“Yo, what’s your ETA, paesana.”
“Be there in thirty.” I hung up and cranked up the Beastie Boys, singing along.
Eighteen minutes later, I pulled into Buena Sera’s parking lot. The white-washed walls of the restaurant were surrounded by purple, blue, and red flowers on vines and in big pots.
Dante was waiting for me outside at a shady table under a trellis of grape vines. He stood when he saw my car. Even from across the parking lot, the white of his smile against his olive skin made my stomach flip flop. Today he was wearing white linen pants and a white shirt with the buttons done enough for me to see his smooth, tan chest. And once again it was clear I would forever be half in love with him. But I knew deep having him for my best friend was worth more than anything else on God’s green earth. Except maybe if I could bring my parents back to life.
He met me at the entrance to the outdoor dining area and grabbed me in a tight hug. I sniffed and he pulled back, searching my eyes. “Everything okay?”
I nodded and made my way to the table where a chilled bottle of Prosecco waited along with some prosciutto-wrapped cantaloupe slices.
“As soon as I see you, everything seems right in the world,” I said, folding myself into the white metal chair and putting my sandaled feet up on the chair adjacent to me. “Maybe I should just move and be your busboy, girl, whatever they’re called. Hell, I’d even wash your dishes.”
“Gia, you know you’d go crazy up here. You’re a city girl. You’ve always been one. That’s why living in Monterey was so hard for you, remember mia cara?”
As a teenager, I’d get so restless that I’d break things in my room and cry and shout and then before I knew it, Dante would be out front in his beat-up, decades old Porsche 911 and he’d drive me up to Santa Cruz where we’d spend the evening watching punk rock bands. That soothed me for a little while, but then we’d have to go back to Carmel and Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove. The Monterey Peninsula was, as the saying goes, “a great place for the newly wed or the nearly dead,” but for a teenager like me, it was soul crushing.
Dante and I settled in at the outdoor table and I leaned back in my chair, relaxed. The waiter brought a glass of Pinot Grigio and some tomato and basil bruschetta. I didn’t complain. I’d already scarfed down the cantaloupe and was eager for more food.
“How’s Matt?” I said, helping myself to a third bruschetta. Matt was Dante’s long-time boyfriend. I’d grown to love him nearly as much as Dante.
“He’s great. He’s in D.C. right now.”
Matt was a newly elected U.S. senator who would now split his time between Calistoga and D.C. I’d forgotten the session had just started. “You getting out there soon?”
Dante’s face lit up. “Next weekend. Can’t wait. It’s only been a few days, but I miss that guy. More than I thought.”
“He’s a keeper, all right,” I said.
“Hey!” Dante said, slapping the iron table with his palm. “I have a great idea! Why don’t you come with me? Matt’s got a huge townhome. He’d love to see you. I know you’ve always wanted to go to D.C. We can stay over an extra day and go exploring.”
The thought of all the museums was tempting — the Smithsonian, the International Spy Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery. But it wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t want to be a third wheel, no matter how much they told me I wouldn’t be.
“Maybe next time,” I said.
“I tried to call you back the other night,” Dante said. That’s when I remembered leaving drunken messages for him from the bar at Anarchy. He looked hurt.
I cleared my throat. “Well, I was busy.” He knew what I meant. His forehead scrunched up. He didn’t like my casual sex life. He closed his eyes and let out a big sigh. “I’ve been patient and tried to be understanding about the way you’re dealing with your parents’ death, Gia. But I can’t keep quiet any longer. Matt and I talked about this the other day and we agreed. You need to hear this. I love you and I can’t watch you destroy yourself anymore. There’s more to life than being high and fucking pretty boys.” He looked at me.
I gulped and looked down into my drink. I had no answer. He was right.
When I first moved to San Francisco right after my parents died two years ago, I enrolled in art school believing I was following my dreams finally at age twenty. I even organized protests across the city in my spare time. But then the careful façade I had built around my grief crumbled and I found myself skipping class after all-night drinking sessions and then ultimately dropping out.
Since then I spent my time buying expensive shit I didn’t need, getting shit faced and sleeping around. Each night blurred into the next. I’d usually end up both drunk and stoned if I was able to score some pot. Unfortunately, none of these activities ever took away the constant reminder that I was alone in this world — an orphan. I had no family anymore. My brother Christopher didn’t count.
“Listen, Gia. This isn’t like you. What happened to the Gia I knew who scoffed at all the other girls in high school who wore designer clothes?” He pointedly looked at my red-soled Louboutin stilettos. They’d cost $1,500 but were practically one of a kind. They were turquoise studded with turquoise spikes. They were kick ass. “What happened to the Gia who dreamed of joining the Peace Corps? Or the girl who talked about finding true love? Do you think this is how your parents would want you to grieve them? It’s been two years, Gia. You are twenty-three years old. It’s time to move on.”
I stood up so quickly my chair toppled over, but I didn’t turn around, just kept walking.
“Are you crying?” Dante yelled behind me.
