Chapter Thirty-Six
Carol, Jim, and Olivia
December
Las Vegas
The trio had just left a Barry Manilow concert and stepped out into the warmth of the night when Carol spotted the margarita stand.
Two workers in costumes, one dressed as a strawberry and one as a salt shaker, were dancing to Jimmy Buffett music and waving people over.
The queue was long, but there were three cashiers wearing straw sombreros and the line was actually moving pretty fast.
“I’m parched. What do you two think about grabbing some margaritas and sitting by the Bellagio to watch the fountains before we go back to our hotel?” Carol asked.
“Sure, that sounds great,” Olivia replied, and Jim nodded.
He was happy to see his wife and niece so happy.
This trip had been a surprise birthday gift for Carol, something to get all of their minds off Faith and all that happened.
It was not the kind of adventure Jim and Carol usually went on.
Neither had ever been to Vegas, but he knew Carol would cherish the opportunity to see Barry Manilow one time in her life, so he’d gone ahead and purchased the tickets, plus hotel rooms for four nights and the flight, without her knowing.
Olivia was in on the secret and thrilled to come along.
It was winter break of her senior year. They were all having a blast.
At the margarita stand each customer got to choose the color of their drinks, and Jim and Carol both went with electric blue, while Olivia chose cherry red. The Bellagio fountains were minutes from starting, and people were crowding all along the low stone fencing, three or four deep in some cases.
“Can we find a spot to actually sit?” Carol asked. Her left hip was hurting. Jim glanced around.
“Over there to the side.” He pointed. “There’s a bench with two women on it but there’s room for more. Maybe they’ll let us in.”
They started walking that way. The women at the bench were also holding margaritas, clinking glasses and laughing.
Carol noted that one of their drinks was lime green and the other bright orange.
That stand sure knew how to use food coloring, that was for certain, Carol thought.
She decided she might make a comment about it to the women when they sat down on the bench, solidarity with strangers over giant, ridiculous margaritas.
They’d gotten about fifteen feet from the bench when both women turned their heads to gaze at the crowd. Carol froze, grabbing Jim’s arm.
“Oh my God, look natural but take a hard right and keep walking,” she said in a fierce whisper.
“What’s going on?” he whispered back. Olivia leaned her head over to hear too.
“Tell you in a minute, just get away,” Carol said, and they did as she had instructed, moving quickly from the bench and the women, falling back into the river of humans.
“That woman back there,” said Carol when they had reached a safe distance. “That was Heather, from the Fair-Weather Friends Fan Club. The one who brought Mr. Bojangles. Remember I told you about that strange lady with the emotional-support teddy bear?”
“Oh yeah,” Jim said. “That was her?” He twisted his head to look back, but there were simply too many people to see the women on the bench anymore. “I thought the other woman looked kind of familiar,” he said. “But I couldn’t place her.”
Olivia was thinking the same thing.
“I definitely do not want to run into Heather,” Carol said with a laugh. “There was a screw loose with that lady. I really didn’t like the way she glommed on to me. I can’t believe she’s in Vegas. What is she doing here?”
“Whatever it is, it looks like she found a new target,” Jim mused. “She and that other woman were pretty giggly. Don’t worry, you’ll never have to see her again. Let’s try to find a different place to sit. The fountains are supposed to start soon.”
“I should go back and warn that woman to stay away from Heather!” Carol said, laughing.
They walked on, sipping their drinks and absorbing the sensory overload around them.
A street magician was juggling fire off to the left while a breakdancer was twirling on a piece of cardboard to their right.
Vendors with pushcarts of souvenirs yelled out, and people, people were everywhere, all ages and races, choking the sidewalk and making it difficult to maneuver at times.
Despite her hip flaring, Carol felt herself smile. This trip had been exactly what she and Jim needed, and she reached for his hand. “This has been fun, Jim. Thank you so much for this surprise.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I thought you might really like the concert tonight. Liv, I know Barry Manilow is not in your wheelhouse so we really appreciate you coming along.”
“No problem, Uncle Jim. It was actually not half bad, and hey, I got to see SZA last night on my own too.”
“Right, a little too noisy for us,” said Jim.
Olivia took a sip of her drink and thought about the women on the bench again. She was picturing the one woman’s face. Not Heather but the other woman.
Suddenly, it hit her.
She stopped walking so quickly that a group of women wearing matching pink sashes for a bachelorette party behind them almost knocked into her.
“Hey! Look out!” cried one of the women.
“Liv, you’re blocking traffic,” Carol admonished.
“I, uh … You guys go on to the fountains. I was just thinking I might explore the other side of the Strip. I’ll catch up with you at the hotel.” Olivia knew she needed time alone to investigate for a moment.
“Are you sure?” Carol asked. “The fountains are about to start.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll text you if I need anything.”
Olivia gave them a fast hug and took off with her drink still in hand, headed back in the direction of Heather and the other woman on the bench.
“Oh, to be young again and stay up late walking the Strip,” Jim mused. “I couldn’t do it. My dogs are barking from all of the walking we did earlier. I can’t wait to hit the hotel.”
“Me too,” said Carol. “By the way, do you know what I was thinking about when Barry sang ‘Can’t Smile Without You’?”
“No, what?”
“I was thinking about Faith. I told you they played that at the vigil, right? Apparently Faith’s sister told Channel 9 that Faith loved Barry Manilow. It’s just one more reason why I admire and miss Faith so much.”
“Faith was a special one,” Jim summed up.
Carol sighed deeply and thought of the tribute she had created in their den back home.
She asked Jim to make a shadow box in his basement workshop, with a large space for her to pin the autographed photo she got from Faith on one side and a smaller box to hang the cloud earrings on the other.
Jim had put a light on the top of the shadow box so the whole thing could be illuminated.
The box had a prime spot on their wall, displacing one of the generic impressionist art photos.
Even though Carol watched Channel 11 now, she would look at the mementos often and think about Faith, and she hoped Matthew would rot in prison, her anger at him so strong she could taste it.
“I just hope Faith is at peace,” Carol added. “It breaks my heart that she’ll never get to be in a place like Vegas. She should be enjoying the same things we are. She was young, she should be having fun. It’s just not fair, Jim, it’s not fair.”
“Who ever said life was fair, hon?” He squeezed her hand again. “But we all do our best. We helped to put Matthew away and to get justice for Faith. She’s in heaven now and I bet she knows what we did and thanks us, and Olivia. We did good work, sweetie. You should be proud.”
“You too,” said Carol as the fountains started shooting upward to the oohs and aahs of the crowd.
Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas” was the musical accompaniment.
Jim and Carol stopped and turned to watch from the sidewalk.
There clearly was no place to sit anymore, so Carol leaned her head into Jim’s shoulder, taking a little pressure off her hip.
Tears came to her eyes as she watched the dancing fountains. Tears of happiness for being alive and for being there at that moment with Jim, and tears of sadness for Faith, who would never get to experience anything like this anymore.
I will always be in your Fair-Weather Friends Fan Club, Faith, Carol thought to herself. Always.