Twinned (10 page)

Beth,

I’m writing this thinking what am I doing? If you are reading this, then neither of us is insane. This letter is proof in your hands.

I am so sorry. I thought I was imagining you - thinking I’d lost my mind to a demon or some kind of craziness. But after you told me your name and I saw you in the forest, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t NOT look to see what you were doing.

I watched you. I saw your wedding, the plane tickets. I came to Vegas to have proof, maybe see you from a distance. Last night - as soon as I
realized what we were doing, I swear I tried to wake up.

I’m sorry.

When I asked you to meet me I don’t know what I was thinking. But I am writing this note in a hurry. I truly hope you can smooth things over with your husband and I am so sorry for spoiling your honeymoon. Maybe I am a coward but please understand, I have so much to lose. Expecting your man might ask what was in the envelope, I have included two tickets to a show at the Rio tonight. They were comps from my hotel, I won’t be needing them. It might wash as an excuse for your not-so secret meet. Or he might get to read this note, in which case, again I’m sorry.

After you get home, I want to know that you are OK. I am searching for the right way forward. I don’t know what it is yet.

Take care x

The old ladies leave the rest room in a cloud of cloying perfume. I get up purposefully, meaning to put the letter in the bin. Instead, I hold it to my cheek. I go to put it in the bin, then change my mind and stuff it carefully down the waistband of my knickers.

I intend to go straight back to the front of the Bellagio and try presenting the tickets to Richard. I'm relieved to have an excuse. But he isn’t there. He isn’t in our hotel room either.

I leave him a note saying I’ve gone out looking for him and signing off with
just please let me explain.
I search the Paris casino looking for Richard’s familiar face. Outside on the sidewalk, despairing of the midday sun, I walk up the Strip as far as Caesar’s Palace and then back, dipping in and out of air conditioned hotels and casinos along the way.

When I get back to the hotel I open the door to the room, terrified that Richard’s bags will be gone. I find him slumped on the bed, watching the TV again. He has a shiner on his cheekbone. He lets me sit next to him, doesn't register that I am even there when I stroke the good side of his face. I am scared to speak. I don’t know what he will say.

“You have a bruise - does it - shall I get you some ice?”

He says nothing. Registers nothing.

So I just start talking, not really knowing what I will say. I gently tell him that I am sorry about the dream, I don’t know what to say, everyone has horny or weird dreams from time to time. I say that the note was to remind me to pick up some tickets but that I didn’t want to tell Richard because it was supposed to be a surprise. His face tenses, then seems to relax a little. Then he frowns.

“So why did you leave me alone to fight in the street, hey?”

“You freaked me out, Richard! You were so angry, then you started fighting and I just don’t know, I didn’t mean to leave you there, I...”

I sigh.

“I love you Richard. Really I do.”

Silence.

“So you were getting tickets to what?”

“To the Rio, the... the...” I grab the tickets and thrust them into his hands, “the VooDoo Lounge”.

Finally he speaks.

“Cool.”

“Can you forgive me Rich?”

He is thinking again.

Then, amazingly, he pulls me into his arms and we hold each other. We stay like that until it’s so dark that he gets up and switches the lamp on. He walks to the bathroom, putting the tickets in the bin as he passes. I get up and make him a cup of tea.

I look down at the tickets, wondering if
Joel would have used them. Wondering if he expects me to be there. If he will be there, watching, waiting.

Later, after we have talked and talked, we seem OK. I am almost dozing but Richard is fidgety, restless. He seems to feel a bit better than before but he's obviously preoccupied.

Midway through stroking my hair, he stops and jumps up. Stretches, yawns. "I need a change of scenery!" He exclaims.

He fishes the tickets out of the bin. “Get dressed Beth,” he orders. “It’s our honeymoon. We’re going out.”

