Mick Sinatra: For Once In My Life

by Mallory Monroe

  And when they had bounced and jugged their way to Brooklyn, and the train stopped, he became particularly concerned. Because Roz stood, indicating that this was their stop, and one guy, the guy who had been sitting behind her, stood up and pinched her on her small, tight ass. Mick quickly began moving people out of his way as he hurried toward her, ready to knock the shit out of that man, but Roz beat him to the punch.

  As soon as Roz felt the pinch, she took her satchel and slammed it against the pincher’s head. “Do it again, creep!” she yelled at him, staring him down. And it was enough. That snake of a pinching man slithered off of the train, suddenly in a massive hurry, as soon as the doors flew open.

  And Mick exhaled. And even smiled. She could take care of herself just fine, he decided. And he was inordinately pleased to know it.

  The rain didn’t stretch as far as Brooklyn, and they walked, side by side, to Roz’s brownstone. What amazed Roz was the fact that a Town Car was waiting out front when they arrived. She didn’t realize Mick had even spoken to his driver. But apparently he had. Deuce was standing at the passenger door, waiting to open it for Mick, when they walked up.

  She smiled at Mick. “Very efficient,” she said.

  “You hire good people,” Mick said, “you get good results.” Then he looked at the series of brownstones. “Which one is you?” he asked.

  She pointed at the third from where they stood. “That one,” she said.

  “Very nice,” Mick said. “Reminds me of that brownstone on the Cosby Show.”

  The Cosby Show? “And that’s where the similarities end,” Roz said with a smile.

  “What is it? A converted apartment building?”

  “That’s right.”

  As they walked up the stoop and he opened the door of her building, he was pleased with her. She had good taste, for one thing, and the good sense not to live just anywhere.

  They entered the nice looking building, and he walked her up to her apartment on the second floor. It was a quiet, clean, nice environment. He was pleased.

  When Roz pulled out her key and unlocked her door, she turned to him. And there returned those warring emotions again. On the one hand, she felt a strong emotional attraction to him too, an attraction she also felt at the theater, but she thought it had died as soon as he mucked up their connection with talk of sex. For some reason she felt as if he was sabotaging their connection on purpose.

  But she felt differently now. A man who would see her home by way of the gritty Subway line, and would protect her from harm almost instinctively, and would get such a massive boner just by having her on his lap, changed her mind about him. He was crude and rude as hell, she’d already seen those sides of him. But there was another side too, a side that seemed capable of truly caring for her. He didn’t know her like that yet. He was, despite what he had said, still a stranger to her. But the potential was there. And a part of her wanted to see where that potential could take them.

  But another side of her, perhaps the bigger side, was telling her to pump her brakes and wait. This guy was the real deal. This guy could really break her heart. She’d had that happen to her before. She couldn’t bear to experience that again.

  She decided to leave it to fate. She decided to see where he would take it. “Do you want to come in?” she asked him.

  Mick smiled, and folded his arms. “Now that’s progress. No longer a cannibal threat, am I?”

  “You’ve been very nice to me. And you’ve been a gentleman. Yes, you have. Things change. Perspectives change.”

  “Yes, but I’m still the man who propositioned you.”

  Roz hesitated. “I know.”

  Mick studied her. “Does that mean you’ve changed your mind about my proposition?”

  “No,” Roz said firmly. “I’m not spending the night with you.”

  Good, Mick thought, and then was amazed he had thought it. He wanted her badly. But not like this. “I’d better go,” he said. “I’ve got some work to do.”

  That surprised Roz. “Tonight?”

  “Every night.”

  Roz was curious now. “What kind of work do you do?”

  She didn’t want to know, Mick thought. “I’m a businessman,” was all he was going to say about it.

  That was obvious, Roz thought. And it was also his business. “Well, thank you for the lift.”

  “By way of an accident. By way of the Subway.”

  Roz laughed. “By all those ways, yes,” she said. “But thank you.” She extended her hand.

