by L. D. Davis
She left the room without another word. A moment later, her bedroom door shut a little too loudly in a house full of sleeping kids.
I cursed to myself and flopped down on the couch where she had been sitting. That had escalated fast. With a deep sigh, I picked up her glass of wine and stared at it for a few seconds before throwing it back like it was hard liquor. It was very unsatisfactory, which made me miss the bourbon Marco had shared with me.
My phone rang a few minutes later. When I saw who the caller was, I was genuinely surprised.
“Hello, Tesoro.”
“Marco,” I breathed.
“Why do you sound surprised? Did you not believe I would call?”
I sidestepped his question. “You sound tired.”
I heard his sigh through the phone. “It has been a long day, and it is not over yet. I will be working well into the night. I might get a couple hours of sleep before I have to start again tomorrow.”
“Sounds like a lot. Is your schedule always like that?”
“Sometimes. It all depends. I will usually work through the weekend if I have a lot to do, but I didn’t do that. So, I am playing catch-up in addition to having a lot of other things to do.”
“I’m sorry. That’s our fault. Mine and the kids. You should’ve worked. We would’ve been fine without—”
“I have no regrets, Lydia. I had one of the best days ever with you and the children.” There was a short pause before he continued in a lower voice. “I would like to do it again. Very soon.”
As uncaring as I’d pretended to be, I couldn’t prevent the pleased smile that creeped onto my face. I bit my lip to hold back stupid, girly giddiness and cleared my throat in an attempt to sound serious. “Well, we’ll see.”
He chuckled. “Always playing hard to get. I like it.”
I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see it. “Whatever. Did you call for a reason?”
“I wanted to know how your trip back to Ohio was, and I wanted to hear the sound of your voice.”
My heart kind of tripped up then, which only served to annoy me. “Well, now that you’ve heard it, you can get back to work.”
“I can’t concentrate on work when all I can think about is kissing you again.”
I licked my lips. “Well, as I said before, cold day in hell, Mangello.”
“Mangini.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. So, you’re in Manhattan now?”
Another soft chuckle that made me feel warm all over. “Yes. Have you been?”
I shook my head like an idiot, like he were in front of me. “No. Not really. I took the bus to Philly once a long time ago, and I had to transfer in the city, but I didn’t leave the bus terminal.”
“You have to see it to believe it. Manhattan alone has so many distinctive sections. This city is alive twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Just like the cabin in all its seclusion and nature is beautiful, the city is beautiful in all of its glamour and ugliness.”
I laughed quietly. “Glamour and ugliness? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Of course it does. Consider this…”
For forty minutes, Marco and I talked about New York. I got comfortable, stretched out on the couch, relaxed at the sound of his rhythmic voice. He was so descriptive about the city and the places he’d been to, that when I closed my eyes, I could see myself there with him. Eating at his favorite restaurants, strolling through Central Park at his side, and visiting the museums. I was even able to imagine what his friends looked like, how they dressed and behaved.
“Like I’ve mentioned before,” he said at the end of it, followed by a yawn, “you will have to see it to believe it. I can’t wait to bring you here.”
There were a couple glitches in his plans. I couldn’t do all the walking that would be involved in a trip like that, and he would probably lose interest in me long before that ever happened. Regardless of all he’d had to say a few days ago, I didn’t expect much from him. The novelty of the tragic, crippled woman with the chip on her shoulder would eventually fade.
I shook my head to rid myself of the ridiculous daydreams he’d put in my mind over the past forty minutes. “Well, we’ll see. Hey, there is something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“Sure.” He yawned once more.
“The other night in Kyle’s study, you said something in Italian.”
“I say a lot of things in Italian.”
“Don’t be a smartass. You know what I’m talking about. You said something like…umm...quandry un monstero. What did you say?”
That low chuckle again made my whole body heat up.
“I said, ‘Sei bellissima. Da infarto, anche quando sei un mostro.’ It means…” He paused, and his voice grew softer than before. “You are beautiful. You make my heart stop, even when you are being a monster.”
Well, that made my heart stop. I had to put my hand to my chest to make sure it hadn’t stopped permanently.
“Oh. Well…” I stammered before I gave up and went silent.
He shut me the fuck up. Again.
Marco laughed through a yawn. “Amazing. I have silenced you. On that note, I must go get some espresso if I am to make it through the night. I’d rather stay on the phone with you until we fall asleep, but maybe another time. I will call you again tomorrow.” He hesitated, and then asked, “Will you answer?”
No. I should’ve said no, because why drag this thing out just to watch it flounder and end in a matter of days—weeks at most?
Should have said no…but didn’t.
“Yes.”
Chapter Thirteen
The first text came in around seven-thirty in the morning. Once again, I was surprised to see Marco’s name.
Good morning, Tesoro.
My hesitation was brief before I shrugged. I figured I might as well play along for a little while. Good morning.
Please tell Gavi and Cora to have a good first day of school. Give the girls a kiss for me.
“Huh,” I murmured aloud as I stared at my phone. “Interesting.”
I texted him back a simple, “Okay,” and that was it. I didn’t hear anything else from him until around noon.
