Chapter 6 Maria
Icouldn’t help but appreciate the lavish spread on the trolley. There were sandwiches, cut-up fruit, a bottle of juice, coffee, a bowl of pasta, and were those steaks at the bottom with plenty of sides? And that wasn’t all on the trolley.
“The steaks were my idea,” he said, pulling up the sofa toward the trolley. “See, I also haven’t had dinner.”
Now that there was so much food in front of me, and I was feeling relatively safe at the don’s compound, I realized just how hungry I was. The only thing I’d eaten all day had been a bagel at seven in the morning, and then several cups of coffee throughout the day.
I helped myself to a little bit of everything until my plate looked like the most hilarious smorgasbord imaginable. I even took one of his steaks and helped myself to the sides. Mashed potatoes, stir-fried veggies, mushrooms. Oh God, I’d died and gone to heaven.
“I haven’t ever had the luxury of… you know… room service,” I said.
“Never? Not even at a hotel?”
“Do I look like the kind of girl who stays at hotels?” I asked, taking a forkful of pasta, dipping it in sauce, and relishing its flavor.
He was just straight up, no-nonsense, attacking the steak and wolfing it down ravenously.
“Not even on the company’s dime?”
“They make me stay in New York for most of the time, and whenever they do send me to Jersey or Connecticut, it’s just a day trip. Besides, Your Highness,” I said, laying the sarcasm thick, “hotels are expensive.”
“Jeez.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
We both laughed at the same time again. He was easy to laugh around, and altogether pleasant company.
“Oh, shoot,” I said, suddenly remembering that I had to be at the office. All the data that I’d gathered needed to be submitted before tomorrow’s newspapers went in print. “I gotta head downtown again.”
“Can’t you just send them everything you have from here?”
“I’d need a real fast internet connection,” I said.
“Try mine. It’s criminal how fast it is,” he said.
So I did. I opened my laptop while having dinner and did a speed test. And I thought our office’s internet was fast. This one, his home connection, was giving a speed of two gigabytes per second.
“Seriously, are you running a torrent website out of your basement?”
“We don’t do anything illegal, remember?” he said, pointing his fork at me, grinning lopsidedly.
“Ah, yes,” I said, feeling relieved. Now I wouldn’t have to make it to the office. I could just upload everything from here in ten minutes and be done with it. “I never said thank you for all you’ve done for me tonight.”
“Please. I’m in the business of rescuing damsels in distress. You’re like the third girl I rescued this week,” he said.
“I’m honored to be girl number three,” I laughed, and then put my plate back on the trolley. I helped myself to some coffee, knowing full well that this was a bad idea. I’d stay awake the entire night.
“Don’t mention it,” he said, helping himself to some juice.
“Hey, you’re not all that reckless, you know, like how the papers make you out to be,” I said. “So what was the deal with Miami anyway?”
“You’ll laugh if I tell you,” he said. “So I don’t see any reason why. Besides, there are more interesting things we could be doing. You’re stuck with me for seven days. The least I can do is give you a tour of the house.”
“A tour of the house at one in the morning?”
“Seems like the best time for it, if you’re a fan of spooky vibes. We can even watch a horror movie in the theater,” he said, all done with his juice and now helping himself to some coffee.
Why wasn’t there any wine?
It was as if he was thinking the exact same thing, because right that moment, he turned around and knocked on the big TV console. One of the cabinets opened, revealing a minibar, except nothing about it was mini. There were full-sized bottles of wine, whiskey, and vodka in there.
“This is for just in case you’re a high-functioning alcoholic,” he said, pointing at the cabinet. “I hope you’re not.”
“Just a social alcoholic, at that,” I said, taking a bottle of wine out of the cabinet and pouring us each a glass.
“A woman after my own heart,” he said.
“You seem really convinced that I am.”
“You’re what?”
“A woman after your heart.”
“I just think you’re a really strange, really sincerely real person, if that makes sense.
Does that make sense? I don’t care. I’m deciding it makes sense.
Anyway, when you’re someone like me, you never know if people are presenting their genuine selves to you or if they’re just cozying up to you because you’re the don’s son,” he said. “It hurts, kind of.”
“Kind of?” I asked, sipping some of that delicious wine.
“Well, after some time you get used to it, get jaded, start expecting it from people,” he said, looking out the window.
There was no shortage of trees outside in the garden, and at this time of night, they made up for most of the silhouettes that swayed against the dark backdrop of the sky.
