The Exceptions

by David Cristofano

  Our conversation slows as we reach the core of downtown, ends the moment I pull in front of the entrance to the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel. What we concluded: We are indeed quite alike, with one glaring exception. Melody would give anything to be who she was meant to be, and I would give anything to be anyone but who I was meant to be.

  EIGHT

  I leave the car running, get out and open the door for Melody. She takes my hand and exits, absorbs her surroundings as I grab my overnight bag and all the clothing-filled shopping bags out of my trunk. The valet hands her the ticket for the Audi and she looks at it like she was given some foreign currency.

  I tilt my head for Melody to follow me into the lobby, and throughout the entire walk she remains a few steps behind, looking around the place like it’s a museum. The hotel gives off a vibe of money—that it requires a lot to stay here and the patrons have no problem forking it over—but I chose this place for a different reason: It sits directly across from the harbor, with the same view I had when I watched the people of the city through the narrow gap between buildings. I want Melody to glimpse her future.

  I drop my bags at the desk and begin fishing through my pockets for all the buried wads of cash. It’s everywhere: multiple pockets of my jeans, in my jacket, crumpled up on the bottom of my overnight bag. Melody catches up, stands next to me like a daughter. I can sense her watching me, her eyes never leaving my face.

  A lady behind the desk approaches, a refined middle-ager with hair pulled so tightly into a bun it renders her eyebrows immobile. She welcomes us, smiles like it’s been drawn on her skin with a magic marker.

  “Have you stayed with us before, sir?”

  I locate my biggest wad and pull it out, uncurl the currency. “We have not.”

  “May I have your reservation number?”

  I start counting bills. “We don’t have a reservation.”

  So here’s how the process works: I am a grungy guy boasting a thick five o’clock shadow, standing next to his strung-out-looking girlfriend, walking in with no reservation. Prepare for the blow-off.

  “Well, sir, there’s a convention in the hotel. I’m afraid there’re no—”

  I chuck several hundred dollars on the counter. “We’d like two rooms, adjoining, facing the harbor. Two nights.” I keep counting bills because a second wad will be required right…

  “Uh, sure. Let me see.” She types for a moment. “Do you have a major credit card?”

  Now. I drop a slightly larger wad on the counter. Of course I have a credit card. Am I going to use it so the feds can easily find out where we are? I’m thinking no. When I’m in New York, my name does all the work; everywhere else cash acts as the grease. I determined years ago that some hotel clerks are like hosts at restaurants: A wad of cash brings the best room or table. Name and money, the first and second rules of thumb growing up Bovaro.

  She prints off the agreement, some paper covered in small print, asks me to sign it. I go to the bottom and scribble gibberish in the spot for my name. I shove the door cards in my pocket, slip a bag-filled fist behind Melody in an effort to guide her, and walk us to the elevators.

  I press the up button and a car immediately opens. We walk into what feels like a large coffin with an interior composed of mirrors. Melody catches a glimpse of herself and turns down and away. I put all the shopping bags in one hand, reach over and smile and pull her to me, bring her to my chest. She rests herself against me. I kiss the top of her head, say nothing.

  We exit one floor from the top of the hotel and find our rooms. I open the door to the suite on the right and allow Melody to walk in first. I put her bags down near the dresser, say, “These are all for you. Hope I wasn’t being too presumptuous.”

  Melody sits on the bed, bounces lightly on it a few times giving it a little test drive, looks around the room with the slow steady movement of a surveillance camera. For a woman who’s spent so much time in hotels and motels, she looks uncertain of her surroundings.

  I walk over to the window, open the blinds, and stare out over the harbor. And just as I’m about to call her over and show her what I wanted her to see, I am awash in disappointment: The view is nearly identical to the one from my room at the hotel in Norfolk. Truly, both views display brick-lined harbors, milling pedestrians, an array of skyscrapers, pavilions with shops and restaurants. This could be Columbus, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Des Moines. Another cookie-cutter, master-planned design that she does not need in her life. How often had she been relocated where some guy waved his hand across the land and said, “Look! Isn’t this great?” I have become as useless and ineffective as the feds. I turn away, start biting my thumbnail.

