For The Least Of These (4 page)

Alicia decided to take a shower before going to bed.
I was far too tired to be concerned about personal hygiene, so I headed straight for the bed. I fell into a deep sleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. My dreams were filled with Rick Hartwood; therefore, I was thoroughly annoyed when I was wrenched back into the world of the conscious. Alicia was shaking me violently, and I jumped up suddenly – slamming my head into hers.

“Yow!” Alicia screamed.
“That hurt.”

I rubbed the nonexistent bump on my forehead.
“Why were you shaking me? I thought someone was trying to kill me or something.”

“I thought you’d want to get down to the Coliseum to buy our tickets.
You know, before they sell out.”

I looked over at the digital clock beside my bed.
The luminescent red numbers reported the time: 10:00. I rolled out of bed and headed for the shower. “Why don’t you try calling Ticket Master? Maybe we can get tickets through them without going to the box office. Use my Visa. It’s in my wallet.”

I stood in the shower and let the warm water run over my face.
I still felt like I could sleep another twelve hours or more. Then, there was a tap on the bathroom door and the door opened a few inches. “Brandy?” I heard Alicia call.

“No, Alicia.
Brandy isn’t here… What do you want? Can’t I even shower in peace?”

“I got the tickets.
And you aren’t going to believe this…they are on the front row.”

“I must have water in my ears.
I thought you said ‘front row’.”

“I did, Brandy.
They decided to add an extra row of seats just today. And since they just opened at 10:00, I was able to get two tickets! You might actually get to shake hands with Rick Hartwood!”

I still couldn’t believe what Alicia was saying.
I stuck my head around the shower curtain just in time to hear Alicia say, “Brandy, are you ever going to wake up? It’s almost 10:00, and we need to get going if we are going to get tickets.”

I opened my eyes and realized I had the blankets over my head.
I was still in bed. Another crazy dream. “I’m getting up,” I managed to say.

While I took a real shower, Alicia tried Ticket Master, but she was unable to get through.
By 10:30, we were ready to leave the hotel.

The Coliseum was only a few blocks away, so we were there within fifteen minutes.
I was relieved to see that there were only a handful of cars in the parking lot. Alicia and I walked towards the box office window and saw that there was no line. A platinum blonde with too-red lipstick was behind the glass window. “May I help you,” she asked in a sultry, southern voice.

“Do you have any tickets left for the Rick Hartwood concert?” I asked.

The middle-aged woman stared at a computer monitor as she typed a few letters on a keyboard. “No, Ma’am, I’m afraid that concert sold out already. You might check the newspaper. There’s always someone trying to sell tickets they can’t use.”

“Thanks,” I said.
I turned to Alicia, “Guess we didn’t plan this excursion very well, did we?”

“Right, I guess you didn’t.
‘Let’s have some fun,’ I said. ‘Let’s follow him to Biloxi,’ you said. ‘Let’s stay in a thirty dollar per night motel,’ I said. ‘Let’s spend this month’s rent on a fancy hotel suite,’ you said. ‘Let’s just go home and cut our losses,’ I say. ‘Let’s find Rick Hartwood and ask for free tickets,’ you say…”

“Okay, okay, Alicia.
I get the picture. It’s all my fault. Let’s get back to the hotel. I’m tired.”

“All right, but you’re going to ask Rick for free tickets, not me.
He is your heartthrob, after all.”

Terribly disappointed and thoroughly exhausted, I began to think that I had wasted a perfectly good weekend.

Back in our room, I fell into a deep sleep and slept until three that afternoon.
When I woke up, I felt refreshed and I wasn’t angry with myself anymore. I slipped into a hotel robe and began wondering what we could do to salvage the weekend. My stomach growled to remind me that I hadn’t eaten in almost a whole day. I recalled the Mexican Restaurant I’d seen the night before, and my jalapeno cheese dip craving returned in full force. I’d made my first decision: our first stop would be for food.

I went into the sitting room expecting to find Alicia.
She’d always needed very little sleep, so I was certain she’d been up for a while. The room was empty and Alicia’s door was shut. I speculated on whether I should wake her or not. “What would Alicia do?” I wondered. It took me two seconds to answer that question, and I grabbed the knob to her bedroom and opened the door.

“Time to wake up, Sleepy…” I began, but I quickly realized that Alicia wasn’t there.
Her bed looked slept in, but she was no longer in it. I turned around and shut the door behind me. There was no telling where Alicia was, so I decided to get into my clothes and head downstairs.

Back in my room, I realized that my clothes were missing.
My stomach was beginning to sound like an angry pit bull and I was stuck in a hotel room. I wandered back into the sitting room and found a leather-bound padded book that told about all of the Richland’s amenities. Three pages later, I found the menu for room service. Finally I could quiet my hunger pangs.

Appetizers.
No. Soups. No. Salad. No. I needed a full meal, so I went straight to the dinners. Sirloin Steak in Bourbon Sauce. Surf and Turf Shrimp and Steak. Blackened Snapper. Smothered Chicken Breast. My mouth was beginning to water. Then, I suddenly lost my appetite. The cheapest dinner on the menu, Breaded Chicken Tenders, was seventeen dollars. Plus, there was a twenty-five percent charge on all room service deliveries. Even a bowl of soup was eight dollars. I would just have to wait for Alicia to return – and pray that my clothes returned with her.

