Tommy Gabrini 4: Dapper Tom Begin Again Read online

  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.

  “She’s fine,” Grace said before he could ask her. “She’s with the nannies.”

  But Tommy could see in her eyes that all was not well, and the way her jeans and sweat shirt seemed to be thrown on rather than carefully placed the way she usually wore her clothes didn’t scream normalcy either. “What’s wrong?” he asked her.

  Grace regretted this move almost as soon as she rang the bell. He didn’t want this, she could tell it in his stormy eyes, and she wasn’t at all certain if she wanted it herself. But she was here now. There was no turning back. “May I come in?”

  Tommy hesitated, as their interactions now were more awkward, maybe even with an undercurrent of anger, than loving. But he stepped aside and allowed her passage in.

  Grace walked into Sal’s gorgeous penthouse and made her way to the sofa. “It feels so cozy in here,” she said.

  Tommy walked over to the flanking chair and, after she sat on the sofa, he sat down too. She moved to the edge of her seat, which wasn’t like her. Neither one of them were anxious people. But she was behaving anxiously tonight.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked her again.

  “Nothing’s wrong.” She attempted to smile. She failed. “I was driving around and thought . . .” That sounded lame even to her. She looked at her soon-to-be ex-husband. “I was thinking about us, is the truth of it. And I thought that maybe . . . I thought maybe we could. . .”

  Tommy didn’t try to help her. Because he knew how fruitless even entertaining yet another reconciliation would be.

  But Grace didn’t come all this way for nothing. Not for nothing. She forged ahead. “I thought that maybe we could begin again.”

  Tommy stared at her. He had a good idea what was driving this, but he wondered if she realized it. “Begin again?”

  “Yes. The divorce isn’t completely final yet. Maybe we could pull it back.”

  Again, Tommy stared at her. “Why would we do that, Grace?” he asked her.

  And unsurprisingly to him, she had no answer. None. Because they had already asked and answered that question in so many different ways that there was no new way to answer it. It used to be b
ecause of love. They really did love each other. It used to be because of Destiny. She was worth giving it their all. It used to be because the grass was never greener on the other side, their vows to stay together for better or for worse, and on and on and on. But none of those reasons held up to the scrutiny of everyday life. Grace didn’t want this marriage anymore. She felt so strongly that the negatives overcame the positives by whopping margins that, in time, Tommy began to feel it too.

  But right now, Tommy didn’t know what she felt. And from what he could tell, as she sat on the edge of her seat inside Sal’s apartment, neither did she.

  Grace shook her head. “I don’t know why we would want to reconcile,” she finally admitted. “I don’t even know why I came. Yes, I do, I take that back. I know why.” She looked him squarely in the eyes. “You’re courting again.”

  She said this and looked at Tommy, as if she needed him to confirm that truth. What an old fashioned word to use, was Tommy’s first thought. Especially since it wasn’t true. He never really courted any woman except Grace. He slept with women, he romanced women, but he courted Grace. But that felt like ages ago.

  Grace shook her head. “It was a mistake coming here.” She stood up.

  Tommy stood up too. “Do you truly want to give this another try, Grace?” He knew it wouldn’t work, just like all of those other tries didn’t either, but if she wanted it bad enough he was not going to turn her down.

  But Grace shook her head. “No, that’s not it, if I were to be honest. I don’t want you anymore. But what I think is going on is that I don’t want anybody else to have you either.” She looked at him with a small smile on her face. “How selfish is that?”

  Tommy felt the same way, when she first started seeing her doctor friend. “It’s not selfish,” he said. “It’s human.”

  Grace stared into his big, greenish-blue eyes. Somehow she knew, when she walk out that door tonight, it would be the final nail in the coffin of their marriage. The separation didn’t seal it. The filing for divorce didn’t seal it. And even the divorce proceedings themselves didn’t seal it completely in her mind. But the fact that he was getting out there again, and seeing other women again, was going to seal the deal. Tommy was a lot of things in their marriage, but a cheater was not one of them. If he was going to bed another woman, then their marriage, in his eyes, no matter how badly she tried to dress it up, was done.

  She headed for the front door. Tommy walked with her. When he opened the door, she lingered. But it wasn’t about second thoughts or any new way to answer that let’s stay together riddle. It was all about gratitude. She was grateful that Tommy had been in her life. She was grateful that he helped her produce the most wonderful little girl in the world. They would always have that bond.

  She didn’t turn back to him. She didn’t tell him what he already knew. “Goodbye, Tommy,” she said, and she left.

  Again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  April 26, 2014

  Saturday

  Five months before that fateful night

  She plopped down in the oversized chair and allowed her gown to pool around her. Nancy Morton, her mother, smiled. Of all of her children, she would have never expected Grace to be the star of their family. But she was. Especially today. “You look like a cabbage patch doll,” she said.

  “Cabbage patch my foot,” Ed responded. He was so happy he was giddy. “If you have to go there, go there right. She looks like Cinderella at the ball, long before midnight.”

  Nancy laughed. “I don’t know about that. I still say Cabbage Patch, given that princess gown she chose to wear.”

  “What do you say, Grace?” Ed asked. “Which one would you say is more like you?”

