What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unless nothing happens-- nothing of any real consequence, anyway.
One of my earliest Vegas memories involves a foreign stranger a broken boot heel, a pair of handcuffs and a missing key. Nothing like being escorted out of the casino restroom by a security guard and a locksmith to get the party started.
Ah, yes. Those were the days.
Okay so not really. Unless you consider being sawed out of a pair of cuffs half-naked as good times. In the days before marriage and motherhood, Vegas was a common escape for my friends and me, who when tired of our local strip (Sunset) fled to the only Strip that didn’t close at 2am. (The one that didn’t close ever.) Nights became mornings. Clubs shape-shifted into seedy after-hours joints where we emerged as footsore drunks walking home in our party dresses in the harsh daylight.
And then months later we would all pile in the car to do it again.
The last time I was in Vegas I was six-months pregnant, waddling down the very short aisle of the Little White Chapel in my sweat-stained Diane Van Furstenberg maternity blouse. In case you are not familiar with the high-class establishment that is The Little White Chapel, it has been the setting of such successful nuptials as Britney Spears and Jason Alexander, Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore and Mickey Rooney who liked it so much that he got married there twice. Our favorite accessory to the Little White Chapel was the little white-haired lady in the Jesus broach who at 4’9 seemed like the ideal witness to our marriage. So we asked her.
After waiting in line for over an hour it was finally time for us to marry. We enjoyed a pleasant 3.2-minute service where we exchanged vows before Bob the minister and our new friend, Ms. Jesusbroach. Bob pressed play on his boom box, which blasted Ave Maria on cassette during the short, but sweet “kiss the bride” speech.
When our ceremony ended, Bob pressed pause on the cassette and left the room as I threw my bouquet at our elderly witness (and sole audience member). She missed the bouquet by a long shot, pointed to her broach and said quite matter-of-factly, “I’m taken. The good lord is my husband.”
Amen to that.
So yes, that was the last time I was here, in Las Vegas. Sober as a skunk. Or however the saying goes. And tonight, as I write this by the green light of the MGM Grand, surrounded by passed-out friends on the second night of a Bachelorette weekend extravaganza, I think of what has changed. The birth of my son. The beginning of a new life. And in the reflection of the mirrored glass there are times like now when I hardly recognize myself.
Last night we stayed out all night. But instead of following my friends out after hours I went home, crawled into bed and passed out before the sun could reveal the truth. But what exactly was the truth? That I was a faker? Was I hiding behind my hat? In my little black dress and red suede ankle boots, howling and hollering with my hands in the air?
I used to be able to party all night long, wake up at noon and then do it again. So what happened? Parenthood? Old age? Could I be twenty-five going on forty?
A friend of mine with kids said it best this morning over breakfast.
“I knew it was time to go home last night when I thought it was a good idea to show everyone pictures of my boys.”
And I understood
Being a mother gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Vegas, Baby, Vegas.” Because there is a small part of me who is indeed a fraud-- a part of me who, freaking nasty on the dance floor is also a wife and a mother and all of the things you aren’t supposed to be in Las Vegas, all the things you try to hide to keep from becoming obsolete.
Look at me. I’m dancing. Look at me. I’m not afraid to take another shot. Look at me; I’m not afraid to be sexy even though I’m a mom and a wife and someone else, now. Look at me, I’m not afraid to show some cleavage, even if it’s not what it used to be. Look at me. I'm not afraid of growing up...
... Or am I?
I make my way downstairs in my pajamas and leopard print coat. I take the last of my weekend cash and I hit the poker table, gambling my last twenty bucks on a hand one suit short of a Royal Flush. Ace of hearts. King of hearts. Queen of hearts. Jack of hearts. Ten of diamonds. Damn.
“Drink?” The casino cocktail waitress asks, as I pull away from the poker tables.
“No thanks. I’m off to bed.”
That’s the thing about gambling in Vegas or just in life in general. You only hit the jackpot when and where you least expect it. Like the last time I was here. Dead sober. Laughing down the aisle in The Little White Chapel with my sweaty pregnant pits. Like tomorrow when I get to go home to my husband and my little boy, who wears his sunglasses at night and contrary to the frat brothers howling away at the Craps table down the hall, can actually pull them off.
Sometimes it’s fun to be a phony for the night. But it’s even more fun to leave behind the craziness and the fakery and head home. To something absolutely and positively real:
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