Free The Summer House by Lee Moore Page A

the TSA drool.  I put my purse and shoes on the X-ray slide, and walked through a metal detector.
     
    “Ma’am, do you have a cell phone, or any other metal objects?” a large guard asked.
     
    “Oh shit, yes,” I handed them my cell phone, and they wrote something down and gave me a ticket.
    “You can get your phone when you get out.  You are signing up tonight, ma’am?” he asked me.
     
    “I didn’t call ahead, Josh,” Janice told him. “Is Melinda or another scheduler available?”
     
    “Let me check,” he said, pulling out a tablet.  “Yes, she’s having drinks at the Cozy.  I’ll have her step down here for a bit.”
     
    “Great! Can I take my friend to the visitor’s lounge?” Janice asked him.
     
    “Sure, here,” he said, clipping a visitor’s badge on the collar of my blouse. “That’ll let you get in to a couple of areas.  Your friend can explain the step process, but if you don’t keep that badge handy, security will stop you.”
     
    “Oh, I won’t lose it, but how would they know?” I asked him, more curious than anything else.
     
    He pointed up at the cameras that hung all over the ceiling. Right there in front of me, so obvious that I should have noticed, but working in casinos for a few years made me immune to the cameras that the house used to look for cheats, card counters, or teams of people working an unfair advantage. 
 
    “Facial recognition…”
    “You got it,” he said with a grin, and Jan was already tugging on my arm.  I gave him a smile and a half wave.
     
    “Come on, Caroline,” she said in a mock whining voice.
     
    “Well, what’s the hurry?” I asked her, looking around.  The floor we were on seemed dead, and other than the two guards, it looked like a regular hotel lobby, without the people.
     
    “Oh, there’ll be a few people in the visitor’s lounge.  Depending on how long it takes to put your signup information on the computer, I can probably get us upstairs to one of the member lounges.”
     
    “But I don’t have $10,000…” I told her, shocked that she was still pushing for this.
     
    “Here,” she said, shoving the card in my hand and opening a glass door. 
     
    The music that hit us as we entered the lounge was some nice dance music, but it wasn’t something I recognized right off.  I’m sure Jan knew who it was; anyway, I immediately felt at ease.  Part of me expected the visitor’s lounge to be like the waiting room at the hospital, but when they said lounge, they really meant it.
     
    Couches, stuffed recliners, tables, chairs, stools, a bar, a small dance floor; and people of all ages were dancing and relaxing.  I had to stop a minute and reel in my surprise, because nothing of the sterile room we had just left would have tipped me off that this was even here.  Jan pulled me over to an open table and we sat for less than thirty seconds before a waiter got our drink orders.
     
    “He looks delicious,” I told her, grinning.  This was surreal but I was having a good time.
     
    “Most of the employees do, but they aren’t usually allowed to play,” she told me cryptically.
     
    “What do you mean?  Can’t fraternize with us?” I asked her
     
    “Something like that.  The rules are fast and loose here, but here’s the main things you have to remember: privacy is of the utmost importance and lastly, anything goes; anything that you want to happen, they can make it happen.  The money you spend here is a pittance for the times you’ll have here.  I just feel bad for the poor fools who don’t already live in Vegas.”
     
    “I’ve got a lot to learn…” I told her, looking around.  I didn’t know it at the time, but the visitors lounge was pretty much PG-rated in everything that happened, but members as well as visitors mingled together, and I saw a few other people with a visitor’s badge clipped to their shirts.
     
    “So what’s a scheduler/matchmaker do?” I asked Jan as she was making