  “I feel like Cinderella,” Grace said with that sideways smile that made Ed know she was giddy too. “But Mom’s right. I look like an overstuffed doll.” But then she reached out her hand. “But it was a lovely ceremony, wasn’t it?”

  Ed hurriedly took her hand and sat in the chair beside her. They were in the dressing room in the back of the reception hall, just after their huge wedding, and their presence would be required at the reception in a matter of minutes. But they needed a breather before they could even begin any partying. This day was the accumulation of a long series of days for both of them. They needed time to relish this.

  “It was the perfect ceremony,” Ed said as he held her hand. He looked her in the eye. “And you were the perfect bride, Mrs. Jefferson.”

  It would take considerable time for Grace to get used to that name, just as it had with her first marriage. Grace Jefferson. Mrs. Jefferson. She smiled and looked at her new husband. “As long as you don’t start calling me Weezie,” she said, “I’ll be okay.”

  Ed laughed. He was having the time of his life. He had himself a woman who was not only smart and beautiful, but she owned her own company too. She had no real skeletons in her closet, except for once being married to a Gabrini, but his people had already devised a strategy to rebut any blowback if that ever became an issue. Because he was going places with her by his side. Neurosurgeon today, but so much more, politically, tomorrow. Together they were going to be an unstoppable African-American power couple. And he loved Grace too? There was no stopping them now. He had it all planned out.

  The door opened suddenly and Micah, Grace’s assistant, peered inside. “His limo just drove up, ma’am,” she said to Grace.

  Grace looked at Ed. Ed looked at Micah. “Escort him back here when he enters the Hall.”

  “Yes, sir,” Micah responded, and then hurried back out.

  “This is when I make my exit,” Nancy said as she began walking toward the door. “Don’t be too long. The party won’t be the same without you two.”

  Ed smiled. “And they say mother-in-laws are horrible people. I’m glad I’ll never know what they’re talking about.”

  “Me either, Ed,” she said with a laugh. “Me either!”

  But Ed immediately noticed that Grace wasn’t smiling anymore when her mother left. He squeezed her hand. “Don’t let him ruin your day,” he said.

  But Grace’s eyes gazed over at such a comment. “I ruined his life, and you expect me to worry about him ruining my day?”

  “Oh, Grace, stop saying that now,” Ed implored her. “You didn’t ruin anything for that man! You hear me? You took all you could take of his gangster lifestyle, and you had to get out of it. I’m thankful you had the courage to get out. For your sake as well as Destiny’s. So don’t you dare feel guilty about doing the right thing. You did what any good mother would have done. You realized, after the birth of your child, that you made an awful mistake marrying that man to begin with. And you corrected it.” And then he smiled. “In fact you overcorrected,” he added, “because look at the prize you won!”

  Grace laughed. But a part of her, a very real part of her, knew that she broke Tommy’s heart. And that wasn’t funny on her wedding day, or on any other day of the week. It was no laughing matter to her.

  Outside of the Hotel Julington’s reception hall in northwest Seattle, the driver hurried around and opened the limo door. There was a moment’s hesitation, and then Tommy Gabrini emerged out of the back seat, buttoned the coat of his Armani suit, and then made his way up the steep steps that led to the ballroom’s entrance. He was on his way to the airport, on a business trip to Europe, but he knew he had to do this first.

  Not that he wanted to come anywhere near this place today. He didn’t. But he wanted to make an appearance for his daughter’s sake. She was two years old now, and precocious as hell. This was one of the happiest days of her mother’s life, and little Destiny wanted him to share in that happiness. And since he and Grace had committed to always show a united front in front of their daughter, he came. Not to the ceremony. That would have been asking too much. But at least he would show his face at the reception, and congratulate Grace and Ed.

  But as Tommy entered the ballroom, and then was ushered by Grace’s assistant down a narr
ow hall that led to the back dressing room, he could not help but feel a sense of loss. It had been a long haul for him and Grace. They had had so many starts and stops and stops and starts. Then came that painful realization that their happily ever after was probably not going to come true, and that their marriage was not going to last. They remained separated for an entire year, and still kept trying. But then, by the end of that year, they divorced.

  And now, another year later, this. The woman who had been his wife, was now another man’s wife.

  Grace would never admit it, but Tommy knew their end began with that shooting in Vegas, where Reno Gabrini’s wife nearly died in a hail of gunfire inside a jazz club, and Grace was there. She never could move on after that night. She claimed she had, countless times she insisted she had, but Tommy knew better. She wanted out. She wanted a new life. She wanted a vanilla existence far away from Tommy’s world of chocolate. Dr. Ed Jefferson, conservative Republican African American neurosurgeon, gave her that way out.

  “Right in there, sir,” Micah said after she escorted him to the closed door of the dressing room.

  Tommy thanked her, and watched her leave. He smoothed down his blondish-brown hair, let out a sharp exhaled, and then entered the room.

  Grace was sitting in an oversized chair, still in her wedding gown, and Ed sat beside her. Grace was a pretty lady, and Ed was a nice-looking man. They looked like the perfect couple to Tommy. But what he appreciated about Grace was that she didn’t smile and behave as if they were friends from way back when he walked in. She didn’t attempt to erase the highs and lows of their past just because she was about to embark on a new life with Ed. They had a history and always would. A very happy and very painful history. At least she still respected him enough to not ignore that truth.