Auld Lang Syne
By Shotzette
Rated R
This is only a work of fan-fiction. It was written for grins and giggles, not dollars and cents and was not meant to infringe upon anyone’s copyrights or intellectual properties.
Welcome back to the Bookends-verse…
“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one… Happy New Year!” The stage whisper whistled thru the tiny apartment, as the two exhausted children remained sound asleep on the couch.
Skye Davis leaned into her husband’s embrace and kissed his giggling, yet mojito-flavored, mouth. She grinned as she pulled away from him and asked, “Any New Year’s resolutions on the horizon this year?”
Brandon pursed his lips and scrunched up his face in a parody of contemplative thought. “Give to the poor; lose ten pounds, end world hunger, and a bunch of other things.”
“Good for you! I was only planning on the world hunger thing.”
“Extend your grasp, grasshopper…”
Skye rolled her eyes at him. “Now I know that you’re drunk if your pop culture references are over thirty years old.”
Brandon smirked at her. “That was when most pop culture ceased to be entertaining, and I’m not all that drunk. Not really.”
Skye glanced at the empty bottles and glasses that encircled the Scrabble board on their cluttered coffee table. “Says the poster boy for Captain Morgan…”
“Those things are a lot more potent than they look…” Brandon squinted at the bottles and seemed to be counting them for the first time.
“Where did you go to school? Did you learn in tenth grade like the rest of us that the sweetest drinks give the harshest hangovers?” Briefly, Skye flashed upon the memory of her and Marie experimenting in Uncle Carmine’s unlocked liquor cabinet one afternoon in high school. The results of said experiment were horrible grenadine colored vomit stains on Carmine’s new oriental rug, a lock on his liquor cabinet, and being grounded for a month.
“That wasn’t exactly my recreational tool of choice back in the day…” Brandon’s eyebrows waggled suggestively and he pinched his thumb and forefinger together and drew them to his lips.
“Shhh,” Skye said as she clapped her hand over his mouth. “They may look like they’re sleeping,” she said, gesturing to the couch, “but they hear everything…” She didn’t know if it was an added benefit of the rum, but she could swear that she saw tiny little gears turning behind her children’s’ sleeping faces.
Now it was Brandon’s turn to roll his eyes. “Tell me about it. Leon still wants to know why Mommy was wearing that black vinyl outfit that one time. I still think that we should have told him that Mommy was a costumed superhero instead of us both ducking under the covers and shrieking.”
“Hopefully shame and guilt will take over a few years and he will suppress that memory,” Skye replied with a shrug.
“Well, it did motivate me to fix the lock on the bedroom door.”
Skye chuckled. “With these thin walls, maybe it’s a good thing we’re moving this spring.”
“Do you mean that?” Brandon’s arms encircled her in a sloppy hug, as his eyes seemed to focus on hers with a little more seriousness than he’s shown at any other time that night.
Skye grinned. Goofily buzzed off of his ass or not, it was good to see Brandon happy again. The financial strain of the last year had taken a toll on the both of them, and once Brandon had actually quit his soul-sucking job at the Virgin Mega Store, he had started to once again become the happy go lucky guy that she had fallen in love with years earlier. “Yes. Do you want to stay?”
Brandon cocked his head to one side as if thinking it over. “Not really,” he said, as he shook his head. “It’s not like we even could with the building going coop… Anyhow, we’ve sort of outgrown this place.”
“I think we outgrew it two months after we moved in,” Skye said as she looked at the jam packed bookshelves, cluttered counter tops, and Christmas decorations that reduced their already small apartment to little more than a glorified two bedroom closet.
“It’s going to be a change; not being in the city, having to commute in every day…”
She gave him a quick squeeze. “More so for you than me, since I get to work at home three days a week…”
“How did you swing that?”
“I slept with the right people,” she said, winking at him suggestively.
“Damn,” Brandon said, as he mock slapped himself in the forehead. “I always knew you were the smart one. Can you sleep with the right people at my job so I get to work from home a few days a week?”
“I’ve been having a torrid affair with the CEO of Downtown Vinyl for several years now.”
