“Up, up and away!” Braithe called. With the grace of the former dancer she was, she wove through the crowded lobby toward the elevators. They followed behind her single file, like little ducklings, Tara in second place, Rainy at the rear. When they crowded into an elevator, Mac had a sneezing fit that lasted four floors and made the other six people in the elevator scootch to the far side. By the time they reached their floor, they were giggling uncontrollably. Mac’s face was shiny with embarrassment as she whacked her friends playfully on the arms.
“Ya’ll don’t understand. I get nervous around this many grown-ups and then I hiccup and sneeze!”
That sent them into a fresh round of laughter with Mac admitting that she hiccuped through parent/teacher nights.
Their suite had four bedrooms, a communal living room and a kitchen. They oohed and aahed over the view while Rainy shrank back from it. She didn’t want to see the desert. Beyond the colored pinnacles of a castle and the pyramid-shaped tourist traps were several fucked-up years of her childhood. From the plane, everything had looked like a sandbox, sectioned off into smaller sandboxes with houses dropped in the middle of them. Grant thought that it was Las Vegas that she hated, but it wasn’t the Shangri-La-ness of the city that got to her; she’d only driven by it as a girl. All the snakes were in the desert, and from their room, she could see clear across it.
“Holy mother of all slots this view is amazing!” Ursa said. “But only three of the rooms have a view.”
“I’ll take the viewless room,” Rainy said quickly. When they all looked at her, she shrugged. “I’m afraid of heights and won’t be looking, anyway.” She hoped they wouldn’t call her on that; after all, she lived on a mountaintop like the rest of them. But no one said anything—they were probably relieved that she had volunteered to take the crappiest room.
Ursa and Mac paired up in the largest room and Rainy, Tara and Braithe each got their own. Rainy dropped her bag on the bed and had a quick look around. The room was simple, in sharp contrast to the garish strip outside: creamy whites and dull gold accents. As Ursa had indicated, her view was obstructed by the Eiffel Tower, which suited her just fine; she was going to keep the drapes closed, anyway. At the moment, the rain angled harshly toward the window, slapping the glass rhythmically like she was in a car wash. When nature imitates life! Rainy thought. She had the urge to pull up the corners of the linen and hide herself under the covers like the antisocial person she was.
When she wandered back into the living room, Ursa was standing with her nose pressed against the window, whining mournfully. “It’s pouring!” She had a habit of stating the obvious, but in a gloriously funny way. Once, when they’d sat down to a meal of dry chicken and burned rice in the dining room of the blue rambler she’d bought with her fiancé, she’d announced, “The chicken tastes like shit but I’ll be offended if you don’t eat it.” It was funny and true, and they’d all cleaned their plates, smiling through the burned pieces of rice like supportive friends. Rainy had been even newer to the group back then, and she’d been charmed by the beautiful gazelle with no filter. This time, however, Ursa sounded genuinely deflated. Her weekend plans had been derailed, and she was a hundred percent not okay with that.
“So what?” Tara shrugged.
So what? Rainy mimicked to herself. Then, Stop. Be nice. She massaged her temples as a headache tightened behind her eyes.
“The restaurant I booked is an outdoor venue.” Mac was staring at her phone, her thumbnail between her teeth. On the drive from the airport, they had discussed two things: the rain and their hunger.
“Just call them and see if they have a table inside,” Braithe suggested.
Mac’s face was red. “Yeah, okay. I’ll call.” She disappeared into her room with her phone, shutting the door behind her. Everyone busied themselves, either heading to the bathroom or checking their phones while they waited; when Mac walked out of the bedroom ten minutes later, she didn’t look happy. “So, due to the lightning storm, the restaurant we were going to has closed their patio and they don’t have any tables inside.”
“Baaa!” Ursa threw up her hands in defeat.
“Relax, I got us in somewhere else—”
They all cheered, but Mac was holding up her hands to quiet them. “But only at ten o’clock…so I ordered pizza.”
Rainy smiled at Mac’s handling of the situation: bad news delivered by semigood news with a snack as consolation. It seemed to work; everyone accepted the news with optimism, and an hour later they were drinking and scarfing down barbecue chicken pizza like they hadn’t eaten in a week. Ursa put on the hotel robe and was digging around in the minibar while the others propped themselves in armchairs, slices drooping in their hands. To Rainy, it looked like a scene out of a magazine: Tiger Mountain Takes Vegas. The city was the backdrop, spread beneath the windows like a neon quilt. Tara had not looked at her once since they arrived, and it irked the hell out of Rainy, who still remembered the urgency with which Tara had invited her all those weeks back.