Page 85 of Twice
“Never married you in some little town? Never fought with you over having a baby?”
Gianna straightened her back. She looked upset.
“I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Not until I have a lawyer.”
“Look, lady, I’m not trying—”
“My name is Gianna Rule. Not ‘lady.’ And I don’t know what you have against Alfie, or why you would make all this up, but it’s not fair to him, and I’m not putting up w—”
“He ripped off a casino.”
“He doesn’t gamble! That’s not Alfie! He’s a good man. He doesn’t take stupid chances.”
LaPorta leaned back. “You’d be surprised.”
Gianna shook her head.
“I’m not saying anything more. Not until I have representation. I’m an American citizen. I have the right to—”
“I know all about your rights,” LaPorta interrupted. “I also know there’s two million dollars in a bank account that bears your name. And it came from this guy in the photo, after an impossible three straight ups at a roulette table, which can only be done by cheating, which is illegal. So, you might not want to talk to me...”
He leaned over and opened his bag. He pulled out a notebook.
“But you’re gonna want to read this.”
The Composition Book
I stayed in Mexico with Nicolette for the remaining two months of the movie shoot. We were discreet around the set, never more than sitting together behind a camera. But at night, it was a different story. I would knock on her hotel room door, and she’d swing it open, wearing a robe, look both ways down the hall, then pull me in and push me toward her huge bed, undressing me as she kissed my face and dropped the robe to reveal nothing underneath. Our lovemaking was intense and noisy, rooted in pleasure and sensation. At times, it seemed that Nicolette was enjoying how good she was at it, even as she was enjoying me.
I didn’t care. Yes, it was different from when Gianna and I were together, which was more about emotion and eye contact and holding each other afterward, tender and content. But anytime I thought of that, I pictured her with Mike, and my body tightened like a sprinter in the final strides of a race. I threw myself into satisfying this seductive woman who was coiled around me, and I didn’t think about anything else.
I would never spend the night in Nicolette’s bed, because the production assistants came by early in the morning, and she didn’t want to risk us getting caught. But we did talk a good deal, often over late-night room service. We traded stories about our childhoods, our careers, our parents. Nicolette’s father had been abusive, and she ran away from homewhen she was fifteen. Her mother, she said, stopped taking her calls for years—until she appeared in her first movie.
“Then, suddenly, she was telling the neighbors about me,” Nicolette said.
“That’s awful.”
“What about your mother? How’d she treat you?”
“She was great. I loved every minute I had with her.”
“She died when you were young, right?”
“Eight.”
“That’s so sad. I’m sorry, Alfie.”
I looked in her eyes. She seemed genuinely empathetic.
“She gave me something before she died.”
“What was it?”
“A gift. A magical talent.”
She made a sly smile, then lifted her leg and rubbed her foot around my thigh.
“What kind of talent?” she cooed.