It seemed like hours before I heard the door
rattling open, but actually, only fifteen minutes had passed. Alicia came walking in with a huge smile on her face and folded clothes in her arms. “I am so glad you are up. I’ve got so much to tell you,” she gushed.

“My clothes, I presume?”
I pointed to the stack in her arms.

“Huh, oh, yeah.
Here you go. I washed them for you while you were sleeping.” You would have thought she’d turned them to gold by the expression on her face. Alicia’s clothes looked freshly laundered too. For a split second I wondered how she’d achieved that, but then I immediately realized that I didn’t want to know.

I couldn’t help but be grateful for her thoughtfulness.
As I slipped into the clean garments, I felt refreshed. “Thanks, Alicia. This means a lot. Now not to make light of what you did for me, but I must change the subject. Can we go somewhere and eat? I’m starving.”

“Sure.
I saw this Mexican place last night. I’d love to have some nachos. Is that okay with you?”

I had to love her.
When it came to food, we usually agreed. “Sounds great! Let’s get going.”

In the car, Alicia couldn’t keep quiet any longer, “You will never guess what happened.”

“Let’s just save time. Tell me without me guessing.” I was too hungry to think, and besides, one of a thousand things could have happened. This was Alicia.

“I’ll just show you,” she said and started digging around in her purse.
After a moment, she pulled out two pieces of paper. No, not just paper – tickets. My heart jumped as I realized they had to be for Rick Hartwood’s show.

“Where did you get those?”
I was very close to losing my composure.

“While I was washing your clothes…no, maybe it was when I was drying them.
No, no. Now I remember. It was when I was folding them. Yes, that’s it. I was folding your clothes and this great looking guy came in the room. Well, it’s not really a room. Sort of an alcove; or maybe a niche. Some might call it a recess in the wall…”

“Alicia!” I screamed.
“Could you just get on with the story? I don’t really care if it was a grand ballroom or a mouse hole – just tell me what happened.”

“Okay, okay.
Jeez,” Alicia pretended that I’d greatly offended her, but I knew all of her silly little games. “So anyway, he walks over and starts talking to me. He was so cute. He had long blond hair and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. And he’s tall and, boy was he ever built. He definitely works out every day…”

I pulled into the parking lot at the Mexican restaurant, La Hacienda Sabrosa.
My Spanish left a lot to be desired, but I thought it meant the tasty ranch. My mouth began watering again. “So this guy was an ‘Alicia Man’?” I asked. An ‘Alicia Man’ was what I had dubbed all men that Alicia was attracted to (which meant all men that I wasn’t attracted to). Whenever Alicia ran across an “Alicia Man”, she was unable to resist him. Most “Alicia Men” were no good, but that knowledge did little to assuage Alicia’s attractions. Inevitably, all “Alicia Men” eventually wound up in Alicia’s bed. I thought about the rumpled sheets back in her room at the hotel.

“
Skylar. His name is Skylar. And yes, I suppose he is an ‘Alicia Man’. He’s someone you would find repulsive – or at least unattractive. But I think he’s great.” We both opened our car doors and stepped out.

“You always think your men are great,” I said as I locked Sam.

“You’ll think he’s great too, Brandy, when you find out that he’s the one who got us the tickets.”

I stopped just before opening the door to the restaurant.
“He got the tickets? How? And better yet, why?”

“Let’s go inside
and then I’ll explain.”

Once inside the restaurant, I was reminded of my one and only trip to Mexico where I had bought myself a black velvet painting of Snoopy wearing a large sombrero and holding a bottle of Tequila.
I had been fifteen at the time – long a fan of Snoopy’s and a growing fan of Tequila. My oh-so hip parents had thought it was cute. The restaurant had its own black velvet paintings of sad eyed Mexican children. There were also paintings of landscapes and lovely Mexican villages. On one wall was a huge mural of a Matador sticking a banderilla into a bull’s back. Mariachi music was playing rather loudly, and a festive-clad Hispanic woman dashed around seating diners and taking orders. She headed in our direction.

“Buenos
Dias, Senoritas,” she said. “Two for dinner?”

“Oui,” Alicia said proudly.

“Yes,” I said to the waitress. Then to Alicia I whispered, “This is a Mexican restaurant, not a French one.”

“What?
What did I say?” Alicia asked genuinely. I tried to forget Alicia’s faux pas and move on, but then I remembered that Alicia had taken several years of Spanish in high school. She certainly knew how to say ‘yes’ in Spanish. “Are you sure you got enough sleep?” I asked.

Alicia just giggled.

The attractive woman led us to a corner booth and presented us with menus. I admired her long black hair and her large brown eyes both of which were accented by her red blouse and multi-colored skirt. “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.

“
Pepsi,” Alicia said.

“I’ll have
unsweet tea, no lemon. And,” I glanced quickly at the menu, “please bring us some nachos with extra jalapenos.”

