TIME TO HEEL

I loved Las Vegas, but was no longer certain I loved my girlfriend.  Our postgraduate educational pursuits had caused us to drift apart.  Thoughts that we were together for the sake of convenience began pecking at my brain like a hatching chick. 

We spent last Thanksgiving with my family.   This year our plan was to visit her parents on the outskirts of Sin City.  Holidays can be depressing enough without dealing with relationship issues so we agreed to remain civil and discuss things after we got back to Boston.  Besides, did I tell you I loved Vegas?

In spite of the incessant arguing, we did love each other once.  The problem was fear lasts longer than love and I feared living with her much longer.  Spending a week with her parents, their cats, and a parrot that refused to stop singing the theme to I Dream of Genie was made palatable only by daydreaming of our first night in town, the one where we agreed to stay at the Palms Hotel and meet up with two of my good friends from home and their wives who’d moved to North Las Vegas.

Our plane was late getting in allowing us no time to unpack before rushing off to the MGM Grand.  By the skin of our teeth we met the other couples in time to make dinner and David Copperfield’s ten o’clock show.  Copperfield’s act was tremendous.  He showcased many spectacular illusions from sawing apart his assistant, a blonde beauty dressed in red, to making an elephant disappear before our eyes.  By midnight my girl was two yawns away from passing out.  It was perfect.

While making sure she was safe and secure back in our room, my friends sent their wives home in a cab.  We met up in the lobby and it was the three of us again, out on the town like the old days, only a much larger playing field. 

We drank, gambled and hit an after hours dance club back at the MGM.  By five in the morning I’d worked out most of my angst.   I knew it best to get a couple hours sleep before Thanksgiving dinner so I told the boys I’d summons the rented Mustang convertible from the valet while they visited the bathroom.

Approaching the entrance my sight adjusted in awe when a firecracker burst around and through the revolving doors: the blonde bombshell in red from the Copperfield act.  Unsteady on her feet, mascara running; her natural beauty could not be disguised, although the last five hours were clearly not kind.   “Are you alright?” I asked, “ No, I misplaced my car keys… backstage, in my dressing room, I don’t know, I don’t know,” she sobbed giving off an odor of alcohol that told me her absentmindedness may have saved her life.  “Can I offer you a ride?” I asked without the faintest idea where she was going.  In turn she threw her arms around me in an inebriated gesture of thanks, raising one ankle off the ground for good measure, just as my friends arrived to witness me playing hero.  

There was a time when these two would have stayed up with me for days.  Now neither wished to put their marriage in jeopardy.  Nor did they want to become co-defendants in whatever I was up to.  “Nothing’s going to happen,” I insisted out of earshot of the Copperfield’s assistant.  In return I received raised eyebrows and envious grins.  Gloating in their skepticism I left them at their car and headed off with my new friend.

There is no saying truer than: “the grass isn’t always greener.”  An hour with this nutty bitch and I couldn’t wait to get back to my girlfriend.  I’d needed something to shock me to my senses and in the time it the took to drive this fruitcake home the reality of how wonderful my girlfriend was came crashing back on me. What had I been thinking?  It’s rare to find her combination of inner and outer beauty, compassion and conscience.  Time and excessive work had weathered my perception.  This is my fault for not paying enough attention.  Our relationship was worth working for and I was willing to put forth the effort.  I held out hope she felt the same way.

Fortunately she was fast asleep when I returned.  Now as we drove towards her parent’s home I felt gitty with enthusiasm towards our relationship.  “Maybe we should think about moving out here?  Ben and Mark are doing well, it could be a fresh start for us.”  Quite and composed she applied her lipstick in the mirror, never acknowledging my banter.  I didn’t blame her.  After all, we’d agreed not to discuss our future on this trip.

It was a beautiful warm day.  With the top down sun beat on our faces and the wind blew back our hair.  When I reached for my ice coffee I saw “it” and almost swerved off the road. “What’s the matter!” shrieked my girl.  “My God – sorry - I almost spilt my coffee.”  My recovery was brilliant, still my heart thundered like homestretch at the Kentucky Derby.  “It,” was a red shoe wedged between her bucket seat and the center console.  I tried convincing myself that from the angle she was sitting it could not be seen.  There was no doubt if it were discovered I could kiss any hope of our reconciliation good-bye.

Concentrating on driving straight while stealing another glimpse without getting caught, a terrifying vision of that spiked heel protruding from by bloodied temple flashed before my sleep deprived mind.

unwedged the shoe without jarring her seat and flung it port side into the desert.

Immediately I experienced a rush of relief followed by a resurgence of paranoia.  What if she had seen?  Could that be why I was getting the silent treatment?   I’d learn the answer soon.  Her parent’s house was in the distance and if she suspected infidelity there was no way she wouldn’t address the issue before we entered.

Parking curbside I removed two suitcases from the trunk and made it clean up the front walk before she opened her door.  “Robert – wait –Robert!”  I felt the luggage turn to concrete in my grip; dropping to the steps at the same rate hope fell to the pit of my stomach.  Reluctantly reversing direction I inched back towards the car.  My girl’s body was bent in at an angle, with her posterior sticking out the open door, arched high in the air.  And with more upset than I’d ever heard in her voice she yelled over her shoulder: “Robert! “Damn it - I can’t find my other shoe!"