The Chapel Wars (28 page)

Sam and Camille texted an hour later and asked if we wanted to meet them at the secret pizza place in the Cosmo. There was no telling if they were back together now or what, but I was happy that Camille was at least temporarily part of the group again. I sent the boys along so I could have a moment alone with the chapel before I locked up.

I sat on the fifth pew in the back, pushing aside my Dax worries to make room for the ghosts of my childhood. I’d knocked out my front tooth right here. There was still a drop of my blood on the cream-colored cushion.

I roamed the hallway, rubbing my hand along the dirty shadows left from Grandpa’s collection of Irish landscapes. I flushed the gold urinals nine times, watching the water leak along the edge. I ended in the chapel, on my knees, counting the gray veins in the marble floor.

“It’s just a building,” I said to the floor. I had to keep saying that, out loud. “It’s just a building.” Just some stone and drywall, beams and marble, some shutters, some roofing material that I don’t even know the name of. Materials. There was no reason to mourn this much for materials.

But it wasn’t just the materials. It was my childhood, and my adulthood as I’d always planned it to be. I’d meant to go to business school, take this over, meet a man and marry him here, uttering the same promises I’d heard couples say time and time again. Lenore said I should feel liberated, and in a way I did. The future was a Strip-length stretch before me, a pathway that allowed me to be anyone and anything.

But I also didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t here.

There was a knock on the front door.

“I’m in the chapel,” I called.

I collected my memories and shoved them into my pocket. I told the guys I would take the bus down the street, but they were back to get me, a rare show of gentlemanly conduct.

But it wasn’t a friend in the chapel doorway. Or a gentleman.

“Victor?” I scrambled up. “What are you doing here?”

Victor tapped his boot against the floor. “Is this real marble?”

“Yes.”

“Waste of money.” He leaned on the doorway and appraised the space. How many brides had held their breath at that spot before taking that first step down the aisle? “So, you closed.”

“You too.”

“Well, we’re closing my chapel, but I’m in business. Big
business. Dax might have mentioned that I’m going to be filthy rich now that this deal is going through?”

I drew circles on the tile with my foot. “You’re already getting my chapel, do you want a medal too?”

Victor leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. “Did you also know Dax hasn’t talked to me in a month now? Not a word. I talk to him, he grunts a little. That’s all I get.”

“But you’re rich now, right? So who cares?”

“Listen, darling, the bank already knew this was happening. They wanted you to fail so they could foreclose, then sell the land to us for double.”

“What if we had made our payment?”

“The construction would have started around you, we would have blocked entrances and produced a lot of dust and choked you out until you didn’t have any more customers. It was never a question of
if
you’d go out of business, just when.”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

Victor hiked up his dingy chinos. “I saw you were packing. You missed some stuff.”

“Like what.”

“I’m going to own this building soon enough, and when I do, I’d like to give you everything inside it. Not the outside, I want the glory of seeing a bulldozer rip it apart, but the business. The pews. The stained-glass windows. You can keep it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I talked to Donna today. Used to date that broad, but she got crazy on me when I tried to pet one of her alpacas.” Victor
grimaced. “She wants to open her own chapel. I’m investing some money in it; she’s got some rich old fart who wants to do the same. You can take all this crap over there. Start again. That’s what Vegas is all about, isn’t it?”

“Why would you do that? That makes no sense. We …
I
hate you.”

“Feeling’s mutual.” Victor scratched his stomach. “Jim Nolan was the most hardheaded bastard I’ve ever met in my life. The day he died, I did an Irish jig. I wouldn’t care if your whole family got stuck in this chapel when the implosion happened. But my grandson would, and I love my grandson more than anyone.” He shook his head. “I just hope Dax gets over his little crush soon. I thought he’d go for a girl with some curves, you know? At least some hair … Grow it out.”

“So … the deal is, you get the land. I keep everything inside and my haircut.”

Victor laughed so hard that it rumbled into a hacking cough. “Shake on it?”

It was better than nothing. I’d give Donna all the materials. I’d give her the files. I’d give her anything, let her do her own thing, and just ask that she give us all a job. A part-time job, that I might do forever, that I might do for a few months. I could love the business all I wanted, but I was happy to step away from motherhood and become an adoring aunt.

I spit into my hand and held it out. Victor made a face of disgust.

“One more thing. Can you send Dax over here?” I asked.

“Get him yourself.” He smoothed back a strand of oily hair. Maybe I didn’t hate him. Just … disliked.

“Victor?”

“What? Fine. I’ll get him. Want me to call in the Royal Army too?”

“No. Just … thank you.”

The words tasted better than I would have ever thought.

Dax finally appeared in the parking lot eleven minutes later. We hadn’t seen each other for four days, unless you count the parking-lot encounter earlier. And I didn’t want to count it; I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want that moment to exist.

“Hey.” I slipped my hand into Dax’s. My skin sang upon contact. “I want to show you something.” We ducked our heads under the archway to the back rose garden. I’d sprinkled a few petals on the cobblestones, just to throw Dax off.

“Holly, I know it’s been a while, but I don’t have time to hook up right now.”

“That’s something old married couples who sleep in separate beds say to each other.”

“Then do you want to give me a script so I can say the right thing?” Dax pinched a rose petal, crushing it in his hand.

“Nope. I want … magic. Just a moment of magic. Can we do that?”

“Do you want to talk first? I know you saw me today. With Daphne.”

Dax and Daphne? Matching names were the worst. They had a 0.26 percent chance of relationship success.

“I saw you, and so did my five best friends. Who was she?”

Dax’s face reddened. “She’s a girl I used to date. She came by because she heard the chapel was closing.”

