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Chapter Six
Seriously? You self-parked?” Madison scoffed as she handed her ticket to a young man behind the valet kiosk. “Why in the world would you do that?”
Payson chuckled and thought about Hannah’s reply when she happened upon her walking to the casino. “Because it’s a beautiful night.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Madison snorted, then turned. “Yoo-hoo,” she called. “Be extra careful when retrieving my car, it’s a Mercedes.” She returned her focus to Payson. “Why in the world would they have such young people parking such expensive cars? He barely looks old enough to drive. If there’s a scratch or dent on my new baby, I’m suing.”
“I wouldn’t worry. I’m sure he’s quite capable in his job.”
“Easy for you to say, you drive a—”
Payson gave Madison a look that hopefully conveyed she would be skating on thin ice if she finished that sentence.
“I didn’t mean anything. I’m just worried about my car and…” Madison waved a hand. “Never mind. Anyway, I actually got a little sidetracked from something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“Oh?” Payson’s voice raised an octave.
“What are you doing after the show tomorrow night?”
“Going home.” Payson paused. “Why?” She smiled.
“Would you like to go to a late dinner? I’m pretty sure I can get reservations at Antoine Yves. They serve until midnight.”
“Antoine Yves?” Payson let out a gasp. “I heard there’s over a month waiting list to get into that place.” When she’d first moved to Vegas, she’d aired a package Tegan produced on the multi-award-winning Michelin star chef whose culinary skills and unique menu were quickly becoming the talk of the town. It was not onlytheplace to dine, but on any given night, there was sure to be at least one major celebrity sighting at the restaurant. If Madison was trying to make an impression, she was definitely succeeding.
“There isn’t a waiting list for those who know Antoine.” Madison winked. “So what’d ya say?”
A jolt of excitement pulsed through Payson. A dinner date with Madison Morrison at Antoine Yves? Of course, she was going to say… “Yes, oh my God, are you kidding? I’d love to.”
“You’re too cute.” Madison chuckled, then paused as she tilted her head. “Then I guess it’s a date,” she said in a soft voice as she held Payson’s gaze and slightly rocked forward.
“Yeah,” Payson whispered back as she licked her lips. “I guess it’s a—” The tap of a car horn caused her to jump.
“Your Mercedes, ma’am.” The valet smirked as he held open the door.
Madison whipped her head around and glared at him. “Yes, I can see that,” she said as she did a quick three-sixty around her car, overtly inspecting it. She nodded her approval, retrieved a dollar from her purse, and handed it to him.
Payson noticed a slight eye roll as he glanced at the bill before running back to the kiosk.
“Well, then,” Madison called. “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yep, see you tomorrow.” Payson waved as she watched Madison speed off and disappear into the neon glow of the night. “I have a date,” she said as she stretched her arms and twirled. God, how long had it been since she’d had a romantic night out or even a good-night kiss? She couldn’t remember. Oh, well, the math didn’t matter; the answer her body gave was,too long. “I’m going on a date with Madison Morrison,” she repeated with glee as she strolled to her car. The darling of the evening news had just asked her, a nobody, out for dinner at one of the most prestigious restaurants in town. Maybe, she thought as she glanced toward the sky, things are starting to look up.
As she drove away, her internal excitement remained, but the face in her mind soon morphed from Madison to Hannah. There was something about the new temp that intrigued her. She had a childlike innocence that was such a juxtaposition to the way she looked. Under that rock-hard body was someone who seemed soft and gentle. Someone who had set in motion both fantasies and butterflies. “Hmm,” she mused to herself. She had known Hannah for less than twenty-four hours, yet the feeling of reuniting with a long-lost soul was definitely there.
She lowered her window and let the night air cool her thoughts. As the neon reflections of the town spilled over her windshield, her mind shifted to Vegas as Hannah’s words from earlier echoed in her head. Why didn’t she leave her job? Go somewhere where she had more time to enjoy life? Get another dog and take the vacations she so desperately needed? Maybe even move to a place where she could once again enjoy the four seasons. After seven years, sin city was no longer holding her attention. Lucky seven, she mused as she mindlessly drove over familiar streets. “Maybe it’s time to cash out?” she muttered as she let her mind’s autopilot not only drive her home but also steered her down the many roads of memories:
Payson was excited when she got the call that the Vegas station wanted to hire her. She had been the morning producer at a small southern Iowa station since she’d graduated from college. But it was a triple digit market, and in the game of broadcast news, the higher the number, the smaller and more dismissable the city. At market one hundred and thirteen, she was in broadcast Hicksville. Her life had become as stagnant as her job, and it was time to move on.