  “Why did you book two nights?” she asks.

  I don’t have an answer to offer—at least, not one she should hear. The truth: I want all of the hits to be completed, for Melody and I to be the last to arrive, to return home after all is well—not amidst the chaos and concern. Or: If things collapse, I want us to be nowhere near New York, out of striking distance if the feds’ plan is more complete and successful than ours. But more to the immediate point, I need time for everyone to return to New York so I can avoid being asked to meet up with our crew somewhere on the way—and having someone else finish Melody off before I can get her to New York safely. I walk to the bed and sit down next to her, keep a distance between us.

  I finally answer, “Thought you might like a day in the spa here in the hotel. Figured, you know, you might enjoy getting pampered for a change.”

  She looks down and laughs a little; it appears to have been the last thing she expected as a response. “I don’t know what to say.” She plays with the back of her head, rubs her hair up and down in a smooth motion. I slide closer and put my hand on her shoulder; it seems to increase her discontent, the stiffness of her shoulder suggesting a restless longing for better circumstances. I’m the best she’s got, and I’m a pretty sizable question mark.

  I rise because I do not want to mislead her, do not want her to think in any way that my intentions for her are anything but the best I have to give. I walk to the window again and stare at a cluster of office buildings.

  “There’s nothing in this for me, Melody. We’re not in the same room. You can leave anytime you want, okay?” I turn around and face her. Her knees are bent and her toes are pointed inward, arms crossed like she has a chill. I see the little girl again. “I’ll be really disappointed if you decide to leave, but… it’s totally up to you. I would never try to keep you here. I want you to want to be here. I want you to know that I understand the distance of the narrow tunnel that will set you free. You just have to trust that I can navigate you through it.” She looks to me with her lips firmly pressed together, like a platitude is not what she needs at the moment. So I give her something the feds likely never did: honesty. “The tunnel’s very, very narrow, Melody. I’m sure you understand that. But unlike Justice, I know what’s on the other side.”

  Melody bites the inside of her cheek, eventually nods. I want her to view me as the solution, not just the better option.

  I open the adjoining door and chuck my overnight bag on the bed across the room. “I’m just one knock away, okay?” And sure, as soon as I say it I realize that had to have been the closing line from every marshal she’s ever known.

  She nods and her eyes fill. She turns away and whispers, “Okay.”

  “Good night, Melody.” I close the door, leave it unlocked. I put my ear to the wall and listen for sniffles or outright crying, but neither ever come.

  I walk to my bathroom and flip on the vent and reach for my smokes, hold them in my hand like a gun. I study the corrosive little tubes of relief as two thoughts hit me at the same time: (1) I am a socially acceptable, less destructive version of Gardner, enslaved to an addiction, so lazy and unwilling to give it up that I’m permitting it to destroy me. This thought—the fact that Gardner and I have some trait in common—sickens me, and; (2) if Melody can surrender her life to me, the least
I can do to exemplify a man of discipline, a man that can deliver the goods, is give up a ridiculous dependency.

  And like any addict, like every loser and scumbag who comes to my family saddled with a need for money to get a fix, I rationalize the one last time scenario. Sure, I’m going to give up cigs, but I’ll just smoke one more. One final time, and then it’s over.

  I stare at the pack in my hand for a long time before I squeeze the death out of it, clench my fist so tightly that the cigarette papers tear and tobacco spills out. The smell drives me frigging nuts. I empty it all into the toilet, then empty the other two packs from my overnight bag into the can as well, and flush my addiction right into Baltimore’s sewers, down the Patapsco River, into the Chesapeake Bay.

  So, around five in the morning I wake up with an unbearable headache and a wave of nausea that I’d liken to salmonella poisoning. There’s the sweat, too.

