All He Saw Was the Girl (5 page)

    Proclivities,
huh? She wondered if he had any idea what it meant. Sharon hadn't heard a guy
use his horoscope as a pickup line in fifteen years. Maybe it was back in style.
She said, "You just get a divorce?"

    "No,
I just met you." He puffed on the cigar and blew a cloud of smoke over the
bar top. "Where're my manners?" He held up the cigar, pinched between
his thumb and index finger. "This bother you?"

    "I
like it," Sharon said. "Reminds me of my father and uncles."

    He
said, "Good, we'll get along great. My name's Joey, by the way. Joey
Palermo."

    He
offered his hand and she shook it. It was warm and dry and wrapped around hers.

    She
wondered why a grown man would want to be called

    Joey.
"I'm Sharon Vanelli," she said.

    "How
do you like that? Two Italian kids meeting by chance, or is it fate?" Joey
still working the horoscope angle, that being there at the same time was
somehow pre-ordained.

    Joey
said, "Where'd you grow up at?" He gestured with his right hand, kept
it going while he talked, like he couldn't talk without it.

    "Bloomfield
Hills."

    "So
you're rich and beautiful."

    "My
dad was in PR at Chrysler." She almost said Chrysler's, out of habit.

    "You
in PR?"

    "I
sell ad space in magazines." She finished her wine.

    "How
about another one?"

    "Chardonnay,"
Sharon said. "Sonoma-Cutrer."

    Joey
raised his hand, got the bartender's attention, pointed to his glass and Sharon's.
The bartender nodded and went to work.

    "What
magazines?"

    
"Heard
of
Rolling Stone?"

    "No.
What's that?" He grinned. "'Course I heard of it. Bought the issue
had Jessica Alba on the cover."

    "You
like beautiful, tall, thin movie stars, huh?"

    "Who
doesn't?"

    He
puffed on the cigar, pinching it between his thumb and index finger.

    "Not
everyone," Sharon said and winked.

    "She
don't got nothing on you," Joey said, and winked back.

    He
wasn't going to be mistaken for a p—t laureate, but she appreciated what he was
trying to say.

    Joey
said, "What do you listen to?"

    "On
the way here, the new Wilco CD." She had 3,500 songs on her iPod.

    "I've
heard of them," Joey said.

    "What
do you like?'

    "Old
stuff, Frank and Bobby."

    Frank
and Bobby. Using their first names like they were friends. He wore a blue
button-down-collar shirt with the top three buttons undone showing chest hair
and a gold chain with the letters "SJ" hanging from it. "What's
SJ stand for?"

    He
grinned and put the nub of his cigar in the ashtray. "Swinging Joey."

    "That's
your nickname, huh? What's it mean, you like to dance, like to have a good
time?"

    "Something
like that."

    The
bartender put fresh drinks in front of them. Joey picked his up, and clinked
her glass and said,
"Salute"

    Sharon
sipped her wine and said, "You from Sicily?"

    "Huh?"

    "Your
name's Palermo," Sharon said. "Isn't that the capital?"

    "I'm
from St Clair Shores. Used to go to Tringali's with my mother, she'd buy her
tomatoes, or Pete & Frank's."

    She
said, "Ever go to Club Leo?"

    "Club
Leo? We were there like every other weekend, weddings and parties. My dad and
the owner were buds. We called him Uncle Phil. You went there too, huh? I
wonder if we met before."

    "It's
possible," Sharon said. She pictured the place, an old Knights of Columbus
hall, spiffed up, cinderblock on the outside, fake stucco inside. A dance floor
and long tables and buffet food, three meats: baked chicken and pork chops and
sliced beef that looked like shoe leather. The men drinking wine out of little
juice glasses. "Remember dancing to Louis Prima? I can hear him doing
'Felicia No Capicia' and 'Buona Sera'." She remembered dancing with her
uncles who smelled like cigars and BO.

    Joey
said, "When'd you graduate high school?"

    "You
want to know how old I am? Ask me. I'm thirty-eight."

    "How
old are you really?"

    Sharon
gave him a dirty look. "What's that supposed to mean?"

    "Hey,
take it easy, I thought you were like twenty-nine, thirty tops."

    It
was a line but Sharon liked hearing it.

    "Ever
been married?"

    "Once.
I'm separated." In Sharon's mind it was true. That's how she felt.

    "Now
I live in Harrison Township," Joey said. "Place on the lake."

    Sharon
could picture it, mammoth house on a postage-stamp lot, nouveau-retro.
"Let me guess," Sharon said. "You've got a thirty-foot Wellcraft
docked behind it."

    "It's
a Century," Joey said, "and it's a thirty-two-footer. How'd you
know?"

    How'd
she know? He was a wop from the east side. "What do you do?"

    "Little
of this, little of that." He sipped his drink, looked like vodka on the
rocks with a twist. "Want to go somewhere?"

    Sharon
was thinking, who was this guy lived in a five-thousand- square-foot house -
not that his taste was any good - on Lake St Clair, had nothing but leisure
time or so it seemed?

    He
called her four, five times a day, said, "How you doing?"

    And
Sharon would say, "Same as I was when you called fifteen minutes
ago."