“Nice guy, I hear that he’s opening his very first store ever in the next two months.”
“He’s a generous sort, who I hope will be okay commuting from Long Island every day…”
His arms squeezed her tighter as he drew her in for a long kiss. “As long as you’re here, as well as those two children who live with us for some reason,” he said as he jerked his chin in the direction of Marie and Leon, still asleep on the couch in their New Years Eve party hats.
“I think their real parents will pick them up any day now.”
“Pity. They’ve sort of grown on me. Especially since their skinny little arms are now long enough to retrieve the remote control when it winds up under the couch.”
“I told you that they’d both be pulling their weight around here within five years,” Skye said. She pulled away from her husband and looked at him expectantly. “Seriously. No really, I mean it. Are you okay with moving?”
Brandon nodded. “Yeah. I love the city, but we need something bigger. They’re getting bigger; their stuff is getting bigger, as well as their friends. It’s time.”
“If you’re sure,” Skye began, “Uncle Anthony has a friend who sells real estate.”
Brandon winced. “Is this one of those friends who shouldn’t/t ask a lot of questions about work-wise?”
“No, but I think her husband is.”
Brandon pulled her against and leaned back against the arm of the couch and Skye’s legs straddled his torso naturally. “Long Island, here we come!”
“And if Long Island doesn’t work, I’m sure we could get something wonderful in Brooklyn,” Skye said.
“Land of the DeFazios!”
“Damn straight. And now, before things get too interesting,” Skye said as she wriggled off his lap and retrieved her Blackberry from the coffee table, “we have some calls to make…”
Marianne Ragusa stretched out sensuously on the three hundred plus count Egyptian cotton sheets. Say what you would about economic woes and their impact on customer service, she reflected, places like the Fairmont just never let you down. Every time business called her to Chicago, it was always a pleasure to stay in the company suite on the Magnificent Mile. Excellent food—when she allowed herself to sample it, a fully stocked bar, and a discreet staff.
Then again, she reflected, discretion hadn’t mattered to her as much in the past as it was this very minute. The dark haired head nestled at her breast stirred. His eyes met hers and he blushed slightly.
“Sorry,” Rocco Squigmann mumbled. “I didn’t mean to doze off on you there.”
“It’s okay,” she said automatically as her mind reeled with
the potential familial consequences of the last hour and a half. Good lord, it HAD been an hour and a half…
Rocco grunted and pushed himself up off of her, rolling onto his back a full foot away from her on the king sized bed. “Are you okay?”
Marianne suppressed a ridiculously giddy giggle. “I’m great. Yourself?”
He nodded.
Marianne’s mouth opened and it chilled her slightly to hear some of her father’s flippant Ragusa charm pop out. “I’ll be honest, when I said that I’d be in town and love to see the sights, this isn’t exactly what I meant.”
“Me neither,” Rocco said, as he flashed one of his all too few smiles. He suddenly looked worried. “I promised my father that I’d keep an eye on Liz while she and Frankie were at the club…”
“You did. Well, for an hour or two…”
Rocco shook his head. “It took us an hour to get into the club. By the way,” he added, “thanks for showing up and getting us past the bouncer the way that you did.”
“I know that Liz’s friend would have probably shown up if I hadn’t.” Or not, she added to herself. Not that I believe that Liz has an in with the assistant manager of Crobar… Out loud she said, “I’m sure that Liz has already talked to whoever she needed to and has distributed Frankie’s CD to everyone far and wide.”
Rocco’s expression became even uneasier. “Then what?”
Marianne shrugged, as well as anyone could who was lying flat on her back, “I dunno. She and Frankie hung out of the New Years party since they were already in one of the hottest clubs in town?”
He nodded. “It’s okay if they’re in public. Not much can happen, right?”
Brief moments of a much younger and more daring version of herself in the Viper Room VIP area back in Los Angeles nearly made Marianne blush, but she said, “Public. Right. Nothing bad could happen.”
“I’m glad. I hate letting my dad down.”
“Liz is an adult—for lack of a better term, Rocco. You’re not responsible for her. She’s going to make her own choices.”
His dark eyes focused on her in that unsettlingly earnest way he had. “Does your father like all of the choices that you’ve made?”
