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She stared at herself again in the rearview mirror. “Be Barbie. Don’t let Harper screw this up. Do you hear that, H?”
“Are you talking to yourself, music teacher?”
Ugh! The bellhop.
“I’m heading inside. Can you keep an eye on my car?” she asked, sliding out of Carol. With her tote in one hand and her phone in the other, she kicked the door closed with the spike of her heel.
“I told you, lady. If the—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, the manager is a stickler for following rules at the fancy-pants Luxe Grandiose,” she supplied. She clickity-clacked her way down the sidewalk, then came to a screeching halt.
What about her overnight bag? It was in the back of Carol.
Forget it. If someone wanted to steal a fresh pair of clothes and her toothbrush, they could have at it.
Teetering in the high-heeled boots, she strutted her stuff toward the entrance, when her phone rang and her dear friend Libby Lamb’s picture appeared on the screen.
Seeing the woman’s face comforted her until she glanced up and found everyone from the hotel staff to arriving guests staring at her.
She couldn’t really blame them.
She was dressed like an over-sized mocha-colored ballerina in a bird mask.
“It’s called a costume, people,” she chided, then accepted the call and pressed the phone to her ear, like the badass she was.
A doorman did a double take as she sailed into the hotel like she owned the place.
“Hey, Libbs, what’s up?” she said, ignoring the man and scanning the opulent lobby.
“We’re checking on our favorite piano teacher,” her friend chimed.
“We?” Harper repeated as she spied a kiosk. The Next Hot Online Performer event was being held in one of the ballrooms, which, thanks to the map, she now saw was a hotel combined with an event center with multiple concert venues.
That had to be a good sign. This fancy-pants hotel appeared to be the real deal, and if the Next Hot Online Performer was being held here, the contest had to be legit.
She studied the map next to the event listings, then continued her clickity-clack down a hallway as she set off toward the ballrooms and goose bumps peppered her skin. Going from the desert heat of her car to the chill of the icy air-conditioning sent a shiver down her spine.
“Penny and Charlotte are with me,” Libby supplied.
“Hey, H,” the women called.
“How’s the piano teacher conference?” Charlotte asked.
That’s right. She’d lied.
But it was a teeny-tiny white lie.
She was in Vegas because of music.
That was true.
It was easier to tell them she was attending a humdrum gathering of music instructors. Once she landed this gig, she’d spill the beans and introduce them to her bonbon alter ego.
“The conference is…whoa,” she cried. Her eyes nearly popped out of the feathery mask as a trio of women clad in pasties, that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, and G-strings walked by.
This was Vegas.
“Whoa?” Penny echoed.
