How To Save A Life

by P. Dangelico

  Dropping everything at the door, I drag myself upstairs. Tired. Listless. Hopeless. All the horrible feelings that happen when you lose someone you love bear down on me to the point that I struggle to get up the stairs.

  It doesn’t matter that this was a self-inflicted wound because the result is the same. Jordan is one of the most stubborn people I know. He’ll never trust me again. And without trust, there’s nowhere for us to go. A few hours ago I was having the most intense sexual experience of my life and now I’m alone again. But not just alone––alone and heart broken.

  Hiding under the covers, the dam finally fails and all the tears I’ve been holding back run loose. I cry so hard I can hardly breathe. I cry for me. I cry for Tommy because he’s on a dark path that will lead him to one place only: jail. And his life will only get worse from there. I cry for Jordan––beautiful, complicated, sensitive man whose feelings run so deep sometimes he can’t see the truth standing right before him.

  None of us come out the winner in this. We all lose.

  “Rie?” my mother crawls into bed and cradles me from behind.

  “Don’t say it.” If she utters one word…

  “No, no. I’m sorry. Get it all out.” She holds me until I can’t cry anymore. Until the tears run dry.

  “Curly Sue!” Dom’s nickname for me. He loved the movie. He’s been calling me that since he picked me up for shoplifting all those years ago.

  Turning off the sander, Dom lifts his goggles and tosses them on the work bench. He turned the garage into a wood shop five years ago when he retired from the NYPD. I haven’t seen him without goggle marks around his chubby face for years. He loves woodwork as much as I do, and we woodworkers consider the mark a badge of honor.

  “Dom, you know I hate that name.” I give him a great big hug and kiss his ample cheek. His waistline looks to have expanded because even though we’re the same height my arms barely make it around his rounded shoulders.

  “It’s good to see ya, kid. How’s it going?”

  “Not great. This is a nice piece.” A set of dining room chairs. Running my hands over the wood piece makes me miss my work desperately.

  “French antique. I got so much work I don’t know what to do with myself. You need a job?”

  He’s joking. Dom still thinks I have my business. Little does he know the destruction that was wrought on my life. Nuked by two men who claimed to love me no less.

  “I might need one.”

  His smile drops. The man who was the closest thing to a father to me frowns. “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  Yeah is unprofessional…pops into my head. My brain is working against me. It won’t leave me alone, reminding me constantly that the man I love believes I’m a thief. That he thinks I’m even capable of stealing from him kills me.

  After the initial stab of pain wore off the anger set in. All I wanted was a little trust from him. I needed time to get his money back, to sort out what to do about Tommy, but he wouldn’t give me the benefit of the doubt. He demands trust when he gave me none in return.

  “Talk to me. How can I help?”

  I’ve been putting it off for a while, but it’s time to come clean about Tommy and Ivan. If anyone can help, it’s Dom.

  Tears well in my eyes. I love this man. I don’t know where I would be without the Vegas. “It’s Tommy, he’s in a pinch with Ivan DeloRusso.”

  “The Russian meatball?” he says, confused.

  “The bookie.”

  “Yeah, that was our name for him down at precinct. This was before he got into gambling. We picked him up a half dozen times for grand theft auto. Used to run with both outfits, the Russians and the Italians. How is Tommy involved?”

  “He lost money at the poker table. I paid off the debt––”

  “Ah kid, why didn’t you come see me sooner? If Ivan knows he can lean on you, it ain’t gonna stop. They don’t slaughter the goose that lays the golden eggs for the meat. That’s how these guys operate. He’s gonna hook Tommy for more. I guarantee it.”

  Legs trembling, I sit on one of his stools.

  “I think he already has. Tommy came to see me the other day, talking about skipping town. That they were after him…I don’t know what to do. I’m worried they could hurt him.”

  Dom gives me that look that says not much. I know Tommy is an adult, but I need to exhaust all options for his sake and mine, so I can live with myself later.

