Vanity, Vengeance And A Weekend In Vegas (A Sophie Katz Novel) (3 page)

“What?”

“You need a three-day free pass
to Vegas’ annual sex-toy trade show!”

Marcus coughed softly and turned
away to hide a smile.
 
From anyone
else this would have sounded insane.
 
But this was Dena.
 
I kept
my eyes on the window.
 
“I don’t
think that’s what I need.”

“Of course it is. I go every year
just so I can keep the inventory of Guilty Pleasures up to date with the latest
and greatest in sexually deviant technology. It’s a fantastic show, Sophie, and
it starts this Friday!”

“Dena—”

“This is too much all at once,”
Dena pressed on.
 
“If you don’t
distract yourself you’re going to sit here and go over it all again and again
and again. You’ll over-analyze.”

“Oh God, Dena, I don’t even know
if it’s possible to over-think this thing.
 
It’s all so convoluted.”

“Please. You can over-think
anything
. But
the good news is that it’s very hard to think in Vegas. The whole city is
designed to encourage people to turn off their brains.
 
Oh, and Puppetry Of The Penis is going
to be in Vegas this weekend!”

“No!” Marcus gasped. “They never
perform in Vegas!”

I looked at Marcus in confusion
and then back at Dena. “Puppetry of the Penis?”

“Yeah, it’s a traveling show with
a bunch of guys who can tie their dicks into a whole bunch of funky shapes,
like origami.
 
I already have two
tickets. I was going to take Jason but you know, he can play with his own
penis.
 
You have to come,
Sophie.
 
It’ll be better than
Zoloft.”

“I just broke up with the love of
my life! What about this situation makes you think I would want to watch a
whole bunch of guys on stage tying their dicks up in knots?”

“Because it looks painful,”

“Really painful,” Marcus said
under his breath.

“--and if you use your
imagination,” Dena continued, “you can pretend that it’s Anatoly’s dick being
deformed and laughed at on stage.”

I hesitated for a moment.
 
“People laugh?”

“That’s the whole point.
 
It’s a comedy act.”

I looked over at my built in
bookshelf.
 
Those weren’t all my
books.
 
Those were Anatoly’s Leon
Uris’ next to my Alice Walker novels.
 
His Hemingways nestled against my Fitzgeralds. His books on soccer next
to my books on art.
 
We had combined
our lives and now I was going to have to disassemble all of it. “Maybe a
weekend of Vegas style debauchery isn’t such a bad idea,” I said quietly.

Dena grinned.
 
“It’s a fantastic idea. We can all go!”

Marcus shook his head making his
well-trimmed, short locs swing side to side. “I have clients this weekend. Perms,
cuts and highlights and that’s just Saturday.”

“But your clients will understand
if you have a family emergency,” Dena insisted.

“Honey, women who need a color
aren’t very understanding.”

“Marcus,” Dena said again.
“Family. Emergency.”

My eyes were still on the
bookshelf. What about the books we had bought since we had been together, the
ones we had both read? Who would get those?

I was deep in thought over this
when I realized that the room had gone silent.
 
Marcus was watching me with a worried expression.
 
“Who will get to keep the new,
autographed David Sedaris book?” I asked softly.

Marcus exhaled loudly his eyes
moving from my face to my disastrous mess of hair.
 
“All right,” he said, “we’ll go to Vegas.”

“I’m sorry,” my sister said, a
thin undercurrent of static made her words a little more difficult to hear
through my cell phone, “did you say you’re going to
Vegas
? That’s a little random even for
you!”

I sighed and rested my head on my
knees.
 
After Dena and Marcus left
I had packed up some of Anatoly’s things in boxes and then, when I got to the
closet, I had faltered and ended up putting on one of his shirts.
 
I was still wearing it and now I was on
the floor surrounded by old pictures of us. Totally pathetic.

“Really? That’s the part of the
story you find most interesting?” Mr. Katz pressed himself against my leg and
looked up at me expectantly.
 
“You
did hear the part about the secret wife, right? And his little story about the
mob? Shouldn’t you be asking me about
that
?”

