Page 2 of What Happens in Vegas..
I glance over at the picture of my dad I hung next to the mirror in the bathroom as I wait for the glue on my fake eyelashes to get tacky. It’s one of the few pictures I have of him. He’s around my age now, maybe a little older, standing in front of the Bellagio’s fountains. A goofy grin on his face as his arms are lazily swung around the shoulders of his two best friends. I don’t know their names, but I like to imagine they were close. Thick as thieves who liked to get into trouble.
“Send me lots of tips tonight, please, Dad? If I can make more tonight than I normally do, Mary and I can go out for steaks and a show at the end of the month. I think we both need to have a little fun. She’s seeming more fragile than what’s normal for her lately.”
I keep his photo in my bathroom so that I can see his face every day before work. I know he can’t hear me, or at least I don’t know if he can. I’m still iffy on the whole afterlife thing, but a part of me hopes that he can hear me and that he has my back. I’ve made it this far in life when I shouldn’t have.
We have similar life stories, so I’d like to think that he knows what I’m going through and will steer me in the right direction if I start to do something stupid.
I stare at my hazel eyes. Today, they’re taking on more of a brown hue, but sometimes they turn green like my dad’s eyes and people always comment on how green they look on those days. Putting my lashes in place, my face is done, my auburn hair is as tame as it’s going to get with how much it is fighting me. I put on my uniform, which consists of black dress pants, a matching long sleeve, and a form-fitting vest, and for women a black bow tie.
I’m not a huge fan of the uniform, especially when it’s one of those days when I’m bloated, it’s unforgiving. Today it’s looking good on me. I’m liking the illusion of curves that the vest gives my sides. They pay for dry cleaning as well. They give us four uniforms, and we keep them on a rotation of two so that we’re never out of a uniform, and we’re always looking clean in it to represent the casino. Can’t say I’m complaining, it cuts down dramatically on the laundry I have to do at home every week.
“Hopefully I knock them dead, Dad. Wish me luck.” I blow a kiss at his picture and his friends, they were cute back in the day. I’ve never gotten to meet them, so I have no idea what they look like now, but I hope they would all still be lady killers like my dad was. If he’d never gotten wrapped up in my mother’s bullshit, he might’ve been around for more than just to see my second birthday.
* * *
The drive to the Bellagio doesn’t take long, even with dusk setting in. More people come out now that the night will cool the city off, well, they’ll hope it will. It honestly depends on the time of year. It makes me glad that I can work inside where the AC runs full blast and I’m not exposed to the dry heat for too long. Still, the heat here isn’t as bad as Arizona; I’m certain that place is hell on Earth, or at least for the United States.
Parking in the employee parking garage, I head inside and to the employee lockers. Putting my backup makeup bag into my locker, I also add my tip pouch. Whenever the money gets too much to carry around in my apron, which doesn’t happen often, I come in here to lock it away, so I don’t lose any of it.
“Darlin’! We came in at the same time. Well, if that ain’t the luck of the draw, I don’t know what is. I always like it when I’m on shift with you. People can call us sisters and we can make more money.”
I glance over at Donna Jean. I don’t know if that’s her full name or just her first and middle. She’s two years older than me with a thick Southern accent. She likes to call herself the Southern Belle of white trash folk. I smile. “Hey, Donna. How was work last night without me? I had the shift before yours. Daytime shifts are the worst for cash.”
She shrugs as she takes off her Uggs and puts on her heels. I need to do the same. We don’t have to wear heels, but as a server, they always get me more tips from the men.
“Can’t complain. Made about five hundred in tips.”
My jaw drops as I stare at her with one shoe in my hand. “I would love that. I’m lucky if the old farts out there will give me three hundred for the night total.
Another shrug and her lips quirk as she taps her heel into place. “Sometimes you gotta butter them up, sugar. If you know what I’m sayin’? If they invite you back to their room at the end of your shift, take it. It will get you an extra hundred or more in tips. Remember, they’re tips, not payment for something else.”
Heat travels from my chest into my face. I have to be redder than a tomato. “You did what? But isn’t that against the rules?”
She opens her locker and puts on another layer of gloss to her red lips. “Only if you do it while still on shift. If you’re clocked out for the night and out of uniform, they can’t say shit about what you do in your off time. Why do you think I keep a change of clothes here? It helps me pick up some extra shifts if you know what I’m saying. It’s just sex.”
I lick my lips and put my comfortable shoes in my locker. I haven’t even had a chance to experience sex yet, even at twenty-one. It’s just never happened for me. I’ve been working since I came to Las Vegas at the tender age of seventeen. I haven’t had time for dating, let alone getting laid. “I’m not sure that’s for me, I doubt anyone would want to take me to a hotel room with them.”
She tuts as she closes her locker and puts the spin dial lock back on. “Please, darlin’, you’re a fine piece of ass. All you would have to do is give a sign you were interested and they would be lining up with their room cards, wanting you to come to visit them after your shift is over.”
I frown as I stand in my heels. My feet already want to protest and it hasn’t even been five minutes since I put them on. “How do I do that?”
She smiles like the Cheshire Cat. “It’s simple. You flutter those pretty eyes of yours. Walk up to them and say, ‘Is there anything else I can get you this evening?’” She steps up to me. “Put a hand on their shoulder to drive it home, and if you can reach their ear whisper, ‘I’m up for anything.’”
Her hot breath ghosts over my ear, only serving to make me more red in the face.
Donna pulls back. “Works like a charm every time. Made an extra two hundred last night because of that. C’mon, we’ve got work to do and people to serve.”
I follow her out of the employee area. Could I ever do something like that with one of the men who come through here? Especially for my first time? I’ve never romanticized it, but I don’t know if I could have it be with some old guy.
Chapter Two
Knox
I sighas I stare up at the Bellagio. It’s that time of year again when I come here for a staycation for a week. I don’t take any new cases, and I make sure I won’t have any trials for my current clients. It’s the one week I give myself to not think about work at all, and just live in the good old days.
It feels like so long ago that I was here with my good buddies Paul and Carson, and at the same time like it was yesterday. We had the time of our lives at this place for the first time when we struck twenty-one. Then we went every year after until Paul was killed in a car accident, and Carson and I lost touch. I tried to keep the friendship alive so that Paul’s memory could stay fresh, but Carson was the type to want to bury things. Coming here, spending time with me, was too much for him when Paul couldn’t be here to share in the happiness as well.
I loved this city. After Paul’s death, I lost all will to continue with school in North Carolina. He’d dropped out our first year to marry his bitch of a wife and move to Arizona to work for her father’s construction business. She ruined all our plans of becoming lawyers together and opening our own law firm. Paul wanted to focus on law dealing with adoptions and families. I wanted to focus on helping people who needed honest help but couldn’t afford the legal fees.
