FIVE
In the locker room before shift the next day, Paulette hovered around Romy like a butterfly. While she wouldn’t come right out and ask what had taken place the night of Lefty DiMartino’s secret proposition, she made a big show of asking Romy if she needed anything. As if the trade of information was to be quid pro quo:
“Ro? You hungry? Because I made a pot roast big as I am the other morning, and if you’re hungry, I can give you half. Happily.”
“Romy, you look sleepy again, doll! Want me to cover for you on the floor tonight? I’m sure we can get you out early!”
“Ro—I got my sister tickets to Cher for next month at the Bellagio. Want to come with?”
As much as she wanted to tell her friend all the down and dirty details, Lefty’s words would not leave her head: This conversation never happened. What was that supposed to mean? Was it a threat?
And why was the VIP room such a secret endeavor, anyways? Plenty of other casinos had “secret” VIP rooms, for those celebrities, CEOs and politicians who preferred to keep their gambling addictions under wraps. She knew of girls who worked those tables—their salaries were higher and they were expected to keep quiet about whatever personal information was divulged around the table, but their very jobs weren’t a secret.
Perhaps Lefty had meant to tease her, with the whole silent treatment. Perhaps this was a form of hazing. Romy turned the evening’s events over and over in her mind, still flummoxed.
Sunday was a slow day at the casino, typically—businessmen were headed home, and locals had to turn in early for work. The biggest clients this night were usually what the floor referred to as “industry people”—casino-workers from other spots on the Strip out for a change of scenery, or sex workers and hustlers looking to spend a little of the weekend’s hard-earned dough. The Windsor was well loved on this inside track, because it was one of the more low-key spots overall. A high-roller on their blackjack floor was Bryson, as opposed to a traveling CEO paying his way through games with gold bullion. I guess everything would be different in the VIP room, Romy thought to herself. Life would likely be a lot less “low-key” if she took Lefty's offer...
Though Romy was grateful to have a quiet night to consider her options, the empty spaces on the table only served to remind her of Bryson. She would probably never see him again. He was a conjured mirage, surely—the kind of man who appeared to lonely women only in their dreams. He probably pulls that “remember me” line on everyone, Romy thought. As the hours ticked slowly by and no sign of Bryson appeared, she grew only more convinced: I need to think practically. There’s no knight in shining armor coming to save me from this life.
On her first union break of the night, Romy pulled out her checkbook. A grim, familiar list of responsibilities snaked its way down the page. First, a hunk of fall tuition was due at the end of the month. Student loan payments from her undergrad in Arizona were also just around the river bend, set to spike in January into the triple digits. There was the credit card, there was rent, and to boot, the cranky old Thunderbird had started making a highly distressing noise whenever she changed gears. More likely than not, she’d need to replace the car’s transmission in a month or so...perhaps even invest in a less-shitty car altogether.
Looking at the bills listed together like this made her sick. She felt impotent, and out of control—the only thing that kept the fiction of fine-ness intact was the predictability of the blackjack floor, where her money was stable and her days were bland. Romy glanced up at all the other industry people—bitching at the bar, grinning at the slot machines. She wasn’t even allowed these kinds of miniature indulgence. Not with lab papers to write and a future to plan for.
It occurred to Romy that last night’s brief encounter with Bryson Vaughn had been the sexiest thing to happen to her in a year or more. The un-special one night stand with the Silver Fox had been months ago, and before that she hadn’t had sex in two years. Her whole body ached almost constantly with a wish to be touched, to be held, to be wooed—and yet she couldn’t even begin to address sex or love as a concern, not when there was so much else to think about. Money was silly at root, but it sure could make a difference in her day to day. With money, she could make time to eat. She could eat more than the occasional snatched granola bars. She could extend her days at school, take an extra semester to finish all the coursework. She could start a savings account.
There were plenty of women working the Strip who did wild, humiliating things in the name of financial freedom. Romy wouldn’t judge them. And what, a two-bit gangster wanted her to prance around a VIP room dealing blackjack and flirting with the one percent? Things could be a lot worse. Hell, they were.
Romy rose as if bitten, and scanned the pit quickly for Lou Valentine. Her boss was leaning casually against a bank of slot machines, his arm curled around an unwilling-looking young woman Romy recognized as a door-girl at The Venetian. As she got closer, she overheard Lou’s sloppy come-on:
“Really, baby. You want what I got. I can make you feel better than any slob in this place.”
“Hey Lou! I bet you can!” Romy sidled up to her boss and placed a hand on his chest. He looked baffled at the attention—and, saved by the diversion, his conquest scurried away.
“That’s right, cutie. I want another meeting with Lefty. Can you make that happen for me, stat?” Romy batted her eyes. If her new job demanded that she schmooze with high-level creeps, what better way to practice than on Lou?
“Look at you, Miss Moneypenny. Want a little more change in your pocket?”
“I just like to make a good man happy,” Romy said. “I want to do that for Lefty. For all of you fine fellas.”
Lou glanced down at her hand on his chest, seeming to size her up. “I thought you were a bit too shee-shee for this line of work,” he said finally, pressing his own greasy paw against her lower back. “I’m very glad you decided to see reason.”
“So you’ll tell him? You’ll tell Lefty?”
“Will I, baby. Will. I.” And with a twisted smirk, Lou lifted himself off the slot machine and made for the edge of the floor. He squeezed Romy’s ass in farewell. It took a heft of professional willpower to keep a horrified grimace from winding its way across her face.
In her usual way, Paulette seemed to appear out of the ether at Romy’s elbow already equipped with an eyewitness account of recent events.
“ICK. Doll, there’s nothing creepier than that man. Not on God’s green earth. I’m surprised you let him touch you like that!”
“Plenty of creeps in here, Paulette,” said Romy, swishing her hips back towards her table.
“Yeah, but remember you had that handsome fella all but dangling from your arm last night? You could do a lot better, Ro. You remember that, sweetie.”
Romy planted herself at the table and gave her supervisor an emphatic look. Paulette truly was a great friend, but she was also a mother, and the loved, respected lynchpin of a giant family at that. There was no way she could be expected to understand Romy’s choices. Paulette had been taught to always think of other people before herself.
“Babe, I could also do a lot worse,” Romy said finally. Then she glanced up at the innocuous spot in the ceiling where she knew the security camera in Lefty’s lodge to be, and she winked.