Then the Double Down Saloon gives way to a magic lantern show of our shared experiences. I see the Old Stand and the Laughing Jackalope Motel. I watch as the Rio and the other casinos we visited on our honeymoon spin past. I see the canyon and our picnic on the marriage blanket. I watch the Desert Princess chug into a corner of Lake Mead. I see the ranch house pop up between two mesas. Soon the illusion is shattered, interrupted by applause. The ride is slowing; then it stops. Two of the Double Down’s employees leap into the ring and lift my arms in the air. The crowd is chanting, “Beat the bull!”
“Giddyup,” the woman on my left yells, “we have a winner!”
“First person to beat the bull in months,” the woman on my right says. She pulls a Double Down crop top over my head. “Five hundred dollars even,” she adds when I’ve got my head through the neck hole. And she hands me five crisp bills. The crowd is chanting and cheering as I’m passed back to Toby. The magician takes me in his arms. “Who knew you were such a cowgirl,” he says.
“What were you thinking when I was on the ride?” I ask.
“I was thinking whether you’d let me see you again.”
A tall mustachioed man in a cowboy hat leans between us. He nods toward the bills I’ve got clenched in my hand. “Should be about enough right there.”
“For what?” Toby asks.
“For a Vegas wedding. A girl can ride a bull like that’s a girl worth holding on to.”
I hesitate for a moment; then I shake my head. “I don’t know about marriage, but I’m happy to see what comes next.”
The night passes in a swirl of neon, fluorescent cocktails, and flashing lights as Toby and I wind our way down the Strip. Then, of course, there are the small touches of magic that make even the glitziest parts of Vegas shine a little brighter. In the presence of this Toby, it’s easy to forget the gloomy magician I’d last seen in Piet’s workroom. Finally, we arrive back at the Winter Palace. The opening party has evaporated into the general buzz of another Las Vegas night. At the entrance, Toby puts his hands on my shoulders. “I’m not good with people,” he says.
I know, I want to tell him.
“But being around you comes naturally to me.”
I close my eyes, waiting for his kiss. And when he kisses me, it does not, as usual, lift me up into the sky, make me float above the desert or wherever it is we are; it keeps me on the ground, as if this is precisely where I’m meant to be.
“I’ll find you tomorrow,” Toby says as I spin through the revolving door.
When I turn to wave, he is gone.
The artificial light of the endless Winter Palace day erases the intoxication of my night with Toby. I walk through the lobby, unsure of which employees to greet. I head for the front desk, where clerks dressed like Hussars guard the telephones and the reservations system. I find a female receptionist, give her my name, and tell her I’ve lost my key. She eyes my ruined dress—a frayed time line of my recent trip across the Strip. “Big suite for one gal,” she says, passing me my card. “But I guess it’ll be filled with high rollers now that we’re opening.”
I nod and thank her. I’m being shipped out.
On my way to the elevator, I pass the Red Square bar, where Sandra and her friends are stretched out, ordering everything the harried waitress can bring them.
I walk away, hoping to make it upstairs unnoticed. The elevator glides up so quickly that it take a moment for my heart to catch up. The key card opens the Cherry Orchard Suite. Everything is as I would have left it. My clothes are folded. My books and magazines sit in orderly stacks next to the bed. My shoes are lined up under the window. The only thing missing is a sign of Toby. But of course, I expect that.
Without the magician, the suite is enormous. The king-sized bed envelops me. I press my ear to the bedspread, hoping to hear its stiff synthesized song, which used to comfort me during Toby’s late-night shows at the Castaway. The bedspread is silent. So are the crisp cotton pillows. I stand up and explore the room. The fire-proof curtains, with their cherry motif, no longer sound like caged woodwinds. The deep oboe notes of the plush pile carpet are barely audible.
I find my suitcase at the back of the closet. My quilt, the one made during my travels in the West, is neatly folded at the bottom. I open it on the bed. Of course, the gingham napkin from the Old Stand Saloon is absent. In its place are several fabrics I don’t recognize as well as a couple from the Winter Palace. I trace my fingers over these, trying to imagine what part of my own history I’ve missed. Each fabric that I’d sewn onto this quilt had at one time sung or spoken to me, contributing its notes or story to my own. I lie down on top of the patches, imploring them to come to life. But there is no noise, only the blood-rush seashore in my own head. The fabrics are dead. I feel as if I might drown in their silence.
Without my fabrics, I don’t know where to turn in the hours that stretch before me. My quilt is nothing more than a jumble of patches, a haphazard collection that runs in place. Looking at it, I understand why Eva cannot stay in any one place for long. My presence has been removed from what