  I stumble out of bed and put my ear to the adjoining door—takes all my might to keep from opening it and peeking in—and I swear I hear the sound of utensils hitting a plate and a cup hitting a saucer, the soundtrack of working in the restaurant business; I’d recognize that clinking anywhere.

  I turn on the shower, strip down, and get in while the water is still cold, try to wash the withdrawal away. No matter how clean I make my body, how close I shave, or how well I brush my teeth, the misery keeps coming, and introduces me to its not so distant cousin: anxiety.

  I dry off and stand in front of the fogged mirror, close my eyes, and inhale steam. As I’m combing my hair, my cell phone rings.

  I answer it and hear this: “No update.”

  “Die! Die, you frigging no-good scumbag porcaccione. Non me ne importa un cavolo!” I slap the phone shut, rub my eyes for a second, then slip my cell in my pocket.

  I walk out of the bathroom and get dressed, listen one more time for Melody—still with the clinking—then quickly make my way to the front desk.

  I walk up to the only person there, an older guy dressed well enough to indicate he’s management. “Nearest pharmacy?”

  “Yes, sir. Twenty-four-hour CVS up the block.” He points as though I can see through the mahogany-paneled walls.

  I run across the empty lanes of the street, become the only patron of the dormant store, buy every box of 4 mg Nicorette they have left in stock (smoking might be cheaper), and pop a few in my mouth as I walk to the counter to pay. It doesn’t take long before the comfort of the drug is back in my veins—a partial defeat; were I a smack addict, this would be my methadone—but I still run back to the hotel. The last time I turned my back on Melody, I spent the day sniffing around Baltimore like a dog who couldn’t find his way home.

  I hurry back to my room, lose my breath on the way. Friggin’ cigarettes.

  It’s nearly seven o’clock, and this time when I put my ear to Melody’s door, I faintly hear the turning of pages. I sit on the edge of my bed, collect my thoughts along with my breath, then call down to the front desk and ask to be transferred to the spa. The guy I spoke with regarding the pharmacy tells me the spa does not open for a few more minutes—at seven—but that I can hold.

  When I get the lady on the phone, our conversation goes like this:

  “I’d like to make an appointment for my… friend,” I say. “Female.”

  “Of course. What day and time?”

  “Today, an hour from now.”

  “Oh, no, I’m sorry, sir. We’re booked for the next eleven days, the next opening I have is on the—”

  I hang up. What’s the point, really? Obviously, this transaction needs to occur in person. Name and money, my friend. Name and money.

  Fifteen minutes and a few hundred later Melody has appointments scheduled that run from eight-thirty all the way to four in the afternoon, so she’ll be finished around five. I don’t even understand what they are, was told women love them, even got the pleasure-indicating eye roll as punctuation.

  I stall in my room until eight—banging on Melody’s door before that seems too rude, after that seems too lackadaisical—upon which I exit into the hall and knock on her hallway door.

  Melody opens it and laughs at me, props herself in the doorway. She looks fresh and clean and caffeinated, is wearing the robe from the bathroom. “You could’ve come through the adjoining door, you know.” Then she readjusts her robe—an attempt at tightening it—but when she pulls the left side out to stretch it over, I can’t help but notice a margin of her breast that suggests she’s wearing only the robe.

  “It seemed a little… inappropriate,” I say. “Like I had some right to be in your room anytime I wanted.” She slumps down a little and crosses her calves as she stands in the doorway, and as she does her left leg is exposed all the way to her upper thigh and the V opens up in her robe again, and now I’m certain she has nothing else on. I keep eye contact but my peripheral vision takes her all in, the shape of her body, the smooth curve of her chest, the overcast valley between. I could provide a sketch artist with enough details to keep him busy for a week. The shape of her jawline and the way it casts a shadow on her neck, the delicate question-mark shape of her ears, how her eyelashes gently sway like wisps of wheat whenever she blinks. People often suggest God has a sense of humor; there is no disputing He has a sense of artistry.

  I bite my lip, glance down the hall as though something legitimate took my attention away. She slides to the side and waves me in.