  “Play stupid games win stupid prizes. Ivan is a hothead. There’s no guessin’ what he’ll do so you have to stay out of it. Don’t see Tommy for a while. And don’t let him over your place.”

  In the pause, Dominic’s expression softens.

  “Remember what I taught you. Adapt or die, sweetheart. You going down with a sinking ship doesn’t save anyone on the ship. Don’t let Tommy take you down too.”

  In my gut, I’ve known it since the night he came to get me after my shift. And isn’t that exactly what happened. To protect Tommy, I lost Jordan and in the process put us all in harm. Tommy isn’t safer today than he was three months ago.

  Standing, I walk over to him and give him a big hug. “I may have to take you up on that job offer later. I basically mortgaged my business to pay Ivan.”

  Essentially, it’s true. Putting my business on hold had the same net effect. No more business. No more buildings. I’m starting from scratch.

  “Oh, Riley…” Dom looks so upset I almost regret telling him.

  “Let me know what happens.”

  “I will.”

  “Asshole.”

  Veronica has developed a tick. Every ten minutes or so she shouts obscenities. And they’re always directed at one man.

  “Just do me,” I plead. In an effort to look and feel a lot less like oatmeal left out in the rain, I’m having her do my makeup and hair.

  “Douchenozzle.”

  “Time out.” She stops braiding my hair and I get off the couch. In the kitchenette, I grab a Dr. Pepper out of her fridge.

  “Don’t waste your time. He’ll never know how much you hate him.”

  “He would if I sent him a pig’s head in the mail.”

  I nearly spit up my soda. “I pretty sure that’s a crime. I’ll have to check that out.”

  “I’m still mad at you too. You shoulda told me about the jamoke. I would’ve helped.”

  “That’s why I didn’t tell you. Then we would both be broke with nothing to show for it.”

  “Nah, I would’ve killed him. Then we’d both be fine.”

  Almost three weeks since I saw Jordan. Or heard from him. Any small measure of hope I had that he would come to his senses has faded. I don’t even have the energy to be mad anymore.

  The initial flash burn of rejection is always the most difficult part to get over, but eventually the resilience of the human heart wins out, pride telling you that life must go on. Besides, I have bigger problems than a broken heart right now. I need to put my properties up for sale or risk having them foreclosed on.

  Veronica’s phone lights up. It’s an unknown number so she sends it straight to voicemail. “Let me check who it is. I’ve tried blocking Brandon three times already.”

  I immediately know that something is very wrong because Veronica blanches, her expression frozen as she listens to the message.

  “What is it?” I say, with my heart in my throat.

  “It’s Tommy. They couldn’t reach you, so they called your mother and she gave them this number.”

  “What happened!” I’m nearly going into cardiac arrest.

  “Hit and run. Somebody ran him over. He’s at the hospital.”

  Jordan

  My mother’s eyes do a full-length sweep of me as soon as I open the front door. “Why are you dressed like that?”

  I look down at my shorts and T-shirt, unsure what she’s referring to.

  “I just got done working out,” I tell her bitterly, drying my face with the towel around my neck. Bitterly because I’m pissed
I have to answer any questions right now. “Better question is what are you doing here?” I step aside and she walks into the apartment.

  True to my word, I changed all the passcodes. No more surprise visits from family. The only code I left unchanged was Riley’s…I don’t know what stopped me––hers probably should have been first––but I couldn’t do it.

  Riley…

  Everyday I wake up angry. Everyday I reach for her, expecting to feel her next to me, and everyday I’m reminded of what happened. Deceived again. I’ve loved two women my entire life and I was betrayed by both of them. Lied to by both.

  Then again, I’m still having a hard time believing the girl who wouldn’t charge a swimsuit to my account would steal ten thousand dollars in cash, money that had been in that drawer for months untouched.

