The Palace

The night was warm. The air felt thick and tasted like cigarette smoke and the dense heat of fryer grease, exhaust and hot pavement. She knew this smell. She knew the sounds. She had made this trip enough times to memorize the pattern of the neon without looking up. But she always looked up.

Roaring all around her in every color were blazing lights she had names for, and some she didn't. Pink and orange and electric blue buzzed against the hazy sky, turning the whole world into a living thing that had never once slept. The flashing lights assaulted her eyes. The music leaked out of every doorway. She could feel that four-on-the-floor beat that made her want to dance, and something else slow and wobbly that made grown-ups sway together like they were wading through honey. A man in a shiny silver jacket with sideburns walked past belting the new cover Love Will Keep Us Together, and a lady with feathers in her hair and a sequined halter top laughed so loud and so suddenly it cut through the din of the street. Everything was a coked-up blur of grown-ups moving from one shiny thing to the next like pinballs.

As she walked, her boots announced each step with a blunt knock against the pavement. Small feet made two quick, clipped sounds for every one of her mother’s long, driven strides. Inside the boots her feet were sealed in their own heat, the thigh-high leather stiff enough that each step required a deliberate push-off from her toes. Her waist-length dark hair was tied in two knots that pulled her scalp taut enough that she could hear the creak of her own jaw when she looked up, her whole head a drum pulled tight. Her small frame was swallowed up by the thin, oversized burgundy dress she wore draped around her.

She had finished walking the runway down the strip an hour ago. Now her mother had the cash folded in her purse, which meant it was time to move on. She was already being steered toward the next stop, her mother's hand gripped around her forearm. She squinted as her mother ushered her into the palace.

This was the rhythm of their trips. Most times she only waited while her mother played the tables, but sometimes, if the establishment had a talent board or a kiddie fashion show offering cash, her mother would sign her up. She always checked the box labeled “nationality” as Italian. No one would ever find out she had bought a wetback from the States for cheap.

The girl liked doing shows. She preferred when her mother treated her like a doll. Her mother dressed her up and did her hair in careful ringlets, tilting her chin this way and that to catch the light, murmuring how everyone would see. It meant that she was going to get petted and pampered instead of struck with the heavy wooden hairbrush for wrinkling her dress or breathing too loudly at the wrong moment. Her mother checked her own reflection in every window they passed, smoothing her own hair, adjusting her own smile, and if the girl lagged behind or spoke out of turn or let her face slip into anything less than delighted, the hand would tighten, the nails would dig in, and the whisper would come hot against her ear, conveying detailed threats of how long the night would stretch in penance once they returned home.

As they stepped through the towering doorway, her mother pulled her past the marble statues standing frozen in the entryway, stone gods and goddesses with blank eyes that watched everyone who came in. The lobby opened up like a scene from a movie, all gold and white and bright, with a sunken casino floor below ringed by thick columns that held up a domed ceiling dripping with crystals. Fountains sprayed behind rows of cypress trees near the entrance, water catching the light and throwing rainbows across the marble.

Her mother steered her toward a corner near the sixty-foot curved sofa where businessmen in wide lapels sat with cocktails, their laughter mixing with the clink of slot machines and the muffled thump of music from somewhere deeper inside. She sat her down in the corner and told her not to leave the lobby. She would be back in a couple of hours.

Her mother strode away toward the tables with expectant giddiness, fixed her smeared eyeliner, and smoothed her pageboy, the short cut leaving her slender bare back exposed above her cocktail dress.

The girl felt a rush of excitement wash over her as she settled into her seat, finally alone in the bustling lobby. The last time she had been here, she had snagged autographs from the Pointer Sisters— all of them. Each signature was a treasure. They were riding high on their fame then, but what she didn’t realize was that her all-time favorite wouldn’t be released until years later, when she would save up her pizza-girl money to buy the Automatic 45. For now, though, she soaked in the vibrant chaos around her, watching the parade of people drift by like a colorful river, each face telling a story she could only imagine.

