by Sidney Ivens
Shivering, she watched, holding the bag and her purse and hopping on her feet to stay warm.
He does care.
Don’t be stupid, an inner voice chided. He’s slick. Great at conquest, lousy at the long-term. She’d skimmed those magazine articles in waiting rooms, “How to Spot the Player,” feeling smug and detached, so certain. So sure she’d never be sucker-punched by a player. She was good at that, talking herself out of being attracted. Good at rationalizing all the reasons he’d be bad for her.
He’d almost reached his Bond car, the only person on the lot, and the street lamps cast a moody light that reminded her of an old movie.
Of all the gin joints and bookstores, he has to walk into mine.
A burst of cold air hit her face and whistled through the alley. He drew up the leather collar of his jacket like James Dean. He looked lonely. And then it struck her: she was lonely herself, and their banter and bickering were a smokescreen. All her rationalizing hadn’t stopped it, and it was too late, too late. She’d already fallen in love with him.
Back at my condo, something’s not right.
There’s a realtor lockbox on the door handle. A big fat obnoxious lockbox flipping me the middle finger.
Oh, I am beyond pissed, I’m in Armageddon mode. Hand shaking, I withdraw my cell and dial the likeliest culprit behind it.
He answers on the first ring. “I thought you’d call much earlier. You stick around to empty the garbage?”
“Never browsed the parenting books section, did you, Dad.”
His laugh is as rough as a slap. “One thing about you, son. You make me laugh.”
“What’s the eviction notice about?”
“Can you possibly understand how I might feel, my own son forsaking the family business and lying to me? You quit on me, so I quit on you.”
“I didn’t quit. I built Div1 into what it’s become.” And he was turning it over to Lexi, who knew nothing about running that bar. “A little text told me you’re expanding.”
“And I wanted you to lead the expansion. But you’re taking a different path. And you’re going to learn the hard way.”
That’s the old man’s modus operandi, the hard way, and he’ll use whatever resources to squash me. It’s like a movie reel in my head: my father aiming a flame thrower at my dream. In painful slow motion. A headache pounds at my temples. “We can talk about this tomorrow. Just give me the code so I can get some sleep.”
At the other end, my father blows out a disgusted breath. “A bookstore. You couldn’t even lease the building. You buy it. How stupid is that.”
My lungs constrict, and I can’t pull air into my chest. “Did you try the pizza puffs? It was Mama’s recipe.”
“Don’t start.”
“Why did you leave her? Leave her when she needed you the most?”
“Your mother and I weren’t compatible. She was too soft. I like tough women.”
“You like young women. I know what you did. When Mama got cancer. I know what you did.” Sometimes the loss feels as fresh as yesterday, and I see me clinging to that cloth monkey. Clawing at it. “That why you had me sign the non-disclosure? So it wouldn’t mar your friendly innkeeper image? Give me the fucking code.”
“The penthouse is in my name, Bucko. That makes the code mine, too.”
“I pay you rent. I signed a lease.”
“Assume that piece of paper is torched. Now here is how this particular lockbox works. You come back to manage Division One and let go of that shitty bookstore, and I might consider you as part of the expansion. Otherwise, no code, no entry, no warm bed.”
I press my forehead to the wall, wishing I could drill my head through the drywall and steel and lumber holding up this goddamn place. I wish my father’s words didn’t cut like a serrated edge.
“I saw her,” he says. “Lexi pointed her out. The church mouse.”
Somehow “church mouse” coming from the old man might as well have been “whore;” his voice carries that much contempt.
“Don’t call her that.”
“Not bad. Not bad,” he continues. “Has a nice rack, too. A professor, I hear. You nail her yet? I get the impression you haven’t. You’re slipping, Nick.”
That’s a poker stab at the hot coals lodged inside my gut, and an ugly competitiveness rises in me. “You think—”
“Think what?”
That I couldn’t have kissed Elena and convinced her to come back here, where I’d fuck her senseless? The way she looks up at me and trembles all over? I could’ve.
