The Girl I Didn't Marry

by Annabelle Costa

  I find a handful of photos of him online, and I realize that Chrissy wasn’t exaggerating about something else: how hot Nick is. I remember him being good looking, but I forgot the way just looking at him made my heart speed up. Even on the computer screen, those dark eyes are penetrating.

  You can’t tell in any of the photos that Nick is in a wheelchair, but I believe Chrissy. There’s no reason she’d lie about that. I wonder if it’s something he tries to conceal about himself.

  One thing he can’t conceal is that he’s obviously a player. In every photo, he’s got his arm around a different beautiful woman. And when I say beautiful, I mean that these women are on a whole other level of gorgeous. Chrissy might be close, but I’m not. It’s clear that I’m not anywhere in Nick’s league anymore.

  No wonder he didn’t ask Chrissy about me.

  I find one picture of him by himself. He’s staring straight ahead at the camera, a bemused expression on his handsome features. I remember him looking at me that way. Even though it’s just a grainy photo, it’s like he’s right here in the room with me.

  God, I miss him.

  I frown at the computer screen, wondering if I’ve been kidding myself all these years. I thought I was in love with Seth and that I’d be happy to spend my life with him. But now that I’m looking at a photo of Nick, all those feelings are coming back to me. I’ve never loved Seth the way I loved Nick. And I’m not sure I ever will.

  Maybe I should call Chrissy and try to get his number after all.

  If I called Nick, what would he say? Certainly, he’d remember me. Would he still have feelings for me? Or would he think I’m pathetic for calling him when our relationship is ancient history?

  Maybe I should start with an email address. It would be less painful if he shot me down by email.

  I’m going to do it. I’m going to call Chrissy and get Nick’s email address. And then… well, we’ll see what happens.

  Chapter 47

  Nick

  It didn’t take long to find Eduardo Romero.

  I would have asked Wendy to do it, since I trust her with my life. But Wendy’s got a ten-year-old son at home and I didn’t want to involve her in anything sketchy. So I brought in Chrissy.

  “The name is Eduardo Romero,” I told her. “You think you can get me a phone number?”

  “No problem, boss,” Chrissy said.

  “Also,” I added, “I need you to be discreet about this. Nobody finds out I asked you for this guy’s number.”

  Chrissy smiled at me. “What guy?”

  She had his number a day later. That girl is resourceful.

  Getting Eddie Romero to meet me was a whole different deal. When I called him, he was pleasant enough when he found out I was the son of Angelo Moretti. But he wasn’t interested in meeting up with me. “I only deal with your dad,” he told me in the raspy voice of someone who’s smoked two packs a day for forty years.

  “My father’s in the hospital,” I told him. “And I need your services—now.”

  “Fine,” Eddie eventually grumbled. “My friend Otto got a bar on Mulberry Street. There’s a room upstairs that I meet people in. Real quiet.”

  “I can’t do upstairs,” I said. “Not unless there’s an elevator.”

  Eddie was quiet for a second before saying, “Oh right. You’re the one in the wheelchair.”

  “Come to my office,” I told him. “It’s safe to talk here. I swear.”

  “No offense, kid,” Eddie said, “but I don’t trust your office. And I’m not sure I trust you.”

  “You can trust me,” I said.

  “Oh yeah? Just cuz you say so?”

  I had been holding a few cards with Eddie and I decided to play one of them: “Because I know you’re the one who hit the guys who did this to me.”

  It was years later that I found the article. Three teens shot in Hoboken. Thought to be gang related, but the perpetrator was never found. But I knew that Eddie Romero was the one who did it. Justice, in my father’s eyes. Except it’s not really justice because I’m still alive and they’re all dead.

  “Shit,” Eddie muttered. “What the hell is wrong with you, kid, sayin’ that on the phone? You don’t know who could be listening!”

  “Come to my office. Nobody is listening here.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I get the place swept for bugs,” I admitted.

