How else am I going to get from the airport to … the wedding chapel or … or wherever it is I’m going?
Which all of a sudden hits me is Step Three of a plan I didn’t really believe would get past Step One.
“Samantha?” Mrs. McKenze says as I go down the aisle.
“Mrs. McKenze?” I ask, dropping my jaw. I laugh. “Marissa?”
Marissa shakes her head and looks at me all bug-eyed as she mouths, “Unbelievable!”
Mrs. McKenze is still not clicking into the reality of me being there. “You’re alone?”
I nod. “I’m going to meet my mother in Las Vegas.” Then I hurry past them to 7A, and after I’ve shoved my backpack under the seat and buckled up like Nelly instructs over the speaker system, the propellers fire up.
My heart starts slamming around even harder as we roll forward. Out my window I can see the woman who’d sold me my ticket. She’s on the pavement outside with her earmuffs on, directing traffic—or at least our plane—with big orange wands, motioning us forward and then sideways until we’re on the runway. Then she hustles away and out of view.
We rumble along for a while, and then we stop and idle. And after a few minutes of just sitting there, I’m thinking, Uh-oh. I’m busted. They’re going to turn the plane around and kick me off.
And part of my brain’s going, No, no, no! Just keep going. Fly.
But another part of me is going, Yes, yes, yes! Kick me off!
I mean, what am I thinking?
What am I doing?
My brain is such a complete mess that I’m even having trouble remembering what my mission is.
I know I’m mad at my mom, but … what good is going to Las Vegas?
Lady Lana always does what she wants anyway.
And then we lurch forward and my head slams back into the headrest, and as the plane roars down the runway, rattling and shaking like it’s about to come apart at the seams, I close my eyes and hold on for dear life.
There’s no turning back now.
FOUR
Mrs. McKenze is not my biggest fan. I don’t know exactly why, but I think it has something to do with a certain unauthorized trip Marissa and I took to Hollywood to see my mom.
Or maybe it was that incident where we almost got killed by a creepy gang guy in a basement in Tigertown.
Or it could be because of the time Marissa and I started out for a school dance in a limo but ended up at the golf course with the arm of a corpse.
After that one, Mrs. McKenze told Marissa she should “reassess the wisdom” of her friendship with me, but I think her problem with me actually started way back with that trip to Hollywood.
Which all of a sudden seems kinda ironic, seeing how here we are, on another wild trip because of my mother.
Well, at least that’s why I’m here.
Anyway, after we’re up in the air, I look out the window again, this time trying to get my bearings. I’m feeling a strange mixture of excitement and terror. It’s awesome to be up in the air, but at first we’re tilting side to side, which is scary because the whole plane feels really unsteady. Like either the pilot’s new or we’re gonna crash.
Maybe both.
And after we finally quit seesawing around, we start banking. I’m talking way over to the side, so when I look out my window, I’m practically looking straight down.
Nelly’s not coming on the intercom screaming, Mayday! Mayday! or anything, but I’m death-gripping my armrests because the airplane is making such a loud roar and rumble that I’m sure it’s just gonna shake apart.
We do finally level off, but my heart’s still pounding and we’re still rumbling and I’m thinking that my seat cushion—which Nelly had announced could be used as a “flotation device”—would be a lot more useful if it were a parachute. I mean, what good is a stupid flotation device when you’re nowhere near water? You can bet the pilot isn’t relying on his stupid seat cushion to save his life. He probably has a parachute at the ready! Why does he get one when all we get is a stupid cushion?
And then someone taps me on the shoulder.
I jump and turn, but it’s not the pilot handing over his parachute.
It’s Nelly handing out little packs of blue foam earplugs. “Thanks!” I call, and she smiles and nods, then moves on.
The earplugs help a lot. They cut the roar of the plane, and somehow also make it so I can sort of hear what the people in 7B and 7C are saying to each other. In a weird way they also make me feel safer. Like not being able to hear the noise that makes it seem like the plane’s about to fall apart means the plane might actually not fall apart.
