Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes Read online

  But there was no way I was going to finish out my original sentence, which would have insanely run, “You don’t by any chance have any Amy’s Cheese Pizza Pockets back in that kitchen, do you?”

  I took it as a sign of hope for me that I recognized how ridiculous that would be. So instead, I said, “I’ll just have a cheese pizza.”

  The waitress looked surprised. “You don’t want anything special on it? No lime?”

  “No, that’s okay,” I said, “but could you roll it so it looks like a pocket?”

  “You mean like a calzone?”

  “No, I mean like a pocket, but that’s okay.”

  “You know exactly what you want,” Billy said as soon as she’d departed.

  “In food, anyway.” I shrugged.

  “How about in men?”

  “How about you tell me a little bit about yourself?” I asked, hoping to avoid his question. I mean, all the guys I’d ever slept with, dated or nearly married could only be referred to as guys. Certainly there was nothing about them that would make a person refer to them as something as mature-sounding as men. “Where do you live? Where did you grow up? Do you have any brothers and sisters? Pets? Do you work for someone else or yourself? What kind of work do you do? Do you always wear a tux?”

  He laughed out loud.

  “I live in a comfortable cottage on a much larger estate in Westchester County.”

  Hey, that wasn’t far from me! But a “cottage on a much larger estate”—maybe he was the handyman?

  “I was born in Connecticut and my father was American but my mother was British so when they divorced when I was five, I went back there to live with her.”

  I thought I’d noticed a slight stiltedness of speech. There was no British accent so much as a formality of cadence I’d had trouble placing. Now it made sense. Maybe he was the British handyman?

  “I am an only child, although I did have an imaginary friend named Freddy the Crumpet growing up, and while I like animals well enough, I’m allergic to all sorts of pet hair, and anyway I’m away from home too much to take proper care of one.”

  A very busy handyman?

  “I work for myself, at my own risk and for my own reward. You could say I do odd jobs.”

  “You’re a handyman?”

  “Of sorts. Oh, and I only wear a tux when I’m working.”

  “You’re a handyman in a tux?”

  “No, Baby, I’m a professional gambler. Oh, look! Our food is here and the Steelers just scored a touchdown!”

  “Steelers?”

  I swiveled in my seat to see what he was gazing at with so much fondness just over my shoulder, because it sure wasn’t the pizza. That’s when I saw for the first time one of two large-screen TVs in the room. On the screen, grown men with giant shoulder pads on were doing little happy dances in the end zone and I could have sworn that one grabbed his crotch à la Michael Jackson and Madonna for the sheer joy of the moment. I guessed that, like with the Gladiator Pizzeria, the Venice Bar was set up to be conducive to those who wanted to keep a close eye on their sports bets.

  “Did you pick this place,” I asked, trying to keep my tone light and teasing, despite the doubt creeping in, “so you could keep a close eye on your bet?”

  “You really are the best good-luck piece I’ve ever stumbled across, Baby,” he said, ignoring my question as he picked up a slice of pizza. “I haven’t beat the spread on a football game in I can’t tell you how long, but I have the strong feeling that today all that will change.” He put the pizza back down, covered my hand with his, caressed my fingers. “I’m so glad you’re here with me.”

  And, in the moment, it was enough.

  “Now, eat up,” he said. “We’ve got a whole fun day to spend together.”

  The “whole fun day” turned out to entail gambling, gambling and more gambling. But that was okay. It was what I had come there to do and once we were at the blackjack table, I was as comfortable as white on rice, green on a dollar bill, a bear in the woods.

  Through it all, Billy stayed at my side, sitting just to my left at the tables. It went against my dad’s advice to yield the anchor chair, but we were such a winning combination when configured this way. Why tamper with success?

  After just an hour of play, I’d doubled my original stake and was at four hundred dollars. Billy, betting with a lot more money, had turned five hundred dollars into a thousand.

  “You’re good at this,” he said, as the dealers changed shifts.

  “So are you.” I was thinking if he played like this every day, I could see why he was a professional. I said as much.

