Vincent turned to look at me and took my hand in his. “And then I met Bianca, and well, she made me forget any other woman even existed except for her.”
I sat there in shock. I couldn’t believe the amount of bullshit that had just spewed from his mouth so naturally. The guys were really impressed by the story.
“So, you think this is it? You think the two of you are going to get married?” Matt asked.
Vincent shook his head. “What’s wrong with you? You don’t ask a man a question like that in front of his girl. What if I wanted to propose tonight? You would have ruined the surprise!”
“Oh, he’s a keeper!” Dave said to me, smiling. I smiled back.
“He sure is,” I answered.
On the way home, Matt and Dave did most of the talking in the backseat, and I stayed quiet most of the ride. We dropped them off and then headed to my place. Vincent pulled over in front of my apartment. “I think that went well, you?” he said, sounding proud.
I shot him a dirty look.
“Are you mad at me?” he asked, surprised.
“You’re such a liar!” I exclaimed.
“You told me to lie!” he said
“Yeah, but I didn’t know you’d be so good at it!”
He started shaking his head. “I’m confused—you wanted me to lie, but you’re mad I did it too well? Would you be happier if I’d been less convincing?” He seemed defensive.
“If you can lie that easily about something so stupid, how do I know you aren’t lying to me when you say half the shit you say to me?” I asked.
“Sarah, I’m a stockbroker. We are basically salespeople. You’re an actress, is it that much different? Are you looking for a reason to fight? You asked me to lie, and I did, this was your idea. Sorry if I’m so good at words!” His face turned red.
“I guess not. Stockbroker, actress, same thing, right?” I asked sarcastically, only half kissing him goodnight.
When I got inside, I couldn’t help but wonder: if Vincent was that good at lying, what could he have been lying to me about this whole time? So, I did a google search on him, determined to find something he’d lied to me about. It was amazing, what you can find out about somebody by Googling them. I found his address, his phone number, his income, how much his house was worth, his family members. That led me to his daughter’s social media pages. Wow, she was gorgeous—no wonder he was so proud of her. She had some family pictures on her page, but mostly photos of her and her friends dressed in skimpy outfits at college parties.
His son was quite the looker as well. He was the spitting image of Vincent, only clean shaven with green eyes. Same hair, same dimple when he smiled. Then, I found the articles from 1993. Headlines like “Falling Star,” “California’s Biggest Error of the Season,” and “The Catcher in the DUI.”
I read every one of them. The articles said such horrible things about him, tore him apart. Really awful things. I felt so bad. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but the mean things they wrote about him in the articles upset me. The reporters wrote how he was going to amount to nothing, and called him a waste of talent. A quotation from the judge who’d stated that he’d spared Vincent jail time for his children’s sake—one of those kids being his wife. The articles made me think a lot about myself. What if, God forbid, I got hurt? What would I do if I couldn’t dance anymore? I had no backup plan in life. I laid in bed restless that night, feeling really depressed.
When Vincent met me for lunch on Monday, he proceeded with caution into my kitchen. I guess he was worried that I was still mad at him.
“I brought your favorite,” he said, and pulled two gyros with the works out of a sack. I smiled, as he took his suit jacket off and put it on the chair.
“You hate gyros,” I said.
“Yeah, but I love you, and sometimes we have to do what we don’t want to do to make the people we love happy,” he said, as he started rifling through the utensil drawer for forks. “Are you still mad at me?”
“No, but I have to be honest, I stalked you,” I admitted.
“You stalked me?” he said, now turning his body completely around to face me.
“Well, I Google stalked you,” I specified.
“You Google stalked me? Does that mean you’re too lazy to show up at my house or job like an authentic, old-school stalker?” He laughed and shut the drawer, leaning back against the counter with forks in hand. “What did Google tell you about me?”
“Too much,” I said. “I can’t believe all this stuff is just out there on the Internet. I got your home phone number, your address, your salary information, how much your house is worth, even pictures of it, which by the way, looks sick.”
“All stuff I could have told you—you didn’t have to waste your time researching me.”
“I saw your daughter’s profile page, she’s gorgeous. I see why she’s your favorite,” I said.
“Thank you, but she isn’t my favorite. I don’t have a favorite child.” He sat down at the table across from me.
“Oh, come on, yes you do! You glow when you talk about her,” I said.
“She’s not my favorite. I can’t explain it. You wouldn’t understand. As a father, your bond with your daughter, with your little girl, it’s just so different than with your son,” he tried to explain.
“Did you want a girl?” I asked, surprised.
“No, not when she first got pregnant, I wanted a boy. But by the time the second one came along, I was happy she was a girl,” he responded.
“I also found the articles about your baseball incident,” I said sympathetically.
“Again, I told you about that, too.” He stood up and walked into the living room—like he didn’t want to revisit that time. He started undoing his tie.
“I know, but you didn’t tell me what brutal things they said about you,” I said.
He rolled up his tie and placed it on the coffee table before picking up the candle. Then, he turned the candle around and around, looking at it instead of me.