Do you like Vietnamese food?
Again, I paused. What a random question. Yes. It’s deluckable.
A few moments later, he sent one of those emojis with the question mark around the guy’s head. Deluckable? Are you drinking?
Grinning, I texted him back. No, I’m not drinking. Deluckable is delicious and fuckable in one word. When something is deluckable, it is so delicious that it is fuckable.
A laughing-crying emoji popped up next. You are so strange! And what a dirty mouth! Do you kiss your mother and children with that mouth?
Every damn day.
Will you kiss me with that dirty mouth? Winking emojis.
I sent him a freezing emoticon, followed by a calendar symbol, and a devil emoticon. Cold day in hell. When he sent me more symbols of hysterical laughter, I found myself grinning down at my phone—until my mom walked into the laundry room and caught me. Then I scowled and stuffed the damn phone into my back pocket.
Later in evening before dinner, Marco called me. Well, not exactly me. He called my phone, but with the sounds of a bustling city in the background, he asked to speak to Gavin Jr. and Cora. For fifteen minutes, my son rambled on about his first day of school. He even told Marco things he hadn’t told me, like how the girl he sat next to in class was “really pretty.” Okay, that part made me a little jealous. He hardly knew Marco, but he told him first about the pretty girl.
After Gavi, he spoke with Cora for a few minutes before she passed the phone back to me.
“I am going home to pack, and then I have to fly to Anchorage.”
“Alaska?” I asked stupidly.
“Well, there is an Anchorage in New Jersey, Kentucky, Utah, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, and Texas,” he said, all amused and whatnot. “Oh, and there is an Anchorage in the U.K., but yes, I
am going to Anchorage, Alaska. I will call you when I land.”
“But…but why?”
“Because I will want to hear your voice.”
“I mean why Alaska?”
He laughed. “I will have to tell you another time, Tesoro. Time is short, and I do not want to waste it speaking of work. I’d rather hear about your day.”
“Uh, my day?” Good grief. Why did I sound more and more like an idiot?
“Yes. Tell me about your day.”
I let out a breath, making my cheeks puff out as I smashed potatoes in a bowl. “Well, after the kids left for school, I had to go food shopping. Everything that had been left in the fridge had to be thrown out when we got back…”
I was surprised how easily my words came after that. How easy it was to just…talk. It had been a long time since anyone had cared about how an average day in my life went. Don’t get me wrong, people have asked, but it had always been just a perfunctory question, not an inquiry they really cared to have an answer to. Marco didn’t “yeah” and “uh huh” me to death. He actually carried his fair share of the conversation.
At the end of the call, I showed Marco I cared the best way I could. “Don’t get eaten by wolves.”
“Will you cry for me if I do?”
I snorted. “Don’t count on it.”
“Cruel, cruel woman. I will talk to you soon.”
“Okay.” After a hesitancy that made me want to smack myself in the forehead, I winced and added, “Have a safe trip, Marco.”
His voice softened. “Thank you, Lydia.”
It was fifteen hours before I heard from again, and I hated every blasted minute.
The next couple weeks Marco seemed to be all over the place. He flew back to New York a couple days later, where he stayed for only a day before he had to shoot down to Philly. From Philly he went to North Carolina, and then returned to Philly. Then he went back to New York, up to Boston for a day, and back down the coast to New Jersey.
We texted all throughout the day every day, spoke every morning, at least once in the afternoons, and every night while I was in bed. The nighttime conversations were my favorite, because I was relaxed and comfortable, and we both had so much to say. We spent hours on the phone. It always started out the same—he would ask me about my day, or I’d ask him about his, and it never took long before we’d branch off to something unrelated.
Every day I learned something new about him, like his favorite color—navy blue. His favorite childhood memory—a family vacation to Greece. The names of all his nieces and nephews—most of which I forgot pretty quickly. I heard his humiliating stories, like the time he caught a stomach bug but didn’t want to miss an important meeting and ended up pooping his pants. Hysterical. He told me stories of his various travels across the globe, described in detail the cultures of the different places he’d visited. We had a heated but interesting argument about politics. He talked about his parents and siblings, and I talked about my mom and sister. We had a ludicrous discussion about the possibility of a zombie apocalypse and how we would survive. I’d laughed throughout that entire conversation, even though Marco had been mostly serious and passionate about Zombie Apocalypse Awareness.
That was another thing. Marco made me laugh, like really laugh. The kind of laughing that made my entire body ache afterward. I never thought that I would be able to laugh like that again…
I talked about myself, but only if there was nothing very emotional attached to the subject. I never spoke about Gavin, Sr., or the nightmares that Cora had sometimes where she woke up in hysterics and needed to be convinced that I had not died like her dad. I didn’t discuss my nightmares, either. We also didn’t discuss the injuries I’d sustained from the accident, even on the nights it was obvious that I was in agony. Marco would only say that he wished he could somehow ease my pain. It made me think of his hand on my knee that night at the cabin, how close we’d been. I could still feel the warmth of his body sometimes.
I did eventually tell him I wanted to go back to work and my reasons why. I even told him about the argument I’d had with my mom about it. He didn’t coddle me and blindly support me just because he had some feelings for me, but he didn’t dismiss my thoughts and how I felt, either.