  “Ah, but it’s not like this every day,” he said. “It’s only like this today because you’re here.”

  After two hours, my four hundred dollars, moving at a slower rate, had turned into six, while Billy was up to two thousand.

  “You might consider doing this for a living,” Billy suggested.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I’m just doing this with a specific goal in mind. When I make enough for what I want, I’ll stop.”

  “What is it you want?”

  But I couldn’t tell him. For while I had no problem sharing my goal with Hillary or Stella or Conchita and Rivera or Elizabeth Hepburn, I was certain no man could ever appreciate such a goal. He’d probably think I was the most frivolous person who ever lived. I mean, it wasn’t like my one specific goal was to do something important that would somehow better the world; it was just about a material thing I wanted for myself. And, anyway, I was only half telling the truth when I said I was just doing this with a specific goal in mind. Now that I was doing it, I found the goal itself growing dimmer and dimmer, obscured by the exhilaration I felt as the dealer dealt the cards, as I saw an Ace come up in front of me followed by a Queen or when I beat the House with a soft Fifteen and the dealer busted, forced to draw a picture card to a hard Thirteen.

  On that last hand, when I’d placed my palm over my cards to indicate I was standing on what I had, Billy leaned over and anxiously asked, “Are you sure?” He himself was showing a Fourteen and I knew what he was thinking: if we both passed and then the dealer drew anything from a Three to an Eight, he’d beat us both.

  But I stood firm.

  “I’m sure,” I said, after which, tentatively, Billy placed his own palm over his cards. He was standing with me.

  And then the dealer busted.

  Billy threw his arms around me. “That’s it!” he said into my hair. “I’m never going to another casino without you!”

  That last—the hand and Billy’s reaction—made me feel so exhilarated, I wanted to stay right where I was forever. Who cared if there was a beautiful day going on outside? Who cared if the sun was still shining and you could taste the salt from the sea on your tongue, it was that close? Who cared if day was turning into night?

  I was playing, I was winning, I was having the time of my life.

  The dealers changed shift again and Billy asked me if I wanted to change tables. I knew what he was thinking: we’d been very lucky so far, winning fairly consistently even though the dealers at the same table had changed shifts once already. How lucky could one table remain for us?

  I studied the new dealer. He was older than any of the other dealers, with a paunch straining his cummerbund and a horseshoe of hair rimming his otherwise bald pate, making him look more avuncular than gangster.

  “Nah,” I said, feeling a little gangster myself. “I can take him.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘we’?”

  “That, too.”

  As if to test my resolve, right away Mr. Horseshoe Hair dealt me the hand my dad had prepped me on: before me lay two Eights.

  “Split,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” Billy asked again.

  “Hey,” said Mr. Horseshoe Hair. “Let the lady make her own decisions.”

  Mr. Horseshoe Hair was showing a Seven and I had no doubt he had some kind of Ten in his hole. There was just one problem. Feeling tota
lly giddy with the way things had been going, I’d pushed two hundred dollars worth of chips forward just before the dealers had changed hands and had neglected to change my bet. If I split the Eights, I’d need to push another two hundred dollars in chips forward. If I won both splits, I’d have a total of eight hundred dollars, nearly enough for my Choos; if I went one for two, I’d be right where I was; if I lost both hands, I’d be knocked back to the two hundred dollars I’d walked in with all those hours before.

  And what if Mr. Horseshoe Hair wasn’t hiding a Ten? What if it was a low card and he kept pulling until he busted? What if—?

  It was too much to think about.

  “I’m sure,” I said, pushing the other two hundred forward and no sooner had I done so than Mr. Horseshoe Hair was turning over my prophetic third Eight.

  “Split!” I said again, excitedly.

  “Where are you people from, Connecticut?” Mr. Horseshoe Hair asked. “You can’t split a split in Atlantic City.”

  “Oh.” I was deflated. “My dad never said anything about that.” I felt embarrassed by my lack of knowledge and in my embarrassment, blurted, “Double down then.”

