Joe's Slice of Heaven, the napkin reads. 

​

I thought this place would change, once the owner was gone. I think it's the son who took over. Joe. But, no, the shop looks exactly the same as I remember. Joe's is an old fashioned Vegas classic, like the impossibly sweet and familiar smell of homemade buttercream. The memory of my mother's smile is fading in my head, because I can't bear to remember her anymore, but the delightful antics of Joe's Slice of Heaven seem to be timeless.

​

It's a funny thing about memories. Some things become new. Some things remain old. Joe's stayed the same. ​We used to come here every Sunday. I wanted to visit once more, before living on the streets sends me rolling on that bus to Montana, never to return to North Las Vegas. I don’t have much, but I can spare some cash, for a memory.

​

The shop sparkles in timey white and brown hues. I’m the only customer here. There is soft music playing in the background. The wall clock chimes the time, and the back door swings open. Out comes Joe--strapping, beautiful Joe. He is in his early thirties. Thick black hair and beard, big brown eyes. Black polo, jeans, and blue apron. His mother died of Leukemia, same year as Dad. Mom used to tell Joe that they’re waiting for us in Heaven, with cake.

​

I don’t believe in God anymore, just cake. God takes away things you pray for; cake never fails.

 

“Hi,” Joe greets, startling me. “How are you?”

​

“Fine,” I say, quickly. ​“No table for two today?” he asks. He’s genuinely interested. Unable to tell if he remembers me or not, I try not to react impolitely.  I mean, what can I say, really? Is there ever a good time to bring up your unsuccessful life as a prostitute to your favorite baker? He's probably heard that story many times, too: Poor girl loses her parents, becomes a two-bit call girl. Super exciting ice breaker. “Um, no, just me today.”

​

“Okay,” Joe replies, dubious but conceding. “What can I get for you?”

​

“Slice of chocolate.”

​

“Always a good choice. I have a few kinds this afternoon: Chocolate banana hazelnut cream, cocoa lavender mint, whipped chocolate with rhubarb-strawberry filling—”

​

“The classic's fine,” I cut him off, overwhelmed. “The usual, then," he smiles. I'm glad to know he does remember me. “I’ll be back with your order.”

​

I give him a thumbs up, feeling slightly irritated, not knowing why. But watching Joe move behind the dessert bar always makes things better. He’s just so handsome, a strong-coffee type. He slices the cake and removes a piece with gentle, expert hands, performing a perfectly soft landing over a square, porcelain plate. “If I try to cut a slice of cake, it crumbles like an Arizona canyon after an earthquake,” I joke. Joe laughs and sets the cake in front of me. “Here we are. Enjoy.”

​

I pay, then plunge into the first bite.

 

Joe's cake is a taste puzzle exploding in flavor: rich white chocolate ganache, buttercream milk chocolate frosting, luxurious chocolate fudge cake. I open my eyes in bliss and find him staring at me. “Hello.”

​

“I apologize, I don’t usually bother customers when they’re eating.”

​

“It’s cool. We both have to live inside the shop until I’m done.” He finds it humorous. “How is it?”

​

“Delicious. I can taste the effort. There’s something different, though.”

​

“You noticed! I swapped the buttermilk frosting for butter molasses.”

​

“Well, you didn’t fool me; I ate the same slice of chocolate cake every Sunday, since I was seven, for fifteen years.”

​

“Seven? How many years is that now?” Asking my age? Oh, this is finally happening! “Twenty-two,” I wink and smile. “That was really smooth, by the way.”

 

"Huh?" He suddenly frowns, uneasy. “I’ll… let you get back to your cake.”

​

I watch Joe try to get busy with something else. Okay, that was not the reaction I was expecting!

 

I am baffled. Stunned! Has my precious hit-on radar begun to fail? I really thought-—well, it really seemed like he was flirting! I feel unattractive now, which is not my favorite cup of tea—or slice of cake—when I’m wearing my favorite skirt!

 

I try to drown my sorrows in another bite of cake. But then, he comes back. “I just have one question.”

​

Phew. I knew it. “Shoot.”

​

“Why, with all the creatively delicious cake options I have in my shop, do you always go for the simplest kind?” I smile, hoping this is his opening for an actual “creatively delicious” pick-up line. “Because there aren’t many pleasures in life like a perfectly-crafted chocolate cake from scratch,” I reply. Joe grins. “You know, that is almost the perfect answer. I love hearing that my customers like what I make, especially the classics. But, on pleasures, I have one better.” He takes out a pocket Bible and sets it on the counter. I scoff lightly. “Uh… That’s a Bible.”​​

​

“Yes.”

​

“You find reading the Bible pleasurable?”

​

“It’s the greatest of my delights.”

​

“Hm.”

