by Greg Herren
The name sounded vaguely familiar to me, and I followed her glance across the street to a well-built man trudging through the sand between the dunes away from the beach. He was wearing sandals, a pair of khaki shorts, a short-sleeved shirt with most of the buttons undone, and sunglasses. His dark hair was mussed, and he wasn’t looking in our direction.
“Carlo, darling!” She stood up as she shouted, waving her hand frantically to get his attention.
In the year I’d worked for her, I’d never seen her act this way. Carlo Romaniello looked over with a frown that gradually gave way to a smile. He returned her wave and started walking toward us.
She looked at me like I was an imbecile yet again. “He still hasn’t gotten over his husband’s death,” she hissed at me through her smile. “Such a tragedy. Timothy was so gorgeous. Of course, it’s barely been a year.”
And in that moment I remembered exactly who Carlo Romaniello was. I turned to look again. I had never met the man, but I’d read about him and seen his picture in our magazine as well as in the society pages in the newspapers. He was extremely wealthy—the money came from something inane, a particular joint that a toilet couldn’t operate without, something like that—and as money is wont to do, just kept growing and growing into a vast accumulation of incredible wealth. He was what people used to call “the idle rich,” not really doing anything more than managing his money and his investments. He often sank money into Broadway musical productions and had what seemed to be the magic touch; every show he financed ran for years and won shelfloads of Tony Awards. He was an outspoken advocate for gay rights and was always giving money to gay causes with both hands. Every summer he hosted a huge costume ball fund-raiser for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis at his home in the Hamptons that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.
His marriage to model Timothy Burke in Massachusetts several years earlier was one of the most famous same-sex marriages in the country. Timothy Burke was breathtakingly handsome, with a chiseled body that adorned the cover of designer underwear boxes, billboards, and advertisements in every major publication in the world. Timothy eventually launched his own enormously successful line of designer underwear and swimwear—and had his own cologne as well.
I had a bottle of it in my medicine cabinet at that very moment.
Timothy’s death had been the biggest news story in New York the summer I came to the city—you couldn’t escape it. He’d gone for a swim from the beach at their home in the Hamptons one afternoon, and never came back. His body washed ashore near Montauk a few days later.
I stood politely as he kissed Valerie on the cheek and she introduced us to each other. He smiled at me and shook my hand.
He was much handsomer than he looked in photographs. He was in either his late thirties or early forties. His shoulders were broad, his skin tanned, his waist narrow, and his legs strong and muscular. There was some gray in his jet-black hair, and his open shirt showed some gray in the thick hair in the center of his well-muscled chest. There was a dimple in his chin and stubble on his cheeks. He rubbed his big hands over them ruefully after he asked our waiter for coffee. “Had I known I was going to run into you, Valerie, I would have shaved before going for my morning walk.”
“What brings you to South Beach, Carlo?” Valerie asked, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from warning him not to answer. I knew that look and tone.
Apparently, so did Carlo Romaniello. He waved his hand and smiled slightly. “The same as you, Valerie—sun, sand, sea, rest and relaxation—we don’t need another reason, do we?” He took a deep breath and patted his chest with both hands.
“But surely you can get that at Spindrift?” She turned to me and said, like she was speaking to a child, “Spindrift is his lovely home out in the Hamptons. It’s magnificent.”
A shadow crossed his face briefly at the mention of the house.
My cheeks turned red with embarrassment at her tactlessness.
But the shadow was gone and he smiled back at her, replying simply, “Yes, I do have some business to take care of here. But nothing I can talk about, on the record or off.” His voice was smooth, charming. He smiled and thanked the waiter who set a cup of coffee down in front of him. He took a drink, and turned his attention to me. “And do you only speak when spoken to?”
“I…I, um—”
Valerie sighed in exasperation as I felt my cheeks get redder. “His father was my adviser in college—I hired him as a favor.” She glared at me. “A favor I regret most days.”
