Steven paled as he read the balance. He turned around slowly as Vero crept back to our adjoining room. His eyes burned a hole in her back. “That conniving little—”
“This should cover it,” I said, reaching for my purse. I counted off a stack of hundreds from a roll of cash and held them out to the manager. Both men gaped at me.
“Where’d you get that?” Steven asked.
“Got lucky playing craps.”
The manager sniffed, his nose wrinkling as he poked it farther into the room. “May I also remind you, the Royal Flush has a strict no pets rule. The cleaning fee is two hundred and fifty dollars if a pet is found on the property. You signed a disclosure during check-in, acknowledging our policies. I’m afraid you’ll have to—”
I slapped three more bills into his hand and slammed the door in his face. I’d cleaned up far worse over the last seventy-two hours. In a few minutes, we’d be out of this dump and put Atlantic City in our rearview mirror.
There was another knock, on our door this time. Vero opened it. Georgia walked right past her, holding her phone out for our mom. “It’s Dad,” she said. “He wants to talk to you.”
Mom lifted her chin. “Tell him I have nothing to say.”
Georgia put the phone to her ear. “Mom says she has nothing to say.” She listened, then said, “Dad says he wants you to come home. He says the meatloaf you left for him is gone and the bed is cold without you.”
“I can’t decide if that’s obnoxious or romantic,” Vero whispered.
My mother snapped a shirt off a hanger. “Tell him if he’s cold, he can turn the thermostat up a degree.”
“He says he already did.”
“He probably expects me to cook him dinner, too,” Mom said, loud enough to be heard through the phone.
“He says he’d rather take you out. He says he can get a table for tomorrow night at that fancy French place you like. And tickets to that new George Clooney movie if you want to go.”
Our mother’s scowl softened. “Tell him I’ll think about it.”
“Mom says she’ll think about it.”
“And remind him to take his medications. The blue one, too,” she added bashfully. I smirked as coffee shot out of Vero’s nose.
Color flooded my mother’s cheeks as Georgia relayed the message. “Mom says take your pills. She’ll be home in six hours.”
Mom snapped the suitcase shut and put on her coat. “Come on, everyone. It’s time to go home.”
It was well after midnight when my mother’s SUV pulled in to my driveway. The children had been asleep for the last few hours of the trip, and it took some careful maneuvering for Vero, Javi, and me to climb out of the third row without waking them up.
I pried Zach from his car seat, his blanket smooshed between his cheek and my chest. The fraying, sticky fabric still smelled like the floor of the casino, but I hadn’t had the heart (or the energy) to hide it from my son when he’d cried for it in the car. What had started the trip as a phony, unconvincing substitute was now a torn, stained, and battle-worn woobie, beloved and made all the more real because of its imperfections.
I handed Zach off to Vero and she carried him inside. Javi took my suitcase and followed her.
I came around the car and tapped on my mother’s window. She started with a yelp, laughing at herself as she rolled the window down.
“Too much caffeine,” she said, handing me her empty coffee cup. It had been a long day, and she still had to take Steven and Javi home. Javi had suggested he’d rather spend the night at my house with Vero, butwhen he’d caught my mother’s judgy glare in her rearview mirror, he’d begrudgingly agreed to let her give him a ride to Ramón’s.
“Are you going to be okay to drive?”
“I’ll be great.”
A speck of glitter shimmered in her hair, a souvenir from her lap dance with Steele Johnson. We both laughed as I caught it between two fingers, letting the wind carry it away.
She captured my face as I leaned into the window to kiss her cheek. “I had a lot of fun with you girls this weekend. Sometimes I regret not holding on tighter to the friendships I had when I was young,” she said wistfully. “Your father and I met when we were barely teenagers. He became my whole world, and that’s wonderful. He’s a good man, and I thank god for him every day. But when I see you with Vero—the way you girls look out for each other and the way you make each other laugh—I’m jealous of what you two have. Thank you for letting me come along and be a part of that for a while.”
“There’s always room for you on my couch,” I teased.
“I think I’ll stick with my own bed. Besides, your father’s probably up waiting for me,” she said eagerly. I tried not to think about how long those blue pills might last.
