This Is How It Happened (12 page)

After Carlton and I moved into the new Organics 4 Kids headquarters, we hit the ground running. The company will be top-notch, we decide, so we hire the best people to design our website, network our computers, and do all the general dirty work of getting going.

I spend night and day designing our marketing and public relations program. To really capture the theme, I have the Organics 4 Kids logo emblazoned on T-shirts, bumper stickers, lunch boxes, and even on our refrigerated delivery trucks. The rainbow-colored logo becomes so popular, the local news does a feature story on us.

I hatch an idea to have school kids participate in our focus groups. We discover that parents want healthy organic school lunches at a reasonable price. Kids are all about taste. So we compromise and develop a unique school lunch program to make everybody happy. Our organic cheese pizzas or chicken tenders might be paired with snack-pak carrots, micro greens salad, an apple, a healthy cookie, or Vitamin C–enhanced fruit juice.

We hire a famous nutritionist to help develop weekly menus so we can make sure the kids get variety, as well as good, solid meals.

We’re a small company, but a strong one. And we’re growing by leaps and bounds. Our sales numbers blossom each month. In our fourth quarter, we actually begin turning a profit. An amazing feat for a company just out of the gate.

Carlton and I celebrate by leaving the office before midnight, drinking champagne straight from the bottle—we didn’t have time to muddle around with glasses—and having hot, steamy sex on Carlton’s awful bear rug. In front of the fireplace. The henna tattoo of the Organics 4 Kids logo was still visible across my tailbone. And Carlton licked the tattoo with his tongue back and forth. Very saucy stuff.

The workload is exhausting and exhilarating. I drink buckets of coffee each day, and become thin and pale from lack of exercise. Sometimes Carlton and I play tennis on Sunday mornings, but afterward, we head straight to the office.

Our week is seven days long, with late nights, too.

Yet, even as I struggle at my computer, field hundreds of e-mails from customers, suppliers, distributors, local school boards, the press, and even some school kids, I feel alive. An idea I’ve created on paper has finally become reality.

It’s trial by fire. Every day. All day.

I interview candidates for my staff and have the brilliant idea to set up an internship program. “Free labor!” I declare. “We’ll set up a great program where the students get college credit and where they really learn the nuts and bolts of the business.”

Carlton agrees it’s a great idea. I spend three months developing and marketing the intern program at local colleges. I speak to college professors, campus advisors, and finally to the students themselves. I hire five interns, get them desks and computers, and start them on a program so that their work benefits them as well as the company. Everyone agrees it’s a win-win situation. Twice a month, Carlton and I treat the interns to dinner and drinks. They love it. Everything is going splendidly.

Carlton spends time traveling to Denver, Los Angeles, and New York trying to attract new investors and generate new customers. I run the home office. Fifteen full-time employees. Five interns. At times, I’ve got phones on each ear. And two lines holding. I’m triaging my e-mails. I’m slammed. But I manage. The ship sails in a nice, straight line.

Michael, that little snitch, called my brother about the carbon monoxide thing. So now, I’ve got Ronnie up in arms over the whole deal. He’s calling me every five minutes. Probably to check whether I’m still breathing.

“Yoga,” my brother will say.

“Boring,” I’ll reply.

“Church.”

“They revoked my membership.”

“Why don’t you learn how to scuba dive, Maddy?”

“Sharks.”

Finally, he relents.

My brother tells me he knows a guy who knows a guy.

“I think he does light jobs—you know, like when people don’t pay their drug debts,” Ronnie says.

I clutch the phone tightly in my hand. “He breaks their legs?” I ask, and I shudder a little bit at the thought.

“I think he just scares people. Maybe punches ’em a few times in a dark alley, tells ’em to pay up or else.”

“Okay, but that’s it. There’s nothing else. No broken fingers? No baseball bats? No knives?”

My brother sighs into the phone. He’s smoking a cigarette and blowing it away from the receiver. “I don’t know, Maddy. I’m not an expert at hiring thugs. Look, why don’t you come over so I can talk you out of this.”

I stretch my arm over my head and glance around my lonely kitchen. My empty townhouse. “Want me to bring you a burger?”

“It’s 9:00 a.m.”

“Oh.”

I hop in my car and cruise over to Ronnie’s bachelor pad.

My brother calls it his “low-key” flat for a “low-key kind of guy.” It’s nothing fancy. Just your basic garden-style apartment with a balcony overlooking the communal pool.

I knock on the door and hear him say, “Maddy-go-laddy!” Stepping inside, I see my brother is going overboard with his plants again. Mr. Greenthumb buys exotic flowering plants from Brazil and Africa. Stuff that’s hard to keep alive. Like the teenagers he counsels, he likes the challenge.

“It’s a jungle in here,” I say, parting my way through two large potted ferns.

“Isn’t it great? I’m really getting this gardening shit down,” Ronnie says.

I step over a stack of self-help books piled high on the floor. Ronnie doesn’t have a TV. Instead he’s got a couch facing the windows and tons and tons of books. He calls it his “library.”

