The Big Blind (Nadia Wolf) (11 page)

“Can you breathe?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s not too tight.”

“But my boobs are popping out.”

“That’s good. Just don’t pick up a card if you drop one. You’ll have your ass hanging out one side and your boobs out the other. We don’t want to give that kind of a show.”

Frankie finished my dress and straightened my hair flat. He glued false lashes on to my eyelids and dusted me with sparkly powder. I couldn’t help but think this gig was a terrible mistake.

I was able to descend the two flights of steps in the tight dress, but I had to shimmy the dress back down over my butt by the time I reached the bottom.

Frankie drove us to the theater. He floated in through the backstage door with an air of showmanship. None of the security guards stopped him. I followed him in, not nearly so theatrical and more apprehensive.

There was nothing special about the backstage. There were a few people milling about hanging lights and moving props. It was an open area with nothing much there except a collection of dust bunnies floating in corners.

“Ah, Lupier!” Frankie gushed.

The man turned to Frankie with a cold stare. He was in his late forties with dark hair and eyes. A touch of gray dusted the sides of his hair and near his temple. His looks were handsome classic Italian. He was only a few inches taller than me but gave off a presence that he was larger than life. He was thin, but his hard angles gave him the appearance of being well built.

My eyes narrowed as I saw Catarina standing beside him. Her eyes widened at my approach and then acknowledged me with a slippery smile.

“You couldn’t play poker or bounce chips so you thought you would try a new career? Did they mention you need talent for this sort of work?” Her lips curled.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Not enough men left in the casino to ensnare?”

Her narrow eyes slashed into me but then turned to Lupier with a dazzling smile. “I’ll let you get back to work. I’ll wait for you in your dressing room so we can
talk
.”

Lupier nodded and turned to cast a speculative gaze over Frankie. “Yes, I’m Lupier. How did you get back here?” His accent was thick Italian.

“I’m Frankie Garza. You hired Nadia Wolf to be your opening act.”

Lupier looked past Frankie and acknowledged me with a full length scan. His mouth curved into a showman’s smile.

“You, my bella, are Nadia?”

“Yes.”

“May I see some of your tricks?”

“Of course.”

I snagged a deck of cards from my purse. “This is one of the easier ones,” I said as I twirled a card on top of my index finger. I then flipped the card between my fingers.

“Marvelous.” He said, but more to my cleavage than to me. “Make yourself at home. There are refreshments on the back table should you want them. I have to go rehearse with my assistants. I expect perfection with my assistants which only happens with constant practicing.”

I nodded.

“Nadia,” Frankie said when Lupier left. “We have an hour before you have to go on stage. You should practice.”

“Remember you’re going to have to help me for the final number.”

“I know. I can’t wait to be onstage. I’m so glad my jumpsuit still fits.”

And boy did it fit! He was seersuckered into a white jumpsuit with large diamond stones sewn all over it. It had to weigh twenty pounds and was guaranteed to blind the audience when the spotlight hit it.

I practiced like Frankie asked though I didn’t put my heart into it. I had to make sure I still had enough juice to go on stage and perform especially with the finale I prepared. He wasn’t watching me so I was able to relax without him hovering. After flirting with a wide-eyed stagehand, Frankie moved onto corralling the producer in hopes for an impersonation gig.

Watching Frankie kept me amused for a little while. But as I practiced, life as a dull and awkward teenager came flooding back to me. The hours and hours I practiced on these same tricks to perfect them for my friends who watched quizzically didn’t put me in the mood to perform them in front of an audience. I have to admit I did have good friends. But they never understood my love of cards, and I never understood their love of shopping, magazines, and makeup. So while they did their thing, I did mine. We would meet up again so I could hear the latest gossip and exploits of the teenage world that I missed.

Maybe I practiced for Jaydon Park too. He wasn’t the hottest guy in school, but he ranked in the top ten and was the only boy I had a crush on. He organized the school’s talent contest, and I immediately entered to be closer to him. Little did I know all those hours of practicing would be wasted because he was in love with the theater . . . and men. But I didn’t know his preference until I tried to kiss him after the talent show. I placed second in the contest and then placed a kiss on him. I was aiming for his lips, but I smooched the hand he shot up to halt my advancing lips. I stopped practicing after the incident. I also stopped trying to kiss boys too.

I shook the past out of my head and continued practicing. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Lupier and his assistants preparing themselves. I was excited to see they had some spectacular stunts and tricks in their routine. Maybe I’d be able to see part of the show after my act.

“Ladies and gentlemen; boys and girls,” the announcer boomed over the sound system. “Please put your hands together for Nadia Wolf.”

A round of applause burst from the audience, and my brain and all bodily functions seized. Frankie pushed me towards the stage right after I told him I was going to kill him.

I walked purposefully to the center of the stage and gazed over everyone’s head like I was taught for my grade school performance of
Henny Penny
.

When I stepped onto my mark, the spotlights shined on me, blackening the audience in a heavy cloak. Sweat began to bead on my skin. I gulped. This was what hell must be like.

Sensuous gripping music floated through the speakers. I tried to relax with the music and warmed up with the easy tricks first. I let the cards fall like a waterfall from one hand into another. My movements swayed by the music. I twirled the cards on my fingers and then juggled three cards in the other hand. The tricks became more difficult as my routine progressed. But as my heartbeat was lowering back to the hundreds instead of thousands of beats per second, the tricks became easier to execute and more fluid. I could hear clapping though it sounded as if it was in a tunnel far away. My nerves must be clogging up my ears.

