“I’ll get you a menu.” Alex turns, moving his heavy bulk in between the tables, knocking over a salt shaker on his way.
“You wouldn’t live in Brooklyn.” Marco leans forward, his voice lowered. “I mean, if you came here. Tell me you wouldn’t live in Brooklyn.”
It is such an amusing response that I laugh. “What are you talking about? Why do you care where I live?”
“It’s just…” He glances to the side. “It’s not safe. For someone like you.”
His misconception of me is so far from reality that I laugh. I almost wish he had come to Detroit with his ‘investigators’ and walked through my neighborhood. His custom suit would have been ripped off before he made it two blocks. His watch, confiscated. His wallet, emptied. I live in a lawless corner of the city, one that cops ignore and anyone respectable avoids. He’s cute, thinking that Brooklyn is dangerous. He’s crazy, thinking that I wouldn’t be safe here.
“You don’t know anything about me.” I smile at Alex as he sets down two ice waters.
He pulls laminated menus from underneath his arms and slaps them onto the table, his thick forefinger jabbing at the top section. “This here is the Buy One, Get One Free section. They’re all good. I make that third one myself.”
“Thanks.” I smile up at him. “It’ll take us a few minutes.”
“I got some wine in the back. You want some? I just opened it an hour ago.”
“Ah, no,” Marco grimaces, and I find his foot and step on it.
“Let me guess,” Alex hums. “A beer guy. That’s you, right?”
I hide a smile behind a sip of ice water.
“Sure. Whatever your best is.”
“I got a Russian beer you’re gonna love. You too.” He points at me. “You drinking, right?”
I lift my hands in mock confusion. “Seriously? You wasted breath in asking me that?”
He smacks the table in approval and everything on it shudders. “That’s my girl.” He grabs my shoulder again, and shakes it, grinning at Marco as if I’ve just found the cure for cancer. “She’s a good one, this one. You agree?”
Alex’s question hangs there, his eyes on Marco, waiting for a response.
“Uh… yeah.” Marco bobs his head. “She’s a good one.” A good one. What am I, a prized steer?
“And pretty, too, yes?”
“Very pretty.” Marco sighs.
“Hmmm.” He lingers at our table and I glare at him. “I’m just saying. You’re a pretty woman.” He lifts his hands in surrender. “But I go.”
I flip over the menu and ignore him, my peripheral vision revealing the moment when he finally turns and lumbers away.
“You’re not pretty.” Marco’s voice is low, and I stiffen, lifting my gaze to him. “You’re beautiful. Pretty … for a woman like you. It’s an insult.”
I glance back at my menu. “He didn’t mean it that way.”
“I know he didn’t, but it’s still an insult.” He picks up the laminated page and peers at it. “Now. What do you suggest I order?”
* * *
Our beers arrive, and I order for both of us, filling Alex’s notepad with half the items offered. Marco doesn’t argue, passing his menu back, a resigned look on his face. “Am I going to regret this invitation?”
“Probably.” I twist off the lid to my beer. “But not half as much as I’ve regretted getting on a plane and coming here.”
“Ouch.” He examines the label of his beer. “That doesn’t say much for my bedroom skills.”
“Oh, please.” I roll my eyes. “Your bedroom skills were fine. It’s the clusterfuck that those bedroom events led to. That’s what I regret.” I reach forward, grabbing a lime wedge and squeezing it into the bottle. “I should have been honest with you about who I was.” I look up at him. “I’m sorry.”
“My bedroom skills were fine,” Marco repeats dully. He sets down his beer, rests his elbows on the table, and rubs his forehead with both hands. “Oh my God. I knew it. I’ve lost my touch.”
I laugh and throw the cap of my beer at him, the piece bouncing off his hands and falling on the restaurant floor. “Did you even hear me? I just apologized. And an Avery McKenna apology is…” I pause. “It’s a big deal. A much bigger deal than the fact that you suck in bed.”
He groans, his hands dropping. “God, and I thought I hated you before.”
