Reno Gabrini: A Man in Full (10 page)

Jimmy smiled.  “You’re a fantastic woman,” he said.  “And my Dad will see it right off.   I promise you that.  He’ll see your beauty, if nothing else, and that might be enough for him, given his track record.”

“He likes beautiful women?” Melita asked, genuinely interested.

“He likes women,” Jimmy said, and felt guilty saying that much.  He never felt comfortable discussing his father’s weaknesses.  “But you’re so beautiful,” he continued, “he’ll have no choice but to notice it.  That’s what I meant.  But then I guess you get tired of people focusing on your beauty all the time, don’t you?”

“Nope.  Wrong,” Melita said with a grin.  “Focus away.  I adore compliments.  I’m smart too, but nobody compliments me on my brains, so I have to take a kind word where I can get it.  That’s why I fell for you.”

Jimmy didn’t follow her.  “How’s that?” he asked.

“When we first met you never said a word about my looks.  Not one word.  All you were focused on was beating me.” 

Jimmy laughed.  The PaLargio had an indoor basketball court that was part of its overall world class fitness center amenities.  The court was free and open to paying guests of the hotel, but residents of Vegas could only get in by paying monthly membership dues.  Melita was one of those members.

“All you could compliment me on,” she went on, “was my magnificent sky hook.  And then you proceeded to steal the basketball from me.”

“We were battling each other!  When I’m shooting hoops, nobody gets a pass,” Jimmy joked.

“But even after the game, when we were both all sweaty and tired and sitting on the court, you never once went there.”

Jimmy was just so happy to have a hoops partner that he wasn’t thinking about the beauty of that partner.  He rarely saw anybody in the gym shooting hoops as early as he enjoyed being there.  Later in the day, the courts were crowded with hoop lovers.  But early in the mornings far more people were interested in the cardio equipment.  “It was so early,” he said, “I was happy to have a partner.”

 “I had to come early,” Melita said, “if I was going to get my workout in at all.  And I won both games,” she added.

“But you failed to mention,” Jimmy added, “that you played for your college basketball team.  You failed to mention that little fact.”

Melita laughed.  “You didn’t ask.  You were so certain you would easily take me.”

“Easy my ass,” Jimmy said.  “You creamed me!”  

Melita laughed loudly.  Jimmy could always make her laugh. 

Jimmy, too, was enjoying himself the way he always did in her presence.  But when he looked beyond her, his heart began to race.  He so wanted this to go well.  “They’re here,” he said, and began standing up. Melita looked toward the entrance too. 

Reno, with his hand in the small of Trina’s back, began heading their way.  Although he hadn’t changed his suit, his hair had been combed and he had shaved.  But shaved or not shaved, Jimmy thought as they approached him, his father was always a handsome man to behold.  And although he always looked as if he was on the verge of total exhaustion, he still managed to have more energy than anybody else in the room. 

And Trina.  What could Jimmy say about Trina?  Some of his female friends always tried to knock her.  They expected a man like Reno, a man rich and great looking, to have the looker of lookers for a wife, they loved to say.  They expected him to marry somebody who looked more like Melita than Trina.  Trina was very pretty, they would quickly point out, but not extraordinarily so. 

But Jimmy thought those girls were just jealous or blind or both.  Because he could see exactly what his father saw in Trina.  He saw how she had a style all her own.  He saw how she had this sweet and caring, motherly personality, but she also had this
don’t tread on me, bitch on two legs
sophistication that few women could pull off.  And her body was perfection to Jimmy.  Nobody cold top her there, not even Melita.  That was why his father never seemed able to keep his hands off of her.  That was why his father was always searching around the PaLargio for her, whisking her away for an hour or two, and then bringing her back looking so drained that Jimmy, before he knew what was going on, used to wonder if they had been fighting.  She wore a tasteful green dress tonight that hugged her curves in all the right places.  And in Jimmy’s eyes, who adored Trina, she wore it well.

Melita, however, had her eyes on Reno.  She didn’t give Trina a second look.  She knew how attractive he was.  Even from across the room those blue eyes of his sparkled.  And that body.  He had to be pushing forty, but he had the body of a man half his age.  Jimmy had it too.  She could see a lot of his looks and sexual energy passed down to Jimmy.  But attractive as Jimmy was, he was no match when it came to his father, Melita thought.

“Well hello there,” Jimmy said cheerfully as he hugged and kissed Trina.  “You guys are actually on time for a change.”

“And what was wrong with one of the restaurants at the PaLargio?” Reno asked as he and Jimmy hugged and cheek-kissed too. 