  “Double down?” Mr. Horseshoe Hair’s eyebrows shot up to his absence of hairline.

  “Double down,” I insisted, pushing my last two hundred dollars forward. I was betting everything that Mr. Horseshoe Hair had a Seventeen he’d have to stand at. Since I had a Sixteen, the only way to beat him was to get anywhere from a Two to a Five. Not much of a window of opportunity, I’ll grant you, but it was all I had.

  He turned up a Five and the table erupted. Blackjack.

  He turned his attention to my other Eight and turned over yet another Eight.

  “Don’t forget, Connecticut,” he cautioned, “you can’t split it here.”

  “I know that,” I said surlily. Hey, my sudden riches—unless the dealer also got blackjack, mine would pay out three-to-two—had gone to my head.

  “Hit me,” I said defiantly.

  “I don’t know what you stepped in on the way here,” Mr. Horseshoe Hair said as he turned over another Five for me and the table erupted again. Blackjack again.

  Whatever Billy did passed in a blur as I waited to see what Mr. Horseshoe Hair was hiding in his hole, but after my own excitement it was anticlimactic when he turned over the Ten I was expecting all along.

  “You don’t look too excited,” Mr. Horseshoe Hair said, as he stacked chips on the table in front of me to pay off my winnings. At a rate of three-to-two for both blackjacks, with six hundred dollars originally at stake—all I had in my pockets—I was now looking at fifteen hundred dollars. It was enough for my Jimmy Choos and then some. I had reached my goal.

  “Oh, shit,” I said, everything hitting me all at once, “I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to play a few more hands?” Billy asked. “You’re on such a roll.”

  “No, Billy,” I said. “I need to get out of here. Besides, my bus is leaving soon.”

  We spilled out of the casino, like a pair of dice tumbling out of an expensive leather shaker, richer than when we’d gone in.

  Under the light of a perfect moon, right there on the boardwalk named by Boardman, in the excitement of the moment, Billy Charisma kissed me for the very first time. It was a knockout kiss that spoke of new beginnings, endless excitement, bright futures.

  Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only one who’d hit the jackpot in Atlantic City.

  “Come to Vegas with me?” he invited, breaking the kiss. “I’ve never met anyone like you before. Come to Vegas with me, Baby.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Then he walked me to the bus and kissed me right in front of everybody as we waited to board. I swear, it was like being back in high school, only in high school I’d never had anything happen to me like this.

  I didn’t even mind that Hillary sat with Biff instead of me all the way home, their blond heads huddled together, didn’t mind—too much—when I completely messed up the Sudoku puzzle I’d hastily shoved in my pocket before leaving home that morning.

  For once in my life, I had my very own squeeze.

  13

  Of course, saying I’d go to Vegas and actually going to Vegas were two different things.

  I mean, of course I wanted to go to Vegas with Billy Charisma. What girl wouldn’t want to go to Vegas with Billy Charisma?

  But first I had other responsibilities.

  When we got back to Danbury from Atlantic City, it was already past midnight.

  “I’m going back to Biff’s place,” Hillary said after we’d debarked.

  That was sudden, I thought. But then I realized they’d been talking for over fourteen hours and had put in more time together than I’d normally put in over the course of four dates with a new guy. Really, when you looked at it that way, it was surprising they hadn’t ducked into a hotel together around dinnertime.

  “But how will I…?” Not to be totally self-absorbed, but I was wondering how I was supposed to get myself home, since Hillary had driven us to the bus pickup.

  “Here.” She tossed me the keys to her Jeep. “Biff’ll bring me home in the morning.”

  I was torn. A part of me had been dying to get behind the wheel of Hillary’s shiny red Jeep ever since she’d gotten it. A part of me was terrified that with my lousy driving, I’d wrap it around a telephone pole and she’d hate me forever. Plus, I was too short to see over her dash.

  “Just sit on this,” she said, reading my mind and handing me the thick guide to Atlantic City she’d been reading on the way in.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Have fun.”

