CHAPTER 28
“I really like that song.” Genevieve Connelly toasted Thomas, the young man she’d just met. He grinned at her; then, hearing some applause, he turned on his bar stool and bowed from the waist.
Genny took another sip of her mojito. “I don’t even know where Tipperary is.” She sounded too sharp, simply too sober, and took another drink. She wanted to get drunk, had to get drunk, even though it was Monday night, and a work night. She saw herself hugging the toilet bowl, but it didn’t matter. She was too angry, too depressed, to worry about it. She took another drink and smiled at Thomas when he told the bartender, Big Ed, to serve her up another mojito. Before long, she knew Thomas was from Montreal, worked sixty hours a week as a waiter at the Fifth Wheel in the East 80s, and wrote poetry at night, a twenty-first-century e. e. cummings in the making, he told her, and he seemed perfectly serious.
She found herself telling him she’d very nearly been engaged, but that wasn’t going to happen now, because Lenny was a jerk with an addiction she hadn’t even known about. Yeah, a jerk who was in Atlantic City gambling right now.
Genny wanted to work up a mad, but the mojitos were making her mellow instead. “I trucked over to Morrie’s after work to meet Lenny for dinner, only he never showed. I finally called his mother, and do you know what she said?” And Genny, an accomplished mimic, recited in a soft, sad voice, with a hint of a whine, ‘Since he stole four hundred dollars out of my purse, dear, I’ll bet he’s in Atlantic City again. I guess he hasn’t told you about his little problem?’
“His little problem? I mean, which one? He was a thief and a gambler, right? Well, I couldn’t take it in, and so I hung up. I don’t think she ever liked me much, and now it doesn’t matter, does it? She calls it a little problem?”
“My brother gambles,” Thomas said. “Our parents finally kicked him out.”
“He never told me,” Genny said, and stared into the mirror behind the bar, watching herself drink the rest of her third mojito. “Time to powder my nose, Thomas,” she said, and headed off to the women’s room.
Five minutes later, when she slid back onto her stool, her lipstick new and shiny, her hair freshly combed, Thomas said, “Okay, Genny, you know I’m a poet who’s wasting his youth flinging high-priced spaghetti to yuppies on the Upper East Side. What do you do?”
She was staring at herself again in the mirror, but this time she saw only a distorted outline of her face. She raised her fingers to touch her cheek, to make sure it was really there. “What I do is financial analysis,” she said. “I review companies’ sales trends and projections, stuff so boring I bet I could out-scuttle a gerbil on a treadmill.” She looked around. “I don’t see anybody I know tonight, though Enrico’s is a favorite booze trough for the financial crowd I’m in.” He handed her another drink, and she took a gulp, hiccupped, and giggled. “Would you look at me— all pissy-faced, and I don’t give a crap. The jerk—he wanted to gamble so much he totally forgot me.”
Thomas eyed her, then broke into song again. “Do you know this one? ‘From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli—’”
Everyone joined in with him this time; even Big Ed sang along with them while he sparkled up a glass.
“I met Mr. Montezuma once, but I did lose ten pounds doing it.” She didn’t realize Thomas was more or less holding her up on her bar stool. He laughed. “You know, sweetie, it’s late, and I’m thinking it’s time for you to meet your date with destiny.”
“What destiny?”
“Popping down a half dozen aspirin kind of destiny, but don’t worry, I’ll see you get home and leave you alone to enjoy your hangover all by yourself.”
“With my luck, it’s going to be bad.” She realized she was slurring her words a bit. She sloshed around the mojito left in the glass, thought about a stranger walking her home—he seemed like a real sweetheart, but still, she’d met him only tonight. Genny pulled together arguments as clearly as she could, both pros and cons, and finally nodded. “Yeah, I guess I’d better hang it up.” She gave him a sloppy hug. “Thanks for making me feel better, Thomas.”
He patted her shoulder. “Anytime, babe.”
There was applause for Thomas on their way out the door. He grinned, gave a little wave, and steered her outside. Once on the sidewalk, a cold wind whipped against her face and made her eyes tear up. That’s all she needed was to cry, only these tears were just from the biting wind, thank heaven. She looked around for a taxi, slurred a couple of curses because there was nary a soul to be seen; everything was dead and empty and cold. Well, that was Wall Street at night, after all the hotshots left for the Upper East Side, or Connecticut, or the Hudson Valley, after the chicks flew the work coop. And Lenny was in Atlantic City, kissing dice and rolling them.
The jerk.
She stuck her hand through Thomas’s arm and squeezed. He was a skinny dude, didn’t have much muscle. “I’ve got a condo on Pine Street, only three blocks over.”
A woman came dashing out of Enrico’s, her long blond hair blowing wildly around her head, waving her hands at them. “Wait up!”
The blonde grabbed Genny’s arm and tried to jerk her away from Thomas. “Are you all right?”
“Me? All right? Of course I’m all right; I’m with Thomas. What do you want?”
“You won’t be all right very soon now. I saw this creep slip something in your drink when you went to the restroom. I’ll bet it’s that rape drug, Rohypnol.”
“What’s Rohypnol?”
“You know, roofies, that date-rape drug. You’ve heard of roofies, haven’t you?” The woman didn’t take her eyes off Thomas.
“He gave me a roofie?”
“Yep, slipped it right into your mojito. I’ll bet you’re feeling pretty woozy about now, right?”
More betrayal. She couldn’t take it. Genny erupted, whirled on Thomas, shoved him hard in the chest with the heels of her palms. He wheeled his arms to keep his balance. “You jerk!”
“Wait a minute!”
She slammed her foot in his stomach, and he fell onto his side and rolled off the curb to land on his back, trying to suck in air.
Genny stared down at her supposed friend and wanted to cry. She’d believed him—so cute, a really nice guy, and his singing voice was incredible. He’d listened, actually listened. “I’m sorry you did that, Thomas.”
“I didn’t!” he yelled at the blonde. “Who are you? Why are you doing this?”
“I’m Monica, you lowlife, and I saw you do it! You’re Genny, right? When I saw you come outside with him, I couldn’t stand by, knowing he was going to do something bad to you.”
Thomas was holding his stomach. “Genny, I swear I didn’t put anything in your drink. I didn’t. Why would I?”
Monica dove her hand into a huge black purse and pulled out her cell phone. “You lying pig. I’m going to get the cops here to take your sorry butt to jail.”
Genny grabbed Monica’s hand but missed because she was so drunk. Or was it the roofie? “No, don’t call the cops, I only want to get out of here.”
She looked at Thomas, on his knees now. “You did drug me,” she said to him. “I feel really dizzy and sick, so you must have.” She felt a bolt of rage and tried to kick him as he was getting to his feet, but she missed.
“Forget about him, Genny. Let’s get out of here. If you’re not better by the time we get to your place, I’ll call the cops. Believe me, everyone got a good look at him, and he’ll go to jail for it.” She whirled around to Thomas, now leaning against a light post. “Don’t you try to follow us, you got me, you creep?”
“Let’s just go,” Genny said as bile rose up into her throat.
