CHAPTER THREE
“Finally!”
Trina smiled when Mariah, along with her and Dom’s baby, and Jimmy’s daughter Madison, appeared on her phone’s screen. The threesome were all on a cruise through the Mediterranean with Trina’s parents, but they had been having connect issues all night. “It’s about time that ship fixed the wi-fi,” Trina added.
“Ma, you do realize it’s eleven at night in Vegas, which means it’s already Sunday morning here in Rome?” asked Madison. “It was in the middle of the night when you were trying to reach us.”
“I was able to connect with my parents,” Trina said.
“That’s because you called them last night. You waited until it was the middle of the night here to FaceTime us. That’s the difference.”
“Alright alright. I get it. But how’s everything? How’s the trip going? My parents say they’re having fun, but are the really?”
“Grandma and Grandpa? They’re having a blast, Ma.” Trina was Madison’s step-grandmother, but she often thought of Trina more as her mother since her own mother perished long ago. And Trina’s parents were her step-great grandparents, but they were closer than that to her.
“The truth is, we can’t keep up with them,” said Mariah. “They do their own thing.”
“Yeah, they said we’re boring,” Madison said, and Trina laughed. “They stay on the go! They don’t much leave the ship, but they’re always doing some activities on the ship.”
“Which means,” said Trina, “you and Mariah are probably on that wonderful, two-week cruise sleeping all day.”
“Sleeping?” asked Madison. “Are you insinuating that we came all this way to the Mediterranean sea to sleep half the day?”
“That’s exactly what I’m insinuating,” Trina said.
“And you’d be right,” echoed Mariah.
Madison hit her on the arm. “Don’t listen to her, Ma,” said a happy Madison. “We’re having a blast too. We hardly ever sleep.”
“Sure buddy,” Trina said. She knew both of them too well. And the girls laughed.
“Since it’s already the next day your time, what’s on the schedule for today?”
“Lots and lots of sightseeing.”
“Take great pictures.”
“We have been.”
“The baby okay?”
“She’s fine, Ma,” said Mariah. “See.”
Trina’s heart melted when Mariah lifted the baby for Trina to see up close. “Hey, my baby. My sweet little baby. Hey little cutey.”
“So what are you doing, Ma?” asked Mariah. “It’s a big Saturday night. Why aren’t you out painting the town with Dad, or with Jimmy and Dommi?”
“Jimmy’s still stuck on O, although she’s moved on like I told his busy ass she would. I don’t wanna be around that energy. I got my own issues.”
“Okay. So don’t hang out with Jimmy and Dom. They aren’t the only people in Vegas. Why are you laying in that bed alone when you’re the most gorgeous woman in town? You could be with any man you wanna be with.”
“Mariah!” Madison pretended to be shocked. “She’s my grandma. She’s married to my granddaddy. She can’t be with anybody she wants, what are you nuts?”
“I’m just saying,” said Mariah with a grin on her face. “Where’s Dad? That’s what I’m really trying to say. Why aren’t you out with Dad?”
“He’s working.”
“He’s always working. That’s why I told you to come with us.”
“Ma was not about to be away from Poppy for no two weeks,” said Madison. “No way. No how.”
“I don’t know why not,” said Mariah. “She’s in bed alone and he’s not even home yet. Has he been home at all today, Ma?”
“What is that your business, Mariah? You worry about yourself. Me and Reno are good. Just stop being boring and have yourself some fun.”
Mariah and Madison laughed. “Yes ma’am,” said Mariah.
They talked more small talk, and then they all ended the call.
But as soon as the call ended, Trina leaned her head back. She didn’t have a conventional marriage and she knew it. She resigned herself to that reality long ago. But sometimes, although she’d never admit it to anyone, it got to her. Like last night.
She missed Reno so much that she decided to dress her best and go downstairs to the casino to hang out with him. But it was a big Friday night, their second-busiest night of the week, and he was constantly rushing to put out this fire and then rushing to put out that fire and then disappearing for hours at a time. Dom, who worked in the casino as the pit boss supervisor, tried to keep her company but he was mostly on the go, too, as he constantly had to stop arguments before they became fistfights or reprimand some of his pit bosses for getting too cozy with the customers.
But when one guy in particular, some harmless asshole from Nebraska, kept coming over to Trina and became too flirtatious, and when Reno, who was all the way across the massive casino saw it, Trina knew it wasn’t going to end well. Reno rushed over and punched the guy’s lights out without bothering to ask a single question, which caused way more confusion than the guy’s flirtatiousness ever could, and then Reno went right back to ignoring her. It was useless. She gave up, went back upstairs to their penthouse, and went to bed.
That was Friday night. Now it was the next night, Saturday night, and she was at the penthouse in bed once again. After ending the call with Mariah and Madison, she turned onto her back, turned on the TV, and found an old, stupid-ass movie about a girl who couldn’t stop growing. When Trina first turned on the movie, she was already taller than her house.
