The Ones That Got Away

by Lou Mindar

  “What do you think?” Melanie asked.

  Scott hadn’t been listening. He shrugged, trying to be noncommittal, and was saved when the waiter brought their pizza. “Oh, that looks good,” he said.

  The pizza came in a rectangular pan, and the pieces were cut into squares. The waiter served a corner piece to Melanie, and the one next to it to Scott. When the waiter walked away, Scott said, “It seems like every time we come here, the place gets darker.”

  “That’s part of the allure of the place,” she said. “It’s like a grotto.”

  “What about the movie? Have you decided yet?” Scott wanted to see Purple Rain. Naturally, he’d seen it when it first came out during his first life, but he wanted to see it again so he could hear that great Prince music.

  “Let’s see Blame it on Rio.”

  This was Melanie’s night, so he wasn’t going to argue. “Sounds good.” Not for the first time during their date, he wondered who was winning Game Four.

  *

  Detroit won Saturday’s game 4-2, setting up a potential final game on Sunday night. Although Scott knew that Detroit was going to eventually win, he couldn’t remember how many games it took them to clinch the World Series. With Melanie’s blessing, he joined Randy at The Surf Club to watch Game Five.

  The game was back and forth with Detroit taking the lead only to have San Diego come storming back. The Tigers were up by one in the bottom of the eighth when Kirk Gibson stepped to the plate with two men on and one out. Scott knew that four years down the road, Gibson would be the hero of the World Series for the Dodgers. But he couldn’t remember if Gibson played the same role for the Tigers.

  Gibson took ball one from Padres pitcher Goose Gossage. “Come on, Gibby,” Randy said almost under his breath.

  Gibson swung at the second pitch and hit it deep into the Detroit night. “There it goes,” the TV announcer said. “Yes! Yes!” On the TV, Gibson circled the bases, jumping up and down, and pumping his fists over his head. Detroit led 8-4.

  Randy cheered and slapped Scott on the back. Scott sat stoically on his stool. It was going to happen. He was going to win a bundle and live the kind of life he had dreamed about.

  San Diego went quietly in the ninth inning to lose the game and the World Series. Scott wanted to rush home to tell Melanie the good news and to convince her to quit her job, but he thought better of it. Before he talked to Melanie, he needed a plan.

  Chapter 17

  October 1984

  Two days after the final World Series game, Scott went to lunch with Bob, at Bob’s country club. They had been seated a few minutes, when a tall, slender guy with thinning hair and a wispy mustache approached the table. Bob stood and shook the man’s hand.

  “This is Earl,” Bob said. “Earl, this is Scott.”

  Earl extended his hand. “Scott, it’s nice to meet you.”

  Earl smelled of stale cigarette smoke and cologne. He wore a light brown suit that was too big for him in the shoulders, yet the sleeves were slightly too short.

  As they ate, Bob and Earl discussed the upcoming presidential election. They were both Reagan men, and they both expected the President to beat Walter Mondale in a landslide.

  For his part, Scott nodded in agreement a lot, but didn’t say anything. He was a little confused. He understood that he and Bob were going to be having lunch with the bookie who had taken his World Series bet, but Earl mentioned nothing about the World Series or his money.

  When the waiter cleared their plates, Earl lit a cigarette, then pulled an envelope out of the inside pocket of his suit coat. He slid the envelope across the table to Scott. “I guess you’ll be buying lunch today,” Earl said. “Congratulations. It was a hell of a bet.”

  Scott half expected the bookie to be upset. But Earl seemed genuinely happy for him.

  “It was nice meeting you,” Earl said. He shook Bob’s hand and then excused himself.

  The following day, Scott met Randy at The Surf Club. When he walked in the front door, he spied Randy at the bar talking to a big guy that had his back to Scott. The bar was empty except for a couple of employees cleaning tables and mopping the floor.

  Randy saw Scott and motioned him over to the bar. He introduced the big guy as Frankie. The two men shook hands. Frankie was broad shouldered and thick across the chest. He reminded Scott of an offensive lineman, big boned and overweight, but not exactly fat. Frankie’s dark hair was close cropped, like a military haircut, and he wore a sport coat that was too tight in the shoulders and arms.

  “That was a gutsy bet,” Frankie said. “Congratulations.” Frankie handed Scott a manila envelope. “If you want to bet some football games, I’d be glad to take the action.” Frankie smiled. “It’d give me a chance to win back some of that money.” All three men laughed.

  Frankie stood and Scott was surprised at how short the bookie was. He was muscle bound but height challenged. “Until next time,” Frankie said, then waddled out of the bar.

  “He seems like a good guy,” Scott said.

  Randy nodded. “Listen, there’s something I need to talk to you about.” The smile that had been on Randy’s face when Frankie was at the bar disappeared, replaced with concern and pain.

  “What’s up?” Scott asked.

  “You know that other twenty-five-hundred-dollar bet?”

  “Yeah, when will I get that money?”

  “Here’s the thing,” Randy said. He looked down at the bar and rubbed his hand on the polished wood. “I never made the bet for you.” Randy looked up from the bar directly at Scott.

  Scott tried to put a sentence together but was too stunned. He wanted to say something, but Randy interrupted him.

