Chapter 1 #2
“A cab was fine,” she replied. “Travelin’ is already stupid, and it’s gonna get even crazier tomorrow, the day before Thanksgivin’, so I decided to surprise Markie.”
“Sure,” Larry said, a little concerned.
“Oh, he’ll be surprised,” Bruno agreed.
She sensed the hesitancy in both men and looked them over.
“What’s goin’ on? Everythin’ alright?”
“Eh, everything’s fine,” Larry said. “I-I just think Markie wanted to make some arrangements for your homecoming.”
“Oh, I don’t want no celebration or nothin’,” she waved off. “I just wanna see my man.”
“You want help with your bags?” Bruno offered.
“No. Two men in the lobby at all times,” she said, reinforcing one of Markie’s rules. “He upstairs?”
“Yeah,” Bruno answered. “But…”
“But what?” she asked.
After a pause, the bigger man shrugged, “Nothin’.”
Goldie grabbed the raised handle of her suitcase and headed for the elevator. As she did, Larry and Bruno looked at one another anxiously, and the moment the elevator door closed with Goldie inside, Larry hurried over to the house phone on the counter.
Markie and Goldie’s condo was on the fifth floor, which was the top floor of the building.
After using her key and stepping into the foyer of the 1,800-square-foot layout, she immediately noticed a change.
There was a narrow wall table in the foyer for holding keys, gloves, and purses.
Usually, hanging on the wall above it were six ceramic decorative masks tastefully arranged that Goldie had bought at an art gallery.
But now, the masks were gone. In their place was a modernistic Jackson Pollack-style painting she neither recognized nor liked.
“What the hell is this?” she asked herself quietly. “Looks like somebody shook up a can of Cherry Coke. Hey, baby?” she called. “I’m home! What happened to my masks?”
She rolled her suitcase into the living room and put her tote on a chair.
She looked around with a furrowed brow. She was home, but things looked different.
A favorite floor vase had been moved. There was an empty shelf near the stereo where she had kept her collection of vinyl albums. They were mostly artists from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, decades of music she particularly liked.
“Hey!” she said, walking over to the empty shelf. “Where’s my Sergeant Pepper? Back In Black? Where the fuck’s my Saturday Night Fever!”
She looked around, not understanding. “Markie?” she called.
Suddenly, a young woman entered from the opposite side of the living room.
She appeared at the end of the hallway that led to the master bedroom.
She was a little younger than Goldie, blonde and pretty like her, but much more casually dressed.
She had her hair loosely piled atop her head with several strands hanging down.
She also wore an oversized NYU sweatshirt, baggy plaid sweatpants, and bright pink high-top sneakers.
She carried a long blue down coat over her arm and cracked the faintest of smiles at Goldie as she headed for the front door.
“Uh, excuse me?” Goldie said, taken aback. “Who are you?”
The young woman didn’t respond and continued toward the door.
“Hey!” Goldie insisted, her temper igniting while she eyed the other woman’s oversized clothes. “Walkin’ lampshade: I’m talkin’ to you!”
The other blonde opened the front door and tossed Goldie a dismissive look as she exited. Goldie took a couple of steps toward the front door to pursue, but stopped when Markie entered the room, also appearing at the end of the same hall.
“Ay,” he said in a Bronx accent as thick as hers. “You’re back early.”
“That damn well better be the new maid,” she snapped.
“Chill,” he said, walking over to her. “There’s a perfectly logical explanation.”
Markie Santina was a good-looking twenty-seven-year-old Italian, six feet tall, weighing 175 pounds, and lean but taut.
Some said he looked like a young Richard Gere, although he didn’t know who that was.
He wore slim-fitting Lucky jeans, a powder-blue Lauren pullover sweater, and some Fly London Chukka black boots.
His excellent taste in clothing only accentuated his good looks.
He walked over and put his arms around her waist.
“I wasn’t expectin’ you ‘til tomorrow,” he smiled.
“Yeah, I can see that,” she said suspiciously. “Who just walked out of our bedroom, and why was she in there?”
“We’ll get to that,” he said. He gave her a quick kiss that she hardly reciprocated, then let go of her waist. “Tell me about Nevada. How’s your aunt doin’?”
“Her partner is dead,” Goldie answered. “How do ya think she’s doin’? Speaking of dead partners, you better start explainin’ who that person was that walked out of our bedroom. And where are my masks? And my albums? Why does my house not look like my house?”
“C’mere,” he said, moving over to the sofa and gesturing for her to sit. “Sit down.”
“What goin’ on, Markie?”
“Sit down,” he smiled.
She stepped over to their white leather Natuzzi sofa and sat, but didn’t remove her jacket with the fake fur collar.
