Hick - Andrea Portes [12]
So that’s it. I make up my mind to find a sugar-daddy who will fawn over me and feed me whenever I’m hungry, not just with sugar sandwiches but with rich-people food. He’ll pour out differentflavored Riunites in different-shaped glasses and blather on about oak-barrels and rainfall and grapes. I’ll say, It does go well with the fish, and smile, and he’ll be proud and want to buy me more stuff. He’ll take me shopping, watch me try on dresses and tell me he insists I get every one, even the red one. I’ll say, Oh no I can’t take this, but he’ll say, Yes you can and throw in this necklace, too, while you’re at it.
I’ll try that out for a while, see how I like it. Although, now that I think about it, it’s not going to be easy sitting in the middle of nowhere Nebraska looking for a leg up. We may have an abundance of shiftless ranch hands, but sugar-daddies are in short supply, no doubt about it. Nebraska is a poor state with poor people with nowhere to go and no hurry to get there.
No sir.
This is gonna take drastic action.
I weigh my options and realize I will have to head west. that’s where they grow cowboys with ten-gallon hats and big skies with cactus and bright gold jewelry with turquoise and snakes.
West it is. I’ll have to get out while the getting is good, before that gray-suit larva comes in and takes over, telling me what to do with some legal mumbo jumbo he learned in Lincoln. I do not want him doling out my chores while patting Tammy on the ass. That is for damn sure.
I’ll have to find someplace shiny-like and mean, with rich people throwing money away like they’re bragging by doing it. Someplace where I can sneak around the back sides of buildings, make my way with a smile and a few clever words, before striking. Someplace where there’s people to fool worth fooling . . .
And then it hits me clear as day.
Las Vegas.
That’s it, no question, no contest. Las Vegas, Nevada, where there’s desert and gambling and lights and drinking all through the night with no one to know me or tell me what to do or get in the way of all my ingenious money-making schemes. I’ll go there and make it mine, become one of the legends of the city, someone they talk about for years after, who came and went but no one really knew deep inside. They’ll whisper about me in dark rooms late at night, a character of mystery and intrigue who was feared and respected throughout the city, out into the desert and the netherworld beyond.
I better bring something to dazzle them.
I’ll need something that reeks of class and sophistication, like on Remington Steele. I burrow through Tammy’s closet and come up with some expert disguises. My new life will be dangerous but full of glamour. I picture myself with the lights coming up behind me in Vegas. I see myself framed by the cowboy made of neon looming up glittery with the promise of knocking my socks off.
Except there’s the issue of money. As fucking usual. But I’m way ahead on this one. Some mystery person, and I’m assuming it’s my mama, has got two hundred smackers saved up in a crumple behind the trash can, under the kitchen sink. that’s her brilliant idea of a secret. I found it by almost throwing it out. I figure it must be from that gray-suit peeled worm she’s running around with. My dad ain’t got money enough to bring home a box of Corn Pops, let alone two-hundred smackers. I guess Mr. Gray-Suit thinks he’s providing for his future family, bought and paid for.
I wish I could see her face when she sees it’s gone.
And now, last but not least, one fancy black bag I stole from this girl I hate. She belongs to the Knolls Country Club and has a habit of talking about it to everyone around her and inviting everyone in the class. Except me. I guess I’m not country club material. I guess I’m the girl with the ripped-up knee-socks and leftover clothes and an artichoke for lunch.
I get it.