Portia MacIntosh - The Accidental Honeymoon

‘You sure?’ she asks, giving me another chance to back out.

‘Yes,’ I reply confidently.

‘You in a rush?’ she asks, causing me to wonder what the hell she’s planning.

‘No…’

‘OK then, let’s get started.’

Chapter Three

I glance at the $1,000’s worth of chips, fascinated that such little, unremarkable pieces of plastic could be worth so much money. They’re so gold I can see my reflection in them, and every time I look at them and catch sight of myself, it reminds me how different my hair looks now.

After what felt like a lifetime in the chair, I am now the proud wearer of very long, very blonde hair, or ‘Playboy Bunny hair’ as the lady from New York described it. With my light, bright, fresh peroxide colour, the long length curled at the ends, combined with my hastily bought midlife quarterlife thirdlife-crisis outfit (I am nearly thirty after all) – I can see what she means. From the new clothes, to the hair extensions, to all the new make-up I bought from the hotel shop, I look nothing like myself right now, and that’s fine by me.

Casinos are bizarre places, really. The room is split into sections, one end littered with green felt tables and the other home to rows and rows of brightly flashing, very noisy slot machines. It’s such a nice, sparkly, glamorous place at a quick glance. I’ve noticed a few people on winning streaks and, as miserable as I am, it cheers me up to watch people winning. A bit of good luck and they come alive, jumping up and down, victory dancing, grabbing their nearest and dearest (or just the nearest random person sometimes) in celebration. But when you stop and look, you can see the darker side to these places, those with anguished looks on their faces and just a few chips on the table in front of them. As their luck runs thin, so does their money. Just one good hand will turn things around for them, but sometimes it simply doesn’t come. It’s kind of depressing to watch and makes you wonder how much they’ve lost and what it will mean for them in the real world, after they leave the flashing lights and the free booze of timeless Las Vegas.

Without windows or clocks, it’s impossible to tell what time of day it is, or how long you’ve spent here without keeping an eye on your own watch. I can understand why people spend so much time here.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but I’ve been hovering by this Blackjack table for a while now – the only card game here I actually know how to play. John was going to bring me here tonight, teach me how to gamble, have me as his lucky charm, blowing on his dice like you see in the movies.

I watch as a forty-something, dark-haired man runs a hand through his hair as he waits with bated breath for the dealer to reveal his hand.

‘Blackjack,’ the dealer announces casually as he turns over his other card to reveal an ace. With the king the dealer was already showing, this hand is lethal and, with no chips left, the dark-haired man skulks off.

The dealer takes no joy from winning, effortlessly moving everything back into its place on the table, ready for the next player. The dealer looks over at me and raises his eyebrows, silently asking if I’m planning on playing. If I don’t do it now, I never will, so I climb onto the stool as gracefully as possible in my short dress and place my chips on the table.

‘Place your bets, please,’ the dealer says robotically.

I glance down at my golden chips, and take one final, long, hard look at myself in them. When the porter handed them to me, there was a little note with them saying they were complimentary chips and therefore could only be played, and not simply cashed out, otherwise I’d be spending this $1,000 on room service right about now.

From what I’ve observed, Blackjack is an amalgam of luck and skill. Luck comes from being dealt the right cards, but you need some skill to know what to do with them. But what if you left it entirely down to fate?

Confidently, I bet my entire $1,000. It was only yesterday I caught John cheating on me, and I’ve no idea what I’m supposed to do. On the one hand, if he could hurt me, betray me and completely obliterate my trust like he has, then how can I be with him? On the other hand, we were engaged, we lived together and we loved each other… is that really something I should just throw away in an instant?

The dealer places my cards down in front of me, giving me an ace and a four.

I stare at my cards a moment too long.

‘That’s five or fifteen,’ he tells me, suspecting I can’t count. ‘Aces are one or eleven.’

He loves me, he loves me not.

‘Thank you,’ I reply, although I knew that. ‘Hit me please.’

If the next card is a winner, he loves me.

‘Queen – so that’s fifteen,’ the dealer tells me.

‘Hit.’ He loves me not.

‘A five – that’s twenty.’

The dealer is showing a queen, so if he gets another ten or an ace then I’ll lose… or, I could see if luck is on my side, hit one more time, and if by some miracle I get my five-card trick, then John loves me, this was all a big mistake, and everything will go back to the way it was.

‘Hit,’ I tell him.

The dealer goes to turn his card before stopping himself just in time.

‘I’m sorry, miss. Did you say hit?’

I nod.

‘Miss, you have twenty.’

‘Hit,’ I repeat.

He looks at me for a moment, puzzled. I think he’s trying to work out if I know what I’m doing or not.

‘Seriously,’ I add.

He shrugs his shoulders and does as I wish.

‘King – thirty – bust,’ he says, sighing deeply in an I-told-you-so kind of way. Of course it turns out to be the king of hearts delivering this final blow to my love life. I don’t know what I thought I was going to achieve with this silly game.

So that’s that then. I hop down from my stool and stroll off, conscious of the dealer’s eyes on me. I guess he’s never seen anything like that before.

As I make my way towards the casino exit, I wonder what to do with myself now. Other than the brief mutterings of the dealer, I haven’t really spoken to anyone since I was in the salon. Now I think about it, I’m glad. I don’t really want to speak to anyone. A free dinner in a beautiful restaurant seems like a silly thing to waste, but I cannot think of anything sadder than sitting there on my own, ploughing my way through three courses of Vegas’s finest on the off-chance it makes me feel better.

I step into the lift and take a look at the map of the hotel. I don’t really want to be around too many people, but I definitely don’t want to go back to my room alone. I browse the list until the perfect place pops out at me: the rooftop garden. It’s not exactly the warmest evening, so hopefully there won’t be too many people there. I can get some air, clear my head and try and think about what the hell I’m going to do.

Obviously breaking up with someone you live with causes a lot of upset, both emotionally and in your day-to-day life, but I have problems that are more immediate: going home to England for my cousin’s wedding without a fiancé. I know what you’re thinking – why can’t I just be honest with everyone? Well, the truth is, I made no secret of the fact I was moving to LA for a bigger and better life, but it hasn’t exactly worked out that way. My mum and my auntie have always measured me and my cousin against each other – they had us months apart, after all. They’ve always had this rivalry about whose daughter was doing the best. I never managed to bag the job I wanted, but I had John… and now, suddenly, I have nothing. No job, no home, no fiancé. My cousin, on the other hand, has it all. She’s marrying the man she loves in a wedding that is sure to be spectacular, her fiancé is a rich businessman who gives her everything she could possibly want – he’s even started her own business for her, selling candles. So you can see why I don’t want to go home with nothing, in the midst of all this wedding stuff. Not only would it be so embarrassing, having to admit it to everyone, but everyone would pity me. And it would certainly take the focus away from my cousin, which my auntie would no doubt think I’d done on purpose. No, I’ll have to lie. Tell them John is away for work or something.