I get through the night on adrenaline. We ride a glass elevator to the top of the Rio hotel. We enter the rooftop bar. It is really bright and colourful, with crazy people and sparkling coloured lights strung up around a dancefloor in the centre that’s been decorated to look like the surface of the moon. There are floor to ceiling windows looking out onto a roof terrace. The windows frame the most jaw-dropping views of the city.

Richard buys the drinks. I imagine for a split second that this is a date with Joel then, feeling guilty, I down the first shot of tequila quickly and follow it up with another. Then another. The music is loud and the beat infectious. Pretty soon Richard and I are dancing, laughing, swaying, doing our own thing on the dancefloor and I suddenly don't care about Joel any more. I have had enough. There will be no fight from Joel for me; he is married. I am married.

I drink until I don't feel Joel’s presence, until I barely know my own name and we stumble madly back to the hotel in time to see the sun rise through the plate glass window.

The muscle man is wearing a tutu and holding a feather duster as he gyrates in front of me, then tries to lick Richard’s face. We are at a show billed as “Raw Vegas with a twist” and to my horror it seems to require audience participation. Richard seems to find it funny.

This is the third and final night of our stay in Vegas. Tomorrow we will fly back to the UK and forward in time by eight hours. I travelled all this way across the Earth and I will not have seen Joel - a thought I try to cast out of my mind.

Richard and I got on really well today; he seems to have accepted and feel rather embarrassed about the confusion yesterday. This has made me feel guilty for yet another deception. But I don’t have time to dwell on that. I have so much fixing to do in this relationship.

I am blanking out my feelings as best I can and concentrating on getting through this honeymoon with my thoughts cemented in reality. Here and now. Me and Richard. Team Married.

The muscle man catches me off guard; reaches out to me, grabs my hand and hauls me up onto the stage. I protest, to no avail.

Oh horror.

A hundred or so faces stare back at me from the audience, as he brings out a guy dressed as a magician, holding one end of a truly massive snake. The rest of the snake is held by a cat-suited woman walking some twenty feet behind. The snake’s scaly skin glows red under the lights. This thing is seriously about ten inches thick in its body.

I am red with the shame of having all eyes on me but laughing nervously all the same. A full length mirror is placed behind me, and then I am manhandled round to face the mirror, my back to the audience. Then a soft purple sheet falls like chiffon on top of me. Suddenly the lights go out and, simultaneously, I am led out from the sheet, through the pitch darkness and down what feels like a small flight of stairs. The person leading me opens a door and navy coloured light floods in from the street outside. I turn back to see that she is a dark skinned lady in a leotard. She has purple lipstick, almost ultraviolet. She smiles, revealing perfect white teeth.

“Voila! You ‘ave disappeared my luff! Iss Magic!”

I squint at her, confused.

“But I was with my... my husband,” I stammer.

“Ah but you can re-enter ze show and tek your pless again, juss follow ze vay you came in,” she says.

With that the door closes and I am alone on the sidewalk. I try to halt the voice in my head that is telling me to run, to take this opportunity to run to Joel, disappear from my life for a few hours at least.

I don't even know where he would be. Or if he would want to see me.

Instead I wander round the side of the building, following the wall until I am back on the main street, by the casino entrance. Richard is there waiting for me.

“Where did you go, Missy?” He asked, his eyebrows raised in a comical, quizzical way. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” I say, linking my arm through his. We go back to the Paris hotel and spend a couple of hours in the casino, gambling and drinking margaritas.

That night I lay in the queen-sized bed, tossing and turning. I feel a bit sick. The clock says:

01:24.

01.25.

01.26.

Richard is asleep but I can’t relax. It’s like the edges of my brain are burning. There is a gnawing, almost itching sensation in my head that I just can’t shake off.

I crave cold water. I know there is an ice machine out in the hallway by the lift. I put on my dressing gown and slippers and sneak to the suite door. Well I try to sneak but I am so drunk it's not quite ninja... I wedge the door open with an empty suitcase because I don’t have the key to get back in.

