I spent the rest of the evening watching a few of Max’s movies on Netflix and wondering when, or even if, I’d see him again.
TWO
I didn’t see Max the next week. I did talk to him once when Kevin asked me to get him on the line.
Jacqueline called every day to ask if we’d heard anything about her getting the part in the movie. Kevin assured her that the wait time was normal and by Thursday he had instructed me to tell her he was in a meeting, which meant I had to take over the comforting and reassuring.
One night, after dinner and over a glass of wine, I told Krystal about having met Max.
“Max Dalton?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’s that?”
I laughed. “I didn’t know who he was, either, until I looked it up. And this was after I met him.” I told her the whole story about the meeting.
“Oh, yeah. I know his movies. Hell yeah. I just didn’t know the name.”
We were in the majority. According to Kevin, and confirmed by my own experience, people rarely know the writers and producers, save for a few big names.
“And,” I said, “the worst part is, he’s hot as hell.”
“Why is that the worst part?”
“Because I have to work with him and I can’t focus when I’m around him or when he’s on the phone.”
Krystal swallowed the last of her drink, and shook her head. “You’re in Hollywood, honey. Get ready to be smitten with a lot of people.”
Krystal called the office on Friday afternoon and said, “Let’s go to Vegas!”
“What? When?”
“This weekend.”
I wasn’t up for a trip anywhere, let alone to Vegas. “For what?”
“For what? It’s Vegas, baby! We don’t need a reason beyond that. But if you really do need a reason, I think it would be a great way to celebrate your first month out here working in the biz.”
Krystal was the only person I knew who called it “the biz.” It made me wonder if she was trying too hard. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t been able to get representation.
I looked at the clock on my computer—4:16. “That sounds like fun, but I don’t think I have any Vegas attire, first of all, and—”
“Okay, you’re looking for excuses not to go, but you’re going.”
“Says who?”
Her voice echoed, like she’d walked into the bathroom. “Says me. It’s part of initiation. Come on. It’s just two days. Trust me, you won’t regret it.”
A few seconds of silence passed, then I thought of something. “Who’s going?”
“Just me and you.”
I was glad to hear that her new friend Marco wasn’t going. There was something about that guy I didn’t like, something about the way he looked at Krystal, and the way he looked at me when Krystal left the room. He didn’t talk much, but he sure liked to stare a lot. He was unsettling, to say the least. I couldn’t figure out what she saw in him, and I hadn’t asked. It was none of my business.
She pressed on making her case. “I’ll pay for the gas and all the other stuff. It’s all on me.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to. I want to.”
“All right,” I said. “When do you want to leave?”
By nine o’clock that night, we were two hours into the roughly four-hour drive to Vegas. We had great travel weather, and little traffic, although we did get stuck behind an RV for a while somewhere in Nevada that slowed us down.
“So how’s Grace?” Krystal asked at one point during the drive.
It made me realize I hadn’t talked to my sister in over a week, a record for us. I was just so busy and so preoccupied I hadn’t gotten around to calling her. Of course, she hadn’t called me, either, so I didn’t feel guilty. Two-way streets, and all that.
“I guess she’s okay,” I said.
“You guess?”
I explained how I hadn’t talked to Grace lately.
Krystal reached to turn the stereo down. “I think she’d like it here.”
“Ha. I doubt it.”
“I know. I just mean, if she gave it a chance. If she gave anything a chance.”
This was my sister we were talking about, and Krystal’s tone had a little too much sarcastic negativity to it, so I just shrugged and said, “Yeah.”
What she was referring to was my sister having taken the same route as my mother. Married young, two kids, stay-at-home mom, no apparent ambition outside of those things. Honestly, I can respect that. I just wish Grace had given the world a look before she settled down. She was only two years older than me, but she acted like she was thirty years older. She acted like my mom. And seeing as how I already had two parents who’d like to make every life decision for me, the last thing I needed was a third one.
And, really, she should have known that. The pressure I’d felt to become Mrs. Chris Cooper was like a slow, constant suffocation. Several times after I broke up with him, my mom had pushed me so close to spilling the whole truth about what Chris had done. What stopped me from doing it was the sense that it would have only made them even more protective of me. And with the town being as small as it was, there was every chance in the world that my story would get around, and people wouldn’t believe me. Instead, they’d rally behind Chris Cooper, all –American church-going guy and former quarterback of the two-time champion football team at our high school. My only choice was to keep my head down and just leave.
“Oh, well,” Krystal was saying. “Her loss.”
“Yeah.”
That conversation wouldn’t have gotten far even if I hadn’t stopped it, because it wasn’t long before we saw the lights of Vegas twinkling in the distance—almost beckoning people to come there. I felt the pull of excitement.
We got to our hotel, handed the keys to the valet, and walked into what I can only describe as sensory overload.
Lights. Music. Gaming machines clinking and humming and buzzing and ringing. People everywhere. People looking sad. People looking elated. People looking like they were in a trance. I was definitely part of the latter group.
We went straight up to our room, freshened up, and got dressed for our first night in Vegas. I had on my favorite little black dress, black heels, silver hoop earrings, and a silver necklace with a Gehry orchid pendant—a gift from my mother.
“I don’t look like a hooker, do I?” Krystal said.