Chapter 3
Claudette
Pauline was waiting outside her hotel when I pulled up in the rideshare, and the second she saw me, her face lit up with that particular brand of surprised delight only best friends could pull off.
“You actually came!” She pulled me into a hug that smelled like jasmine perfume and hairspray. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Believe it.”
She pulled back, hands on my shoulders, grinning. “This is so unlike you. Spontaneous Claudette? Who are you and what have you done with my responsible best friend?”
“She had a moment of clarity and booked a plane ticket.”
“Come on, let’s get you inside before you change your mind and fly back home.”
Her hotel room was small but cozy—the kind of place where the ice machine hummed too loud and you could hear people walking in the hallway. Two double beds with floral bedspreads, a window overlooking the strip, and that particular Vegas glow filtering through the curtains.
I dropped my bag and collapsed onto the nearest bed with a groan.
Pauline flopped onto the other bed and turned to face me. “God, I’ve missed you. We don’t do this enough anymore. Remember when we used to have sleepovers every weekend?”
“Yeah, but we’re adults now. Responsible. It’s different.”
“We don’t have to be responsible adults this week.” She sat up, eyes bright with mischief.
I sat up too, reached for my bag. “Actually…I brought it.”
“You brought the journal?”
“I brought the journal.”
Pauline squealed and bounced on the bed like we were sixteen again. “Okay, okay, what are we doing first? Please say we’re doing something that would make your mother clutch her pearls and call me the bad influence on her daughter.”
I flipped through pages until I found it. Number forty.
“Wear bright red lipstick with complete confidence and go somewhere you’d never normally go.”
Pauline’s eyes went wide. “Claudette Specter, you have never worn red lipstick in your entire life.”
“I said it was too bold. Too much attention.”
“So you’re going to put on the boldest lipstick color known to mankind and go gambling in Vegas.”
“That’s the plan.” I pulled out my makeup bag and produced the tube—the brightest, most aggressive red I’d ever seen. The kind of color that demanded attention.
“That’s not lipstick,” Pauline breathed. “That’s a weapon.”
“Is it too much?”
“It’s perfect. Sit. Let me help you before you end up looking like you got in a fight with a crayon.”
She pulled me over to the mirror and started working on my makeup. We fell into that easy rhythm we’d had since high school—her talking while I tried not to move.
“So whose wedding is it again?” I asked. “The one you’re here for?”
“College friend—Emma. You met her once at that party junior year.” Pauline started lining my lips carefully. “She’s marrying this guy she met on a dating app of all places. Two years ago. They’re disgustingly happy.”
“Dating apps work sometimes.”
“Apparently. Though watching her plan this wedding has been exhausting. She’s been engaged for five months and I’ve heard about every single detail.” She paused. “But honestly? It’s kind of sweet. She’s so excited about marrying him.”
“That’s rare these days.”
“Right? Most people seem more interested in the party than the actual marriage.” She switched to the lipstick. “Everyone’s so scared of commitment these days—like getting married is signing up for prison instead of choosing someone you want to wake up next to.”
“Tell me about it. Mom literally brings it up every family dinner now.” I tried not to move my mouth too much.
“Not about me, thank god. But she won’t stop asking Jack when he’s going to settle down.
“Dad’s started too. Last week he actually asked if Jack was ‘batting for the other team,’ because apparently being single at thirty-three means you’re either gay or broken. ”
“Your brother?” Her hand paused for just a fraction of a second before she continued with the lipstick. “What did he say?”
“That he was batting for the ‘mind your own business’ team.” I laughed out loud. “Mom was not amused,” I said, then met Pauline’s gaze through the mirror.
“You guys used to be close before he graduated from college,” I said. I remember them being fun around each other. But it didn’t last very long. “What was that about? Did you two actually date or not?”
“I told you we didn’t.” She focused very intently on my lips.
“That’s not what it looked like. You were practically attached at the hip, and then suddenly you could barely look at each other.” I narrowed my eyes. “I think something’s fishy.”
“Maybe you need to clean out your nostrils, then.” She made a motion like she was about to stick her finger up my nose.
I shrieked and batted her hand away. “Pauly!”
“I’m just trying to help with your fish-smelling problem.” She grinned, completely unrepentant.
“You’re disgusting.”
“You started it with the fishy comment.”
