Читать книгу Getting Off On Frank Sinatra - Megan Edwards - Страница 12

The V Resort’s most distinctive feature is a blue glass tower rising near the corner of St. Rose Parkway and Las Vegas Boulevard. The only high-rise for miles around, it’s a major landmark, but I’d never been inside.

Sean glanced at his watch. “The bar on the eighteenth floor opens in five minutes. How about we meet there? Fabulous view and great martinis.”

Hmmm. A bit of a shift from a quick beer.

“I’ve got to swing by my office,” Sean said, “but I’ll be right behind you.”

We exchanged telephone numbers just in case, and I headed out the Parks Academy gate.

After finding a parking space in the V’s garage and getting lost in the casino, I finally discovered the elevator to the bar in the tower. At the top, a friendly hostess pointed me in the right direction, toward a long narrow room with huge glass windows overlooking the city. Sean hadn’t been exaggerating when he called the view fabulous.

I looked for him at the tables next to the windows, and when I didn’t see him, I moved to the other side of the bar, where a long shelf of wine bottles behind glass covered one wall.

“Welcome to Tempo,” the bartender called. “Is this your first time here?”

“Yes,” I said, glancing around for Sean.

“Do you know about our Enomatic system?”

I shook my head, and he smiled. Moving from behind the bar, he explained how, with a “wine card,” I could serve myself a “one-ounce, three-ounce, or five-ounce pour” from any of the thirty or so bottles lined up behind the glass. While he was talking, a guy in a loud Hawaiian shirt walked up, stuck a plastic card in a slot, pressed a button, and filled a glass half full with something clear.

“Sake,” the bartender said. “We’ve got several kinds.”

I looked around again, but Sean still hadn’t shown up.

“Would you like your own wine card?” the bartender asked.

“Sounds like fun.” A few moments later, I was the proud owner of a slick white card configured to allow me to serve myself twenty dollars’ worth of whatever I liked from the Enomatic’s lineup.

I started with a “one-ounce pour” of a Napa Valley gewürztraminer. Sean still hadn’t shown up by the time I finished it, so I headed back to the wine wall. I had just settled on a New Zealand sauvignon blanc when he materialized at my side.

“Want to try some wine?” I asked.

“Thanks, but I’d rather sit down and enjoy the view,” he said, dropping his eyes to my chest.

I blushed, damn it, but I managed to wave a hand toward the windows and say, “Me, too.”

“I’m still new in town,” Sean said as we took chairs across from each other at one of the bird’s-eye-view tables. “Don’t know all the bars yet. My mother and stepfather brought me here my first night in Las Vegas.”

New in town. Interesting. So was stepfather. For that matter, so was the Manhattan area code I’d noticed in front of his telephone number. Where had he gone to college? I wondered. Since I’d moved to Las Vegas, I hadn’t met many people my age from the East Coast. David was an exception, and his apparent departure from my life made Sean all the more interesting.

“So, what’s with the 212 phone number?” I said. “You just visiting?”

“Ooh, straight to the interrogation,” he said. “Mind if I rustle up some drinks first?”

Conveniently, a waitress had just arrived at our table. Sean ordered a martini, and I opted for the white wine I had been about to serve myself.

“I moved here from New York six months ago,” Sean said when the waitress had left. “I could get a new number, but I’m not sure I’m really a 702 kind of guy.”

“You might leave?”

“Oh, probably not. I’ve gotten kind of used to being a Vegas big shot. Between the two of them, my mother and Curtis have plenty of juice, and it all seems to transfer to me. I get invited to all the clubs and openings—way better than any treatment I ever got in New York. And my mother’s pretty good at encouraging me to stay in other ways, too—like employing me.”

“Your mom’s really something,” I said. “I’ve been reading up on her.”

“How far into her past have you dug?”

“Well, I know she’s lived in Las Vegas for eighteen years.”

“Sounds believable,” Sean said.

His response caught me by surprise.

“Don’t you know?” I asked.

“I met my mother for the first time six months ago, when she picked me up at the airport.”

By the time he was on his second martini, I had learned even more surprising facts about Marilyn Weaver’s only child. The result of a brief relationship with a violin maker in Chappaqua, New York, Sean had grown up with his father and a series of girlfriends, most of them opera singers or violinists.

“I didn’t even know my mother was alive until my junior year at Columbia,” he said. “And I might never have found out if my father hadn’t needed a bill of sale for a rare violin when he was in Europe on business. He told me where to find the key to a safe-deposit box, but he had forgotten what was in it besides the piece of paper he needed.”

Sean chuckled, but he didn’t sound very happy.

“If only he had asked his latest girlfriend. I could have lived out my life in blissful ignorance.”

“What was in it? Your birth certificate?”

“No,” Sean said. “A packet of letters. Letters to me that my father had never shown me. Marilyn started writing the day she left: April 16, 1982. I was nine months old.”

Sean picked up his glass and took a long drink.

“I grew up believing my mother had died giving birth to me. When I found out she was alive, I decided to find her. Didn’t take long.”

What did the letters say? Why did she leave? I wanted to ask. But it seemed too prying, so I just took another sip of wine.

“My mother’s always on the run,” Sean said, “in case you haven’t already noticed.”

“Busy, you mean?” I said. “Yeah, she’s got enough energy for three—”

“No,” Sean said. “I mean on the run. On the lam. Running away. But she’ll never make it.”

Now I was completely baffled.

“After I found out she existed, my father filled in a few gaps, and I did some research on my own,” Sean went on. “Her maiden name was Canaday, and she grew up in Seattle. But her mother’s family was from Montana, and Marilyn spent every summer on her uncle’s ranch near Flathead Lake. The Lazy B. Her uncle, a guy named Chuck Beeman, was pretty famous for his rodeo stock.”

“Beeman—as in Beeman Hall at the school?”

“Yeah, it’s named for—well, the whole family.”

“So, Charlene’s a Beeman?”

“Her mother was,” Sean said. “At least I think that’s how the connection works.” He shook his head. “I sure never dreamed I’d wake up one day and find out I’m related to a bunch of cowpokes.”

I smiled. “Sounds like Charlene’s a really good cowpoke, at least. She’s doing really well in the cutting horse trials.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Sean said. “She’s had a lot of—support.”

He paused and looked at me, thoughts moving behind his eyes. I thought he might launch into a longer story, but instead he smiled.

The only other fact I’d learned about Sean by the time we stepped back out into the evening heat was that his last name was DuBois.

“Just like Blanche,” he said, “and I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

It was still oppressively hot as Sean walked me to my minivan. It’s at moments like these that I wish my parents had chosen something slightly more hip as a college graduation gift. Tapered at both ends and painted white, the van immediately inspired my best friend to christen it “The Maxi Pad.” I still call it “The Max,” but only because nobody in Las Vegas knows why.

But if Sean thought my wheels were less than cool, he didn’t let on.

“Do you have to be anywhere right away?” he asked. I told him about my house-sitting gig. I had packing to do.

“I have a house to babysit this weekend, too,” he said. “My mother’s. She’s going to a meeting in Carson City, and Curtis is off entertaining clients in Palm Springs. I’m their designated cockatiel nanny.”

“Good luck—”

“Here’s an idea,” Sean said, leaning in between me and my car door. “Why don’t you follow me to Marilyn’s? It’s near here, and we can order a pizza. You’ve got to eat, don’t you?”

“Well—”

“We can go swimming, too, if you’ve got a suit.”

How could I say no? My well-stocked gym bag was riding shotgun in my van.