“Sarah, I did a terrible thing. I was drinking and driving. I’m fortunate that all I had was a revoked license, unemployment, and some bad press. That judge could have thrown me in jail if he’d wanted to. Or worse, I could have killed somebody,” he said.
“I just find it so amazing and admirable that you survived all that. You moved forward. Became successful enough to buy a $20 million townhouse in the Upper East Side.”
He set the candle back down and smiled. “Thank you, but I bought that house ten years ago for a little over eight million, Google didn’t tell you that part? It turned out to be a really good investment.” He laughed. “Come here.”
When I got close enough, he pulled me to him, holding me tight. He looked me straight in the eyes. “Sarah look, I guess you’re right. There is no difference between being a good liar and just being a liar. I lie at work, I lie to my wife, I lied to Matt, but I have never, ever lied to you. You are the one person in this world that I can say whatever I want to. You don’t judge me. You don’t overreact. Well except for Wednesday night—I think that was a bit of an overreaction. But justified, I get it. I have zero reason to lie to you. It’s part of why I love you so much. I can just be myself around you,” he explained.
“I know, I’m really sorry,” I said, putting my arms around his shoulders. Staring back into his eyes, I told him, “I just love you so much, I know you’re going to hurt me one of these days.”
He brought his face closer to mine, until we were eye-to-eye. “I will never, ever hurt you—I promise you that. Now come on, your sautéed rat is getting cold. Eat it while you can still convince yourself it’s lamb,” he said, pulling me back into the kitchen.
He barely touched his gyro, but as I devoured mine, he took off his button down. He lifted his t-shirt sleeve to show me his fresh tattoo.
“Is this normal?” he asked, touching the peeling skin. “It’s been weeks already.”
> “Have you been lubricating it?” I asked.
“I put the A&D ointment on it for the first few days,” he answered.
I went to the bedroom and returned with a bottle of hand lotion. I started rubbing the lotion into his tattoo, explaining that he needed to keep lubricating it every day.
He kissed my hand as I was rubbing the lotion into his bicep and pulled me down onto his lap. “If this is how I get you to rub me down with lotion, I’m going to start getting tattoos everywhere,” he joked.
“You know Isabel says you got this for her birthday.” I laughed.
“Crazy, her and Casey have the same birthday, no wonder why I like her so much,” he said. “So, speaking of birthdays….in three weeks, it’s my wife’s fortieth.”
“Are you throwing her a party?” I asked, trying not to sound too jealous.
“No.” He smiled. “How can I throw her a fortieth party when she’s been thirty-three for the past seven years? Before long, you’re going to be older than her. But she is going away with her best friend to celebrate. She’ll be gone for a week. I have a get out of jail free card, can you take that weekend off so we can do something? Maybe go to Atlantic City? Do you gamble?”
“No, I don’t gamble, but I’ll go. I’ll have to call out sick though. I don’t get any more vacation days, so I won’t get paid for it,” I answered.
“Okay, let’s do it. I’ll make up the money you lose on those days,” he offered.
“You don’t have to give me the money, I have a little bit saved for a rainy day.”
“How much do you have saved?” he asked.
I jumped off his lap and moved over to my chair, pushing the gyro meat around the container with my fork. Although I was impressed by my rainy-day fund, he certainly wouldn’t be.
“$2,500,” I reluctantly answered.
“You know, if you have $2,500 saved, you should throw that into a good mutual fund. I can help you with that. You can earn a pretty substantial rate of return,” he suggested.
I laughed at him. “You’re such a stockbroker, I wouldn’t even know how to manage that, plus what if I lose it all? It took me a year to save it,” I said.
“A mutual fund is safer than stocks, and you won’t have to manage it. They do that for you.”
“So, Atlantic City, huh?” I said, changing the subject. When he spoke about the stock market, I felt so stupid around him.
“Yeah, Atlantic City. I’ll book a room. We’ll have fun, and better yet, I can wake up with you again,” he said, leaning his elbows on the table and smiling at me.
When that Friday came, Vincent left work early and we drove down to Atlantic City. There was a lot of Jersey Shore traffic that night. A typical two-and-a-half hour drive took almost four hours. Starving, the first thing we did once we arrived was go eat. We went to a nice steakhouse in the casino. All you could hear was the sound of the slot machines, even inside the restaurant.
“Do you gamble a lot?” I asked him as we sat down to eat.
“Not too often, but when I do, I get pretty into it,” he admitted. “You ever have an oyster shooter?”
“No, what is that?” I asked.
“It’s a shot, like a Bloody Mary, only there’s an oyster at the bottom. Really good—we’ll take a dozen,” he said to the waiter.
Those shooters were delicious, and high in alcohol content. I was already feeling the alcohol by the time we left the restaurant. When we entered the casino, Vincent headed right over to the craps table. I hugged myself.
“It’s so cold in here!”
“That’s a strategy, intentionally done to keep gamblers awake. All casinos are cold. Do you want to go to the gift shop? I’ll get you a sweatshirt.”
“No, thanks, I’ll be fine,” I said.
He pointed at the slot machines. “Look at the set up…see how it’s like a maze? Also done purposely to keep gamblers from leaving.”
