Chapter 4
Four
The Composition Book
A lot of couples fight over their wedding plans. Gianna and I never got the chance.
Her parents had moved to Abu Dhabi, so finding a date when they could attend was tricky. And whenever we discussed venues, Gianna would say, “I’m happy with anything,” but when I’d suggest a place, she’d scrunch her face and say, “Oh, not that.”
So we left it open, being in no rush, until one Saturday after a particularly disappointing week.
Gianna had submitted photos to a magazine, pictures of birds in various New York City locations—-outside a Macy’s window, or sitting on a pretzel vendor’s cart.
I thought they were really good. But the magazine rejected them as “too cliché.” Meanwhile, I had finally gotten an appointment with a record company executive but arrived late for our meeting because the subway broke down.
They told me he’d gone into another meeting and I should try to reschedule.
Instead, I twiced myself back to an earlier train, arrived on time, and figured I’d avoided the worst of it.
But once we sat down and started playing my cassette, the executive’s phone rang and he spent the next three minutes in conversation. He hung up as the last notes of my best song ended and said, “Sorry, man, I just don’t hear it.” There was no going back on that.
So Gianna and I were both pretty fed up, and on Saturday morning she said, “Let’s drive as far away as we can get in a day.
” We rented a car and headed west through the Holland Tunnel, out into New Jersey and on through Pennsylvania, trading frustrations over the people who had rejected us, until the landscape changed and we rolled down the windows and we stopped talking and put some music on the radio.
The sky brightened, and eventually we smelled pine needles.
We saw a sign that said allegheny national forest.
“Let’s get out and walk,” I said.
We hiked for an hour without a map or a destination, shedding the city’s weight with every muddy step. Eventually we came upon a small town near the Clarion River. I don’t even remember what it was called. But there was a general store, and we went in to buy something to drink.
A small bell clanged when the door opened. Behind the counter was a tall Black man wearing a tweed cap. He looked to be in his sixties, with a well--trimmed graying beard. We were the only customers, and he smiled broadly at us.
“Here from New York?” he said. His voice was heavily accented.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Well, let me see.” He hooked his fingers together. “You seem weary, as if you have not slept. And you opened the door harshly and entered in a hurry.”
Gianna and I glanced at each other. Had we really become such ugly creatures of the city?
“Also,” the man added, pointing to my chest, “there is that.”
I looked at my T--shirt, which read manhattan boxing club. The man burst out laughing.
“I am many things,” he bellowed, “but not a mind reader!”
We laughed along. Then Gianna asked, “What other things?” She was always picking up on people’s sentences that way.
Within minutes, we learned the man’s name was Dozie, that he’d emigrated from Nigeria in his twenties and had worked in this general store until the original owner, an elderly woman, passed away and, to his surprise, left him the business in her estate.
That was twelve years ago, he said. In a town as small as this, he’d had to learn to wear many hats.
Volunteer firefighter. Election official. Tree trimmer.
“Why did you leave Nigeria?” Gianna asked.
“Silly me. I fell for an American woman and married her. She used to work here beside me.” He paused. “She passed last year.”
“I’m sorry,” Gianna said.
“I am sorry, too. It’s a wonderful thing, to be married to an excellent person.”
Gianna glanced at me. I could tell she was happy we’d taken this trip.
“May I ask, are you two . . . ?”
“Engaged,” Gianna said. She made an exaggerated frown. “Still waiting on a ring.”
“Ah, well, we can take care of that,” Dozie said.
He pointed to half a dozen toy rings in a foam rubber display. Gianna plucked one out and put it on her pinkie finger. She held it up, admiring the cheap sparkle.
“Now, if only you were a justice of the peace.”
Dozie grinned. “As a matter of fact . . .”
We looked at each other.
“You’re joking,” I said.
“I am not. I have officiated more than thirty weddings in our town.”
Gianna grabbed my hand. I felt a nervous flush.
“Alfie,” she said, “do you want to get married today?”
There were a million things I could have said at that moment. A witty retort. A mushy concurrence. A simple yes.
But what I said was: “Twice.”
?
Instantly, I was back in the car that morning, driving through the Holland Tunnel. Gianna was complaining about her magazine editor. I mumbled “Yeah” and “You’re right.” But inside, my heart was racing. I thought about not stopping at that forest. Never going for that walk.
Yet as we rolled through New Jersey and into Pennsylvania, I realized there was no good reason to wait.