Marianne suppressed a shudder. “Yeah, right. My father doesn’t KNOW about half the choices I’ve made.”
“I thought you two were close?”
“So did I. But, y’know, big-ticket items like ‘I had a heart attack’ are ones you’re supposed to share with your nearest and dearest.” She then remembered whom she was speaking to. “Sorry.”
Rocco didn’t seem to mind her bluntness. “It’s okay. My dad’s doing a lot better. It’s just hard for him to slow down, that’s all.”
“Or let go?”
Rocco nodded. “He made everything himself by never letting go and never quitting. Guys like that don’t stop easy.”
Eager to change the subject she asked, “He and your mom were going out tonight, right?”
“Yeah, it’s his first night out since…. well, you know. Governor Fonzarelli invited him and mom to the celebration at the mansion.”
“Why didn’t you go?”
“Someone had to look after Liz.”
“Oh,” she said, not knowing what else to say.
“And,” Rocco continued, “I knew you’d be in town. You know that I would have rather taken you to the Governor’s Mansion rather than hang out with my sister and her boyfriend all night; don’t you?”
The hairs on the back of Marianne’s neck bristled with the implication of his tone, “Rocco…”
“I know,” he said in a sad voice from across the bed, “We’re just friends.”
“Well,” Marianne squirmed, highly aware that the two used condoms on the floor beside the bed and her still tingling torso contradicted her previous words, “Okay a little more tonight, but friends, mainly. You’re okay with that, right?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. I mean I’ve never really had a friend that let me do that with them before.”
Marianne smirked. “There are a lot of different kinds of friends in the world.”
“I mean,” Rocco said in a hushed and almost childlike tone, “I’ve never been with anyone who let me do that before.”
In a flash, Marianne was sitting bolt upright in bed and staring at Rocco in the dim light. “You were a vir...”
“Yes,” he replied quietly. Abruptly he rolled over to her and asked, his eyes in a panic, “Please don’t tell my dad!”
Marianne let out a deep breath. “Trust me, news like this isn’t something I ordinarily share with the paternal set. Wow. You’re first? Really?”
Rocco squirmed and looked away from her. “Yeah.”
“Why? I’m sorry, that’s a tacky question. But, why?”
“I’ve never liked anyone who liked me that much before, I guess. I don’t have as many friends as you do.”
Marianne’s brow creased. “Was that a dig?”
“Huh?”
“A dig. An insult, a put-down?”
“No.” He looked at her in confusion.
“Rocco, that’s… That’s just sad.”
“Thank you,” he said rolling away from her and facing the wall. “I feel much better now.”
Inwardly, Marianne cursed herself for her tactlessness. “I mean, you’re a terrific guy. You’re kind, you’re freaking brilliant when it comes to numbers, I just can’t imagine why some girl hasn’t snapped you up.”
“I’m not stupid, Marianne,” he replied to the wall before his eyes. “I know what I look like. There are twenty-eight mirrors in our house and I’ve seen myself in all of them. Short, hairy guys aren’t many women’s midnight fantasies.”
She opened her mouth to tell him that he was being to hard on himself, but opted for the truth. “Okay, you’re not the conventional dream date.”
“Told you so.”
“But, you’re smart. You’ve got a great job and your father has a few bucks in the bank. I can’t believe that none of those qualities haven’t gotten you some over the years.”
“It’s gotten me some offers, just none I ever wanted to follow up on. I like having someone to talk to.”
“There’s a lot to be said for talking,” she replied, surprised by the catch in her voice.
Fortunately, Skye’s ring tone piping from her cell phone on the bureau negated further introspection.
Paul Davis simultaneously tried to take a sip of his Cristal while trying to figure out if the wide shouldered man nodding and winking at Rhonda as he glided past the banquet room dais in front of them was indeed Wayne Newton, or yet another impersonator. It was so hard to tell in this town.
He looked at the woman across the table from him and smiled. She was real, at least in the way that mattered to him. More so than anyone he’d met in ages.
Rhonda glanced back at him and winked, her smile was her public one, brilliant and filled with bi weekly bleached teeth, but it had a special warmth to him that no one else in the busy casino could see.