  “I thought you were making a fool’s bet,” Randy said. “When you ended up with the extra twenty-five hundred dollars, I thought I’d hold it for you, so you’d still have some money when you lost the bet.”

  “But I didn’t lose.”

  “No, you didn’t. And now I owe you forty thousand dollars,” Randy said.

  “What? No, you don’t owe me anything,” Scott said. It suddenly dawned on him that he just won two hundred and forty thousand dollars and he could win more any time he wanted to. Randy had tried to do him a favor. Sure, it backfired, but there was no doubt in Scott’s mind that Randy had the best of intentions.

  “But I cost you forty thousand dollars,” Randy said. “How can you just walk away from that?”

  “You did what you thought was right,” Scott said, his voice soft and calm. “It didn’t work out the way you had planned, but that doesn’t change the fact that you were trying to help me.”

  “Yeah, but forty thousand dollars. Shit, that’s a lot of money.” Randy cleared his throat. “I have a plan to pay you back. I have an offer to sell the bar. It’s a good price, and once the sale closes, I’ll have the money for you.”

  “Sell the bar?” Scott asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” Randy said. “Now that Carla is out of school and working, she’d like to have me home at night. We’re talking about getting married. The bar was fun for a while, but it’s time to move on.”

  “What are you going to do after you sell the bar?”

  “I don’t know,” Randy said. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  “How about if you and I go into business together?”

  “What kind of business?”

  “I want to do something where I can make good money, but not do the day-to-day dirty work. I want to own a business, not just work in one. What I came up with was real estate redevelopment.”

  Randy listened intently. The agony that had been in his face was gone, replaced by a combination of interest and confusion.

  “The government is offering low interest, low down payment loans to buy and fix up run-down properties. With the money I have, we can afford to buy several properties and potentially make a mint.”

  “That sounds good,” Randy said, “but I don’t know anything ab
out fixing up run-down buildings.”

  “We won’t be doing the work,” Scott said. “We’ll find the properties, finance them, and then hire contractors to do the physical labor. All the hands-on work will be done by someone else. Someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  They agreed to talk more in the future. Randy couldn’t do anything until he sold his bar. He also was still uncomfortable with the idea of not paying the money he owed Scott.

  “Rather than paying me the money, why don’t you use it to help get our business off the ground?” Scott asked.

  “If we do this, then I’ll put the money I owe you into the business,” he said.

  When he got home, the apartment was empty. It was 6:00 pm, so Melanie not being home yet wasn’t all that surprising. Even so, Scott was disappointed. He had a plan and her absence was getting in the way.

  He sat around fidgeting. He counted the money, then he counted it again. Once he was satisfied he had counted right, he found a hiding spot. Eventually, he’d put the money in the bank, but he’d look a little suspicious coming in with all that cash and no explanation for how it came into his possession.

  When Melanie got home, she was exhausted. “Tough day?” Scott asked.

  “A really long day. I need to sit down.” She walked right by Scott without kissing him and plopped onto the couch.

  “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “Let me tell you about what Kevin did today.” Melanie kicked off her shoes and stretched out on the couch.

  “As soon as I got to work this morning, the phone started ringing and it didn’t stop all day. Even though we were swamped with work, Kevin decided that he had to have a meeting with all of us after lunch. The meeting was two hours of wasted time. So, when I got out of there, I still had a million things to do and ended up working two hours longer than I should have. God, I’m exhausted.”

  Considering Melanie’s state of mind, Scott decided now wasn’t the best time to talk about his plan. Her mind was still back at the office and he didn’t want her distracted when he told her what he had in mind.

  “Did you say you wanted to talk about something?” she asked.

  “I just wanted to make sure that you haven’t made any plans for Friday night,” he said. “I want to take you out for a nice romantic dinner.”

  “That sounds fine,” she said. “I don’t have any plans.

  Chapter 18

  October 1984

  Scott had chosen Cunetto’s, a popular Italian restaurant in The Hill neighborhood of St. Louis. Melanie loved Italian food, and Cunetto’s had the quiet, understated atmosphere where Scott could reveal his plan.

  After they had been seated and the waiter took their order, Scott looked across the table at Melanie. A dark purple dress hugged her curves and accentuated her cleavage. Her hair was pulled up off her neck, and sparkly earrings dangled from her ears.

  “You look fantastic,” he said.

  “What, this old thing? I just threw it on,” Melanie said, conjuring a southern accent.

  Scott laughed, but he was taken by his girlfriend’s beauty. She didn’t often get dressed up, but when she did, she looked spectacular.

  “You know what I’ve been thinking a lot about recently?” Scott asked.

  Melanie raised her eyebrows as she sipped her wine. She had stopped drinking, but made an exception for this occasion.

  “I’ve been thinking about our trip to Michigan. Wasn’t that great? I loved how close we felt to each other when we didn’t have work or school to worry about.”

  “That was great,” Melanie said.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice to live like that all of the time?”

  “I wish we could, but I’m afraid that’s not very realistic.”

  “What if we could” Scott asked.

  Before Melanie could answer, the waiter brought their meals. Scott wanted to spring his plan on Melanie but decided to set more groundwork.