“Come on, now.” I lean back as a runner sets down a steaming plate of veal pelmeni. “I can think of a few times the other night where you didn’t hate me. And did you hear my apology? ‘Cause it’s not happening again.”
“I heard your apology. Thanks.”
He tosses out the short word as if it means nothing. Maybe he’s over the deception, or maybe he wasn’t that pissed off about it. Whatever the reason, I drop the subject and grab my fork, leaning forward and spearing a piece of pelmeni. He watches me, and I hold out the fork toward him. “Here. Try it. It’s like a dumpling.”
He surprises me by leaning forward, his mouth closing over the fork, the metal tugging a little in my grip. He sits back and chews. “Not bad.”
“Oh, shut up. It’s good.”
I move closer to the edge of my seat and grab another piece. There is a stretch of companionable silence, and I look up after the bread is delivered, and catch him watching me. “What?”
“Nothing.” He looks away, focusing on his beer. “I just can’t believe I’m drinking something with a twist-off cap.”
“I know. Sooo trashy of you.”
He almost smiles, the corners of his mouth turning up in the smallest way possible, but I take the win and tilt my own beer back.
* * *
“Don’t laugh.” He dips the piece of chicken in the sauce. “It scarred me. I hired a psychiatrist just to work me through it.”
“You’re so full of shit.” I twist off the lid on a fresh beer and toss it on the table. “There’s no way she said that.”
“She did,” he insists, holding up his palm. “Swear to God.”
“A tree stump. There’s no way your mom made love to a tree stump.”
“You think I’d make that shit up? It’s called ecosexuality. I was stuck on a train and had to listen to ten minutes of her and Dad talking about it. You don’t even want to know the different shit he’s stuck his dick into.”
I giggle. “I think I do.”
“Well look it up.” He shudders, and when he reaches forward, stealing a piece of my liver, I push the plate closer to him.
“You know…” I muse. “Maybe that’s my issue. Detroit doesn’t have enough trees. I mean,” I amend, “they have trees, they’re just all in some public areas. Nowhere where a girl could get some quality one-on-one time with one.”
“Yeah.” He drains the rest of his beer and catches Alex’s eye, raising the bottle in the air. “That’s your issue. Bam. Move to the woods. Problem solved.”
“Doesn’t she get splinters, though? I mean…” I scrunch up my face, imagining a scenario where a woman would rub herself against a stump. “It seems like the friction would cause serious—”
“Shut. UP.” He points his empty beer at me. “I swear to God, shut up. You’re giving me visuals I’ve paid a shitload of money to erase.”
I smile. “Fine. Eat in peace. I’ll just be over here, fantasizing about the massively hot session I’m going to have tonight with the ficus tree in my hotel’s lobby.”
“We’re getting sidetracked from the point of my story.”
“Oh right. That your parents are over-sharing free-loving hippies?
“No.” He fixes me with a stern look. “The point is, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to not know your parents.”
“Oh puh-lease.” I snort. “Your parents don’t seem that bad. A little crazy, but still lovable.” I’m mentally slow in all things parental, and even I can see the affection on his face as he’d told me about them. It was sweet, actually, the way his features had softened, his eyes warmed, and his posture had relaxe
d. Even when he was making fun of them, and ranting over their behavior … he loves them. It is both endearing and painful, all at the same time.
I dip a piece of bread in oil. “What did they think of Vince?” It’s the first time I’ve mentioned him, and I don’t look up, don’t breathe too loudly, don’t do anything to jostle the friendly atmosphere that is somehow, magically, existing.
“They only met him a handful of times. It was interesting. Interactions with Vince were always interesting.” He picks up a fried shrimp and holds it between his forefinger and thumb, his eyes flicking from me to it as if weighing a decision. He puts the shrimp in his mouth, and I take a sip of beer and watch him chew, giving him time to figure out whatever he’s saying next.
“Vince was a chameleon.” He picks up a new shrimp, dunking it into a bowl of tomato sauce. “If he wanted someone to like him, they would. And he could talk anyone into just about anything.” He eats the shrimp, then washes it down with the rest of his beer.