“Step into my library,” Ronnie says, motioning to a leather recliner. “Take a load off, Maddy. You look beat.”

I see my brother is wearing his weekend uniform. A Longhorns T-shirt and jeans. He’s got a Longhorns baseball cap perched crooked on his head, so he looks like a white rapper.

I plop down in the recliner, push down the wooden lever, and pop back with my feet up. Behind me, a plant brushes up against my head. I push the dangling leaves out of the way.

“Hey, take it easy,” Ronnie says. He strolls over to a table filled with drug paraphernalia. His “temptation table” as he calls it. There’s a bong for smoking marijuana, a crack pipe, a mirror and razor blade for cutting cocaine, and some other things I can’t even identify.

My brother has turned the bong into a French Press.

He holds it up in the air and says, “coffee?”

“Sure.”

I watch as he carefully upturns the bong and pours a steaming cup of mud-black coffee. He hands me the mug.

I take a sip, gingerly. “This is delicious,” I say, because it really is.

“It’s the beans,” he says. “I got them from this Columbian guy I know.”

“Funny,” I say.

My brother smiles coyly and lights a cigarette. He sits on the couch’s edge, slides the balcony door open and blows the smoke outside.

“Why do you keep all this stuff?” I ask, motioning around the table at all of the drug paraphernalia.

He stares out the window a long moment. Takes a sip of coffee. A drag from his cigarette. And exhales the smoke slowly.

“It reminds me of what I overcame,” he says. “Like when Jesus was in the desert fasting forty days and forty nights. And Satan approached him and told him to turn stones into bread. And Jesus was starving but he told Satan to essentially go fuck himself. When I look at this stuff every day, Maddy, these implements of destruction, I tell them to go fuck themselves,” he says. “And it works.”

“I thought they told you in AA classes to keep all this stuff out of sight and out of mind.”

“I’d prefer to face my demons head-on,” Ronnie says. He stabs his cigarette into a tray and then holds up the butt. “This is the worst fucker of ’em all, but I can’t seem to kick this bad boy.” He looks down at me, resting in the recliner. “You know what today is, don’t you?” he asks, and his voice is suddenly soft. Almost child-like.

My brother and I don’t talk about our parents. It’s a subject we just don’t bring up. We keep photographs hidden away and if we’re really in the mood to torture ourselves, sometimes we’ll sort through them on Christmas and cry and cry.

But of course I know today is the day they died.

I nod my head.

“I’m gonna go to five o’clock mass tonight and light a candle for them,” Ronnie says.

“That’s…good,” I say.

We sit a few minutes and both stare out the window. It’s nice and quiet in my brother’s place. I can hear a few kids out at the pool. Splashing around and calling out, “Marco Polo.”

My brother breaks out into a grin. He pivots around and stares at me with his flashy green eyes. “So you want to hire a hit man to take out Carlton,” he says, shaking his head. “And I thought I was the hot-blooded Italian.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but I think it’s the only sane thing to do.”

“Will this give you closure?”

“How else am I going to get even with Mr. Perfect? What am I going to do, Ronnie? Hex him and hope he falls over on his bike and scrapes a knee?”

“Why get even?”

I pop up in the recliner. “He’s ruined my life! I just want to ruin a single day for him. One Single Day. Of his Perfect Life. Is that too much to ask?”

My brother hesitates. Then reaches into his pocket and flashes a slip of paper in front of my eyes.

“Memorize this number quickly,” he says.

“Why?

My brother pulls out his lighter and sets the paper on fire.

“Before I change my mind about giving it to you.”

“Thanks, little brother.”

“For the record, Maddy, I have to tell you that I’m totally against you doing this. The only reason I’m giving you this guy’s name is because I owe you my life. But I’d prefer if you’d let it go. Haven’t you heard the saying, ‘
Let go, Let God’
?”

“Yes, but I like the saying:
Hire hit man, Laugh hard
.”

My brother kisses the gold cross on his neck. “Do you know the story of Jesus? How he turned the other cheek? It’s a powerful story. There’s power in forgiveness. Lead a good life, Maddy. Become a huge success. You should start your own marketing and P.R. firm and become more successful than Carlton ever imagined. That’s the best revenge. Why let this guy get to you?”

“You don’t have all the facts,” I say, abruptly.

“You’re my sister, Maddy. Trust me. I wanna kill the guy. I can only imagine what he did to you because I’ve never, ever, in my entire life, seen you look this miserable. It’s as if he’s stolen the light from your eyes, and the goodness from your heart.”

I pause for a moment.

“Wow, that’s deep,” I say. My brother tends to speak in the language of “rehab ministry.” He’s been to so many self-help and addiction classes, he could write a book on the subject.

“C’mon, Maddy. Pray with me,” Ronnie says. He makes the sign of the cross. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” he says, kissing his fingers at the end.

I stand there, watching him.

“You’re being dramatic,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m not talking about cement boots, here. I’m talking about a more subtle type of revenge.”

“Fine. I’ll pray for you,” he says.

“Great. I can use all the help I can get.”