But as she continued to watch the ridiculous but intriguing movie, she heard the downstairs door beep, signifying that it had opened, and then she heard footsteps on the staircase. Because of the impenetrable security around the penthouse, she assumed it was Dom or Jimmy, or even Sal Gabrini or his wife and Trina’s business partner Gemma, both of whom also lived in Vegas and could walk in uninvited. The girls were on their cruise so she knew it wasn’t them, and her daughter Sophia, who was staying over while her husband was on a business trip to Perth, had long since gone to bed. And Carmine, Reno and Trina’s youngest, a certified genius, was locked away in his room either asleep or reading a book or building a bomb or doing whatever Carmine did. And Reno never came home that early.
But when it was Reno who came through the double doors of their bedroom and closed them behind him as if he was in for the night, she was shocked. “What are you doing here?”
But that dream Reno had of Trina divorcing him had spooked him so completely that his heart was still hammering. He was so relieved that she hadn’t packed her bags and left him; that she hadn’t signed those divorce papers and ended them , that he just stood there staring at her.
Trina was perplexed. “What’s the matter with your stank ass? What are you doing home this early?”
Reno suddenly felt flushed with embarrassment. His weakness, which had always been his love for Trina, felt exposed. So much so that he suddenly didn’t know what to say.
He, instead, began to slowly walk, with his hands in his pants pockets, toward the bed. “What are you doing?”
“Watching a movie.”
“What movie?”
“Just a movie, Reno. Why are you home so early?”
“You’re okay then?”
“If okay is laying up here alone on a big Saturday night watching TV, then yeah, I’m good.”
Reno sat on the edge of the bed. His look concerned Trina. “What’s wrong, Reno?”
“I thought . . .” He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
“You thought what? What your ass got mixed up in now boy?”
Her response woke him up for good. And he frowned. And overcompensated. “What I look like getting mixed up in something? What are you talking?”
“You did something wrong or you wouldn’t be looking like some lost puppy.”
“Who’s lost?” His machismo returned in full display as he stood up. “Who’s a lost puppy?” Reno began taking off of his suit. “I got your lost puppy right here,” he said as he began getting naked. “I’ll show you lost .”
Trina inwardly smiled. Reno could never be anybody but who he was.
“Get your ass over,” he said as he grabbed the remote, turned off the TV, and then tossed it back onto the nightstand. Trina moved over, and he got in bed with her.
He was on her side of the bed, which she knew meant he wasn’t going to stay all night, but she wasn’t about to complain. She loved being next to her husband. But why tonight? Saturday was their busiest night. She turned to him when he laid down beside her. They were face to face. “What happened, Reno?”
“Why you keep asking me that?”
“Because your ass don’t be home at no eleven o’clock on a Saturday night. Like never. What happened? And none of your bullshit either.”
Reno knew Trina wasn’t going to let it go. They fought like cats and dogs because she never was the kind of woman that let things go. He had to give. “I had a dream,” he said.
“So you’re Martin Luther King, Junior now?”
“About us.”
When he said those words, Trina hesitated. “What about us?”
“I dreamed you were divorcing me.” Reno said this and then looked at her as if he wanted and needed to see her dismiss such a thing out of hand.
But she didn’t dismiss it at all. “And?” she said to him.
He knew he had to just lay himself bare. “And it scared me. It seemed so real.” Then he tried to smile although it came off for what it was: forced and fake. “But you’d never do that to me, anyway. You’d never even think about divorcing me. Would you, Tree?”
“Let me see,” Trina said. “It’s Saturday night and I’m lying here alone in bed watching some big-ass white girl who can’t stop herself from growing taller than her got damn house, and I’m watching this crazy-ass movie alone because my husband is married to his mistress his casino, and is having an affair with his sidepiece his hotel. And you have the nerve to ask me that I’d never even consider divorcing your ratchet ass? Really, Reno?
Reno grabbed her and pulled her into his arms. Her response didn’t ease his anxiety, it heightened it. Because one thing he knew for sure about Katrina: she never lied. She always told the truth no matter how hard a pill it was for him to swallow. “I’m sorry,” he said into her hair, fighting back tears. “I am so sorry.”
Trina knew it was the same old song. She’d heard variations of it for decades. He played it every time he was scared that she would leave him for good. He was always sorry when the shit hit the fan. That was his way. Do all the shit he was big enough to do, and then run to her sorry for all the shit he did. Which always centered around his neglect of her.
And she, like the sucker she was for him, always accepted his apology. Always. Because she loved him so much. Way too much for her health. Reno, just by being Reno, was not good for her health. But Trina knew herself to be a truth teller too. And it was just the plain, simple truth that she loved that man more than she ever thought was humanly possible. His good didn’t completely outweigh his bad, not by a long shot, but his good was better than any man’s she’d ever known.
She wrapped her arms around Reno as if she was wrapping herself around herself, and she forgave him once again.