“Of course that’s all horrible,”
she said slowly, “but yes, Sophie, I find the fact that you’re hightailing it
to a Vegas-sex-toy-trade-show right after walking away from a long term
relationship to be the most interesting part of this story.”

I hesitated, a photo booth strip
of snapshots in my hand.
 
For once
I could actually see my sister’s point.
 

“This is just like the time you
went to Vegas after dad died.”

And just like that I thought she
was crazy again. “Not even a little bit.” I dropped the photo booth snapshots
and picked up a picture of Anatoly and me at the Crissy Fields 4
^th
of July fireworks show. I really needed to stop torturing myself. And I would,
right after I went through one more stack of photos.

“Really? If I remember rightly you
couldn’t deal with your emotions then either.
 
So you ran off to Vegas with Scott, got drunk or high or God
knows what and then the two of you enlisted a female Elvis impersonator to
marry you in a Denny’s parking lot! Do you remember that, Sophie?”

“Of course I remember that,” I
snapped. “I mean some of it’s a little fuzzy, we really did drink a lot that
night.
 
But I do remember parts of
it.”

“Oh dear Lord.”

“Come on Leah, I was only
nineteen.
 
It was ten full years
ago!”

“Fifteen years,” Leah corrected.

“Okay, I’m having a crisis and
you think this is a good time to remind me of my real age? As far as I’m
concerned 19 was and always will be ten years ago.” Mr. Katz pressed against me
more insistently. I had forgotten to feed him. I groaned and forced myself to
my feet.

“Fine, but—”

“But nothing.” I carefully
stepped over the clutter of photographed memories, left the room and headed
down the stairs to the kitchen, Mr. Katz close at my heels.
 
“Yes, I’m upset.
 
But I guarantee you I’m not going to
marry anyone this time around.
 
At
worst I’ll hook up with the latest waterproof bullet toy in a hotel bathtub.”

“You need help.”

“Which is why I’m going to a sex
toy trade show. That will help.”
 
I
wasn’t at all sure that was true but I was enjoying shocking Leah enough to
pretend.

“Well just so you know, I’m not
going to do any drugs.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know what kind of things
people do in Vegas.
 
I know
they…drop things—”

“Drop things?”
 
I poured some food into Mr. Katz’ bowl.
He rushed in to eat before I was done and ended up with a small pile of kibble
on the back of his head. “What kind of things do people drop?” I asked as I put
the bag away.
 
“Inhibitions? Money?
The beat?”

“Acid.”

I paused. “I’m not sure more
people drop acid in Vegas than they do eight blocks down from here on Haight
Street.”

“I just want you to know that I
won’t be doing any of that.”

“Okay…wait,” I froze, my hand
resting on a drying martini glass. “You’re not suggesting that you’ll be
coming, are you?”

“Of course I’m coming.”

“You can’t!” I stammered. “You’re
not invited! You hate Vegas! You’d have to find a last minute babysitter for my
nephew! You’re coordinating Mary Ann’s wedding and that’s only a month away!
You’re a social conservative! No social conservatives at sex-toy-trade shows!
It’s a law, Leah!”

“Sophie, I am not going to let
you go unchaperoned to Vegas when you’re upset again! Not after what happened
last time!”

“Oh my God, are you listening to me
at
all
? I
am totally over the
lets-have-a-female-Elvis-impersonator-marry-us-in-a-Denny’s-parking-lot phase
of my life!” I pounded my hand against the kitchen counter for emphasis.
 
“Now I’m in the to-hell-with-men-I’m-buying-a-vibrator
phase! Try to keep up.”

“And mama will take care of Jack
if I tell her where you’re planning to go.
 
She remembers what happened last time too.”

“Leah,” I said, taking the
martini glass in hand and crossing over to the freezer for the vodka, “this is
not a good plan.”
 

“Sophie--”

“I’m going with friends this
time, not some guy I’ve been dating. There is no risk of matrimony”

“Humph.”

“Did you just humph?”
 
That even got Mr. Katz’ attention. He
glanced up from his meal with an inquisitive stare. Nobody humphed anymore.

“I really think I should be
there.”

