“Great.” I leaned back into his body, pondering if it was wrong that I’d rather be in a nondescript room with him, feeling his body against mine, than standing in front of an iconic tourist attraction.
“You know what?” he whispered in my ear, sneaking his arms tighter around me.
“What?” I whispered back, still in disbelief about the number of actual bumbags worn around me.
“You’ve passed a secret girlfriend test by disliking Las Vegas.”
“I like it just fine,” I said. Hang on, GIRLFRIEND??
“Amber, I can see you don’t. And, as I said, I’m glad you don’t. I only came here once before, as a kid. Even then I found it seedy and I was too young to even really understand what was going on. I thought you would want to see it. I mean, everyone wants to see Vegas. But, as I said, I like that you don’t like it here. It makes me like you more.”
Just then, the music started and the water began to dance. For the first time since we’d arrived, I found some beauty in Las Vegas.
The fountains were magical, the way they moved and twisted with the music – reaching insane heights as the song built to a finale. I gasped, and snuggled closer into Kyle. When it was over, everyone applauded and dispersed, making room for the next queue of people. I stayed put.
“You like it?”
“I love it. Can we watch another? Please? Please? How many different songs do they do?”
“Of course.” We took the empty spaces of the tourists who’d left, and leaned against the wall to get the best view.
“You called me your girlfriend.” I didn’t dare look at him in case he said, “Whoops, my mistake”.
“I did.”
“Am I?”
“I don’t think I’m the only one who gets to decide that.”
Girlfriend… Despite all my feminist priorities I’d always wanted…always worried I’d never be anyone’s…and yet, here, just like everything else, Kyle gave me something without effort.
“You’re my gal.” He put his arm around me. “You totally rock my world, Amber.”
“That is another contender for the most American phrase of all time.”
“So, am I your boy?”
“People don’t belong to people,” I said, teasing him by quoting Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
“Riiiight. Is there any more feminism you’d like to get out the way before you can say I’m your boyfriend and we can make out before the fountains start again?”
“You know what, no. Not for now.”
We watched five more water shows, each one totally dramatic and yet totally with its own personality. I reckoned it was worth coming back to Vegas, just for the fountains.
It was getting just about late enough to make up an excuse to go back to our hotel room. Anticipation hung in the air like heavy fog. Every part of my body fizzed.
Kyle kissed me in the elevator as we rode up to our floor.
“How about we get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow and drive off before sunrise?” He asked. “We’re heading towards Utah. It’s just mountains and rocks.”
I closed my eyes as he moved to kiss my neck.
“Ooooh, keep saying mountains and rocks.” We both laughed.
“No porn gauntlets in Utah, I promise.”
We kissed as we waited for our floor. We kissed in the corridor. We kissed up against our room door before we’d even got in.
Then we tumbled onto the bed, Kyle on top of me, as we giggled into each other’s mouths.
He opened his eyes and paused over me.
“What is it?” I followed his stare.
He looked at the phone.
He rolled off me.
“We have a message.”
I rolled over and stared at the phone too.
“How? No one knows we’re here.”
My tummy dropped to my ankles, like I’d just swallowed five cannonballs in one.
“Maybe it’s just reception, saying we left something down there,” Kyle suggested.
“Maybe.”
He reached over and pressed play.
Of course, of course, it was my mother’s voice.
“Amber, I’m here. In Vegas. In the Caesar’s Palace lobby in fact. I know you’re here. Come down. We need to talk. I won’t leave until you come down…”
SITUATIONS THAT ARE DESTINED TO FAIL:
Your mother
+
Alcoholism
+
Even though you’re both trying your hardest
Thirty-six
My hand shook as I pressed the button of the elevator. So much that I accidentally pressed the wrong button, and had to detour to a different floor before the doors slid open to the lobby.
There was too much fun around me. People were stumbling around drunk, the ching ching ching of a winning fruit machine, the whoops of the winners…
This was not the time. This was not the place.
She had come anyway.
It wasn’t hard to spot her in the expansive lobby. My hair. She had my hair. She sat, with a book, and a clear drink in front of her.
Mum didn’t jump when I sat down across from her.
“Amber.” She looked up. Her face unreadable, as it always is.
I pointed to the drink.
“I hope that’s not a vodka.”
Mum’s eyebrows pulled together. I could tell there was at least a little bit of “angry” hidden in there.
“It’s a soda water. I’ve been here for hours… I did think about it… Out of all the places you picked to run away to, you would have to pick the most triggering place for a recovering alcoholic, wouldn’t you?”
I blew out my breath and shook my head in disbelief.
“You are SO manipulative. How did you even know where I was anyway? It’s not like I want you here.”
She was tarnishing everything, like she always did. This was one place that was free from her, free from my guilt and pain and longing, and yet she’d just rocked up anyway.
“Your friends told your dad…”
My mouth fell open. Evie, it would’ve been Evie. Argh, she was always so sensible!
“They did the right thing. You can’t just run away like that, Amber.”
I crossed my arms.
“So what, I ran out on some stupid summer camp. You ran out on your only daughter…” I wasn’t going to cry, I wasn’t going to cry…
But Mum did start to cry. It was a small, hollow sob that she tried to cover with a sip of her drink. But that didn’t hide the tears that streamed silently from her eyes, like long rushing rivers.
I still kept my arms crossed.
“I didn’t have a choice, Amber,” she said. “I’m an alcoholic.”
“Oh, are you? I hadn’t realized.”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong. You expect me to understand all the time. Every day. Whenever you mess up. It’s your trump card – ‘Oh, I’m an alcoholic’.” I took a deep breath. “And I get that it’s hard. I do. But that doesn’t take away all the hurt you cause…”
“It’s not my fault,” she said, crying harder. “I can’t help it. It’s a disease.”
“I GET THAT!” I almost yelled. “But I’m allowed to be hurt by the disease, aren’t I? You don’t even let me talk to you about it… You don’t even…” I trailed off. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say.
Mum reached over and took my hand. Part of me wanted to shake it off, but I didn’t.
“Amber, look, I know I wasn’t as here for you this summer as you wanted me to be. I didn’t mean to give you any…false expectations of what I could be for you. But I am a recovering addict. It’s very important I stick to my routines – that I stick to what works for me. The addiction…it’s bigger than me. It’s bigger than you. Bigger than my love for you. My love for anyone… If it wasn’t, don’t you think I wouldn’t have screwed up in the first place? I was such a terrible mother…” She trailed off and sobbed again. I held her hand, waited while she got it out. A small part of me in wonder that everyone around us was ignoring the scene we were making. “The addiction always comes first, Amber. It came first when I used to leave you as a child, alone in the house, while I went and drank by myself in the park. It came first when I destroyed my marriage, your dad’s life. It still came first when the doctors said I’d be dead in two years if I didn’t stop drinking. It came first all the time. Therefore I have to put tackling it first, all the time. Otherwise, I’ll die, Amber… I’ll die. It will kill me.”