I loved Gianna. She loved me. Nobody came close to making me feel as happy, as understood, or as appreciated as she did.
Perhaps living life recklessly the first time—-knowing I could always erase things later—-hadn’t prepared me for a moment of real commitment. I’d panicked. I felt ashamed.
Just then Gianna, for no reason, reached across, took my hand, and without a word, pulled it into her lap as she gazed out the window.
“Hi, honey,” I whispered.
She turned and smiled. “Hi, honey.”
With that, something inside me melted. And for the first time in all the years of my magical undoings, I left everything as it was, because another truth in The Truth About True Love is that when it’s good, you don’t want to alter it.
The walk through the woods. The encounter with Dozie.
I left every detail untouched, right up to the moment when Gianna asked, “Alfie, do you want to get married today?”
This time I smiled.
“I do,” I said.
Dozie threw his hands in the air. “Wonderful! We only need a few things . . .”
He moved quickly to the shelves, pulling off several items.
“Cayenne pepper,” he said, grabbing a shaker, “for the passion, yes? A lemon, for life’s disappointments. Some vinegar, for the challenges you will face.
“And this . . .” He grabbed a jar of honey. “For the sweetness and joy.”
He placed the goods on the counter. “If you taste these four elements during your ceremony, it means you will understand what lies ahead in marriage.”
“That’s beautiful,” Gianna said. “Did you make that up?”
“Yes. Well. First, I saw it done in Nigeria. Then I made it up!”
We all laughed. And that is how it happened.
In a ceremony officiated by a Nigerian--born general store owner and witnessed by a mail sorter from the post office next door, Gianna and I recited unrehearsed vows.
We tasted those four elements. When Dozie asked if we trusted each other in all things, we said we did.
“Good,” he said. “Suspicion and belief cannot share the same bed.”
When he finished, I got down on one knee and sang a chorus of “Try Me” to Gianna. Then I placed the toy ring on her finger. We were officially wed, against a backdrop of chirping birds and a gurgling river. And I wouldn’t dream of changing a moment.
Until I had to.
Nassau
LaPorta hurried through the hotel pool area, past palm trees planted in neatly spaced concrete squares, and rows of open white beach chairs.
Sampson, the Bahamian police officer, matched his stride.
They ducked in through a side entrance to the casino, moved briskly past the craps tables and the endless rows of slot machines, and turned down a corridor to the security office.
Although LaPorta was curious to speak with Gianna Rule, he had stopped at the casino first, because a witness had unexpectedly come forward. A blackjack dealer. He was waiting in the hallway, alongside a security guard.
“In here,” LaPorta said, motioning toward the door.
The dealer was thin, with a stringy mustache. When they sat him down, he began chewing on his fingernails. LaPorta flanked him on one side, Sampson on the other.
“You have something to tell us?”
“Yes.”
“Talk.”
His voice was taut with nerves. He said his name was Toussaint. He’d come to the Bahamas from Haiti.
“Two weeks ago, this man who live in my apartment building knock on my door. He ask if I know a roulette croupier here. I say yes, I know one very good. We come from Haiti together. The man ask if he can be trusted and I say, sure, I trust him with anything.”
“And then?” LaPorta said.
“Then he ask if I want to make some money.”
“What did you say?”
“I say sure. I like money. But I need my job, I cannot get in trouble, or maybe they send me back to Haiti. He say not to worry, all I have to do is introduce my friend to the American.”
“What American? What was his name?”
“I never know his name.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall. He have an earring.”
Alfie, LaPorta thought. I knew it.
“When did they meet?”
“Last week.”
“What did they talk about?”
“I don’t know. I leave the room. I don’t want to get in trouble. But . . .”
“But what?”
“When my friend come out, he is hiding something in his hand.”
“Did you see what it was?”
“A ball.”
“What kind of ball?”
Toussaint shrugged as if it were obvious.
“A roulette ball,” he said.
?
Twenty minutes later, the dealer was on his way to police headquarters while LaPorta and Sampson drove to The Ocean Club Resort, where Gianna Rule was registered as a guest. The downtown traffic was thick with jitneys and rental cars.
LaPorta, riding in the passenger seat, stared at the sherbet--colored buildings dotting the crowded streets.
He remembered when he first arrived in the Bahamas, being told the color scheme was intentional.
Pink is government, yellow is schools, and green is for police.