Which doesn’t make sense, but still, it helps.
The funny thing about flying over an area you know well is realizing that you don’t know it at all. I’m looking out the window going, Where’s the mall? Where’s our school? Where’s the Senior Highrise? trying to distract myself from shaking apart without a parachute, but I don’t recognize anything.
And then after we’ve leveled off, we start flying over empty land and little mountains and I can see a lake off in the distance.
A lake?
There’s no lake near Santa Martina!
Is there?
And if that is a lake, why aren’t we flying over it so I can use my crummy little cushion in case we crash?
All of a sudden someone shoves my arm, and when I jump and turn again, it’s still not the pilot with his parachute.
It’s Marissa, with blue plugs poking out of her ears, squatting in the aisle, her eyes darting back to her mother up in 2B. “I can’t believe you actually got on board!” She’s whispering, but what’s funny is I can hear her fine.
“I know, huh?” I whisper back.
“So now what?”
I shake my head. “I have no idea!”
“Well, where’s your mother staying?”
“I don’t know!”
She stares at me. “You don’t know?” She collects herself a bit and says, “So you’re going to call her when we land?”
I pull a little face. “She’s turned her cell phone off. So has Casey’s dad.”
Her eyes are bugging. “Sammy, Las Vegas is huge. How are you planning to find her?”
“I figured I’d look up wedding chapels?”
“But—”
“And,” I say, trying to sound optimistic, “you know the Elvis impersonator who used to work at Maynard’s Market? He’s moved to Vegas and he told me I should look him up if I was ever in town. He might be able to help.”
She starts wagging her head so fast it looks like it’s about to shake loose. “Sammy! There have got to be a hundred Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas. Maybe two hundred! How are you ever going to know which one he is?”
“He told me his name?”
That seems to shock her because our Elvis never, ever went out of character. “He did?”
“Yeah. It’s Pete Decker.”
“Did he give you a phone number?”
“No.”
She holds both sides of her head like she’s trying to keep it from bursting open.
“But I’ve also got this!” I say, digging up my backpack and pulling out an oversized postcard with pictures of my mom on it. There’s a headshot, a full-length shot, and one of her as Jewel, the character she played on The Lords of Willow Heights.
Marissa turns the card over and speed-reads the back, which lists a bunch of information about my mom, her credits, and how to contact her. “She has an agent? And management?”
I shrug. “Yeah. I didn’t know that either.”
“Where’d you get this?”
“Grams had it. Mom gave her a few and I snagged one on my way out the door. I thought it might help me find her.”
She hands it back and just shakes her head. “You really have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”
I look down. “It all happened really fast, okay?”
“I hate to break it to you, but you will never in a million years find
her.”
Just then Nelly’s voice comes over the intercom. “The aisle needs to remain clear at all times.”
We look toward the front of the plane and there’s Nelly, holding her telephone, staring right at us. And then Mrs. McKenze cranes around and gives Marissa a stern look.
“Uh-oh, gotta go,” Marissa says, and for the rest of the trip she stays up in 2C while I stare out the 7A window, watching the sky get dimmer and dimmer as I try to convince myself that finding my mother won’t be impossible.
I know there’s a lot of stuff about Las Vegas on TV, but I don’t watch much TV, so most of what I knew about Vegas came from Marissa. The McKenzes have gone there a lot, which, looking back on it, was probably because Mr. McKenze wanted to go. Marissa always made Vegas sound like it was fun, and it probably is if you’ve got tons of money like the McKenzes used to. She would go on and on about the resort pools and the shopping and the shows.
It seemed like a great place. But after it came out that Mr. McKenze had a serious gambling problem and had wiped them out financially, Marissa started talking about Vegas like it was the devil’s playground.