  Eddie finally agreed to come, but I could tell he was reluctant. There were probably other guys I could’ve got to do what I wanted Eddie to do, but I trusted this man more than anyone. He’d been undyingly loyal to my father for many years. And now I wanted his loyalty as well.

  Eddie shows up at my office on a Tuesday evening. I’d already sent Wendy home, telling her I’d be heading out soon to see Pop at the hospital. The doctors promised my father would be off the ventilator soon, but I wasn’t so sure. I visited him every single morning, and he still looked gray and sick. Even if he survived, I couldn’t imagine he’d ever be half the man he once was.

  I’d caught glimpses of Eddie Romero over the years, but this was the first time I’d actually met him. He’s short and scrappy-looking, with a gray moustache, a bulbous nose, and white hair that he wears in a ponytail. I wheel around my desk to shake his hand, and he gives me such a flimsy handshake that I can tell right off the bat he doesn’t respect me or anything I got to say to him.

  “You sure don’t remind me much of your father,” Eddie comments as he looks me over.

  That’s meant to be an insult. I let it roll off me. “I need your help, Mr. Romero.”

  “I don’t know if there’s anything I could do for a guy like you, Mr. Moretti,” Eddie says.

  “Call me Nick,” I say.

  Eddie shrugs. He doesn’t offer me the same courtesy.

  “So here’s the deal,” I tell him. “You know who Marco Russo is?”

  “Maybe I do,” Eddie says. That’s a yes.

  “Pop has a contract with him to do work on our hotel,” I explain. “We paid him, but he’s not holding up his end of the bargain.”

  “I ain’t no lawyer, kid,” Eddie says. He pulls a pack of Marlboros out of his pocket and shakes one out of the pack.

  “You can’t smoke in here,” I tell him. He looks like he’s about to protest and then I nod my head up at the ceiling. “There’s a smoke detector up there that will set off the sprinklers in this room. They’re very sensitive. Please put away the cigarettes.”

  Eddie shoves the cigarettes back in his pocket, not looking any happier. I didn’t think I had a good chance with Russo, but I feel confident I can persuade Eddie. I’ve been watching my father deal with men like Eddie my whole life. I know what to say.

  “The contract Russo has with my father is a piece of shit,” I say. “He’s within his rights to screw us over. I talked to him, but he’s not being at all reasonable.”

  He shrugs again. “Russo’s not an easy man to deal with.”

  I lean back in my chair and look over Eddie Romero. “How much would my father pay you to talk to a guy like Russo?”

  Eddie looks like he’s considering denying he ever did such a thing, but then he names a price. One I bet is higher than Pop ever actually paid him.

  “I’ll give you twice that,” I say.

  His eyes widen. “Okay. I’m listening…”

  “A guy like you,” I say, “I bet you could get into Russo’s home. Am I right?”

  Eddie nods. “Maybe I could…” That’s another yes.

  “Supposing you could,” I say. I lean in close to Eddie, my voice lowering several notches. “This is what I’d like you to do…”

  I tell him everything I want him to say and do. In detail. Eddie listens, his eyes growing wider. I can see him gripping his knees until his knuckles turn white.

  “Holy shit,” he finally says. “You ain’t messing around, are you?”

  “No,” I say quietly. “I’m not.”

  “And are you prepared to
make good on all that?” he says. “If Russo don’t put his guys back to work.”

  “Yes,” I say simply.

  Eddie is silent for a minute, his hand scratching the gray stubble on his chin as he thinks it over. His eyes narrow at me. “You know, Nick,” he says, “you actually do remind me of your father.”

  “Yeah?” I say.

  “You got the same look in your eyes,” Eddie says. He smiles crookedly. “It’s a little scary, if I’m being honest.”

  “Do we have a deal, Mr. Romero?” I say.

  “Call me Eddie,” he says. “And yeah, we got a deal.”

  Chapter 48

  Jessie

  Seth was supposed to be home an hour ago.