“Before I make any major business decisions, I write a list of all possible outcomes,” he explained. “Some of them are very obvious. I could choose the wrong property to invest in and lose. Some of my outcomes are very bizarre. How would that location hold up during a zombie apocalypse?”
“Seriously?”
“Zombies are not just science fiction!”
My eyes rolled, but I was trying not to laugh. “Okay. Continue.”
“So, I give myself a deadline to write down all these outcomes, depending on what kind of timeline I am working with and how big the project is. Sometimes I only have a few hours. Other times I have had weeks. I make a column for the good and a column for the bad and weigh them out. Honestly, I sometimes take on a contract even though the bad column is longer than the good column. It is all about quality over quantity. You need to do the same. Write down all the possible outcomes, rank them good or bad, and then decide. If you still cannot decide, that is when you ask for a second and third opinion.”
“Seems like a lot to do just to figure out whether or not I should go back to work. “I won’t be making multi-million-dollar decisions.”
“Maybe not multi-million-dollar decisions, but they are no less important. How will your decision effect not only you but each of your kids, and you cannot think of them as a whole. Each of them will react differently. How will your decision effect your mother? Her health? And yours? Will your schedule work with Maureen’s schedule? That is only the tip of the iceberg. You have a lot to consider, Tesoro, but don’t let it overwhelm you. Write it all down. Take the time you need to do that and think about it. You are the only one who can make that decision.”
I was impressed. “Wow. That’s actually…decent advice.”
“I told you I am a successful businessman.”
“You aren’t very humble, though.”
He chuckled. “Not about that. Listen, I know we usually speak until you start to snore, but—”
“I don’t snore!”
“You do, but it’s okay, Tesoro. È carino.”
“What?”
“Cute. It is cute.” As I began to sputter out a response, he talked right over me. “Anyway, I cannot stay on the phone late tonight. I have to pack for another trip.”
I did my best to mask my disappointment. “Where are you going this time?”
“Another trip. Airplane. Boring details.”
I didn’t disagree. There was only so much that could be said about his travels for work. He took a plane, train, or automobile every time, and apart from a smelly seatmate, his trips had been uneventful.
“I will be in touch tomorrow,” he promised.
Honestly, I hated hanging up, but I didn’t let him know that. “Yeah, okay. Whatever. I’ll talk to you when I talk to you.”
As usual, he was unbothered by my coarseness. “Goodnight, beautiful.”
“Goodnight. And…have a safe trip.” I always added the safe travels bit at the very last second, like I didn’t want him to know I cared. I so didn’t care.
I practically felt his grin through the line. “Thank you. Talk to you soon.”
In my bedroom, I sat on my bed thinking about what it would be like to see Marco again. If I were going to be honest with myself, which is harder than one might think, I would have to admit that I had some feelings for him. That, I couldn’t deny any longer, but it didn’t mean that I had to start dating the guy. It wasn’t even like that was an option considering the miles that lay between us and his busy schedule. I had no delusions of him suddenly having the time to come to Ohio, regardless of what he said.
In the back of my mind, I still believed that I was a phase for Marco, maybe someone to pass the time with between business meetings. I
was something new and different from his usual prey, but that newness would wear off. Most likely sooner rather than later. That was also one of the reasons I hadn’t really opened up to him yet. Why would I make myself vulnerable like that to someone who was just going to move on in a matter of weeks, if not days. Maybe he was already moving on. Maybe the trip with the boring details was actually a trip to see some other woman. How would I know, really? It wasn’t like he was abstinent or anything. There were never any promises made.
Ugh. All those thoughts, and none of it really mattered since I wouldn’t date him anyway! Even if he showed up on my doorstep with his heart on a silver platter as an offering to me. It was true that I still grieved over Gavin, but I also grieved for a great deal of other things he didn’t know about. I wasn’t sure if I could ever truly be happy again. Over the years, I’d experienced pockets of happiness—the birth of my children for example. They did make me happy daily, but in a different way. It wasn’t the same kind of pleasure a woman found with a man she loved, or the kind of happiness I could find on my own. Even if a miracle happened and Marco was able to make me a completely happy person, I had doubts that I could do the same for him.
I reached for a pen and notebook and began to write. Marco’s idea of writing down all the possible outcomes of getting a job was a good one, but he probably wouldn’t have guessed that he would be the subject of my first list.
For an hour, I wrote out every possible outcome I could think of for letting myself fall for Marco Mangini. I had to be honest about myself and how I felt about him, and I had to dig into the bucket of shit I always tried not to think of. At the end, after I’d tallied up all the possibilities, I should’ve been relieved and felt justified, but I didn’t. Instead, I felt conflicted, because the list of bad outcomes was much longer than the good. Dating Marco Mangini had the high probability of ending in disaster.
Chapter Fourteen
“I will see you tomorrow. Give me a kiss.” I kissed each of the kids.
My mother-in-law, Shawna, closed the sliding door after the kids and I said our goodbyes. “We’ll call you tomorrow before we leave “Just in case you’re out or something.”