Jimmy smiled.  “I knew you were going to ask that,” he said as Reno looked pass his son, to his son’s date. 

She had stood up, and she and Trina were hugging, when Reno got his first good look at her.  And as soon as he saw her, he frowned. 
What the fuck
, he inwardly thought as he looked at her.  He couldn’t believe his eyes.  This had to be some kind of a fucking joke!  He looked at Jimmy, who was looking adoringly at her, and then he looked back at Jimmy’s woman.

“And what’s your name again?” Trina was asking her as they stopped hugging.  “Jimmy told me, but I’m terrible with names.”

“Her name is Melita, Ma,” Jimmy volunteered before Melita could.  Melita glanced at Reno.  “Melita Murphy.”

“Well it’s so nice to meet you, Melita,” Trina said.  “Jimmy speaks so highly of you.  Like in
she’s perfect
terms.”

“Oh, no,” Melita said with a smile, “he’s the perfect one here.”

“He’s certainly a sweetheart.  That’s for sure.  And speaking of sweethearts,” Trina said, moving back, “this is my husband Reno.”  She said this as she took Reno’s arm and propelled him forward so that he could give Melita a hug too. 

But Reno only nodded his head.  “How are you?” he asked as he unbuttoned his suit coat and motioned for Trina to have a seat.

Jimmy thought his father was a little cold in the way he greeted Melita, but he wasn’t about to let anything ruin this night. It meant too much to him.  He, instead, waited for Melita to sit down, and then he sat down too. 

Melita could already see the change in dynamic at their table.  Whereas before Reno’s arrival, Jimmy seemed self-assured and loaded with all kinds of confidence.  Now all the power had shifted to Reno.  At this table, Melita could already see, the father, not the son, was in charge.

After Jimmy and Melita’s drinks arrived, and Reno placed orders for himself and his wife, they all settled down to happy talk.  Trina did most of the talking, though, with Melita and Jimmy joining in, but Reno had nothing to say.  He placed his hand around his wife’s waist, crossed his leg, and stared almost unceasingly at Melita.  Although Melita was accustomed to men gawking at her, and was therefore unimpressed with Reno’s stare, it was another story with Jimmy.  Every time he looked at his father, it seemed to Jimmy, his father was staring at Melita.  Even Trina had noticed Reno’s infatuation.  Which wasn’t surprising at all to Trina.  The woman, Trina thought, was striking.

But what was surprising to Trina was Melita’s age.  Melita was older than Trina!

“I’m a plainspoken person,” Melita said after telling Trina that she was thirty-eight.  “So I want your plainspoken opinion.  How do you feel about the fact that I’m closer to your husband’s age, than your son’s?”  Melita glanced at Reno when she said that.  But if she thought including him in her conversation would get some kind of reaction from him, other than his continuing to stare at her, she was mistaken.  Reno remained silent.

“How do you feel,” Melita added before Trina could respond, “that I’m seventeen years older than your son?”

Trina thought about Melita’s question.  And then she spoke plainly too.  “I’m surprised, I’ll be honest with you,” she said.  “Jimmy never mentioned your age, so I wrongly assumed he was talking about somebody his own age.” 

“But does it bother you?” Melita asked.

“Why should it bother me?” Trina asked.  “If you’re a good, honest person and good to our child, then your age is irrelevant on every level.  You could be fifty for all I care.  I just want Jimmy to be happy.”

Reno squeezed Trina’s waist.  She was a good person who cared deeply for her family, and Reno loved her more every day for her devotion.  She didn’t treat Jimmy as if he was her stepchild. Jimmy was as much her child as Dommi.  But this woman here.  This Melita Murphy.  Now that was another story entirely.  One Reno knew he was going to have to get to the bottom of.  But not yet.  He didn’t have enough intel yet.

“What about you, Pop?” Jimmy asked him.

Reno looked at his son. 
Did he know
? Reno wondered.  “What about me?” he asked him.

“Do you have a problem with Lita’s age?”

“I don’t have a problem. You have a problem?”

“I don’t have a problem.”

“Then there’s no problem,” Reno said.  “If she means right by you, then everything’s lovely.  If she’s using you, then she’ll regret the day she was born.”  Reno said this and looked Melita dead in the eyes.

Jimmy frowned. “Why are you scaring her like that, Pop?” he asked his father.

Trina smiled.  “He’s kidding, Jimmy, geez,” she said.  Then she threw a napkin at him.  “Lighten up!”