I feel something in that last sentence, some hint that I’m missing, but I can’t, through all of the food and the beer, find it.
Chapter 33
MARCO
“Admit it.” Avery holds the beer bottle by the neck and points a chipped fingernail at me. I need to get her home. The salon staff could have her in a perfect manicure within twenty minutes. “You liked that place.”
“I didn’t mind it,” I allow, resting my forearms on the bar and leaning forward. “It wasn’t the sort of place I would have chosen, but it was okay.”
“It was okay?” She laughs. “God, you’re such a pain.” The bar is crowded, the televisions along the wall filled with Yankee baseball, and every once in a while, the place erupts in cheers. We’ve moved from Brooklyn to the Bronx, me letting her dictate the itinerary, and I’m certain she’s trying to make me as uncomfortable as possible. It doesn’t matter. I’m having more fun with her than I’ve had in years.
She doesn’t remind me of Vince, yet there are enough minute similarities to give me pause. In the occasional gesture or angle, there is a small stab of recognition, probably more inferred over actual. You stare at someone four thousand days in a row, you start to see them everywhere. She lifts a hand, scratching at her neck, and her shirt sleeve falls, revealing a chunky watch. I reach out and grab her wrist.
She lets me have it, and I try not get distracted by the feel of her skin. “Nice one,” I say, turning her hand over so I can see the face of it. It’s big, almost the size of a man’s. I remember us fighting over the face, Vince swearing that no women would buy it. He’d been wrong, and we’d sold thousands of them.
“I’ve had it a few years. Got it here, actually. At the store on Fifth Ave.”
“I know the store.” I think about what would have happened if we’d been there, Vince and I, on one of our quarterly visits. Would we have seen her? Yes. At least, I would have. I would have seen her in a crowd of thousands.
She pulls back her wrist. “It doesn’t work very well.” She works the clasp open and shakes it off her wrist, bringing it close to her face and using her other hand to turn the small dial at the side of its face. “It always runs slow. There.” She sets the correct time and I take it from her before she puts it back on.
“Here. Allow me.” I pick up the watch and work it over her hand, enjoying the excuse to touch her, to slide my fingers along hers. Too soon, the watch is in place, the clasp set.
“Thanks.” She turns back and glances up at the television, checking the score of the game. It’s official. I’ve completely lost my skill with women.
“You a baseball fan?”
“Yep.” She points to the screen. “Look in the stands behind third base. First row. That’s where my seats are.”
I follow her directions, the section crammed with bodies.
“See the girl with the pink sweater?”
Her timing is good, the woman standing, hands cupped to her mouth, and screaming something at the players.
“Yeah. Your seats are near there?”
“Right there. That’s Marcia. She’s a friend of mine. And the skinny guy next to her is Andrei—my attorney.”
“The guy who sent the letter to us?”
“Yep.”
The camera angle cuts to the batter, and I don’t get a good enough look at the attorney. “He’s a friend of yours too?”
My tone sounds off, as if I am jealous. She doesn’t miss it, and glances at me, her mouth curving into a playful smile. “The best kind of friend.”
The best kind of friend? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I look down at my beer before I ask the question, and force myself to put it out of my mind. She’s fucking with me, she has to be. I felt her body, how tight it was when she settled down on my cock, the way she had responded when I’d slid my hands over her skin. She was raw and neglected, as hungry for the contact as I was. No way some prick lawyer in Detroit is banging her. No way he’d let her come to New York, on her own, for something like this. Any friend, any true friend, a fuck buddy or not, would have come along to help, provide moral support, done something other than sit in a baseball stadium, six hundred miles away, and ignore her.
“Tell me a Vince story.” She sets down her beer and props her elbow on the bar, resting her chin in her palm.
I frown. “Buy his book. They’re all in there.”
“Bullshit, I read his book. I want to know a story.” She reaches forward and pulls at the front of my sweater, and if I leaned forward, I could kiss her.
