7
The Luxor Hotel and Casino with its 350-foot pyramid stood out in mock elegance with its Egyptian decor on Las Vegas's South Strip. At the base of the pyramid, with temperatures in triple digits, swarms of people with cameras in hand, tourist maps, and anxious cash for the slot machines stopped to gawk at the two elderly black women carrying suitcases followed by a three-man camera crew.
“Are they celebrities?” someone from the crowd asked.
“I don't recognize them,” a voice responded.
“I think the heavier one looks like that actress who played the role of the grandmama in that movie
Soul Food
.”
Another voice chimed in. “Irma P. Hall?” The man strained to focus his camera to take a picture. “I think you're right.”
“So who is the smaller woman with the cane?” a female voice asked quickly.
“I heard someone call her Mother something. I couldn't get it all.”
“Wow!” another voice added. “I'd heard Mother Love lost a ton of weight, but she looks like she almost melted away. I hope she's all right.”
And just that quick Mothers Bea and Sasha became celebrity impersonators. The camera crew had followed them from the courthouse, hoping for an interview with the two feisty out-of-towners who had thrown the airport into a frenzy. But the crowd in front of the Luxor proclaimed them otherwise, and many wannabe paparazzi took pictures that would later give undeserved, negative attention to Irma P. Hall and Mother Love.
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A young woman watched all the hoopla going on with the old women and the camera crew. Their appearance seemed to stir things up a bit, as if the Luxor, or the Vegas Strip, needed it.
During the past eighteen months, thirty-year-old Zipporah Moses had lived inside several crowded homeless shelters. On this particular day she'd come onto the strip to get away from all the doom and gloom a shelter often provided. She lived several miles away from the Luxor where some of the neighborhoods weren't quite as affluent.
She'd sometimes spend time reclaiming her sanity inside air-conditioned Las Vegas movie theaters. During moments of fantasy she'd honed from years of foster-home-to-foster-home living and trying to survive, she'd seen movies both good and bad. Although she had not recognized either of the elderly women, she certainly knew they were not Irma P. Hall or Mother Love.
Zipporah felt a sharp push and spun around. She was small boned and stood only five-foot-six. It would take no effort to shove her from her spot. Life did it constantly. No one in the crowd gave her a sign of culpability. With no one to lash out at, she turned back to refocus on the two old women.
Zipporah shook her head in disbelief at the crowd snapping pictures and gabbing about things they knew nothing about.
This should be for me. They should take my picture,
she thought.
For a moment, she indulged in her lifelong dream of having that kind of success, a dream that served as her respite from life. The shelter she'd found in fantasizing often proved to be her saving grace. Though fame and happiness were constantly out of reach for her, she believed only that kind of recognition and that kind of money would deliver her out of the loneliness and homeless shelters. In her fantasy, she would command these adoring and now misguided people from a stage such as New York City's Radio City Music Hall or perhaps even the Los Angeles Universal Amphitheater.
Above the din surrounding the old women's appearance, she imagined how it would be.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together and show some love for the incomparable voice of a young lady who the Queen of Soul, Miss Aretha Franklin, has dubbed, “my rightful successor.” Stand on your feet for Lady Z . . . Zipporah Mosessssssssss. The crowd would chant her name as she took the stage. She'd wear a sky blue dress on her shapely, size four frame. That color always came alive against her mocha-colored skin. Her long, shoulder-length, ash brown hair would fan her heart-shaped face and accentuate her lively hazel eyes....
“Are you okay?” Zipporah heard someone ask. She turned to see a young security guard about her age ogling her. When she didn't respond, he seemed to look past her in a dismissive way as though his lot in life were better than hers. “You'll have to move along. You can't just stand here. Either you're going in or not.”
She tried to rally by returning to her daydream against the backdrop of the continued noise, pretending he'd not interrupted. She'd hoped to retain a small piece of her daydream. However, she couldn't dismiss the security guard's nonchalant demeanor. It had quickly brought down the curtains on her dream without effort. “Excuse me.” She'd said it politely, trying to offer him another way to express his wishes for her to move on.
He caught the attitude, so he used his baton to indicate what he wanted her to do while adding, this time politely, “I'm sorry but you must move along. The show's over. Those two old women have gone.”
And that's when she realized they had.
He didn't wait to see if she moved or not. Instantly, he'd moved on to a few other stragglers, urging them to vacate the front of the Luxor lest they give the hotel a bad name. Among the onlookers, Zipporah suddenly recognized two of the other women from her current shelter, so she rushed away before they called out to her. She didn't want to be associated with homelessness, even though the nondescript building gave her free shelter at night.