I could’ve.
But I’d been the gentleman. Even apologized and then escorted her back to her place like some lovesick chump, gave her a kiss as clean as a peck after Sunday school. This keeps up, and I’ll be carrying her effin’ purse for her. And the universe rewards my good-guy by blowing a shotgun hole through my white hat.
I slam my hand on the door.
“C’mon, Nicky. You go from blond models to Cinderella, sweeping up ashes in that place. Is that what you settle for, a girl content with ashes?”
These moments never happen when you’re stoked, cradling a royal flush in your hands. The lockboxes come when you’re wrung out. Before the tide carries you out to the coldest part of the ocean.
I might’ve just made the biggest mistake of my life, taking on my own sports bar. Pissing off someone as powerful as my father.
I’m breathing heavy now, my heart pulsing in my throat. Too late to change course, and the roulette wheel’s about to spin. “Send my stuff over to the bookstore.”
“I’ll be waiting with my told-you-so.”
He hangs up before I can.
A person who never climbs, never falls.
—Shakespeare
I press the button, over and over.
The lower level lights come on, lighting up the front of the bookstore. The banquet tables from Spa Night are stripped bare, linens folded, the toffee chairs pushed to the wall.
From the other side of the glass, she hustles toward the door, squinting.
Elena. Elena, thank God. I lean against the rough brick.
She opens the door and recoils from the cold gust sucking through the door frame. “Did you forget something?”
“She g-go-gonna sell?” My teeth chatter faster than plastic wind-up teeth. “Yes or no.”
She tugs on her robe’s drawstrings and gestures upstairs. “She’s asleep—”
“Yes or no.”
“I can’t answer for her.”
“You know how she’s leaning.”
“You’re soaking wet.”
“Listen. I know you don’t trust me. And yes, earlier, I was trying to get into your pan—get you to come home with me.” Between the cold wind and fatigue, my brain’s numb. “I don’t want to like you. Okay? I don’t want to like you, but I think about you all the time. I wonder what would Elena say, or how would she like this. And maybe you don’t want to like me, either, the whole oil-and-water thing. The old Rodney joke, she’s a water sign, I’m an earth sign, together we make mud.”
“Who?”
Figures. She knows Shakespeare but not Dangerfield. “I know I come off brash. A know-it-all. But this is me deep down, talking. Me. You want to be friends?” I fist my hand against my chest. “I need this place. Please.”
“We can’t sign papers now.”
“I can’t wait. I can’t. I need an ink signature. I can make this place come alive. I know I can. You and I both know the bookstore’s glory days are over. Those women stuck around to eat tonight, Elena, not to buy books. So why not a sports bar? Why not?”
“It’s almost two o’clock in the morning and my aunt doesn’t sleep well as is—”
“Her diabetes, right? The, the, circulation thing in the extremities.”
She nods and hunches up her shoulders against the cold.
“All right. You want details.”
“Now?” Shivering, she sticks her hands underneath her armpits. “Come inside. It�
�s freezing.”
Finally, I enter. She closes the door and locks it, and my fingers start to thaw a little.
“I know what you think of me: the entitled frat boy. The pussy hound. Maybe I am, but it’s not how I started. My mother died the day before my birthday. My mother.” I grab a fistful of my stiff leather jacket. “Was the most tender-hearted—” I choke on the twisted knot in my throat. “Wore it right there on the sleeve. She was too good for this world. Kind and caring but not for herself. She was beautiful, but she wore her winter coat as long as she could so she wouldn’t show how much weight she’d gained. She was an angel. An angel, Elena. She’d cook my father the best meals and would wait for him to come home, candlelight, seven courses, the whole nine yards. Only he didn’t come. I watched cancer eat her up. I watched her die.”
Her eyes are shiny, and she reaches for my hand. “Come upstairs. I’ll make you some hot tea.”
