Page 14

14

Escape to Las Vegas

Jake

The next morning the elevator doors groan apart and I step in to find Dolores coming up from the basement: black coat, black bag, black dress, pink lipstick. Pale, poisonous, the color of salmonella in your chicken breast. And nude heels with red soles.

“Dolores,” I say.

She leans against one wall and peers into her phone, ignoring me. She has shadows under her eyes. I know I do too, but I always do.

“Dodi.”

This time when I speak, a muscle in her jaw twitches, and I realize my mistake. We’re not alone, but our companion is absorbed in his own phone and could care less about the grifter sneaking around in our midst. We glide to a stop at the second floor and Pat-from-Projects and Sara-from-Accounts bring their conversation in with us.

“…and Doug’s department has a bunch of unused training money. If he doesn’t use it all up they’ll allot us less next year—”

“Tell him!”

“I’ve been hounding him. He’s avoiding me—”

“He’s been avoiding me too!”

“So I’ve told Doug to just send someone to a conference—”

“Oof. He can send me. I’d take a free trip to a conference destination…”

Dodi glares at the two of them. They’re too much. Too much action and noise and earnestness for a Wednesday morning. I want to put them on my list. The elevator grunts in sympathy and spits them out at the next floor along with the man, leaving us alone, and when the doors close I take one step closer to Dodi.

“You smell like Clorox wipes and despair,” she sighs. “What do you want?”

It’s one step forward, two steps back with her. I’m the lowly office rat again. What I want is for her to look at me like she did last night when I introduced her to Verity. Obviously, I need to present another gift. Something better than a mutilated Barbie. Something better than a hyperrealistic sex doll ready for butchering.

“What do you want?” I ask.

“I want a fucking aspirin and an espresso for my hangover. I want—” She presses her lips together and closes her eyes. “I want to get the fuck out of here.”

“Where would you go?”

She shoots me an exasperated look. “Anywhere.”

“Anywhere? Antarctica? Guantánamo Bay?”

She makes a peeved noise, like she’s swearing off this interaction, but then she says, surprisingly, “I want to go to Las Vegas.”

I almost don’t have a response. Bright lights, noise, revelry. People on vacation, people there to gamble, to take in the spectacle, to be a part of the spectacle. Businesspeople on work trips loosening their ties and wallets at the end of a long day cooped up in the frigid conference rooms, making idiots of themselves in the casinos and clubs. Bachelor parties, stagettes, magic shows, circuses. My skin crawls at the thought.

“Isn’t Las Vegas the vestibule to hell?”

She frowns and looks away. “Sometimes when I look into your eyes I get a glimpse of the vestibule to hell, Jake.”

“Las Vegas is full of people having fun.”

“I know. I would hate it.” She says it like she would relish the hating.

“Why Las Vegas?”

She places her phone in her coat pocket and turns to face me properly, gazing at me with a strange, lazy stare. “I have a job to do. I need to dispose of a body.” Then her face distorts into a deranged smile.

It takes me a second to realize she’s impersonating me. She doesn’t have to tell me the real reason, because a memory twigs. Aya and Bex will be hosting their Murderers at Work event in Las Vegas.

The doors glide open on the tenth floor, and Doug’s square, pink ham-head peers warily around the jamb. When he’s satisfied it’s just the two of us, he leaps in and jabs the Door Close button with one stubby thumb, his eyes trained nervously on the hallway beyond.

“Jack! Haha. Dolly. Are we going up or down?”

“Up.”

“Haha. Okay.” He cracks his knuckles like a nervous lunatic, then wipes his sweaty forehead with his cuff. He’s like a slice of American cheese left out on the counter—always a greasy, damp sheen collecting on his skin.

“What are you two talking about?”

“Travel.”

“Oh,” Doug says, intimidated. His idea of travel is a nice, safe beach resort, or a Caribbean cruise where his intrepid peregrinations see him migrating between the buffet and the toilet.

I connect eyes with Dodi. “So dreary and gray here in the winter. But…the waterboarding in Guantánamo Bay this time of year…”

Doug’s eyes light up.