  “Sorry to disturb you so early, but I got you in the spa at eight-thirty.” Her room smells like the kitchen at Sylvia.

  “They had an opening?”

  I shrug. “I made an opening.” She looks at me like she’s simultaneously impressed and disappointed. “It’s all smoke and mirrors. Bovaro means something in New York. Money means something everywhere else.”

  “You say that like you have no respect for yourself.”

  I think for a moment, struggle to make eye contact. “I don’t.”

  She takes a step closer. “You seem like a decent guy to me, Jonathan.”

  “Let’s be honest: What you mean is I seem like a decent guy, respectively.”

  “I’ve been told a lot about your family over the years. Granted, the people doing the telling aren’t exactly your advocates, but you really don’t seem to fully fit the profile.”

  Ask Willie. Ask Ettore (if you could). Ask anyone, really.

  “I’ve never had to work hard at anything in my life,” I say. Except this. “I’m trying, though. I want to be fair and honest. I mean, it would mean so much more if the cash I was throwing around was money I’d earned from being a talented chef or a successful restaurateur—even if I’d legitimately won it at the track. I mean, most of my income comes from aboveboard sources, but the rest poisons the whole wad.” She nods a little. “Do I smell sausage?”

  She slinks in front of a room service tray in the corner of the room. “I took the liberty. Sorry, I was famished.”

  “No, good move. We won’t have time to eat before your spa appointments anyway.”

  “Plural?”

  I walk right up to her, rub her shoulder in a nonsensual way. “The whole day is yours. You’re getting the works: massage, facial, hair, manicure, pedicure, some sort of upper-echelon skin treatment, and a couple of things I didn’t really understand and probably can’t pronounce correctly.”

  She stares at me. “So, I’ll be done around…”

  “Dinnertime.”

  The narrow space between us disappears as she stands on her toes and throws her arms around my neck. She closes her eyes and gives me the gentlest kiss I have ever received, presses her lips to mine and keeps them there long enough to knock the power from me, then she runs her fingers up the back of my neck, slowly moves her mouth to my ear and whispers, “Something this thoughtful could only come from the money you earned.”

  I swallow, reluctantly hold her in my arms. As we embrace I squeeze her back, unable to deny how perfectly the shape of her body rests in my hands. I try to breathe
but I cannot inhale deeply enough. She pulls back a little, keeps her eyes on me and twists her arms around my neck, and as she drops down from her toes, her robe falls open.

  Have you ever walked into a kitchen that smells so good you can’t resist having a taste of what’s cooking? In our house, there was always a loaf of crusty bread sitting on the counter near the stove, available for anyone who wanted to tear off a hunk and plunge it into whatever sauce had been simmering. In the open space between the left and right side of her robe lies a temptation that could never be matched by any gastronomic allure. I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted to touch something this badly. And I can’t tell if she notices she exposed herself to me or if she’s aware and willing to let me indulge, but I know I’m not what she needs. And so, no matter the scents coming from the kitchen, I’m determined to keep myself on a strict diet.

  Watch this self-frigging-control.

  I lock my eyes on hers, concentrate like I’m trying to read her mind. I carefully bring my hands around to her front, gently grab the edges of her robe—I do not touch her skin—and pull them together. She and I look down and watch me tie the belt.

  I press my lips together. “I’m picking up a hollandaise.”

  She squints, feigns annoyance. “And to think I let you in my room at such an unscrupulous hour.”

  “Tastes like those bastards used tarragon vinegar instead of fresh lemon. If one of my chefs did that, he’d be at the bottom of the East River. Want me to take the guy out?”

  “Have him drawn and quartered.”

  “Eh, horses are a hassle. Gimme your coffee spoon. I’ll file it into a shiv.”

  We smile at each other, then she tosses a question my way. What I thought would be a pillow turns out to be a grenade: “Have you ever killed anyone?”

  I smirk, look up to the corners of her room for a camera or microphone, then answer loudly, “No.”