Vanity, Vengeance And A Weekend In Vegas (A Sophie Katz Novel) Read Online Free PDF Page A

life! What about this situation makes you think I would want to watch a
whole bunch of guys on stage tying their dicks up in knots?”
    “Because it looks painful,”
    “Really painful,” Marcus said
under his breath.
    “--and if you use your
imagination,” Dena continued, “you can pretend that it’s Anatoly’s dick being
deformed and laughed at on stage.”
    I hesitated for a moment.   “People laugh?”
    “That’s the whole point.   It’s a comedy act.”
    I looked over at my built in
bookshelf.   Those weren’t all my
books.   Those were Anatoly’s Leon
Uris’ next to my Alice Walker novels.   His Hemingways nestled against my Fitzgeralds. His books on soccer next
to my books on art.   We had combined
our lives and now I was going to have to disassemble all of it. “Maybe a
weekend of Vegas style debauchery isn’t such a bad idea,” I said quietly.
    Dena grinned.   “It’s a fantastic idea. We can all go!”
    Marcus shook his head making his
well-trimmed, short locs swing side to side. “I have clients this weekend. Perms,
cuts and highlights and that’s just Saturday.”
    “But your clients will understand
if you have a family emergency,” Dena insisted.
    “Honey, women who need a color
aren’t very understanding.”
    “Marcus,” Dena said again.
“Family. Emergency.”
    My eyes were still on the
bookshelf. What about the books we had bought since we had been together, the
ones we had both read? Who would get those?
    I was deep in thought over this
when I realized that the room had gone silent.   Marcus was watching me with a worried expression.   “Who will get to keep the new,
autographed David Sedaris book?” I asked softly.
    Marcus exhaled loudly his eyes
moving from my face to my disastrous mess of hair.   “All right,” he said, “we’ll go to Vegas.”
     

 
 
    “I’m sorry,” my sister said, a
thin undercurrent of static made her words a little more difficult to hear
through my cell phone, “did you say you’re going to Vegas ? That’s a little random even for
you!”
    I sighed and rested my head on my
knees.   After Dena and Marcus left
I had packed up some of Anatoly’s things in boxes and then, when I got to the
closet, I had faltered and ended up putting on one of his shirts.   I was still wearing it and now I was on
the floor surrounded by old pictures of us. Totally pathetic.
    “Really? That’s the part of the
story you find most interesting?” Mr. Katz pressed himself against my leg and
looked up at me expectantly.   “You
did hear the part about the secret wife, right? And his little story about the
mob? Shouldn’t you be asking me about that ?”
    “Of course that’s all horrible,”
she said slowly, “but yes, Sophie, I find the fact that you’re hightailing it
to a Vegas-sex-toy-trade-show right after walking away from a long term
relationship to be the most interesting part of this story.”
    I hesitated, a photo booth strip
of snapshots in my hand.   For once
I could actually see my sister’s point.  
    “This is just like the time you
went to Vegas after dad died.”
    And just like that I thought she
was crazy again. “Not even a little bit.” I dropped the photo booth snapshots
and picked up a picture of Anatoly and me at the Crissy Fields 4 th of July fireworks show. I really needed to stop torturing myself. And I would,
right after I went through one more stack of photos.
    “Really? If I remember rightly you
couldn’t deal with your emotions then either.   So you ran off to Vegas with Scott, got drunk or high or God
knows what and then the two of you enlisted a female Elvis impersonator to
marry you in a Denny’s parking lot! Do you remember that, Sophie?”
    “Of course I remember that,” I
snapped. “I mean some of it’s a little fuzzy, we really did drink a lot that
night.   But I do remember parts of
it.”
    “Oh dear Lord.”
    “Come on Leah, I was only
nineteen.   It was ten full years
ago!”
    “Fifteen