“That sounds about right! I love beach vacations—waterboarding, waterskiing—anything in the water, sign me up, eh?”

“I’m sure Jack would be happy to do some waterboarding with you anytime,” Dodi says. Always so quick on her feet, dear Dodi is. But not as quick as me. Her next gift has been piecing itself together in my head this whole time. I smile pleasantly at her, and she frowns. Nothing good ever came from one of my smiles.

“As a matter of fact, Dolly’s next trip is a work trip,” I say.

Dodi makes a small noise and Doug’s grin slips. “Oh?” I can see him shuffle through the cluttered, crumb-filled pockets of his brain. Gas station receipt, candy wrapper, used Q-tip—here we are, list of goings-on that I need to be aware of. Nope, nothing here—

He coughs.

“The conference in Las Vegas this week? Have to spend all that unused training money, and—well, you know all about it.” I give him ass-kissing smile number twenty-three, his favorite. I glance at Dodi, and her expression is blank surprise.

“Oh.” Pieces of dried-out chewing gum rattle around in Doug’s head. “Oh.”

“We’ll need to get the reservations made today.”

“Right. Right! Yes.” He claps one damp hand on my shoulder. “Talk to Sara.” He squeezes my shoulder and summons a paternal expression. But he can’t think of anything else to say. The doors open to allow newcomers, and without checking which floor it is, he bolts out.

“What the fucking fuck,” Dodi hisses.

The newcomers are engrossed in their office politics and aren’t paying us any attention. Dodi stares at me with wide eyes. That look is back, the one she had when she was sitting in the bottom of Grant’s shower, realizing I’d put together a serial killer playdate for her. Disbelief, and some other big suppressed emotion. Some people wear their feelings on their sleeve; Dodi keeps hers shoved under the floorboards beneath her bed.

“So. Las Vegas,” I whisper to her.

“What conference is this?”

“Any conference. Las Vegas is a conference destination.”

We exit at our floor, and Dodi speed-walks down the hall to the annex, her heels firing like bang snaps as she goes. I lengthen my gait to keep up.

“I can’t go to Las Vegas this week.”

She doesn’t say she can’t go to Las Vegas. Just not this week.

“Why not?”

“It’s too short notice.”

“It’s perfect timing. A way to get out of Cynthia’s sight line.”

Dodi shakes her head and smooths one eyebrow in annoyance.

I tally it finger by finger. “Complete some bogus training seminar. Come back and feed Doug a line about the new ‘strategies’ you’re going to ‘implement.’ Create a busywork project. Insert yourself into his fold. Get your performance review and raise. Gray-rock Cynthia.”

The metronome popping of her heels skips a quarter of a beat as she takes this in. It’s the only indication I’ve said something interesting to her.

“Hire a cat sitter, pack your bags, and come with me to Las Vegas.”

She swirls in the doorway to her office, her hand on her doorknob, and faces me. “I’d have to go with you ?”

“Yes.”

There’s the slightest flush to her cheeks. “I don’t know. My doctor’s warned me about picking up parasites during travel.”

I’ve won. I know I’ve won. I take one step closer to her.

“You might even have fun.”

Her lips twitch and her nostrils flare. “Do I look like the sort of person who has fun?”

“I’ll make you experience things you’ve never felt before.”

She lifts her chin and tilts her head, and she sways a little closer to me. I take all this in. I take another step closer to her until I’m practically standing in the doorway with her.

“I’m sure most women have felt nauseous and regretful before,” she says.

I’ve won, she’s mine, she’s coming. I’m humming along in highest gear now. Dodi, all to myself for a few days.

Her cheeks are pink and her eyes bright. I lean in just a little closer, and she leans in just a little closer too—and shuts her office door in my face.

While Dodi ices me out for the rest of the day, furiously hammering away at her laptop, I book plane tickets with Sara, make hotel reservations, and when I have a private moment at my desk, purchase two tickets to the Murderers at Work: Dead in Las Vegas event.

Gifts are overrated. The trick is to give experiences .