What Stays in Vegas by Beth Labonte

made out of paperclips and pushpins.  She laughed and told me she had a nervous habit of folding origami paper cranes out of anything she could get her hands on.  She picked one of the tissues up off the bed.  It was hard to make out, but there it was, a wet, droopy pink crane. 
    Despite her tangled hair and tear-streaked face, she looked happier when she talked about art than when she was all glammed up discussing business.  I no longer felt like I was alone in thinking that there was more to life than pushing paper.  If this rich, successful, woman was not even satisfied with the life she had chosen, then I, in my position as glorified slave, had every right to feel the same. 
    At twelve-thirty Kendra silently stood up, walked over to a large bureau, and opened the bottom drawer.  She grabbed a stack of boxer shorts - apparently where Todd had gone he didn’t need underwear - and without a word, tossed them out the bedroom window.  At one o’clock we watched Days of our Lives, which turned out to be both of our favorite soaps, and ate ice cream straight from the carton.  At two o’clock we cut Todd out of several hundred photographs, and at three-thirty we took the pile of smiling Todd faces and burned them on the back porch. 
    Years worth of female bonding was forged in a matter of hours.  It was four o’clock, and we were back in front of the television, when I decided that I had better return to the office to make sure that Chris and Dan hadn't set the building on fire.  I dreaded facing them. 
    Kendra thanked me for staying with her and then apologized for being, as she put it, a blubbering ball of shit. 
    “All in a day’s work,” I said, handing her the remote control.  “And the only ball of shit around here has his entire collection of underwear out on your front lawn.  Call me if you need anything okay?”
    “Please come back after work,” she said.  She flipped through the channels and landed on a woman in short shorts and a flabby gut screaming about paternity tests.  “We’ll eat pizza and ice cream for dinner.” 
    I assured her that I would come back, and then stepped outside into the late afternoon sun.  It felt like I had been away for days.  I plucked a pair of green boxer shorts off the antennae of my car, and headed back to work.
    ***
    Chris and Dan looked like they had been through a war. 
    “I kid you not, Rob told me, and I quote, ‘if any of you ever pull this kind of shit again, I will pull the entire Jiggly Kitty account and your company can burn in Hell’,” said Chris.  “ I swear to God he said that.  I feared for my life, Tessa.  Dan and I both did.”
    “We were almost holding hands under the table,” said Dan.  “From the terror.”
    “Aw, I’m sorry!  But I brought you a little something to help make up for it.”  Their faces lit up when I returned from my office with two large Starbucks iced coffees.  Bringing in coffee from the outside world is a huge deal to office workers - it's like smuggling drugs to a prisoner.
    “You are the best secretary ever,” said Chris.  “Can we keep you?”
    God was I relieved to hear him say those words. 
    “I’d love to,” I said.  “But not if Rob Dorfman is going to be around here all the time.”
    “Rob who?” asked Dan, taking a long sip of coffee and lounging back in his chair.
    “That guy,” said Chris, stirring his coffee with a straw, “can go to Hell.”
    Dan rolled over to the television and popped in a video game.  “Come on Tessa, there’ll be no more work taking place in this office today.  Let’s see how you do with some Mortal Kombat.  Chris can play winner.” 
    He handed me a controller and I settled into one of the video game chairs.  I wasn't particularly a fan of Mortal Kombat, but it had been an interesting day, and I was ready to fight.

- 10 -
     
    I watched the white plastic disc sail past Chris’s hand and slide, with a satisfying clink, into the