storm. I don’t need that kind of hassle today.
“Um.”
I want to scream at her that she orders the same thing every stupid day and to just get on with it. I need to clock out soon. Time is ticking, I need Mary to come in so she can take over the store.
“I’ll have a medium caramel macchiato hot.”
Of course, it would be hot, she didn’t order a frappe. I put it in the cash register to charge her and she scans her phone. I start on her drink. Luckily, it’s a quick one, I make it dozens of times a day. I make sure to write her name with a C so that she won’t keep me longer with one of her fits. I can’t risk it. I need to get to my serving job at the Bellagio, they don’t like when I’m late, and I need the to keep my second job as well to make rent for my apartment. I share it with Mary. Who needs to be coming through the door that leads to the back any minute now…
We’ve only been roommates for six months, but we’d both been in sketchy roommate situations before and needed an out. She’s a super sweet girl, only nineteen, so she can’t work at the casino with me, but I like her. She’s just forgetful and also likes to ignore her alarm until way past the time she should’ve already left the house.
“Caren!” I call, even though she’s standing near the counter. She picks up her drink and leaves without so much as a thank you. At least I was the one to deal with her and not Mary. She would’ve never remembered that her name is supposed to be spelled with a C. She would’ve called me crying before I even got to the casino. She can’t handle it when a customer goes into a fit and starts full-on yelling about something that’s not a big deal.
I pull out my phone to call her. Tyler isn’t supposed to be in until an hour after her, and Sam is an hour after him to deal with the evening rush. I can’t stay until Tyler gets here, the Bellagio will fire me for being that late, and it’s the one job I love more than anything.
“I’m here!” She stumbles through the back door while fishing her curly blonde ponytail through the hole of her hat that’s part of the uniform. She stares at me with wide baby-blue eyes. “I’m so sorry I’m late. I slept through my first alarm...” she glances off to the side, “and my second. Then I missed the bus, and since you had the car, I had to run here. I’m sorry!”
I get her a chilled bottle of water, which is free for the staff. If she ran all the way here in the dry Las Vegas heat, then she’s going to need some water to keep from passing out.
She takes it from me and gulps it down like a frat boy shot gunning a beer. I pat her on the back as she gasps. I glance around. Most of the customers in the shop are into whatever they’re working on. “Breathe. You made it, you’re good. Just make sure to sip water throughout the night to make sure you don’t get sick from running in the heat. I’ve told you before, you can use my Uber account if you need a ride to work. It’s not a big deal.”
She nods and her eyes brim with tears. “I know. I just always worry you’ll get mad and it stops me from doing it.”
“You being on time, makes me super happy. So if you want to make me happy, using my Uber account is the way to do it, okay?”
Mary—since I met her as a new employee here six months ago—has always been a fragile soul. She’s still practically a kid. I don’t know what made her this way or where she’s coming from. She’s reluctant to open up to me fully, which I get. I assume she’ll open up at some point, and I’ll be there to listen.
She nods. “I’ll remember next time.”
“Are you going to be okay until Tyler comes on shift?”
She nods. “Yeah, I know you need to go home and get ready for your other job. Go, I got it here.”
I step away from her. “Text me if you need help with anything.”
I pull off my name badge before I take off my apron and hat and put them in the company laundry bin. Someone comes in twice a week to dry clean them and keep them looking fresh.
Getting into my car behind the store I make my way home to the high-rise building I live in. Slow your roll, I’m not making the hundreds of dollars a day needed to live in any of the apartments with a view. I live at the bottom, where the cheapest apartments are. The most I see is the back-alley dumpster, and during the mega-hot days, I can smell it, too. It’s the closest apartment building to both my works so that I don’t have to be on the outskirts of Las Vegas where the cheaper places are.
If I was really balling, I would be living in the Bellagio, but to stay two nights there costs nearly the same as half my current rent. A month would probably be my yearly salary or close.
Making it to my apartment, I make quick work of stripping as I walk through the apartment, aiming all my dirty clothes into the hamper on the way to my bathroom. I can’t go to my serving job smelling like so many different things. The fresher I look, the better my tips are. Especially if I put on some bordering on sexy makeup? like a smoky eye and red lip. That combo guarantees me at least two hundred in tips.
Mary can only handle the one job right now, so whatever extra I can bring in takes stress off us for the other expenses we have. Rent is a big factor but living on the Las Vegas strip isn’t easy. Everything is more expensive than it would be in other parts of Nevada.
With her being late, I don’t have as much wiggle room as I would like to have to make myself ready, but I can work with it.
I keep my hair dry in the shower; it’s still semi curled from the night before. I’m hoping that means that it won’t take me very long to get it to cooperate into looking like it had last night before I slept on it and threw it up into a messy bun for my day job.
Shaving faster than a NASCAR driver, I hop out of the shower and make quick work of beating my face into something that will work with the dim lighting of the casino’s floor. We get a lot of older men, and they seem to like the dark makeup best over the natural-looking one I’ve tried out. I’ll do anything for better tips.
One day I want to buy a house here, but to do that, means that I need a surplus of money after paying the bills and not have to immediately start saving for the next month. Right now, that’s the loop I’m in, but I know some of the servers at the Bellagio make more than decent tips per night. I know some of them are going home with eight hundred plus dollars. If I could be making that on the nights I work, Mary and I could be rolling in piles of cash after the bills are paid.
