Page 20 of The Wilder Widows

“We did, James,” Sylvie answered and ducked inside.

“I used to be one of them.” I cast a backward glance over my shoulder at the theatre.

“And you will be again.” Marge’s hand squeezed my shoulder, and I caught her unusually sympathetic gaze.

Pressing my lips together into the biggest smile I could muster, I squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Marge.”

“Just don’t expect me to take my eyes off the third girl on the left to watch you instead.” She blew out a puff of air before dipping inside the limo.

Finally, laughter snorted out my nose, and I shook my head while I let the sadness wash away.

“Where to, Miss Addington?” James asked before closing me inside.

“Back to the hotel.”

“Can we gamble downstairs before going to bed?” Sylvie asked as the door closed.

“We wouldn’t be the Wilder Widows if we didn’t get a little wild in Vegas.” I grinned, and the limo pulled out.

CHAPTER SIX

“Oh! I won!” Sylvie bounced beside me while she swept her winnings into her arms. “I never win!”

“I lost. Again.” Marge scowled as the dealer moved her chips away.

While they gambled, I still struggled to sort through the feelings battling inside me since we left the show. Anger. Excitement. Fear. More excitement. More fear. They rose and retreated like the tide, and I started to question my one wish. Did I still have what it took to own the spotlight? Or would I be laughed off the stage, a washed-up dancer clinging to a dream she should have kissed away decades ago? A fear greater for me than even death itself.

I’d spent the better part of my life dreaming of returning to Vegas to reclaim my rightful place, but now that I was here, I started to lose my faith.

Not that I would ever admit it to the three widows who made up my whole world.

Another thing I’d never admit.

No. To the rest of the world, I had everything. Money. Looks. Prestige. All the things I hadn’t had when I grew up poor on that farm. My entire youth had been spent being teased for my home-sewn clothes, the way I smelled like cow shit when I rode on the bus each morning, and my long, skinny legs that earned me the nickname Gumby. The very same long legs that I used to waltz right out of that crap town and into the spotlight. But even though I had cried alone in the bathroom every day at recess, I never once let them see my tears.

Then I’d blossomed in middle school, my looks earning the envy of every girl and the adoration of every boy. I’d stopped playing with the cows before school so I didn’t smell like a cow pie, and I’d mastered the art of sewing and made clothes that looked like they came straight out of the catalogs I fashioned them after. I’d turned my life around and emerged from my youthful cocoon as a beautiful butterfly.

Those bullies soon became my ‘friends,’ though I never trusted a single one as far as I could throw them. And after a life mucking cow shit, I had pretty strong arms. I always knew they weren’t my real friends, and neither had been any other woman since. Like my high school friends, women flocked to my side throughout my life but always waited for me to falter. Hoping someday they’d see me knocked from my throne.

Then after Ed had clutched his chest and dropped dead at my feet, leaving me alone once again, Doris and Marge had knocked on my door and extended an invitation to join them. One I’d, of course, scoffed at. Me? In a Widow’s Club? Ridiculous. But in reality, I’d yearned for friendship my whole life, and for the very first time, I found it. I had friends. Real ones. The kind who weren’t secretly hoping I would fail. Whispering behind my back. Smiling at me through gritted teeth as they told me how pretty I looked that day.

Doris and Marge may not have been the exclusive women I’d spent my life rubbing elbows with at cocktail parties, but Marge hadn’t been wrong when she’d said the reason I hadn’t traveled was her. It was them. Now that I’d found them, I couldn’t imagine a life where I didn’t spend it with the only people who truly had my back. Women who held me up instead of trying to push me down. The kind of women who would fly to Vegas with me to help me realize my one and only dream.

And I loved them dearly. So much more than they would ever know.

“I’m on fire!” Doris proclaimed, and I turned to see her walking toward me, waving.

“What? You win ten cents?” I gestured to the voucher flapping in her hand.

“Almost five dollars.” She hoisted it like a trophy.

Sylvie tossed her chip up in the air and caught it with ease. “I just won a thousand.”

“Oh. Wow!” Doris widened her eyes, then glanced down at her voucher and slumped. “I thought five dollars was good.”

“It is.” Marge’s scowl deepened. “I’m in the hole.”

I slipped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. “You’ll get ‘em next time.”