Tommy Gabrini 4: Dapper Tom Begin Again (2 page)

March 24, 2013

Sunday

Eighteen months
before that fateful night

Grace
Gabrini entered her quiet home after another late night at work.
 
She could already see on her smartphone
monitor that the baby was asleep in the Nursery and her two nannies (her
soon-to-be-ex-husband hired two), were with her.
 
But what she didn’t expect to see were
suitcases in the foyer.
 
Suitcases she
knew belonged to Tommy.
 
To her own
surprise, her heart leaped with joy.

“He’s
back,” she said.
  
“He’s back home!”

She
raced up the stairs as quickly as her feet could carry her, ran along the
corridor of the second floor landing, and hurried toward the double doors of their
master bedroom.
 
She flung open the
doors, her smile as grand as the Grand Canyon.

But
that was when she heard the moans and grunts.
 
That was when she looked across that massive room and saw her husband,
naked on their bed, fucking another woman so hard the woman was baying.
 
The woman was on her back in the middle of
their bed.
 
Tommy was on top of her,
pushing deeper and deeper inside her.
 
He
didn’t care that anybody could have walked in on them.
 
He didn’t care that their one year old
daughter was right downstairs and just might hear that woman howl!

The
woman most certainly didn’t care.
 
Because she saw Grace.
 
Tommy’s
back was to the entrance as he pumped and pumped, but the woman was looking her
round, flat face right at Grace.
 
And she
smiled.
 

“Yeah,
fool,” she said, “you dropped him, and I picked him up.
 
You, the fool, dropped this gorgeous hunk of
creature, and I picked him up.
 
Now he’s
mine.
 
Mine.
 
All mine!”

But
Grace was shaking her head.
 
It was a
mistake.
 
She didn’t want another woman
touching Tommy.
 
She didn’t want this!

Then
she saw herself on the street that fateful night, in front of their house,
firing those shots into that woman’s car.
 
Firing and firing round after round for the love of Tommy.
 

Then
she was back in their home, in the bedroom, watching Tommy make love to
somebody else.
 
And it was all murky
now.
 
And scary.
 
And she kept backing up, and firing shots
into that car, and watching her husband make love to another woman, and she was
firing more shots into that car.
 
She
kept backing up.
 
She backed up until she
had backed into the stair rail.
 
She had
gone as far as she could go.

And
then she toppled over.

Like
a woman drowning and coming up for air, she lifted her body up from her pillow
with a sudden lift, and a sudden exhale that shook her to her core.
 
She was breathing so fast she was
hyperventilating.
 
She still didn’t
realize it was a dream until she felt the beads of sweat on her forehead, and
heard the pounding of her heart.
 
She
wasn’t watching any sex scene.
 
She
wasn’t spraying bullets into any car.
 
She was lying in her bed, in the home she once shared with her
husband.
 
And she was completely alone in
that dark, quiet room.

Relief
washed over her, and then she laid back down.
 
She was accustomed to nightmares, although none previously had involved
Tommy with some other woman, and she knew she would eventually drift off to
sleep.
 
Ed was out of town at a medical
convention, and she desperately wanted to call him, but she knew she
couldn’t.
 
Because this wasn’t about
him.
 
This was about Tommy.
 
Why was she dreaming about him all of a
sudden?
 
She used to dream about him all
the time, early in their separation, but it had been over a year.
 
Why would she even think of it now?

But
she kept hearing that woman’s voice.
 
Calling her a fool.
 
It was a
dream.
 
It didn’t
 
matter.
 
Why was she even thinking about it?

But
she thought about it.
 
It was still
early.
 
It was only nine pm.
 
The only reason she was in bed at all was
because she had been so tired lately.
 
Tommy
had come by earlier, to drop Destiny off.
 
She asked if he wanted to have dinner with them for Desi’s sake, but he
declined.
 
He had a date tonight, he had
said so casually.
 
A date tonight, he’d
said.
 
And it did something to
Grace.
 
She became lethargic.
 
Even more drained than she usually was.
Exhausted even.
 
She went to bed early,
to rest.

And
now she was dreaming.
 
The woman in the
car dream wasn’t new.
 
She’d been
dreaming it ever since it happened.
 
But
dreaming about Tommy making love to another woman was very new.
 
And those words, that she was a fool for
dumping him, stung.

Because
she felt like a fool.
 

She
felt like the biggest fool this side of living.

She
laid there longer.
 
It was barely night
out and she was already in bed.
 
And she did
feel foolish.
 

Until
she decided to regain her senses, as she quickly got out of bed.

Tommy
Gabrini took another sip of wine as he sat in front of the fireplace inside his
brother’s penthouse.
 
He was living there
for nearly a year now, and even though the divorce should be final in a matter
of weeks, and during the divorce he agreed to let Grace keep the house he had
purchased before he even married her, he wasn’t quite ready to get his own
place yet.
 

