Pigs in Heaven - Barbara Kingsolver [60]
Taylor and Alice look at each other. Turtle rubs her nose. The waitress blinks, exactly twice. “So a milk, two Cokes, three grilled cheese, anything else?”
“No, I changed my order,” says Alice. “I want the turkey open-face special. I’ve gotten hungrier while we were setting here waiting to order.”
“Sorry!” the waitress says, and heads for the kitchen fast on her red wedgie heels.
“Well, shut my mouth,” Alice says. “I had no idea I belonged to such a world-famous family.”
“Mama, that’s not normal. Nobody ever recognizes us from that show. Do they, Turtle?”
Turtle shakes her head.
“The waiters here are just weird. The one this morning was a comedian; he kept telling us knock-knock jokes about the Manson family.”
“Well,” Alice says, “why else would somebody live here? They’re looking for a career as nightclub acts, and hashing tables till they get the big break.”
“Yeah, but this one takes the prize. She’s accepted Barbie as her personal savior.”
Alice spits out her ice water on her lap, and Taylor feels like something special again. She still can make Alice laugh.
13
The Church of Risk and Hope
CHECKOUT TIME AT THE DELTA QUEEN CASINO is eleven o’clock; at 11:17, Alice is having a difference of opinion with the manager. “All we want is to grab a bite of lunch and we’ll be out of your hair in a jiffy,” she explains. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, pictured from some old movie, grin from the wall behind the desk.
The manager has fat, pale hands decorated with long black hairs, and a gold watch that looks painful on his wrist. “You’re welcome to stay in your room another hour, ladies, but I’m going to have to charge you the full day’s rate.”
“For seventeen minutes. Because people are banging down your door to get in here and you’re turning them away,” Alice says, staring him down. The place looks deserted, maybe even shut down on account of hygienic difficulties. The brown edges of coffee stains on the manager’s desk blotter remind Alice of a map of the world that Columbus might have used. The front door has cardboard taped where some panes of glass should be, causing the sign to read oddly: “A QUEEN SINO HOTEL.” The casino shows no sign of life at this hour. Apparently the Las Vegas lifestyle involves gambling till dawn, then remaining passed out through the heat of the day. Only a few lone hangers-on sit stubbornly at their video poker machines.
“Okay,” Alice declares, looking him in the eye, “we’re gone. Our room’s empty. We left the key up there in the ashtray and walked out at ten fifty-nine.” She crosses her arms, daring him to jog upstairs and see if she’s telling the truth. His craggy eyebrows are collecting sweat under her gaze. He belongs to that species of men who are so spherical in the trunk you have to wonder what holds their pants up. There’s no chance in this world Alice is going to lose her gamble. After they pay, Taylor can run up, pack their things, and come down by the fire exit.
“I’ll meet you at the pancake house across the street,” Alice whispers to Taylor as she takes Turtle and heads for the front door. Taylor reads her mind perfectly. They are Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.
“Vegas ain’t what it used to be,” Alice tells Turtle as they wait outside to cross the street. “I was here before, I drove out here one time with your mama’s wild daddy. But it’s all different with these video games. People dragging downstairs in house slippers and sitting at a machine all day. Back then it was pigs in clover.”
“What’s pigs in clover?”
“Rich people that don’t know how to behave. Ladies in high heels smoking, and gentlemen drinking too much and pinching their bottoms.” The pedestrian light blinks WALK, a woman in leather shorts on a motorcycle runs the red light, and then they cross. Turtle is holding Alice’s hand in a way that reminds her of an arthritis flare-up.
In truth, Alice thinks Las Vegas was far more interesting the last time. She remembers