“Penny for your thoughts,” she asked.
“Don’t you mean a Glitter Casino token for my thoughts, non-transferable to other casinos pat pending?”
She rolled her dark eyes at him in a way that was pure Mae West, yet looked more natural on Rhonda. “Silly! You like to tease Rhonda about being so proprietary about her things.”
“Not at all, my dear. Your attention to detail is what got you where you are today.”
“Most men say it was Rhonda’s stunning good looks.”
“Most men are fools,” he replied as he lifted his glass to her as a toast, “It was Rhonda’s beauty, followed very quickly by her brains and ambition. Rhonda is not someone that anyone with a lick of common sense would ever trifle with.”
“You sweet talker, you!”
“You should hear me ramble off about quantum mechanics.”
“Rhonda is sure that you would even make that sound lovely. So, how does your second Glitter New Year stack up against last year’s festivities?”
“If it is half the show that you and the Rhondettes put on last year, I will be more than happy. I honestly don’t know how you do it all.” Paul glanced at the center stage and was once again nonplussed about the imminent arrival of twenty beautiful and topless showgirls. Congratulations, old man, you’ve assimilated.
“Rhonda has done this for many years—how many years, Rhonda is still not admitting to anyone. Rhonda can’t take all of the credit; her two assistants do most of the work these days.”
“But someone has to instruct her assistants.”
She shrugged slightly, making the mundane gesture elegant. “Not as much as Rhonda used to. Shane has really shown some initiative in the last few years. Having the Rhondettes descend from the crystal ladder on the main stage instead of coming in from the wings was his idea, and it really ads another dimension visually for the audience. I’m so proud that I poached him from Circque de Soleil.”
Paul chuckled. “I’m sure that he is as well. How that man survived in a Montreal based company without speaking a word of French for three years is a mystery to me.”
“Actually, Shane has expressed interest in being involved with some more of the mundane aspects of running Glitter.”
“Really?” Try as he might, Paul had a difficult time imagining the magenta-haired, heavily tattooed Shane spending his nights poring over the books and expenditures with the diligence that Rhonda had over the last few decades.
“I’m thinking of promoting him to general manager.”
Paul blinked in surprise. “Rhonda! You always said that one of the smartest moves that you ever made was running glitter with yourself as the manager—that any conflict would always be solved, and I quote—with the Rhonda touch.”
A smile crept across Rhonda’s professionally and perfectly tweaked face and Paul felt her hand gently squeeze his thigh under the table.
“Rhonda’s found some better things to touch lately and would like to expand her horizons a bit,” she purred.
He blushed despite himself, proving that deep down he was still an East Coaster. “Indeed.”
“Personally and professionally.”
“As much as I’d like to take credit for the personal part, the professional has me a bit confused.”
“Rhonda knows that she’s been a little unavailable lately, and you’ve been far too kind to not complain about not getting Rhonda’s full attention, Darling.”
“I know that your business is demanding. You only make it look easy from a distance, my dear.”
“You are not the only man who’s noticed Rhonda’s business acumen. Among other things,” she added with a sly wink. “I was going to wait until the celebration was over tonight—tomorrow, whenever things slow down in this crazy town.”
“August?”
“Guess who has been approached by none other than the Donald himself to consult on a new nightclub review that he is considering for the Taj Mahal?”
Paul choked on his champagne and tried his best not to have the overpriced bubbly spew out of his nose. “No!”
“Yes! He wants to design a new club within the casino and make it a re-imagination of the reviews in Vegas in the early 70s. He will have full ownership of the project; a fact that is irritating Rhonda a bit, however,” she said, with a dismissive shake of her platinum head, “he wants to use Rhonda’s persona, style, and input for the design, and give her a little piece of the back end action.
Paul grinned and raised one eyebrow lecherously. “You make that sound so dirty… Not that I’m complaining.”
She let loose a small squeal of delight. “I love it when you want to be the Naughty Professor… anyhow,” Rhonda continued, “the review will be called Shimmer, and Rhonda has nearly carte blanche to do whatever she wants and spend whatever she wants. Contrary to appearances, Rhonda doesn’t have those options nearly enough.”
