Revoltingly Young (15 page)

“
I know,” replied Veeva. “My dentist is so proud. He says my teeth should be on the list of Southern California attractions like Knotts Berry Farm and Disneyland.”

I can’t believe my brother’s dumping this chick. Beautiful looks, great body, nice personality, good job, and free dental care to boot. The guy must be seriously deranged.

Have to stop here. Ada is taking us out for a late dinner.

11:36 p.m. No sign of my brother yet. Ada says he has two evening shows and doesn’t usually get home until well after midnight. Fortunately, his house has five bedrooms, so everyone’s making themselves at home. Exiled Ada’s camping out in the guest suite over the attached three-car garage. Her new place won’t be ready until Monday. My room is upstairs in the back, overlooking the pool and spa. Ol’ Nick is doing way better than even I imagined. Yup, I’ve got to put the bite on that guy. And soon.

Ada took us out to a fancy seafood and steak place around the corner from the Liberace Museum. Since Veeva wasn’t paying, I got to eat actual meat. She had the mushroom risotto and tried not to cringe as Ada and I masticated our fellow creatures. Hard to believe that arid Nevada has given rise to a city this huge and sprawling. Ada says it’s easier to understand Las Vegas if you just think of it as the most distant suburb of Los Angeles.

In her discrete way, Veeva pumped Ada for information about my brother, but she didn’t have much to report. She says Nick is very private about his personal life and past. She was amazed to hear he might have been married once, as she had long since concluded the guy was allergic to that word. Nor had she ever heard of his keeping a daily journal–although she says he is quite literate and well-read for a guy who never went to college. (I’m not sure we Twisps are that educable by conventional means.)

“
So what was he doing in Prague?” asked Veeva.

“
Looking up some old flame,” Ada replied, letting most of a nice filet go to waste.

“
You think it’s serious?” Veeva asked.

“
Who’s to say? She’s returning the visit next week though.”

Too bad I couldn’t stay to meet this chick. She must be one incredible knockout. Perhaps even in Uma’s class.

Veeva tried to steer the conversation in a happier direction.

“
Did you meet Nick in the dentist’s chair?”

“
No, but I wouldn’t mind getting him back there for a root canal or two. We met in a skydiving class.”

“
You jumped out of an airplane together?” I asked.

“
Well, sort of, Noel. He liked to tell people that when we met we fell for each other big time.”

My brother made a joke. I’m amazed. The few times I’ve talked to him he always seemed so deadly serious.

SUNDAY, July 31 – By 8:00 a.m. it was already over 90 degrees outside. My brother must blow a big bundle every month on air conditioning. Veeva and I got up early and scrounged for breakfast in Nick’s spotless kitchen. I scrambled some eggs while Veeva marveled that I knew which end of the skillet to hold. She’s one of those pampered kids who grow up thinking that cooking is an art known only to Latina housekeepers. Since eggs don’t walk or swim, she condescended to eat her half of my sloppy creation: a cheese and ortega chili omelet.

“
Notice anything unusual about your brother’s house?” she asked, sipping her herbal tea.

“
He has five bedrooms for one lonely guy?”

“
Well, there’s that too. But did you notice his decor is totally generic? This place feels like a furnished model home that he simply moved into. My room, for example, has all the personality of a guest suite at the Holiday Inn. And a person could wither and die in that sterile living room.”

“
Well, guys aren’t generally big on home decor.”

“
I don’t know, Noel. This feels like the place of a person who doesn’t express his personality. Who keeps everything suppressed. A guy who has lots of secrets. This is the home of a man who is treading water while waiting for his life to begin.”

Where do girls come up with stuff like that? To me it seemed like a perfectly fine house; I’d live in it in a minute. I’d hate to think what Veeva would conclude about me if she ever got the chance to snoop through my squalid trailer.

No sign of Ada, but eventually my brother wandered down looking bleary-eyed, unshaven, and annoyed.

“
Happy birthday!” Veeva and I called out.

“
Yeah, yeah. You know, Noel, you guys should have talked to me first. This isn’t really the best time for a visit.”

