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  HEADLINING

  VIVA LAS VEGAS

  “I had no idea the prom was so important to him,” I cried to Jazzy as I sat on my bed, puffy-eyed. “He’s attended the prom since he was a freshman. Seniors were always asking him. I’ll be standing onstage with Jelly Bean for two seconds. Gavin will be holding a girl in his arms for hours. I can’t even bear the thought. He can’t go with Stinkface! You have to set him up with…your mother—she’s beautiful!”

  “You’re hearing just prom—Gavin’s hearing he’s not important anymore,” Jazzy speculated.

  “But he is!”

  “The prom is the biggest night of a teenager’s life,” Jazzy continued. “For bush girls to go is a dream come true—much less to be going with hipsters. But Gavin is a coolhead—his destiny wasn’t to be taking tickets at the door. He could possibly be crowned Prom Stud.”

  “I thought you said this wasn’t about the prom!”

  “Everything’s changed! The biggest day of your life now far outshines the biggest day of his life. The relationship was about you worshipping Gavin. Now Gavin has to worship you. He can be the big fish of Mason, but maybe he can’t be Gavin Shapiro.”

  “I’m not asking him to be.”

  “Girl, he just realized you’ve outgrown him!”

  Jazzy’s assessment of the situation wasn’t reaching me. “But I’m still a bush girl! I still love Gavin, whether I’m standing on a stage in Vegas or dancing under a disco ball at Mason High. Why can’t he understand that? Why can’t he understand that an opportunity like this only happens once?”

  “He does, Trixie! That’s why he’s freaking out. I’ve been going to therapy long enough to see the situation. He’s afraid of your success. He’s afraid of losing you.”

  “Well, he did lose me—and I lost him.”

  “You have to forget him—you’re on a rising rocket to fame! You meet comics all the time—there’ll be hundreds of lonely guys just waiting to date you.”

  “But not one named Gavin Baldwin.”

  “Well, you can sit on this bed and cry forever, or you can go to Vegas and rock the world.”

  I thought for a moment.

  “You’re right. You’re right!” I said apologetically. “I guess I’ve made a decision—just like Gavin demanded.”

  The show must go on.

  My eyes were already haggard from performing at Chaplin’s and school. Now they were puffy and swollen from crying. I couldn’t turn my love for Gavin off like some amorous light switch. I buried myself in rehearsing and writing new jokes for Jelly Bean’s show. I used cucumber eye presses, extra rouge, and Joyful aroma-therapy spray to mask my exterior, but nothing could hide or truly distract me from the hole I felt inside.

  When I closed my comedy notebook or stepped off the stage at Chaplin’s, I was sadder than I had ever been in my life. I felt more unappreciated than I had before ever knowing an audience’s approval, lonelier than before I received my first smile from Gavin.

  Gavin didn’t call and beg for my return. He didn’t say he missed me. He didn’t smile when we passed in the halls. Now I was counting his frowns.

  And I was supposed to think about Vegas. My offstage life had become desperate, torturous, endless. Each night as I slept in my Varicose Veins T-shirt, I asked myself if I’d made the right choice. Why did I want this crazy life anyway? Cam was lonely and miserable—and he was successful. Did I want to live the rest of my life out of a suitcase, eating meals from a vending machine, only to return home from the road to a moldy refrigerator and an empty bed?

  The next week Sarge waited with us at the gate before Dad and I boarded the plane, as if I was a ten-year-old child. I was getting motion sickness from Sarge squeezing her “little baby” back and forth.

  As I buckled myself into my window seat, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window. Unbelievable. Trixie Shapiro was heading to Vegas!

  Millions of lights illuminated a neon paradise as the plane swept over the Strip. Mandalay Bay, the Luxor, Excalibur, the MGM Grand all flickered their welcome.

  It looked like the airplane had landed right in the middle of a circus. I was truly in Casino Country. Gamblers didn’t have to go farther than the airport gate with hopes of winning millions. Flashing neon lights, the ching ching of spinning slot machines were within sight of the departure and arrival gates. Huge video screens advertised shows as bags spun around on the conveyer belts.

