Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
F rom the narrow passenger seat of Mary’s candy apple–red Corvette, Sunny spotted an overflowing trash barrel and an abandoned traffic cone. The flickering streetlight cast a yellow glow over her black skirt. She already missed the well-lit theme-park cleanliness of the Strip.
“Why am I doing this, again?” Sunny should’ve been sitting in LA traffic by now, almost home. Gabe had reconciled with all three of his siblings. Mission accomplished.
But when she’d gazed into his big, brown eyes, she couldn’t leave. So she’d put it off. Again.
Mary switched off the engine, and they stepped out onto the cracked asphalt of the parking lot. The top of the Ferris wheel glowed in the distance, lit in blue and purple against the blue-black sky. Most of the street was quiet except for the jangle of music that seeped from a long, low, windowless building. Its red door stood out in the street packed with gray industrial buildings. Here, there were no roaming mobs of bachelors and bachelorettes in search of a good time. Quieter, smaller groups and pairings disappeared through the red door.
“I’m bonding with my brother’s girlfriend.” Mary beeped the locks.
“I’m not?—”
“Whatever you call it. I’ve missed years of this with Gabe. Besides, this place has the best music in town.”
“Better than Mariah Carey?” Sunny’s voice dripped with doubt.
“I think so. It’s…honest. Not something you get a lot of in this town.”
On the other side of the red door, the place was dark, lit mostly by the neon-lined bar that wrapped around three sides. Spotlights washed out the stage at the back, which held two shiny black baby grand pianos. A shortish, older man sat at one in an Elton John getup, complete with fedora and red-tinted glasses.
Mary nodded at the bouncer and led the way to a table near the stage. “I hope Sam’s here tonight. It’s fun when they play together.”
“Dueling pianos?” There weren’t any peanut shells on the floor, but Sunny had been to her share of bars like that.
“More like duets.”
The man at the piano launched into “Your Song.” His voice wasn’t as smooth as vintage Elton John, and it had a rasp to it, fading at the emotional lines. Still, he sang the song as if he’d written it, his heart pouring out over the shiny surface of the piano.
When the song ended, the server came to get their drink order. She delivered the news that Sam was out sick, and they hadn’t gotten a replacement because of the short notice. When she left, Mary frowned.
“This guy is good, though,” Sunny said. “What’s his name?”
“Rick. But he doesn’t sound as great as he usually does.”
“I hope he’s not coming down with whatever Sam had.” When Sunny glanced up at the stage, Rick guzzled water and hoarsely announced a ten-minute break. It didn’t bode well for their night of honest music.
When the server returned with their drinks, she hesitated, staring at Sunny. “Are you that actress, Sadie from New York Bomb Squad?”
“Oh, um.” Sunny shot a quick glance at Mary, who smiled at her and shrugged. “Yeah, I am. Sunny Lafortune.” She held out her hand, and the waitress shook it.
“My girlfriend’s a big fan. She loves all those cop shows.” She blinked. “I mean, yours is the best, of course.”
“Of course,” Sunny said, chuckling. “It’s okay. It wasn’t the greatest show, but I had fun.”
“Actually, that one episode you did a couple weeks ago, the one where you got engaged, that was pretty awesome. We both cried.”
Sunny’d had some good lines in that one. Had it aired so recently? If so, her big exit was coming up soon. Probably for February sweeps.
“Would you mind…?” The waitress’s fingers twitched toward the stack of cocktail napkins on her tray.
“Not at all.” Sunny couldn’t keep the grin from her face. She asked for her girlfriend’s name and scrawled it with her signature on the napkin. The waitress carefully tucked it into her apron, thanked her, and left the women alone.
“That happen a lot?” Mary asked.
“Not as often as you’d think. New York Bomb Squad was getting good ratings, but my part was small. I wasn’t in every episode until Sadie became a love interest for Curt. And that didn’t last long.”
“What?” Mary asked. “They wrote you out?”
“I’m not supposed to talk about it because it’s a big reveal later this season, but yeah.”