“
We wanted to surprise you,” I replied.

“
A person only turns 30 once,” added Veeva, bubbling with forced goodwill. My brother, though, wasn’t buying it.

“
Does your mother know you’re here?”

“
More or less, Uncle Nick. Aren’t you going to give me a hug?”

He did so reluctantly and then shook my clammy hand.

“
Ada called me at work last night about you two. You know she’s moving out.”

“
We know, Uncle Nick. And we both think you’re being a real beast.”

Nick smiled and studied her. “I hardly recognized you, Veeva. You’re growing up. You remind me of someone I once knew.”

“
And that would be,” she replied, “my aunt Sheeni perhaps?”

“
Has your mother been talking about me?”

“
I wish. She’s a total clam on all things Twispian. You know I visited Sheeni in France a couple of years ago.”

“
Well, we’ll have to talk about that sometime. How about we all go out for breakfast? Then we can see about getting you both back home.”

We went out for a second breakfast, and Veeva turned up the charm. She got Nick to agree to let us stay at least through his birthday. She called her mother from the restaurant booth, and both she and Nick talked to her. Mrs. Saunders was pissed, but not hysterical. Veeva had cut out without permission, but thoughtfully had left a note. And now that Connie was reassured her daughter hadn’t been sold into white slavery, she was looking forward to spending a few days alone with her handsome husband.

Veeva persuaded Nick we could be his “emotional support team” while he went through this “difficult period.” She even got him to spill some about the mystery chick from Prague. It’s a gal named Reina Vesely whom he met years ago while touring with a circus in France. She has a trained parrot act and a former husband (a clown), who recently ran off with a Polish slack rope walker. Very long distance for conducting a romance, plus the chick has two rugrats. I vote he stays home and marries the dentist.

When Veeva went to the restroom, Nick asked me if there was anything going on between us. I assured him I already had a girlfriend in Winnemucca.

“
Glad to hear it,” he replied. “You know Veeva’s still pretty young. Her mother was always a handful, and the Saunders side can be even more difficult.”

Now was the time to strike while the iron was hot.

“
So you were married to her aunt Sheeni at the age of 14?”

My brother blushed and looked down at his plate.

“
We were never married, Noel. Not legally at any rate. We, we were together for a time–a short time. It was a painful, uh, interval. I try not to think about it.”

“
But it sounds like it was pretty exciting. You ran away to France together?”

“
We did that. We lived in a garret in Paris.”

“
And you were only 14?”

“
Well, I turned 15 at some point. It was a rough year.”

“
That’s my age now. And you shot some lawyer?”

“
Who have you been talking to, Noel?”

“
Our dad. I saw him in L.A. He wants you to send him his check.”

“
I did. It’s sent automatically by my bank. It must have been delayed briefly in the mail.”

“
And the dead lawyer?”

“
He didn’t die. I just winged him.”

“
Why did you shoot him?”

“
It was an accident. The gun went off in my hand. I hope you never fool around with firearms, Noel.”

“
I’m not planning on it, Nick. So how come you don’t marry Ada? She’s very nice.”

“
She is indeed. I don’t know. My relations with women have always been, uh, complicated. I hope you have an easier time of it.”

“
I’d like to get married to Uma. Right now.”

“
Well, you’ve got a lot of growing up to do before you get married. Believe me, Noel, I speak from experience.”

He clammed up when Veeva returned. I find it interesting he didn’t blink when I mentioned “our dad.” So Nick was in on the secret all along. I knew he was lying about that. I wonder how much of what he told me today was the truth? It’s always hard to tell with us Twisps.

When we got back, Ada was in the kitchen separating her pans from Nick’s pan. She and Nick hardly spoke, but only glanced at each other with these incredibly pain-laden looks. I don’t see why people have to torture each other like that. I say just hook up with someone you like and stay hooked up. Maybe have a kid or two to cement the adhesion.