A commotion of arguing voices behind the curtain jolted me from my intense focus. Cards burst from my hand like a bad joke of fifty-two card pickup. They showered down onto the stage and the audience in the first row.
Oh no! This can’t be happening!
I bent over to grab at the cards when Frankie shouted from the side of the stage.

“No!” He took a running slide to block me.

It was too late. My butt was up in the air making the dress pop up to my waist and exposing my posterior to the cameras and gasping audience as Frankie slid right past me. He turned on his heel and scurried to my side. In a flurry he straightened me up, yanked my dress back down, slid me a new deck of cards, and then hurried off stage. As he stood me back up, a pin from the dress stabbed into me. I bit my lip to keep myself from tearing up.

I had to refocus and get back into the routine, but all I wanted to do was run off stage and hide under my bed. My hands shook as I fumbled with the new deck of cards. My face heated well beyond Nevada’s hottest temperatures.

I fumbled through the last couple of tricks of the routine. I knew Greyson was out there watching my every move and ghastly mistake. The thought replayed in my head until all I could see was Greyson’s eyes wide with shock at my horrendous performance.

For the finale, Frankie brought out a metal pail of water. My fingers twirled a few cards and one-by-one I placed them on long thin sticks with a pointed end. I tilted my head back and placed the end of each stick in my mouth. I bit the end of the sticks to keep them steady, always careful so they didn’t stop twirling. This was the trick that landed me second place in the talent contest. But this time, I was adding a new element . . . fire. While the cards stayed in motion, I reached up and lit them on fire with trembling hands. I had already pretreated the cards so they wouldn’t turn to ash right away. Now I wish I would have rethought adding fire.

I could only let them twirl for a few moments before they would naturally stop. As I reached for the first one to toss in the water, a gasp from the audience startled me. At first I believed it was for my daring act. I was redeeming myself from the brink of blooper reels when I caught a movement from the corner of my eye. Something rammed into me from the side knocking me to the floor. My head slammed into the metal bucket. I was conscious long enough to see the flaming cards fall towards me.

Chapter 7

My eyes fluttered open to see Frankie standing over me.

“She’s awake,” Frankie said.

An older man peered into my eyes with a pen light. “Welcome back. How do you feel?”

“Nauseated.”

He nodded. “You might throw up and that’s okay. I think you have a concussion. You should go to the hospital for an examination.”

“I don’t have insurance or money.”

“Then make sure you stay awake for twenty-four hours to be on the safe side.”

“Is she able to go home now?” A voice more delicious than chocolate asked. I turned toward the voice; it was Greyson.

“Yes, but someone needs to stay with her and keep her awake.”

“I’ll be fine at home,” I said.

“Is there someone who can watch you?” Greyson asked

“Frankie has to work tonight. I can be a witness in the chapel.”

Frankie shook his head. “I closed the chapel tonight for your performance. I have a date lined up for later, but I’ll cancel. You’re more important.”

“No, go on your date. You never get nights off. You deserve a normal date.”

I tried to stand. Greyson took my arm and assisted me.

“You can stay with me at the casino,” Greyson offered.

Concussion or no, my insides were doing cartwheels at the thought of staying with him.

“I don’t want to put you out. Let me call Roy and ask him,” I said, playing it smooth.

“You wouldn’t be putting me out. I understand if you’d feel more comfortable with Roy.”

I borrowed Frankie’s phone and called Roy. There was no answer. I tried to think of someone else, but I didn’t have any close friends here.

I gave a nervous titter. “Looks like you’re stuck with me,” I told him.

He smiled. “I’d rather be stuck with you than the mountain of paper work waiting for me back at the office.”

Frankie shook his head. “You’re going to be wishing you had the paper work after having to take care of Nadia for twenty-four hours. Once she was stricken with the flu, and I’ve never seen a grown woman whine so much.”

I glared at Frankie.

“Ooh, you see? It’s already begun.” He turned to Greyson. “Make sure you take care of my star. She’s going to make me rich. Just have to work out the kinks in her routine.” Frankie gave me a kiss on the top of my head and fled.

I peered at Greyson. “I’m really sorry about this. And for the record, I don’t whine.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“What happened?” I asked, trying to recall the event.

“A person ran from back stage and slammed straight into you. I’ve never seen anything like it. He didn’t even stop.”

“Does anyone know who it was?”

Greyson shook his head. “They were wearing a hoodie that covered their face. It may have been a woman from the thin figure.”

“I did hear noise backstage. That’s when I . . . uh . . .” I nearly fainted at the remembrance of my butt hanging out. Greyson witnessed the whole thing.
Ugh!
This was too embarrassing.

“You were amazing on stage. My VIPs loved it.”

“When my ass popped out?” I nearly shrieked.

His head fell back as he laughed. “Well, I can’t say they didn’t enjoy that as well.”

I groaned.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“What about your VIPs?”

“Remy will take us to the penthouse and then come back to pick them up after Lupier’s performance.”

“I’m sorry about this.”

“Don’t be.”

“You could make Remy babysit me.”

“I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone.” Greyson chuckled. “He might take it literally and sit on you.”

He must have been kidding, but I was too befuddled by his proximity. Greyson led me through the backstage and stayed close in case I became lightheaded. The limo was parked near the backstage exit with Remy waiting. My eyes flicked over to a man watching us from the adjacent parking lot. He was leaning against a black car, his eyes piercing the distance.

“Remy, can you call ahead and make sure supplies are brought up for Nadia?” Greyson asked.