I pull away and pace. “Once I ran away and Dad found me at our old house and spanked me so hard I could hardly sit down for weeks. The pain reminded me of where I was . . . my father always pissed off, me in a big house with resentful maids. And then I got sent to boarding school, where I spent every holiday. Thanksgiving with you, that’s a first. Aside from Christmas and birthdays with Mama, which I can’t remember. I try to . . . I try. But I can’t.”
“Nick.”
“Understand. This bookstore deal is liberation for me. Eventually my father won’t care. No epidermis off his nose. But Lexi? It’s personal for her. She’ll want to inflict as much damage as possible. She’ll sic my old man on me. She’ll make him come at me with pruning shears.”
When she reaches up, her robe sleeve slips down her arm. She places a warm palm on my cheek. “Something else is going on.”
Her soft skin feels so good that I lose my concentration. Focus. Focus. Please. Just please let me get her aunt’s signature, then I’d go check into a motel room for the night and drive the chill out of my bones.
Her hand encloses mine, dry and warm. Her dark blue eyes probe my face.
It comes out like a projectile: “He locked me out of my condo.”
“Well, we can’t have that.”
Both of us turn to see Aunt Robbie standing several feet away, tangled hair, blue terry robe hanging crooked on her shoulders. “You’ll get your ink signature.”
The last of my adrenaline crashes, and I want to sag against the wall. But I stand up straight. Boot camp straight.
“You better do right by this place. You promise me that, Nick Zaccardi.”
I nod once, unsure what the hell I’ve just committed to. I’d promise to wear a tutu and do a flaming ring act with Norman if I could just get warm. I straighten and clench every muscle. No going back. I’ve crossed the chasm. All in.
“The roads are too dangerous.” Her aunt glances at Elena. Mumble, mumble, mumble.
What? What did she say? I think my ear canals froze.
Her voice becomes clearer. “Although there is Norman to consider.”
“The second-floor storage room,” Elena says. “I’ll find the aero mattress and the space heater.” She touches my arm. “It won’t be anything like your condo.”
I give her a faint smile and close my eyes. Right now, I’d settle for a bear cave and leaves.
Her aunt heads toward the stairwell, slippers slapping her feet, waving us to follow. “I’ll get the blankets, sheets, and pillows.”
Elena’s hand closes over mine, and she leads the way to the storage room.
When we get there, I see that it is a little larger than a horse stall. My stomach gurgles. I’m so hungry, I’d even eat straw. Her aunt offers food, but I decline. I’ve already imposed too much.
They leave, and I glance around. No window, no moonlight. No cathedral ceilings or marble or Lake Michigan view.
The things we take for granted until we lose them. . . .
The space heater emits heat and has a slight roar. The room’s toasty warm, but I’m too tired to sleep. The aero mattress squeaks and squishes every time I move, reminding me of a giant pool float. Hopefully, I’ll drift around the shallow end while I dream. That’s what Cos had reminded me of, where’s it’s clear. Where it’s safe. Except I’m far from safe. I’m not even in a pool. Instead, I’m in the ocean with rogue waves about to slosh over, and from a distance, the wire monkey’s bobbing like a buoy, warning me.
The world I knew is over. The access I had to business accounts, gone. The professional network and hundreds of contacts, a good eighty percent of them, severed. My father will likely blackball me with all the banks. Thankfully I have my checking and savings accounts and some private investments, but it’s not going to be enough.
I need a rocket boost. The NEW EATS contest would provide widespread exposure, fuel months of publicity buzz. I’ll have to continue secretly working with the contest committee members who liked me, people I trust. Then again, Dad’s power can’t be underestimated. He could find out. Buy loyalty from almost anyone.
I turn over on the strange air mattress. Somewhere, one level up, Elena’s sleeping above me. I remember her expression when I described my mother. Her warm hands.
I roll over again and punch the pillow. In the morning, her aunt will sign over the bookstore. The building will be officially mine.
But there is a damn good chance I won’t have the financial wherewithal to sustain it.
Further sacrifices have to be made.