  Mick took her hand, and held it, and didn’t want to let it go. Because he still wanted her. He wanted her so badly he was getting aroused just feeling her little hand in his. But he didn’t like the intensity of his feelings for a woman he barely knew. Because Roz, despite her strength and toughness, was fragile in his eyes. She was like that warning at the Pottery Barn: you break it, you own it. He wasn’t at all sure if he wouldn’t break it, and he was certain he was not ready to own it. He knew what he had to do.

  “Goodbye, Rosalind. Take care of yourself, as I know you will.”

  “You better know it,” Roz said with a smile.

  He released her hand. And left.

  When Roz entered her apartment, she found herself hurrying to her living room window to watch him leave. He walked out of the building, got into his limo, and without giving her or her apartment a backward glance, drove away.

  She turned away from the window, leaned against the frame, and found herself in tears. She always did it wrong. When he wanted her, she nearly took his head off and accused him of being some heartless sex pervert, and then even worse, a psychopathic cannibal. When she decided she might just want him, he was understandably no longer interested. She shook her head. Typical Roz. She was always going when she should have been cumming. She couldn’t get it right if her life depended on it. At least that was what her mother used to say. And she knew that was what everybody else was going to say when she finally left New York, and her dream deferred, behind.

  She even thought about Mick’s offer to backdoor her into Barry Acker’s play. Although she didn’t feel bad about turning him down, mainly because such a move would be wrong on every level, she knew most people, including Betsy, would disagree. Get in however you can get in, they’d say, and prove yourself later. But the problem was in the proving. Because Mick was right. She was the weakest dancer on stage today, and could have easily been the weakest actress too. And despite what Mick said, thirty-two wasn’t the time for an actress to still be hustling to break through. Thirty-two was the time for her to be long past her debut, and in her prime. Not just starting up, but starting to wind down.

  Ten years of hustle. Ten years of blood, sweat, and tears. And what did all of those years net her? No breakthrough, not even a career anymore. Just more hustle. Just a satchel filled with hopes and dreams and other men’s schemes.

  She pushed away from her window frame and headed for her bedroom. Forget Mick. Forget Barry and his rejection. Forget fucking Broadway. She was going to bed. She was getting off a stage nobody was inviting her onto in the first place. This day had been long enough.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Three weeks later and Mick was back in town. The limousine he owned and used whenever he came to town was now repaired and was pulling in front of the luxurious Carson-Benning hotel just as he was walking out. The valet hurried to open the limousine door for him, and he got into the backseat. It had already been a long day of business, and wasn’t looking like a particularly fantastic night, but he had promised Barry. That was why he was taking this long-ass drive out to Jersey for dinner with the Ackers.

  Deuce McCurry, his driver, was thrilled to no longer have to drive his boss around in that Town Car loaner, in what he considered to be a toy car compared to what he was accustomed to driving, but Mick wasn’t giving it a second thought. He wasn’t giving his business commitments a second thought either. He wasn’t even thinking about the Ackers. As he sat in that backseat, as
Deuce drove past iconic symbols of New York City like snapshots of familiar places, Mick couldn’t stop thinking about Rosalind.

  He remembered when he was in Vegas a few months prior, and spent time with Reno Gabrini and his wife Trina. He remembered how wonderful their love seemed at that time. Reno and Tree, as Reno called her, seemed so good together. She didn’t take guff from him, and he didn’t take guff from her. But the love, the passion, was as vivid as a leaf in hand. Mick wanted that kind of love. He wanted it so badly that it pained him sometimes. But he was no romantic bleeding heart. He knew the chances of finding a woman like Tree, a woman who could love a hard man like him unconditionally, was as plausible as finding a genie in a bottle.