Vincent played for a while, doing really well, I think. All I knew was that he had a lot of chips on the table; he must have had forty thousand dollars out. He played for an hour or so, and then he decided he wanted to play blackjack. When he cashed out, he handed me a thousand-dollar chip.
“I told you, I don’t want you to give me money,” I said, trying to hand the chip back.
“I’m not giving you money—you earned it. That is craps etiquette; if someone is with you giving you luck, you tip them. Ask anyone, it’s true,” he said. He took the chip from me and tucked it into my back pocket. “Remember to cash that out before we leave.”
I wasn’t allowed to sit next to him as he played blackjack, but I was able to stand nearby. After he played for a bit, a security guard came over to me and asked me for ID.
Once the guard left, Vincent smiled, leaned over, and said, “That shows I’m doing well; they’re trying to throw me off by ID’ing you.”
I watched him in amazement. I’d never been out with a real gambler before. I couldn’t even comprehend what it was like, to gamble that type of money. I started fidgeting in my heels—my feet were now hurting from standing so long.
“Come on, let’s go get a drink at the bar,” he said, noticing I wasn’t comfortable. We made our way over to the bar.
“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” I said.
On my way back to the bar, a guy who looked a little older than me asked if he could buy me drink. Vincent glanced over with him and said, “She’s with me.” Very matter of fact.
“Oh, I’m sorry man, I thought you were her father,” the man replied mockingly. Vincent’s jaw clenched. “Oh, you thought I was her father? Nah, she just likes men, not boys." There was an arrogant tone in his voice.
“Just curious, how much Viagra does it take to keep up with someone so young?” the guy asked, obviously trying to pick a fight.
Vincent turned his whole seat around, like he was accepting the challenge the guy had just conveyed. I put my hand on his leg and looked him in the eyes. “Stop, don’t let this prick bother you,” I said, squeezing his thigh.
“Must be nice to be rich, there’s always a gold digger around that you can score.” The guy sneered and further egged him on.
Now I was just as angry as Vincent. I turned to the guy and said, “Oh, he’s not rich, he just has a huge dick.”
Then, I turned back to Vincent. “Come on; let’s go.”
I took him by the hand, and we made our way to elevators. By the time we got back to the room, it was 2 a.m., and Vincent’s eyes kept closing. He laid down on the bed, fully clothed, and pulled me down with him. He wrapped himself around me. “I want to do so many things to you right now, but I’m so tired it will have to wait until morning. I thought it was because I had a long week, but now I know it must be because of my geriatric age,” he said. He was still bothered by the father comment.
“Oh stop, that guy was a jealous asshole. You are so much better looking than him, did you see all the girls checking you out at the bar?” I asked. I wasn’t kidding either. There were about five different women I caught checking him out.
He laughed. “You’re the only woman I care about checking me out,” he replied, and then kissed me. “Look, I’m sorry I got so nasty with him. I’m usually not like that; I’m really not. I know you must deal with this a lot when I’m not here—and I’m not here more than I am here. It’s very frustrating, makes me think I did something wrong in a past life, and you’re my punishment.”
“You look at me as a punishment?” I asked, not sure how to take that comment.
“Why’d you come so late? Or so early? Why now of all times? It’s like you’re being dangled in front of me. This girl that I love so much, that I want to be with so badly, all the time. But, sorry, no, Vincent you can’t. It’s like, look but don’t touch. I promised myself years ago that I would never be broke again, and I worked so hard to get to where I am—only to realize it’s not where I want to be. My kids have good lives. My wife has a good
life. I would give up everything I own to live in a cardboard box, though, if you were sleeping next to me.”
I pulled him to me, pressing his face against my chest while my lips touched his forehead. I ran my fingers through his hair and lightly stroked his head. I’d never thought of things that way, but what he said made sense. Why had the universe taken so long to bring us into each other's lives? Why bring us together at all?
The next morning, we didn’t even speak. As promised, he made up for the lack of sex the night before. We were all over each other, the second we opened our eyes. Afterward, we went downstairs to order breakfast. As we were eating, I heard someone yell, “Bianca!”
We both looked up.
“Brett?” I jumped up to hug him. “How are you?”
“Doing well, thanks. This is my wife, Vanessa.” He introduced me to the very pretty girl he was with.
I shook her hand. “Hi, Vanessa, nice to meet you. This is Vincent,” I said, as he stood up to shake Brett’s hand.
“I saw you landed a leading role on Broadway!” Brett said excitedly. “Good for you! You deserve it, you worked so hard.”
“Yes, I did, thank you. Have you seen the show?” I asked.
“No, not yet, but we want to,” Brett answered. “You still have the same number? Maybe the four of us can go have dinner tonight and catch up if you’re still here.”
I told him I did have the same number, and he said he would text me later. They politely said their goodbyes to Vincent, and then we sat back down.
“He looks like he could be a football player.” Vincent said.
“Actually, he was in high school, he’s a cop now,” I replied.
“Oh, so you went to high school with him?” he asked, taking a sip of his coffee.
“No, believe it or not, my performing arts school didn’t have a football team.” I laughed. “He’s my ex-boyfriend.”
Wounds of Time Page 15
