by Jim Wygand
“Gotcha! Share the work, right?”
“You got it, Mullins. No kitchen slaves in this place.”
Charlie picked a bottle of Tuscan wine, pulled the cork to let it breathe and then said, “Gina, you were right about those women. Someone followed me again. I got off in Chester, drove around and then doubled back. I lost ‘em, but what a damned aggravation. Don’t they have anything better to do?”
“Probably, but they are not going to do it when they can be prying into someone else’s business my dear man. They are not going to quit as easily as you thought and their husbands are not going to make them. Take my female word for it. Now, the soup is ready. Let’s sit down and have a glass of wine and then we’ll eat. Forget those broads for now.”
Charlie was amazed that Gina could seem so feminine at one point and then refer to two women as “broads” the next. “Gina, I wouldn’t have expected you to call them ‘broads’...”
“Listen Charlie, there are women and there are ‘broads’, the one’s following you are best described in the latter category. Sorry for the French, but that’s what they are.”
Charlie laughed and served up two glasses of wine. “OK sweets, let’s have some wine.”
Gina turned down the flame on the gas stove and they moved to the living room. Charlie raised his glass slightly and said, “To the most beautiful woman I have ever met.”
“May you always see me that way”, replied Gina and tapped her glass to his.
“Gina, is there anything special I have to know about meeting your uncle on Sunday?”
“I’m glad you asked, Charlie. Yes, we will have to be careful when arriving to his house. You probably noticed that my car has tinted glass and it’s a little darker than what the law calls for. My uncle had it put on the car and told the police so they would leave me alone. It’s difficult to see who is in the car. In any case, just to be sure, I want you to disguise yourself a bit by putting on some dark glasses and a cap.”
“OK, that sounds kind of weird, but no problem, but why the mystery?”
“Simple, Charlie, the FBI is always photographing people who go in and out of my uncle’s place. I don’t think you want your picture on file just yet.”
“Gina…”
“No, Charlie, don’t tell me you don’t care. Take my word for it for now. You really don’t want to be seen by the feds going into Carlo Rizzo’s home. You will have enough aggravation later so let’s keep you anonymous for the time being? OK? They always take my picture even though they know damned well who I am and they can’t see into the car anyway. It’s just to remind my uncle and me that they are watching.”
“OK”, said Charlie, “I know what you mean. I had a great-uncle who joined the Communist party after working in the coal mines and he had the same kind of problem. He said that two agents owed their jobs to him because they followed him around wherever he went. That was back in the 50’s. He used to wave at them whenever he saw them.”
“Well, I don’t suggest you wave this time, Charlie. Those guys don’t have much of a sense of humor and it might not be a good idea to seem to be making fun of them.”
“No problem Gina. Shall I put on a fake moustache too?”
“Not funny, Charlie, you’ll see soon enough that those guys can be a pain in the neck. If you think the wives of Shoreville are a hassle, wait till you get a taste of the FBI! Until they got it into their thick skulls that I was not a ‘courier’ for my uncle or involved in any of his business activities, they followed me everywhere – even at Bryn Mawr. I’d be walking around campus and I’d see these guys in suits! Suits, Charlie. I mean how many people on a college campus walk around in suits? Professors wear tweed or cardigans and they always look wrinkled. Here were these guys looking starched up and wearing grey suits and ties. Hard to figure out who they were, you know?” Gina let out a sardonic laugh. “After they realized that I was not a ‘moll’, they left me alone but they still photograph me whenever I enter my uncle’s home. I guess it’s a kind of ritual they have established.”
“Anything else, Gina?”
“No, once we are inside the house, there are no problems. My uncle makes sure on a regular basis that the house and the phone are not bugged. He likes his privacy too, you know. I told you your life was going to change, Charlie. Are you still sure? I mean this is only the first time. I am sure you will be inconvenienced more as time goes by. I’ve learned to live with it but you don’t have to.”
“Gina, I told you, I am going to see your uncle and ask him to give his blessing to our relationship. I’m not going to talk business with him.”
