Friday, February 3, 11:50 p.m. Anyone who says a trip to McDonald's can't be romantic hasn't let their lover purchase them a chicken sandwich from the late shift at the Stratosphere on a Friday night. Nothing says "I love you" like special sauce and a handful of extra napkins to wipe the mayo from my filet. It's a long and not very well-marked path that meanders through the Strat's shops to the bank of elevators that will whisk us up to the Romance Lounge at the Top of The World. It's the one view of the city I've been waiting to experience these five years since moving to Las Vegas.
A young hostess steps around the podium to greet us and casually glance at our attire. We get the nod and are directed through a curtain to a security checkpoint and metal detector where we empty our pockets and strip down just a little bit, though more for our own amusement than that of the security guard's.
In a double-decker elevator, the teenage operator tells us his ears pop over 300 times a day, but I can barely feel the machinery that is pulling us 844 feet straight up to level 107. After only a 35-second ride, the doors part and we are met by a friendly host who profusely welcomes us and directs us to the newly renovated bar. The jazz band I was told so much about by the Stratosphere's enthusiastic operator is nowhere to be found, which is understandable as our visit comes a full week before the spot's official re-launch, so our self-guided tour will have to have satellite radio for the soundtrack.
The Top of The World restaurant rotates once per hour just below us and I feel like I'm at the center of a carousel looking out. The whole scene's kinda making me dizzy. From Romance's extensive cocktail list and rosy back bar, my man selects a Startini and I fall instantly for something strong and chocolaty. Everything from the elevator landing to the bar is bathed in a delicate red light. Then, right there, at the elegant wood bar, staring out at Vegas, heaven and everything in between ... we get into a fight.
Despite the amorous view, a wealth of mood lighting and the aphrodisiac cocktails, there at the bar we are having at it, a quiet, polite tiff better suited for an episode of Frasier or any Meg Ryan movie. It's romantic: here, amid the leather and cloth VIP banquettes, lovers will rendezvous this Valentine's Day to canoodle, have intimate talks and get lost in each other's eyes. But right now, I'm trying to drown myself in a chocolate martini. I stare at the menu, trying to memorize the $100 Top of The World martini: Hennessy Paradis, Grand Marnier and Ultimat CV Vodka. Like me, it's shaken.
We even argue over who gets to storm out on whom—a difficult feat when you consider what one has to go through just to get up here! He wins and leaves, and I stay to settle the bill. Slowly, I walk the length of the railing and stare out, trying to focus. The restaurant below is stationary now, and except for the clinking of bar glasses, all is hushed and still inside my head. Outside this little, glass snow globe, the desert wind whips harshly at the palms far below and ribbons of headlights and taillights stretch out in all directions. I skulk to the landing and ignore the cigarette smoke a group of young men are indiscriminately blowing at me, my lungs only starting to pink back up after three months of abstainence.
Riding the elevator alone—more red mood lighting—I feel my heart sink 844 feet. I step out, mount the escalator, and descend even further. As the mall floor comes into view, I spot a familiar pair of black shoes, then blue jeans, then a black blazer, and finally a long, bearded face. And two eyes that can be at once sad and stern. But the theatrical quality of it, the uncanny resemblance to Cruel Intentions' poignant train station scene, is all too funny. From a hundred yards away, we crumble into laughter.
"All we need is the Counting Crows singing 'ColorBlind' in the background" I coo, neither knowing nor caring if he's ever even seen the movie. He throws his arm around me, and even though there's another club on tonight's itinerary, we've had enough and have done Romance—both the lounge and the concept—proud.
Xania Woodman thinks globally and parties locally. And frequently. E-mail her at
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