I grab a glass from the bathroom and stagger down the hall to the ice machine. I struggle for a few moments with the controls before realising it must be broken. I sigh in frustration. I can’t get it to dispense anything. My head is pounding. As I argue with the machine, the lift doors open and a young bellhop is revealed. He has a GI haircut and a nervous face.

“Isss there anotherice macheen on this floor?” I slur.

“No ma’am, sorry. One on each floor,” he replies, and then the doors start to close. “Have a great evening,” he projects from the lift as he disappears from view.

I stumble back into the suite and pull on a pair of jeans and t-shirt. I scribble a note to Richard in case he wakes to find me gone.

Can’t sleep, bad headache, ice machine broken, back in 5.

I grab the room key and try to shut the door really quietly. Further down the hall, I pass a couple snogging outside a room door and avert my eyes. I make straight for the lift.

The ice machine on the floor below works. Having dispensed the ice, I suddenly feel so terrible that my head is pounding and I slump down, resting the side of my face against the cool concrete wall. My vision starts to become disturbed, like I am watching through a camera that won’t focus. My ears suddenly stop hearing as much, as if I have earplugs in them. Then there is a high pitched whining noise. I feel so hot, like I can’t breathe.

Everything goes black.

I can hear Joel. He is talking quietly, too softly to make out the words. I hear beautiful falling and rising vowels and consonants. They dance in my head. How I love hearing his voice. It’s smooth and almost Southern in its inflection. Like melted chocolate... Ooh I could listen all day. I feel him stroking my cheek. Bliss.

Just another dream, I think. I want it to last. I want to stay asleep as long as I can; so I do.

I wake up to find Richard fussing over me. I am lying on the massive bed in our suite at the Paris. It takes a minute for me to remember what happened. The last thing I recall is getting ice from the corridor. Then nothing.

“What happened?” I ask, groggily. My lips feel so dry. “How did I get back?”

“You passed out in the corridor downstairs,” he says softly, stroking my hair back from my face. “Too much booze, not enough water or sugars, silly.”

“So how did you find me? You were asleep...”

“You won’t believe it, Beth,” he says, smiling. He leaps up. “Have a sip of this pineapple juice and I will tell you the most amazing thing ever!”

Oh dear God.

“You will NEVER guess who found you in the corridor!” Richard yelps, excitedly.

Ooh dear, I feel cold and shivery all of a sudden. Oh my God. Joel. I am about to see Joel. He rescued me! He must have felt my distress. Come to my rescue.
Shit, shit, shit.

“Go on, have a guess!”

What do I say? What do I do? “Just tell me. As you said, I’d never guess.”

His eyes are shining.

“Just tell me Richard,” I say with steely resolve.
I will not react. I will not react. I will not -

“Alright, keep your hair on. You were rescued by none other than – God, no one is going to believe this - the King of Rock ‘n Roll!”

“Who? The King of - ?”

Now he is killing himself laughing. “You can come out now,” he shouts to the bathroom. A man emerges. He’s old, at least sixty. Oh - he is wearing a tight, white suit. With rhinestones...

I was rescued by Elvis. My face breaks into a relieved smile. And do you know, it’s possibly the only thing on Earth more ludicrous than being rescued by my own psychically twinned – slash - imaginary rock star.

“Thanks mate. I always knew you weren’t dead,” says Richard, mock seriously.

“H’well. I’m sure glad y’all right, liddle lady,” says Elvis, taking my hand and kissing it earnestly.

“Er, yeah thanks for helping me,” I say. I don’t know if I’m relieved or gutted. “What’s your real name?” I add in a stage whisper. He looks at me like I’ve spoiled his birthday.

“Your real name?” I restate.

“It’s Elvis, ma’am.”

“Better make sure she di’nt hit her head, Sir.” He adds, backing away. “Gotta be rushin’ along now, I was booked for a two am serenade an’ I’m mighty late.”

“Thanks so much... er, Elvis,” Richard calls after him as Elvis lets himself out.

Richard looks over at me. “Elvis has left the building!” He dissolves into a fit of laughter.