People-watching was her favorite pastime. She watched the endless procession of humanity pour in and out and made up stories for each one, their lives and secret reasons for being there that nobody else would ever know. She especially loved watching the girls in white slosh in their gaudy veils with smiles from ear to ear. They moved through the lobby like frosted wedding cakes come loose from their plates, all tulle and rhinestone glare, their joy spilling ahead of them in bright waves. They were beautiful.

At the far end of the lobby, just where smoke and perfume and the high notes of laughter pooled in the air, a man in a dark suit broke off from the quiet choreography of the crowd and drifted to the bar. He was large and nearly bald, with a pale, heavy face that seemed to gather itself in folds beneath his chin and a small pursed mouth tucked at its center. He moved slowly, his hands clasped behind his back. He settled onto a vinyl-topped stool, adjusted his cuffs with meticulous birdlike pecks, and waited. The bartender greeted him with a nod and returned to place a fizzing cloud in a glass, a White Lady. He reached for it, thick fingers curling around the stem with unhurried poise, and that was when his face came into profile.

She knew this face.

She stared at it for a long while, trying to place where she had seen it. Not on the television. Not on one of her mother’s magazines.

She slid from her seat and crossed the lobby toward him. The bar was too high for her, and she had to hoist herself onto the empty seat beside him using both hands. Her boots knocked against the rail underneath. The man did not look over. He appeared entirely occupied with nothing at all.

She poked him in the shoulder with one finger.

He turned his head and looked at her.

“Yes?”

She said nothing.

She only stared.

He waited a moment, then turned back toward the bar.

She poked him again.

This time he turned more slowly.

“Yes?”

“I seen you.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“You’re Alfred Hitchcock, aren’t you?”

The corners of his mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.

“Yes, madam. I am Alfred Hitchcock.”

“I’m not Madam. I’m Mary.”

“Nice to meet you, Mary.” He set the glass down carefully and held out his hand. She took it.

“I seen you in my books.”

“What books might those be?” he asked.

“The Three Investigators.”

A slow warmth gathered in his eyes, the heavy folds of his face relaxing into a look of genuine, if subdued, amusement. The corners of his mouth remained still, but the sternness around his eyes softened as he regarded her, a silent chuckle seeming to light them from within.

“They’re my favorite books right now. I have to get the new one, but it wasn’t at the library last time I checked.”

“That is a serious problem.”

“I know.”

His eyes dropped briefly to the bar and then back to her.

“And where are your parents?”

“They’ll be back soon.”

He looked past her then, perhaps expecting someone to materialize.

The girl swung her boots beneath the stool. She inspected the cloudy drink in his hand suspiciously.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing suitable for you.”

The bartender had been polishing a glass nearby. Hitchcock lifted two thick fingers in his direction.

“And something suitable for Miss Mary.”

The bartender looked at her.

“What’ll you have?”

She shrugged.

He returned a few moments later with a short glass filled with pink fizz and ice, crowned with a bright red cherry. The girl took the glass in both hands, holding it as carefully as if it were a communion chalice.

She stayed there beside him, sipping through the skinny straw and asking whatever occurred to her. She wanted to know whether he wrote the books himself. He told her he did not. She wanted to know why his name was on them then. He gave an answer that did not entirely satisfy her. She wanted to know whether he knew Jupiter Jones personally.

Before she could finish interrogating him, several people appeared behind them. They arrived all at once, greeting Hitchcock with great sweeps of their hands and delighted cries of recognition. Someone was already talking before anyone else had finished talking, and within seconds the little pocket of quiet the girl had occupied beside him disappeared beneath the noise.

She slid down from the stool, kiddie cocktail in hand.

“Nice to meet you, Mister Hitchcock.”

She carried her drink back across the lobby and climbed into her place near the long curved sofa. Sitting down, she put the straw between her lips. After some time, there was nothing left but a finger of cold water and a few clear slivers of ice knocking softly against the sides, the naked cherry stem floating in slow circles whenever she moved her hand.

She sat in her palace beneath the chandeliers, watching the people come and go, imagining where they had been and where they might be going, and dreaming about the day she would go somewhere too.