​

The latter poses a problem. See, I want a date, not a sermon. I want a man, not a preacher. 

 

I want the red velvet option.

​

“Have you ever read it?” he startles me again. “Nah, I don’t really... You know. It’s not my thing.”

​

“How do you know, if you’ve never read it?”

​

“I’m not really a reader,” I lie. “And the Bible is full of words!”

​

“Oh, come on! Don’t let Satan win on a technicality. It’s the digital era! You can talk to a lamp and it’ll do your laundry! You think God doesn’t get down with the times? There are tons of audible options now; YouTube, Facebook, Bible Gateway…”

​

“Uh—Not to cut you off or anything, but I should tell you right now: I’m an agnostic.”

​

“So what? Abraham came from a family of idolaters, and God promised him a nation as great as the stars. Things change, people change."

 

"I'm not familiar with Abraham, but he sounds like my usual date night on the Strip. Rich and pagan." Joe ignores me. "Now, usually, when people say they’re agnostics, what that really means is that they don’t know what to believe in.”

​

“Yup. That’s me!” It isn’t. “Hm. You want to know why I think that happens?” Not really, but—“Why?”

​

“Too many options.”

​

And now I’m intrigued! Smart ideas carry me away like that. Must be ADD. "All right. Tell me about it."

​

“Modern faith is like going to the mall hungry," Joe says to me. "You need one solution to your hunger, but you get a food court full of different options: Noodles, burgers, pizza, tacos… You’re unexpectedly faced with making not one decision but many. The decision you make will be based on myriad life components at the same time: budget, culture, background, race, lifestyle, the media, circumstance, and intelligence type.” He pauses and stares at me. “Are you dizzy yet?”

​

“Oh. No, this is all just… riveting.” Joe doesn’t believe me, but he goes on. “So, you end up making a choice. Let's say that choice is pizza. You pay for your meal, find a cozy seat in the courtyard and take your first bite.

​

“But then you see the sign at the taco booth that reads: ‘Three for Five Taco Tuesdays.’ And you immediately regret having bought the one pizza slice, because, really, you like tacos better, and you didn’t even know that this place had taco Tuesday offers, because, hello: it’s a mall; everything is expensive there.”

​

I laugh. The guy isn’t only cute, he’s also funny—and smart and well-informed—even if he’s talking about the Bible. I suppose I’ll have to answer, if I want his number. “So, what you’re saying is that there should be just one big restaurant for everybody?”

​

“No. I’m saying that there already is. The bread there is satisfying, the wine is divine, and the water is a refreshing fountain of eternal life.”

​

Something inside me clicks, like a silent bell on my chest. It’s nice but strange.

 

Is this what falling in love with a Christian feels like?

​

I sigh and stare at Joe, longingly, for just a short moment. Isn’t this just my luck? When I finally get the red velvet option, it turns out that he’s a saint.

​

I imagined that, when this happened—Joe and I alone in the shop, I mean—he would talk to me sweetly and teach me how to bake a red velvet cake. Then, we’d embrace under the dim lights of the store until sunlight. That’s the red velvet option. It’s getting the fancier flavor instead of the plain chocolate. I’ve been coming here for years, and the only lines I ever got were: “What can I get you?” and “That’ll be four-fifty, please.” A.K.A., the plain chocolate. But now that he’s finally giving me the time of day, he wants to talk about Jesus. “You know, I’ve never met a man that I was just friends with.”

​

“I know.”

​

“What gave it away? My ridiculously good looks?” I say, flirtily. “No,” he responds.​ “Is it the skirt? Social predisposition?” He sighs, patiently. “No.” I shift in my chair, uncomfortable. “Then what?”

​

“God told me.”

​

Oh, well. I tried.

​

“I see. Well, it was nice knowing you!” I get up to leave. “Would you rather I was a creep at some bar, trying to hit on you? Some rich guy slapping money on a table so you can dance for me?” he poses. A part of me wants to say yes, but I don’t want to lie again. “No. I just wish you weren’t a Christian.”

​

“Because you’re not a believer?” My eyes waterlog with memories of my parents. “No. Because you’re asking me to be.”

​

I walk out of the shop, duffel bag hanging from one shoulder, and light up a cigarette. Tears fall from my eyes as I smoke—I wipe them off in fury. I feel sick to my stomach and embarrassed. The last time I cried, I was laying my sweet mother’s body to rest; the time before that, we were burying my beloved father.

 

I became a prostitute after my mother died. We  had nothing but a few chairs and a big mattress left in our old place in Valley View, Henderson. We had to sell everything else, after Dad died; neither of us was making much money. She was disabled, and I worked a double shift at a Denny's, to help make ends meet. When she passed away, I couldn't come to work for a week. I didn't even call. "This is your last shift. You're fired," the boss told me, throwing the apron at my face. At least she let me work another twelve hours before letting me go. 