“Don’t be cavalier, Charlie. If they find out who you are, they will contact your employer, they will visit you at home, they will follow you. They will tell the local authorities in Shoreville about you. They might tell your friends. You will go on a ‘watch list’. Believe me, I’ve been there. Why do you think my uncle doesn’t want me to work? One way to harass him is to always cause me to lose a job. They would only leave me and him alone if I were waiting tables in some pizzeria or working as a barmaid, and even then I’m not sure if they really would leave me alone.”
“OK, Gina, I understand. I’ve never done this before so I hope you will excuse me if I say it seems a bit dramatic, but I’ll go along.”
“Good idea, Charlie Mullins.” Gina kissed him, “and just be patient with me. I’m only trying to protect you.”
They finished their wine and sat down to minestrone and some delicious Italian bread. When they finished they retired to the living room again to watch some television. Charlie remembered that he had not done that in years. He kicked off his shoes and put his feet up on a coffee table in front of them and put his arm around Gina. She settled into him and put her head on his shoulder. They were happy.
After a couple hours of TV, Charlie said, “Hey, beautiful, you want to go to bed?”
“I thought you would never ask, Mullins!” They walked to the bedroom, shedding their clothes as they went and Charlie made love to Gina before they both fell asleep, again in an embrace.
* * * * *
Charlie woke at the regular time, plodded to the bathroom, brushed his teeth and took a shower. As he was dressing he could hear Gina in the kitchen, singing to herself and he could smell the coffee she was brewing. They had a leisurely breakfast and Charlie headed off to Wilmington. “I’ll be back tonight, sweets. Think about what you might want to do. You want to go out for dinner or something?”
“OK, Charlie, you have a good day.” Gina kissed him fondly, “boy with a kiss like that I might wind up staying home…”
“Off with you Mullins, somebody in this family has to have a job, you know?” Gina laughed.
“I’m gone”, Charlie said, “see you tonight.”
When Charlie returned that evening he was greeted by the smell of Italian cooking. Gina had prepared manicotti stuffed with ricotta cheese and covered with a delicious tomato sauce. When he moved to kiss her he noticed that she was perfumed and didn’t smell like she had been in the kitchen. “Wow, said Charlie, are we having perfume for dinner? You smell fantastic!”
“You wanted me to smell like garlic, maybe? I’ve got a man who comes home to dinner now. He deserves to have a wife ready for his arrival!”
The manicotti was exquisite and Charlie told Gina so. “Gina, that was delicious! Where did you learn to make that kind of food?”
“My mom had a whole bunch of recipes that my uncle kept after she died. He gave them to me more as a memento than for actually cooking. I never had anyone to cook for except myself but I did experiment a couple of times just in case I happened to meet Charlie Mullins!” Gina smiled.
After they had eaten, Gina put the dishes in the dishwasher and prepared two cups of espresso and served them with two cordial glasses of black sambuca. The licorice flavor enhanced the delicious flavor of the strong espresso and Charlie thought his life could never be better than this.
“Gina, I thought you mi
ght have wanted to go out tonight. You don’t have to prepare something every night you know.”
“C’mon Charlie, you know how long I have wanted to do nothing but prepare a meal for someone I love? You must have gotten tired of always eating in restaurants or cooking for one, no?”
“Oh, you bet, Gina. Sometimes I would just open a can of beef stew or chili because I did not want to cook something up and didn’t feel like going out. You do get tired of that kind of life. And, I have to confess that coming home to a woman as beautiful as you and a meal to boot is more than I ever hoped for.”
“Oh, Mullins, you are soooo charming. I’ll bet you are going to try to seduce me again tonight, aren’t you?”
“Well the thought had crossed my mind,” Charlie responded.
“Don’t even think about it, Charlie. Tonight I seduce you. How about that? Now excuse me while I slip into something more comfortable.”