“That’s fine. I don’t know why you had to hug her in the parking lot though.”

“I don’t know. You’ve been distant. I didn’t think you would care.”

“Are you kidding?”

Dax smacked his forehead. “I was checking to see if you would care. I was baiting you, and you didn’t even bite. If I saw you standing in the parking lot with some dude, I’d be out there in a flash. I might even go into a rage. But you didn’t even get jealous. And I don’t know if I should take it as some sort of sign that you’re just not that into me.”

“Are you going to see her again?”

“Do you want me to?” Dax asked.

“Yeah, I’d really like you to start spending some time with your ex-girlfriend. And maybe you two could go to a strip club together? Make a party of it. Of course I
care
. I want to shoot that girl in her perky butt, but I have a little more control over my emotions than you do.”

“That’s the problem. You have too much control. Except for when we mention the chapels, then your eyes go hard and you look at me like I’m the one holding the smoking gun.” He frowned. “Then you sprinkle some rose petals on the ground and you
think that does it? You keep making all these doomsday comments that we aren’t going to last. I’m starting to believe it.”

“Just shut up. I’m sorry, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I really am.”

“I believe you.”

“Good. Now I want to show you something.” I’d concealed Grandpa’s old toolbox under a rosebush. There were likely better, indestructible containers out there, but I hadn’t had much time to prepare and had to go with whatever was left in the chapel. The lid creaked to life, rust flaking off the side. “This.”

“That’s a toolbox,” Mr. Obvious said.

“No, it’s not.” I slowly spread out my treasure. A T-shirt from the Neon Boneyard. A U2 CD, a matchbook from the Golden Steer, a chipped piece of marble, a brochure, the chapel picture of my family James took, and an Elvis figurine I’d found at one of the soon-to-be-destroyed gift shops. “This is a time capsule. In loving memory of the Rose of Sharon.”

Dax’s face melted to butter. “But Neon Boneyard … is us.”

“You’re part of the memory for me now.”

“This is … you are … amazing. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. We’ve both done stupid things.”

“But I was stupider.”

“We aren’t going to argue our stupidity now.” I scooped up a few rose petals and sprinkled them into the box. I couldn’t look at Dax, had to focus on the words so they came out right. “That
grass spot I took you to isn’t my favorite spot in Vegas anymore. It’s all in here. We’re going to dig a hole so deep so that the demolition crew and Stan Waldon can’t touch it, and then this spot will be all the good of Vegas and us.”

“Do you want to know my favorite spot in Vegas now?” Dax cupped my face.

“The tattoo parlor?”

“No. You are. Wherever you are, that’s my spot.”

I wiped at my eyes, as surprised with the tears as anyone in Vegas ever is about rain. “You can add something in here too, if you want.”

“I want.” He opened his wallet and took out the picture of his parents. Wordlessly, he slid the photo into the box.

“And this is for you.” I slid a folded piece of notebook paper across the cobblestones.

Dax unfolded the sheet. “It’s just a bunch of numbers.”

I inhaled. Life is just a bunch of numbers, but it’s what those numbers add up to that matters the most. “Thirteen = number of official dates we’ve been on. One hundred fifty-six = number of couples we’ve married here since the funeral. Two hundred thirty-seven = number of times James threatened me with that photo of us.”

“What about the nineteen?” Dax asked.

The blood evaporated from my body. I crumbled into myself, crumbled into Dax’s arms. “That’s the number of times I’ve tried to say I love you. I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I’ve felt it.”

He grinned. “You should add one hundred twenty-two to the mix.”

“What’s that?”

“Number of days since I first met you.” He brushed his lips against my ear. “And one. Number of girls I’ve loved. Yeah, numbers girl. I can count too.”

Dax added a few more things to the Rose of Sharon and Cupid’s Dream time capsule. A dusty carnation. The bandanna to his cowboy outfit. One of the pictures of Victor and a forgotten soap opera star. And this letter, that he let me read before we sealed our beginnings and endings into a creaking metal box, forever.

Dax (short for Daxworth, I hear. What the hell was your mother thinking?)

If things go as I’d planned, you’ve met my granddaughter, Holly Nolan. Maybe she’s standing in front of you right now, tapping her foot, demanding you tell her what’s in this letter. Don’t. The things I want to tell you are things she needs to learn for herself first
.

I asked her to deliver this letter to you for a few reasons. I wanted you to meet her. I wanted her to meet you. I want the stupid rift between Victor and me to end. Everyone likes Holly, you can’t help but like her, so maybe you can not hate her and she could not hate you and our chapels can finally be at peace
.

I don’t know you, Daxworth Cranston. I’m hoping your character is much like your father’s and very much unlike Victor’s. I met your dad the day Victor bought the chapel. He came in with a basket of smoked sausage and crackers, of all things, saying he was excited to be in the neighborhood and that he’d married his wife in Cupid’s Dream. If you’re going to have a competition chapel next door, might as well have this guy there. That was before I met your grandpa, of course, and everything went to pot
.

Your dad and I went out for drinks a few times when he’d come work at the chapel in the summers. I saw you as a baby. Your dad talked about you 87 percent of the time. He loved you, probably in the same way that I love my granddaughter. He was a proud father and a good man. I know his death was tragic, but his life wasn’t, and that’s what matters
.

Not many men get the luxury to write these things to strangers. They don’t get a dying request, but you’re getting mine. Be kind to my granddaughter. Be her friend. Help her through this time that I know you understand all too well. That wedding chapel is her everything, and she’s probably going to lose it. I didn’t tell her that, of course, but I’m a realist. She’s a fixer, and by putting her energies into fixing this, I know it will help
her with the loss. Staying in business isn’t what matters. I just want her to be happy
.