Romeo of the Streets (9 page)

We spent the evening drinking cocktails and trying on various dresses and outfits (I still hadn’t had a chance to get my laundry backlog fully cleared, so Lisa took me into the city to go shopping and I picked out a couple of delicious little pieces on sale. I felt kind of guilty thinking of Gino and his accident until Lisa reminded me that Lou and Romeo would be taking care of him now and it was his own responsibility to pay them back. When I still seemed uncertain, she just about insisted that I needed some kind of indulgence after all I’d been through and I was once again reminded of how lucky I was to have her in my life. What a star!). We were having so much fun that it was almost midnight by the time we were actually ready to go out.

We made our way across campus to the frat house and we must have just missed Romeo and the other guys on their way in, probably arriving only minutes earlier than they did. I wondered afterwards if their little bust-up might have turned out any differently had we crossed paths with them before, instead of after. Unfortunately, a grim feeling told me probably not.

We entered the party and immediately exchanged a glance that acknowledged our mutual misgivings about the whole unruly scene, before pushing on past the drunks and lunatics around us into the kitchen area. It was clear that neither one of us wanted to stay any longer than we had to—we’d said that we would stop by to check it out and we had done—but this wasn’t a party, it was a zoo. One in which the animals had long ago wrested complete control from their human masters.

The music was absolutely pumping and it was impossible to even hear anybody speak, as a gyrating and sweaty impromptu dance-floor took over the whole kitchen. I looked over at Lisa and saw my own startled discomfort reflected back at me in her two big eyes.

“
LET’S GET OUT OF HERE!”
I shouted over the music.

“
WHAT?
”

“
I SAID… LET’S GET OUT OF HERE!
”

At that moment there was a huge crash from upstairs and the undulating ocean of frat-boys in front of us looked up and began to cheer. There was another big thump and the sound of breaking glass and it became clear that whatever was going on up there wasn’t part of a regular good night’s partying. It sounded like a full blown brawl was taking place. At that moment someone cut the music and the dancers went wild with outrage, chanting and shoving around the kitchen space. I didn’t have to say anything this time to know that Lisa wanted out as much as I did and we began pushing our way back to the hallway, trying to escape before the crowd behind us turned into a trampling stampede.

Everybody on campus knew about the Wild Cats—it was CCU’s worst-kept secret. Of course the fact that the gang was made up of the toughest, meanest football players the university had to offer ensured that it was the kind of secret nobody was in a hurry to pass on to anyone with the authority to actually do something about it. Few would dare.

So imagine my surprise the following day when my friend Paulie informed me that not only had
somebody
taken on the Wild Cats (and put an end to the Delta Gamma party in the process) but they’d gone so far as to beat up the entire crew, and even broken Pete Van Diem’s hand in four separate places—thereby ensuring that the team’s football captain would be confined to the bench for the rest of the college year. My heart dropped at the news. When I’d seen Romeo and Lou the night before, especially hanging around with those other two creeps from the Grove (possibly the last two people in the entire universe that I would have expected to see at a CCU party), I knew that whatever trouble was taking place had to have something to do with them. But now… to find out that they’d taken on Pete Van Diem and the Wild Cats? I felt sick. Those football thugs meant serious business and they’d be out for blood after suffering such a humiliating insult to their reputation. Just what the hell were Lou and his friends doing there anyway?

And Lisa, naturally she was distraught. I’d tried to warn here about what Lou was in to these days but she hadn’t listened, preferring to view his every move through the rose-tinted lenses of new love’s idealism. She’d told me I was paranoid, over-reacting, making mountains out of molehills. Sure he was no choirboy, but Lou was hardly a
criminal
, she said. Except now it seemed pretty clear that he was and nobody could deny it. So why did it feel like I was almost as shocked as she was?

