THREE
CHAPTER
Friday afternoon and Vegas Ink was as packed as the tiny place could get. Zelda, Edgar, and I worked nonstop, the buzzing of our needles competing with pulsing electronica music—Friday was Zelda’s turn to pick music.
Vivian manned the front desk, answering calls and setting up appointments for walk-ins that might or might not come back. Las Vegas was saturated with tattoo shops. Most of the turned away would probably go somewhere else.
“You got any plans this weekend, T?” Edgar asked when we were both between clients.
“Got a hot date?” Zelda asked from her station. The words were sharp but a hunch in her shoulders made the lie on my tongue hesitate. Behind her luminous green eyes, I could see a flicker of pain, strangely familiar to my own.
“Nothing major,” I heard myself say. “Lot of studying to do.”
“Come out racing on Sunday,” Edgar said. He finished his Red Bull, crushed the can, and lobbed it at the trash basket. “Me and some buddies are going to rent ATVs.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“ Maybe .” Edgar snorted. “Come on, man,”
“I got three midterms next week,” I said, crossing the black and white checkered floor toward the restroom behind the reception desk. I gave Zelda a nod as I went by.
Sorry, Z. I’m running on empty.
I had to wipe my hands on my jeans after washing them.
“Viv, we’re out of paper towels,” I said as I emerged from the bathroom.
She was on the phone and only raised her chin at me.
I started to walk away, right at the moment the music on the sound system faded to a low pulse.
Above the quiet beat, I heard Viv say, “Teddy? No, no one named Teddy here.”
The name slugged me in the back. I whipped around, my heart pounding out of my chest, yelling, “No,” as Vivian lowered the phone to its set. “Viv, don’t…”
I raced forward and yanked the receiver out of her bewildered hands. I put it to my ear and said in a rush “Hello? Don’t hang up.”
My ears burned, poised to hear Kacey’s voice—rich and clear, with a little gravel at the edges.
“Is this Teddy?”
It was a man’s voice. Disappointment caved my chest in.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said, turning away from Viv’s raised brows. “Who’s this?”
“Name’s Mike Budny. Listen, this might be a long shot, but do you know a girl by the name of Kacey Dawson?”
I froze. She’s dead.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I know her. She was my brother’s girlfriend.”
“Thank fuck ,” the guy said. “I been making long-distance Hail Mary calls all day, looking for a tattoo artist in Vegas named Teddy. Do you have any idea how many tattoo shops Vegas has?”
I squeezed the phone. “You found me. What’s going on?”
She’s dead.
“Yeah, listen, do you know her family? Or a friend? Someone who can help her out?”
“Me,” I said, like staking a claim. “I’m a friend. Where is she?”
“New Orleans. I’m a bartender at a club called Le Chacal. She sings here every Thursday night. You getting all this?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I fumbled around Vivian’s desk for a pen and paper, ignoring her frantic gesture at three other calls flashing on hold. “New Orleans. Chacal. Thursday nights.” I scratched the words down stupidly, as if I’d forget where Kacey was now that I’d found her.
“How is she?” I asked at the same time the bartender said, “How soon can you get here?”
The panic in my chest ignited and tightened. “Fast. Tomorrow if I have to. Why? What’s wrong? Is she okay?”
“No, man.” The sigh he exhaled was somewhere between relief and resignation. “She’s pretty fucking far from okay.”
I hung up with Mike feeling like a runner at the start of the most important race of his life. Vivian was yammering at me, but I hardly heard her. My heart was pounding, and my stomach twisted as I made a mental list of all the stuff I had to do to get to Kacey as fast as possible.
In New Orleans.
She went halfway across the country to drink herself to death.
“I gotta go,” I said, snatching my black jacket off the coatrack. “Cancel the rest of my appointments.”
Vivian stared. “Cancel your… Where are you going ?”
I headed for the door. “Call Gus for me. Tell him I gotta leave town for a few days. Family emergency.”
“A few days? Gus’ll lose his shit. He’ll fire you.”
“Just call him, Viv, okay?” I pushed out the front door without waiting for a reply.
I raced to my truck and sped down the Vegas streets, equal parts frustration and relief. Cursing at every red light while wanting to cry like a baby because I’d found her.
The rest of my conversation with Mike Budny echoed in my head: Drunk all the time… Keeps to herself, no friends… They call her the Drowned Girl, and man, it’s true. She’s fucking drowning.
I had a second chance to make things right.
I hit another red light and slammed the heel of my hand on the steering wheel, then honked the horn. The sound howled in the desert air, then faded away to nothing.
