Vincent made the drinks. LaDonna rested her Bloody Mary on her chest and stared at it, her head low against the front of the couch. He asked her if she had talked to Iris much. She said Iris was the kind only talked to men. She had known girls in the pageant that way. Most of them were real friendly and sincere, but there was a few snooty ones in every pageant she had ever been in. She said it felt really weird to be back in Atlantic City. God, time went so fast. It seemed like only about a year ago.
“I was voted Miss Congeniality.”
“I can see why,” Vincent said.
“You better be congenial, try and get along with somebody like Jackie. He’s so… God, he’s so full of himself. I can’t stand the way he talks, his language. Can you?”
“Why do you stay with him?”
“We’re out, he talks all the time. We get home, he doesn’t say a word unless he’s swearing at me. Frances says if she was me she wouldn’t put up with it. I’ve talked to her-well, I’ve known her ever since Vegas. She’s really smart, you know, to get where she is. Up there in the Eye in the Sky. You know what? I think she likes him and she’s trying to get us to break up. She says to me, why the hell do you put up with him?”
“Why do you?”
“Well… Frances says he’s really good at how he knows how to run a casino and all. You know, and he’s funny. He can be real funny when he wants to. He used to be, when we were in Vegas he always swore a lot, use terrible language but, God, he was funny. He always had people laughing, so he must a been. Now… I think he’s scared but he won’t admit it.”
“Scared of what?”
“Those guys-what do you think? See, then I get scared. You know what I’m scared the most of? We’re having dinner at Angeloni’s or one of those places and somebody comes in with a machine gun to kill one of those guys like you see in the paper? You see ’em lying on the floor with blood all over? And Jackie and I get killed because we happen to be having dinner with him. I think about it, I get petrified.” Vincent said he didn’t blame her. “I don’t even like Italian food anymore. You just, like all you have to say is mention fettuccini with clam sauce I start to feel sick. I never even heard of fettuccini with clam sauce before. I never had clams. I mean in Tulsa. Boy, I don’t know… I went to Wilson. I never heard of fettuccini, you probably never heard of Wilson, huh? There was a girl when I was going there, she was my very best friend in the world name Melanie Puryear? She had a really sensational way she wrote her name. So I copied it, LaDonna Holly Padgett, till my arm almost fell off. LaDonna Holly Padgett, I’d fill up sheets of paper with it. She wrote in my yearbook… No, my God, it was Marilyn Grove wrote in my yearbook… Yeah, it was Marilyn. She wrote, ‘Twinkle, twinkle Wilson’s star, LaDonna Padgett is going far.’ See, ’cause I’d already been Miss Tulsa Raceway, you know, to present trophies. I remember one time, oh God, I thought I was gonna have to kiss this old guy had won a race? But he just shook my hand, I couldn’t believe it. Then, I’ll never forget, Corky Crawford grabbed me and gave me this terrific kiss square on the lips, everybody screaming and yelling…”
Vincent could hear the rain coming down.
She said, “Yeah, I was voted Miss Congeniality.” Her eyes raised and she said, “I work my fucking butt off trying to be congenial. Look at me.”
VINCENT FOUND THE HOUSE on Caspian where Linda was staying with the band: another wooden relic somebody had painted yellow about twenty years ago and since then said the hell with it, wait for the casinos. He was beginning to get the feel of Atlantic City and its surrounding geography and was getting to like it. At least it amazed him, held his attention, to see an old seaside resort being done over in Las Vegas plastic, given that speedline look gamblers were supposed to love. Here you are in wonderland, it told the working people getting off the tour buses, all those serious faces coming to have a good time. That was something else that didn’t make sense, nobody smiled.
He walked in the front door of Linda’s house and knew somebody was having fun; the smell of reefer almost knocked him over. The La Tunas were sitting around the living room in a cloud of smoke, laid out, accepting his bearded look, at least not worried. He waited in the hall. When Linda came downstairs he said, “I thought for a minute your house was on fire. Those guys blow weed they don’t fool.” Outside he said, “How can you live here?”
She said, “Where’m I gonna go? I’m paid up for the month and they don’t give refunds.”
He said, “You could stay with me, at the Holmhurst.” Not sure if he was kidding or serious.
Linda said, “I’d really be moving up, wouldn’t I?”
He opened the car door for her. “I forgot, I was gonna bring it in. Look what’s in back.”
Her black winter coat, lying on the seat.
Standing in the rain she reached up and took his face in her hands and kissed him on the mouth. He held onto her to make it last a little longer than a thank-you kiss. She said, “Vincent, I’m going to have to start giving you some serious thought.” She sounded as though she meant it.
They drove over to the funeral home on Oriental where Vincent told the younger Mr. Bertoia they had come for the ashes of Iris Ruiz. The younger Mr. Bertoia left them and returned with a stainless steel urn the size of a half-gallon milk container. Vincent looked at it. He said, “Something you might consider, put the ashes in Taino Indian pottery.”
The younger Mr. Bertoia said, “Actually, what you’re getting are about eight pounds of bone fragments, not ashes. A body is cremated there aren’t any ashes, as such, just bones.”
Vincent said, “Thank you,” took the urn in one hand, Linda’s arm in the other. As they reached the front door she tried to pull free, but he held onto her, got her outside and in the car.
“Why do you let him bother you, guy like that?”
She said, “You thanked him.” Sounding amazed.
“What’d you want me to do?”
“Tell him off. Jesus, tell him something.”
“I couldn’t think of anything good.”
She was silent as they pulled away from the funeral home and turned corners toward Pacific Avenue. Vincent still couldn’t think of anything. Finally Linda said, “How about, ‘Why don’t you shove a hose up your ass, Mr. Bertoia, drain out the embalming fluid and maybe you’ll act like a living person. With feelings.’ “
“You want to go back?”
“You don’t like it.”
“I think it needs work.”
“But that’s the idea. See, it would be better if you could mention the embalming fluid first and end it with ‘So why don’t you shove a hose up your ass,’ like a punch line. You know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“ ‘You know what your trouble is, Mr. Bertoia?’… ‘Mr. Bertoia, the trouble with you is, you have the sensitivity of a… ‘ That might work. Tell him what an insensitive nerd he is.”
“You feel better?”
“Not a lot.”
“Tell me what I’m gonna do with Iris. Take her back to Puerto Rico?”
“You think she cares?”
“She’d probably rather stay here.”
“Even in her present condition,” Linda said. “I’ve got her clothes, a few pieces of costume jewelry, a hand-carved parrot that’s kind of nice…”
Linda was going to call on hotel entertainment directors and see if she could get an audition, beginning with the Golden Nugget. Vincent dropped her off. Then gave the doorman a quarter and asked him if he’d keep an eye on the car while he ran in and made a quick phone call. The doorman stared at Vincent, holding the quarter in the palm of his white glove.
He heard Dixie Davies say, “You sure you want to do this?”