Page 2 of The Marriage Blunder

I got my stubbornness from Clara herself, who once sat through an entire neighborhood block party with a broken wrist because she didn’t want to “make a fuss.”

“I’ll call tomorrow,” I said. “Don’t drink too much.”

“You’re at a bachelor party in Las Vegas and you’re telling me not to drink too much?”

“I’m going to drink exactly the right amount.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“It’s statistically sound, which is better.”

She was quiet for a beat. I could hear the television in the background, something with a laugh track. Carmen was probably in the kitchen, doing whatever home nurses do when they’re off the clock, which in my imagination involved very efficient dish-washing and possibly some light espionage.

“I love you,” Clara said.

“I love you too, Ma. Eat the soup. I mean it.”

I hung up and tucked my phone into my jacket pocket. The terminal was exactly what I had mapped in my head: forty-seven gates, three sets of restrooms, two coffee shops—both featuring lines of visibly traumatized people—and an exit that would put me approximately ninety seconds from the taxi stand if I maintained a brisk pace and didn’t get stuck behind a family with strollers.

My plan was to check in, change clothes, and then make one appearance at the party, because my sister Carolyn would notice if I didn’t show and the resulting interrogation would be more exhausting than the party itself.

I’d drink the minimum number of drinks required to register as a good sport, which my research indicated was two, one to hold and one to sip slowly and then I’d locate whatever quiet corner of this city would have me.

The Natural History Museum opened at nine. I had the hours saved in my phone, along with the admission price, the café menu, and the distance from the Bellagio, which was 2.7 miles.

I had already calculated the cab fare. I had calculated the cab fare three different ways, using three different ride-share apps, and then averaged the results because that’s what a reasonable person did.

I pushed through the sliding doors.

The heat hit me like a physical blow. One hundred and three degrees, according to the sign I’d glimpsed on the way out, and approximately seventy percent humidity, which meant the air had the consistency of hot soup.

My glasses fogged immediately.

I stopped dead.

“Absolutely not,” I said, to no one.

A cab driver idling at the curb gave me a look of profound sympathy. He had the eyes of a man who had seen everything and regretted most of it. His dashboard was littered with religious paraphernalia and what appeared to be a very old energy drink can.

I got in the cab. The air conditioning was set to what felt like the interior of a meat locker, and I loved it with the desperate, grateful passion of a man who had just walked across the surface of the sun.

“Where to?” he asked.

“We’re going to the Bellagio,” I said, buckling my seatbelt. “And I would like to go the speed limit, please. All of it. The entire limit. Not one mile per hour over.”

The cab driver looked at me in the rearview mirror. I could see him calculating something, the way people sometimes do when they encounter me, which is usually the moment they decide I am either fascinating or exhausting and they need to pick a lane.

“You got it, boss,” he said, and pulled away from the curb at exactly the speed limit.

I settled back and watched Las Vegas scroll past the window, all neon and motion and scale, and thought about the fact that somewhere in this hotel was Kenneth James, and I was going to have to be normal about that for approximately forty-eight hours, and then normal about it for the rest of my life.

I had a plan. I had the museum’s hours. I had my sensible shoes.

It was going to be fine.

* * * *

The Bellagio lobby hit me like a very expensive brick.