Understanding dawned on him. “And you can’t do all of that and run Glitter here in Vegas so that’s why you’re thinking of promoting Shane”.
“That, and the dear boy has earned it. Also,” she said, appearing suddenly hesitant, “Donald first approached Rhonda about this two years ago.”
“Why didn’t you take the offer then?”
“Donald likes his people to be on hand more than Rhonda is used to being. Rhonda’s home base is Las Vegas and it always will be,” she said, her voice strangely firm.
“But why?”
Rhonda smiled softly. “Because your family is in New York and unless Rhonda’s fourth grade geography class had hit all wrong, New York and New Jersey are pretty close together.”
Paul set down his champagne flute and said, “Rhonda, the issues between Brandon and myself have nothing to do…”
“Balloon juice!”
“Huh?” He stared at her in wonder and tried to figure out if that was yet another expression that the kids today were using and he was too old to understand.
“An expression I picked up from Laverne ages ago,” she said dismissively. “Things haven’t been the same between you two since you moved to Nevada with Rhonda.”
Paul shook his head. “Darling, it’s not your problem to fix.”
“Rhonda knows that,” she said, her voice more level and business-like that any of her colleagues in Vegas had probably ever heard it in all of her years there. “She also knows that being on the east coast a week and half every month courtesy of Mr. Trumps private jet will allow you to see your family more.”
Paul shook his head. “Not that I’m don’t appreciate your generosity, but…”
“But nothing. Rhonda’s mind is made up, and she assumes that you have more of a ‘lick of common sense’, as you put it, and wouldn’t think of trifling with her.”
Paul stared at her for a long moment before giving up and once again thanking whatever scientifically improbable deity who may, or may not, run the universe for the random chance of dropping Rhonda Lee into his life. . “I may be many things, my dear, but foolish has never been on the list. “
“Good,” she said with small, yet triumphant smile, “Rhonda doesn’t tolerate fools gladly, except of course, for Squiggy—but only in small doses.”
Paul leaned over and kissed her cheek, careful as usual not to go near her precisely painted lips in public. “You know I adore you, right?”
“Of course! Who could blame you? However, please do not let your adoration of Rhonda make you forget that you have a son.”
The cork whizzed by Carmine Ragusa’s left ear before colliding with—and denting—the faded, yet once stylish, jute covered drywall behind him. “Damn it, Lenny!” Sparing his friend an angry glance, Carmine once again re-focused his attention on the contrary remote control in his hand.
“Sorry!”
Shirley giggled, the earlier two glasses of champagne she had consumed had pinked her cheeks, making her look more like his seventeen year old prom date after half a bottle of Shotz than a grandmother. “Well, the important thing is that he was aiming away from the window, isn’t it, Carmine.”
Lenny smiled sheepishly and reached out to the remote control in Carmine’s hand. “If you still can’t find your program, let me have a try. Frankie taught me how to use ours. Finally.”
Carmine clutched the remote to his chest and gave his friend his patented Jersey-Mobster-Glare. “Touch my TiVo and die, Kosnowski!”
“Carmine!”
Carmine winced at the shrill and nasal shriek. “Sorry, Laverne. I just really want to see if it recorded Entertainment Tonight.”
Laverne smirked as she helped herself to the first glass from the freshly opened bottle. “You’re that eager to see your self on the boob tube again?”
“Would you be? It’s not every night that they cover the Falcon Crest Reunion Show. Now, be really honest everybody,” he implored, “I still look younger than Robert Foxworth, right?”
“Right,” the group chorused.
Through clenched teeth, Carmine growled, “It would be more convincing if you watched the segment before commenting.” Nervously, he glanced at the large mirrored panel in the entryway to his beach house. The reflection that greeted him today was happier than the newly-divorced hound that he’d been twenty five years earlier when he’d purchased the house, but there was a softness to his features that was eerily reminiscent of his great uncle Luigi. Then again, at least he didn’t have hair sprouting out of his years. Yet.
Laverne guffawed as she put her arm around a hysterically giggling Shirley. “Oh, you want us to be truthful.”