Ten days after I got locked out, the real estate deal’s finalized, and the bookstore’s been ransacked. More customers idle past the going-out-of-business signs. Hundreds of books have been sold, and many shelves are bare. The first floor echoes now.
“Well, it’s just sad, is all. Seeing all this go.”
Near the Horror section, I stop.
Voices float from the cash register. Elena’s back faces me, her dark soft hair brushing the edge of her white collar and black sweater. Her slender-fingered hand glides items along the counter, sending off electronic beeps.
“It’s been in the neighborhood for so long that it feels like an anchor.” An old woman stands at the counter, her wrinkly hand smoothing over a hardback book, some kind of thriller, red letters and a paranoid guy looking over his shoulder.
Elena tucks the woman’s purchases into a Lucky Pup bag.
“My grandkids love seeing one of your bags.” The old woman tilts her head. “Who came up with the logo?”
“My brother came up with the name a long time ago. My aunt had a local artist do the logo. He’s a Labrador.”
“Aww. You name him after your own dog?”
“No. We have Norman over there.”
My sneezing attests to the cat’s presence. Norman’s served as an emotional support cat. For Christmas, they put a red collar and a small bell around his neck. Hard to miss him: he’s peering out the picture window, striped tail twitching, hoping to help himself to a sparrow banquet.
The old woman hugs her purchase, bag crinkling. “What’s going up in its place?”
I hover over a horror book with a misty forest cover. Wait.
Elena stiffens. “A sports bar. A sports bar will replace the Pup.”
The old woman’s eyes bulge. “Are you running a bar, then?”
“No. A Chicago area man is.”
The same man behind the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Sure, Elena, why not add that? Her tone was pissy enough.
Yeah. Obvious. We haven’t spoken since the real estate closing. Considering this has been her home, Elena’s been distant, avoiding me. I’ve been too swamped to chase her down and talk.
But I miss her.
Blueprints tucked under my arm, I push past the photos of those famous dead authors who look as though they’re about to say something snide. Like how I only read on the toilet.
I mount the stairwell up to the second floor, where I’ve moved my dynamo headquarters and the renovation is in full swing. Most of the shelves are gone, and several walls are d
own. Lumber posts brace the ceiling until the steel support beam arrives.
The storage room now houses a queen-sized bed, a used headboard and frame, and a couple of mismatched tables and lamps. The mattress is new, but everything else is second-hand. My father’s keeping all the condo furniture. Those things wouldn’t fit anywhere, anyway.
Against the wall is a wardrobe unit made of black-coated steel, a metal skeleton of lockers, side by side, kind of chicken-wired in the back. Lots of shelves. Ugly as hell but useful. I shove a pair of Nikes on the top shelf and walk out of the room, into the open area that smells like a lumberyard.
I glance over at my luxurious executive suite, a plywood slab on garbage pails, my laptop in the center and an ergonomic chair. Metal file cabinets complete the zombie office look.
Most restaurateurs don’t even factor in a profit in the first year. They’re grateful to keep their doors open, build a reliable staff and attract repeat customers.
Now that I’m responsible for the P&L, I can’t spare a single penny. I keep reminding myself of that as I root around for tonight’s dining delicacy—chili with or without the beans? Next to my desk is a college dorm-sized fridge and on top of it, a jar of peanut butter and some apples. I’m subsisting on two meals a day because I’ve got to save, save, save. I’m almost always hungry. That cat better not traipse its striped paws down here. I’ve got cutlery and a hot plate.
At least there’s a little more padding in my savings. I walk over to the windows overlooking the street and stare at the parking lot where I once parked the Aston. A used black Ford Explorer sits there now.
I try to like it.
It’s sturdy, a working man’s vehicle. It’ll blend in. I can pack things inside it. People will mistake me for a handyman or plumber.
I swallow, remembering the luxury car salesman calling a client, confirming the Aston was available.
Selling it gives me some financial wiggle room. But walking away from that car to slide behind the steering wheel of the Explorer felt like I dragged the transmission behind me. The Aston had been an extension of what I wanted to project in the world.