“It’s not necessary,” I sighed. I
tried to shoot Mr. Katz a look of exasperation but now that we’d finished
humphing he had returned his focus to his meal. “Both Dena and Marcus will be
there to save me from...from the LSD dropping bachelors who will undoubtedly be
trying to drag me to the alter.”

“I don’t like this.”

I hopped up on the counter and
took a sip of my drink. I knew the sound of victory when I heard it. “It’s for
the best that you stay here, Leah. Mary Ann needs you.
 
You know how brides get in the last
thirty days leading up to their wedding.”

“True,” Leah said reluctantly,
“It’s just that...oh, hold on a moment.” Leah’s voice became more distant as
she pulled away from the receiver,
 
“Jack, stop that right now.
 
Pancakes do not go into the DVD player!”

There was some more muffled
scolding and the protesting cry of my young nephew. “Leah, Leah can you hear
me?” I asked. “I have to go. I need to consume a lot of alcohol now and all
this talking’s slowing me down.”

“You know better than this,
Jack!” Her voice had become even more distant indicating that she was now at
least a few feet from the phone.
 
“I simply can’t have you trying to feed our appliances anymore!”

“Leah! I’m hanging up now, okay?”

“How would you like it if I tried
to put a DVD in
your
mouth! You wouldn’t like it, would you Jack? Would you? No, no! Don’t you
dare put your tongue on that DVD!”

I hung up the phone.
 
Between letting my sister try to comfort
me here in San Francisco and going to Vegas to look at vibrators and origami
shaped penises…well, the latter was quite clearly the saner option.

“Doing Vegas while sober is like
driving into the setting sun without sunglasses.
 
Everything’s just a bit too bright and a little irritating;
but put on your shades and it’s all fabulous.”

--Death Of The Party

Dena and I arrived in Vegas at
4:00 on Friday, Marcus had moved his appointments around so that he could meet
us later in the evening at the bar of a new hotel named Hotel Noir.
 
He and Dena had decided to share a room
and I was to have a room all to myself. Ostensibly this was because they wanted
my weekend getaway to be as luxurious as possible. But the truth was that neither
of them wanted to listen to me crying into my pillow all night long.
 
As soon as the desert sunshine beat
down on me I knew I had made a mistake in coming.
 
Vegas didn’t feel like a town that welcomed and accommodated
depression. Perhaps I should have vacationed in Greece.

But I tried to put on a happy
face for Dena as we checked into The Encore and then went to the convention
center to scope out the sex toys.
 

“What are these? Serenity balls?”
I asked as I stared down at two, small, smooth white balls resting in the
velvet interior of a decorative case. Dena and I had been at the sex-toy trade
show for less than two hours and already I was sex-toyed out.
 
Vibrators, lotions, gels that were
supposed to “Increase sensitivity,” oh and one couldn’t overlook the plethora
of pleather.
 
Individually this
stuff might all be fine but seeing it all thrown together like this was enough
to make you want to become a nun.
 
But the serenity balls held promise.
 
I needed some serenity.

Dena shook her head. “They’re not
serenity balls, they’re Kegal balls. You’re supposed to hold them in your
vagina and squeeze.
 
Like a thigh
master but obviously not for your thighs.”

“Oh, wow. That’s just
lovely.
 
It took me five years to
get comfortable with tampons. I certainly won’t be sticking whole balls up
there.” I quickly moved my eyes away only to have them land on a woman in a
bikini in the middle of a sex-swing demonstration.

Dena gave the vendor of the balls
a tight-lipped smile before pulling me away. “I carry those in my store but the
truth is Kegel exercises will work just as well without them. But
those
,” Dena
pointed over to a large table filled with what looked like bath toys for
children, “those I can sell.”

 
Reluctantly I followed her over to the table as a cheery and
surprisingly conservatively dressed woman stepped up to help us.

“Hi, are you familiar with our
products?” She asked as Dena picked up a bright pink, plastic anteater with a
suspicious looking nose.

“You guys are the ones who make
the rubber ducky vibrator, right?” Dena asked.

“Oh yes, but we have a lot more
animals now,” The woman pushed her golden brown hair behind her ears and tapped
the top of the anteater’s nose.
 
