Vanilla Beaned (2 page)

The flight from Phoenix to Las Vegas was a short one. Mel barely had time to get comfy with the in-flight magazine crossword puzzle while the plane leveled out and then they were landing.

The three of them had spent a few memorable weekends in Vegas back in their misspent twenties. It was before Tate and Angie had become a couple and the shenanigans were more about three friends eating all they could at the midnight buffet, particularly the dessert bar, where Mel vaguely remembered pulling up a chair at the chocolate fountain, catching the shows, people watching, and playing video poker all night long.

This time, however, it was all holding hands and giggles from the besotted twosome and Mel felt relegated to the position of third wheel, or more accurately, person in
charge of baggage and transportation. She could feel a full-on pout happening, and she did her best to stave it off by renting a badass convertible. Why not? She was young, single, and in Vegas.

When Tate and Angie pried themselves away from the airport slot machine they'd been playing, she led the way to the garage where the cars were kept. The man working the garage took her receipt and said he'd be right back.

“Did you tell them a nonsmoking car?” Angie asked. “Last time we rented a car in Vegas, it reeked of cigars and it took me a week to wash the smell out of my hair.”

“I don't think you'll have to worry about that this time,” Mel said.

“Oh, man, you went with a minivan, didn't you?” Tate asked. “I don't think my rep can handle being seen in a minivan.”

“Your rep?” Mel asked. “Your rep as what, a cupcake baker?”

Tate had the grace to look embarrassed, but he persisted. “You know we have an image to project here. We've got a person who is committing a quarter of a million dollars . . .”

He kept talking but Mel couldn't hear him over the ringing in her ears. Tate was all confident about franchising, but frankly, the whole idea made Mel sick to her stomach. What if this person failed? Was she responsible if they lost everything in a franchise venture with Fairy Tale Cupcakes? Tate assured her that there were measures in place to safeguard against that, but Mel still felt a little hurly.

“Are you listening?” Tate asked. Mel got the feeling it wasn't the first time he'd asked.

“Yes, I am,” she said.

Tate grinned. “‘Plastics.'”

Mel blinked at him then she smiled, too, as she realized they had just spoken the dialogue from one of their favorite movies.

“
The Graduate
,” Angie identified the movie, glancing between them with a smile.

The three of them had been stumping one another with movie quotes for as long as Mel could remember. It made the tension in her ease. They would be okay. No matter how this mad scheme of Tate's played out, their friendship and the bakery would survive. She had nothing to fear, really, she was sure of it. Mostly.

The rental car attendant pulled up in a silver Mercedes convertible.

“Oh, no you didn't,” Tate said. His mouth was hanging open in stunned surprise.

“What?” Mel asked. “You said yourself we have an image to project.”

When Tate would have taken the keys, Mel snatched them first. Tate beamed and then opened the driver side door for her while the attendant loaded their bags into the trunk.

“Wait,” Angie cried. She put on her oversized sunglasses and fished a white scarf with aqua polka dots out of her purse and tied it around her hair, making her look very much the part of a fifties starlet. She checked her image in the rearview mirror and then said, “Okay, now I'm ready.”

Mel pulled out of the garage while her two friends belted out, “
Viva Las Vegas
,” and this time she even joined them.

Getting out of the airport was no problem, but the city became more and more congested and then Mel merged onto the Strip and all but parked. The desert sun beat down on their heads while they sat and sat and sat.

“Okay, I made my list of things I want to do,” Angie said. “There's a gondola ride at the Venetian, the roller coaster at New York, New York, oh, and we have to visit the Lucky Cat at the Cosmopolitan, and I need to see the eight-hundred-pound replica of the Statue of Liberty at Hershey's Chocolate World.”

Mel looked at her in the rearview mirror. “You may want to pare that down. We're here on business. I just don't know if there's going to be time—”

“Oh, and I want to check out the Little White Wedding Chapel,” Tate said. He gave Angie an adoring look. “That's where all the famous people elope.”

“Like who?” Mel scoffed. “We covered this a few months go. You can't elope, all of your parents will go mental.”

“Let's see, we've got Mary Tyler Moore and the first husband, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Michael Jordan, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze—”

“Buffy? Buffy got married there?” Angie asked. She sat forward in her seat, looking excited.

“No, you are not tying the knot in Vegas. I forbid it,” Mel said. She tried to sound as disapproving as her mother. It came out surprisingly easy when she thought of how
badly Angie's very Catholic parents and seven older brothers would take the news of her elopement to Tate.

“But it would be so romantic,” Angie said. “You could be our witness.”

“We could even have Elvis sing to us,” Tate said.

“‘Hound Dog'?”

“Absolutely.”

“Oh. My. God.” Mel gripped the steering wheel like she might strangle one or both of them if she didn't keep her hands busy. “No. Hear me now. No.”

“You are a complete spoilsport.” Angie pouted.

“So sorry, I'm trying to keep your family from putting a hit out on Tate if he elopes with the prodigal daughter.”

“They wouldn't,” Tate said. “They love me.”

“Not that much they don't,” Mel said. The traffic began to crawl forward, for which she was vastly relieved. “Now peel your lids and keep an eye open for the Blue Hawaiian Hotel and Casino. I'm not sure where it is, exactly.”

They eased forward and Mel tried not to notice that two gray-haired ladies in sensible shoes were making better time on the sidewalk than she was on the road. The streets were crowded with cabs, shuttles, and limousines while the sidewalks were packed ten deep with people walking the Strip, gawking at the sensory overload all around them.

