Eddie was out of town more than he was in. Hadn’t even showed up for one of his weeks in the showroom last month, and didn’t even bother to explain when he came back. He looked bad. June didn’t want to know what he was doing, or what he might be on.
But when he was at the El Capitan, the days Eddie stayed in the apartment, she went and found him there. Sometimes, she brought Marshall, who was two now and called Eddie “Master Knox.” June didn’t like this, but Eddie thought it was funny. June had wanted Marshall to call him Uncle, but Eddie had looked at her as if she were daft, so she had told Marshall to say Mister, which he had turned into Master. Now he climbed on his knee, put his fat white hands on Eddie’s cheeks, and told Master Knox about the rabbits in the park.
Eddie was good with Marshall even when his eyes were shot through with red, and his clothes smelled and his hair, and even when he couldn’t keep down anything June fixed.
And Eddie was good with June, too.
They didn’t talk about their troubles. June didn’t tell him that things were different with Del; that she was alone most of the time. Eddie never told her what was bothering him—what the women troubles were, or the money problems, or how damn sick he was of living in a town like Vegas.
June could guess. Eddie probably guessed. But what they did was race trucks with Marshall on the floor, smoke, play some fierce games of canasta, and listen to Cubop or mambo. Celia Cruz, Dizzy Gillespie, Compay Segundo. Eddie would listen to the same six measures a dozen times in a row, and then Marshall would hum the notes as he packed his toys into a basket or sat and splashed in his bath at night.
Sometimes, listening to a singer like Olga Guillot, June would lean her head onto Eddie’s chest, and he would step back and say, “No, June, you’re a death sentence for me. For you, it’s fun. For me, it’s the end.”
And she would knock it off, because of course she desired him—she liked men in general, and all women liked Eddie. Also he was her best friend, and he loved Marshall, so of course she sometimes wanted him, and even thought about tempting him, because she was sure she could. But something held her back, had held her back for four years. Maybe it was Shirley and Nancy at lunch.
Del came home for dinner that night.
He didn’t always. He said he had to go back to the El Capitan later, that maybe she would want to go too, catch Eddie’s show. He didn’t know how much longer Eddie was going to hang around; didn’t know how much longer the El Capitan could keep him.
That was Del’s way of telling her, she supposed.
She knew that Eddie would go—he would have to go—and she would be left here in Vegas; the place she had chosen, her place. She had cut every tie, but the bloom was off the rose, as they said. She was lonely. She was lonely and she felt stranded, and somehow it all had to do with Del, even though there was nothing she could put her finger on exactly.
“I want a baby.”
“What?”
“I want another baby. I’m ready. And it will be good for Marshall.”
Del was quiet.
June didn’t care. She felt a little wild all of a sudden. Maybe because of what Del had just said, or maybe the way Eddie had looked that afternoon, or maybe just that she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Something big enough to balance what was happening to them.
In fact, the thought of having another child hadn’t crossed her mind.
It would be pretty hard to do, given that Del hadn’t touched her in weeks.
He wasn’t mad. They didn’t fight. The other night, she had slipped into bed naked, and when he came in late, smelling of smoke and casino—the way he always did, even though he never smoked—she laid her narrow warm body close against his, lifted her leg over his hip, reached her hand around to his middle. And he stood up. Apologized. Said it had been a long day.
Well, Marshall was already in bed. Binnie never came out of her room once he was asleep.
June didn’t have anything to lose.
And she didn’t really want to have a conversation with Del; she just wanted him to touch her.
June smiled slyly at her husband.
“Only you . . .” she sang, with a slight tease.
It was the smile that worked. It always worked.
And probably Del didn’t want to talk about things either.
June unzipped her dress, slid it partway up her leg, kept her eyes on Del.
She could feel his ambivalence, that resistance that was always there—that was Del, but no other man she’d ever known—but he also felt a pull. She knew that too. He smiled at her.
June ran her hands through his hair, then her finger in her own private area.
She licked.
And the deed was done. Del took her there, on the dining room rug, which felt great, which felt mad, which didn’t last long, but at least they had coupled. At least she could still move Del. Later, June said she would go back to the El Capitan with him. She hadn’t been in the nightclub, hadn’t heard Eddie sing, in a long time. And Del thought that would be terrific, though he wouldn’t be able to join her for the show. Should he send someone to their booth to sit with her? She said no, it didn’t matter one way or the other. She was fine on her own.
Leo saw her before she entered the room.
“Mrs. Dibb,” he said. “The boss told me you were coming. Let me take your coat. Here’s your seat. Will Mr. Dibb be joining you?”
“Maybe.”
“Gimlet?”
“Yes. Please. And a second.”
“Of course, Mrs. Dibb. Eddie was in good form last night.”
“That’s nice to hear.”
Eddie wasn’t out yet. The band was playing low, and June watched as Leo seated the guests; the women wore long gowns and the men wore jackets and ties, handing their hats to the coat check girl as they walked in. Leo was a master at filling a room. There was an art to it: to knowing who would want a quiet booth, who would laugh and play along with the band from a front row table, how much cash someone might be willing to slip a maitre d’ for special consideration. Leo’s bald head shone with the effort and the heat from the stage lights, but his face was relaxed; his compact body moved easily through the crowded room.
June wondered if Eddie had a warm-up act tonight. He liked to mix it up; didn’t like to be held to a plan. She and Del figured out early on that they might suddenly have to pay a singer they hadn’t known they’d hired, or a bill for a set of instruments they’d never ordered. It had worked out. Their partnership with Eddie had lasted longer than most shows on the Strip, and when you figured what Eddie might have made somewhere else—how big some of those rooms were in the newer casinos—really, she and Del owed Eddie a lot. Maybe even all of it. Because Eddie Knox and the El Capitan were just a thing: something everyone who came to Vegas knew about, something a lot of people wanted to try. And the three of them had done it together, keeping it kind of easy, just making one another happy most of the time and not planning too far ahead.