 

I tried getting another job, but it wasn't enough to satisfy our debt. Being unable to pay rent, the supervisor at my apartment complex suggested a different kind of deal. "I'll write you down as 'Paid.' The administration doesn't have to know." You know what he wanted. I wasn't a virgin, but... I'd never done anything like that before. "It's nothing. You do it with me first, then I get you a couple more clients, to get next month's rent satisfied," he told me, on the day we set up the date. When he was done with me, I went to the bathroom and vomited. I thought I could never go through that again.​​​​

​

And yet that's how it happened. That's how I became a call girl. He got me a few contacts—friends of his who would think I was cute—and they connected me with other friends on the Strip. There, I met some of the biggest drug lords that side of Nevada and their girlfriends, who all wanted to turn me into a Playboy Bunny. "You're beautiful, baby," I heard, more times than I wanted, from guys with gold teeth who drove bejeweled cars. I declined. I didn't want to get rich, I just needed the basics, until I could get a decent job. "Get a decent job?" one of the girls told me, "Baby, this is Las Vegas. Just play."

 

I tried. And, for a time, I was deep in it; the money, the diamonds, the expensive clothing, the week-long getaways with ridiculously rich men, not all of them old, and some of them handsome, it all involved me. I was swimming in Pleasure Island, drunk in every fleshly delight known to mankind, until I was offered the call girl dream: to become a bonafide mistress. 

​

His name was Daemon John. He owned two hotels in the Bahamas and a baseball team.

 

"You'll have your condo here, in North Vegas, and I'll live with my wife in California. We'll transfer some money into an account for you. You can have a maid, if you want. I'll even buy you a nice little pink Jeep, like a Barbie doll. I like those." He laughed like a hyena and looked like Brad Pitt. "We'll have to sign a liability contract, in case, you know, things don't work out between us, or if something doesn't go according to plan. Like, if you were to get pregnant, for instance. By the way, how do you feel about being a blonde?"

​

"Wait. What happens if I get pregnant?" 

​

"Well, you get an abortion, of course."

​

The idea of having to kill an innocent life turned my stomach. I signed the contract with tears in my eyes. I lived this way for six months, dreading his visits, trying to get him so drunk he couldn't stay awake at night, and leaving the apartment early for "a shopping spree with the girls," so he couldn't try anything in the morning. But when Daemon began to get suspicious, I had to leave him. He tried to stop me, but he couldn't legally do anything. He had trusted me so much, he never asked me to settle a non-disclosure agreement. I could tell his wife about the affair, and she would clean up the courts with his toupe. 

 

I then did what other girls who lived in Vegas without a plan did. I got a motel room and tried to sell my body on the Strip. The upside was that I had a name and a reputation. That would help me make some money. But I found out, not with much regret, that I couldn't do this job anymore. I cried every time a man took me to his bed. They always left unsatisfied, but they took my dignity with them.

 

"If I had wanted to hear a woman cry, I would have gone home to my wife and slapped her," I heard a man say to me, once. It reminded me of how I used to joke with Daemon about his "pathetic wife" whom he cheated on because she was just "too bossy" and a total "goodie two-shoes." Now, I just couldn't bear to sleep with a guy who was married. The abuse became too much for me to handle. 

 

I tried to approach a different kind of man, as  a suggestion from one of my "co-workers." I went for the nerdy guy in a group and the Vegas newbie. The guy who'd just broken up with his girl was supposed to be a big cry baby, like me. And he was. But nothing made it better. Every time I took my clothes off, I forgot my name and who I was; when I tried to put them back on, I couldn't stop feeling naked. And when I began thinking of suicide, my world turned from scarlet red to black. 

​

"I have to stop, Ruby. I can't do this anymore. I have to stop," I told my pimp. I think I caught him on a good day. He was really high off ketamine, so he let me go. He usually beat up his girls and took all their money, if they tried to leave him. I was able to escape with seven hundred and fifty-five dollars and the clothes on my back, no black eye, and completely sober.

​

"I think you have a guardian angel," Queenie, one of the hookers I still hung out with told me over the phone, after I took off. "Whatever good you still have in your heart is saving you."

​

"Oh, Queenie... I'm no good at all!" I sobbed to her for a good while, before asking if I could stay with her for a few nights. "Girl, you know I'd let you stay any nights you need, but Tyrone is going to try to hook you with another job, and you're squaring up. Stay tonight, try to find a motel tomorrow."

​

That night, I didn't sleep, thinking about my old life, which I wished with all my heart had not ended. My dad used to be a school janitor. My Mom was a housewife who liked to cook. We lived in a trailer park in Henderson. The fanciest thing we owned was a 1967 cherry red Camaro we liked to take out for car shows. We didn't have much, but we had that.