Veeva volunteered to help Ada with her packing and whispered to me to “find the diary.” Yeah, like I’m supposed to discover on a shelf somewhere this leather-bound set of volumes inscribed in gold-leaf on the spine: “My Rebellious Teen Years by Nicholas F. Twisp.” Guys who keep diaries tend not to leave them around for prying houseguests to snoop through. I gave it a shot though, and spotted some bookshelves in this office-type room where my brother was juggling a half-dozen balls.

“
Juggling is like playing a horn,” he remarked, not stopping. “You have to practice daily or you lose your chops.”

“
Are those billiard balls?”

“
Yeah. They’re a nice size for my hands and the weight works my muscles. Want to try?”

“
No thanks. Mind if I look at your books?”

“
Go ahead, but be careful. Some of them are rare and valuable old books on juggling.”

People write books about juggling? Sounds incredibly boring. I noticed a framed photograph on the wall behind his desk. Nick was shaking the hand of some well-preserved blond while juggling four martini glasses with his left hand.

“
Who’s the lady?” I asked.

“
That’s Nancy Sinatra. She caught my act one night.”

Probably half the celebrities in the world have seen my brother’s act, but the one he showcases on his wall is Nancy Sinatra. Go figure.

“
You like Nancy Sinatra for some reason?”

“
Sure. She’s very nice. And that’s as close as I’ll ever get to shaking her old man’s hand.”

Sometimes my brother seems more like 50 than 15 years older than me. No diaries were spotted, though I did find a photo album from his childhood in Oakland. Lots of faded color shots of the happy young couple and their two romping youngsters. Hard to believe that handsome young advertising executive with the pipe and all the hair is now providing roosts for pigeons on Skid Row. My once-pretty mother looked fairly normal 25 years ago too, though Nick assured me she was a trial even back then.

4:13 p.m. I just talked to Uma for over an hour on my brother’s phone. I figure with all the calls he’s making to Reina in distant Prague my splurge won’t even make a blip on his massive bill. Uma was loitering behind the counter at work and wanted to know every detail of what I’d been doing down south. Being incredibly smart as well as beautiful, she pointed out that like me Nick might have been noting his daily activities on a computer.

“
I suppose they had computers 15 years ago,” I conceded. “But my brother doesn’t strike me as an early adopter. He has an entire shelf of Frank Sinatra albums, all on vinyl if you can believe it. He has an incredible stereo, but the amp uses tubes. You have to wait for the thing to warm up before you hear any sound.”

“
My father has one too, Noel. Many audiophiles prefer the supposedly warmer sound of tube equipment. I think they just like to fuss with expensive gear. Does Nick have a computer?”

“
Oh, sure. It puts mine to shame. I notice he has a nice laptop too. You think I should check them out, darling?”

“
Well, that wouldn’t be very ethical, Noel.”

“
Right. I’ll get right on it.”

11:46 p.m. Nick took us out for a fancy dinner at the casino where he works, then we watched his first show of the evening from a choice reserved table. All the beverages we wanted too, as long as they were alcohol-free. I don’t know why they imagine Las Vegas is a town anyone would wish to experience dead sober. Nick had a second show to perform later, so he had Derek, his personal assistant, drive us back. I didn’t know jugglers required personal assistants, but that’s my brother’s glamorous lifestyle for you.

It was impressive seeing his name in huge letters on the marquee of the Normandie casino. That’s one of the newer ones on the Strip. It’s a re-creation of the 1930s French luxury liner done in three-quarter scale. The original ship must have been a monster, since the downsized replica is still nearly 800 feet long and towers above that part of the Strip. Every contour is outlined in colored lights–over two million in all. The ship is “berthed” in its own patch of artificial ocean, and every hour on the hour it “steams away” with a great blasting of whistles, raising of gangplanks, waving of crowds, and shooting off of paper streamers. It’s all an illusion, of course, because what actually moves is the pier, not the ship (which is in fact a non-floating building planted solidly on a regular foundation). Rather well done though, with waves streaming by the hull and a matching tugboat puffing away. Nick says they keep the imported sea gulls hanging around by surreptitiously supplying them with leftovers from the ship’s many restaurants. There are six laborers on staff whose sole job it is to scrape up the bird crap and shoo away pigeons.