There must be something better in store for me,
were the words she repeated every day. Zipporah held her head proud and shifted the weight from a beige knock-off Coach pocketbook that only seemed to make her faded lemon yellow short set more noticeable. With her mind still on a better life, she walked a few yards past the Luxor and then noticed a ten-dollar bill lying next to a trash receptacle.
Quickly, Zipporah let the bag drop from her arm onto the sidewalk. She stumbled slightly to give the impression the bag fell by accident. With skills honed by finding only fleeting pieces of happiness in her young life, Zipporah hurriedly stooped and snatched up the ten dollars along with her bag.
As she blended into the crowd of the well dressed and the fortunate, Zipporah's mind raced. Yesterday was the last time she'd eaten, the memory causing her stomach to growl loudly. She'd hurried from the shelter early that morning, as she did most mornings. Months ago, she'd decided to forgo the unappealing and almost nutritious breakfasts and gamble on finding something better in the streets. There was always a church buffet happening or something akin to it.
With a grumbling empty stomach and clothes clean but outdated, she'd also gone on unsuccessful job interviews. Twice within a year's time, she'd found temporary work that was much too temporary for her to show off her office skills. Pretending to diet so as not to go out with the other employees and spend her limited funds on lunch became her norm.
An accidental shove from a passerby again interrupted her thoughts. With the ten dollars she'd just found and the twenty dollars she had pinned to her brassiere, she felt a sudden purpose to her steps. Thirty dollars would have to last.
She was also on her way to audition. She sometimes sang at a few local dives that only paid tips. Today, she had a real chance, a better opportunity to get a job with one of the hotel musical revues that paid weekly.
If I land this job, I'll only have to make this last until payday. It's Monday, I can hold on until Friday. Lord, please allow me to get this job.
She purposely omitted asking God if it was His will, because she couldn't imagine a God that would continue to let her linger in her present state when she was trying so hard to get out.
Another loud rumble stirred in her stomach as she approached the side entrance to the Luxor Hotel. A quick look at the large clock in the corner told her that she was ten minutes early. At the very least, it would show them that she was dependable and serious.
Zipporah retrieved her sheet music from her bag. She smiled and carefully straightened its overused edges. Entering the hotel, she found where she needed to go and pushed the elevator button to the fourth floor. She allowed herself to relax as she stood against the back wall of the elevator and waited for the doors to close.
8
Bea and Sasha registered at the front desk without incident. Given their room numbers and personal keycards, they left their luggage for a later delivery and headed toward the elevators.
Several people from the anxious crowd, moments before attracted to the mysterious celebrities, had managed to sneak into the lobby. They crushed and circled the women, blocking their entry onto the elevator, and shamelessly asked them for autographs.
Of course, Bea and Sasha, as tired as they were, fell prey to their own egos and forbade the hotel security from dispersing the crowd before they gave them what they'd asked. They scribbled, “God bless” and “Thank you” on pieces of paper and tossed them to the crowd while smiling and posing for pictures with a few who insisted that they do so.
Although the deluge only lasted a short time, it was exhausting. When Bea spied the elevator, she snatched Sasha and pushed her toward its opening door. They were already inside before Sasha could protest.
“Bea, have you lost your doggone mind?” Sasha's words were halting but the venom was direct. “You won't be satisfied until I pray for God's strength to swat your annoying behind with my precious cane!”
“Mind ya manners, Munchkin,” Bea hissed and pointed over toward a young lady whose eyes were wide with fear. She was huddled against the back elevator wall clutching papers.
Before Bea could apologize for their rude interruption, the elevator bell rang and the young woman departed in a hurry.
“Are you satisfied?” Bea barked. “After that fine welcome we received now people will think we have no class.”
“Bea Blister, put your wrinkled claws on me again and I'll teach you a lesson you never learned in class.”
They'd gone from celebrity back to prize fighters between the first and sixth floor. The old women fussed, hissed, barked and threatened along the hotel corridor as they searched for the room number.
After circling the corridor twice, Bea was tired. “This is crazy. I cannot find that room anywhere on this floor.”
Sasha peered over her glasses at her keycard and, with resignation, added, “Where in the world would they put nine-oh-nine?”
Temporarily in one accord, they were ready to return to the hotel lobby and tear someone apart at the registration desk. In a snit, the women headed back toward the elevator. On the way, they saw one of the hotel room maids, a young Hispanic woman dressed in a light green uniform.
As nice as she could, Sasha smiled and said, “We're looking for our rooms. It's nine ninety-nine and nine nineteen.” She held up her keycard for the maid to see.
Balancing towels on one arm and a bag of toiletries in her other, the maid, who was about to enter one of the rooms, placed the items back onto the cart.
The maid returned the smile. “No problema, senora,” she replied and reached for the keycard in Sasha's hand. “You should be looking for room six-sixty-six. This is the sixth floor. You looked at the card upside down.” There was just a hint of superiority in her voice.
