Thank You for Listening(12)

Sewanee turned back to the full-length mirror.

She looked good. She looked hot. She looked like a different person.

After she’d closed up the booth around 4:00, she’d walked briskly to the nearest bar for the Last Word she’d been drinking in her mind since 11 A.M. when Ron had suggested she get a drink. But the bar hadn’t had the necessary ingredients. So she’d gone back to her room, intending to grab her stuff and head to the Strip, to a bar that knew what it was doing. Instead, she’d fallen instantly asleep and woke an hour later to a text from Adaku telling her to be at the suite by 6:00. She showered quickly, threw on the modest outfit she’d brought to go out in, put on her eye patch, and cabbed to the Venetian.

Adaku had been waiting with a hair and makeup artist and a stylist with three designer dresses in Sewanee’s size. She’d protested halfheartedly, but the truth was Adaku’s instincts always bordered on clairvoyance. She knew what Sewanee needed before she did. For reasons she hadn’t quite parsed, Sewanee wanted to be something more tonight, something different, something slightly less . . . her.

The stylist, wanting to get in good with Adaku, had done a speedy alteration of Sewanee’s selection: a bodycon dress that managed to flatter her curves without drawing her perfectionist attention to the extra fifteen pounds she wished weren’t there. That used to not be there, before her job involved sitting for the length of a hundred pages a day.

Sewanee had enjoyed being “put through the works,” having hair and makeup experts descend upon her with the sole purpose of making her look her best. It had been so long. Now, her auburn hair was styled in a sweep, parted on the left, the bulk of it swooping over her eye patch and down over her right shoulder. Her left eye, her mother’s glacial blue, was slightly smoky. She had red lips and defined cheekbones. Contouring. Bronzer. A thicker brow. And boobs! Where had those come from?

Even to Swan’s constantly critical eye, she looked stunning.

“Yes!” Adaku clapped. “Come through, lips! Come through, hips!”

Sewanee focused on her friend’s gleeful face. “I can’t thank you enough, A.”

“Oh, please. I didn’t do this for you, I did it for me. Now everyone will be looking at you instead.”

Sewanee’s mood had lifted, a fog burned off with the warmth of the sun.

Adaku was her sun.

“And you!” Sewanee exclaimed, walking over to her. Adaku looked gorgeous per usual in a short romper of silver sequins, ankle-height zippered heels, and a deep burgundy lip. Her hair had been straightened into a jaunty bob, made shiny by the coconut oil finishing serum her usual stylist had designed specifically for her. “You look like a million bucks before taxes and commissions.” They laughed and, when Adaku looked at her with Pygmalion pride, Sewanee pulled her into a hug. “It’s stupid, but I do feel better.”

“Playing dress-up occasionally is necessary.”

The suite’s doorbell rang and Adaku pulled out of the embrace, jogging from the room. Sewanee took one more look in the mirror and followed after her, hearing Adaku open the door, thank someone profusely, and close it.

The sight in the foyer stopped her.

“Why–what are my bags doing here?”

Adaku, a fresh bottle of Cristal braced inelegantly between her thighs, fingers speedily dispensing with foil, merely smiled that silver screen smile that was impossible to argue with. “You’ve checked out of the Rio.”

Pop.

“LEAVE IT TO you to find the one bar in all of Las Vegas with books in it.”

They were ensconced in a library-themed bar somewhere on the perimeter of the Venetian’s casino floor, sitting on a deep chesterfield sofa in front of a fireplace that didn’t give off any heat, surrounded by heavy mahogany bookshelves full of nondescript antique hardcovers. Sewanee was sure the books were fake. It was the Vegas way: everything was meant to seem real, but wasn’t. Tonight, though, she didn’t care. It was all part of the fantasy.

Their waitress stopped by the table. “Another, Ms. Obi?”

“We’re good for the moment, thanks!”

“Signal if you want anything else, anything at all.” She gave them a toothpaste commercial smile and went on her way.

Adaku nodded toward a man who had just walked in. “What about him?” It was not the first time she’d said this tonight.

“Why don’t I stand by the door with a net?” Sewanee smirked and took a sip of her Last Word. “A, seriously, I’m not gonna hook up with some rando. Tonight’s about you and–”

Adaku’s phone buzzed. She glanced at it. “One sec, sorry. Manager.” She picked up. “Hello? Manse? Manse–can you hear me?” She plugged her ear with a long, well-groomed finger. “Hang on–yeah, I know, one minute.” She stood, made apologetic eyes at Swan, and hustled out of the bar, likely toward a quiet bathroom hallway.

She returned five minutes later looking sheepish. “So!” She sat, but on the arm of the chesterfield, perched like a bird about to take flight. “Don’t hate me,” she began.

“They up the offer to two mil?”

“I have to go.”

“Okay.” Sewanee reached for her purse.

“No. To L.A. Tonight. Like, now.”

Sewanee shook her head the way a cartoon character did a double take. Brrrroing! “What?”