  I made dinner. It’s ramen noodles but cooked an entirely different and creative way, in an alfredo sauce. Forty-five minutes ago, I put it on the coffee table, where we eat most of the meals in this tiny apartment. Now it’s cold and the cheese sauce is congealed.

  I’ve been calling Seth on his cell phone with no response. I don’t know where the hell he is and I’m terrified. The neighborhood we live in isn’t exactly the safest, but the place where his office is looks like a demilitarized zone. I’m terrified to set foot there, which is probably another part of why he doesn’t get many clients.

  I keep thinking of when Chrissy told me that Nick got shot. I imagine Seth lying in the street, bloody and dying. I want to go out and look for him, but I wouldn’t know where to begin. And I’m not excited about wandering around that neighborhood alone at night.

  What can I do? I can’t call the police and tell them that my boyfriend is an hour late getting home. They’d laugh at me.

  But I just have this feeling. This horrible feeling that something bad happened. It’s so strong that it becomes a certainty in my head.

  Something terrible has happened. I know it. And it’s my fault for considering asking for Nick’s email address. This is my punishment—it’s karma.

  I pick up the phone to call Seth yet again when I hear the keys in the lock of the apartment. My heart leaps as I see Seth stumble through the door, looking tired but very much alive.

  I know I should just be happy he’s okay, but the first thing I do is run over to him and scream, “Where the hell have you been? You were supposed to be home an hour ago!”

  Seth lifts his tired brown eyes. “Seriously, Jess? I don’t need this right now.”

  No. I’m not letting him off the hook after the hell I just went through. “Where were you?”

  “Working,” he snaps at me. “Trying to keep my practice from entirely sinking.”

  “You could have called me,” I point out. “Or at least answered my calls. I called you like ten times!”

  “I shut my phone off,” he says with a shrug. “I needed to concentrate.”

  That sick feeling that had briefly vanished from my gut now returns. “So you purposely ignored me.”

  “Quit being a pain in the ass, Jess,” he mutters. “I’m not beholden to you. If I want to shut my phone off and get some work done, I’m allowed.”

  “Well, that’s good to know,” I retort. “Maybe I’ll just take off now and not tell you where I’m going.”

  “Excellent,” Seth says. He unbuttons the top button of his dress shirt and wanders into the kitchen in search of food that’s better than my cold ramen noodles. “Why don’t you fuck off? I’ll see you when I see you.”

  I glare at him. I’d like to storm out to teach him a lesson, but I think it would be worse for me than it would be for him. Where would I go? I don’t have any friends that I feel close enough to call at ten o’clock at night and ask to crash at their place. I’m afraid to even leave the building at this hour.

  While I’m standing there fuming, my cell phone rings. I grab it from off the kitchen counter and see a number I don’t recognize. Well, at least I know it’s not the police, telling me that Seth has been shot to death.

  “Hello,” a breathless voice says on the other line. “Jessica? It’s your mother.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Hi.”

  I frown in confusion. Ever since leaving Bensonhurst, I haven’t looked back. I do talk to my mother from time to time, but never my father. I haven’t been to their apartment once since I was eighteen. Mom knows if she wants to see me, she has to come out to Manhattan.

  Except why is my mother calling me from an unfamiliar number?

  “Where are you?” I ask in response to the silence on the other line.

  “The hospital,” she says.

  I grip the phone tighter in my fist. The rage at my father that has been simmering under the surface for nearly a decade rises up in my chest. “Did Dad beat you?” No response. “What did he do to you? Tell me.”

  Seth is watching me, the anger fading from his face. I wish he’d go away. He doesn’t know about my father—he has no idea why we don’t talk aside from the fact that we just don’t get along. I was always too ashamed to tell him that my father used to beat me up. I’d rather never have to tell him.

  “Jessica,” Mom says. “Daddy had a heart attack.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  My father had a heart attack. What does that mean? Does it mean he now wants to see me and make amends for all the shitty things he did to me? If so, would I forgive him? I don’t know if I could. But I admit, there’s a part of me that hoped he’d apologize and we could be some sort of family again.