 

Monday through Friday, we lived a common poor life, working the nine-to-five and going to school, then coming home to a hot dog and baked beans dinner. But on Saturdays, Mom always had a treat. It was either breakfast or dinner: Fresh blueberry and mascarpone waffles with homemade strawberry syrup; Mushroom steak on the barbie, with new potatoes and sweet red radish slaw; Thick, grilled chicken sausage and pico de gallo breakfast burritos, completely smothered in Monterrey Jack cheese; Fried eggplant rounds and fettuccini, in roasted garlic and basil alfredo sauce. 

​

And there was always Joe's Slice of Heaven on Sundays.

​​

I peek at my cigarette. It's mostly ash, but I try to smoke it anyway. I came here because I wanted a last good memory, but talking to Joe only brought on questions. It's not like someone hasn't tried to save me, since I became a prostitute... This is Las Vegas. If there is one thing we are known for, it's hookers and the priests that try to convert them. My parents, they weren't big on religion, but Mom... she would sing hymns now and then. It made me curious, as a child, so I would ask her why she sang to God if we never went to church. "Because he loves us, baby," my mother would answer and start singing Amazing Grace again, tears streaming down her eyes as if she were some mourning Mary. "Because he loves us so much." 

 

I played Amazing Grace at her funeral, as her casket was being put down in the dirt. You know. The Elvis version. I tried to feel what my mother felt about God, on the days she would sing to him. I was never really taught much about Jesus, but I knew he had died to save us from our sins, which I imagine means "from ourselves." Looking back, I wonder if hearing about him more would have made me into a better person. Maybe I wouldn't be on the streets now. Maybe I would be eating cake and enjoying it. Maybe I wouldn't be smoking.

 

Maybe Elvis would still be playing at the Hilton and my mother would still be alive.

​

Why is this happening now?

​

The bells on the door of the shop jingle. I look behind me. Joe is standing there, a small box in his hands. “You left a tip but forgot the rest of your cake.” I glance at the box. “That’s a whole slice.”

​​

“I was feeling generous.”

​

“Even with my flippant attitude?” He smiles. “I was feeling kind.”

​

“Wow. Must be my lucky day. Cake and honesty.” I flick the cigarette away. “Why are you here?” I ask him. Joe sticks his hands inside his pockets. “Do you need a friend?”

​

“No,” I answer. He knows I’m lying. “Well, if you wanted a friend, my name is Joseph.”

​

“Joseph, the Las Vegas Baker," I muse. "You don’t look like a Joe—or a Joseph. A Silas, maybe. Rhaego, if you want a fantasy name—Solomon, if you want a Biblical one—” I act like I’m the wittiest person alive. “Actually, Silas is also a Biblical name,” he tells me.​ “Really?” I ask. He nods.

 

“Huh.”

 

Not knowing what else to say, I say the first thing that pops into my head. “I need to catch a cab. Or the bus…” I look up at the darkening sky. It’s going to rain. My fingers fiddle with a big tear on my tights. I lost my spot at the shelter again. Where am I going to sleep tonight? “Or my life.”

​

“Do you want to know why I really came out here?”

​

“Cake?”

​

“I remembered your name," he said, simply, with a small grin. "I was struggling to remember; I hadn’t seen you or your mother for a while. Then, when you went out the door, it came to me: Faith. You used to write it all over the napkins, in cursive.” I smile. “You remembered that?”

​

“I had to clean up those napkins. They made me smile.” My joy fades, as I confess: “My mother passed away. It’s just me now, Joe,” His eyes soften. “I’m sorry.” I shrug as if it didn’t matter, but now I’m crying again. Joe approaches me. “You know what I think? I think God made your name for a time such as this. Because he knew, one day, you’d lose it. But it’s time you found it.”

​

“My name?”

​

“Your faith. I can help you.”

​

I look up at the sky. Warm raindrops fall on my eyelids, my cheeks. Why am I pushing this away?

 

Oh, right: I lost my Dad, my Mom, my dreams... 

​

You don’t have to lose anymore, a voice says, and my eyes open wide. “Did you hear that?” I ask Joe. He shakes his head. “Hear what?”

​

I turn my eyes up again. The rain stops. A ray of light peeks from the clouds above.

 

“Is there another slice of chocolate cake involved with this help?” I ask Joe. He smiles.​ I like that smile. It's friendly and inviting, and very, very respectful. "You got my last one. But I make a mean red velvet, if you’re interested.”​

​

I smile at the coincidence and the new understanding that now fills my chest. It's soft and calm, like heaven is waving at me and I'm waving back, for the very first time.

​

“No, I'm not interested in that anymore. Lavender mint, though...”

​

​

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