CHAPTER TWO
Trina Gabrini couldn’t believe it. She looked at her Cartier watch and then she stared at her husband. Typical Reno , she thought. Always had to have the last word. But she was too tired to hear it anymore.
She looked at the mediator who sat at the head of the conference table. “Are you going to let him just go on and on and on? We’ve been here all evening already. It’s almost eleven at night and he keeps going back over all that old stuff we’ve already covered.”
But Reno Gabrini, who sat across the table from his wife, wasn’t about to back down. “When you come off of that fifty percent bullshit, then I’ll stop going over that old shit.” Reno moved around in his seat as if he could hardly contain himself. “You’re acting like this all my fault. You’re the one that dragged me into this. You’re the one wanna get rid of me, not the other way around. So don’t try to twist this shit all up.”
“Just get to the point, Reno dang!”
“Okay I’ll get to the point. You want the point? Here’s the point: Your ass won’t be getting fifty percent of my business. Your ass won’t be getting a dime of my business. How’s that for getting to the point?”
Trina was offended. “So it’s your business now? When I was busting my butt for that business it was our business. But now it’s all yours?”
“It was always all mine.” Reno raised his voice and became even more animated. “I owned the PaLargio Hotel and Casino before I met your ass! And now you think you’re gonna drag me down here because you don’t want me anymore, and I’m supposed to just gladly fork over half of what I built up? Like hell!”
“And I had nothing to do with the success of that business?” an equally animated Trina asked. “Is that what you want this lady to believe?”
“I don’t give a fuck what she believes,” Reno shot back. “You’re the one don’t want me anymore.” His voice trembled, which only angered him more. “You’re the one pulled me into this. You don’t wanna have anything more to do with me, then you don’t wanna have anything more to do with my business.”
“Nobody said nothing about not wanting you,” Trina fired back.
But both Reno and the court-appointed mediator were confused. “I don’t understand, Mrs. Gabrini,” the mediator said. “Are you now saying that you don’t want a divorce?”
That confidence that had been oozing out of Trina suddenly seemed to dry up. It appeared as if she didn’t know what she wanted anymore. The mediator assumed it was because of Mr. Gabrini’s refusal to give up half of his estate, but Reno knew better. He stared at Trina.
“Do you still want this divorce, Mrs. Gabrini?” the mediator asked again.
Trina was going to buckle. She was going to give in and remain in a marriage that was more challenging than she knew any marriage should be. There she goes again , she thought, letting that man get into her head and muddle the waters . But not this time! “I can’t stay like this,” she said. “He’ll never change.”
Reno was hurt when she didn’t let go of this divorce nonsense. And Reno, being Reno , lashed out. “I don’t see your ass changing either,” he responded.
And that only reinvigorated Trina. “See what I mean? Hell yeah I want a divorce. And he don’t have to give me shit,” she added as she angrily picked up the pen. “He can keep it all, that’s how much I wanna get rid of his ass. Where do I sign?”
But when the mediator pointed out the spot on the paper in front of her, Reno’s heart froze with fear. And he reached out and touched her hand before she could sign the first letter of her name. “Trina, don’t,” he said with desperation in his voice. His big blue eyes were looking deep into her big hazel eyes. “Don’t do it, Tree. We can work it out like we always do. Don’t do it.”
Trina looked into his eyes too. She stared into his eyes as if she needed to see something she wasn’t seeing. She needed to see that things would change if she stayed. That things would get better. That he would once and for all get his shit together and stop neglecting her as if she didn’t exist outside of his precious casino. But she didn’t see any of that. And he never pretended that he was going to be anything but who he was. He was never going to change.
And that was why she snatched her hand from his grasp and signed that divorce decree with gritted teeth emphasis.
Reno’s heart nearly stopped as reality sat in. She was actually doing it. No more talking about doing it. She was actually leaving him legally . She was going to be free to meet other men and sleep with other men and marry some other man! His wife was going to no longer be his wife ?
“No,” Reno began saying. “No. No. No!” He jumped up and overturned the table, forcing Trina and the mediator to back away and get on their feet too. “No!” Reno yelled again and again and again and again. “No!”
“Sir?Sir? Sir ?”
Reno could feel a hand pushing on his shoulder. Who was pushing on him? Was it Tree? And that was when he opened his eyes and realized he was not in some stuffy conference room downtown, but in his own casino. He had fallen asleep in his elevated chair that overlooked his entire casino, and one of his pit bosses had been trying to wake him up. “What happened?” he asked the young man.
“You fell asleep, sir. Then all of a sudden you kept saying no.”
Was it a dream? Was it really a dream? “Where’s my wife?” he asked his employee with anxiousness in his voice.
“Your wife, sir?”
“Where is she?”
The young man had no clue, but his boss looked so concerned. “It’s late at night, sir. I’m assuming she’s upstairs in the penthouse.”
Reno looked at his Rolex. It was after eleven. He hopped up from his perch, jumped down, and hurried out of that casino. His heart hammering, he began to run. He had to see her for himself. Because it was too real. It hit home too hard. He wasn’t going to believe it was a dream and nothing but a dream until he saw her for himself.
He ran onto that elevator and pressed those buttons, not like a man who owned the joint, but like a man who just wanted his wife back.
Voted the King of Vegas more years than he could ever recall, he was nothing more than a lovesick bundle of nerves.