His eyes narrowed for a moment, glittering dangerously, and he glanced at his watch. “Oh—I must be going.” He rose and kissed Valerie’s hand. “As always, a delight to see you, Valerie.”
“Perhaps we could have dinner later?”
“I’m afraid I have plans.” He smiled at me. “A pleasure to meet you.”
I nodded, unable to meet his eyes.
“How about lunch tomorrow?” Valerie stood, a desperate tone in her voice I’d never heard before.
He bowed his head slightly. “That would be lovely. Say, one o’clock at La Mirada?”
“Yes, perfect.”
He smiled at me. “Be sure to bring the quiet little church mouse.” He walked back out to the sidewalk, whistling as he walked away from us.
“Too bad he’s gay,” she mused as she picked up her phone and frowned at it. She scowled at me. “Surely I didn’t agree to take a meeting with that has-been Corina Palenzuela this afternoon? That bitch hasn’t had a hit since the turn of the century. Cancel it immediately, and see if you can—”
I started scribbling notes as she fired off instructions, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Carlo Romaniello.
But as I dialed Corina Palenzuela to give her Valerie’s regrets, I knew I would probably never see him again.
There was no way Valerie would let me join them for lunch—even though he’d specifically included me.
Chapter Two
Overnight, Valerie came down with something, some kind of “stomach flu or food poisoning,” her voice gasped through my cell phone at just after six the next morning, “but it might be contagious or something. The concierge has already called a doctor—there’s no sense in your catching it, too.” She sighed. “I’m just going to go back to sleep and pray for death. You might as well take the day off. But oh yes, you must call Carlo Romaniello and cancel lunch.”
“I don’t have his phone number,” I replied, my spirits rising. A day off? In South Beach? I could feel myself smiling in my dark room.
“I don’t have it, either,” she said crossly. “Just start calling the best hotels here. He’ll be at one of them, surely.” And she hung up.
I stared at the phone.
The thought of calling every hotel in South Beach wasn’t in the least bit appealing. And that was assuming he was staying in a hotel and not with friends. He might even have his own condo or place down here. He was certainly rich enough.
I sighed. I could spend the entire morning trying to find him without success—and it certainly wasn’t how I wanted to spend the morning.
After Valerie had gone to bed the night before, I’d stayed up another hour and Googled Carlo Romaniello. The entire first page of links that came up all had to do with Timothy Burke’s tragic death. Even though it made me feel like a ghoul, I couldn’t help myself; I started clicking on the links and read everything I could find.
It had been late May when it happened—so it hadn’t been a full year yet. They’d been married for five years, give or take, when it happened. Timothy had given all of the servants the day off, and late in the afternoon apparently went for a swim in the Atlantic Ocean behind Spindrift. There was a pool, of course, but one of the servants at Spindrift—a Michael Carson—had told the police that Timothy preferred the ocean because he’d grown up on the Gulf of Mexico and was used to salt water. None of the servants knew why he’d given them the day off—he hadn’t given any of them a reason, and so he was alone in the house before he
went for his swim. His cell phone had been found on the beach, along with his towel, his bathing robe, and his sandals; he’d made a call around four thirty to a business associate in the city, who confirmed the call. Timothy’s underwear company was looking into going into swimwear, but Timothy wasn’t certain if it was the right move for Drawers.
“He told me to confirm a meeting with a potential swimwear designer the next week,” the associate recalled. “And he sounded in good spirits. He was happy, and looking forward to moving Drawers forward.”
Carlo came home unexpectedly to find the house empty and no sign of Timothy. When he found Timothy’s things on the beach, he immediately called the Coast Guard and reported him missing.
No trace of him was found, until his body washed ashore at Montauk later the next week.
After the news reports about the inquest—which found that he died as a result of accidental drowning—there were no further mentions of Carlo Romaniello anywhere online. He had apparently gone into seclusion after his husband’s death, and who could blame him?