Mel took a moment—she had plenty while not moving—to study the crowd. There were loads of single young men and women, roaming in packs, families of all ages from grandparents to babies in strollers and everything in between, and then there were the groups dressed in matching T-shirts, clearly attending a convention of sorts. She
wondered how a cupcake bakery would fit into all of this mayhem. Would these people pause in their gambling and gawking to stuff down a few cupcakes? She had no idea.

“There!” Tate pointed.

Mel felt her eyebrows lift. The Blue Hawaiian was one of the oldest hotel and casino combinations on the Strip, which was why she'd gotten a smokin' good deal on the rooms. Based on the Elvis movie
Blue Hawaii
, one of Mel's favorites, it incorporated everything there was to love about Elvis in Hawaii.

She turned the car into the hotel driveway and they all gawked as they drove under two-hundred-foot-tall tiki torches with real flames bursting out of the top.

“Whoa,” Angie said. Neither Tate nor Mel had anything to add.

A valet wearing a Hawaiian shirt, natch, took Mel's car keys while a bellhop in a matching shirt unloaded their bags onto a rolling cart. Mel wondered why they were getting the kid glove treatment and Tate nodded in the direction of their rental's disappearing taillights.

“It's the car,” he said.

“Oh, right,” she said. “Not exactly a huge pink cupcake truck, is it?”

Tate took care of the tip while Mel checked in. She had decided to do it up and they had a two-bedroom suite in the middle of the forty-five-story hotel. The hotel clerk was a lovely young woman who gave them chilled coconut water in an actual coconut and put leis around their necks. Mel had to admit, the gesture was kitschy and appreciated.

The lobby was decorated in more of the Hawaii luau motif with tiki torches, potted palms, and a wall-sized screen that ran the movie
Blue Hawaii
in a continuous loop.

Angie stood entranced as Elvis came onto the screen. With his dark hair combed in a perfect pomade-enhanced wave and wearing that heart-stopping Elvis half smile, he really was the perfect male specimen.

Mel stood beside Angie and they leaned into each other, mouthing the words of the movie together.

“All right, ladies,” Tate said. “I can feel my manhood shrinking beneath twelve-foot Elvis.”

He swooped in between the two of them and hooked their arms with his. He led the way to the elevator with the determination of a man trying to rescue two drowning victims at the same time while also trying to swim upstream. Angie and Mel shook their heads as the Elvis spell was broken.

Tate followed their bellhop into a waiting elevator. The doors stayed open for a few more passengers and Mel shuffled to the back to give them room. When she glanced up, she wondered if she'd hit her head and was seeing triple.

Three Elvises, or would that be Elvi, stared back at her, before they scooted over to the side of the elevator to make room for two more.

Mel leaned close to Angie and asked, “Five Elvises, right?”

“Yup, unless, of course, it's a mass hallucination we're having, and then who knows?”

“It's five,” Tate confirmed.

Mel knew she was staring. She knew it was rude. Still, she couldn't help it. The Elvi all wore the traditional white suit with the cape and spangles but they were different in size and shape from tall and gangly to short and potbellied. They also had on the sunglasses, making it impossible to see their eyes. For a moment, Mel wondered if they were bank robbers.

She wasn't the only one staring. Angie was staring so hard, she looked like she'd go cross-eyed, and she reached out to touch the sleeve of the Elvis closest to her.

“Now, now, little lady,” the pint-sized Elvis said with a startlingly deep, honey-dipped Southern twang. “Don't touch the merchandise.”

Angie cocked an eyebrow at him. “Why? If I break it, do I have to buy it?”

“Ange.” Tate's voice was full of warning.

But the little Elvis burst out laughing, and the tension in the elevator broke as the others laughed, too.

“What's with the getups?” Angie asked.

Mel sighed. Someday they really needed to have a talk about the fine line between inquisitive and rude or, in Angie's case, the difference between making friends and enemies.

“We're here for the convention, aren't you?”

“Convention?” Tate asked.

“The annual Elvis impersonators convention,” the tall one said. “It's awesome. There's like two thousand Elvises running around here.”

“Two thousand?” Mel asked. “All in the white jumpsuit
and sunglasses?” As much as she loved Elvis, this was definitely going to give her nightmares.

“Nah, you got your young Elvises, your old Elvises, it's a mixed bag really, and not everyone auditions to win the title.”

“Title?” Angie asked.

“Yeah, the World's Best Elvis Impersonator,” the medium-sized one with the spare tire putting an undue strain on his zipper said. “You gotta see some of these guys. I swear last year the winner would have fooled Elvis himself.”

“Maybe it really was Elvis,” the bellhop said. They all turned to look at him and he shrugged. “The owner of this hotel is an Elvis freak. Most of the memorabilia that you see are really Elvis's personal possessions. He even bought a lock of Elvis's hair for one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. It's said that Elvis's ghost has been seen roaming the halls of this place.”

“Looking for his missing hair, no doubt,” Angie said.

“Maybe he enters the body of the contestant of his choice and helps them win.”

Mel shivered. Then she felt stupid for doing so. Elvis was not haunting the Blue Hawaiian.

“Young Elvis or old Elvis?” one of the impersonators asked. Mel wasn't positive but the voice was high and sounded like a woman's.

“What's it matter?” the bellhop asked.

“If I'm going to be possessed by Elvis, I want it to be young, hot Elvis,” the squeaky voice said. “He can do with me as he will.”

“I've got to give her that one,” Angie said.

The elevator came to a stop and the Elvises all climbed out on the twenty-seventh floor.

As the elevator doors shut behind them and they began to climb again, Mel looked at the bellhop. “Two thousand Elvises?”

“I heard it was closer to three,” he said.

Mel gave Tate the death glare.

“Oh, don't pout,” he said. “We'll get you an Elvis outfit so you don't feel left out, maybe something from the
Jailhouse Rock
collection. You'd look good in stripes.”