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“Terrance says someday it might be common for casinos to use cryptocurrencies. But why a real casino would want that is beyond me. What’s the point of crypto’s privacy if you’re there in the flesh? What’s the point of owning all this actual real estate if you can make the same money virtually? Besides, they wouldn’t have to come to Vegas to open a crypto casino if the things are online. They could open it from anywhere. Grand Cayman, if they wanted. Cambodia. Some wonk’s basement in Tennessee. Even my sister is going to be working from home a lot of the time, doing whatever it is that she does.”
Cassandra brought Nigel his fresh drink. She was nearing sixty and had been bartending in Vegas longer than I’d been alive, and somehow her skin was not cracking parchment. Also, whoever did her Botox and dyed her hair auburn were virtuosos: I only knew her age because she’d told me.
Three older women approached the bar, simultaneously staring at me and keeping their gaze downcast. Submissive, unlike real paparazzi. I knew what was coming and reached into my purse for my Scotch plaid pen with a mini-Beefeater on the clip. Politely they asked me for my autograph, telling me how much they loved the show. I told them how much I loved them. Because I did. I signed two Playbills and a cocktail napkin with Diana’s effervescent swoosh, a celebration of the lost art of cursive, and added a pair of X’s to each. When they were gone, I told Nigel, “The one in the cardigan. She reminded me of my mum. The cut of her hair. The smile.”
“Do you think Betsy would have moved out here if she was still alive? Your mother?”
“No idea.”
“May I ask you something, love?”
I knew what was coming, but Nigel was a mate, so I agreed.
“Why won’t you forgive her?”
“I’ve tried, Nigel. I have.”
“And you can’t?”
“I have as much as I can. Look, we speak. We’ll see each other out here. But it’s hard. What she did was just so damn stupid.”
“It was stupid, I agree. But her self-hatred must make yours seem tame.”
“You met my mum,” I said, and I could see her face in my glass. A purple scrunchie in her hair, the tiny scar on her chin she’d had since childhood, the eyes the color of moonstones. “I’ve told you what an extraordinary human being she was. God, the shit she put up with when she was raising us? Getting us both through high school and into college on the salary of a rural Vermont history teacher? In a house that was falling apart faster than Usher?”
“Usher? Is that another British reference I’m missing?”
I looked at him, a little disappointed. “No. American. Poe.”
“Ah, I know it now.”
“After our stepfather died, I spent my life cleaning up after Betsy, or trying to make our mum’s life easier. And how did it all end up? She killed the woman.”
“Did it cross your mind that she came here because she wants to be near you? She wants to be in your life? She wants her daughter to know her aunt? Let’s face it, you’re the only immediate family she has.”
“You have to meet that child. I like her. But she’s a piece of work.”
“Why don’t we all have lunch tomorrow? You and me and Betsy and her daughter? Maybe I can suss out what she’s thinking and what Futurium is doing.”
“Marisa has school.”
“Fine. Me and two Dianas.”
“That’s not funny. She doesn’t look that much like me.”
“Oh, but she does.”
“Do you want to be kicked in the bollocks? Is that something you crave?”
He ignored my threat. “You’ll invite her to lunch?”
I looked at those exquisite bottles behind Cassandra. When I’d gotten out my pen for the fans, I’d also retrieved my silver British pillbox with a UK flag on the lid.
“Yes,” I said. “I want to know what’s going on even more than you do.” Then I wrote Betsy a text inviting her to lunch the next day. After it was sent, I reached into the pillbox for a Valium and swallowed the tablet with the last of my gimlet.
* * *
Someone had been in my suite.