I also did an image search for Timothy Burke.
I remembered that he’d been handsome and in excellent shape, but I was really only familiar with his image on underwear boxes and in the ads I used to see in magazines. But I always figured those had been touched up, Photoshopped and airbrushed. They had also been stylized, so that sometimes you really couldn’t tell what his face looked like.
But Timothy Burke had been a model long before he married Carlo and became an underwear mogul, and thanks to the Internet, those images were forever.
He’d done a nude photo shoot for a famed celebrity photographer in black and white, and every one of those images was a work of art.
He had enormous brown eyes that stared out of the images like they could see into your soul, under perfectly trimmed and shaped black eyebrows perched on a ridge of bone. His hair was an unusually dark black with hints of blue when the light caught it. His cheekbones were sharp and definitely pronounced, and the cheeks below looked hollowed out. He had thick and sensual lips above a strong and square chin with a dimple in the center. His shoulders were broad and strongly muscled, his tanned skin stretched tightly over chiseled and defined muscles. His nipples were round, his pectorals round and symmetrical. He didn’t have a six-pack of deeply defined abs—I counted eight muscles between his rib cage and his navel. His legs were strongly defined and muscular, and even in the nudes he made sure his genitals weren’t exposed—I remembered reading an interview with him once where he’d said that he wouldn’t do full frontal nudity.
“It’s not that I think it’s bad,” he’d said, “I just like to leave a little mystery, you know? You should always leave them wanting more.”
Jealously, I dismissed the enormous bulge evident in front when he modeled underwear as Photoshopped—until I realized it was evident in every photo of him in skimpy clothing—whether it was underwear, a jock, or a bikini. Even in jeans that bulge was unavoidable.
And the back view was just as magnificent.
I’d sighed and closed my laptop. Across from where I was sitting up in bed, I could see myself in the mirror. I’d kind of thought Carlo Romaniello was flirting with me—or at least showing some interest in me. After all, he’d included me in the lunch date with Valerie.
But what I saw in the mirror wasn’t in the same league as the man in the images I’d been looking at.
Obviously he was simply being really polite.
I turned off the light and slept fitfully until Valerie’s call woke me at six.
I ordered coffee from room service and got out the South Beach phone book from the drawer in the nightstand and flipped it open to hotels. Obviously, the budget hotels and lower end ones could be ruled out—surely a man as wealthy as Carlo Romaniello wouldn’t be staying at a Best Western or a Motel 6.
It was far too early to try reaching him, anyway.
I got out of the bed and took a shower, shaving and going through all my usual morning rituals, and had just finished getting dressed when the knock came on the door with my coffee and yogurt. I took the coffee out onto the balcony and drank it while I watched the gorgeous sunrise over the ocean. It really is beautiful here, I thought as I finished the yogurt, and I know I shouldn’t be glad that she’s sick—but I am, and I’m going to make the most of this day off down here.
I imagined what the call would be like when I finally reached Carlo Romaniello:
“Mr. Romaniello? Hi, I’m sorry to bother you, but Valerie Franklin has to cancel lunch. She’s not feeling well.”
“How unfortunate, please give her my best wishes. Is this the handsome young man who was with her yesterday in the café?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Please call me Carlo. I was serious, of course, when I told you I wanted you to join us for our lunch date today. I would be most appreciative if you would still join me. Please don’t leave me to lunch alone.”
“I would like that very much, Carlo.”
It was an enjoyable little fantasy to indulge in over breakfast.
Around eight, I started calling hotels. But after trying three with no luck, I conceded defeat. He’d never said he was staying on South Beach. He could be in a hotel on the mainland—he could be in a hotel in Fort Lauderdale or Palm Beach, for that matter. I didn’t want to waste my free morning making futile phone calls to every hotel in southeastern Florida. I knew where he would be at one o’clock—La Mirada restaurant—so I would just show up there at twelve thirty and wait for him outside. Valerie wouldn’t like it, of course—I could already hear her screaming “I told you to call him!” once she found out—but it wouldn’t be the first time she screamed at me, nor would it be the last.