Gina walked out of the living room and came back in a few minutes later in some skimpy lingerie and a transparent negligee. Charlie was mesmerized. She started a slow strip tease until Charlie started taking off his shirt. She stopped her strip tease and finished undressing him saying, “Boy, I hope you are wearing those navy blue silk boxer shorts. Oooh, there they are!” and she pulled down the shorts with a quick tug. Charlie embraced her and they walked, still embracing, into the bedroom where they fell on the bed and made love. When they were finished Gina said, “Wanna go watch some TV, Charlie?”
“No, Gina, I’m perfectly satisfied just to lie here and hold you close to me. How’s that?”
“Sounds good to me,” laughed Gina.
As they lay in each others arms, Charlie said, “Gina, I’ll be back again tomorrow night, but I am going to have to drive to Shoreville Saturday morning. I can’t miss softball practice if I am going to avoid gossip and keep those nosy women from following me around. If what you said about the FBI comes to pass, I could have a whole caravan behind me,” he laughed.
“No problem, Charlie. You need to show up and keep them off your back for the time being. When you get back up here, we can go out Saturday night. Maybe we can meet up with some of my friends, or just be together. I’m here and hope I always will be for you. Do what you have to do. I’m a low maintenance Philly broad!”
“Oh yeah, I’m sure, and I’m Brad Pitt!” Charlie laughed.
They talked until they fell asleep.
XVIII
Charlie drove to work from Philly on Friday morning. When he arrived to his office he went through the draft budget reviews and then sent them back to the operating department heads. They would be ready for Perkins’ sadistic reviews the week after next.
Friday was “don’t-look-too-casual-but-look-casual-day” so Charlie had worn his blazer, an oxford cloth light blue shirt open at the neck, a pair of khaki pants, his Gucci moccasins, and navy blue socks. He laughed to himself to think that he was also wearing a pair of navy blue silk boxer shorts.
At lunch time he went out and walked to a hardware store in downtown Wilmington where he purchased a few electric timers to turn his lights on and off in Shoreville. He didn’t want the Shoreville busybodies noticing that his house was dark when he was supposed to be there. He would set the timers to match his normal schedule at home so it appeared that he was there. His garage door would be closed and locked so no one would know if his car was there or not. On the way back from lunch he walked out to the parking lot and tossed the timers into the trunk of his car so no one would see him bringing them back to the office.
At 5 pm he drove back to Philly. When he entered the apartment, Gina was dressed in a simple black dress and lightly perfumed. Charlie thought, “God, this is great! I wish my life had always been like this. She is so beautiful.”
“Hi, there my man!” Gina moved forward to kiss him tenderly, “penny for your thoughts.”
“That’s all they’re worth, Gina?”
“Well, I don’t know, wanna start bidding, Charlie?”
“No, I’ll tell you. I was just thinking how wonderful it is to come home to someone you love. I was just wishing it would always have been this way.”
“Well, if it had been, Charlie, you would not have been divorced nor would you have met me, right? Destiny, Charlie, never question destiny. This is the way it had to be and this is the way it is. Never think about what might have been. It never was, right?”
“That’s for sure, Gina. You’re too smart for me.”
“Glad you recognized that, Charlie”, she laughed. “You want me to fix some dinner? This morning you said you wanted to go out.”
“Yeah, Gina. Let’s just go somewhere, maybe to the trattoria, and have a light dinner, a little bit of wine and maybe some conversation with friends. What do you think?”
“Fine, let me call a couple of friends to see what they are going to do tonight. Just one thing, let’s not tell anybody you are going to meet my uncle on Sunday. OK? Like you, I don’t want the rumor mill started. You know, ‘Gina has finally found someone, isn’t that wonderful?’ We can do without that for a while.”
“I agree, Gina. You can never tell when some well-meaning person says something to someone less well-meaning. You’ve got a point.”
“Good, let me call Susan Warner. She’s a good friend. She likes the trattoria and you haven’t met her yet. She’s engaged to a really nice guy who’s got a small financial consulting company. I think you’ll like them.” Gina went to the phone and started dialing.
