The Better Liar(7)

For a second I was weightless, watching them. Then Paul glanced across the street as he was opening the passenger door to the Tesla, and our eyes met. I jolted back into my body. I was across the street, staring at Paul through a pane of UV-protected glass.

The radio announcer came back on. “That was P. P. Arnold singing ‘Angel of the Morning.’ She was only twenty-one in 1967, if you can believe it. We’re taking a short break, and when we come back we’ll begin our commercial-free happy hour, starting with the very best of Miss Dinah Shore.”

I blinked, and Paul looked away. The other woman hadn’t seen me. They got into her Tesla together, and she backed the car cautiously out of the driveway onto the wide, smooth pavement. I watched the two of them all the way down the street.

    After a second I checked my makeup in the rearview mirror. I ran my fingertip around the bottom edge of one eye, then the other. If you want to hear the real truth, I knew the whole time how come he wasn’t answering my texts. But it’s different when you see it. It always is.



* * *



—

Letourneau’s was in the middle of a cluster of pastel-colored mid-range hotels just off the Strip, closer to the UNLV area than to the shops and bars. It was pale pink, with a neon heart on the front door and no other identification, which Freddy had told me was supposed to appeal to women. I told him it made it look like a strip club. If you glanced around the dining room it was wall-to-wall disappointed dudes from Ohio. They always came in with cash, at least.

The inside was mostly casino, but they’d added on a dining room in the early 2000s, and we did a decent business in steak and lobster. I got dressed in the staff bathroom, stuffing my jean shorts and sneakers into the duffel bag I kept in my locker and changing into a black velvet wrap dress and extra-long string of fake pearls. They looked just like real pearls. They had been my birthday present last year, from me to me. Berna told me not to wear them because they sometimes fell into people’s food when I leaned over, but I always got good tips when I wore them, so I didn’t think anybody really minded.

Preethi sailed up to me as soon as I got onto the floor. “Somebody threw up in the men’s bathroom,” she said.

“It’s only, like, eight.”

She shrugged. “I’m taking my thirty.”

I waited for her to disappear behind the swinging doors. Then I grabbed Shea by the back of the shirt. “Somebody threw up in the men’s bathroom,” I told him. “Pass it on.”

He hefted his tray of dishes and silverware at me and shook it to make it rattle. “Hear that?” he asked. “That’s ‘fuck you’ in busboy.”

    “Aw.” I stuck out my lower lip. “Shea.”

“You stood me up.”

“I had to see Paul.” I glanced away. “He’s sleeping with some girl again.”

Shea’s ears perked up. “That’s too bad.” He looked me over with almost clinical interest. “You look nice tonight.”

“Thank you, Shea.” I paused and added throatily, “Somebody threw up in the men’s bathroom, you know.”

He shook the tray at me again and headed for the kitchen.

I continued toward Jordyn at the host stand. The host stand was maybe my favorite part of the décor; it was chrome, with another neon heart on the front and a Plexiglas top that you could draw dirty things on with Jordyn’s pink Sharpies. The rest of Letourneau’s was sort of knockoff Cheesecake Factory, with a big marble bar top, Art Deco pillars getting in the way of everything, and round crushed-velvet booths designed for maximum inconvenience anytime anyone had to get out to go to the bathroom.

Jordyn glanced up as I leaned on the stand, looking upside down at tonight’s table sections. The neon heart cast a hot-pink campfire glow on the underside of her face.

“I’m taking over for Preethi,” I told her. “She went on her thirty.”

Jordyn adjusted her sports bra so that the CK label stuck out more. “Okay. She’s got two two-tops and a four-top. Eight, ten, fourteen. Somebody threw up in the men’s.”

“It wasn’t me,” I said.

She wrinkled her nose. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” I said, grabbing a new pad and pen off the host shelf.

A couple came up to the stand giggling and leaning on each other for support. I turned to leave Jordyn to it, but she laid a hand on my arm. “There’s some woman asking for you at the bar. Well, she said the one with red hair. I’m guessing that’s you.”

I glanced toward the marble-topped bar, which was already crowded with men in baseball caps—casinogoers love to wear hats, especially inside at night, for whatever reason. Among the hats I saw a long pale moon face turning this way and that.

Leslie glanced up when I plopped onto the barstool next to her. She was still in her wrinkled lavender blouse and slacks from earlier. She looked staticky and slightly sweaty, as if she’d slept in her clothes. “Hi, honey,” I said.

    “Oh, it’s you.” She tilted her head.

“You sound surprised.” I grabbed a bottle of Cuervo from Heather and poured us out some shots. “I thought you were asking for me. Or did you meet some other redhead who works here?”