“See, this clit massager nose actually vibrates
and
moves back and forth really quickly.
 
You can use it in the bath of course
and when it’s wet it feels more like a tongue.”

I tilted my head and tried to
imagine getting it on with an anteater. There really was nothing about the
thought that was appealing

“And the great thing about our
products,” the woman continued, “is that they can double as children’s toys! “

“I’m sorry, what did you just
say?” I asked instantly snapping out of my visualization exercise.

“You see, since they do
look
a little
like children’s toys and they
are
waterproof your kids can use them as bath toys. That way if
they hear the buzzing sound after you’ve put them to bed they’ll simply assume
mommy’s having her bath!
 
Just a
clever use of sound association.”

I stared at her as I hovered
between horror and amusement.
 
“You
do know that children often put bath toys in their mouths, right?”

“Oh, no worries! They can’t choke
on these.”

“Well, okay, maybe not but…you
know how moms say, don’t put that in your mouth you don’t know where it’s been?
In this case the mom will actually
know
where it’s been and that’s a big problem.”

“Which is why we have this!” the
woman crossed to the other end of the table and came back with some kind of
spray.
  
“Sterilizer.
 
Spray it with this, wait ten minutes
and your toy’s ready to go.“

“Yeah, I don’t think you’re
getting my point. It’s not really a hygiene problem, at least not entirely.
Sometimes it really is the thought that counts.”

The woman furrowed her brow in
confusion as Dena made a note in her iPhone to order the ten-minute
sanitizer.
 
“The thought of what?”
the woman asked.
 
“The thought of
an anteater? Because we have an octopus too—“

“No!” I snapped. “That’s. Not.
The. Point!”

Dena stuffed her phone back in
her handbag. “Actually I’d like to see the octopus.
 
Does each tentacle do its own thing or do they work in
unison?”

“Each tentacle has its own
function,” the saleswoman assured her as she handed over the octopus.

“Dena, this is insane! No one who
shops at your store is going to want…wait,
each
tentacle has its own function? What do
they do?”

Dena gave me an evil smile. “It
gives a whole new twist to The Beatle’s Octopus’ Garden, doesn’t it?”

My phone rang and I reluctantly
stepped away from the table.
 
Marcus’ number flashed across the screen.
 
“Hey Marcus, just in time.
 
I was about to be eaten by an octopus.”

There was a long pause before
Marcus cleared his throat. “Sweetie, do me a favor and don’t tell me what
that’s a metaphor for.
 
I’m at
Hotel Noir now.”

“Really? You’ve already dropped
your stuff off at Encore and everything?” I glanced at my watch.
 
“But your flight only landed thirty
minutes ago.”

“We landed early. Hon, I have to
tell you something.”

Immediately my heart sank as my
mind raced through the various possibilities of what else could go wrong in my
life.
 
“Should I have a drink
before I hear this?”

“Most definitely. Why don’t I
just circle back to the Encore and we’ll meet at the bar there.”

I pulled the phone away from my
ear for a moment. “Dena, it’s Marcus. He wants to meet at the Encore rather than
the Hotel Noir.”

“Tell him no,” Dena said,
somewhat distracted by the octopus which was vibrating so hard it was about to
launch itself off the table.
 
“I’ve
been wanting to see the Hotel Noir since it opened.
 
You know they have a theater in the hotel, right? They have
an eleven o’clock showing of The Maltese Falcon. I was thinking we could see it
after we have drinks.”

“The Maltese Falcon.” I
repeated.
 
Without hesitation I
brought the phone back to my ear.
 
“We’re meeting you at the Hotel Noir at…oh, you know, at the bar we
originally agreed on…um, Double Indemnity, right?”

“Yes, that’s the place but
Sophie, I really don’t think this is a good—”

“And check the theater in the
hotel.
 
See if you can get three
tickets for the eleven o’clock showing of The Maltese Falcon.
 
I’m coming now.”

I hung up the phone and turned to
Dena.
 
“Humphrey Bogart and Sam
Spade are SO much more uplifting than an oversexed octopus.”
 

Dena shook her head. “Why does it
always have to be an either or situation with you.” She held up the octopus.
“Rent a couple of old movies and multitask.”