She caught Susan at home and Susan said she would be glad to go out with Gina and Charlie. She asked who was Charlie and he heard Gina say, “He’s a very close friend. You’ll like him. He works in the finance area too, and I’m sure he and Freddy will have a lot to talk about. It will be just a casual evening, OK?” Gina rang off.
“OK, Charlie, we have some company for the evening. You want to freshen up before we go out?”
“Yeah, I could do with a shower. Gotta wash away the ‘corporate casual’” Charlie laughed.
As usual, the evening at the trattoria was enjoyable. Charlie and Gina said nothing to Gina’s friends about their growing relationship. They were just dating, for all intents and purposes. Charlie suspected that her friends knew better. Gina was lighter and more talkative than usual and the slight sadness that was sometimes noticeable in her eyes had disappeared. Her friends were too close to her to have missed the subtle changes in her demeanor.
Johnny the waiter appeared to know everything. He was smiling and openly deferential to Charlie as much as he was normally to Gina. Whether Gina’s friends noticed that, he had no idea.
After a relaxed evening, Charlie and Gina went back to her apartment. They made love and then went to sleep.
* * * * *
The next morning Charlie woke up at the usual six-thirty and started getting ready to drive back to Shoreville. Gina woke up as soon as Charlie climbed out of bed and started to get up to fix some breakfast. “Gina, stay in bed. It’s Saturday morning. Don’t bother to fix breakfast. I’ll just get some toast and make some coffee and be on my way.”
“You sure, Charlie? I don’t mind, you know. I actually enjoy fixing breakfast for my guy.”
“I’m sure, Gina. Just relax. I’ll bring you some coffee. Stay in bed.”
Gina stretched like a cat and hummed a bit as she did. “Ohhh, Charlie. It’s so wonderful to wake up next to you on a Saturday morning. And now, a cup of hot coffee in bed. I could get used to that, you know.”
“Well, I hope you do. I intend to stay around for a long time so maybe we agree that on Saturdays and Sundays I will fix breakfast – at least the coffee, I’m not so sure how I would do with something more complicated, but I can learn.”
“Mmmmmmm,” purred Gina, “that sounds nice.”
Charlie went to the kitchen and put the coffee in the coffee maker and while it was running through the filter he took a shower and shaved. Out of a recently formed habit, he put on a little of the cologne Gina had bought f
or him. He dressed and went back to the kitchen to fill two coffee mugs. He returned to the room and Gina was sitting up in bed. “Thanks, Charlie. It smells good. Seems you have learned how to make coffee the way I like it. Congratulations.” She smiled at him.
“Well, it’s a lot better than the instant I used to make in Shoreville, that’s for sure.” Charlie went back to the kitchen to get his toast and came back to the bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed and munched his toast while admiring Gina. He thought, “How the hell does she manage to wake up as beautiful as she looked when she went to sleep?” He wondered if he looked at least presentable when he woke up. He doubted it.
Gina sipped her coffee and enjoyed her first coffee served in her bed. Charlie said, “Penny for your thoughts, beautiful.”
“Oh, I was just savoring the moment, Charlie. It’s the first time a man ever served me coffee in my bed. I want to experience every second of the occasion.” Gina laughed.
“OK, sweets. Now, I’m going to drive down to Shoreville and go to softball practice. I also bought some electric timers Friday and I’m going to put them in the house to turn my lights on and off to match my normal schedule.”
“What?” Gina asked, “Why do you have to do that, Charlie?”
“I didn’t tell you, but one of the guys at the bowling alley told me that his wife thought I might be sick because the lights in my house were off Tuesday night. She actually drove out of her way to go by my house. Her only purpose was to see what I might be doing or if I was home. I already told you that some women followed me again when I was driving up here.”
“Charlie, are you sure you were not a movie star before I met you?” Gina laughed.
“I wish I had been, at least that way I would know why those idiots are following me around. I mean it’s ridiculous!”
