Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
I mime locking my lips and throwing away the key, which is a weird and slightly juvenile thing to do, but Sheila causes me to feel like a kid sometimes and also… I am weird and slightly juvenile.
“I always wanted to be a dancer. That was my first real dream. Maybe a Rockette. But that was never going to work out. Because of these.” She squeezes her still-impressive-even-at-her-advanced-age boobs together. “Too much to handle for the delicate requirements of a Radio City Girl, but seemed like exactly the right thing for the Strip. So, I tossed my things in a bag and I made my way out to the desert. Back in those days, Vegas was just an acorn compared to the mighty oak it has grown into.”
That’s a really terrible metaphor, but there’s no way I’m going to point it out.
Not now. Maybe later. I dunno.
Sheila goes on. “Anything seemed possible. So I came out, waltzed right into the Tropicana, and told them I was here to take over the town. I have no idea what they thought of me, all sassy with a head full of steam, but I know that I caught someone’s attention. A man who happened to be walking by and saw me, hand on my hip, chin in the air, proclaiming myself to be the next big thing.”
“Was it Dean Martin?” Britney asks. Sheila ignores her.
“And that man,” she goes on, “was the handsomest, most charming, sweetest man I’d ever met. I couldn’t believe that he could be real.”
Britney whispers to me, “Bet it was Dean Martin.”
“But, for whatever reason, I wouldn’t let myself give over to him. I questioned his intentions. I questioned his motives. I wondered about what and why and how he would come to focus his attention on me. In short, I shot my chance at love with someone right in the foot by letting my thoughts and imagination steal the focus from my heart.”
She lets that hang in the room for a moment. I think about it for a second. It’s not the greatest story ever told. It’s lacking in detail and nuance and connective tissue that truly great stories require. It’s sloppy and slapdash and thrown together suddenly, like she’s never told it before and wasn’t expecting to tell it now.
It’s not profound. Or explicitly analogous. Or even that intentional.
But damned if hearing her tell it doesn’t trigger something inside me.
I need to stop thinking so much.
I need to stop overthinking so much.
I need to stop trying to figure out what people want.
I need to stop judging what I want.
I need to stop—
“And the reason I bring it up, dear”—oh, she wasn’t finished. My bad—“is that Britney here tells me you might be making a similar mistake.”
“No, I didn’t,” Britney says, surprised.
“You said that there’s a boy she likes but that it’s been difficult for her to just let herself be here. Now. With him.”
“I mean… I guess I kind of said that, but—”
“Do you know I’ve never been married?”
“Uh. No,” I say, “I didn’t know that. Really.”
“Never been married. Never had children.”
“Oh. Okay.” I have no idea where this is going.
“But I’m happy.”
“Riiiiggggghhhht.”
“That’s all.” Then she stands and wanders back over to the window. Stares out.
I’m trapped between thinking she’s Yoda and thinking she’s crazy and being here is bringing up lots of weird shit for her.
“Great,” I say, “So, um, I’m still not… Why are you here?”
She nods to the bed, where she tossed down the garment bag. I step over, unzip it. Inside is one of the most incredible-looking gowns I’ve ever seen in my life.
Lavender and gray, beaded, with a plunging neckline, made of taffeta and silk and magic. It’s hard to explain, but it is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. “What’s this?”
“That’s for you. For tonight,” Sheila says.
“Wha—Why?” I manage to stutter out.
“Because, dear, you’ll need something to wear.”
Thirty minutes later Sheila has gone to her own suite.
“How’d she get a suite? I thought the place was booked,” I say to Britney.
“I dunno. She said she’d take care of it. And then… she did.”
I have so many questions about my landlady.
I stand in front of the bed, looking at the dress. “It’s stunning,” I whisper.
“Yeah, it is,” Britney says back, reverently.
Another beat passes before I say something that’s been swirling around, but that until this moment I felt too… something… to say out loud.
“Do you believe in…? I dunno,” I say, super-eloquently. But, somehow, Britney seems to know what I’m trying to say.
“Maybe,” she responds. “Why?”
“Maybe this whole thing—this event, me being here—wasn’t ever supposed to be so that I can become a big, famous author.”
“No?” Britney asks. I shake my head. “Then what do you think it was supposed to be for?”
“Not sure. Maybe to learn something? Grow in some way? Meet myself?”