And Now She's Gone(93)
Natalie had also kept her Tiffany journal in a post office box at the busiest post office in Las Vegas. She’d written in that journal several times a month and, after every Sean Storm, had hidden in its creases pictures of her injuries.
“We’ll need that,” Dominick told her. “But first we need to get you to a doctor.”
During a previous visit, Nurse Anderson at Rapid-Care had offered Natalie her phone number, and now Natalie called her. They met at the clinic, and after performing an ultrasound, Nurse Anderson told Natalie what she already knew. “You miscarried, honey.”
Shame and guilt washed over her and she cried into the nurse’s bosom.
Back in the Audi, Dominick stared at her with tear-filled eyes as she sifted through the newest pictures of her injuries. “Nat?” he whispered.
“I don’t wanna be here. He’ll kill me if he isn’t dead. I know he will. I wanna disappear.”
“You sure?”
She had asked herself this and other questions:
Are you really in love with him?
How could you be in love with him, truly in love with him, if he scares you?
Don’t you hate him for embarrassing you, for belittling you, for beating you?
What would Mom and Dad think?
She had never answered those questions honestly. She told herself that Sean’s anger didn’t scare her. She told herself that she didn’t flinch every time he raised his voice, even though she had just stopped trembling from his last outburst.
If she had answered those questions honestly, she would have had to admit that her relationship with her friends, with the world, had changed because of him. She would have had to admit that she’d put up with whatever he did to her, and that she had reasoned it away, no matter how bad it got, all because she had a Cartier bracelet clipped to her wrist, a big house with a succulent garden, and a red Jaguar.
Dominick had asked, You sure?
Her bones ached. It hurt to blink.
You sure?
“I’m sure.” And she closed her eyes, ready for her change.
50
Las Vegas in the morning was like the hot guy in a dark club who, in the light, had buckteeth, hair plugs, and smelled like a fifties-era bowling alley. Morning Vegas needed to stay in bed until dusk, until the neon and the glass and full-on commitment to the illusion worked best.
The bald cab driver clicked hard candy against his teeth. “It’s supposed to hit one twenty today. People gonna be falling out all over the place.”
Gray could still see traces of the moon, faint and white, like dissolving foam. It wasn’t supposed to be there, that moon. It was supposed to be on the other side of the world. Like her. She wasn’t supposed to return to Vegas. But here she was.
Sean was supposed to be here, but he was in Los Angeles visiting his wife, ha ha.
No one had walked into that house on Trail Spring Court.
No one’s blood was now drying beneath the beds of Gray’s fingernails.
You can try again.
Hope warmed her like the sun now warming all of Clark County.
Yeah, I can.
“Here we are.” The driver pulled to the curb.
Gray peered out at the motel, which looked as faded and lopsided as it had five years ago.
Tourists on a budget still clattered in and out of the Gold Mine Motor Inn, which now boasted free Wi-Fi. The red Jaguar was no longer parked in that space where she’d left it. Sean had probably sold the car, like she’d sold her engagement ring and platinum wedding band.
Sadness found Gray in the back seat of that taxi, and she wanted to cry. She wanted to kiss that lobby floor and the walls of room 303, her refuge for four hours. That bathroom. I bled in that bathroom. Her eyes burned with that thought.
“You wanna get out?” the driver asked.
“No. I’m good.” She sat back in the seat, then found that foamy moon again.
Still sucking on candy, the driver pulled into the Cosmopolitan’s breezeway twenty minutes after ten o’clock. He reminded Gray to stay out of the sun.
Gray said, “Yep,” then paid her fare with cash. Then she slipped into the hotel with its cold, perfumed air, where it was forever seven o’clock in the morning or evening. The chandeliers gleamed, but they didn’t mean it. The aromas of bacon and coffee from a nearby restaurant, that was true.
Her stomach growled as she moved past empty banks of slot machines and covered gaming tables. Back in her room, Gray texted Jennifer. U up yet?
Ellipses bubbled on the screen, and then:
Just now. Meet at Cs for brunch @11.
On the television, Gray found Guy Fieri eating hoagies in New Jersey. She popped her antibiotic—Good girl!—and then retreated to the bathroom for a shower. When she returned to dress, she saw that Tea had texted her.
Can we meet? It’s very urgent.
Gray responded, Out of town. Will be back late Sunday.
At eleven, she met her companions in Clarissa’s room. She smelled fresh, looked fresh, and lied about how well she’d slept. Downstairs, they joined the college students, the feathered-and frosted-hair moms, and the NASCAR dads, everyone ready to eat, drink, and gamble.
Gray took all of this in as though she were going to Mars instead of breakfast at a café. I miss this. Not the noise or the crowds but the simple living. She missed celebrating her birthday as a Taurus and not as a Scorpio. She missed vodka and signing “Natalie” on triplicate forms and waiting lists at restaurants. She missed “Nat” and “Nattie.” She missed her. Whoever that was.