  The drawer is still filled with Post-Its. Every time she took cash out to pay for groceries or takeout, she left a receipt. A receipt…Something isn’t right. Taking the money is way out of character for her––I’ve always thought that. But then why lie? Why not come clean? Why not tell me why she took it if it wasn’t for something illegal or something I wouldn’t approve of.

  Lainey lied to spare me heartache and made a bad situation worse. Riley lied for reasons unknown––and even if she didn’t lie, it’s guilt by omission.

  So then why do I feel like the one in the wrong here? Why do I feel like such a worthless piece of shit? Why am I having nightmares of her crying face and wake up in a cold sweat every other night?

  I’ve been carrying this sense of oppressive guilt for three weeks with no relief in sight. I can’t sleep, I can’t work, I can’t function.

  Worst of all I miss her. I miss her so much I’m crippled by it. It feels like a limb’s been cut off. And I’m living in a state of near paralyzing fear that something is really wrong. That something is wrong and I won’t get there in time to save her…or myself.

  “Sanjay said you haven’t gone into work all week.”

  I’m on a hair trigger and she’s pushing my buttons. My mother seems to think that pressuring my business partner will help her cause. She doesn’t know that Sanjay has ceded power to negotiate to me. “Shouldn’t you be in DC harassing other elected officials?” I’ll never understand why anyone would want a political career.

  I leave her standing in the entrance and walk back to the couch, turn the volume down on the game.

  “I’m flying back this afternoon.”

  “Get to it…whatever it is.”

  Her shoulders drop. She looks off. This is what she does when she needs something from me––she look contrite. She pretends to be. It doesn’t work for her. Joan West has never been sorry for anything a day in her life and it shows.

  “What’s happening with Winstar? Leventhal said you haven’t gotten back to him with a counteroffer and he’s anxious to close the deal.”

  Ironically, as she’s speaking, it all starts to come together in perfect clarity. “I’m going to decline his offer. We’re not selling exclusive rights––and definitely not to a military contractor.”

  “Jordan, you know what this deal means to me.”

  “Yeah, I do. Leventhal wants it badly. In the wrong hands, it can be manipulated and weaponized. Tell him the answer is no. Negotiations are over.”

  I raise the volume on the Giants game.

  She watches me for a beat, no doubt strategizing her next move. “What has happened to you? It’s that ridiculous girl, isn’t it?”

  Cold rage. That’s all I feel right now. It pushes everything else by the wayside.

  “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer because it won’t be pretty and you are my mother. But that girl has been supporting herself since she was sixteen. She built her own business from nothing, with no help from anyone. Calling her ridiculous will only piss me off so tread easy.”

  “Honey…” She sighs, her expression softening. “You’re being irrational. There are millions of women out there, better women than a glorified babysitter…this isn’t like you to take it so personally.”

  This is how little she truly knows me. Better women…something about that sticks, stays with me. And then I realize why. It took my mother’s insane appetite for control to make me see the light.

  There are millions of women out there. I’ve met quite a few of them. And not a single one can hold candle to her.

  I just sent away the only woman who truly loved me for me––because I know she does. I feel it in her every word, every touch, every glance…in her every action––and I sent her away over money. Because I didn’t trust her. A woman beautiful enough to have leveraged that asset at any point with me and she never did. All she wanted was me…I need to find her and beg her to forgive me.

  My mother looks confused. “Why are you smiling?”

  I get up and throw my arms around her, hugging her closely. A sense of relief comes over me that I haven’t felt since Riley left. And now that I know what I have to do, there’s no time to waste.

  I haven’t hugged my mother since I was fourteen, since the day I was diagnosed with leukemia, and even then it was brief and perfunctory. But today she deserves one.

  “Thank you,” I tell her, and she finally relaxes in my arms, her hands coming around me to hesitantly rest on my back. “Thank you, for helping me come to my senses. For making me realize that I love that ridiculous girl and I can’t live without her. I want you to know that you’ll be the first person I call when she says yes.”