I laughed and shook my head.
“Come on, Marcus is waiting for us.”

“Sophie, there’s at least ten
more booths I need to stop by before I can get out of here for the night.”

I glanced around the room. There
was a woman in a black leather cat suit dancing around using nipple clamps as
finger cymbals.

“Can
I
go then?” I asked.
 

Dena sighed. “You have no
appreciation for innovation. Fine. Go meet Marcus. I’ll be there in an hour.

When I got to Hotel Noir Marcus
was sitting at the bar tapping his fingers nervously against his martini glass.
That gave me a moment’s pause. Marcus had a thing about martini glasses. You
could gesture with one in your hand but it had to be a smooth elegant gesture,
demonstrating not only your sophistication but also your ability not to
spill.
 
Tapping was not
allowed.
 
And tapping out of time
with the music, which was
exactly
what Marcus was doing, was a major Marcus No-No. Something
had thrown him off his game.

Carefully, I weaved my way
through the crowd of unsophisticated, spill-prone revelers and made it to his
side.
 
When he saw me his mouth
turned up in a small and fleeting smile.
 

“Don’t tell me,” I said slowly.
“The Maltese Falcon is sold out for the whole weekend.
 
No, worse, The Maltese Falcon is sold
out AND you gambled me away in a poker game so now I have to be the beard to
some fat, hairy, closet-case with an evangelical family.”

Marcus smiled wistfully. “Honey,
you’re describing a category four hurricane.
 
We’re being pummeled with a category six.” He signaled to
the unusually attentive female bartender that he wanted another drink like the
half empty one in his hand.
 
“Did
you come in through the main lobby?”

I shook my head.
 
“I came in through the entrance
over—”

“Good,” Marcus said cutting me
off. Our drink arrived and I could have sworn the bartender’s eyes lingered a
second longer than necessary on Marcus’ Dolce & Gabbana covered
shoulders.
 
Someone needed their gaydar
checked.

“It’s the house specialty,”
Marcus said as he pushed the drink toward me.
 
“They call it A Touch Of Evil which is apparently just
another way of saying Spicy Martini.”

“What kind of Vodka do they use?”

“Grey Goose, double shot.”

“I love you Marcus. Of all my
friends you’re my favorite enabler.”’

“I love you too.” He hesitated a
moment before adding, “Honey, Anatoly is here.”

I chocked on my double shot
martini.

“My Anatoly?”

“How many Anatoly’s do you think
I know?”

“He followed me here,” I said
quietly.
 
He had used his
professional sleuthing skills, found out I was coming to Vegas and followed me
here! This was bad. It was stalkerish and it infringed on my privacy. Totally
inappropriate in every single way.

So why did I feel so giddy?

I took another long sip of my
drink, not because I needed to take the edge off but because I needed the glass
to hide my smile.

“He came all the way to Vegas for
me.” I put the glass down and forced my mouth into a frown. “Well he’s totally
crossed the line. I don’t care if he’s been crying himself to sleep every
night, he can’t just follow me around the country. It’s pathetic and I’ll tell
him—”

“Sophie, if I tell you
something…something you won’t like, do you promise not to go all Carrie
Underwood on me?”

“Carrie Underwood?” I repeated,
suddenly feeling lost.

“You know that song where she
slashes her cheating boyfriend’s tires and carves her name into his leather
seats? Don’t do that, okay?”

“Why would I want to carve my
name into leather seats?”

“Well, you probably wouldn’t…but
then again you might if I told you that Anatoly was here with another woman.”

The frown I had forced my mouth
into got heavier and a lot more real.
 
“Another woman?” I repeated.

“It’s possible that she’s just a
friend but…” His voice trailed off.

“But what?” I asked softly.
 
When Marcus didn’t answer I raised my
voice to a much louder volume. “But what, Marcus? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing,” He said throwing up
his hands as if protesting his innocence. “It’s just that they seemed…close.”

“How close?”

“Last I saw them they were
sitting on a sofa in the main lobby.”
 
Marcus paused long enough to down the rest of his drink.
 
“He had his arm around her.”