  “You know, I’m really starting to have doubts about being a lawyer,” Scott said. “The more I think about it, the more I think I’d rather do something else.”

  “Really?”

  “Going to law school was kind of the practical thing to do, but I don’t enjoy studying the law as much as I thought I would, and I’m thinking more and more about starting a business.”

  Melanie put her fork down. “It seems like you’ve been trying to tell me something all night, Scott, but I’m still not sure what you’re trying to say.”

  Suddenly, he was out of words. He decided to plunge straight ahead.

  “Mel, I want you to quit your job. I don’t like to see you so stressed all the time. You’ve been so obsessed with what’s going on at the office. I want things to be more like they were in Michigan.”

  Melanie was surprisingly calm and understanding. “I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t want to just stay home. I want a career. Plus, how would we ever afford having me stay home?”

  “I have money.” Scott blurted out the words like they were escaping prison. “I have enough money to start a business and to take care of us.”

  “Did you rob a bank?” She laughed.

  Scott hesitated, then cleared his throat and pushed forward. “I won a bet—a big bet,” he said. “I have a couple hundred thousand dollars and it’s enough to set us up for life.”

  “You won two hundred thousand dollars on a bet?” Her eyes grew wide and her voice grew loud.

  “Actually, a little more than that,” Scott said. “Let’s not get hung up on the money or how I got it. The important thing is that I have enough—we have enough—to live life the way we want to live it.”

  Melanie shook her head as if to break through the crazy story she was hearing. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “You want me to give up my career and stay home so we can live off the money you won on a bet. Scott, think about how crazy that sounds.”

  She had a point. In his mind, this conversation had gone much more smoothly.

  He lowered his voice, wanting to remain calm, but he also hoped that if he lowered his voice, Melanie would do the same. “Mel, I just want us to be close and happy, like we were in Michigan. And I’m afraid we’re heading down a road that’s not right for us.”

  “What do you mean? I have a good job with a good future,” she said. “You’re in law school. We’re on a great road.”

  “I don’t think we are,” he said. “You say you have a great job, but it exhausts you and stresses you out. How is that great? I’m in law school, but I don’t want to be a lawyer.”

  “But I am doing what I want to do,” Melanie said. The calm returned to her voice. “I went to college so I could build a career for myself. That’s what I’m doing. It’s important to me and I don’t want to give it up.”

  Scott leaned back, the urgency suddenly drained from his argument. It hadn’t occurred to him that her idea of a great life was different than his.

  “Scott, I think it is really sweet that you want to take care of me and provide a great life for us. I want the same thing. But I need to be involved. I need to help decide what we’re going to do, and I need to help us pay for it. I don’t want to tag along on your journey through life. I want to be an active participant.”

  Melanie’s words reminded Scott of his life with Kathy. He had made decisions for them both, and he did it so often that he rarely thought about what Kathy wanted.

  “What about law school?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to go any more,” Scott said. “I don’t want to be a lawyer. I want to start a business.”

  “Then you should do that,” she said.

  He was getting Melanie’s blessing for two of the three things he set out to accomplish. Until that moment, he felt defeated, like the evening had been a waste. In reality, things went fairly well.

  “I have a favor to ask you,” she said.

  “What would that be?”

  Melanie leaned across the table and in almost a whisper
said, “I’d like you to take me home and make love to me.”

  Scott raised his hand. “Check, please.”

  Chapter 19

  December 1984

  Scott and Melanie were at their table when an announcement came over the PA system that the New Year’s Eve fireworks would commence at midnight. Any partygoers who wanted to see the fireworks were instructed to make their way to the roof.

  “Are we going to go?” Melanie asked.

  “Let’s go.” Scott took Melanie’s hand and led her up the stairs to a corner of the hotel roof away from the other attendees.

  “Don’t you want to go over with everyone else?” Melanie asked.

  “No, I want to be here alone with you.” He gave her a long kiss. It took a moment for her to react, but when she did, she leaned into him and put her arms around his neck.

  When they separated, Melanie let out a laugh. “Wow! What was that for?”

  “It was because I love you.” Scott pulled a jewelry box out of his pocket, knelt, and opened the box. “And because I want to marry you.”

  Melanie put her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. She nodded vigorously.

  “I think you have to answer out loud to make it legal. Melanie, will you marry me?”

  Melanie continued to nod. She pulled her hand away from her mouth. “Yes,” she said, then returned her hand to her mouth. Tears formed in her eyes as Scott placed the ring on her finger. As she stared at the ring, fireworks filled the St. Louis night. Melanie threw her arms around Scott’s neck and kissed him. “I love you. More than anything in the world, I love you.”

  *

  Scott decided not to go back to law school in January. He took some of his gambling winnings and purchased two properties in University City, a small town just outside St. Louis. The buildings stood next to each other and were identical three-story structures that had been built for the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. They had been grand at one time, but they, and the area surrounding them, had fallen into disrepair. Other developers had begun rehabbing some of the buildings, turning them into condominiums, so Scott did the same. A few months later, he was selling rehabbed condos in historic buildings to people who wanted to be part of the area’s renaissance.