  Dad and I were greeted by a silver-haired man in a dark suit, holding a white sign that read: TRIXIE SHAPERO.

  “You are going to be famous,” my dad said. “Look, they are already misspelling your name.”

  I only felt the desert heat for the two minutes it took to follow my driver—yes, my driver!—from the air-conditioned terminal to his air-conditioned Ford Explorer. Unlike Chicago, where it can take all weekend to get from O’Hare to the city, Las Vegas has its airport literally blocks from the Strip—mega blocks large enough to hold enormous hotels and their supercolossal signs, an Eiffel Tower, a pirate ship, a pyramid, a castle with a wizard, and Roman columns.

  We pulled into the circular drive of our hotel—Legends. Before us rose the facade of a massive 1940s-style movie theater that housed twelve movie theaters inside—as well as the obligatory casino, three thousand rooms, swimming pools, restaurants, and an empty stage where I was to make my Vegas debut.

  The driver handed the valet our bags and said to my dad, “Win a million, Mr. Shapiro.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked my dad. His head was tilted back as he craned his neck to see the marquis.

  “I wanted to see if your name is in lights.”

  But all it read was “Jelly Bean Live.”

  The Legends’ huge oak doors automatically opened, revealing a moving sidewalk in a dark corridor. As soon as we stepped on it, lights flashed and camera shutters clicked, simulating a hundred paparazzi. Invisible fans “oohed” and “aahed” and shouted, “Look this way,” and “Can I have your autograph?”

  We were swept into a bright, cavernous lobby. Long rows of check-in desks were designed like old-fashioned ticket windows.

  “Trixie Shapiro,” I announced as Dad sat next to a lobby poster of Rebel Without a Cause. Sarge had always been the one to check the family into hotels, and now Dad was letting me take charge. I felt a surge of self-confidence at finally getting the opportunity to take care of myself.

  “Welcome to Vegas,” the woman said through the window. “Your name again?

  “Shapiro.”

  She pressed the keyboard on her computer. “We don’t have a reservation. Could it be under another name?”

  “How about S-h-a-p-e-r-o.”

  She fiddled with the keys. “I’m sorry, no listing.”

  Impossible. Did I have the wrong hotel? Did I have the wrong week?

  “This is Legends, isn’t it?” I asked, suddenly confused.

  “Yes.”

  “Jelly Bean is performing here tonight, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  This was exactly the kind of thing Cam had talked about. Life on the road!

  “Are you here with your parents?” she asked skeptically.

  “No, I’m here with Jelly Bean. I’m opening for him tonight, and I need rest.”

  “Hold on,” she said, suddenly polite, and tapped her fingers again. “We’re crowded this weekend because of a Barbie Doll convention. Let me see…I can put you in room four fifteen.”

  “Thanks. But I’ll need two rooms, please.” She looked at me strangely. “My entourage,” I explained, pointing to my father.

  “You’re in luck. Four seventeen is available too.”

  “What kind of luck is that?”

  The casino was magnificent. A huge movie screen showed Laurel and Hardy tripping on a banana, but the slot addicts only had eyes for apples, oranges, and lemons. At the blackjack tables, dealers were dressed in usher outfits, and Marilyn Monroes, James Deans, and Groucho Marxes pushed money-changing ca
rts.

  Dad and I were lost. We circled the Walk of Fame three times before Humphrey Bogart pointed us to the elevators.

  A golden star with room number 415 greeted me. I stuck my key card inside the door slot and got the green light. My very own Vegas bedroom. What awaited me on the other side? A pink neon headboard? Glittery bathrobes? A roulette wheel Jacuzzi? A slot machine toilet handle that ching-chinged with every flush?

  But it was like any other hotel room—except for framed pictures of Marlon Brando, W.C. Fields, and Mae West adorning the walls. After all, management didn’t want travelers wasting time on roulette wheel Jacuzzis when they could be losing money at the real thing. I waved Dad good-bye and, after he disappeared through the adjoining door, I immediately called Jazzy with his phone card.

  “I have my very own room in Vegas!” I shouted. “I can bounce on the beds and there’s no Sarge to yell at me. Only housekeeping!”