Back home, I fired up my laptop to search for cheap flights. Tuition for UNLV had eaten a good chunk of the money Jonah left me, and I obsessively guarded the balance, thinking of my future shop. Round trip to New Orleans with no advance would eat up $700 of my savings and required a return date.
I hesitated. I had the money, but no idea what would happen when I saw Kacey in New Orleans or how long I’d be there. Or if I’d come back alone.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I muttered.
I looked for one-way flights and found a redeye leaving tonight, arriving in New Orleans 11:00 tomorrow morning.
A shitty option with a layover in Dallas/Ft.
Worth, but it was the soonest they had. In fact, it departed in less than two hours.
This was going to be tight, but if I waited even one day, I’d go fucking crazy.
I rushed to my bedroom, dragged a rolling suitcase out of my closet and started throwing clothes into it.
I juggled my phone in the other hand, scrolling through contacts as I made a mental list of people to call before I skipped town.
My parents. Oscar. I should call Gus personally so he wouldn’t fire me.
I hit ‘call’ put the phone to my ear and kept packing. The voice that answered stopped me cold.
Hey, you’ve reached Jonah Fletcher. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back. Have a good one.
An automated message said the mailbox was full.
My parents had insisted on continuing Jonah’s phone service so we could hear his voice. The mailbox was full of messages from old friends saying goodbye or telling him how much they missed him.
Instinct had made me hit Jonah’s number. Around Jonah, I felt calmer, less stressed by my own emotions that ran so fucking hot all the time.
I stared at the phone in my hand.
My vision blurred, and I blinked furiously until it was clear again. I resumed packing with a vengeance.
I found her, bro , I told Jonah, tossing a pair of jeans into the suitcase and the force of my conviction had me talking out loud . “I found her, and I’m going to make sure she’s safe. I won’t fail again, I promise.”
I gave my parents a white-washed version of the truth: a mutual friend had contacted me about Kacey. She wanted to see me. I was leaving tonight.
“Tonight?” my mother cried. “Why the urgency? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine, Ma. Last-minute flights are super cheap,” I lied.
“What about school?” my father asked from the line in the den. “Don’t you have midterms next week?”
Fuck.
I hurled a T-shirt into my suitcase. If I missed those tests, I’d probably have to take—and pay for—the courses all over again. “Yeah,” I said, thinking on my feet. “I’ll email my professors, tell them it’s an emergency. They’ll let me reschedule.”
“Are you certain?” Dad asked. “Last I remembered, college exams were serious business. You can’t just skip them…”
He lectured on, and I muttered a bunch of bullshit assurances as I hit the bathroom and collected my shaving kit. Finally, he hung up his end with a disgusted snort.
“Tell Kacey we love her,” my mother said. “Tell her I understand why she left. Okay?”
Maybe she understood, but I didn’t. On the drive to McCarran airport, the edges of my worry morphed into anger: I wanted some fucking answers. But by the time I was at the gate, the fury had burned out, leaving the reality I’d be seeing Kacey again. Soon. Tomorrow.
The Drowned Girl.
I imagined her hair a tangled curtain over her face, her eyes streaming black mascara tears, a bottle of booze clutched in her hand instead of a guitar.
I slumped in my chair, putting my feet up on my suitcase and wondering what pushed her over the edge.
She’d been a mess after Jonah’s funeral, but we were all a wreck then.
Walking around like zombies, dazed and shattered.
We knew for months death was coming. Still, when it arrived, it was like a cruel surprise.
You can prepare all you want for someday. Nothing prepares you for the day of .
The night Kacey and I drove to the desert to scatter Jonah’s ashes, she looked ready to blow away. As the wind took Jonah’s remains into the black sky, I reached for her hand and let the words fall out of my mouth: “Stay here.”
I wanted her to stay in Vegas, and I gave her my hand to tell her I’d help her.
“Help me ,” I may as well have been saying.
Help me, and stay here.
Stay with me.
“I will,” she said. And I believed her.
Yet I didn’t see her much after that night. I was trying to cope with my grief but my true feelings for Kacey kept getting in the way. How do you console a woman over the loss of her man when you wished—with every particle of your body—she’d someday feel that deeply about you?
The fact that her man had been my brother made the tangle of fucked up-emotions snarl into something I didn’t need or want.
I dropped by her apartment one night after work and found her writing songs. On the couch with her guitar, a notebook open beside her.
“The words are pouring out, Teddy , ” she said.
But I should’ve heard how her voice trembled at the edges and how her eyes were shining and bright. Not for excitement or joy. But in the way you look when you’re scared to death and that fear is lighting up your nerves like a switchboard.
Two weeks later, she was gone, leaving me with only a simple truth: I needed her. Maybe more than she needed me.