  The drive back to South Park was mostly uneventful, only because I kept the speed to twenty miles an hour, the one eventful part coming when a cop blared his horn loudly before zipping by me on the left, clearly peeved that my slowness had kept him from speeding. As I inched along, I thought about the upcoming trip to Vegas—Sin City!—with Billy Charisma. True, we hadn’t set an exact date, but only a blind person wouldn’t see how eager he was to do this and I was sure the nebulous plan would become a reality. It was only a matter of time.

  But what would I do in Vegas? I wondered. After all, in Atlantic City, I’d won enough to buy the Jimmy Choo Ghosts I so badly wanted. What need had I to do any more gambling? Of course the answer was obvious: in Las Vegas—Sin City! (I couldn’t stop thinking of it that way)—I’d be exactly what Billy said I was: I’d be his talisman. I’d be exactly what he wanted me to be. Plus, I’d be able to win more money so I could buy even more Choos. Maybe I’d wind up with a whole closetful.

  Once I’d unlocked the door, before I even turned on the light, in the darkness I could see the red light from the answering machine blinking like crazy. Sure, we’d been gone all day, but it was still a lot of calls. I flicked the light switch on, grabbed a pen and pad, and prepared to take down all the messages. No doubt one of Hillary’s patients was in crisis mode.

  The first several messages were prerecordings from telemarketers—didn’t they realize how much people hated those things? They should do a telemarketing survey about it and then they’d know—and the one after those was from my dad. “How did it go? Did you win as much as you wanted to win?” Perhaps he was looking for the vicarious thrill of someone else’s gambling. “I forgot to tell you, just in case it comes up: you can’t split a split in Atlantic City, so if you did get those twin Eights, well, I hope you didn’t embarrass yourself.”

  Great, now he told me, and I’d tell him all about it when I saw him on Monday night. “I’m afraid I won’t be free for dinner Monday night,” his voice went on. “There’s a new group I’ve been invited to join that meets then. Who knows? I thought maybe I should check it out.” All righty then. Baby was about to get a new pair of Jimmy Choos and Daddy got a new group. I wondered what the group was?

  The crisis I’d been half expecting came in the next message, only it wasn’t one of Hillary’s clients. Rather,
it was Elizabeth Hepburn, and it came in the form of a plea from Lottie, the contents becoming increasingly grave with each new message she left, although the tone, somehow lacking in human sympathy, left something to be desired.

  “Ms. Hepburn really is not feeling so good. She can’t remember which day you are going away, today or Sunday, but if you’re there, she’d like for you to call her.”

  That didn’t sound good.

  “Ms. Hepburn is feeling worse. I called her physician and he’s on his way over. She forget she asked me to call you earlier and insisted I call you now to tell you not to worry, that she is strong as Kirk Douglas in Spartacus, although she can’t remember if she dated him or his son.”

  Of course I was worried. There’s nothing designed to make a person worry more than another person telling them not to worry, but I also did wonder: except for the cleft on the chin, how could she get Kirk and Michael confused? She really must not be doing too well.

  “Ms. Hepburn was just taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital in the ambulance, with the lights blaring and sirens screaming and everything. She didn’t seem to understand what was going on, but she kept saying your name.”

  The next message was from another automated telemarketer and I cut it off midpitch as I turned off the machine and punched in the number for Elizabeth Hepburn’s home.

  It took six rings before a sleepy-sounding Lottie answered, “Ms. Elizabeth Hepburn’s residence?”

  “What room is she in?” I asked without preamble. “I want to go see her.”

  “Delilah?”

  “Who else?”

  “Don’t you realize it’s one in the morning? Why are you calling so late?”

  Technically, it was early, but this was no time for technicalities.

  “Your words were so desperate on the phone,” I said. “Your messages were increasingly desperate.”

  “Did I? Were they?” I heard a yawn. “That must have been because Ms. Hepburn was so upset.”

  She herself didn’t sound all that upset at all.