  But then he met Roz. Rosalind. Mick leaned his head back, his eyelashes so long his eyes looked closed, and smiled with one side of his mouth upturned just thinking about her. He’d been thinking about her for the past three weeks. She was certainly different than Mick’s usual type. And it was a plus in her favor because his usual type, the models and the businesswomen and the socialites, never did shit for him. They turned him on sexually for a night, maybe even a couple nights, but then he wanted nothing more to do with them. And he was no kind lover. When he dumped them, he dumped them, and if they tried any tricks to get back with him he showed them better than he told them what kind of fucker he really could be. Because Roz was wrong. There wasn’t a kind bone in his body. None.

  But the fact that she thought there was, and that he had been what she said was nice to her, made him feel some kind of crazy way. Maybe even some kind of happy way. Hell Reno Gabrini was a hard motherfucker too, and he had the love of a good woman. Mick didn’t see why he couldn’t find that kind of love too.

  Barry Acker said that a good woman, the kind of woman who could make you laugh, was as good as gold. Roz certainly made Mick laugh. And although he almost blew it by attempting to turn her into a booty call, he believed they made amends. Because she was no bed action chick. She was no easy lay. She was definitely a keeper. What weighed heaviest on Mick’s mind had nothing to do with deciding whether or not he would keep her. It was more about whether or not, after she found out the harsh, cruel, true nature of his being, if she would want to keep him.

  That was the crust of it. That was the heart of the matter. That was probably the real reason why no other woman had ever cracked his shell. Because, when it came to navigating those murky waters of the heart, Mick Sinatra was Pottery Barn fragile too. If Roz broke his heart, she was going to own it. She was going to have a piece of him no other human being ever had. And that shit, the idea that he could need a woman so badly that he was willing to be that vulnerable, scared him more than any gangster he ever faced ever could.

  But even with all of that, he couldn’t stop thinking about Rosalind.

  He liked that grit he saw in her. If somebody would have told him a month ago that he could even consider bothering with some struggling actress who’d been trying to make her dreams come true for ten years, he would have told that person to kiss his ass. He didn’t like unrealistic people who gave into fantasies and fairy tales and dreams that were never coming true. But he didn’t believe Rosalind lived in any fantasyland. He believed she was a sensible, practical girl, a realist to her core. She knew her dream might not come true. That was why she went to college, got herself educated, and now was able to teach acting to make ends meet. But she was willing to get out there and hustle and try anyway. She failed. But she tried. Mick loved her for that.

  Then Mick frowned. He loved her for that? What the fuck was he thinking? This woman was turning him into some softie already and he’d only seen her once. He didn’t love her like that? He didn’t love her at all!

  But he couldn’t get her off of his mind. Even as they approached the George Washington Bridge, and was about to make that journey into Jersey, Roz was still on his mind. Then he thought about her fears, and how she thought he might boil her like a lobster and eat her for dinner, and he was smiling again. And thinking about her smile, and her walk, and her beautiful face. And it suddenly felt inevitable. Inexplicable. But inevitable. He pressed the intercom button.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “We’re going to make a stop first.”

  “Here in New York, sir?”

  “Yes,” Mick said. “In Brooklyn.”

  Deuce smiled. He didn’t understand Roz, but he liked her too. “Yes, sir,” he said, and headed in that direction.

  Roz and Betsy walked slowly toward their apartment building. Roz had been at the acting studio all evening, and Betsy had been on another audition. She wasn’t selected, and she was pissed.

  “But the walrus,” she said, “oh boy. They loved her! I told them I can play an ugly girl. Give me some makeup, geez, that’s all it takes. But they wouldn’t give me the time of day.”

  “Because makeup is never all it takes,” Roz said. “Ugly isn’t a look. Ugly is a state of mind. I told you that. You go in there twisting your mouth and walking as if you have some affliction, you can forget it. That’s not what they want.”

  “Well what do they want then?” Betsy was frustrated. “They said the character was an ugly duckling type. That means she has to be ugly, right?”

  “But what kind of ugly, Bess? Was her attitude ugly? Was her past life ugly? Or was it just a physical thing? If you go on an audition thinking only physical, then they’ll never pick you. They want you to think outside the box. They want you to be creative. Anybody can play ugly. But how many actresses can be ugly?”

