Bud

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1Just shut up!

This hulk, this wannabe soldier, dressed in his army fatigues or whatever you call ‘em, this so-called uncle of mine, this clown who calls himself Sarge, was drivin’ this thing like he was some kind of tour guide.

“See the pyramid? That’s the Luxor. Look—that giant lion stands guard over the MGM. You see the Statue of Liberty? It’s right there in front of New York, New York. Look! The roller coaster!” He pointed. “Coming around the buildin’? We’ll take you t’ ride that someday.” Then he paused. “That is, if you wanna.”

Why don’t you just shut your trap?

On and on, ever since we left the airport. He never quit talking. And the traffic. A zillion cars. All lit by tons of neon lights. Ginormous sign after ginormous sign. This Sarge, this loudmouth tour guide, was showing me the Las Vegas Strip. That’s what he called it. I, though, thought I was trapped in hell.

I didn’t wanna be here. I didn’t wanna live with him. I didn’t wanna see this place I never wanted to live in. I just wanted to go back home. Back to Mimi. Back to Greta.

Who really was that guy in the back seat? The one who hadn’t said a word after he mumbled, “Welcome, Shelly,” back in the airport. Sarge intro’d him as his husband, no less. Said his name was Will. No last name.

The minute we left the flight attendant who was in charge of me, Sarge never stopped flappin’ his gums. I didn’t even know I had an uncle until three days ago, and here he turned out to be this guy. And this Sarge walked—no, paraded, military style—and never stopped talking. “Bud, you can call me Sarge. That’s what all my friends call me. In the Marines, my men called me that. Well, after I gained the rank. Before, my friends just called me Sheridan. I haven’t been known as Sheldon for years.”

If I wanted to ask why, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

But I didn’t care.

What I wanted to do was jump out of this Jeep, run back to the airport, and get on the next flight out of here. I had to go home.

“I’m retired Marines. Came here to Vegas ‘cause I needed a change. A big change. And believe you me, bud, Vegas is good for that. There’s nothing like this town. Runs on bright lights, fast cars, jingling slot machines, and zillions of people. My Marine buddies were from all sorts of different cultures, but multiply them by hundreds, and that’s what you find here in Sin City.”

Sin City? They call it that? Why? I wouldn’t find out any time soon because Sarge, this mysterious uncle Mimi kept from me, never gave me a chance to ask. Please, oh please, oh please just quit talking. My mother, my Mimi, was dead. Dead. He knew that. She was his sister. Not that Mimi ever told me about him. But you’d think, out of respect for Mimi, he’d let me just sit here in the quiet I deserved.

Instead, I heard, “Nothin’ else in the world like the Las Vegas Strip, bud.”

But here I was, listening to his endless crap. Just let me die. Crawl into a grave next to my mother. But no—that wasn’t even possible.

Instead, I was stuck here. Las Vegas. Might’ve been a million miles from Salt Lake City, where I was happy—well as happy as I could be—only three days ago.

This Christmas is a far cry from all the ones Mimi and I had before. We’d always go to The Nutcracker ballet. Every Christmas. She took me first when I was five, and I fell in love with it. The sparkling lights, the beautiful Capitol Theater in Salt Lake. Ballet West. Most of all, I fell in love with ballet.

I saw “The Waltz of the Snowflakes” and I was hooked. I told myself I was gonna be up there on that stage someday. A snowflake. I never danced a step in my life then. The snowflakes were all girls. I was a boy. But I knew. Someday I’d dance that waltz.

The Nutcracker was Mimi’s and my thing. After I started dance, it was even more special. Getting Mimi to say yes to dance lessons took a lot of begging and pleading. But she finally broke. I started ballet school when I was six-and-a-half. From the first lesson, I was hooked. I was forever a dancer. I knew it from my first set of barre exercises.

Greta, our housekeeper, didn’t like me being a dancer. She wanted me to play ball, skateboard, or do anything else that boys usually do. But dancing was my thing. And Mimi supported me.

No matter what I wanted, Mimi let me do it. If I wanted ruffled curtains in my bedroom, then I got ruffled curtains. If I wanted a tutu to dance around the house in, she bought me a tutu. Before I was born, Mimi re-did one of the rooms in the house just for me—all cowboy and horses.

I hated it.

And Mimi would not let me hate. If I didn’t like the cowboys, the horses, the ropes, the cowboy hats, whatever, then poof! It all went away. She took me shopping, and I got exactly what I wanted. Except a canopy bed. She said it reminded her too much of her own bedroom when she was a little girl. So, I could have the ruffles, the ballet figurines, the tutu, but no canopy bed. And I was fine with it.

Mimi kept totally mum about her childhood. If she’d told me even a little, I mighta known I had an uncle. But she just didn’t talk about any of it. If I asked, she’d say, “My life didn’t start until I had you.” And that was that.

My mother was always Mimi to me. Her name was Amelia. Amy, for short. She was bubbling—all the time. Whenever anyone would call her Amelia, she’d say, “Call me Amy.” Greta said when I was just learnin’ to talk, I musta heard that as “Call me Mimi,” because I never called her anything but that.

And Mimi loved ballet.

She did tell me, even though she never talked about when she was a little girl, she was a dancer herself. And when we went to the ballet, she always wore a silver ballerina necklace. She never said why, and if I asked, I got “it’s from another life.” But it musta meant a lot to her, because she always wore it to Ballet West.

