Behr Marquee® One Coat Interior/Exterior Paint
- Oct 27, 2023
- 8 min read
by Veronica Klash
Beige — Eiffel For You MQ3–37
When you first moved to Vegas, there was beige. The beige walls of the apartment you rented for a reasonable price. Much more reasonable than you could ever find in New York. The bland nothingness of the color was only enhanced by the texture of the wall, intentionally pockmarked like a face years after their teenage self couldn’t hold back from excavating the ripe bumps ready to burst on their cheeks and chin. When you touched the wall your fingers found the smallest divots and pressed, hoping for something to open up, but it was just a wall. And you were just tired. Tired of seeing boxes. The boxes you filled with floral bedding and cheap towels and hand-me-down clothes. Back in New York, you carried them down the stairs one by one and stacked them in the U-Haul. Paul offered to help, a last showing of kindness. He believed that if he taped up enough of their open black maws and carried enough of them down the stairs that you’d run back into his arms and say it’s all a big mistake, bring the boxes back. That you’d take one look at him in his ill-fitting jeans, Dave Matthews concert tee shirt, scuffed sneakers, and soft hands holding a beige box and you’d fall at his feet and declare you don’t know what you’re doing. That you wanted to spend the rest of your life listening to him complain about the ratio of sesame topping to bagel dough. That his many neuroses and insecurities are actually appealing, that you love how he will forever be a manager of a health food store in the Village. Not that there’s anything wrong with being the manager of a health food store in the Village, but even if he wasn’t a manager of a health food store in the Village, Paul would still embody the spirit of a health food store manager in the Village. Forever. Always.
Your mother wasn’t happy either. What could Las Vegas possibly have that New York doesn’t? The way she said Las Vegas tickled you. The letters that make up the name of the city tumbled out of her mouth and sat between you, slimy and moist like a furball coughed up in one single desperate hack. You delighted in her surprise at your follow-through. That for once you weren’t all talk, like with studying Marine Biology, or getting your pilot’s license, or starting that Myspace consulting business. You had your answer locked and loaded — affordable housing, that’s what Las Vegas had. You spared her (and Paul) the real answer. Distance. Las Vegas had distance from them, their expectations, their demands, their questions. And yourself. At least the self that you’ve known for almost thirty years. The one who toddled after the bodega cat only to have it scratch your temple and leave a scar. The one who had her first kiss in detention, with another girl, only to earn more detention. The one who is apparently so at the mercy of her own whims that she’ll move across the country to make a point.
With at least 15 boxes left to unpack you open up your laptop and start scrolling through the Wynn job website. The new (only two years old) hotel, casino, resort, luxury retail destination’s website is a grey-beige like someone tipped molten melted steel into a vat of sand. Maybe that’s a good sign, steel is strong. After the interview. After you passed the drug test. After you settled into a routine and unpacked the 15 boxes, you couldn’t escape beige. You walked down to the EDR every day for your break. Skipped the line for the hot entrees, pasta, and burgers. You went straight for the rolls. Little beige baguettes that crackled when you tore them in half. You tried buttering the aerated interior once. An unnecessary folly, the pillow-like insides were already buttery enough.
Red — Flirt Alert P150–7
Your mother used to say that red lipstick was for hookers and for some reason it stuck. That is until you moved out to Vegas and met a tall drink of water who worked in the store next to yours. You sold women $500 purses. He sold men $4,000 suits. On slow week days you’d make the ten-step trip over to his store and listen to him talk about cufflinks. His head was shaved which made his full eyebrows all the more luscious. You imagined Tuesday mornings — no one gets Saturday or Sunday off when you work casino retail — light spilling in from behind pale curtains, his head in your lap, your finger slow-moving over the two mounds above his eyes. In these daydreams, he’d put down the paper, you weren’t sure if anyone reads the paper anymore, at least not anyone your age, but for some reason, it fit, him reading the paper, tossing it aside, and gathering you close before kissing you as if you were a kernel he was trying to pop.
There was no use in trying to temper the heat; you decided to lean into it. You bought a lipstick called Cherry Moon and tasted victory while your mother’s smothering whispers witnessed the stain spreading across your lips. You blew kisses at your reflection when no one was looking. In your walk-in closet, an architectural dream you never dared to have in New York, you replaced baggy hand-me-downs with savvy thrift store finds. One of which — a curved fang pendant, chili pepper bright — made the woman in the mirror winking, familiar. You didn’t want distance from her.
You didn’t know how many times you touched the tall drink of water’s arm, laughed at his jokes. Many. Many days. Many weeks. Many times. Until he finally said to Joe that he wanted to show you the new Zegna sunglasses in the back and Joe said whatever. Until he grabbed your hand and led you into the stockroom, where the obsidian mahogany of the store stopped and white paint and white tile took over. Exactly like the stockroom in the store where you worked, even though he didn’t turn on the light you knew what the room looked like, steeped in the musky scent of leather, boxes piled high, a red fire extinguisher in the corner. Until you found your body slipped between him and the wall, a delicate flower someone left inside a book years ago, translucent with the anticipation of being discovered again. When he kissed you it wasn’t gentle. You’d been accustomed to soft, tender kisses that said knock, knock before entering a room rather than knocking, kisses that watched Woody Allen movies and identified with the director’s obvious stand-in, kisses that looked at you from across the room as if you’d stolen something from them. Though he asked before invading your lips with his, it didn’t feel like he had, how could you have possibly given permission to be consumed, to be taken over, to be rendered breathless, witless, there weren’t enough red fire extinguishers in the whole hotel, whole Strip to put you out.