It was a welcome change, seeing outside and not having to look at the sprawling skyline of Manhattan.
Here, there was only the clear night sky.
We could be in the countryside, if I didn’t know any better.
“But then,” he continued, “I met you, and you’re like too urgent and too hasty to be anything other than yourself.”
He was right. And for someone who was supposed to be a jaded, reckless billionaire with no regard for relationships and money, he certainly had a deep understanding of human psychology.
“It’s… been one thing after another,” I said, drinking more wine, feeling my tongue get looser.
“My parents, they’re like the poster-people for small towners.
New Haven in Maine. That’s where I grew up.
Back there, life’s standing still the same way it was a hundred years ago.
Countryside, farms, small town, tight-knit community.
They make Hallmark movies about those places. ”
“Or Stephen King novels,” Elio laughed.
“Yeah, those too,” I laughed with him. “But then I got into college, and that was hectic. It wasn’t just hectic; it was also contradictory.
Professors would tell us our degrees were worthless because the age of AI and the age of computing was nigh.
As if all that would somehow make journalism, literature, and language redundant.
But I pursued it anyway, and I found my calling in my final year when I decided that I’d be a journalist. It wasn’t easy finding a job in New York, but after college, I didn’t want to be anywhere else. ”
“NYU?” he asked.
“Columbia.”
“No way!”
“Way! Why? You think I’m not good enough for Columbia?”
“I never said that, Thurman,” Elio said, chuckling lightheartedly. “I’m just shocked to be sitting with an Ivy Leaguer.”
“Says the Ivy Leaguer himself,” I said. “Princeton’s not some state school, you know. It’s the place to be. Especially for finance. It’s either that or Wharton.”
“I got in on merit, by the way,” he said. “Scored perfect on my SATs. Full ride.”
“Jesus, now I’m jealous,” I said. I’d applied to Princeton, too. But in the end I went with Columbia because, of course, New York.
“Don’t be. It’s an old boys’ club in there. I feel like that’s true for most other Ivy League colleges, too. Was it the same in Columbia?”
“Hell no. It was pretty chill. It was like living in a twenty-four-seven carnival,” I said, reminiscing about my time spent on campus.
We drank our wine in silence, and then, when we were done, Elio offered me his hand.
“Come on. You’re not a prisoner here, you know. We can come and go as we please. The least I can do is show you around.”
“Come and go within the house, you mean. Jimmy’s men are still out there,” she said, a dark shadow casting over her face.
“Don’t you worry about them. That’s handled. No one’s going to hurt you or come after you again, I promise.”
I wasn’t expecting butterflies in my stomach, but I got them nonetheless. No one had ever gone out of their way for me like this. And there was something to be said about the way he looked at me.
As if he yearned for me.
And to think that we’d only known each other for a few hours.
I took his hand and followed him as he took me on the house tour.
By the time we were done with the extensive house tour, it was three in the morning, and just as I’d suspected, the coffee had kept me awake and would keep me awake for a couple more hours. I was going to have to skip work altogether.
“And here, at last, we have the theater, as promised.”
“Dude!” I gasped as I stepped into the theater. It was half the size of a regular cinema hall, but no less impressive. There were big, leather recliners facing the big screen. Recliners big and comfortable enough that you could fall asleep on them. “This is crazy!”
“Soundproof, seven-point-one surround sound, and crisp 4k—it’s the best money can buy,” he said, turning the screen on. “What do you want to watch?”
“How about Hokum? Have you seen it?” I asked.
He searched for Hokum on the home screen, and there it popped up underneath Hulu.
“I guess we’re watching a horror movie after all,” he said. “May I show you to your seat, ma’am?”
“How chivalrous,” I said, letting him take my hand again. Any excuse to touch him was a good excuse.
He showed me to my seat and came back with popcorn and drinks.
“You’re spoiling the shit out of me right now, Romano,” I said, giggling, feeling giddy, feeling slightly tipsy, feeling quite relaxed.
The last time I’d been this relaxed was when they’d promoted me to lead investigative journalist and given me three days of paid time off.
After that, it had been one thing after another.
“Come now. It’s not every day you win a guy in an auction,” he said, sliding down and sitting right next to me.
It had been barely ten minutes when Elio looked at me and said, “I’m not the guy everyone thinks I am, you know. I’ve known you for, what, six hours, and I can already feel like you know the real me better than anyone else does.”