Page 53 of Tommy Gabrini: All Fall Down
After he met Grace, Vera Lang was one of the numerous women he broke up with. But unlike the others, he didn’t tell her to her face that it was over. He didn’t phone her or leave word for her. He just stopped taking her calls, and stopped going to see her. He had convinced himself at the time that she was strong enough to get the hint, accept it, and move on. And she did accept it. And she did move on.
But he came to realize something he was ashamed to admit back then: He didn’t officially break it off with Vera because a small part of him wanted to keep her in his pocket as a just in case. As somebody to have in his corner if it didn’t work out with Grace. He realized that truth when he and Grace were having a difficult patch early on in their relationship and he called Vera. He told himself it was just to check on her because he truly cared about her at the time. But the truth was because he was stunned by the level of separation anxiety he was experiencing for his carefree, former life after committing himself to just one woman. He didn’t know if he could ever be that kind of one-woman man Grace deserved, and he needed Vera to be, he realized later, his backup plan. But after he hadghosted her and later tried to contact her, she was the one who wouldn’t take his calls.
Sal, who knew the backstory because he and Tommy had always been that close, was watching his big brother as they walked toward that restaurant. “You okay?”
Tommy wanted to sayof course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be, but he didn’t play those games with Sal. “I’d rather not be here,” he said, “but it can’t be helped.”
“You think Vera could be involved in this?”
“I doubt it, but I haven’t seen her in decades. People change.”
“But Vera turning on you like that?” Sal shook his head. “I don’t see it. She’s one of your few girlfriends that I actually liked.”
Tommy looked at him. “Quit lying? You couldn’t stand any of my girlfriends. Not even Grace at first. And it had nothing to do with their personalities.”
Sal looked away from Tommy. He would be the first to admit that he used to be a racist prick back in the day. But when he met Gemma, and he got to know a black person personally rather than based on some stereotypical image he had been fed all his life, everything changed. “You and Reno always said a black chick was gonna change me, and you were right. But guess what I said?”
Tommy had no clue what Sal would have said of any value back in those days. “What?”
“I said a black chick was gonna change you and Reno too. And they did. Including Vera’s ass if she’s involved in what happened to TJ.”
Tommy exhaled. It would be a tough pill to swallow if it was true. “Let’s just get this over with,” he said as Mick pulled open the door of the restaurant, and they all walked inside.
But almost immediately when Tommy saw Vera, he stopped in his tracks, causing Sal to bump into him.
Sal was ready to cuss his ass out. What was wrong with him? But then Sal looked down the hall where Tommy was looking and saw Vera Lang talking with one of her waitresses. And he was gob-smacked too. She still looked undeniably gorgeous after all these years.
When the waitress left, she turned to go down another hall. But that was when she apparently saw something familiar from her side view. When she looked down the hall and saw Tommy and his racist kid brother and the man she knew as Mick Sinatra standing near the entrance, her entire face changed. For a few beats she just stood there as if she was as shocked to see Tommy as Tommy was to see her. And then she hurried down that hall and out of their view.
“She’s getting away,” Sal said anxiously as he, Tommy, and Mick hurried down that hall. Mick didn’t know the woman from Adam, so he let them take the lead. But it was Sal who surpassed Tommy, rushed up to her before she could turn down another hall in that maze of hallways, and he grabbed her by the arm. “Why you running?” he asked her.
“Who said I was running?” She snatched her arm away from him.
“I said it,” Sal said, “because that’s exactly what your ass was doing.”
But Vera looked at Tommy. It was as if nobody else mattered in that moment but Tommy. “What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk.”
There was a hesitation, and then she escorted them down another hallway to her office. Mick and Sal glanced at each other. It was instructive to them that she didn’t bother to askwhythey needed to talk.
Once they entered her office, she closed the door, went and sat behind her desk, and Sal and Tommy sat in front of the desk. Mick, like always, found a wall to lean against. A wall that would give him a view of the door, the window, and the entire office. With his arms folded as he stood there in his white, tricked-out long coat, he looked like a man who never took chances. Who stayed ready for trouble. And if he had to venture a guess, that gorgeous black lady behind that desk was nothing but.
She smiled at Tommy. “I see you didn’t lose your looks down through the years.”
If she expected Tommy to return the same compliment to her, which he could from what Sal and Mick saw, Tommy didn’t go there. At all. “I’m sure you heard about that school shooting.”
“Absolutely. You can imagine how shocked I was when they claimed TJ was responsible. I said Tommy’s TJ? That made no sense to me. He’s not that kind of person. It made more sense when they exonerated him. I was glad they cleared him.”
Sal looked at Tommy. Had they been in touch and he didn’t know about it? If not, how the hell would she even know his son’s name, let alone his nickname?
If Tommy found it odd too, he didn’t let on. “Thank you,” he said to her. “That’s why I’m here.”
It was the first time she seemed confused. “Why would you be here about that school shooting? I don’t know anything about that.”
“Do you know Barry Sedaka?” Tommy asked her.
Mick and Sal were staring at Vera. She called herself thinking about it, but it seemed contrived to them.
