“No problem, Uncle Jim. It was actually not half bad, and hey, I got to see SZA last night on my own too.”
“Right, a little too noisy for us,” said Jim.
Olivia took a sip of her drink and thought about the women on the bench again. She was picturing the one woman’s face. Not Heather but the other woman.
Suddenly, it hit her.
She stopped walking so quickly that a group of women wearing matching pink sashes for a bachelorette party behind them almost knocked into her.
“Hey! Look out!” cried one of the women.
“Liv, you’re blocking traffic,” Carol admonished.
“I, uh… You guys go on to the fountains. I was just thinking I might explore the other side of the Strip. I’ll catch up with you at the hotel.” Olivia knew she needed time alone to investigate for a moment.
“Are you sure?” Carol asked. “The fountains are about to start.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll text you if I need anything.”
Olivia gave them a fast hug and took off with her drink still in hand, headed back in the direction of Heather and the other woman on the bench.
“Oh, to be young again and stay up late walking the Strip,” Jim mused. “I couldn’t do it. My dogs are barking from all of the walking we did earlier. I can’t wait to hit the hotel.”
“Me too,” said Carol. “By the way, do you know what I was thinking about when Barry sang ‘Can’t Smile Without You’?”
“No, what?”
“I was thinking about Faith. I told you they played that at the vigil, right? Apparently Faith’s sister told Channel 9 that Faith loved Barry Manilow. It’s just one more reason why I admire and miss Faith so much.”
“Faith was a special one,” Jim summed up.
Carol sighed deeply and thought of the tribute she had created in their den back home. She asked Jim to make a shadow box in his basement workshop, with a large space for her to pin the autographed photo she got from Faith on one side and a smaller box to hang the cloud earrings on the other. Jim had put a light on the top of the shadow box so the whole thing could be illuminated. The box had a prime spot on their wall, displacing one of the generic impressionist art photos.
Even though Carol watched Channel 11 now, she would look at the mementos often and think about Faith, and she hoped Matthew would rot in prison, her anger at him so strong she could taste it.
“I just hope Faith is at peace,” Carol added. “It breaks my heart that she’ll never get to be in a place like Vegas. She should be enjoying the same things we are. She was young, she should be having fun. It’s just not fair, Jim, it’s not fair.”
“Who ever said life was fair, hon?” He squeezed her hand again. “But we all do our best. We helped to put Matthew away and to get justice for Faith. She’s in heaven now and I bet she knows what we did and thanks us, and Olivia. We did good work, sweetie. You should be proud.”
“You too,” said Carol as the fountains started shooting upward to the oohs and aahs of the crowd. Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas” was the musical accompaniment. Jim and Carol stopped and turned to watch from the sidewalk. There clearly was noplace to sit anymore, so Carol leaned her head into Jim’s shoulder, taking a little pressure off her hip.
Tears came to her eyes as she watched the dancing fountains. Tears of happiness for being alive and for being there at that moment with Jim, and tears of sadness for Faith, who would never get to experience anything like this anymore.
I will always be in your Fair-Weather Friends Fan Club, Faith,Carol thought to herself.Always.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Olivia
Las Vegas
Beelining back to the area where the bench was, Olivia worried that the women might be gone, but the two of them were just standing up. Staying a safe distance away, Olivia studied their faces.
She didn’t recognize Heather as her aunt Carol had done, of course, but she had the strangest feeling about the other woman. The hair was completely different, but…
Olivia shuddered. It couldn’t be, could it? Faith was dead. Memorialized by an entire community, Matthew convicted of her murder. Faith couldn’t be alive and well and walking the streets in Las Vegas. It had to be a coincidence.
The women gave each other a hug and started heading in different directions. Olivia followed the one she was suspicious of. And that’s when she saw the way the woman walked. It was exactly what she remembered from Channel 9. That distinctive style: delicate, ballerina-like.
