Laura was disappointed too. The lifeguard at the pool was really cute. Laura was just beginning to notice these things. He wore his blond streaked hair long, almost to the bottom of his ears. Gold hair glistened on his suntanned arms.
“So what?” Julie said when Laura told her she had a crush on the lifeguard. “He’s too old for you,” Julie said. “He must be more than twenty, and besides, he has a pimple on his chin.”
Laura touched her chin and then her forehead. She was just beginning to break out in pimples and had loads of blackheads on her nose. She hoped that Julie wasn’t going to tease her and say she was ugly because of it.
“His name is Ken,” Julie said.
“How do you know that?” Laura asked.
“It’s written on his shirt,” Julie said. “And he has a big bulge in his bathing suit, you know where.” Julie began to giggle.
“You’re not supposed to notice that,” Laura said.
“I thought you wanted to be a detective,” Julie said. “If you’re a detective you’ve got to notice everything, just like Nancy Drew does.”
Julie had inherited Laura’s Nancy Drew books, though she never had much patience for reading, but on rainy days when she couldn’t play outside, she had read just enough of them to know that girl detectives looked for clues.
“Not that sort of thing,” Laura blushed. She had noticed Ken’s bulge also, but she wasn’t going to let Julie know that.
When they got back to the room, Brenda said, after they all showered, they would go to Circus Circus, and then out for dinner, but that this would have to be an early night. They had traveled over four hundred miles that day and were hot and tired. Besides, they had three more days there, so they’d have plenty of time to spend at the pool.
Circus Circus was fun. There were lots of games that the children could play, games like throwing balls into cup-like containers or knocking down pins. If you won, you could get prizes, like stuffed animals, but not any money. Jeff gave them each three dollars to play the games, which cost a quarter apiece.
Julie was the better player and had a good pitching arm. She won two small teddy bears, a light-brown one with a blue ribbon around its neck, and a dark-brown one with a red ribbon and a large stuffed panda.
Laura was disappointed. She didn’t win anything. She loved teddy bears and had really wanted to get the light-brown one, but she wasn’t nearly as good at games as Julie.
Brenda said she didn’t know where they would put them, but since they were traveling in Brenda’s big, brown Ford Country Squire station wagon, not Jeff’s old Rambler, even though Jeff did most of the driving on this trip, Julie wasn’t worried. Julie and Laura could nap in the back, still in their pajamas, every morning, when they left the Holiday Inns atfive o’clock so they could get a few hundred miles in and still stop in time for a swim. The back of the wagon was loaded with pillows and blankets, so Julie knew there would be plenty of room for the stuffed animals too. She was so excited about having won the panda that she actually gave Laura the light-brown teddy bear, since Laura was clumsy and never won anything.
Then they watched the acrobats and tightrope walkers. They laughed at the antics of the clowns. Finally they went to dinner at one of the other hotels, where Jeff had made a reservation.
They saw people playing the slot machines while they waited to be seated. Bells rang, lights flashed, and coins poured out of the machines. Nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars, and large, shiny silver dollars. And this wasn’t even in the casinos that didn’t allow children. It was on both sides of the line outside the restaurant. There were lots of kids standing on that line, watching the slot machines, but they weren’t allowed to play.
Jeff grumbled about having to wait when they already had a reservation. He removed his change from his pocket. He put five quarters in one of the machines and won ten more. Then he put them back in the machine and lost nine of them. The last quarter netted him two more, which he put in his pocket. “For later,” he said.
“I thought we agreed to play only nickels and dimes, nothing larger. We need to budget,” Brenda said.
“This doesn’t count. It’s only the loose change that was in my pocket,” Jeff said.
“We had an agreement,” Brenda said.
“Okay, okay, nickels and dimes. Only nickels and dimes. Or maybe you’d rather go downtown, where they have penny slot machines,” Jeff said.
“Let’s not be sarcastic,” Brenda said.
“Can I play the slot machines?” Julie asked.
“May I, not can I,” Brenda said.
“No,” Jeff said. “Children are not permitted to play.”
“Why not?” Laura asked.
“Because it’s gambling and children are not allowed to gamble.”
“But Julie gambled when she won the teddy bears and the panda,” Laura said.
“That’s different,” Jeff said. “Teddy bears and pandas are not the same as money.”
“I don’t understand why it’s different,” Laura said.
“Because it is,” Jeff said.
Finally they were seated at a round table with a red and white checked tablecloth. They had steak and baked potatoes with sour cream instead of butter, and vanilla ice cream on apple pie for dessert.
“Time to go back to the hotel and to bed,” Brenda said.
“I’m not sleepy,” Julie said.
“We’ve had a long day,” Brenda said, “and we have a lot to do tomorrow.”
Julie lay in bed next to her sister. She hated sleeping in the same bed as Laura, who was restless when she slept and sometimes kicked her. She thought that she’d be kept awake all night long, but they both fell quickly into a deep sleep.
The next morning they ate a buffet breakfast in the hotel. Again they had to wait on line. There were lots of slot machines on both sides of the line. It was before breakfast and the grownups were already playing. Some of them were winning money.
Julie wished she was a grownup. She thought she would come back to Las Vegas as soon as she was old enough and then she could gamble all she wanted.
They had orange juice, cut up melons, bacon and sausages, eggs, hash brown potatoes, pancakes, and French toast. Then they went to see some more of the hotels.
There were stands in the street that looked like they might hold newspapers, but instead they had little guides full of advertisements and discount coupons for lots of stuff to see or to buy in the gift shops.
Brenda wanted to do some shopping in the hotel gift shops that used the coupons.
“That’s not for me,” Jeff said. “I hate shopping. Why don’t I go back to the hotel while you girls shop?”
Brenda glowered at him. “Do what you want,” she said.
“I’ll see you in the room before lunch. Take a cab back. It’s too hot to walk,” Jeff said.
Laura was kind of glad. Mommy and Daddy had been fighting a lot on this trip. She figured they were getting on each other’s nerves. She and Julie were getting on each other’s nerves also, but then they usually did, even when they were at home.
She and Julie had saved their allowances for weeks to buy all sorts of stuff on the trip.
The girls bought liquid silver necklaces (they had collected a lot of those discount coupon books) for themselves and for their best friends. Brenda bought presents for just about everyone, for both grandmas and grandpas, all the aunts and uncles and cousins, a dozen of her friends, some of the other teachers in her school, and Peg, their next door neighbor who was watering their plants while they were gone.