She refused to answer his calls for the next few days and we stayed in at the apartment, hitting the books by day and watching movies, drinking cocktails and playing board-games by night, sometimes with Paulie and another girl Cassandra that we knew from class. At some point it must have dawned on Lou that he’d really messed things up because his calls and texts started bombarding us much more frequently and in the end Lisa had to just turn off her phone and leave it off from then on completely. Even though nobody had mentioned it, I was mentally preparing myself for the moment when Lou would pull up outside on his motorcycle and start banging on our door, demanding to enter, and I was already trying to think of what I would say to get him to leave again when that moment came—but thankfully it never happened.

No, it wasn’t until the next day, at lunch in the cafeteria, when Lou finally turned up to beg Lisa for a second chance…

Me, Lisa and Paulie were sitting at a table, none of us saying anything and all of us barely picking at our food (we’d had one too many cocktails the night before,
again
, and I was beginning to realize that we’d have to set some serious ground-rules about the cocktail kit now that me and Lisa were living in the same apartment. Either that or just throw it out the window altogether, before we became full-blown alcoholics), when I looked up to see a forlorn and affronted-looking Lou striding across the cafeteria floor towards us.

His eyes were wide and puffy as though he’d been up all night and his goatee was bolstered by the approaching fuzz of two days or more’s worth of stubble.

“Baby!” he called, “I’ve been worried sick about you. Why haven’t you been answering my calls?”

Lisa said nothing, her gaze firmly fixed on her spaghetti and meatballs.

“Lou…” Paulie said, standing up and holding out an arm to still him as he approached. (Paulie had been a childhood friend of me and Lou growing up, exactly in between us in age, one year older than me and one year younger than Lou. Even though I’d always kind of known from the moment I was old enough to understand such things, it had taken Lou completely by surprise when Paulie had come out of the closet the previous year and it always made me a little proud of my brother that he hadn’t turned against Paulie like all the other tough guys in the neighborhood did when they heard the news. Coming out as gay on the Orange Grove was probably one of the bravest things I could think of for anybody to do.)

“Paulie,” Lou said, his frantic eyes still fixed on Lisa, “you were always my friend, but this doesn’t concern you. Now let me speak to my girl.”

At that moment my temper erupted and I shot to my feet, leveling my finger at my brother. “She doesn’t want to speak to you, ok!” I shouted, “So just leave her alone! And what the hell were you doing, Lou—getting mixed up with Pete Van Diem and those animals like that anyway? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

The whole cafeteria was staring at us now and I felt my cheeks turn red as my anger dissipated. Great, I thought, everybody already half-suspected me of being some kind of gangster’s moll, coming from the Orange Grove like I did (not to mention what had happened to my father) and now they’d think I had something to do with this Wild Cats affair too—an event which was already becoming the number one gossip on everybody’s lips on campus that week. Excellent, thanks a lot Lou…

A cold and unfamiliar look came over his face that unnerved me to see on him and Lou smiled. “Get
myself
killed?” he said, “Sandy, no offense, but you haven’t got a clue…” He looked back to Lisa, who was doing her best not to show her inner-turmoil and embarrassment as she stared down at the table in front of her. “Baby,” he said, his face softening again, “I’m sorry, ok?”

“Come on buddy,” Paulie said, putting his hand on Lou’s shoulder again, “they just need some time. Let me buy you a beer and talk about it.”

Jesus Paulie, I thought, a beer at lunchtime? The cocktails from last night probably hadn’t even left his system yet… But nonetheless I had to hand it to him, because it did the trick as Lou appeared to resign himself to his fate. “I’ll call you baby,” he shouted back to Lisa as Paulie led him away and I reached out to put my hand over hers. Yep, the jerk had really done a number on her this time.

That night we hit the books for another test coming up (no rest for the wicked and all that, except for maybe the occasional cocktail now and then, of course). I’d asked Lisa if she wanted to talk about it after the confrontation with Lou in the cafeteria but she’d just shrugged and said she was fine, which I knew from experience meant that yes, she did want to talk about it, although she needed some time to think it over for herself first. That was ok by me and I was just happy to be there to keep her company until she was ready to open up and let the waterworks flow, if that’s what it would take to see a smile on her face again.