My first clue that we were almost there was when Nelly gave us a bunch of instructions about getting ready for landing. My seat and tray table were in the same position as when I’d gotten on board, and I didn’t have any electronic devices that needed shutting off, so I went back to staring out the window.
It was dark outside, and there hadn’t been much to see for a while, but now I’m noticing a green glow in the distance. It’s like a giant brilliant emerald poking up out of the desert.
As we get closer, I can see other lights. Miles of lights. And as we go down, down, down toward the runway, I can hear the people across the aisle from me going, “Look! There’s the Luxor! And there’s Mandalay Bay!” like they’re spotting celebrities.
And then we’re bumping onto the ground and fish-tailing a little before Nelly comes on the intercom and says, “What do we say, gang?”
I’m thinking she means we should all say, “Thank you for not crashing!” but instead a bunch of people on the plane shout, “Whoa, Nelly!”
Regulars, I guess.
Anyway, she laughs, “Exactly!” then adds, “Welcome to Las Vegas!” and gives us instructions that basically boil down to Don’t Get Up Until I Tell You To.
So I sit there buckled in and try to fight the feeling of panic that’s washing over me. I mean, what’s Step Three? It’s dark, and I have no idea where I’m going or staying or even how much hotels cost.
And I need to save enough money to get back to Santa Martina.
All of a sudden I just want to stay buckled in and go straight back home.
What am I doing?
When we’re finally let off the plane, I get my skateboard back from Nelly and follow the passengers in front of me into the airport terminal—a big circular building with lots of windows and slot machines.
Slot machines.
At the airport.
Like you could gamble first thing, or last thing, depending on if you were coming or going.
The McKenzes are ahead of me, rolling along their suitcases, and Marissa’s sort of lagging behind her mom, who’s talking on her cell phone. I catch up to her quick, and she whispers, “I told my mom I didn’t want to leave until I was sure your mom was here.”
“But my mom’s not coming!” I whisper back.
“I know! But your mom’s got a reputation for being flaky, right? So I’m thinking we’ll say that she’s flaked again. We can’t leave you here!” She looks ahead, keeping an eye on her mother. “I told her you’d never been here and had never flown before and were kind of a basket case because your mom’s marrying your boyfriend’s dad.”
My eyes pop. “You told her all that?”
“What else was I supposed to say? Sammy, you being here is crazy.”
“Sorry. No. You did great. And thank you for not just leaving me here.”
She snorts. “Believe me, you do not want to be thirteen and alone in Las Vegas. Especially if you’re a girl.”
Mrs. McKenze is about ten steps in front of us and so intent on talking on her phone that she hasn’t even noticed that Marissa’s dropped back to walk with me. I take a deep breath. “So what did your mom say about what you told her?”
“She thinks your mom’s a selfish diva.”
“Really? Wow.” I hesitate. “And here I thought I was the one she didn’t like.”
Marissa eyes me like, Well, yeah. There’s that, too. Then she says, “But she’s got bigger things to worry about than your bad influence.”
“So what’s her plan? Where’s your dad?”
Just then we hear Mrs. McKenze cry, “He’s what?” She staggers to the nearest chair and falls into it like a rag doll. Her hand’s shaking like mad as she holds it over her eyes. “Was it Leon?”
“Uh-oh,” I whisper to Marissa as we stand by watching her mother shaking, because this is sounding really bad.
Like maybe he’s dead.
“Leon’s his favorite dealer,” Marissa whispers back, like that explains everything.
“What’s it called?” Mrs. McKenze asks, rummaging around in her purse for something to write with. She scribbles on a scrap of paper and says, “I have no idea how to do that.”
We just hold our breath, waiting and watching while Mrs. McKenze listens for the longest time. And while she’s listening, I try to decipher what she’s scribbled on the scrap of paper. It looks like Clark Co Det Cntr, which I figure is Clark Company Det-something Center, but I haven’t figured out what the Det-something is yet when Mrs. McKenze gets off the phone.