  I was too wired to rest and opened the curtains. The neon lights glistened from the surrounding hotels, but in the distance lay vast desert and darkness. I felt its loneliness and was overcome with thoughts of Gavin. My stomach sank as I caught my somber reflection in the dark glass.

  I rode the elevator back to the lobby to find my way to the Living Legends Comedy Club, not to be confused with their twenty-thousand-seat concert hall. I thought I had stumbled upon the ladies’ room, but it was indeed the club’s entrance. A poster of Jelly Bean hung on the wall.

  I pulled the doors open and peeked in.

  I expected Carnegie Hall, but this was more like Chaplin’s on a good night. It held about two hundred people, with round tables and chairs and little unlit candles on the tables. The stage looked about the same size as my hotel bed.

  A man dressed in tech black walked in. “May I help you?” he asked.

  “I’m Trixie Shapiro,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m opening for Jelly Bean tonight.”

  “I’m Kevin,” he said, shaking my hand. “I’m glad you’re here. I need to test the lighting levels.”

  I jumped up onstage and looked at the empty chairs. In a few hours they would be filled. Stage fright set in. My stomach turned. This wouldn’t be an Amber Hills audience.

  “Where’s Jelly Bean?” I asked as he walked back up to the lighting booth.

  “You’ll be lucky if you get to see him before he goes on. He usually secludes himself in his dressing room until he’s announced.”

  Good, maybe then he won’t know if I bomb.

  Kevin brought up the stage lights.

  Then he hit the follow spot. I saw dust flying from the stage. I felt the warm glow from the Vegas spotlight.

  I had arrived.

  Two hours later a line formed outside the theater, reaching the casino bar. I hung out with Ray, the bartender. He passed a vodka to a businessman. I wanted to intercept the pass and liquify my nerves, but I never drank anything stronger than wine at Passover seder, and that always sent me into a giggling frenzy. That’s all I needed—to laugh at my own jokes while the audience sat quietly.

  I took my Coke without ice back to the dressing room as more audience members arrived, waiting for the theater doors to open.

  I gazed into the mirror, fixing my hair and makeup. In a few minutes I’d be playing Vegas. But instead of seeing “Trixie Shapiro, rising Las Vegas star,” I saw an insecure senior at Mason High who was missing her prom.

  “Ready, Trixie?” asked Sandy, the stage manager, knocking on my door.

  “No!” I called back with a quiver in my voice. “But that won’t stop me.”

  I could hear Kevin on the loudspeaker. “Tonight, Legends Hotel proudly presents live and in person, a true comic legend himself, Jelly Bean! But before we bring him out, we have a special guest to start you laughing, straight from Chicago—Trixie Shapiro!”

  The audience applauded politely as I walked out onto a real Las Vegas stage. I picked up the microphone, gazed at the packed house, and panicked. The youngest person in the audience was at least thirty years old. I prayed they would remember how it felt to be in high school and took a deep breath. My mouth was sans saliva and it was impossible to swallow.

  “Vegas is really for adults. I was the only kid on the airplane. I had to use my fake ID just to get peanuts!”

  The audience laughed. I gulped air.

  “And this town is totally obsessed with gambling. My hotel room is crazy. The back of the toilet is set up like a slot machine. The only way to flush the toilet is to pull the lever and get three lemons.”

  I looked around at the audience of smiling and laughing faces. “Legends just built a kiddie casino. I spent all my milk money. And wiped out my college fund!

  “I loathe high school. I’m unbearably shy, afraid to speak up in class. I’m not the class clown—I’m the class mime!”

  I had feared my fifteen minutes of fame would seem like fifteen years, but before I knew it I was saying, “Thank you, and now the man you have all been waiting for—the fabulous Jelly Bean!”

  I watched Jelly Bean’s brilliant performance from backstage. He closed the show himself. Afterward he secluded himself in his dressing room while I sat wired, washing my face in my dressing-room sink. Jelly Bean wouldn’t receive visitors—or eager young comediennes—until after both shows were over.

  The audience gave me a standing ovation as I finished my set. I ran offstage and bumped into a bright bouquet of roses.

  “You were terrific!” Gavin exclaimed.