At about eight that evening Paulie and Cassandra called around unexpectedly and I got up to let them in, resigned to another night of very little study after all (if Paulie wasn’t gay I would have sworn there was something going on between those two. I mean Cassandra was great and all, but jeez, lately the two of them seemed to be joined together at the hip).

“Hi!” I said, sharing hugs and kisses as I ushered them inside.

“Where’s the sorrowful princess?” Paulie asked and I directed them into the living room.

As Lisa got up to greet our guests my phone beeped in my pocket and I whipped it out to look at the message.

“
Hi
,” it said, “
I need to see you. Can you meet me tonight?
”

Weird, I thought, I didn’t recognize the number. “
Who’s this?
” I sent back.

“
ROMEO
,” came the reply.

I looked up in stunned silence not knowing what to do or think. At that moment I saw Lisa return from the kitchen with her box of Star Wars Monopoly and of course, that old faithful, the cocktail kit. If nothing else I knew I had to escape from yet another indulgent night of mojitos and margaritas with my increasingly study-shy friends.

I looked back at my phone and started tapping. “
Where and when?
”

He asked me to meet him at Flip N’ Chip’s, which was only a five minute stroll across the busy main thoroughfare from our apartment building, and by that time I’d already agreed to meet him so it was too late to back out. Was Lou working that night, I wondered? Why else would Romeo have asked me to meet him there? It seemed like, not only was I now going to have to deal with Lou pressurizing me to let him see Lisa, but I would also have to endure the silent and moody treatment from Romeo too. Great.

And yet still I couldn’t help but feel a flutter of excitement to be on the verge of seeing him again. Rightly or wrongly, I was curious to hear his side of the story and maybe find out just what the hell they’d been up to that night. While the idea of Lou getting involved in that stuff filled me with dread, I couldn’t help but be intrigued thinking about Romeo deliberately walking into the face of danger, even if I did wholeheartedly disapprove of his behavior. And, being honest, while spending the last few days comforting Lisa about the way her man had let her down, part of me was also thinking of and missing Romeo too. I needed to see him again, if only to find out once and for all if he really was just a tough guy asshole like he acted. At the very least, I might finally get some closure on him.

The bar was quiet that night and I spotted him immediately, sitting by himself in a corner booth and sipping on a glass of ginger ale and ice with a straw. I quickly scanned the bar for Lou and was both surprised and excited to see no sign of him. Perhaps he wasn’t working tonight after all then. Which meant that Romeo wanted to see me alone…

“Ok, so I’m here,” I said, approaching him from the side at his table. “What do you want, Romeo?”

He turned his head slowly and looked up at me, appraising me so carefully and casually that I was almost sure he was drawing it out for his own amusement, just to get under my skin. He gestured to the seat across from him in the booth. “Sit,” he said.

I sat down gruffly, not even taking off my denim jacket first.

“You want a drink?” Romeo asked, his voice as rich and deep and cool as ever. I had to remind myself that I was technically negotiating with the enemy here and couldn’t let myself succumb to his charms, no matter how natural it might have felt.

“No,” I said.

Romeo shrugged casually and then turned to a passing waitress. “Hey,” he called, “get me another pitcher of ginger ale and two glasses.”

“Sure hon’,” the waitress said and went back to the bar.

I stared at Romeo across the table. “I said I didn’t want a drink.”

“I know,” Romeo smiled, “I’m extra thirsty tonight.”

I sighed, beginning to feel a little fed up wondering what this guy wanted from me, never knowing where I stood with him. Yes, he was incredibly handsome and was probably fighting off the other girls wherever he went, but that didn’t give him any right to toy with me like this. Did he not know the effect it had on me, even just to be in his presence? I wasn’t particularly experienced with love, sex or romance in general, but I had a feeling that any girl would revert to an anxious, giggling mess in his company. Surely he knew that?

“Why did you ask me here?” I said.

“Lou’s pretty upset about Lisa.”

“Lisa’s pretty upset about Lou,” I replied, matter-of-factly.

The waitress returned with the jug of ginger ale and asked us if we wanted anything else. “Sure,” Romeo said, his eyes on me, “bring us a basket of fries, to share. Wait… actually, make those twisty fries.”