“If you’re going to be a good cop, Michael, maybe you better sharpen your skills a little so you don’t lump together the guilty with the innocent—”
“Gia, I’m—”
“And automatically accuse someone who might not be guilty because of your own prejudices and fucking stereotyped way of seeing the world.”
He stares at the table and shakes his head then looks up at me. “I’ve tried. And there’s more to it—”
“I don’t want to hear more, Michael, because you know what I think? I think you haven’t tried at all. You never tried to see me for myself. You never took me out when I just about threw myself at you. You never made any effort to find out who I am. What did you do, kiss me back? Call me in the middle of the night and breathe in the phone? Is that what you call trying?”
“I was—”
“All you do is nurse your grievances and play clean cop and purist and Mister Self-Righteous—”
“Jesus, stop—”
“No, I won’t stop,” I say, getting angrier by the second. “The world’s not black and white. And for whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry your brother is a junkie or was a junkie because that sucks. But don’t blame me, I didn’t do it to him, although maybe it’s easier for you to think that so you can trash the don’s daughter from your high and mighty place and keep your distance and not give or risk losing something, and you can devote your life to chasing bad guys to make up for the shit your brother got into.” I get to my feet and Michael jumps up at the same time.
“Gia,” he says, reaching out and grabbing my wrist. “You don’t—”
“Don’t, Michael.” I pull my hand away so hard that my hip slams the table, sending the dishes clanking to the floor and smashing. I run toward the door and he runs after me, grabbing my arm.
“Listen to me, God dammit,” he hisses.
“What are you going to do, Michael, arrest me for disorderly conduct?” I say, shaking free of his grip. I reach into my bag and take out a joint and throw it on the floor in front of him. “Here, here’s something better, okay? You want to take me in. You’d like that, right? That’s your fun. Go ahead, c’mon…”
“Gia,” he says through his teeth. “Don’t do this—” he says, grabbing my upper arm.
“Let go of me,” I say, struggling to pull free. “I hate you.” My eyes fill with tears and I shake my head and all I want to do is punch him and punch him, but I pull free and then run out of the restaurant toward the subway where I don’t expect to find CNN or New York 1 looking for me anytime soon.
THIRTY-EIGHT
I get off the subway in Midtown and walk robotically with no destination. I need to be outside and in motion and the blaring, urgent street sounds are the perfect sound track for my rage.
I replay everything with Michael again and again, feeling helplessness and fury at the same time. The way we met. Where we sat down. I thought he wanted to see me but the only thing on his mind was blaming me for his problems and ending it. But studying that script again and again gets me nowhere, so I keep going, trying to walk until exhaustion edges out rage.
Then I think about my dad and stop. I turn and walk back uptown to the Empire State Building.
I’ve only been to the office once before, but my feet take me there as if the address is programmed inside me.
I have to see him face-to-face.
In all the years I’ve known Super Mario the day I remember best is that one day. It was before Christmas when I was very small. Even now though, I remember every moment of that day.
His company was having its office party. My mom dressed me up in a new red velvet dress with a matching coat that she made herself and a hat with white rabbit pom-poms on the ties. I had on red tights that kept riding down and black patent leather ballet flats that were too big so they kept slipping off in the back.
My dad took me up there and showed me the view. I drank eggnog and had cookies shaped like Christmas trees covered with green sugar sprinkles. I felt so grown up that day because my dad let me climb a ladder and help the secretary hang candy canes on the tree. After the tree was decorated, Super Mario handed me a big box wrapped in red paper with gold stars and tied with a gold ribbon. It took me forever to untie the shiny ribbon and tear away all the glittery paper. Finally I opened the top of the big, white box and pulled out an enormous furry white teddy bear with a thick, jeweled bow around its neck.
I remember looking up at Super Mario and seeing his face light up because he was as excited about giving me the bear as I was getting it.
“This is the best present I ever got,” I shouted. I still love that bear. He sits in the middle of my bed now leaning against the pillows, almost fourteen years later.
Every other time I saw Super Mario was either at our house when he came to dinner or on the news with microphones from every radio and TV station in his face as he made a statement about how the charges against my father were fabricated, insisting, “my client maintains his innocence and will be vindicated.”
Only now Super Mario isn’t on the TV or at our house. He’s in his office at his desk when I call.
“Gia,” he says, surprised it’s me. “Yes, come, please. You know I’m always happy to see you.”
The office is beautiful like everything Super Mario surrounds himself with, including his blond wife, Ella, and his red-haired comare, who Anthony says is half Super Mario’s age.
The waiting area has beige linen couches with brocaded pillows with gold tassels. The walls are lined with dark polished wood bookcases with glass doors and antique brass locks. He bought the bookcases in Venice from an old villa they were renovating, and he had them sent by boat to New York, where a carpenter worked on them for months so that they could fit into the walls of his office like they had been made to go there. They are filled with old books bound in dark red leather with gold writing on the outside.
