THREE #2
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Nina said politely.
“You don’t mean that.”
“No,” Nina admitted calmly. “But it sounded appropriate.”
A sharp laugh escaped Carrington unexpectedly.
Powerful women always recognized each other eventually.
She pursed her lips together. “I come in peace.”
“I don’t believe you had a choice. How can I help you?”
She seemed patient. Nina was the opposite, so Jio could’ve appreciated that she possessed that softness, but Nina didn’t give a damn what Jio liked.
She used to be all those things too when they first met.
The shit that she’d been through with Jiorgio Gotti III needed to be documented. He took their history to the grave.
Nina looked her up and down. “I’m confirming that you know who I am and you knew who I was to him, correct?”
“Yes, and you know who I am. Correct?” She had the nerve to say back.
“Not a clue ma’am,” Nina gladly let her know.
She smirked at her like she knew something that Nina didn’t.
“You do but okay…”
“Are you going to answer the question? I was in the middle of an important meeting.” Nina was so corporate it was ridiculous. Carrington wondered whether she would act like this if she wasn’t at work. She couldn’t recall seeing many pictures of her ever smiling and laughing.
“My name is Carrington Strozier. Jio called me Carrie.”
Nina sighed loud enough for her to hear and she started humming or some shit.
Carrington was confused as to what was happening.
Nina tapped her fingers on her arms. She moved her bracelets around and pinched her wrist.
“Carrie…cute. Real cute,” she said with sarcasm. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Strozier. My assistant tells me that you were under the impression that you were Jio’s… girlfriend?”
“I was,” she said proudly.
“How was that possible?”
“You were with him twice as long as I was, so I’m sure you know all about how smooth he could be. Jio made time for who and what he wanted.”
“How many holidays did you spend with him?” Nina asked straight up.
The smile on Carrington’s face crumbled.
Yeah, lil’ hoe that’s what the fuck I thought.
Nina wasn’t perfect by any means, but one thing that had never wavered was her respect for Jiorgio Gotti. She’d done her dirt…. true enough, but them holidays had always been off limits. It was understood too.
“You didn’t have him the whole day, you and I both know that.”
Whew, Jio why did you send this child to my office?
Nina shrugged. “I’d like to think we both had friends that we had to drop gifts off to. I did the same. No harm in that.”
She kept it real.
“Ms. Marcelle, you can try your best to discredit what me and Jior─”
“Please. Stop. Saying. His. Name. Like. You. Know. Him. If you did, then kudos to you. But as far as I’m concerned, you were a girl he may or may not have used to occupy his time when I had him on time out.
You weren’t there to wipe an ass. Feed him.
Help him to the bathroom or do anything that was required.
So you are irrelevant to me. Literally, a stranger without a face or name. ”
“He didn’t want me to see him in that way.”
“Yeah, I bet he didn’t.”
This girl went for anything.
“I came in peace-
“How did you think that was possible? You thought we were going to swap stories about how good of a man he was to us both?”
“No, that’s not what it was about.”
“So again, how can I help you?”
η
Nina sat in the back of her truck for a long time. Roberto was used to these days… they’d had many of them. Because she was a logical person, she sometimes had to sit with her thoughts before she could even begin to process them.
“Ms. Marcelle, I’m going to step out and stretch my legs.”
Nina didn’t respond. She heard him and he knew that she did.
Her head rested in the palm of her hand as she leaned against the window.
Jio wasn’t a saint and she never made him out to be one.
But the shit that he did behind her back was unfathomable.
If she could dig him out of his grave and kick him in the face over and over again until he was a bloody pulp, she would.
As soon as she heard the door slam, she let out a piercing scream that woke the neighborhood up. It started at the pit of her stomach and rose to the top. Her body shook so hard that she felt the buttons of her blouse threatening to pop.
She slammed her hands down on her thighs and tried to get her breathing under control, but it was difficult.
Nina needed to take a bath, smoke a blunt, and pop open one of the many bottles that she had left over from the repast.
If she could take off for a week, she would do so and be on her jet first thing tomorrow morning, but she had work to do. She didn’t have any days available to grieve Jio.
Nina grabbed her already powered off cell phones and purse and proceeded to get out of the truck. Roberto made his way around the truck as fast as he could to help her but she was fine.
