Chapter Thirteen Eleanor #2
I look down at my handful of chips. “Um. I have twelve hundred and fifty worth of chips. But anything you could do would be really great.”
“Sure thing. We’ve got you covered.”
She and her friends each dig out a handful of chips from their respective stashes, and Angie holds them out to me, just like that. I hesitate, unable to believe it’s really this easy, then reach to trade the chips with her. “Thank you. Really.”
She waves her hand while she divvies the chips up among the group again. “No problem. Like Isabella said, I’ve had a good weekend. Besides, we’re celebrating.”
I slide my chips into my pocket, terrified of losing them. “Oh yeah? Is it your birthday?”
“Heck no, I’ve stopped acknowledging those.”
“According to her, she’s sixty-five,” Helen says with a cackle.
A smile tugs at my lips and Angie rolls her eyes. “I got divorced,” she tells me.
“Oh. Well… congratulations?”
“Hear, hear,” says Maryellen, raising her wineglass. All of them scramble to find their own drinks, and then they clink and down the contents.
“Should’ve done it years ago, but in families like ours… there’s usually only one way out of marriage.” She gives a shrug, and I’m left to interpret what kind exactly she means by that. Religious families?… Italian families?
“Not sure which way is messier,” Helen says in a voice so low, I’m not sure I’m meant to hear. I smile and nod, even as my stomach grows slightly unsettled. She almost makes it sound like her husband… didn’t die of natural causes?
As soon as the thought crosses my mind, I realize how ludicrous it is. These sweet old ladies are harmless. They may be tough, but they’re not out here offing their husbands and subtly bragging about it.
“Anyway, son of a bitch used to come to Vegas all the time,” Angie goes on.
“He was a piss-poor gambler too. But got lucky often enough that the hotel gave him a handful of vouchers.” She smiles.
“I made sure to get those and his airline miles in the divorce. Paid for our girls’ weekend.
I’m gonna put the pictures up on Facebook so he can see how much fun we had with his money. ”
My smile grows wider as I picture this sweet old lady trolling her ex-husband on Facebook.
“Serves him right,” Helen chimes in. “He always underestimated you.”
These ladies get it. They talk as though their lives are infinitely better without the presence of men. I can definitely see the value of that mindset.
Isabella is mostly fixated on her cocktail, poking her straw at the ice in the bottom of her glass, but she offers a grunt of agreement.
“He sure did,” Angie says with a smirk. She leans a bit closer again, her voice going low and conspiratorial. “That was his undoing in the end. He had no idea, but I’d been saving up for years. A little here, a little there. I hired the best attorney in town.”
Maryellen grins. “Made all of our husbands nervous.”
“If only we’d met your lawyer while Vincent were still alive,” Helen says. She turns to me. “I got my due in the will, but if I’d tried to leave him, he would’ve fought tooth and nail for every dime. If I could’ve, I would’ve hired that lawyer, and Vincent never would’ve seen it coming.”
“They never do,” Maryellen says before draining the last of her wine. “Despite how they run their business. Not like they’re strangers to skimming off the top. But the idea we keep any money they don’t know about, make any plans they don’t know about… They can’t fathom it.”
More and more, their lives are sounding like an episode of The Sopranos. I’m dying to ask what kind of shady business these men are involved in, but I’m also slightly afraid to hear the answer. Even though it’s ludicrous, and they obviously aren’t actual mob wives. That’s my exhaustion talking.
I wish I could spend the entire day with this coven of old ladies. Aside from the I’m not like a regular grandma, I’m a cool grandma vibe they all give off, they also seem content to blame men for everything, which is a sentiment I can really get behind.
A waitress stops by and the ladies all order another round of drinks. The waitress turns to me, but I decline. I don’t plan to drink any more for a long while, and I don’t have time to sit around anyway.
“I should probably go track Adam down now,” I say when the waitress leaves, and Maryellen does not look impressed.
“Let him come to you,” Angie says, and the other women nod their agreement. “I want to hear more about this situation of yours.”
Despite the fact that I’ve spent all day wanting this experience to be over, it occurs to me that I am never going to see these women again. They don’t know me. We have no connections out in the real world. I’m not going to get a better opportunity to vent about Adam and the past twenty-four hours.
Which is how I find myself rehashing the entire story.
“So, let me get this straight,” Maryellen says when I’ve finished, manicured finger tapping against her new gimlet glass. “You shared a bed last night, but he didn’t make any sort of move?”
“Right. Nothing happened last night.”
“Maybe you can work it out,” Isabella interjects sweetly, and the other three women groan. I’ve learned Isabella is the only one of them that’s happily married, so it stands to reason that the others shoot down her optimism on sight.
“All I’m saying,” she continues doggedly, “is that he sounds decent. It means something that he spent the night with you.”
“Yeah, it meant he was too drunk to navigate to his own room,” Maryellen says, echoing my own thoughts. “Eleanor’s too young to set the bar so low.”
Isabella shoots her a look, then turns back to me. “Have you asked him?”
“Asked him what?”
“If it meant anything to him? Last night, or the kiss?”
“Not exactly.” Technically, I did ask about the kiss. My phrasing could’ve been a bit more straightforward, though.
“If you want to stop playing games, sometimes you’ve got to fold first,” Isabella concludes, and catches her straw to suck down the last, rattling gulp of her Long Island iced tea.
“Or you could put a hit out on him,” Angie says.
For a beat I’m frozen, unsure whether she’s joking or not. Because on the one hand… at first glance she seems so sweet and harmless, and she was so generous with her help. But on the other, I’m now like eighty percent certain these ladies have some Mafia ties back in Jersey.
And then all four of them start cackling. “Your face!” Maryellen exclaims, wiping tears from under her glasses. “Oh, sweetie, you’re priceless.”
I join in their laughter, but it comes out sounding a bit stilted and forced. It falters more when Angie asks to see my phone, and programs in a number under the contact name: Brando—Trash Collector. “In case your lawyer friend needs reinforcements,” she says with a wink.
“Uh. Thanks.” I lock my phone screen, and when I glance up I spot Adam a few yards away.
He’s standing with his hands in his pockets and a bemused smile on his lips as he takes in my company.
He gives me a little wave, and it hits me all over again—that swell in my chest and the shaky swoop of my stomach.
Not because he’s a selfish prick I want nothing to do with. The opposite.
“Um… I have to go.”
Helen follows my gaze and purses her lips again. “That him?”
The other ladies all rubberneck, and of course Isabella immediately starts cooing. “Look at that jawline! Oh, honey, you know how to pick them.”