  “Does… does he want to see me?” I ask, not sure I want to hear the answer to that question.

  “Jessie,” Mom says. “He’s dead.”

  Just like that, my father is dead.

  And then she starts to cry. I want to ask her why she’s crying over that asshole. He was a mean drunk. He beat her. He beat her daughter. How could she mourn him?

  Then I remember.

  I remember my Daddy coming home with a doll to surprise me, even though money was tight. I remember him tickling me on the couch while I laughed my head off and screamed for him to stop all the while not wanting him to ever stop. I remember him taking me out on the street with my very first bike—it was painted pink and had a basket that he put in himself because he knew how badly I wanted a basket on my pink bike.

  And suddenly, I realize that I’m crying too. I’m so angry at myself for crying over that asshole. But even if he was an asshole, he was still sometimes my father.

  Chapter 49

  Nick

  The morning after I see Eddie, my father comes off the ventilator.

  Twenty-four hours later, Eddie Romero pays a visit to Marco Russo.

  The next morning, the workers are back in our hotel. And Russo never calls me “kid” ever again. Nobody does.

  Pop is finally starting to look like his old self again. He’s got an angry red scar running down his chest and purple circles under his eyes, but he’s awake and sounding like the Pop I’m used to. I don’t get that tight feeling in my chest every time I see him anymore. It looks like he’s going to pull through.

  A week after Pop comes off the ventilator, I’m sitting with him by his bed while he chows down on some hospital food like it’s the best thing he ever tasted. It’s some disgusting mess of overcooked meat and onions with runny mashed potatoes. Although it does smell pretty good.

  Shit, when’s the last time I ate something? I gotta get some food after this, even if it’s a hot dog from a cart.

  “So, Nico,” Pop says. “Let’s talk business.”

  “Naw, don’t worry about that now,” I say. “There’s nothing urgent going on.”

  “What about Marco Russo dragging his feet?” Pop says.

  I wave my hand at him. “That’s taken care of.”

  “Yeah,” Pop says meaningfully. “I heard.”

  There’s silence in the room. I look down at my legs, positioned quietly in front of me. If Pop gives me shit over this, I’m not going to take it. I got a lot going against me. I had to stand up for myself. It was the only way to keep ‘em from walking all over me. If
Russo pulled out, everyone else would’ve done it too. I had to send a strong message.

  “I did what I had to do,” I finally say.

  Pop doesn’t say anything to that. He runs his hand through his gray hair and sighs. “I didn’t want you to ever have to use Eddie. I didn’t want that for you, Nico.”

  “Well,” I say, “I wouldn’t’ve had to use him if you didn’t hire that idiot, Marco Russo.”

  He cracks a tiny smile. “Good point.”

  Pop isn’t eating his food anymore. He’s pushing the meat around his plate thoughtfully. I don’t know what he’s thinking. All I know is that I’m not sorry I hired Eddie Romero.

  “So this is what you want, huh?” Pop says. “You wanna take over the business? To be in charge of everything?”

  “You know I do,” I say.

  “You gotta understand, Nico.” His dark eyes meet mine. “Eddie—he’s just the tip of the iceberg. We got alliances you don’t know about. I got debts in blood. People got debts to me. I built a lot of it myself, but I wouldn’t have got my start if the right people didn’t front me money. I’ve done plenty of stuff that isn’t… you know, on the level.”

  “I know,” I say.

  Pop sighs. He rubs his eyes with the balls of his hands. “When I get out of here, you and I will start going over everything. The whole deal. Everything you need to know to take over when I step down.”

  My heart is slamming in my chest. I can’t believe he’s saying this to me. This is what I’ve wanted my whole life, but I thought it wasn’t possible after I got shot. I thought the best I’d ever get was to play second fiddle to my brother.

  “What about Tony?” I say.

  Pop snorts. “Tony will be relieved. He’s been telling me for years that he couldn’t do it and I should put you in charge.” He smiles at me. “You’re going to do good, Nico. I always knew it would be you. Ever since you were five years old.”