“I googled him once,” Edie said. “He lost his shirt, his house, and everything else in some big sting. Apparently, he was embezzling from his employer the whole time.”
Frances laughed. “Birds of a feather, I guess. I’m glad you didn’t marry him.”
“Are you crazy? I was never going to marry him. I didn’t want a man to save me.”
Frances gave her a look.
“Don’t say it,” Edie said. “Simon was different. I really did love him. I didnotlove Tom.”
So many memories began to flood Frances’s brain—of them in the casinos, being plied with drinks. On the dance floor, going wild, Joan swinging over them on a crystal ball in some gig she took in a bar. She was supposed to be an angel, but she’d looked more like a warrior.
Memories of sex with men Frances had only just met and then promised to call the next day but never did. It was such a different time. She was such a different person now. A prude, as Marjorie would say.
“Vegas doesn’t look the same,” Edie said, glancing around them. “Or maybe it does. Was it always so grungy?”
“It was always grungy. The difference was, so were we. Then, we belonged on the Strip. Now, we belong in suburbia.”
“Yeah,” Edie said. “Are we too soft for this, Franny? I really want to bring this guy down, but I worry—”
Frances linked her arm through Edie’s. “Stop it. This is like old times. It’s like getting back on a bike. Come on, you used to be so fearless.”
“Yeah.” Edie smiled. “I really was, wasn’t I? I know some thought I was more in the reckless category, but I like fearless. Hey, did you ever tell your husband what you did before you married him?”
An image of a healthy, vibrant Nick loomed in her mind’s eye. “Hell, no,” she said. “Nick was a good man and it would have hurt him terribly. And when we had Aaron, well … my kid is such a straight shooter that if he even suspected I was doing something a little off-color, he’d have an aneurysm.”
“Off-color!” Edie laughed. “I think my kids would, too. They all think I’m a Southern belle and would have me committed.”
“Youarea southern belle now.”
“Not really,” Edie said. “That’s as much a disguise as this maid uniform. I’ve always had to hide the truth of me.” She smiled sadly at Frances. “You know what I miss? The raw honesty we had. No secrets. Or rather, noneedfor secrets.”
Edie was kidding herself if she thought they didn’t have secrets then. Clearly, there had been a few.
“What will you tell your son if you are caught?” Edie asked.
Frances hadn’t really thought what she would tell Aaron. She might tell him about the cancer. But the rest of it? She wasn’t so sure. “What would you do?”
Edie shrugged as they waited for a traffic light to turn. “I think Simon will probably kill me, so … there’s that.”
Frances didn’t know if she was joking or not. “Then let’s not get caught. Let’s manifest success.”
Edie snorted. “Sure, Suzie Sunshine.”
Frances turned her gaze forward. She couldn’t allow herself to think anything else. Because the moment she let herself think they’d fail was the moment she feared she would give in to the cancer and give up.
The light turned and they crossed the street, then rounded a corner just in time to see Joan and Irene walk through the front doors of the Pelican. The two massive entry doors, looked like a pelican when closed, and like a giant pelican wingspan when opened.
“Here we are,” Frances chirped. “There’s no turning back now!”
There was, of course, turning back now. They could decide to throw in the towel at any time, up to the moment they took the money from the vault. Edie must have known so, too, because she started forward, striding as if she thought she might be locked out. Frances had to hurry to catch up.
Twenty-three
Edie’s first in-person sighting of Rocco Vitali occurred that very afternoon. He happened to be moving through a crowded casino floor surrounded by a retinue of young men in cheap shiny suits and girls in see-through dresses so short that nothing was left to the imagination. The constant sound of bells and shouts from the slot machines, and the strobing lights when there was a winner, made it seem as if he was walking a runway.
Rocco was not a handsome man, but he wasn’t ugly, either. He had dark hair, full lips, almond-shaped eyes that managed to look too feminine and too masculine at once. His gaze darted around the crowds to spot the patrons who recognized him. That reminded Edie of his grandfather Vincent, who had been the very definition of a showboat.
Rocco was a full-of-himself apple that had fallen not far from the full-of-himself tree.