“What is it, Mom?” Marissa asks. “Is Dad all right?”
Mrs. McKenze is panting. Hyperventilating. “That was the security manager at the casino.” She pinches her eyes closed. “Your father,” she finally says, “is in jail.”
FIVE
“Jail?” Marissa gasps. “What did he do?”
Now, the McKenzes have always been really hush-hush about their personal problems. Marissa’s not allowed to talk about them, and I do understand that … kind of. But it’s not just that Marissa’s parents don’t want her bagging on the family like a lot of kids at school do with theirs. It’s that they have an image to uphold. They want to be seen as “successful investors.”
From what I’ve been able to figure out, a “successful investor” makes money investing other people’s money. In what, I’m not sure, but I think the stock market’s a big part of it, because all the McKenzes’ problems started when their stock investments took a nosedive. And I guess if you’re playing with other people’s money, you don’t really want them to know that you’ve got financial problems yourself—especially not a gambling problem.
So where Mr. and Mrs. McKenze used to just project success—you know, with their cars and their mansion and the way they dress and act and all of that—since their finances went in the toilet, they’ve also become super secretive. And even though I know that Mrs. McKenze has been tearing her hair out for months over her husband’s gambling, she still always acts like nothing’s wrong. She drives the same car and dresses the same way and talks like everything is just dandy.
But inside the mansion, dishes have been flying.
Anyway, the point is, she would never let on to me that her world was falling apart, and according to the McKenze Code of Honor, Marissa should never have made a peep about it to me or anyone else.
So when Marissa says, “Jail?” I can see the tired wheels in her mother’s brain calculate the damage as she looks from her daughter to me and back again. And I can tell she’s trying to devise some cover-up reason why her husband could possibly be in jail, only the wheels won’t turn.
She’s just done.
“Mom?” Marissa finally prompts. “Why’s Dad in jail?” Then she adds, “Sammy knows about the gambling,” which makes Mrs. McKenze put a hand up to her forehead like she can’t believe Marissa did such a stupid thi
ng. So Marissa tells her, “Look, I had to talk to somebody—living with you and Dad has been a nightmare!”
Mrs. McKenze closes her eyes and nods. “I know.” She gives a sad little shrug. “And I’m afraid things are beyond repair at this point.”
“What happened?” Marissa asks, sliding into the chair beside her.
Mrs. McKenze looks at me and sighs. “I hope you can be a good friend to Marissa and keep this between us.”
I nod and Marissa says, “Sammy’s like a vault, Mom. You know that.”
Her mom takes a deep breath, holds it for forever, and finally says, “He punched Leon in the face. Broke his nose.”
“He punched Leon? But … he always talks about Leon like he’s his best bud.”
“Well, your father was—and probably still is—drunk.”
Marissa shakes her head. “But still, he punched him? Why?”
“Because your father came to town with a big bundle of cash and lost it all at Leon’s blackjack table.”
“How much money are we talking about?”
“A lot.”
“But … where’d he get the money? I thought everything had been cut off.”
Mrs. McKenze studies her for the longest time, and finally she says, “He got it from his brother.”
“Uncle Bruce?” Marissa gasps, and when Mrs. McKenze nods, I understand right away that this has become bigger than a gambling problem.
This has become a hole so dark and deep that there is no getting out of it.
See, Marissa’s family may have been rich, but Marissa’s uncle is richer. And Marissa has told me that it’s not just that her uncle has more money than her dad, it’s also that her uncle is an eye surgeon. And since he’s on local commercials and billboards promoting his “world-renowned vision center,” he’s become kind of a celebrity in Santa Martina. People around town see him and whisper, “Hey, isn’t that the guy on the billboard?” And when Marissa’s dad meets new people, more and more he gets asked, “Say, are you related to Dr. McKenze?”
And as Dr. McKenze’s world-renowned vision center became at least county-renowned, he got richer and now lives in a place that makes the McKenzes’ mansion look like a tract house.