Jimmy and Melita both laughed.  But it was instructive to both of them that Reno didn’t crack a smile.

After dinner, when both couples were waiting for the Valet to bring around their respective cars, Jimmy looked at his Dad, who still seemed agitated.

“Can I see you for a moment, Pop?” he asked him as he began to move away from the restaurant’s entrance.

Reno followed his son.   “Yeah, what is it?” he asked when Jimmy stopped walking.

Jimmy smiled, but Reno could see the anguish in his eyes.  “So what do you think?”

Reno stared at his son.  “Does it matter what I think?”

“Of course it does!  You’re my dad.  I want to know what you truly think about my woman.”

“How long have you known her?”

Jimmy frowned.  “What difference does that make?”

“How long, Jimmy?”

Jimmy had to think about that.  “A few months.  Three, four months.  We met on the basketball court.”

“At the PaLargio?”

“Yeah. You know how early I like to get up and shoot hoops.  She was out there one morning, we played a couple games, and we started meeting up once or twice every week.  Then we started dating.”

“You told her about me?”

Jimmy hesitated.  “Told her what about you?”

“That I own the PaLargio, don’t fuck with me, Jimmy.  You know what I’m talking about.”

“I didn’t tell her anything about you, no I didn’t.  She doesn’t know you from Adam.  That’s the beauty of it.  She loves me based on me and me alone.”

Reno studied his son.  Jimmy knew that look.  “What?” he asked his father.

“You love this girl?” Reno asked him.

“Yeah,” he admitted.  “I love her very much.  That’s why I wanted to know what you thought.”

Reno exhaled.  “I think you’re way over your head,” he said.  “That’s what I think.”

Jimmy’s concerned look changed.  Now he looked angry.  “I’m over my head?”

“That’s what I think, yeah.”

“Oh, because she’s so beautiful and smart she can’t possibly want me.  Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m saying what I said.  You’re in over your head.   What would a woman like that want with a kid like you?”

Jimmy started nodding.  “So that’s it.  She wouldn’t want a kid like me.  She’d want a man like you.  Is that what you’re saying?  Is that why you were undressing her with your eyes all night, and right in front of Ma?  Because you want to fuck her yourself?”

Reno knocked Jimmy so hard across the face that Jimmy fell flat down on his ass. 

Trina, seeing it, immediately ran toward her husband and her stepson.  Melita ran behind her.

Reno stood there, staring at his son, and then he began walking back toward the entrance.  But the women continued to run toward Jimmy.

“Are you all right?” Melita asked him as she tried to help him up.  But Jimmy snatched away from her, got up on his own, and then ran toward his father again.  Melita reached out her hand to stop him, but Trina pulled her back.

“Jimmy is a man,” she said to Melita.  “He just got knocked down.  A man can’t let that stand.”

Melita looked at Trina.  How could she want her own son to battle her own husband?  What kind of woman was she?  Then she looked back at Jimmy.  He was taking off his suit coat as he made it up to his father.

Jimmy tossed his coat onto the ground.  “Hit me again!” he yelled at Reno.  “Hit me again, motherfucker!”

Reno looked at his son as his son got into his face. Tears were in Jimmy’s eyes as he confronted Reno.

“I’m not some kid anymore!” he yelled.  “You can’t control me anymore!” he yelled even louder and then rammed his father like a bull; rammed him all the way until Reno’s back was against the brick wall of the building.  The Valet staff was looking, wondering if they should call the cops, as Jimmy then grabbed Reno by the catch of his collar and slammed him down onto the ground.  Then Jimmy saddled him. 

Reno knew he could take Jimmy in a heartbeat.  He knew one flip and he’d have his son in the very position his son now had him in.  With any other man it would have been a no-brainer.  If Jimmy was any other man he wouldn’t stand a chance.  But Jimmy was his son.  And Reno was looking at the hurt, the shame, the pain in his son’s eyes.

Jimmy balled up his fist, lifted his arm, and was ready to start beating the shit out of his own father.  He always felt inadequate around Reno.  He always felt he could never measure up to Reno’s standards.  He remembered the time Reno had to choose a family member to be the sacrificial lamb.  And Reno chose Jimmy.  It was a hurt that would never leave Jimmy.  Although he knew Reno had no other choice at that time, and Jimmy had to be the one sacrificed, it was a pain that still gave Jimmy night sweats and nightmares.  It was a pain that still made Jimmy feel as if nobody would ever really love him, and he would therefore have to take love where he could get it.  Which meant it wasn’t going to ever be real love, but as close as he could get.