The next time, a year later, I walked in with Rebecca on my arm. Maybe she was the magic sauce that made it all happen but that day we walked out with the promise of being able to buy something in Coronado. It was to be our forever house, until kids.
And that never happened either.
I still owned that house—paid it off in record time, and oddly enough was something she left behind in the divorce settlement, almost as if she’d forgotten about it. Since most of my operations were on the East Coast, I didn’t use it very often, and instead had someone run a VRBO, which made some cash that I had stashed in a savings account for a rainy day. Selling that house would net me a cool several million, as If that would solve all my financial problems. Otherwise, I’d liquidate it in a heartbeat since the place meant nothing to me.
It was a lush little corner lot with a beach access trail, but no water views. I’d expunged all my memories of how it made me feel to own my first home—to plant palm trees and things in the yard I could go back to in fifty years as an old man and see them standing tall and invincible—just like how I felt at the time.
A little tweak of regret stabbed my stomach as I thought about those days of being drunk on sex and running around being a Boy Scout with my buddies on the Teams, when the whole world was my theater, doing things no one would ever believe, having more fun than I had a right to and having a woman to come home to who liked to screw hard and was just as intense as I was. I was a God then, a force for good.
But I still am. Just on a larger scale. With more at stake. And solo. Maybe that was how it was supposed to be all along. God sure kicked my butt to remind me I was just a dumb frog at heart. Being a billionaire was just a trapping, an extra piece of equipment to strap on and enjoy for a few moments of my life.
Because that’s how it turned out to be. And it would be that way again.
Today I sort of felt just the same as I did 15+ years ago when I first walked into a bank and got turned down. No one had to remind me I wasn’t in a position of strength and these new “clothes” I was wearing somehow didn’t fit to my liking. But I told myself it was only temporary.
Story of my life.
Serena Bolton was the Vice President’s secretary. She wore a brightly colored yellow and fuchsia dress which belied this time of year in Boston. Her dreadlocks were pulled up on top of her head, woven with yellow satin ribbons, making a striking pattern of rows and zigzags. Occasionally, a tiny pink flower would poke through. Her skin was as dark as the macadam roads I traveled on by taxi, deliciously highlighted with her bright pink lipstick and purple eyeshadow. She resembled one of my Italian fusion glass pieces and was just as lovely to look at.
“Mr. Cullen is waiting for you inside, Mr. Gambini. If you’ll just follow me, please.”
I sauntered under a large second story balcony with glass partitioned offices above. She tapped on the Vice President’s door and I watched my intended target push back his wire rimmed glasses, straighten his jacket, stand and come to the door. He held out a beefy hand, stubby fingers splayed.
“Mr. Gambini, nice to meet you. Welcome to Boston.”
“Thank you, sir,” I replied.
He waddled to his seat while motioning to his secretary to return to the lobby area from which we came. He sat down with an audible crunch, directing me to sit across the desk in the single, wooden and very Spartan-looking chair. I noted that most of his meetings were intended to be short and uncomfortable. I girded my loins.
“It’s been brought to my attention that we have some cross-collateralization issues, Mr. Gambini, most of this coming from your recent unfortunate separation.” He frowned into the paperwork in front of him in one very neatly piled file about a half inch thick. It wasn’t lost on me that “unfortunate” wouldn’t be the proper word for this and could cut two ways. Did he mean unfortunate to be divorced, because I felt freed? Or, did he mean unfortunate because of what it had gutted from me and my businesses? I decided to ask.
“Unfortunate is a relative term, Mr. Cullen. I assure you, the best is yet to come. This was just a matter of pruning and tidying up.” I tried to sound confident.
He wasn’t buying it.
“I’d say it rather looked like having to give up one of your children, Mr. Gambini.”
“Which, luckily, I don’t have.”
“Lucky for them as well, wouldn’t you say?”
He’d just smacked me and I was resisting the urge to see how flabby that belly of his actually was.
“I’d call it a haircut with a dull blade, Mr. Cullen. She was a bitch.”
I decided to see what kind of metal he was made out of. His single eyebrow-raising gesture told me he didn’t approve of my disparaging a woman. I normally didn’t either, unless she deserved it. Rebecca certainly did.
“As you say, she could be, but she has a smart lawyer. I’d be careful who you go expounding your feelings to, Mr. Gambini.”
He was a poser and I salivated to dig my teeth into him.
“Is that a threat, Mr. Cullen? While we’re being so helpful to one another can I suggest you not say things like that to me? I could easily do business with someone else.”
And then I felt