I laughed despite myself. “One day I’m going to find out what actually happened.
“Do you know I wrote in that journal that I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to be your maid of honor or Jack’s best man?
I had this whole elaborate plan where you’d get married and I could be both.
Wear half a bridesmaid dress, half a tux. Very avant-garde.”
Pauline’s mouth twitched. “That sounds like a fashion disaster.”
“It was going to be iconic. And now you two act like the other has a contagious disease.”
“We don’t act like that.”
“You literally left my birthday party early last year because Jack showed up.”
“I had plans.”
“You were already there for three hours, Pauly. The party had just started.”
“Look, your brother and I are just very different people who are better off in separate corners of the universe. Preferably corners that are galaxies apart,” she said.
“He’s not that bad.” I felt the need to defend him. I knew that whatever happened with Pauline and Jack shouldn’t be any of my business. But with this disease looming over me, I felt like I had to ensure that everyone’s set when I leave them.
“I’m not saying he’s bad—” She stopped and took a breath.
“That’s the one thing I absolutely cannot do for you, my dearest friend.
I would do almost anything for you, but marrying Jack Specter is where I draw a hard line.
Like, ‘absolutely not, never happening, don’t even joke about it’ level hard line. ”
I sighed in surrender, turning to the mirror again.
The lipstick transformed everything—made me look older, bolder, dangerous. Like someone who made decisions and didn’t apologize for them.
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
“Right?” Pauline beamed, back to her normal self or at least pretending to be. “You look like you’re about to break some hearts.”
“I look like I’m about to commit a crime.”
She grabbed her purse. “Come on. Let’s go be irresponsible.”
I wanted to push harder about Jack. Wanted to understand what had put that flash of pain in her expression. But she was already heading for the door, and maybe some things were better left alone.
At least for tonight.
Caesars Palace was overwhelming in the best possible way.
All marble columns and Roman statues, gold everywhere, slot machines chiming like a symphony of chaos.
The carpet was designed to confuse you, making it impossible to tell how far you’d walked or how long you’d been there.
The air smelled like cigarette smoke and expensive cologne.
I fed quarters into a slot machine and lost immediately.
“You’re terrible at this,” Pauline said, appearing with two drinks. Something pink and fruity that looked dangerous.
“I’m aware.”
“How much have you lost?”
“I don’t want to calculate it.”
“That bad?”
“That bad.”
I was about to try a different machine when a guy appeared next to me. Mid-twenties, button-down shirt open one button too many, cologne applied with enthusiasm.
“Hey,” he said, leaning against my machine. “You ladies need any help? I’m pretty good at these.”
“We’re good,” I said.
“You sure? Because I’ve been watching and you’re doing it all wrong.”
Pauline turned to him with her sweetest smile. “Were you watching us? That’s not creepy at all.”
“I just meant—”
“I’m pretty sure my friend here knows how to press a button. It’s not exactly rocket science.”
“Hey, I was just trying to be friendly.”
“Mission accomplished,” I said. “You can go be friendly somewhere else now.”
He left, looking confused, and Pauline raised her glass. “To terrible pickup lines and the men who use them.”
“May they forever be unsuccessful.”
We clinked glasses and went back to losing money.
Ten minutes later, another guy tried. This one was older, wearing a suit that was trying too hard, his wedding ring conspicuously absent from his left hand.
“You ladies look like you’re having fun,” he said.
“We are,” Pauline said. “And we’d like to keep it that way.”
“I could show you where the real fun is.”
“Is it far away from here? Because that sounds perfect.”
He blinked, processing. “What?”
“The real fun. Is it in a different casino? Different state? Different dimension?”
I choked on my drink trying not to laugh.
“I just thought—”
“That two women alone at a casino wanted unsolicited company from a married man who took off his ring?” Pauline’s smile could have cut glass. “Fascinating assumption.”
He left faster than the first guy.
“You’re evil,” I said.
“You know me too well.” She laughed.
I was about to respond when I felt it—that particular awareness when someone’s looking at you. That electric feeling that starts at the base of your spine and works its way up.
I turned.
Everything stopped.
Because there he was.
Michael Ashford. Walking through the casino floor.
The slot machines seemed to go quiet. The people around us blurred into nothing and it felt to me that the whole world narrowed to him moving through space like he’d stepped out of some parallel universe where people looked like that.