Markie paused a moment, trying to figure out just the right way to explain things, then sat down on an ottoman across from her.
“You know I’m movin’ up in the family, right? You know Frank’s got his eye on me.”
He was referring to Frank Lombardo, head of the largest crime family in the city.
“Yeah, Frank likes you,” Goldie conceded. “Who was the blonde that came out of our bedroom?”
“Her name is Kristen DiVarno. She’s Charley DiVarno’s oldest daughter.”
“Charley DiVarno, as in the Chicago DiVarnos?” Goldie asked, knowing they were the largest Italian crime family in the Windy City.
“Yeah,” Markie confirmed. “You know Frank and Charley got history, right? Charley’s originally from New York, and they hung out a lot back in the day.
Anyway, Kristen’s in the graduate program at NYU.
She’s gettin’ her master’s in business. Charley asked Frank to have someone check up on her from time to time, so Frank asked me. ”
“Okay. Swell. But why was she in our bedroom?”
“Well, Frank asked me to look in on Kristen some time ago. I didn’t tell ya because, well—I didn’t think it was a big deal. But, uh, over time, we got to know one another and, uh, had coffee a few times… and… uh, one thing sort of led to another.”
Goldie’s green eyes shot daggers at him, knowing where this was going.
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “Oh, no! I’ve been with you seven years, Markie. Seven years!”
“Yeah, I know,” he nodded. “And I feel really shitty about this, Goldie. I really do! But it was just somethin’ that—y’know—happened. Nobody planned it.”
Tears began to fill Goldie’s eyes as her heart sank to the pit of her stomach.
“I thought you were comin’ in tomorrow,” he continued. “I was gonna meet you at the airport with flowers and give you this talk I been workin’ on, then take you to your new apartment.”
“My new what?”
“I got you this great place on 53rd. The rent is paid up for six months. Your stuff’s all there; I got you a car and put fifty grand in a bank account for ya. It’s a really nice exit package.”
Goldie rubbed her forehead now, actually feeling light-headed, while tears rolled down her face.
“I—uh—I…” She rose, walked out of the living room, and went into the kitchen.
Unsure of what to say, she tore off a piece of paper towel from a roll and blew her nose.
She was stunned, hurt, and felt betrayed.
Everything she knew had just changed in an instant.
She glanced around the kitchen and noticed a small, empty space on the wall above the counter where a saying that came from her mother’s kitchen used to hang.
It read: “The best ingredient to every good meal is love.”
She wiped her eyes and tried to regain some composure.
“Exit package, huh?” she finally muttered. “What am I? Some employee who just got canned?”
Her ex looked at her and shrugged slightly. “No… I just felt like I owed ya.”
“How long, Markie?” she wondered. “When did all this start?”
“What difference does it make?” he asked.
“How long?” she insisted.
“Eight months.”
“Oh, my God,” Goldie moaned as fresh tears flooded her eyes. “Oh, my God!”
Markie rose and walked over to the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room.
“Look, I’m really sorry about this. I’ve tried to make things as painless as possible with—y’know—the apartment, money, and car. But, there’s no good way to do this kind of thing.”
“I dunno,” she disagreed. “You’re doin’ a pretty bang-up job of tellin’ me you’ve been bangin’ someone else.”
She paused a moment to try to control her avalanche of hurt. “And, uh… so, I-I guess you’re pretty serious about this, eh?” she asked, swallowing hard. “I mean, you moved all my stuff out.”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “It’s serious… actually… we’re gonna get married.”
Goldie’s hurt suddenly shifted into anger.
“What?” she asked, open-mouthed. “I’m with you seven years! I lost a baby, lost my sister, I supported ya every step of the way with the family! And now, now, after eight months of sneakin’ around, you’re gettin’ married? Just like that?”
“Hey—when it’s right, it’s right,” Markie justified.
“And what am I? Miss Wrong of this year, last year, the year before that?”
“C’mon, Goldie.”
“Why her?” she persisted. “What’s she got that I don’t?”
“Don’t do this.”
“No! I wanna know. I mean, I get that her ol’ man is Charley DiVarno, but there’s gotta be more to it than that.”
He shook his head. “This isn’t helpful.”
“Gee, Markie. You just Hiroshimaed my life. I wanna know!
“You wanna know?” he asked, raising his intensity.
“Yeah, I wanna know!”
“Alright! She’s educated for one thing. She’s gonna get a master’s in business. That’ll be very helpful.”
“And what? I haven’t been? Who double-checks your books? Who reminds you of important names and dates when you ask? Who told you to get a spare condo in this buildin’ for your shit in case the cops showed up with a search warrant?”