Reno Gabrini: Sweet Little Lies

CHAPTER ONE

“I see Trina,” Sal said, “but where Reno ass at?”

Gemma Jones-Gabrini, an attorney who took the English language seriously, wanted to say he’s behind the preposition at the way she usually did whenever her husband butchered the language, but she knew she’d be wasting her time.

Sal Gabrini was a lot of great things, but an English aficionado was not one of them.

Instead of correcting him, which he hated anyway and viewed it as more self-serving than helpful, she looked where he was looking.

Katrina “Trina” Gabrini had already entered the upscale restaurant and was making her way to their table.

A woman of substance that both Sal and Gemma greatly admired, she wore a stylish pair of prescription eyeglasses, a scarf around her neck, and a body-hugging dress that quickly got Sal’s attention as soon as he looked down the length of her.

He didn’t mean to have that reaction. But he couldn’t help it.

Trina, in his eyes, was a gorgeous girl.

“Where Reno at?” he asked Gemma again to distract himself from his sudden hardness down below.

“He’s not coming,” Gemma responded. “So don’t mention his name.”

Sal was seated in the booth beside his wife, and he looked at her.

Although Gemma and Trina were two accomplished black women who had their shit together, Sal viewed Gemma as a very different kind of beauty than Trina.

Trina was old-school beautiful, the kind of woman a man would look at and immediately know she was the it girl.

But Gemma, with her high-cheekbones and very dark skin, and with her slender, leggy body, was exotically beautiful, the kind of woman you just didn’t see every day.

The kind of woman with an unmatched elegance and confidence and grace that drew Sal into a world he thought he’d never enter into.

He was an Italian man who only thought Italian women were the most attractive.

But after he met Gemma and got to know her, the woman he once thought was not his type at all and that was, in fact, the very opposite of his type, became his gold standard.

Nobody, in his eyes, could ever be more beautiful.

“What you giving me an order like that for?” he asked her.

“Telling me not to say his name. Why I can’t say his name? ”

“Reno and Trina are going through another one of their periods and I don’t want you getting her any more upset than is already the case.”

But Sal was confused. “One of their periods? What you talking, Gemma? Since when Reno have a period?”

Gemma frowned and leaned to the side looking at Sal. The second most-powerful mob boss in the land, behind only his uncle Mick Sinatra, he was a very street-smart and savvy guy. He knew his way around a room. But sometimes the words that came out of that man’s mouth astonished her.

But Sal didn’t find it astonishing at all. He frowned too. “What you looking at me like that for? You’re the one that said they’re having periods.”

“I said they’re going through one of their periods, Sal. Not having one!”

“What’s the damn difference? Having. Going through. What?”

Gemma rolled her eyes and shook her head just as Trina made it to their booth.

“Don’t tell me y’all arguing too,” Trina said as she reached over Sal and hugged and kissed Gemma. Then she hugged and kissed Sal and sat down in the booth seat across from them. “I’ve been arguing enough for both of y’all and everybody else in this bitch. So cut it out.”

But Sal saw her admission as an opening. “You ‘ve been arguing with whom might I ask?” He knew it was a backhanded way to find out what was up with Reno. And Gemma, giving him the stank eye, knew it too.

Trina removed her glasses from off of her face and sat them on top of her head, revealing her gorgeous hazel eyes, and then she jerked her long hair back. “I’ll give you two guesses,” she said to Sal.

“Just two?” Sal looked at Gemma. “Who, pray-tell, could it possibly be?”

Gemma couldn’t help but smile. “Boy bye!” He laughed. Then Gemma looked at Trina. “I told him not to bring up that man’s name. He’s purposely trying to be cute about it.”

“You didn’t have to tell him that. He can bring up his name all he wants.” A waiter arrived with a drink for Trina.

“I told him to bring you a Sherry when you arrived,” said Sal.

“Thank you,” Trina said to the waiter.

“Are you ready to place your order?” he asked all of them.

“Not yet,” said Sal, and the waiter bowed and left.

Then Trina took a sip of her drink and leaned back.

“Y’all just don’t know,” she said, shaking her head.

“I am so over Reno it’s not even funny anymore.

That man gets on my deep-down last nerve every day God send.

He knew we were going to meet up for dinner tonight.

He knew it. But does that matter to him? Not at all. I am so over that man!”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re so over Reno and his mess and you can’t take it anymore and yada yada yada,” said Sal. “Why does that sound so familiar to me?”

“So familiar,” added Gemma.

“Why would I lie? It’s the truth! Y’all just don’t know.”

Something in the way Trina said those last words didn’t make Gemma any less doubtful that it was all talk like it usually was for Trina, but it gave Sal some concern. “What did he do this time?” he asked her.

Trina’s beautiful soft face turned hard. And then sad. And then a tear even escaped that she quickly wiped away.

But that singular tear convinced Gemma that it just might not be all talk this time.

She leaned forward and touched Trina’s hand.

They weren’t just business partners with joint ownership of the Champagne’s clothing boutiques around the country, and they weren’t just two black ladies that married two mob or mob-adjacent Italian cousins, but they were also great friends.

And an emotional Trina wasn’t something Gemma hardly ever saw. “What did he do, Tree? What is it?”

But Trina didn’t seem able to even verbalize how she felt. She just shook her head. Then her phone buzzed. She had a text message.

As she pulled her phone out of her purse, Sal and Gemma looked at each other. But Gemma could see Sal wanted to go in hard. He wanted details. She leaned over to him. “Lighten up,” she whispered. “Tree will shut you down if you go at her too hard.”

Sal knew it too. That was why, while she was reading the text, he eased up. “That Reno texting you?” he asked her.

She was frowned as she read the text.

“Tree?”

Trina looked up at him, but she seemed to be in a state of confusion.

“You okay?” Gemma asked her.

“What? Yes, I’m fine. What were you asking, Sal?”

“I wanted to know what was up with Reno. Cramps?”

Gemma expected Trina’s confusion to go through the roof after Sal made that crazy remark, but Trina just looked back down at that text. She continued reading. Which made Gemma even more concerned.

And when Trina got near the end of the message, there was a decided change in her facial expression. And then she suddenly jumped up from her seat. “I’ve got to go,” she said.

Sal stood up too, his double-breasted suit unbuttoned, as he and Gemma both were baffled. “Go where?” Sal asked her. “You just got here. Where you going?”

“Just something I need to take care of,” she tried to say as casually as she could as she grabbed her purse and phone.

“But what’s wrong?” Gemma asked her.

“Nothing’s wrong. I’ll call you later,” she said, and hurried for the exit.

Gemma, floored, looked at Sal as Sal sat back down. “What in the world could that be about?”

But Sal could only hunch his shoulders. He was as baffled as Gemma.

“What could Reno have done?”

“A million things. It’s Reno,” said Sal. Then he hunched his shoulders again. “Who knows? Maybe it’s his hormones acting up like yours do when you have your period.”

Gemma’s face went from concern to outright incredulity. “Call that waiter to top off my drink.”

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink, Gemma Gabrini?”

“Enough? And I still got to deal with your ass? Hell no. I need a double!” Then she laughed.

“You got jokes,” said Sal offended. “I got fists. But you got jokes. Now which one, jokes or fists, will put your ass in an early grave?”

“You mean after I take your balls, shove them up your ass, and put you in that early grave? Is that what you mean, Sal Luca?”

Sal visualized what she said and didn’t like the vision. “Waiter!” he yelled out. “We need liquor at this table! Liquor emergency!” And they both laughed.

But when the laughter died down, they both thought about and then became increasingly worried about the future of Reno and Trina.