The woman at the reception desk is blond and young. She has perfect features and large blue eyes. Her full lips are covered with a light layer of pink lip gloss. They must pay her a lot, because I know her jacket is Chanel because of the little gold buttons with the letter C. She can’t be more than thirty.
“I’m here to see Super Mario,” I blurt out like a total idiot.
She hesitates for just a moment and then smiles. “Mario…Della Russo?”
“Yes, sorry,” I say with an embarrassed laugh. I can’t remember the last time I called him anything but Super Mario.
She’s about to pick up the phone, but she hesitates as if she’s studying my face. “Are you Gia?” she asks. “Gio’s daughter?”
Very slowly a sick feeling spreads through me. Gio? No one calls my father that. No one. Only the few people closest to him: my mom, some of his oldest friends. I swallow and then I look at her face. “How did you know?”
Caught. I see it in a flash.
But this sexy broad is smooth. She recovers. “He talks about you whenever he’s up here.”
Only my father isn’t up here. Rarely. Super Mario comes to us. That’s how it’s always been. When they need to talk they go to the apartment near the social club, the one where the old lady lives who’s deaf and nearly blind. She lives there rent free.
“Oh…I see.” I turn away from her and sit down, grabbing a magazine from the nearest table and opening it over my lap. I stare at it, unable to focus on what’s on the page.
My dad’s no different from the rest of them. I can’t lie to myself anymore. I think about him and this woman together. I imagine them in bed. His face and body over hers. In a hotel. Or her apartment. She looks like she could live on Park Avenue. Maybe my dad even pays her rent or buys her designer clothes. I feel nauseous. Is there anything worse than imagining your dad or mom with someone else?
I can’t bear to think of how it would hurt my mom. Unless she knows. Unless somehow she’s made peace with that after all these years because it’s part of the package and by now my mom is a pro when it comes to denial. Then I have
another thought. This woman probably isn’t the first. There have been others before her.
Seconds go by. Maybe minutes or more. I glance up and see Super Mario looking down at me, studying me. I jump. “You scared me.”
“I’m sorry, Gia.”
He glances at the magazine in my lap, which I now realize is open to an ad for weed killer. He doesn’t say anything.
“Come,” he says softly, reaching for my hand.
I follow him down a carpeted hallway to his corner office with a panoramic view of downtown Manhattan and the glistening Hudson River that’s the same steely blue as some of the buildings surrounding it. I stare at an ocean liner with a brick red smokestack and wonder where it’s been or where it’s headed and think about how it would feel to pack up and sail far away, but not just on a vacation, to start another life someplace where no one would know me or anything about my family. A place where I could just be me without the baggage.
“I remember the last time you were here,” he says, smiling. He holds out his hand so that it’s about three feet from the floor. “You were this big, eh?”
“I remember it too…and the teddy bear you gave me with the beautiful jeweled collar. I still have him.”
“Beppo,” we say together and then laugh.
Mario and I look at each other and our eyes change at the very same moment. He motions for me to sit in the chair opposite his desk, but instead of sitting behind the desk, he comes around and sits in the one next to mine. We’re so close our knees nearly touch.
“Gia,” he says softly, reaching over and putting his hand on top of mine for a moment. His fingers are long, his hand large and warm. Everything about him has always been comforting to me. Being in his presence is like entering a safe harbor.
This is the only time I can ever remember when he seems lost for words, and a sense of dread creeps up my spine. He exhales a heavy, resigned breath.
“There must be something you can do for him, Mario, something.”
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his legs, and drops his head between his hands for a few seconds, staring at the floor before looking up at me.
“Gia…you know I would give my life for him if it would help.” He shakes his head helplessly.
“But you always get him out, Mario, no matter what.”
“But now…” he whispers.
“What?”
He shakes his head. “They have so much, Gia, so much more against him.”
“So?”
“Gia…” he says almost pleadingly.
“What?”
“Gia, it’s Frankie.”
“Can’t you say he’s lying?”
He shakes his head. “It’s different now,” he says, so low I can barely hear him.
“Try Mario, please? There has to be something.”
“Whatever there is to do, Gia, I will do it. You know that.” He reaches out and squeezes my hand. “You have my word.”
I look back at him and see something I’ve never seen in his eyes before. Defeat. I’m about to leave and then I stop.
“Mario…”
He looks up at me.
“Did he ever try to get out of the life?”
He narrows his eyes and shakes his head. “It’s not something he could escape.”
“And Anthony?”
He holds his hands out helplessly. “Maybe there’s still time. But you,” he says. “You’ll be different.”
I nod my head. Somehow he knows.
I stand and toss my backpack over my shoulder and then walk toward the door, but I turn back to him. “One last thing.”
“Anything, Gia.”
I think of the receptionist. I can’t help it. “The girl who sits…” But then I catch myself. I see him glance at the door. He won’t tell me. He’ll never admit it. What was I thinking? “Nothing. It’s nothing. Forget it.”
