Chapter One

I married Tobias Warring in the Silver Bells All-Nite Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. It was a conventional start to our unconventional story. And it was an attempt to conjure something solid from the wind scattered sands. Our faces were bathed in the pink and purple lights of the Stardust Casino flashing through a two-by-two foot window behind the priest's head. Our witnesses were a couple of underage punks from the QuikTrip who demanded a six pack for their services. "Have a nice life," lisped the boy with three rings through his lip, ripping the ring top from his beer. His girlfriend, anxious to reclaim her spot outside the convenience store, gnawed her chipped nails. The priest, an elderly Mexican in tinted sunglasses complained about working the graveyard shift, and told us that he'd once led a pilgrimage of fifty blind children to the Corcavado, but had since fallen on hard times. He closed his bible, switched off the crackly tape-recorder playing "Love Me Tender," and it was over.