  She pulls back, alarmed. “Jordan…you’re not going to marry her.”

  “Have a safe flight back to DC.”

  I leave her to get dressed. I have a plan to make and very little time to execute it. I just hope I’m not too late.

  Riley

  All the sounds and smells are the same. The beeping of lifesaving machines. The smell of ammonia with a subtle note of urine. The quiet of the ICU only interrupted by the occasional frenzy of activity when someone crashes…on the verge of dying.

  They had to remove Tommy’s spleen. He has four broken ribs and a skull fracture, but it could’ve been worse.

  I’ve been here in the ICU with him for two days, holding vigil. His eyes are so swollen he can barely open them, not enough to watch TV, so on the rare occasion that he wakes up I read to him.

  How did we end up here?

  Everything I did to save him didn’t matter. In fact it had the opposite effect––the situation went from bad to worse. It makes me think of my father, of everything he sacrificed for his job. All those fruitless days working search and rescue only to lose his life…was it worth it?

  “Hey…” Tommy squeezes my hand.

  He has to wear a neck brace for a few more days and his head is completely bandaged so he can’t really move it. I drag the armchair closer to the side of the bed, so that he has a direct line of sight.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Awesome,” he croaks. “How do I look?”

  “I don’t think you should go on any Tinder dates for now.”

  His mouth curves up ever so slightly. The doctor warned us that he would be in a lot of pain so they have him medicated for now.

  His eyes flutter closed for a beat and when they reopen they fill with tears. Mine do too. We’ve been friends––family––for the majority of my life. I can’t abandon him, but I also can’t go down with a sinking ship.

  “I’m sorry Rie. I’m sorry I never listened. I’m sorry I got you into this.”

  I take the edge of the sheet on his bed and wipe the tears on his face away.

  “Who did this to you?”

  It’s a full two minutes before he answers, his voice barely audible.

  “I didn’t pay Ivan the last two times you gave me money. I went to AC and lost it at the craps table.”

  My knees shake. It’s a good thing I’m sitting down because they wouldn’t have held me up. “And the money you stole from Jordan?” I ask, trying not to hyperventilate.

 
When he doesn’t reply, I make an educated guess, “You lost it gambling.”

  “I’m gettin’ out of here. When I get out of the hospital, I’m leaving. Starting over somewhere new.”

  I understand. I know what it feels like to dream about leaving your problems behind. The thing is, you carry them with you.

  “You need to stop gambling. Get in a program.”

  “I know.”

  He looks so beaten down, and not just physically, that I can’t bring myself to push him now. After he gets out, I’ll take him to a meeting myself if I have to.

  “You think Ivan’s goons did this?”

  “Doesn’t matter…I got what I deserved.”

  “No, you didn’t. You don’t deserve this anymore than I deserved what Stills did to me.” It’s the first time that name was ever spoken between us. It’s long past time we did. “Do you remember?”

  “Yeah…yeah I remember.”

  “How did you know? How did you know to save me?”

  “I was watching you ’cause I knew about your dad…that he died. I liked your dad. He was good to me. Before he got sick, he saw my dad trying to smack me around––right on the front lawn. Sunavabitch had balls. Your dad saw it and took him by the shirt and shook ’em and said ‘Stop beating on your kid, you fucking coward.’ Then he laid him out… One punch and the old man went down with a broken nose. Best day of my life.”

  Tears funnel down my face unchecked, my eyes stinging with them. That was my dad, trying to save the world one person at a time.

  “I had a bad feeling about Stills. He’d been paying attention to some of the other kids on the block, boy around the corner, Jimmy Nunes.”

  An image of little Jimmy comes to me. Shy kid, small.

  “…I just happened to be on the stoop having a smoke that day.”

  “What happened to Stills?”

  Eyes cast down, he exhales. “Told him to get the fuck out of town or I was going to come back and cut his balls off.”

  “Tommy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you. I never got a chance to tell you.”