He once again tried the Jersey-Mobster look, but it had never really worked on her. “Everyone but you, Laverne.”
Shirley breathed deeply as her giggles subsided and said, “It’s almost midnight, Carmine. Can you fast forward to your segment first and we’ll watch it now, and then watch the rest after midnight?”
“Thanks, Shirl,” Lenny muttered.
Ignoring Lenny’s comment, Carmine absently replied as he watched the images on the twenty four inch plasma screen dart by, “Sure, Angelface; anything for you. Commercial, commercial, Mary Hart babbling, obituaries…”
“Huh?” Laverne blinked and looked at him in surprise.
Carmine slowed down the TiVo, waiting for his footage to come on. “On New Years Eve they always do a montage of people in the industry who died that year.”
Shirley shuddered before taking another sip of champagne. “That’s gruesome, Carmine.”
He flashed her his phoniest smile, “It’s why I make sure that my agent always has a recent, yet flattering headshot…”
The sound of a glass champagne flute shattering on his tile floor cut off Carmine’s next words. He saw Laverne staring at the screen, ashen faced and oblivious to the puddle of alcohol that was slowly but surely creeping to the edge of his rug.
“Oh my god,” Shirley said softly next to him, all her earlier mirth absent from her voice.
Carmine followed the direction of her stare and saw the photograph of an old friend. The sound was off, but underneath the photograph of an older, but still handsome Sonny St. Jacques, the caption read: “Stephane ‘Sonny’ St. Jacques” 1943 – 2006. A.L.S.”
“Oh my God,” he said, echoing Shirley. Dimly, he heard the sound of the back door of his beach house slam shut.
He moved towards the door, but Lenny stopped him with a cold look. “I’ll go after her,” he said, his gazing rooting Carmine where he stood.
His knees bent of their own accord and he part of him registered that he was now sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the screen in front of him. Sonny’s hair had grayed over the years, but it was still thick in the black and white head shot; his face had lined in a macho, chiseled sort of way that only a few were blessed with.
“I can’t believe it. Carmine…” Shirley scooted closer to him on the couch. Neither one of them said anything for several long moments; the sound of their breaths seemed to echo in the empty great room of the vacation home.
“Sonny…” His words came out in a half whisper.
Shirley laid her head on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry…”
“I hadn’t spoken to him in years.” Carmine’s gut twisted in shame. “Hell, I haven’t even thought about him in ages.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder and watched him through curious blue eyes. “Carmine…”
His words began to tumble out in streams of random consciousness, his brain struggled to catch up and process what he was saying. “He was my first real new friend in California, Shirl. He didn’t know me from Adam and he let me live on his couch for two months.”
“He was a good man. I remember that he was very protective of us when Laverne and I first moved in.” Shirley smiled and said, “We never would have made it through our first earthquake without him.” The smile left her face as she looked towards the still open door. “Poor Laverne…”
Carmine continued to stare at the freeze-framed image in front of him, trying to spot the blood shot eyes or damaged nose of an addict, or anything that suggested the wasted visage of an AIDS victim. “I can’t believe it… I mean, he was always in such good shape, always took care of himself.”
“Things change, Carmine.”
He shook his head as he remembered Sonny once joking with him that Laverne was the only reason he’d ever step into Cowboy Bill’s since was a strict vegetarian. Sonny was the first health food nut who hadn’t looked like a sissy or a nutcase to his midwestern eyes, and had always been up for lifting weights at the local Y. Sonny had even tried to teach him out to surf…”Not for guys like Sonny, Shirl.”
“I didn’t realize you two had kept in touch.”
“We didn’t,” he admitted. “Not really.”
Shirley’s brow furrowed in confusion. “But you said...”
“I ran into him once at Universal back in the early eighties. “
“I thought he’d moved to Hawaii?”
Carmine nodded, temporarily distracted by the memory of Sonny, wearing a god-awful moustache and a big smile giving him a bear hug. “He did. He was one of the stunt coordinators on Hawaii Five Oh during for the entire run of the show. The last time I saw him, he was in town sealing the deal for being the head stunt coordinator on Magnum.”