“Ms. Marcelle, I could’ve got the door for you.”
“How long did you know about Jio’s girlfriend?” she asked him.
Roberto threw his hands in the air. “Ms. Marcelle.” He was good at saying her name and nothing else.
Back in the day, when she was young, dumb, and full of cum that used to work, but nah, not anymore. Nina wanted answers.
“I’m listening. Matter of fact, come on in. I’ll make us a glass of Jio’s favorite champagne, and you can tell me all about her.”
“I can’t do that.”
Nina spun around on her heels.
“Why not?”
“Ms. Marcelle, the same devotion I give to you, I give to Mr. Gotti.”
“I don’t even wanna go there, Roberto, you’re family.”
“I love you, Ms. Marcelle, this you know.”
“Jio is dead. You’re being loyal to someone who’s gone!” The more she said out loud that he was gone, the more she was hoping that it would help her not hate him as much as she was beginning to.
“Everything you need to know is right in front of you.”
Nina was confused. “Huh?”
“Everything you need to know is in front of you already. Close your mouth and open your eyes… please get in safe. I will be back in the morning.”
Roberto ended the conversation. He wasn’t coming in so that Nina could be slick and get him drunk, only to ask him a million damn questions like he was on the stand defending Jiorgio Gotti to her.
He also had plans tonight that he’d been looking forward to all week.
“Whatever.”
She rolled her eyes and stomped into the house, mad and alone.
Nina had been an empty nester for a while now, but it hit different knowing that there was no Jio coming to see her in the midnight hour.
With the way his illness overtook his body, their lives looked very different over the past two years.
Nina spent more time in a chair next to his bed than lying beside him as they’d done for almost thirty years.
But still, she’d been comforted in knowing that at least he was close.
Now, she was alone for real.
The text messages and phone calls were going to fade eventually. People only checked on you for a little bit and then they went back to their regular scheduled program. The one who loved the hardest took the longest to heal. But now Nina wondered whether that would be her or Carrington Strozier?
η
The night was long. She tossed and turned.
She was up and then she was down. She cried.
She screamed. She drank. Nina barely ate these days.
Food just didn’t do it for her anymore. She paced the floor.
She flipped through photo albums. She sang songs that she and Jio loved.
She smelled his clothes that hung discreetly in the closet.
She even found a pair of his smelly socks.
No one’s feet reeked as badly as his did, but only God knew what she would trade to smell his feet for only a few seconds.
The things we miss when our lover leaves us.
She wanted to hear his cough after smoking one more time, although it was the one thing that used to drive her up a wall.
She wished to hear him talk shit on the phone while he used the restroom.
She missed the days when he would wake her up in the middle of the night with a whole carry-out plate talking about, “Babe you want a bite?”
No one fed her, cared for her, doted on her, and truly made it their daily commitment to ensure that she had everything she needed.
Nina wondered could she move on. Would she stop crying? Would sleep ever find her again?
“FUCK YOU JIO!” she shouted from the top of the steps.
Tears ran down her face as she took the stairs one by one to refill her glass.
“YOU SORRY, LYING, CHEATING, SLICK, WANNA BE PLAYER ASS LAME ASS NIGGA!” she dogged him as if he was standing right there waiting on her to tackle him.
“YOU GOT THIS HOE COMING TO MY PLACE OF BUSINESS NIGGA! TALKING TO ME ABOUT SOME ART! WHO THE FUCK DID SHE THINK I WAS? YOU OUGHTA BE SHAMED! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU TOLD HER TO ASK ME FOR MY GUNTENBURG. I TOLD YOU ABOUT GUNTENBURG NIGGA! YOU DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT A GUNTENBURG WAS BEFORE YOU MET ME!”
Nina’s body shook as she recalled the conversation from a few hours prior.
It was nothing but the grace of God that had kept her feet planted firmly on the ground.
The grief in the room was thicker than honey. It was fresh because they were still trying to process that their lives had changed and would never ever be the same.
Nina didn’t take time to process his death.
She had too many deals to close before tax season rolled around.
Unfortunately, her pain mattered but not more than her company.
Her legacy was priority over losing the love of her life.
Jio was the only man that she’d given her heart to and he’d done a good job of protecting it too.