    "Baby,
I miss you. Tell them you're sick, we'll go to the casino." Or he'd be at
the track or a Tigers day game, he'd say, "I gotta see you. Take the
afternoon off, I'll send a car."

    She'd
been going out with him for three weeks and it was getting serious. They'd meet
at noon, check into a hotel a couple times a week and spend two hours in bed,
screwing and drinking champagne. It was something, best sex she'd ever had in
her life. He did things to her nobody had ever done before. She'd say, where'd
you learn that? And he'd say, you inspire me, beautiful. The only bad thing, he
called her Sharona, or my Sharona. Everything else was great so she let it go.

    They'd
take his boat out on Lake St Clair and she'd sunbathe topless. Something she'd
never done in her life and never imagined herself doing. She felt invigorated,
liberated. He always told her she looked good, complimented her outfit.
Showered her with gifts, bought her clothes and jewelry. She felt like a teenager
again. They'd meet and talk and touch each other and kiss. She was happy for
the first time in years. She had to be careful. Ray, the next time he came
home, might notice something and get suspicious. Why're you so happy? she could
hear him saying - like there was something wrong with it.

    But
this relationship with Joey also made her nervous.

    Things
were happening too fast. She was falling for him and she barely knew him, and
she was married.

    Joey
drove a Cadillac STS with the big engine. He liked to drive fast, too, like a
high-school kid, always flooring it, burning rubber. He'd have a few drinks,
nail it and the tires would squeal and he'd get a big grin on his face.

    She
said, "What're you running?"

    "469-horsepower
V8," he said.

    She
said, "What's its ET?"

    "Jesus,
you know cars, huh? I don't know what its ET is. Never been timed."

    Her
dad used to take her to Detroit Dragway when she was a kid to see the
nitromethane-burning fuel dragsters, fuelies that went zero to sixty in two
tenths of a second. Nine seconds in the quarter mile, its ET, elapsed time.

    Her
dad said you could tell the guys that burned nitro. When they took off, it smelled
like acid. Nitro isn't a fuel, it's an explosive. It would blow off cylinder
heads like a hat off your head.

    Her
dad's interest: most of the stock blocks were 426 Hemis, an engine Chrysler
made.

    One day
they went to Nino's for groceries and then drove to Joey's place, this
atrocious-looking, fake brick neo-colonial. He popped the trunk and as they
were unloading the bags of groceries, Sharon noticed a baseball bat, a
Louisville Slugger that was stained with something red. She said, "What's
on your bat? Is that blood?"

    He
told her he played on a softball team and one of his teammates got hit in the
face by a pitch. That's where the blood came from. She knew you didn't use a
wooden bat to play softball, but didn't really think about it at the time. But
then Joey had his friends over and everyone had a nickname.

    There
was Hollywood Tony.

    Joey
said, "Ain't he a good-looking kid?"

    There
was "Big Frankie" and "Cousin Frankie." They were cousins
who looked like twins. Sharon said, "How do you tell them apart?"

    "What
do you mean?" Joey said. "It's easy."

    There
was "Joe the Pimp" and "Skippy" and "Paulie the
Bulldog." "Fat Tony," who was thin, and "Chicago
Tony," who was fat, and "Tony the Barber" who didn't cut hair.
They all drove Caddys and had money and hung out with hot young girls who
looked like models or strippers. Sharon had heard of some of the guys, knew
they were mobsters.

    She
remembered Jack Tocco, the don, coming in Club Leo one time with his entourage,
and the whole place stopped, people looked like they were frozen, the men, her
father included, paying homage to the man, the boss of all bosses.

    She
said, "Joey, what the hell do you do? You connected?"

    He
said, "To what?"

    "The
Mob?"

    He
never answered the question. They were on his boat called
Wet Dream,
that's how imaginative he was, looking out at the lake, a couple miles
offshore, Canada somewhere in the distance, sun setting, red highlights on the
horizon, Sharon thinking she'd gotten herself in too deep and shouldn't see him
any more. He got up and went below and she was trying to think of what to say
to him.

    He
came back on deck with a bottle of champagne and two flutes three-quarters
filled and handed one to her.

    She
said, "What's the occasion?"

    Joey
said, "I've been thinking about this for a while. I hope you have,
too."

    He
put the bottle in a cooler that was on deck. He got down on one knee and looked
up at her.

    "Will
you marry me?"

    He
clinked her glass and took a sip. She did, too.

    "Be
careful," he said. "There's something in there."

    Sharon
saw it at the bottom of the flute, floating just above the stem. She knew what
it was.

    "It's
our anniversary," Joey said. "Five weeks from the day we met."

    Joey
was a party boy. This was the last thing she would've expected. She said,
"I've got to tell you I'm a little surprised. I thought you were seeing
other girls, too."

    "Not
since I met you, babe. When I saw you I got hit by a tornado, a fucking
hurricane."

    She
didn't know what else to do so she drank the champagne and felt the ring tickle
her mouth, bobbing in the bubbles. When her champagne was gone, she turned the
glass upside down and caught it, a diamond ring, a big one.

    He
said, "Put it on."

    And
she did, the biggest engagement ring she'd ever seen.

    "Three
fucking carats," he said.

    He
was grinning, holding his champagne glass by the stem. "Had it made
special. What do you think?"