Carmine smiled at the memory, he’d never seen Sonny as excited as he had been that day. Except for the day he bought Laverne’s engagement ring. He cleared his throat and continued. “It was a great opportunity for him. Funny, with his looks, he could have made the transition to leading man in any of a hundred action pictures if he’d wanted to, but Sonny didn’t want that. He just loved doing the actual stunts, y’know? Being covered from head to toe in a fireproof suit and then jumping out of a twenty-story building. Sonny always wanted to do the biggest and flashiest stunts possible, but at the same time he was always concerned about everyone’s safety. Back,” he stopped, clearing his throat, “back when I was staying with him, he would stay up all nights diagramming stunts on note pads, trying figure and refigure if how much padding he’d need if the he was falling from so far off of the ground. He was such a perfectionist.”
Shirley looked at him tenderly and took his hand in hers. “Speaking as someone who always used to hear you practicing your choreography in the apartment above hers back in Milwaukee, I think that’s a trait that you two shared.”
A chill ran down his spine as he pulled his hand out of her gentle grasp. “I’m not as nice of a person as Sonny was, not by a long shot.”
“Carmine…”
“I haven’t seen or spoken to him since that day at Universal,” he blurted out, absurdly reminding himself of one of his character’s courtroom confessions on an episode of Matlock.
“Why?” Shirley’s tone was gentle, the voice of a mother asking a child for the reason that they broke a vase.
“We just ran into each other, we were making plans to go out for drinks and dinner later that night when up and out of the blue he asked me how he could get in touch with Laverne.”
Shirley jumped to her feet indignantly. “I don’t believe that, Carmine! Sonny was a married man!”
Carmine shook his head. “Not then he wasn’t. He’d been divorced for a year or two. He showed me a picture of his two kids. That’s one of the reasons he was so excited about the Magnum gig. It let him stay in Hawaii and remain near his kids. Anyway, his question about Laverne just came out of nowhere, y’know?”
“And?”
Carmine took a deep breath before confessing the long forgotten sin. “And, I lied to him, Shirley. I looked my old friend straight in the eye and told him that I hadn’t stayed in touch with Laverne. I told him that I didn’t know where she was or what she was doing; that I hadn’t seen her since I moved to New York.”
Shirley’s brows drew together in confusion. “Carmine… was that because, you felt guilty about you and Laverne?”
“It should have been; I mean, she and I were…uh…together,” he said as he once again wished he had a college vocabulary, “just a month or so after she broke up with him. That alone should have made me feel like a creep.”
“But it didn’t.” Her words were a statement devoid of judgment, not a question.
He shook his head. “No. I mean, that had been over for so long, that I didn’t even think of it at the time.”
Shirley shrugged her shoulders and asked, “Then why?”
“Lenny.”
“Hold on. Sonny would have never been the type of man to chase a married woman.”
“No. But… and I ain’t saying this to be mean,” he said as he tried to be as gentle as he could, “but you weren’t around back then. It—well, things weren’t real good between Lenny and Laverne for a while.”
“Why? What happened?”
He shrugged and looked around uncomfortably. “Marriage is work, even for two people who are right for each other. Lenny wasn’t making very much money for a while, and Laverne’s paychecks weren’t going as far as they used supporting a ready-made family. Then Karen came back into the picture…”
Shirley winced. “That must have just killed Laverne.”
Carmine shook his head and smiled, “You’d think that, but Laverne rolled with it.” His mood sobered and he said, “Lenny was another story. He completely flipped out and even moved out of their house for a week. He and Laverne were barely speaking for a while because she thought that Skye should get to know Karen. Then, they were trying to get pregnant for a few years…”
Dawning illuminated Shirley’s face. “And you thought…”
Carmine nodded, “That what if Sonny showed up when Laverne was having a weak moment? Or, Lenny thought he did.”
“You didn’t give them much credit, did you?” Shirley stood in front of him now, shaking her head sadly.
“I really didn’t give anyone’s marriage that much credit back then. I just didn’t want to see another couple crash and burn the way Anita and I did.” Or the way that you and Walter had started to crash all those years when I was out of the picture.