Mimi told me she helped people invest their money. Even now, at age twelve, almost thirteen, I never really got her to explain what that meant. I do know she worked a lot. She always cleared her busy schedule for Christmas time, though. She said that was our time.

Which is the reason what happened pisses me off so much. She was supposed to be there. With me. Not drivin’ off up a mountain to see some client.

She’d hook her arm in mine, gorgeous in her red satin dress and diamond jewelry, and I would lead her down the aisle, dressed in my red velvet jacket, ready for the magic. The Capitol Theater was beautiful with its crystal chandeliers, the giant gold medallion on the ceiling, the elegant curtain. Mimi would whisper to me I was her favorite escort as we walked. Seated in our fifth-row center seats, I took a deep, deep breath. Magic was about to begin.

And when the conductor led the first note, I was taken to a different world. The costumes, the lights, the twirls transported me into someplace enchanted.

Mimi beamed. Her smile lit up that entire theater. And I was the happiest person on the planet.

But that was then. Before. I don’t want to see The Nutcracker ever again. I don’t know if I even want to dance ever again.

Not after that horrible night, a time that seems so far away but was really only a few days ago.

That trip to The Nutcracker was different. Mimi’s assistant, Shawn, my sometimes manny, took me. Mimi had some client she couldn’t put off. That’s what Greta said. The guy was on a skiing vacation, he was worth a ton of money for Mimi, and so Mimi ditched our Christmas tradition to chase the guy up the mountain.

I was pretty much losin’ it when Shawn showed to pick me up. He knew absolutely nothing about ballet. He wasn’t even dressed nice. I liked Shawn, but that night I wanted him to just leave. Let me stay home. But Greta said, “Liebchen, your mama would not want you to miss The Nutcracker. So get dressed.”

Right then, I hated Greta, I hated Shawn, and most of all I hated Mimi. But I did what Greta said. And, Ballet West worked their magic because by the time “The Waltz of the Snowflakes” came on, I was in a good mood, once again wishin’ I was up there.

The first act ended, the houselights came up, and Shawn, no different from most everybody else there, pulled out his cellphone. I was gazing at the beautiful ceiling while pretending I was dancing “The Waltz of the Snowflakes” when Shawn grabbed my arm.

“Sorry, kid, but we gotta bounce.”

I finally felt better, and here Shawn, who didn’t know a thing about ballet, wanted to leave.

I looked at him. It was only intermission. There was a lot of magic yet to come, including the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” my second-favorite part.

“It’s not over, Shawn. This is just the intermission. We can’t go yet.”

“I know, kid. But I just opened a text that came in during the first half. It said I have to bring you home right now. In fact, it was sent an hour ago, so my ass is grass if I don’t get you home ASAP. So, let’s get crackin’.”

“I can’t miss the second half, Shawn. Act like you didn’t see the text, okay?”

“Nope. No way. My job’s on the line here. This must be somethin’ important. Your mom’s lawyer sent the text. I ain’t crossin’ him. Gotta get you home.”

He sped all the way to our house. And I was pissed the whole trip. When Mimi heard about this, I thought, Shawn was gonna be fired anyway.

We barely got through the front door before Greta scooped me into her arms. Now, normally, I kinda like Greta lovin’ on me. But not that night. I wanted her and everyone else to just let me go upstairs, get my cellphone I forgot to take with me to the ballet, and text Mimi.

“My sweet little boy, mein liebchen,” Greta said, over and over. Greta emigrated from Germany when she married her husband, an American soldier. He died before I was born, and so Greta actually lived with us. She had a grown son who lived in Salt Lake, but she always, as long as I knew her, lived in our house. She was like a grandmother to me. She grabbed me a lot for hugs. But this time was different. No laughing at all, like usual. She was crying, murmuring “my sweet boy” over and over. I hated that sweet boy stuff. I didn’t wanna be her sweet boy. I wanted to be her big boy, her little man. I got enough grief at school, where I was definitely the sweet boy.

Nobody at school liked me. Sports weren’t my thing, so the boys hated me. The girls thought I was weird, trying to talk about ballet all the time. So, they didn’t like me either.

I finally pulled away so I could look Greta in the eyes. I was gonna tell her to back off. I’d had enough of whatever she was doing—loving, laughing, crying, whatever. I had to get upstairs to text Mimi. I was gonna give her an earful for ruining our special time. But I saw the deepest heartache in Greta’s eyes, deeper than I’ve ever seen in anyone’s.

“I’m so sorry, liebchen. She loved you so much. You were her treasure.” And then she thrust something into my hand. “Keep this. Keep it safe. She would want you to have it.”

I opened my fingers, and there was the ballerina necklace. Why are you giving me my mother’s necklace? And what is all this you’re saying?

And then I heard the booming voice. Unmistakable. My mother’s lawyer, Mr. Stern. Standing in the arch leading to our living room. Commanding the world in his dark gray three-piece suit. He musta had a closet full of those suits. He never dressed any other way.

Why is he here?

Looking over half-glasses, he ordered, “Come here, son.”

I’m not your son.

He held out his hand, his fingers gesturing I should follow him. His face was stern, like his name, not a trace of a smile. Greta gave me a nudge in his direction. I followed him into the living room. He pointed toward the sofa. “Sit.”

Greta, right behind me, lowered me onto the soft sofa cushion. She sat next to me, closely—like she was protecting me. Shawn too, who I had forgotten was even there, followed and sat in the chair facing us. Mr. Stern towered in his dark suit, his grim face hovering. That face didn’t bother me. He always looked like that. Angry.