I sit back, lift my beer to my mouth, and promise myself, for the fiftieth time of the night, that I am keeping my hands to myself. “A story.”
“Yeah. Something stupid.”
“Hmmm.” I probably shouldn’t, yet I’m anxious to. “Fine. One story.”
“A good one.”
“They’re all good.” I grin, because they are. I have a thousand memories with that man, and every day by his side was a different adventure.
“Then start talking,” she challenges.
I talk. I sip Heineken and tell her about Africa, the safaris there, and Vince’s insistence that we stay with a local family in each town that we visited. “So, Edward—you know Edward, right? The ancient butler guy?” She grins. “So, he is staying at the Ritz, in our swank ass suite, and Vince and I are sharing a straw mat in some tent in the middle of the Serengeti.” I reach for my phone, then stop, forcing myself to continue the story without showing her the photos.
“You’re so full of shit,” she accuses. “You could barely survive tonight without having someone wipe your mouth after dinner. No way you did that.”
Fuck it. I pull out my phone, scroll through my albums, and then, with her leaning in, her hair tickling my cheek, I flip through the photos. Vince and me, shirtless, beside a dozen children, their smiles bigger than their faces should have allowed. Vince, his arm around my shoulders, a selfie taken with an elephant. Another shot, the elephant’s trunk wrapped around Vince’s torso, his hat askew, mid-laugh.
I look over and see her eyes, tight to the screen, the concentration in them almost heartbreaking. For me, they are bittersweet memories of an old friend. For her, they are lost experiences with a father she will never know. I want to reassure her, to tell her that he isn’t her father—that the man in these photos is a stranger, but I can’t. I know things no one else does. I know that he was at that LiveAid concert. I know that that is him, in her photo, with that ring on his hand. And despite an unwavering certainty that Vince Horace is gay, I know that every man is susceptible, even man makes mistakes, and nothing is ever as it seems.
I flip forward, through our trip north, and realize how much I will miss him. For ten years, he’s been my constant, my mentor, my friend. For ten years, he’s been the one to call me out when I was wrong, applaud when I was right, and assure me, through all of my doubts, that we were doing the right thing.
For ten years, I didn’t question the lie I was living. Now, with him gone, t
he bits of me don’t fit right, don’t work right. A Marco Lent, with Vince alive, never would have made her sign that contract. A Marco Lent, with Vince alive, wouldn’t be sitting here, in this bar, tempting fate.
Without him, I can see the paths I should take. I just can’t seem to step forward and move down them.
I close my phone and hope that she doesn’t move away.
As soon as my screen goes dark, she straightens, pulling her stool closer to the bar and grabbing at the fresh bottle of beer the bartender hands her. I don’t know where she puts it. I don’t know how she can drink so much and stay lucid.
Vince, from all the stories he’d told me, was a drinker. It ran in his family, and when a drunk driver killed his brother, that was the catalyst that caused him to step away from alcohol. While I’d often seen him with a drink, he’d never had more than two, the habit regulated with the stern manner of a drill sergeant. Sometimes I wondered what he had been like before. He’d told me stories of him and his brother, the parties, the adventures … in them, he seemed like an entirely different man—a black sheep versus a dogged workhorse.
“He worked hard.” I felt the need to tell her that, after showing her so many photos of the opposite. “We played, but we also worked our asses off. He taught me that a fourteen-hour day was normal. He never went to bed without returning every email. And he had a fanatical obsession with quality.” I take a long pull of beer and grimace. “God, the arguments we used to get in over quality. What you just told me, about your watch? If he’d been in this bar, and had heard that comment? He’d have left immediately, and taken your watch with him. He would have gotten in the car, and called every engineer in the company, regardless of the time. There would be meetings tomorrow, quality assessments, testing and discussions of watch recalls. Every employee in the company, down to the janitors, would have known that the Matilda watch ran slow, and some girl, in some bar, in the Bronx, was the one causing all of this work for everyone.” I chuckle. “We would have been cursing you for weeks.”