“I understand that. It’s awful when a marriage dies; no matter how long it takes for you to actually bury it,” she said as she sat down beside him and took his hands in hers again. As usual, her touch said more to him that her words ever did.
Abruptly, he turned in her arms and embraced her. “I’m sorry, Shirl.”
“Don’t be. I think Laverne and Lenny were lucky to have a guardian angel looking out for them.”
“They didn’t need my help, that’s for sure. I just wish I’d had more faith in them, and had been more of a friend to Sonny.”
“None of us can fix the past; we just have to allow our mistakes to shape our future decisions,” she said in a far away tone.
He looked into her face and saw all of her, the teenaged girl that he’d had a crush on, the young woman who had been his first love, and now the recently divorced grandmother, and mother of three children; only two still living. He saw all of the love and loss that she’d endured over the decades and said, “I love you Angelface.”
He ran after her, losing his cheap flip flops in the sand and trying not to knock his clumsy self ass over teakettle as he chugged towards the ocean. “Laverne!”
Lenny caught up to her as she collapsed on a sand dune, wheezing and gulping for air, the now-cold wind had plastered her thin blouse against her frame and raised her flesh in goose bumps. Wordlessly, he took her in his arms and held her while she convulsed with sobs.
She coughed roughly against him, her words tumbling out, “So… sorry. Awful…”
“I know…”
She let out a bitter half laugh against his neck. “To think I once broke up with him because I was afraid he’d get killed on the job.”
Lenny held her close and stroked her back, a calming motion that had become second nature to him over the years. “You’d just lost Randy a few years earlier,” he said as his soft tone belied the coldness of his words. “Deep down, you’ve always known how quickly everything can be taken away.”
Her body cringed against him as if she’d been struck. “Randy was so young when he died, Len. He was only twenty-five. Sonny… My God, Sonny died like an old man. Lenny, he was only sixty-four!”
Lenny felt shudder despite himself. Vaguely he remembered that Sonny had been younger than the rest of the gang, but his former landlord’s authoritative nature had made him seem like more of an adult than the rest of them. He must have been the same age as those kids who Fonzie used to hang out with at Arnold’s back in the day. “Wow.” He took a deep breath and held his wife more tightly.
Laverne looked up at him, her face tear stained and blotchy red. At that moment, he was keenly aware of the lines in her face and the gray roots at her temples. “We don’t got all the time in the world no more do we?” Her voice was small, more childlike than he’d heard it in ages.
He shook his head and tried to be the strong one for once. “None of us are kids anymore, Vernie.”
She gulped loudly and looked away from him pressing the side of her face against his chest. “I know but… Sonny’s dead. Both Carmine and Squiggy have had heart attacks.” She looked at him, her red-rimmed eyes narrowing in suspicion. “When was the last time you went to a doctor?”
He cocked his head and tried to remember and shrugged.
“That ain’t good enough,” she said, her voice fierce, yet sounding oddly tired. “You are gonna call and make an appointment for a physical tomorrow, understand?” Her hand caught in the fabric of his gaudy Hawaiian shirt, heedlessly grabbing a handful of chest hair beneath it in her clawing grasp. “You’re getting your cholesterol tested, your blood pressure, and whatever ever else they can check on you, got it?”
Lenny shuddered involuntarily at the thought of needles and rubber gloves—and where they ended up. “Tomorrow’s New Years day, Laverne. The doctor’s office ain’t gonna be open.”
“Then you’ll call the day after tomorrow, damn it!” The hoarseness in her voice was no match for the fierce wind, her words would have gone unheard if her lips hadn’t been inches from his ear.
“Only on one condition,” he said, his voice thickening.
“What?”
“You make an appointment too, Laverne. Don’t be thinking that you’re the only one who worries about that kinda stuff. You gotta start taking better care of yourself too, okay?”
Silently, she nodded and pressed her damp face further into his chest.
A flare of red caught Lenny’s eye up the beach. Fireworks. 2006 was over. An unfamiliar grimness settled in the pit of his stomach. He was going to make sure that he lived every day of 2007 like it was his last.
FIN