“That's what I told her,” Bea blurted out. She tried to hide her embarrassment and failed as she quickly turned her keycard around in full view of the others.
“Sasha Pray Onn, is there any place I can go where you will not be an embarrassment?” Bea asked, shaking her head.
“Bea, I'm in no mood for your foolishness.”
The maid, having seen all types of crazy both back in her country and in Las Vegas, hurried off. She was getting as far away from the old women as she could.
9
Zipporah's interview had finished before it began. An hour later and she was back to dealing with defeat. Before she interviewed, she'd already accepted the odds of her getting the job. She was only courageous in her daydreams. Predestining defeat was a mind game she'd played for quite some time.
Stepping back onto the sidewalk in front of the Luxor, Zipporah blended in with the crowd. Zipporah slipped quietly into one of the fast-food restaurants. She'd made sure it was one of the restaurants almost two blocks away from the Luxor and around a corner off the strip.
After deciding how much she could afford off the side-item menu, she paid and left the counter. She'd spied a worker clearing the clutter off a table next to a bathroom. The table was small and the chair lopsided, much like her life. It took her a moment to balance the chair as well as what had transpired during the interview and audition. Idly picking at a side order of french fries so cold the grease had already started to congeal on her plate, Zipporah let her mind retrace that afternoon.
“Zipporah Moses, number thirty, Zipporah Moses, you're next.” The pasty-colored, thirty-something woman called out. Seated on her high-back throne behind her desk, she'd let her coral-colored glasses rest on the tip of her pointed nose and pursed her lips.
“You're Zipporah?” she'd asked with a touch of sarcasm. Her tinny voice was unapologetic as she let her blue eyes travel over the mismatched ensemble hanging for dear life on Zipporah's hidden and shapely body.
Without so much as a note sung or another question asked, the pasty-colored snob on the throne with the tinny voice, outdated glasses, and no decorum announced that magically the position was filled. To further her insult, she tossed Zipporah's application into the wastebasket. A quick flip of the woman's hand dismissed her without ceremony. She hadn't even bothered with an introduction. Zipporah felt lower than a street curb.
Adolescent giggling from the next table interrupted Zipporah's dismal replay. A young girl of about fifteen wearing too much makeup and not enough clothing flirted with a man several years older. To whatever the older man said, the young girl responded with over-the-top laughter while under the table she stroked his upper thigh, teasingly along the inside seam of his pants.
Zipporah fought the urge to go over and drag the stupid girl away before her youth betrayed her, as Zipporah's had done. Her inexperience and lust for a singing career had led her to entertain men she wouldn't have normally shared the same air with.
The sound of trays slamming took Zipporah's attention away from the young girl and her destiny of disappointment. She put her head back down and picked at the cold french fries.
“We didn't come all the way to Las Vegas to eat at a low-class place like this!” Sasha had fussed all the way from the hotel to the spot where they now stood.
“Sasha,” Bea snapped, “we need to save what we can to play bingo and gamble.”
The reference to her favorite pastimes calmed Sasha. “Okay, Bea. Let's find a table and eat this crap so we can get on with our vacation and keep our Mothers Board positions.”
Bea and Sasha's loud bickering suddenly invaded Zipporah's attention. She slowly looked up. It was just in time to recognize the two old women from the elevator and the fray outside the hotel.
How much worse can this day get?
she wondered, quickly turning her head slightly toward the wall to avoid eye contact with the crabby old women, or anyone for that matter.
Sasha stopped sniping for a moment and nibbled on the crust of her tomato, okra, and mustard sandwich.
Meanwhile Bea, trying to gnaw at a hamburger that oozed more oil than sauce, leaned forward suddenly and found Zipporah in her view. She focused intensely as she tried to recall where she'd seen the young woman seated at a table nearby.
I've never been to Las Vegas before so where do I know that young lady from? And, if I don't know her, then whom does she remind me of?
Something about the young woman caught Bea's attention. She suddenly became agitated. She hadn't come all the way to Las Vegas to do anything but retain her Mothers Board position at the conference, and add some monetary blessings to her purse. Yet, she felt compelled to stare at the young woman.
“Bea!” Sasha hissed, shooting bits of tomato and okra from the corner of her mouth.
“What?” Bea barked, wiping the dripping oil from the cuff of her sweater and glaring. She didn't know how long Sasha had tried to get her attention and she didn't care. There was something disturbing about that young woman seated against the wall. She clicked her false teeth as she tried to recall why.
“It's your turn to pay for the meal,” Sasha announced.
“I'm not paying twenty dollars for some dry bread and veggies and a hamburger with enough grease to fry a bucket of chicken.” She flicked the tiny speck of slimy okra back at Sasha. “I've got something else on my mind. . . .”
But when Bea turned around the young woman was gone.