She gladly accepted the position, cashed in the small inheritance from her parents, and headed for the city of neon lights and new beginnings. But the town that had originally given her so much eventually took even more: her ex, Julie. They met while Payson worked on the station’s annual fundraising drive for local school supplies. Every company donating five hundred dollars or more got a minute of free airtime to plug their business. On one particular fateful day, Payson was the one who escorted Julie back to the studio for her minute of fame as a representative for the construction company she worked for.
Two weeks later, they were an item, and three months after that, Julie moved in. The day Julie announced that she wanted to go back to school and finally get the master’s degree she had put on hold, Payson was not only supportive, she offered to help out financially.
“I’d pay for it myself if I could,” Julie told her on the heels of a sob story about how an ex had ruined her credit and had made it impossible for her to obtain a loan. Payson offered to cover the cost of her schooling by using her own credit cards. Julie swore through kisses that as soon as she graduated, she would become the breadwinner in the relationship, pay off Payson’s cards, and take care of her.
But two years later, when Julie claimed that the university had made a calculation error in her credits and she neededPayson to apply for an additional credit card to cover the cost of another semester, Payson’s gut told her something was off. She asked Tegan to do a little digging into the situation and see if the university was bilking the students for additional tuition. But what Tegan uncovered was not fraud on the part of the university but a scam on Julie’s part. Seemed she had never enrolled in classes at all, and the money that she had cashed out of the cards to cover her “tuition and school fees,” was instead going toward a gambling addiction. The long hours Julie claimed to be putting in at the library were really hours at the tables.
When Payson confronted her, she denied it. But two days later, she came home to a house empty of Julie and her things. After all her years working in the news industry, writing story after story warning viewers about hacked accounts, scams, and email schemes, she herself had fallen victim to a con. For the next month, Tegan tried her best to track Julie down, but she had vanished off the radar.
“She ghosted out,” Tegan told Payson. “She no longer exists in the data sources I haveaccess to. At least not under that name.”
Payson thanked Tegan for her efforts and told her to stop the search. She was exhausted from crying, hurt from the betrayal, and embarrassed every time she thought about it. Julie was gone, and she needed to close that chapter of her life and begin putting back together the shattered pieces of her heart.
And three years later, Payson had only just begun to make a dent in the debt. With her trust in relationships as bottomed out as her bank account, she’d poured what was left of her heart into the one love she had left: Kona. With her gone, Payson had lost the last bit of what seemed to matter the most in life: happiness.
She pulled into the garage of her modest-sized tract home. No soul was waiting for her to return, so the house greeted her with the quiet sound of loneliness. She threw her purse on the coffee table, made a cup of tea, and eased into a well-worn section of her couch. It was midnight, and she was feeling both wired and tired. She grabbed her remote and turned on the TV to overpower the silence. The distraction of voices at least gave her the false sense of not being totally alone. She flipped through the channels until she paused on a reality crime show. Her gaze eventually drifted to her end table and settled on the cluster of framed photos. She had once heard someone say that memories were the most dangerous form of heart disease, and as she focused on a picture of her mom and dad—smiling as though they hadn’t a care in the world—she couldn’t agree more. She kissed her fingers and tapped the frame of the souls she could never again hold in her arms, share her life’s stories with, or tell over and over how much she loved them. A deep sadness took hold as her gaze drifted to a photo of Kona in her younger more vibrant years.
She tapped the top of her picture frame as well. “I miss you, girl,” she said as she took another sip of tea and nestled deeper into the cushions. She should probably go to the shelter and adopt another dog. It would be good for her heart. But with the number of hours she was logging at the station, she didn’t think that would be fair. Work was consuming her life, and for the foreseeable future, that meant not having a furry companion to come home to. Her primary relationship these days was with a job she was no longer in love with. She let out a breath, leaned her head back, and focused again on the screen as her eyes started to feel heavy. Date night on the couch with her TV was becoming the norm. It kept her company and was a good distraction from her life. A life that had become as empty as her heart.
Bored with what she was watching, she was about to flip the channel when a female cop appeared on screen, and Payson smiled. If not for the long black hair, the woman could be Hannah’s twin. “Hannah,” she said in a barely audible voice as a calmness settled in, and sleep began to take hold. Hannah was as easy on the eyes as she was to get to know. She exhaled a contented breath, and as she drifted asleep, she let the voices from the TV serenade her as her mind filled with images of Hannah.
