Page 84 of Twice
I turned. The Korean owner was scowling from behind the cash register.
“You buy or leave! No stand there. Buy or leave!”
Buy or leave. That’s what it felt like. Invest in whateverit would take to get Gianna back—long talks, long apologies, new promises, new behavior—or walk away, licking my wounds.
I walked away.
?
What happened next, Boss, I am not proud of. I went to a liquor store, bought four bottles of whiskey, and marched back to the hotel. I stayed there for two nights, ripping up photos of Lallu and drinking myself into a stupor. I didn’t eat. I barely slept. Late on the second night, half out of my head, I called Gianna’s number from the room phone.
It was well past midnight. The answering machine picked up. We used to have a dumb message, the two of us trading lines, then finishing by screaming “Beeeeep!” But now I heard her recorded voice, solo, calm, saying“Hi, it’s Gianna, sorry I missed you, leave a message.”
The words played tricks in my head.Sorry. I missed you.I pressed the receiver to my ear, breathing hard, maybe even crying.Sorry. I missed you.And then I heard a sudden fumbling noise, as if she knocked the phone over trying to answer it.
I panicked and hung up.
In that moment, my worst imagination took over. I pictured Gianna and Mike in bed, making love, ignoring the ringing (Should you get that?Mike whispers,No, nooo, Gianna moans) until my whimpering could no longer be ignored and Gianna, naked, stretched for the phone andknocked it over. And, as I pathetically hung up, the two of them burst into laughter, then flung themselves back atop one another.
It was a stupid, agonizing thought at a stupid, agonizing moment. But I have already made my case about moments: how you forget so many over a lifetime, yet a lifetime can turn on a single one.
At that low moment, fueled with alcohol, jealousy, and the relentless ache of being no longer wanted, I thought back to a time when the tables were turned, when I was the desired one. I thought back to Nicolette, beautiful, sexy Nicolette, and the night I left her in that elevator in L.A. The memory glowed in my mind like a lighthouse tugging me from the fog.
With my eyes squeezed closed, wanting only relief from the hurt, I inhaled the deepest breath I’d ever taken on this earth, and screamed out “Twice!”
Instantly, I was back in that elevator, with Nicolette’s hands on my belt, undoing it slowly while she purred, “Lemme see. Lemme see...”
This time, I let her see. I let her do everything she wanted. In that elevator. In her luxurious hotel suite. Across her king-size mattress. Against the bedroom wall. I summoned every ounce of my virility that night and lost myself inside her supple body, because losing myself was what I wanted to do.
Sadly, when you lose yourself, you don’t realize who else you’re losing, too.
Nassau
LaPorta tapped his finger on the iPad photo.
“That’syour ex-husband?” he said, pointing to a man standing by the roulette wheel.
“Yes,” Gianna said.
“And this guy is not?”
“That’s Alfie.”
“Who has never been married to you?”
“No!”
“He never met you in Africa?”
“He did. When we were kids.”
“He didn’t go to college with you?”
“Yes. Well. Notwithme. We were at the same school.”
“He never told you he loved you? Made a big deal about it during a rainstorm in Philadelphia?”
“Look, Detective, I don’t know what you’re—”