“What’d they do, kill your character?” Mary sipped her gin and tonic.
Sunny shrugged.
Mary set down her glass with a plunk. “Oh, my God. They fridged you?”
Sunny wrinkled her nose. “What?”
“They do it all the time in the superhero comics my brothers used to read. They kill the hero’s love interest to deepen his motivation to fight the villain or some bullshit. Last one I read with that in it, I threw it across the room. Michael was pissed because it crinkled the corner.” She smiled at the memory. “I’d sneaked it out of his room.”
“Oh.” Sunny thought back on the season’s arc. “Yeah, I guess so. I assume Curt’s character was going to go after the bad guys who did it. And Odile—” It was hard to say her friend’s name. Though it wasn’t Odile’s fault she’d gotten to stay while Sunny had to go.
“I hate that,” Mary said. “And I hate that they did it to you. I’m sorry.”
Sunny lifted a shoulder. “If it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have met Gabe.” Cold washed through her body. What had she just said? She hadn’t really meant that being with Gabe was better than acting on a hit show, had she? No. Way. She stared at her half-full lemon drop martini. She couldn’t be drunk already. And that couldn’t be how she really felt about Gabe.
Could it?
She drained her glass and squinted at Mary. “Did you bring me here to liquor me up so you could find out all my secrets?”
Mary sipped her sparkling water. “Your secrets or Gabe’s. It’s always worked for my other brothers’ girlfriends.”
The server set another lemon drop in front of Sunny. She rotated it on the table. It wasn’t her place to spill Gabe’s secrets. How long had Rick been on break? He had to come back soon and put an end to Mary’s interrogation.
“So,” Mary said, “how long are you staying?”
“Not long.” It was Monday night. Three days until she had to be on set. “I’m supposed to be in LA by Thursday.”
“Will you come back after? I was going to offer Gabe my spare bedroom if he wants to stay awhile. There’s room for you, too.”
“Gabe’s staying?” They hadn’t talked about it. When they’d gone back to the hotel after Gabe had bonded with Michael, he’d tugged her into the shower and done that thing again with his fingers. And then his tongue. It was a good thing Sunny was leaving soon; they’d run through almost all the fake-honeymoon condoms. She’d coaxed him into bed for a nap he needed badly, and he’d woken up just in time to mess up her lipstick before she’d gone downstairs to meet Mary. Their kisses had grown desperate as the days—hours, maybe—counted down.
“I was hoping he’d stay,” Mary said. “Michael says he’s a decent mechanic, and we could use his help in the garage. We’ve missed so many years with him. I want to get to know him better.”
“He’s got his business to run back in Ohio. I don’t think he’d leave it.” Would Gabe let his cousin Brandon take over? The calls and emails from Darlene never ended. Gabe was working even on his fake vacation.
Mary’s glance was sharp. “Not even for you?”
Sunny thanked whatever force called Rick back on stage at that moment. She couldn’t look Mary in the eye and tell her there was no place in her LA life for her brother.
Rick sat at the piano, swallowed hard, and rasped into the microphone. “Sorry, y’all. This next set is gonna be instrumental.”
He launched into a rollicking piano version of “Benny and the Jets.”
The familiar tune soothed Sunny’s curdled stomach. After she’d performed it at an elementary-school talent show, Mom and Dad had stopped shooting dagger-eyes at each other long enough to hug her. They’d—accidentally—almost touched each other. “This is my favorite.”
“Then get up there, girl, and help him out.”
Mary must’ve known that she’d had just enough vodka to obey. Sunny rose and found the steps up to the stage. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mary stop the bouncer, who’d approached to drag the drunk girl off the stage.
Sunny nodded at Rick, who watched her warily while she lifted his microphone off its stand. She breathed in deep. Holding it to her lips, she belted out the lyrics with just as much enthusiasm and more skill than she’d done in elementary school.
Some members of the audience looked shocked, but most took it in stride. They probably thought she was a plant. Maybe some of them recognized her from the show, like the waitress had, and figured she was just another attention-craving C-list actress. Which she totally was, but she was also helping Rick.