  “But you’re supposed to be at the prom!” I said, surprised.

  “No,” he corrected, kissing me. “I’m supposed to be with you.”

  Jet lag kicked in during my second set, and my monologue wasn’t as punchy. The audience took an eternity to laugh.

  I finished my last joke to courteous applause and sat in the wings sleepy-eyed while Jelly Bean won over the audience with a comical wizard’s spell.

  Afterward I waited in my dressing room while Jelly received fans, friends, and family. I hoped to speak to him for a minute and find out if he heard any of my performance, but he and his wife rushed past my door with a generic “Good night, everyone!”

  I might have been exhausted, but I was also starving. Dad took me to the buffet and I ate like a linebacker. I’d never seen my dad glow so much. Maybe it was the fluorescent lighting. When we finally returned upstairs, it was almost dawn Chicago time, too late to call Jazzy, and too early to call Sarge. No time was the right time for Gavin anymore. But I couldn’t complain. As I collapsed on my bed, still fully dressed, I could only wonder what one dreams of once a dream comes true.

  After a few hours of restless sleep and a light breakfast, Dad and I sat poolside, trying to relax before Sergeant showed up. She arrived in time for lunch in full loud-ness—there was a deafening banging coming from the adjoining room that sounded like the TV had fallen on Dad. I opened the adjoining door, and there was Sarge, yelling, “I’m here! We’ll leave the doors wide open so I can see you better!”

  I had a feeling I’d be sleeping in the bathtub.

  Sergeant hadn’t seen me perform since she’d snuck into Chaplin’s.

  But now that I knew Sarge was in the house, my fear of stage fright was compounded by the terror that she’d grab the microphone.

  But it was too late. Instead of Kevin’s voice over the loudspeaker, a familiar woman’s loud voice, complete with a Chicago accent, began the introduction to the show. Not Sarge! “She came into the world crying,” she began, “and spent the rest of her life laughing. You’ve seen her as a naked baby in a bathtub on America’s Most Embarrassing Videos…Ladies and gentleman, from dirty diapers to dirty jokes, my little baby girl, Trixie Shapiro.”

  I walked up on stage and stood frozen. The audience was already laughing, but not with me—at me.

  “Don’t blow this!” was all I could think when Kevin announced my name. I had my material safely tucked in my bra just in case I blanked out. Hopefully I wouldn’t forget where I put the note.
/>   I couldn’t see my parents anywhere with the stage light blinding my view of the back table.

  I took a deep breath and began, “My mother flew in to Vegas tonight. She plans to open her own hotel. It’s called Sergeant’s. Guests have a curfew, and if they are not back in their hotel rooms by eleven they are grounded! Mom is a professional nag—she mastered in Yelling with a Ph.D. in Whining.”

  I could hear Sergeant’s cackling from the back of the room as I plugged away at my punch lines. At first I found it distracting, then comforting, like a comical umbilical cord.

  After all, if Sarge could laugh at herself, then maybe I could take myself less seriously.

  “My little baby!” she exclaimed, barging into my small dressing room after the show. “You were wonderful!” she continued. Dad followed, carrying a bouquet of flowers.

  Just then Jelly Bean walked by.

  “Thank you for helping our Trixie,” my mother hollered, racing over to him.

  He turned away and hurried into his dressing room.

  “Mom! You can’t talk to him between shows,” I said, pulling her back into my room.

  “What do you mean I can’t talk to him? I just listened to him talk for an hour! The least he can do is listen to me for five minutes!”

  “Ma!” I said through clenched teeth.

  “You were great, once again!” Dad said, handing me the flowers.

  “You think so?”

  “Yes!” Sarge gushed. “You were fantastic!” She hugged me with all her might.

  “Sensational!” Dad said.

  “You looked beautiful up there. But the lights wash you out. You need foundation,” Sarge said, rummaging in her purse.

  “So what did you really think?” I asked my dad.

  “What’s there to think? It was perfect.”

  The stage manager tapped on the door. “We start in fifteen.”

  “I need to veg, okay?” I told my parents.

  “You sure you can’t get us a closer table?” Sarge asked.