THIRTY-NINE
The fund-raiser. Is there anything in the world I feel like doing less now than celebrating? But tomorrow is the night and pretending is something I’m good at. At the very least, I try to focus on some of the good things in my life because you’re supposed to count your blessings and be thankful, the church says.
So there’s my mom and my brother and Ro and Clive and Candy and Clive’s parents because of the article, then there’s the Vogue story coming out, although that could go either way, depending on how everyone sees it, and then yes, I am in a decent school, at least until the end of the semester, so I feel a little better and work on putting something on my face resembling a smile.
Beyond the bogus smile there’s the issue of clothes, so out comes the backless dress again even though I know what I’m opening myself up to because there are more than a few people in my school who have no taste whatsoever and they wouldn’t recognize a couture dress if Armani came in with it on his own back, so all they’ll immediately say is OMG, Gia is such a total slut, yada, yada, yada.
But anyway I call Clive and since this is a black-tie gala, he’s in the middle of getting dressed.
“This feels totally strange,” he says.
I start to wonder about his neck although I’d never just come out and ask, but I’m thinking that he can’t possibly wear that ratty navy cashmere scarf with a black tux, can he? I’m super curious to see how he’ll handle that, and I ask him if he wants me to come over and help him get ready and put in his studs or do his bow tie or whatever.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll meet you there.”
As I’m about to hang up I hear, “Wait, Gia. I wanted to tell you yesterday. I found out something about Michael—”
“Don’t tell me, I don’t care anymore.”
“But it’s—”
“Clive. Promise me something.”
“What?”
“That you’ll never mention his name again to me.”
“You don’t want to even—?”
“It’s over. He’s history.”
“But I—”
“Clive, please?”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
As I get ready, my mind briefly flicks back to Michael and the restaurant and the blame and, yes, it is so over because we’re at opposite ends of the world and screw his secrets or whatever because he blames me for everything. And now I’m convinced what I should celebrate is ending things with him. I put him out of my mind and blow out my hair and then run downstairs and get in the car because Vinnie is driving me to the restaurant, which is this really classy place.
When Morgan does things, they go over the top. One of the groups being celebrated is the Botanical Gardens and their people are bringing in to-die-for orchids in rich purple and the faintest shades of celadon and yellow, and even some in black. A major league florist was invited to decorate the restaurant so he’s hanging plant vines everywhere and the place is turning into more of a tropical environment rather than just a pricey Asian restaurant called Asian Fusion Odyssey.
The work of the Humane Society is also being celebrated, and their people are there with brochures and freebies like refrigerator magnets with pug faces and what have you, but then I see them bringing in cages with dogs for adoption, and I wonder who approved that. But whatever, because I love dogs, and I hope that the rest of the school does too and doesn’t go ape shit and say things like, “I mean, I personally love dogs but what if someone is allergic? Or what if one of them bites someone and we get sued?”
I’m walking around looking at everything and then I stop dead in place. “Clive Laurent, oh my God!” I scream at the top of my lungs because he looks so totally adorable.
“Gia, what is it?” he says, rushing up to me. “You’re scaring me to death.”
He’s even had his hair cut so it’s layered perfectly, and he’s wearing this black tuxedo with a black shirt under it, and instead of the ratty blue scarf, a beautiful, long, red silk scarf is knotted around his neck and it looks so opulent and extraordinary that I kiss him on the lips, and he laughs.
Clive and I walk around eyeballing everything, and there’s just one area where there’s no display.
“I wonder what they’re going to put in that space,” I say.
“Who knows,” he says, taking my arm and leading me in the other direction.
Then Ro arrives. I really don’t get to see her dressed up that often except at weddings. She’s wearing an extraordinary navy blue dress with an oversized bow across the bodice and I’m guessing that it’s Prada off the truck or something that could pass for Prada. Her long dark hair has been blown out and looks fabulous. She says that Dante is coming too, which I guess is cool because he’s such a douche that I usually have a good time with him.
Celebrate is feeling like prom with everyone in black tie. Candy, who is a clotheshorse like me, is wearing a dress she bought from a secondhand store in LA where the stars dump their gowns after the Oscars.
“I have no idea who wore this,” she says. “All they told me was that it was someone who was nominated.”
It’s a pale yellow gauzy gown by Valentino that’s super simple, and with her long blond hair, Candy looks like she could be at the Vanity Fair after-party.
Ro and I and Clive and Candy make the rounds when two guys carry in a giant rectangular box that someone said is a cake, but you can’t see it because it’s inside. They finally get a table with a tablecloth and put the box on top of it.
“Just leave it inside for now,” Clive says.
“So you do know,” I say and look at him funny.
He doesn’t answer or maybe didn’t hear me, and we walk off.
To me, the highlight of the event is the dogs from the Humane Society. There are six cages with seven dogs. Just looking at the dogs with those sad, sad I’ve-given-up kind of downcast eyes makes me want to cry because I mean that loveless life and the loneliness…
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