Not
that he wanted Grace back.
 
He
didn’t.
  
She made her decision long ago,
and after trying to rebuild their marriage, after more starts and stops than
either one of them could ever admit, they both reached the conclusion that it
was not possible to reconcile.
 
It was
over.
 
They had to move on.

Besides,
tonight, for the first time since their separation, Tommy had invited a lady
friend over.
 
He told Grace about it
earlier today, when he returned his daughter home after her weekend with him.
 
Grace seemed fine with it.
 
It was inevitable anyway, her face seemed to
say.
 
Not that she would ever object,
given that she started seeing some doctor nearly a month ago herself.
 
Nothing serious, she made clear.
 
It was early still.
 
But it was the clearest indication to Tommy
that at least she was practicing what she preached.
 
She had moved on.

He
took another sip of wine just as he was thinking how moving on for him was
always easier said than done.
 
Because it
was no longer just he and Grace to be considered.
 
It was Destiny too.
 
Their baby daughter.
 
She deserved an intact family, Tommy felt,
not the same scattered mess that he and Grace’s families of origin had
been.
 
Neither one of them came from
happy, intact homes.
 
Now they were
visiting the same circumstance on their little girl.

His
cell phone rang.
 
He looked at the
phone’s Caller ID.
 
It was Menira, one of
his lady friends.
 
Two or three of them
called him every day.
 
They heard his
divorce was soon to be final and he would be back on the market again.
 
The
meat market
, as he used to call it.
 
He wasn’t looking forward to it.
 
That market was a lonely place to be.
 
But for most of his life, all those years before Grace and now, it was
all he knew.

He
decided to answer.
 
“This is Tommy.”

“You
answered!” Menira said jovially.
 

Tommy
smiled.
 

“It’s
so good to hear your voice!” she went on.
 
“I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks.”

“How
are you?” Tommy asked.

“I’m
wonderful now that you finally took my call.
 
How are you?”

Tommy
took another sip.
 
“Okay,” he said.

“I
heard you’ve been staying at Sal’s.
 
I
tried to come and see you, believe it or not, but you know how those security
people are at his building.
 
Gangsters
every one of them!
 
They would only let
me leave a message, and they didn’t really want to let me do that much.
 
They acted as if I was bothering you just by
leaving you a message.”

“Sal’s
orders I’m sure,” Tommy told her.

“I
figured as much,” Menira agreed.
 
“That
brother of yours can be a bastard you know.
 
Me personally, I think he’s a racist.
 
He’s always got his nose turned up whenever he’s around me, as if I’m
not good enough for his brother because I’m a sister.
 
Please.”

Tommy
knew that wasn’t true in any way, shape or form.
 
Sal used to have his racist attitudes, that
was for damn sure.
  
But he held those
same negative attitudes for every race, even his own.
 
Other than Tommy, he didn’t hold anybody in
any high regard.
 
Until he met Gemma.

“Then
the next time I came to see you,” Menira continued, “I tried to play the big
shot, you know.
  
I changed my
approach.
 
I told that security chief or
whomever he was that Sal Gabrini owns this luxury apartment building.
 
I told him Sal owns every apartment in this
luxury apartment building and he pays his pitiful salary.
  
And since I’m a close, personal friend of
Sal’s brother, I told that guard that he was are going to be so sorry if he
didn’t let me go up there.
  
But you know
what that guard said to me?”

Tommy
smiled.
 
“What?”

“I’ll
take my chances, that’s what he said!”

Tommy
laughed.
 
“That’s what you get!”

“I
know it is!” Menira responded.
 
“I
know!
 
And it’s so great to hear you
laugh again, Tommy, it really is!
 
You’re
coming around.
 
You’re getting your happy
back.”

“Yeah,”
Tommy said with a nod.
 
“I’m getting
there.”

“I
have an idea,” Menira said.

“Oh,
boy,” Tommy said.

“Nothing
crazy,” Menira added.
 
“I was thinking
that maybe I can come over and make you happy in a different kind of way.”

Tommy
was certainly tempted.
 
Menira was a
gorgeous girl and he certainly could use some.
 
But he already
 
had somebody
coming.
 
“I’m not available tonight,” he
made clear.

Menira
understood that language.
 
Before his
marriage, he was the king of open relationships, and she was the queen.
 
“Maybe another time then,” she said.

“Sounds
good.”

“And
answer your phone when I call!” she ordered.

Tommy
laughed.
 
“Yes ma’am,” he responded, and
they said their goodbye.

But
less than ten minutes after he hung up the phone, his doorbell rang.
 
Sal owned and lived in a tightly secured
building.
 
Only a handful of people would
be allowed up without prior permission.
 
Which meant it couldn’t be his lady friend, as she would have to be
buzzed up.
 
He got up, and looked through
the peephole.
 

When
he saw that it was Grace, his heart began to pound.
 
Was his child all right?
 
He opened the door quickly.