When I got to my car, I rummaged in my bag for my keys. Fuck. He was right. Fuck. Coming here was a mistake. His disappointment stung. My vision was blurry, making it nearly impossible to find my keys. I crouched down, dumping my purse contents out on the ground until I saw them. I shoveled assorted lipsticks, concealers, spare pens, and old cough drops back in my bag.
When I stood, Dante was there. He grabbed me in a bear hug and buried his face in my shoulder. “Gia, I’m sorry for upsetting you. But I’m not sorry for saying what I did. I love you too much to sit back and let you destroy yourself. Will you please come sit back down?”
“I got a date. I gotta go.” It was true. I did have a date, but I was also trying to avoid the pity I saw in Dante’s eyes. I started to turn. Dante reached out and pulled me toward the restaurant.
“It’s only four. You have time. Tell me about him?”
I looked at Dante’s open, happy face and the truth I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge to myself finally came out.
“He’s a loser.”
Dante’s smile faded. I glanced down. When I looked back up, I saw another wave of disappointment cross his face. But it was true. Blake was using me. For my body or my money. Or both. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before. The knowledge stung, but I felt a wave of gratitude that I hadn’t fallen for him. I’d fallen for guys in the past only to realize they were more interested in driving my Ferrari than getting to know who I really was.
Dante cupped my chin. I could barely meet his eyes. “Gia, you are better than that.”
Was I? I didn’t know anymore. I wondered if my poor batting average in love was because my expectations were unrealistically high. I grew up watching my parents’ seemingly unearthly love for each other grow stronger every year. It made me feel hopeless at ever finding a love like that. Then, when I lost my parents I decided it hurt too much to give a shit about anyone or anything.
The older I got, the more I believed that I was fucked when it came to having any type of real, intimate relationship. Falling head over heels with my gay best friend in high school was just the beginning of my losing streak with love.
Dante stood watching me, waiting. I picked up my cell phone and sent a quick text. Dante raised one groomed eyebrow.
“Just canceled my date,” I said and was rewarded with a big smile. We headed back to the restaurant.
The shadows had grown long by the time I finally got up to leave. As I drove away, I looked in my rearview mirror. Dante stood in the middle of the driveway with his hands on his hips. I kept glancing at his silhouette. He never moved. Finally, when he was a small black dot, I stopped looking.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, I was sitting with my feet up on my balcony trying to decide where to go for lunch when my cell rang. I didn’t recognize the number.
“This is Bobby. There’s no easy way to say this. Christopher is dead.”
I couldn’t get enough air. My heart was racing and my lungs felt like they’d turned into sandbags. I stood, knocking my chair upside down, and walked like a zombie in circles around my apartment until I came to a stop in the dining room staring at my pale face in the mirrored wall.
Bobby’s voice had been talking to me through the phone, but it had seemed to come from far away. I finally focused on his words. “Gia? You there? Gia?”
“Yes.” My voice sounded foreign to me.
“I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you, Gia,” Bobby said. He sounded out of breath. Making this call probably hadn’t been easy for him.
Get it together, Gia.
“No, no, thank you for calling me,” I said. His words had not quite sunk in. My brother. Dead. It couldn’t be possible. I sank to the floor, holding the phone up against my ear so tightly it hurt. I was surprised to feel nothing. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to scream. But I also wasn’t sure I could move.
“Gia?”
“I’m here.”
“What’s your address? I’m coming over.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Give me your address.” His voice was firm.
I recited my address robotically.
“Okay. Why don’t you stay on the phone with me? I’m already in my car. I’ll be there in two hours.”
Oh shit. I’d just given him my address. He was serious.
“You can’t come here.”
“I’m coming if you like it or not. The question is whether you want me to stay on the phone with you the entire time.”
I didn’t answer. I had my face in my hands and was leaning against the mirrored wall in my dining room, staring into space.
“Gia?”
“How?”
“Huh?”
“How did Christopher die?”
“O.D.’d. He had a tourniquet and the needle was still in his arm.” I heard him gulp for breath. “I found him in the bathroom. I called 911 and tried CPR ... but it was too late.”
“What?” None of it was making sense. I was still stuck on the first words Bobby uttered: Christopher is dead. The words were running through my mind on a loop, faster and faster until the phrase blended into one. Christopherisdead. Christopherisdead. Christopherisdead. Christopherisdead.
“Yeah. It was probably some bad stuff.”
Bobby’s voice sounded like it was coming from far away. The side of my head was pressed tightly against the mirrored wall, which felt cool and soothing so I pressed harder until my head hurt. From the corner of my eye I stared at myself in the mirrored wall. I looked deranged.
Bobby kept speaking, but I was lost in memories of Christopher as his voice wobbled in and out, growing softer than louder.
One of my earliest memories involved my older brother. It was the day I realized he was different from other people. I was five years old and Christopher was four—we were only fifteen months apart. Our nanny had taken us that day to Bubba Gump’s for lunch. My mother, a full-blooded Sicilian, who took immense pride in her cooking, had forbidden we eat there. In my mother’s opinion, Bubba Gump was the fast food restaurant of Monterey. Not to mention, my father’s business imported seafood to the finest restaurants in Carmel. That’s probably why we begged the new nanny to take us, knowing she didn’t know any better.
