Page 23 of Good Days Bad Days
Lacey, what the hell have you gotten me into?
“Excuse me.” I tap a girl on her bare glitter-coated arm. She spins around with a glare that softens when she sees I’m not some creepy guy trying to hit on her. “Sorry. I’m from out of town and I was wondering what all this”—I gesture at the blue velvet of her Bunny suit and the tall satin ears—“is about.”
“It’s Playboy night. You dress up and drinks are half price.” She says “half price” as though that’s the interesting part of the sentence. I shout a follow-up question in her ear.
“Playboy night? ’Cause of the Playboy Club-Hotel?”
When I was a kid it was the Americana and it’s now the Grand Geneva, but we all knew the origin of the massive hotel, golf course, and ski resort. As salacious as the Playboy name has become over the years, the resort didn’t have the same reputation, and I remember the Perkowskis talking about how it was common for families to spend their holidays there. Clearly I’m not the only one who remembers the long-rebranded hotel.
“I don’t know.” She shrugs, and a blond girl in a red Bunny suit passes over a shot, pointing at me and leaning in so closely I can smell her Sol de Janeiro perfume and the tequila on her breath.
“I know you,” she says, finger in my face. “Where do I know you from?”
Great.Just what I need, to be recognized at a Playboy party full of barely legal adults. I lean away, thinking quickly.
“Yeah, I think I know your mom. She told me to keep an eye on you tonight ...”
“You know my mom?” The girl looks me up and down and seems to decide not to pursue the nagging little voice in her mind telling her that we’ve met before, though really she’s only seen me on TV. “Whatever.”
As they walk away, I order a simple cocktail from the bar and push my way through the crowd toward the only empty table I can spot in the whole joint. Lacey will have to find me instead of the other way around. On the wall above the wobbly circular table where I place my drink are photographs of girls dressed very similarly to the kids in Thumbs tonight. Some of the Bunnies hold shovels with a tiny sprinkle of dirt on the point, others are inside the VIP Room carrying trays with a little ribbon pinned at their hips.
The ribbon looks familiar. I think of the black ribbon I’d tossed into the box and brought to Shore Path, the one with my mom’s name on it that she fastened to her hip, the one she seemed relieved to have back in her hands. I’d thought it was a prize or award of some kind, but maybe not. I click a picture with my phone to compare later and move to the next framed image, a black-and-white shot of Bunnies in black satin with a banner above their smiling faces that readsGrand Opening 1968.
I inspect each face, each figure, going on a hunch, a wonder, a premonition. There, in the front row, a woman wearing her hair in a beehive, her hip tilted out, her smile possibly familiar. I snap another picture, questioning my own sanity. My strict mother a Playboy Bunny? Just because I found a ribbon that looks similar to the ones in the picture. No. Not possible. Right?
“Is that Lottie? Lottie Laramie?” I jump and spin around at the sound of my maiden name. An auburn-haired middle-aged man wearing a shocked expression as well as a flannel shirt with a white undershirt, dark jeans, and heavy tan hiking boots stands in front of me. I cock my head to the side, taking in the hints of gray in his hair,the wrinkles around his eyes, stubble on the chin, and let myself return to an era I’ve worked hard to banish to the darkest corners of my mind.
Then he smiles, and an old memory flutters to life. Freshman year, the lead inThe Music Man, my first kiss onstage, my first boyfriend offstage. Someone else I lost when I was escorted from my house and put into foster care.
“Cameron. Cameron Stokes. Hi!” He comes in for a hug like we’re old friends, even though he’s basically a stranger to me now. His shirt is soft and his arms far more substantial than when we first dated. His closely trimmed beard brushes against my cheek, making me think of Ian for half a second.
“You haven’t changed,” he says, shaking his head and running his free hand through his thick-for-forty-seven hair.
“Take that back,” I joke. Hell, I hope I’ve changed.
“No, no. You’re right. You’ve changed but like—you’ve aged down or something. God. I knew it was you. What have you been up to?”
What have I been up to? So much, Cameron. So much.
It’s not like I’m so full of myself that I think everyone I’ve ever met is aware of my career, my books, and my very public marriage. But clearly my first boyfriend hasn’t been keeping up with my life, and I kind of like that.
“Oh, you know. Work. Kids. All that jazz,” I say generally. That should cover everything.
“‘All that jazz,’ ha! You still say that? It’s such a classic Lottie-ism. You used to say that all the time.”
“And you’d do jazz hands like Mrs. Bernstein taught you for ‘Ya Got Trouble.’”
“Me and those jazz hands.” Cameron covers his face, rolling his eyes at himself. I laugh at the memory of his explosive, hilarious, playful personality. I always thought he’d go on to do comedy in Chicago, possiblySNLor something one day. “I don’t think I learned how fiercely uncool we were until I hit college.”
“Uncool? You? Me? Never.” We both laugh, and I remember how we’d sneak onto a private peninsula three miles up the shore path, lie in the hammock hung between two silver maples, and try to spot constellations between the branches.
“You, never. Me—always.” He takes a deep breath and then a drink from the glass in his hand. “You know you were the first to break my heart.”
A glimpse of that boy I once loved peeks out as his cheeks flush at his admission. I spin my cocktail straw, wishing I had something witty to say back, some coy denial. But I know it’s true. He was also my first tragic romance.
Our first kiss was onstage, but our last kiss was in that hammock the night before I was taken away. We talked on the phone once I got to my first foster home in Honey Lake and made plans to see each other when I came home, when he got his license, when summer came. But I broke up with him a week later, finding it easier to be alone than to think of him kissing Debbie Marcus in the fall play now that I wasn’t there. It was a heartbreak I chose but a heartbreak nonetheless.
“What areyouup to nowadays?” I ask, changing the subject to something less incriminating. He slants his eyes like he’s acknowledging he’s letting me get away with something.