There were five cameras installed in the store, polished half-spheres protruding from the ceiling, striking the perfect balance of being invisible to tourists and ever-present to employees. A naked, unabashed declaration, We’re watching you. But not in the stockroom. Not while you wrapped your legs around his torso to press him further inside you, hoping for something to open up. When you were done he reached over to the shelf and pulled down some of the decorative gift wrapping tissue paper. Chinese New Year was coming up and they brought in a special shipment of silky red paper. As you wiped his cum from between your legs you were grateful that the Wynn always sprung for the best for their guests.
Black — Limousine Leather MQ5–05
It was almost time for your six-month anniversary. After six months of glorious hikes at Red Rock — early in the morning before the sun resolved to bake any slice of exposed skin — your sneakers, formerly black now a clay-tainted fading grey. After six months of surprisingly strong drinks at bars, where his smile was lit not only by the video poker machines but by your spectacular streak of bad luck. When the streak ended, when the word Jackpot appeared on the screen in those blocky red letters outlined in highlighter-yellow your screams silenced the bar. After you tipped out the bartender and floated out to the car, you couldn’t wait to get to his place or yours. You fucked right there in the back corner of the parking lot, where it’s raven-dark and the lights don’t reach. After six months of laughing in the second-story of a hidden nondescript Chinatown strip mall at his impressions of drunken tourists while chewing expertly grilled Japanese skewers, surrounded by hand-written placards detailing today’s special that have been on the wall for at least three years. In the best possible way, you were sinking. Into him. Into the city. Swallowed, swaddled by a velvety throat pressing the pieces of you together. You wanted to celebrate, and when he asked you how, you already had an answer. You wanted to indulge like a visitor, stay at a grand Strip hotel, eat a fabulous meal, and stroll to your room almost too full to fuck.
What you didn’t say, what you’d done your cool-girl best to hide was that you’d been waiting. Waiting for him to say the words. The words you’ve had dancing in your head for at least three months, every time he rubbed your feet after a long day, every time he put on your apron to make pancakes, every time he raised one eyebrow after delivering a punch line. Every time. You’d been struggling, fighting not to say the words before he did. In previous relationships you’d always said them first. You’d said them impulsively, compulsively, and without thought. The woman who wears Cherry Moon lip stain and a chili pepper-bright pendant wouldn’t do that. But the words were wriggling on your tongue and you weren’t sure how much longer you could keep them caged behind clenched teeth. Maybe if you celebrated. If you set the stage just right he’d be inspired and you’d be free to say the words back. Not first. Back.
Initially, he seemed unexcited at the idea of spending your weekend on the Strip, but once he committed, he COMMITTED. He picked you up in a shiny limousine, you hadn’t been in a limousine since prom, and this was nothing like prom. It was nothing like prom because you were an adult woman sneaking your hand into your date’s pants and this time your date had the good sense to return the favor by walking his fingers up your little black dress. After check-in at Luxor, you went to dinner at Mandalay Bay. You walked the long way, exiting from the casino to the Strip and crossing the narrow street between the two behemoths, leaving the crepuscular pyramid behind. During the walk, you stayed silent, afraid of what might tumble out if your lips parted. Later, in between gulps of wine and slurps of pasta, he asked you about your dreams. You didn’t have an answer. No one had asked before. His hand found yours on the dark tablecloth. For a moment your mother’s smothering whispers returned. Her voice traveled from below, through thick branches, pushing past and peppering you from behind a blanket of leaves, begging you to stop climbing and come down because you’re sure to fall. Sure to be disappointed. Sure to be hurt.
After dinner, after the sheets in your hotel room were propelled from the bed in a twisted pile to make room for the twisted pile of your bodies, after he washed the day and night from your back, moving the soap in soft, slippery circles, you started to wonder. Maybe it was fine if he never said it. Maybe it was enough that he showed it. He fell asleep disrobed and delighted. You got up to look out at the “mountain view” promised when you booked the room. You’re not sure what you were expecting, it was nighttime and all you could see above the glittering dots, some moving, some stationary, was a black starless sky. Your reflection hovered over the shimmer. You ran your fingers across the cool glass tracing the features, then repeating the gesture pressing on your skin. Something opened up. Behind you, he stirred. You turned to see his arm reaching out, searching. Come back to bed, he said. You burrowed beside him, drunk and sobered by his heat. His arms pulled you close. I love you too, you said.
Veronica Klash loves living in Las Vegas and writing in her living room. She is the associate editor at Okay Donkey Magazine. You can read her fiction and non-fiction in Wigleaf, X-Ray Lit, Electric Lit, and Catapult among others. Her work has been featured in the Wigleaf Top 50 and nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes. Veronica is working on a short story collection set in Las Vegas. Find her tweets @veronicaklash