“I will be right back with your drinks and to take your order.
It will be a few minutes on the nachos.”

“Now, back to your story, Alicia,” I said.

“Yeah. Where was I? So he came over and started talking to me. He found me attractive, of course. He was in a bit of a hurry, but he asked me to meet him in fifteen minutes in the hotel bar for a drink. I left your clothes in Sam’s backseat and took a glance in the rearview mirror – but of course I looked fine – and then headed down to the bar. Skylar and I had a couple of drinks. He asked me what I was doing in Biloxi, and I told him how we’d come to see Rick Hartwood but the concert was sold-out. He got a peculiar look on his face – sort of a sly smile. Then he told me that he was one of the roadies – that’s a technician that helps set up before the concert – for Rick’s tour. I didn’t believe him until he pulled out several tickets to Rick’s concert. And then he gave two of them to me!”

“Okay, how are we supposed to pay him?
Cash, I hope.” Knowing Alicia, she’d already paid for hers – and not with cash, check, or Visa.

“Oh, Brandy.
You are always so suspicious. I said he ‘gave’ them to me – as in a gift. No payment required, you know.”

“
Yeah, right. Some stranger who has known you only long enough to have two drinks with you is going to give you a pair of tickets that he could easily sell for a hundred dollars or more? Come on, what does he want in return?”

The waitress appeared with our drinks.
“I’ll have the number three special, no onions in the enchiladas and beans instead of rice. I’d also like two tacos,” I told her.

Alicia said, “I
’ll have the number 5 special. I want rice and beans with mine.”

The waitress took our menus.
“Your nachos should be ready momentarily. I’ll put your order in.”

As the waitress walked away, Alicia continued.
“All right, there is one little thing he wants…”

“I knew it!
I’m not sleeping with this guy, Alicia. Not even for tickets to all of Rick’s concerts.”

“Sleep with him?
I told you before he’s not the type of guy you’d like.” I wasn’t sure if she was implying that I liked guys who wanted to sleep with us or that he wasn’t the type of guy I’d want to sleep with. Before I could consider this, she continued, “Anyway, he wants me to come to a party tonight. It’s a private party at the Isle of Capri Casino. They’ve reserved the Flamingo Bay Ballroom.”

“They?
Rick Hartwood’s roadies? And by the way, I know what a roadie is. They must make a lot more money than I thought they did.” Alicia’s story sounded very improbable. This Skylar probably just wanted to impress her with his tales of private parties in fancy ballrooms.

“No, not the roadies.
Rick Hartwood is throwing the party. He’s even going to be there.”

Now I knew Alicia was making this up.
There was no way she’d been invited to a party Rick was throwing. Still, I pretended to believe her. “Well, did you ask Skylar if I could come along?”

“Um hmm.
And he said sure.”

“Wow, I’m really getting impressed by this guy,” I fibbed.
“Did you ask him if he’d introduce us to Rick?”

“No, I don’t really want to meet Rick.
But I did ask if he’d introduce you to Rick.” She was good; I had to give her that.

“And…?”

“First he asked me what you looked like. He said it really didn’t make a big difference. As long as you didn’t have green teeth, hairy ears, a baldhead or bug-eyes, he’d be happy to introduce you. He said that Rick was a really nice guy and he liked meeting his fans.”

“So what did you tell him?” I was getting nervous even though I still had my suspicions.

“I assured him that you were not bald, so he said okay,” Alicia snickered.

“Thanks so much,” I said facetiously.

“Well, now he’ll be pleasantly surprised that you have great teeth and beautiful eyes. He’ll just have to deal with your hairy ears.”

In spite of my nagging reservations, I started getting excited.
If there really was a party, I might really get to meet Rick! Did I dare to get my hopes up?

The waitress arrived with the nachos.
I no longer wanted them. The hunger in my stomach had been replaced with a large knot. Alicia grabbed a big chip that was covered with jalapenos and dripping with cheese. I felt like I would throw up.

“Come on, Brandy.
This is your favorite thing in the world – next to Rick Hartwood – fiery hot nachos. Eat up.”

I waited a few minutes, then I said, “Are you sure he was telling the truth?
I don’t want to get my hopes up just to be let down. You know that Rick means the world to me.”

“I know, Brand.
I couldn’t lie to you about a thing like that. I really think Skylar is on the up and up. He said he was tired of all these teeny bopping groupies that always hang out at the hotels they stay in. He said he wanted to spend some time with intelligent women. He said he’s ready to meet older women – well, closer to his age. He’s thirty-five.”

“Well,
you’re close to thirty-five – closer than I am. And I’m intelligent. So I guess he gets both when we are together. I hope he’s more interested in older because intelligent is going to be hanging out with Rick.”

“You are so damn funny, Brandy.
You really need to take that show on the road. Then I wouldn’t have to listen to it. Now eat your damned nachos before I cram them down your throat!”

I did find that I had regained my appetite.
Teasing Alicia was always good exercise. And just as we finished the nachos, our dinner arrived. The meal was extremely delicious and incredibly satisfying. After I had finished, I felt stuffed.