After she sang a few bars, he got into it, molding his accompaniment to her voice, supporting her. At the end, he grinned. “Not bad, blondie.”
“Not bad yourself.” Sunny smiled back.
“Another?”
“Yeah.”
He played and Sunny sang another set. She even sat at Sam’s piano for a duet of “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.” After that, her voice was almost as raspy as Rick’s, but her nerves buzzed from the performance. It’d been too long since she’d performed for a live audience, and her insides glowed.
As the last note faded, she hugged Rick, then descended the steps to rejoin Mary at the table.
Mary smiled, smug. “Not bad.”
“Not bad?” Sunny yelped. “That was amazing! I?—”
A man in a suit, no tie, loomed up next to their table. “Hey, Alex,” Mary said. How much time did she spend in this place?
“Mary. You going to introduce us?”
“Sunny, this is Alessandro Villa, but we call him Alex. He owns the place. We grew up together, went to the same church. Alex, this is my brother’s girlfriend, Sunny.” Sunny didn’t miss how Mary emphasized girlfriend.
Alex shook her hand then reached behind himself to pull up a third chair to the table. He straddled it backward.
“Nice job up there, Sunny. Thanks for the help. You a singer in one of the shows?”
“No. Just passing through.”
Mary’s mouth turned down at that.
“Too bad,” Alex said. “I could use another performer. If you wanted to extend your stay, I’d make it worth your while.”
For a second, she imagined coming back to Vegas during a break in filming. Gabe would be overjoyed. As she performed, he’d sit in the audience transfixed, the way he’d been in the car that time she sang “Defying Gravity.” Then they’d go home together, not to Mary’s guest room but to a little apartment or even a bungalow of their own. He’d do that thing with his fingers every night.
She shook it off. She couldn’t tell her parents she’d become a nightclub singer. In Vegas. She had bigger dreams than that. Besides, she and Gabe would grow apart, just like her parents. She wasn’t built for long-term.
“No, sorry, I really am just visiting. But thanks.”
Alex stood and replaced the chair. “Mary knows where to find me if you change your mind. Thanks again for the entertainment tonight.”
Sunny smiled and watched him walk back to the bar. Mary, she noticed, watched him, too.
“Grew up together, huh?” Sunny smirked.
“Yeah.” The corner of Mary’s mouth quirked up. “We know way too many of each other’s secrets.”
“That’s a bad thing?” Sunny sipped her drink. It’d gone all watery, but it soothed her throat.
“Well.” She winked. “Mostly.”
The question about their history perched on Sunny’s lips. Until she realized she’d gotten invested in Mary, too. First Gabe, and now his sister. She had to cut those ties, fast, or they’d grow too thick, too painful. Too hard to leave.
“But you,” Mary said, “you should think about Alex’s offer. You were really in your element up there. You glowed.”
“I can glow as an actress, too.” Though Sunny remembered what Gabe had said about her on New York Bomb Squad. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for gritty TV. She should try out one of her mother’s rom-coms. Though everyone would find her lacking, compared to Gwen.
“Of course you can.” Mary patted her hand. “You’re great at whatever you put your mind to.”
When they walked out of the bar into the cool, dry Nevada night, Sunny looked up again to the Ferris wheel, still glowing above the buildings.
She pointed. “Have you ever ridden it?”
“No,” Mary said, “I’m more of a thrill rider. I’ve been on the roller coaster at New York New York a couple times. That’s fun.”
“I bet you get a good view from the top.”
“Of the roller coaster? No, it goes too fast. There’s a loop, though, so there’s that.”
Right then, Sunny was on a roller coaster, hurtling toward LA, her parents, the audition, her next show. Gabe had thrown her for a loop, sure, a momentary thrill. But she was about to straighten out and ride the train to arrive back home with a lurch.
Too late, she realized she should’ve been riding the Ferris wheel the whole time. At the top, she could see her life laid out in front of her. Then she’d know what to do next.