  Betsy smiled and shook her head. “You are too deep for me, girl. You’re a really good teacher. And not a bad actress, either.”

  “Not bad doesn’t translate into good.”

  “You can’t have everything, Roz. Some people can do it, and some people can teach it. I’ll bet it’s a rare thing for somebody to be able to do both. I mean think about it. How many acting coaches have ever made it big? None. That’s how many! You can’t have it all.”

  Roz didn’t understand that. It made no sense to her that teachers couldn’t be good doers too.

  But what she really didn’t understand, when she and Betsy turned the corner onto their block, was the fact that a stretch limousine was parked in front of their building, Deuce McCurry was standing at the passenger door, and Mick Sinatra was walking out of their building’s front door. Her heart began to soar.

  Betsy, however, was confused. “What’s he doing here?” she asked. Then that eternal hope that kept many an actress going, quickly emerged. “Maybe he’s got a part for us after all!”

  But before Betsy could began to run Mick down and make a fool of herself, Roz stopped her and pulled her back. “No, Bess,” she said. “I’m sure that’s not it.”

  Betsy frowned. “Then what does he want?” she asked.

  Roz didn’t exactly know either, but she was thrilled by the possibilities. It had been three weeks since she last saw him that rainy night at her door, but not a day went by when he didn’t at least casually cross her mind. And it wasn’t a heartwarming feeling for her. It was a feeling that she had blown it. It was the feeling that she had allowed her past pain with her ex to cloud what any fool could see was a magnificent prospect. Her ex Carmelo, once again, had won. But seeing Mick coming out of her building gave her hope too. But unlike Betsy’s hope, it wasn’t based on what he could do for her career. It was based on what he could do for her heart. Because he’d already, after just one night, touched a nerve.

  Mick didn’t see them coming until he was about to get into his limo and Deuce was opening the back door. Deuce saw her first.

  “I believe that’s her coming now, sir,” he said, as he looked down the sidewalk.

  Mick looked too and saw Roz, along with that blonde friend of hers, walking his way. The blonde might have been taller and far more ostentatious with her dyed hair and colorful dress style, but his eyes went back to Roz. She was the reason he came. And when he saw her, looking as sweet as he remembered her, he smil
ed. His heart actually raced with excitement. A rare feat for him.

  To his delight, Roz was smiling too. “Hi,” she said as she and Betsy approached him. She looked at the limo. “The same one?”

  Mick nodded. “It’s been repaired.”

  “That was quick,” Roz responded, although she was certain it was quick because it was Mick.

  “How are you?” he asked her.

  “I’m good.” She looked at his casual attire, at his beige sports jacket, at his black turtleneck shirt and black trousers. She decided that she liked his style. “What about you?”

  “I’m okay,” Mick said. “Where were you?”

  “Over at the studio. I teach acting, remember?”

  He remembered. “Taught anybody I would know?”

  “Yes,” Betsy said with a smile. “Me.”

  Mick looked at her with that look that gave Roz pause. But before he dropped some of that cruel bluntness on somebody as sensitive as Bess, Roz intervened. She needed him to see the person in there, not the caricature. “Mick Sinatra, this is Betsy Gable. I know you’ve seen her face, and you’ve seen her dance, but I don’t think you ever knew her name.”

  Betsy smiled and extended her back hand for Mick to kiss. “That’s my stage name,” she said. “I don’t tell anybody my real name. Is Mick Sinatra your stage name too?”

  Mick shook, rather than kissed her hand. “No,” he said. “I have no stage name. Nice to meet you, Betsy.”

  “Thanks for paying me,” Betsy said. “A hundred dollars for what was nothing more than a little audition, was very generous. We actresses can use it wherever we can get it.”

  Bed action chick, he thought. “I’m sure that’s true,” he said. He only hoped she wasn’t rubbing off on Rosalind.