I turn and walk toward Ronnie’s refrigerator. It’s covered in magnets that say things like, “Seal of Approval,” and “You can do it!” and “I love mornings!” My brother has covered his fridge in positive affirmations.

“What do you have to eat in here?” I ask, swinging open the door.

“Nothing, nada, zip.”

My brother’s refrigerator contains a jar of peanut butter and a carton of milk. I close the door and look at him.

“How about the International House of Pancakes?” I suggest. “My treat.”

I don’t really care for pancakes but my brother is a pancake freak. Plus, he loves all the different flavors of syrup.

“You know I can’t pass up that syrup,” Ronnie says, rubbing his belly. “Their boysenberry kicks ass,” he informs me.

See what I mean?

My brother grabs his house keys and wallet and stuffs them in the pocket of his jeans. He follows me out of the apartment and down the steps.

“Oh, and Maddy,” Ronnie says.

I swing around.

“Be careful with that number I gave you. You know hiring a hit man is a federal offense punishable by a long, long time in the pokey.”

“I’ll take my chances,” I say, as if I’m a stud.

Ronnie opens the car door for me, and gracefully pushes me into the passenger seat. “No matter what happens, Maddy,” he says, “I know you’ll do the right thing.”

In the midst of what Carlton and I call our “Crazy Season,” Carlton decides to have a Boys’ Night Out. It’s a Saturday night, and I don’t mind. But as each Saturday rolls around and Carlton does it over and over, I begin to get frustrated.

“We’re spending every waking moment together, Maddy,” he complains.

“It’s not quality time,” I reply.

I swivel around in my office chair. Carlton is standing at the door, hands on his waist like a drill sergeant. “C’mon, sweetie. You’re cooler than that,” he says. And I really want to be cool, so I drop it.

Carlton, sometimes, really knows how to pull my strings.

So, despite our hectic workweek and the fact that I stay late at the office on Saturday nights alone, Carlton decides he needs time with the boys. Saturday Night Out with the Guys becomes an institution to which Carlton remains strictly faithful. Even if something important comes up, he reschedules around Boys’ Night Out.

Our relationship is fine, for two people who work so much, but we’re definitely not the same moony-eyed Romeo and Juliet lovers we used to be. It’s all ebb and flow. So I decide not to stress. Better to just roll with it.

One night, when Carlton isn’t home by 3:00 a.m., I call his cell phone, but hang up when I get the answering recorder. I feel silly for doing it. As if I’ve become the jealous type. The type of woman I’ve never respected. These women always seemed weak, in my opinion. If a woman had to keep her man on a tight leash, she lacked self-esteem, I figured. I always thought the man should be concerned about me, not the other way around. But I was beginning to get concerned.

Even when I felt I knew Carlton down to his inner core—that there were no secrets this man held…he was still removed. A sly detachment that wasn’t betrayed in his smile or in the way he whispered, “I love you, Maddy,” before he rolled over and went to sleep each night.

No, the detachment was in a subtle, but dangerous flicker in his eye. I’d noticed it just a few times in our entire relationship. And most recently, when I told him I didn’t like the way he stayed out so late with the guys.

I wait up in bed, one Saturday night, reading through customer e-mails. The front door slams and I hear Carlton whistling softly in the hall. He must see the bedroom light on because he stops whistling.

“Knock, knock,” he says, walking zigzag into the bedroom. He flops down onto the edge of the bed and kicks his shoes off. He reeks of smoke and alcohol, and even pot.

“I thought you and David were coming home after the concert,” I say. I rub my eyes and check the alarm clock.

“It’s 4:00 a.m. Carlton!”

He shrugs his shoulders. “We ended up at the after-party.”

“Why didn’t you call? I waited up,” I say, and my voice sounds weak. Pleading.

Carlton spins around on the bed and stares at me. “You shouldn’t have,” he snaps. And that’s when I spot the flicker. He stands and heads over to the closet, shooting me a wary, cautious look—the kind of look a wild animal gives to someone trying to capture it. As if I’d just leapt on the floor, grabbed his ankles, and tried to restrain him by locking him up in a ball and chain.

“Look, babe. I’m not meaning to bust your balls or anything, but a relationship is about give and take,” I say, quietly, under my breath.

I watch as Carlton undresses. And he knows I’m watching him. He turns around slowly and I see the muscles rippling down his stomach. He lifts weights in his office when no one’s looking, so he’s still got a killer physique.

Carlton strolls over to the bed, completely naked. He loops his arms around me and pulls me against his chest. “Oh, I’m about to
give
you something all right,” he says, and poof! Like that, the flicker is gone and we’re back.

I smell sour gin on his breath, and it stinks, but even in his intoxicated state, he takes me hard that night. In the way that only the most experienced of lovers can take a woman. And I, Madeline Jane Piatro, love every moment of it.

We start on the bed first and then Carlton drags me into the living room. It’s cold without a fire, but he takes me on the bear rug. Like in the movies. Hard and fast. The fur scratches my butt. Leaving small welts.

Afterward, he says, “I love you, Maddy,” and stares at me with those rakish eyes that make my knees weak.

I don’t reply.

I love you more,
I think.