So, I took care of the e-mails and other business I needed to do for her, and at ten o’clock I walked out the front doors of the hotel onto Ocean Drive. I crossed over and walked through the dunes and stood there, watching the green foamy waves coming ashore on the beautiful beach. It wasn’t very crowded—it was a midweek morning in mid-May, after all—but there were some people taking advantage of the sun and the heat. I decided to buy a swimsuit and spend the afternoon in the water. I crossed back over to Ocean Drive and spent the morning haunting shops looking for an affordable bathing suit—one that wasn’t too immodest. Some of the guys on the beach I’d seen had been in bikinis or square-cut trunks—but I didn’t have the kind of body that could pull off something skimpy or sexy. I wanted something that would cover me up and hide my lack of tan and muscles, like board shorts. I wasted some time going into expensive shops, where I was completely ignored by the sales clerks—who apparently had some kind of radar or sixth sense that let them know I couldn’t possibly afford anything in their store—before finally finding a discount shop with something I could afford—a fifteen-dollar pair of navy blue board shorts.
It was exactly twelve thirty when I made it to La Mirada.
It was getting hotter, and I was damp with sweat from all the walking around. I finished the large iced mocha I’d gotten at a ubiquitous Starbucks and tossed it into a garbage can.
La Mirada wasn’t that expensive, actually, according to the menu mounted under glass on the wall to the left of the glass doors. The food seemed to be some kind of funky fusion of American staples and Caribbean food, and the smells wafting out made my stomach growl. I was starving, so I made up my mind. If Carlo Romaniello’s invitation the day before had merely been politeness, I would go ahead and treat myself to lunch there.
It was about five minutes before one when a town car with darkened windows pulled up in front of the restaurant. The back door opened, and Carlo Romaniello got out. He was wearing white linen pants and a lemon yellow pullover shirt. He smiled at me, lifting up his sunglasses as he looked around. “I see you, church mouse, but I don’t see Valerie.” His tone was light and jocular, and his smile got broader. “Has Lady Luck smiled on me this fine May day in south Florida? Does this mean the Dragon Lady won’t be joi
ning us?”
“I—” I had planned out everything I was going to say, spent the better part of the morning working on witty opening lines in my head as I wandered from store to store, coming up with clever bons mots that would impress him with my sophistication and intelligence.
But now that he was standing directly in front of me with an amused smile on his handsome face, my tongue tripped over itself and I couldn’t remember anything I’d planned to say—even the stupid lines I’d dismissed. I could feel my face turning red, and I finally managed to blurt out, “Valerie’s not feeling well. I would have called…”
“But of course you didn’t have my number, nor did you know where I was staying,” he finished for me, his smile never wavering. His face relaxed and his eyes lit up. “I do hope that you will take pity on me under the circumstances, and join me so I won’t have to lunch alone? I really don’t like eating alone, Church Mouse. It would be an enormous favor to me.” He sounded completely sincere.
“I—of course, I’m sorry, I—” I stammered, wishing a hole would open up in the sidewalk and swallow me. I had hoped—but never dared to believe he would actually want my company.
“Let’s go inside, then, and get out of this sun,” he replied. He took me by the hand and led me inside. He caught the attention of the hostess, and we were seated a table with a lovely view within a matter of minutes.
As soon as I sat down, I hid my reddened face behind a menu.
“Do you intend to hide behind your menu until we order?” he asked in pleasantly amused tone, and I didn’t need to see his face to know he was smiling at me.
Now even more mortified, I lowered the menu. He was indeed smiling, but had lifted his left eyebrow and cocked his head to one side as he looked at me from across the table. I could feel even more blood rushing to my face—which surely was by then turning am even darker shade of purple.