It was the first time I got to try greasy and fried squid and seafood dipped in gallons of catsup. And the first time, but not the last, I would be afraid of my older brother. After lunch, we all went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. At one point, Christopher wandered off, sending the nanny into hysterics.
It was a few minutes after we left the tiny manta ray petting pool. Neither one of us had wanted to leave. The gentle creatures seemed to love the attention, poking their heads above water and letting kids stroke their velvety backs.
But the nanny had steered us to the giant tank with the tuna fish bigger than my bed. A few minutes passed before a commotion rose around the corner. That’s when the nanny realized that Christopher was missing. The color drained from her face. She grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the noise. It was Christopher.
He’d caught a tiny manta ray by the tail and was bashing it against a concrete pole. Blood was splattering everywhere. Children were crying and parents were swooping them up and rushing out of the room. We got there just in time to see a white-faced aquarium worker grab Christopher from behind.
After thirty minutes of the nanny crying outside the security office, my godfather arrived, grim-faced and entered the room. A few minutes later he came out with Christopher and we all headed home.
The nanny and my godfather didn’t tell my mother. I didn’t either.
“Gia? You still there?”
I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see me. “Where is he now?”
“His body?”
I nodded yes, but feeling my head move against the mirror, realized he couldn’t see me. “Yes. Where did they take him?”
“I don’t know.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll find out for you, though.”
It didn’t matter. I don’t even know why I’d asked. “No, no that’s okay.”
I hung up without saying goodbye.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT TOOK A WHILE BEFORE I understood that the sound I heard was someone pounding on my front door. I dragged myself away from the mirror and over to the peephole. My foot and one leg were both tingly and numb from falling asleep so I more hobbled than walked.
It was Bobby. I unlocked the door and turned, crossing the room to my bedroom where I plopped face down on my bed.
Then, Bobby’s hand was on my hair, smoothing it down. It was what finally brought me to tears. I didn’t look up, but shook, sobbing until not only my pillow, but the mattress around it was wet. I don’t know how long I cried, but when I was finally done, I sat up. Bobby handed me a wad of toilet paper and I loudly blew my nose.
“Thanks.”
“I’m sorry, Gia.” He was dressed in faded jeans and a soft worn T-shirt. He smelled so good that I buried my face in his chest for a few seconds. There was something there, nagging at me, something just below the surface, as if I had forgotten something important. I didn’t know what it was. I sniffled and pulled back from Bobby.
“I always thought it would be a relief to have Christopher out of my life. I never thought I would cry over him. I never liked him. I loved him, but didn’t like him. My dad always told me that was okay—that you had to love everyone, but didn’t have to like them or how they acted.”
Bobby patted my back. As I sat there, I realized that maybe the truth was that I was grieving for all of them—my mother and father and Christopher. Christopher had been the only one who understood what it felt like to lose our parents. He was my last connection—the only one who could truly understand my loss.
Bobby didn’t try to talk, which I appreciated. Instead, he looked at me intensely and listened, nodding.
“It sounds horrible to say,” I went on, “but in a way, I’m glad my mother died first because Christopher’s death would have been unbearable to her. She loved him despite who and what he was.”
He was her favorite. I never understood it. When I was little I tried to make her eyes light up the way they did when she looked at him, but it was never the same. She would laugh at the silly things he did and when I did the exact same things, she would barely smile. I could never compete with h
im. Finally, I just grew to accept it and turned to my dad for the love I wanted. And my dad loved me as much as any little girl ever was loved by her father, but it still never took away the pain I had realizing my mother would never love me like she loved Christopher.
I told Bobby all of this.
Finally, after it grew dark he let go of my hand and headed toward my galley kitchen.
“Have you had anything to eat?” He poked his head around the corner.
I shook my head.
“Are you hungry?”
I shook my head again.
“Jesus,” he said from the kitchen. “Don’t you have any food in this house? I thought you were Italian.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Silence.
“I bet you were shocked that I wasn’t making pasta by hand and listening to opera when you arrived. And oh, yeah, I forgot, my Virgin Mary statue is out on the balcony in case you missed it.”
My voice caught on a sob. I closed my eyes.
Bobby was at my side on the couch, holding me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stereotype. I’m a buffoon.”
“It’s not that.”
“I know,” he said softly.
And then I said it, even though it made me sound like a monster. “What hurts the most is that my mother loved Christopher more than me and he was a sociopath. He didn’t deserve a love like hers. He didn’t deserve to be loved more than me.”
There it was. Out in the open — the wound that would never heal.
Bobby didn’t say anything, just held me.
Finally, my body stopped quaking. As I drifted off to sleep, a memory flooded back to me.
When Christopher lived in Argentina, he usually came home for Christmas. He spent most of the time in his room with headphones on listening to death metal.
He ignored me unless he was trying to bum money. Then he would lay on the charm thickly, the persona that he usually reserved for other girls. I knew he hated me and yet he made me feel like I was the coolest, most beautiful sister in the world. I realized then how dangerous he was.
Gia Santella Crime Thriller Boxed Set: Books 1-3 (Gia Santella Crime Thrillers) Page 4