I go back to the pits, watching the women fawn over Toby. He’s enjoying the disaster he’s turned into triumph. Now I know the answer to the question Eva asked me on top of the mesa. This is the loneliest I’ve ever been. I’d rather just be alone. But alone doesn’t exists in Vegas. I’m lost inside Toby’s trick with no idea of where I belong. And no idea of how to escape. I don’t trust my surroundings, not even the fabrics I chose and refurbished. I look around at the once-familiar setting of this casino. Now I notice small adjustments. A fountain sits in a different corner. The garden has been planted with different flowers. The motorized sledges are frosted with fake snow. What else had changed in Toby’s world? How many infinitesimal alterations and huge divergences has the magician created in order to save one teenager? Why can’t I be by his side in the world where he succeeds?
I stand in the grand entrance of the Winter Palace, watching the sledges circle on their tracks, carrying tipsy partygoers who trail champagne in their wakes. Toby’s name is everywhere. The partygoers are intoxicated by his performance—the heady thrill of the inexplicable adding to their substantial buzz.
I realize that I’ve been standing in one place for too long, neither drinking nor mingling. My immobility is drawing looks from the passersby. I’m ready to move, when I feel a sweaty palm wrap around my wrist.
“Mel Snow.”
Swenson smells like a week’s worth of nights out. “Jim Swenson.”
He steps back and smiles, then sucks more whiskey from his glass. “I thought you’d know me.” Swenson shakes his head. “You see, I don’t know you. According to me, we’ve never met before. But I think you’d tell a different story.”
I yank my wrist free from his meaty grip.
“Eva told me to keep an eye out for you. She had an idea you might be here. Whoever you are.”
“Well, here I am.”
“But you ain’t supposed to be.” Swenson cracks an ice cube. “Eva tells me you’re another victim of Toby’s magic.”
I shake my head.
“Eva’s not in the business of lying.”
“If you’ve never met me, you won’t understand who am I and what I’m doing here.”
Swenson shrugs, making his leather blazer creak. He rattles the remaining ice in his glass. “Maybe so. All I know is that your magician’s up to no good again. Probably gonna hurt you or someone else like he did Eva.”
I shake my head.
“Well, there’s an offer for you on the table here.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Me and Eva are heading up a new show. She’s got a knack for fortune-telling. I’m always on the lookout for more color.” He pats my shoulder. “You know.”
“Absolutely not,” I reply, stepping away.
Swenson sucks air through his teeth. “Once Toby crashes and burns—and don’t worry, it’ll happen. Over and over from what I’ve heard. Once he crashes, I’ll be the next big thing.”
“I doubt it,” I say, and leave.
I exit the casino, walking against the tide of late arrivals. Fireworks are erupting from the onion domes over my head, and camera flashes are popping as more Vegas royalty makes its way down the red carpet. I hit the Strip, push past the tourists gawking at the spectacle of the Winter Palace’s opening. In my time in Amsterdam, I’d forgotten the artificial vitality of Las Vegas, the nonstop flow of people, traffic, noise, and light. I’m easily and happily lost in this melee. The press of people in either direction erases the panicked loneliness summoned by Toby’s imagination. I want to cocoon myself in the sound and energy of the Strip.
I walk until I come to one of the hard-partying casinos, where gambling takes second place to all-night drinking and dancing. I take the escalator through the music-themed lobby and find a bar called the Double Down Saloon, where patrons pay a premium for the Western dive-bar honky-tonk experience. It’s the customers who provide the evening’s entertainment, jumping on barrels and shaking it for the crowd in exchange for a free shot of whiskey or riding the mechanical bull with a cropped T-shirt as their reward.
In Sandra’s dress, I look as if I’ve been left behind by a bridal party. But inside the Double Down, no one notices. Clearly, this is the sort of place a bridesmaid might come to drown her sorrows or seek comfort in the arms of someone other than the best man. Countrypolitan music is blasting from dozens of speakers, and tribes of women are hooting and hollering along, throwing imaginary lassos into the air. The crowd is a mix of Midwesterners out on hen night and hardcore cowgirls in up-to-there cutoffs, leather halters, and cowboy boots that look as if they might kill. College boys, taking in this controlled experiment in wilding women, lurk in the background, calculating their moment of approach.
A bullhorn goes off. Someone has just fallen off the mechanical bull. I’m about to order my drink when the bartender throws a shot of whiskey in front of me. Then she points overhead to a sign—HOOTENANNY HAPPY HALF HOUR 9–9:30 P.M. NO WHINING JUST WHISKEY. I throw back the shot in one gulp. Another appears. I’m about to pay, when a man in a business suit places a twenty on the bar. “Looks like you needed those. My treat.” As I’m going to thank him, a new song comes on, and the crowd begins a line dance.
I don’t know the
