Preston Allen - Las Vegas Noir

Her cell phone rang, its shrill intrusion into her breakfast moment causing her to drop a plastic forkful of egg onto the dirty parquet floor. “Damnit!” She glanced at the caller ID. Her stomach relaxed when she saw it wasn’t her mother calling. It was her shrink’s office. Dr. Golob’s secretary briskly informed her that tomorrow’s appointment would have to be rescheduled. The doctor had a family emergency.

Partly due to her mother’s insistence, but also partly due to simply needing someone to talk to, Madison had been in therapy for years. In school she hadn’t been that popular to begin with, then word had gotten around about her father’s dietary directive. She became the constant source of entertainment for her creatively cruel classmates.

The strict diet she was forced into seemed to interfere with her pubescence too. While other girls her age were whispering and giggling about bra sizes and tampons versus pads, Madison remained flat chested and untouched by the monthly curse. It wasn’t until she was fourteen that she got her first period. Even so, she remained ridiculously unendowed with breasts.

It was Dr. Golob who’d suggested Madison study nutrition and fitness training. He’d pointed out she could modify her body type with a regimen of a proper diet and exercise, so why not make a living out of it? “People will have to talk to you, Madison. Actually, your clients will be counting on you. Trusting you to help them improve their bodies. You really need the socialization. Consider it part of your therapy.”

Her last session with Dr. Golob hadn’t been a fruitful one, to say the least. She’d been complaining about the construction surrounding her. Vegas was booming. Old familiar buildings and hotels were being imploded and demolished. High-rise condos and towering casinos were vying for space in the once clear blue sky of the valley. Lake Mead was like a gargantuan bathtub with a faulty plug and a bad case of ring-around-the-ninety-foot rim.

Madison had moved to the suburbs six years ago to escape the congestion. Now the Green Valley area was pretty much a metropolis of its own. “Did you know, Dr. Golob, that years ago on Tomiyasu Lane there was a vegetable farm owned by a Japanese man named Mr. Tomiyasu?”

Her stomach growled again when she remembered plump red strawberries and sweet ears of corn that the housekeeper would bring home. Madison was so hungry all of the time back then that her sense of smell had sharpened considerably. She would imagine that by drawing in deep breathes through her nose she was actually tasting the fresh produce. This was something she never shared with the therapist.

Nor did she share with Dr. Golob how deeply affected she was by the constant cycle of destruction, then resurrection, surrounding her. Even at night, machines were digging and scraping away at the soil, leaving deep scars in the million-years-old earth. Machines that in the yellow lights used by the construction workers looked like something from a Martian collective.

Cold and relentless, they jabbed and dug and poked; just like her father had jabbed and dug and poked at her, Madison would think. Then the builders would come and layer by layer cover up the blemishes and pockmarks. They would be followed by the landscapers who planted trees, bushes, and flowers that really had no business in the arid soil of the Nevada desert. So, too, had Madison built walls of concrete around her, and layered her façade with cosmetics and apparel foreign to her nature.

“Oh no! Gotta go!” Madison, lost in her mental ramblings, was running late. She quickly showered, then dressed in her usual training ensemble: blue shorts, white shirt, socks, and Nikes. Her short curly hair needed only a dab of mousse to keep it in place. She applied mascara to her sparse lashes, a hint of blush to her cheeks, and some lip gloss on her narrow mouth.

Madison strode purposely to her old BMW, then inched her way out into the traffic on Silver Springs Road. She wasn’t too concerned about upsetting her client with her tardiness. She knew she could blame it on the construction work surrounding the area.

Lately, Madison was blaming everything on the construction, from her lack of sleep when she woke up drenched in sweat as the machines chewed and gnawed their way through the night (she never did remember the nightmares about her father) to her increasing desire to eat the food she would only allow to rot in the refrigerator. (Her stomach seemed to rumble more and more each day in a synchronized cacophony with the backhoes and loaders.)

Madison pulled into the club parking lot and got her gym bag out of the trunk. Three women dressed in short colorful tennis skirts walked by, bright sunlight flashing off the diamonds on their fingers. They were laughing, oblong bags slung across their backs. Thin, blond, and full-breasted, they passed by Madison without so much as a glance.

Garvey was waiting by the water cooler in the gym. To her surprise, he wasn’t tall and skinny. He was short and stocky like her. His hair was black and longer than the current buzz-cut fashion. He had shy brown eyes and perfectly unblemished olive skin. She soon found out his mother was Latina. His father was Caucasian and owned a concrete-mixing company.

Madison eased Garvey through the usual trainer’s monologue. What were his goals? How committed was he to meeting those goals? What were his eating habits? Where did he want to see the most improvement? She weighed him in and calculated his body-fat index, then took him through thirty minutes of a light workout on the weight machines.

Two clients later, Madison was ready to call it a day. On her way home she decided to stop at Starbucks for her one indulgence in life, a caramel macchiato. Hot beverage in hand, she picked up a copy of a local alternative weekly and wandered out onto the patio.

“Miss Feldon?”

Madison squinted into the bright light. Garvey Kendall was smiling shyly down at her. He had a cardboard cup in one hand and a small brown bag in the other. He shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

“Mind if I join you?”

For a moment, she did mind. She minded, all right, because she could smell the cinnamon coffee cake with its thick sweet icing that was nestled in the bag he set down on the round metal table. She minded because she didn’t appreciate him intruding on her solitude. She minded because he was a client, just an eighty-dollar hour, of which her cut was only forty percent. She minded because he was a man, and Madison knew from past experience that men didn’t like her.

Five years ago, Madison’s only friend, her cousin Sarah, had come to Las Vegas to celebrate spring break, and that was when Madison had lost her virginity. The cousins were the same age, born just weeks apart. Sarah had a clear complexion, long brunette hair, and sparkling blue eyes that matched her upbeat personality. Sarah was the darling daughter among three sons. Sarah’s family lived in Chicago.

A new hotel-casino had opened not far from Madison’s condo. It was the vivacious Sarah who suggested they should go to dinner at the hotel. After dinner, the two women went out onto the casino floor to play poker. Madison found she was actually enjoying herself. The pile of chips in front of her was gradually increasing.

One of the seats at the table opened up and was quickly occupied. Madison glanced at the newcomer, then almost knocked over the cocktail at her elbow. She’d seen him at the sports club many times. While she couldn’t remember his name, she certainly remembered how he looked while he was working out. (Muscles taut and straining under his glistening, tanned skin.) Madison felt a flush of warmth as she recalled how she enjoyed surreptitiously tracing with her eyes the vinelike pattern of pumped-up veins along his hard body.