It Had Been Years (4 page)

It was early Sunday afternoon and the phone rang…

“Cheers Love!” a voice proudly proclaims after a disengaged hello escaped
Nadrea’s
mouth.

“Daddy you’re not English, you’re from Manhattan and as close as you come to being English is based on the time you’ve spent in the Caymans!” 

“I know love, but it is a smashingly beautiful day isn’t it” daddy responded.  “How about a bit of tea?” he inquired. 

She wondered if the man had lost his mind, perhaps it is an age related mental deficiency, he’s youngish, but it could happen.   “Tea…hmm a little tea could be nice, where in the world are you?” 

“In the car love, in the bloody car” as his poorly imitated English accent grew louder and thicker, not a bit more believable, but definitely louder and thicker as she held the phone away from her ear.

“OK, I’m game” she answered.
“Where in the car?”
 

“Thought you’d never ask, just outside Philly on my way to D.C.
  But now ask me why!” 
he
blurted out with a child like enthusiasm. 

“Sure, why are you in the car outside of Philly?” she said in a mocking sarcastic tone now mimicking his brutally fake accent.

“Don’t be such a fuck wit, I’m in the car with Ronald on my way down to pick up me new toy” daddy responded. Dropping the accent, “We’ll pick you up in four hours or so, an early dinner work for you?” 

“A casual dinner?
 
Right?”
 

“Sure what the fuck, why not?
We’ll make the reservation and surprise you when we get there.” And with that he was gone

These were the things that make
Nadrea
insane, unannounced visits, aloof if not deranged conversations with a man known for his conservative financial brilliance, but infamous for his ribald sense of humor.  Daddy never heard a dick joke that he didn’t find gut wrenchingly funny and God forbid he ever meet a man named Dick. He would laugh uncontrollably for hours after the fact at the cruel and or witless intellectual properties of the poor bastard parents.  Four hours of waiting would be pure hell, so a few calls were made to friends. Too quickly done, too much time left to kill before daddy arrived.  A workout at the club, 90 minutes of cardio later and
Nadrea
was soaked in sweat and not at all calmed.  Sure she felt better, but that was just the beginning.  A short jog after her workout, back to the house, a good stretch and a long hot shower, lingering longer than usual under the hot water and it was time to dress and primp. 
Only an hour to kill doing that,
she could kill an hour picking out a g-string if she needed to.
So standing there in heels and garter, a less than modest set of panties and bra, drinking her home made Chocolate-
tini
the quest for clothes and how to wear her hair for dinner would consume the next 50 minutes.  Two more drinks as a gray skirt and crème sweater polished off the look.  Hair down and comparatively demure makeup and all
was
finally right in her world.  At least for a few minutes, the phone rang…it was Daddy.

“Nod” as he affectionately called her despite years of her protesting it. “We’re at the Capitol Hyatt and running a touch late.  Ronald will be there in about 10 minutes and then he’ll come back and get me.” 

“I figured,” she responded not at all surprised that her father is not going to be in the car to greet her.  At least she can have another drink on the way down. “I’ll watch for him to pull up, see you soon.” 

So
Nadrea
wandered to the front parlor to watch the street, sitting at the piano that was originally her grandmothers she played Billy Joel songs, not her usual choice but as she played “Uptown Girl” pausing to gulp her drink between
verse
and chorus she can’t think of anything better to drink and play along with.  Ronald pulled up as expected and with a giant swig and a mild shiver as a chill runs down her spine she takes to the all too mundane but all too necessary task of setting the alarm and down the old stone stairs she went.

Pulling up at the hotel, daddy wasn’t ready and a second drink was poured, her 5
th
in little over an hour, she was buzzing mildly, in comparison to how she often feels but that’s ok she will be three sheets to the wind before their second course and expects Daddy to be the same.  When her father, Walter, arrived in the lobby you can see that he was conversing with anyone who spoke English and perhaps a few that didn’t.  He was a man who spent his life analyzing numbers, but who loved human interaction, perhaps because his days were spent staring at reams papers full
ans
endless computer screens filled with nothing but numbers.  When they finally arrive outside, he looked thin, his hair was too short and his face was drawn showing the very ridges of his skull.   Two jokes for the Bell Captain, a nudge to the bell boy, a wide skeleton smile and to the car he went. 

No sooner than he closed the door
Nadrea
asked “Are you sick?” 
Nadrea
was showing a genuine concern rarely seen from her, concern for her father or concern for her own mortality no one can really been able to tell, 
Nadrea
herself included. 

“Only in my mind, Nod.”
  Daddy answered playfully. 

“Nice to hear.
  So why are you so thin?”  She asked trying to make light of her concern.  “Took up the triathlon thing, running, swimming, and biking.” 

“Oh, OK, aren’t you a little old for that?”

“Nope, nor am I too old for the hair cut!”  

“If you’re an aging gay man that is the perfect hair cut, are you hiding a young
latin
in your room?” 

Laughing daddy replied “Younger than you, but not too young
Cialis
isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Besides I’m into blondes with implants, you know that.” 

Not catching on to the gay man reference was typical.  Walter was a ladies’ man whether the ladies realized it or not was always a different issue.   She thought to herself he was harmless and silly, sure it takes half a bottle of Vodka to feel this way, but he was just a guy who was despite all of her mother’s best efforts and commercial success
,  just
a large extremely wealthy obsessive kid. 

The car wound through the streets,
Nadrea
in her skirt and sweater and Daddy in his jeans. She knew dinner would be casual
,  perhaps
very casual, because it was after all sports season for one team or another.  So she wasn’t surprised when the ESPN Zone was where they were let off.  Ronald would valet at a Hyatt two blocks away and join them.  There was a certain sense of irony about your driver using a valet to park the car, but he was as much a part of the family as she was.  Ronald has been her father’s driver for years.  They are seated among a myriad of booths in front of a throng of televisions showing baseball and football and golf.  It is early on a Sunday, so there was plenty of time to watch and drink.  Daddy had a beer,
Nadrea
an
Appletini
, although she imagined it will be horrible at such a place, and Ronald a diet soda
,  one
of them had to be sober enough to get them back and it wasn’t going to be
Nadrea
.   It was drinks and munchies, sports talk and pleasantries.  She was buzzed and Daddy was genuinely happy to spend a few fleeting hours with her.  He doesn’t ask what she is doing, not because he doesn’t care, but out of fear of prying into a
life that he has funded but not interfered with.  She wondered why he never asked questions about her work or her friends or her life in general.  She took the lack of inquiry as a lack of interest.  Daddy was after all, socially awkward and mathematically brilliant, his social skills or lack thereof could easily have been remedied by a simple obscene joke or story.  She was not socially awkward and just couldn’t relate, in that way she was her mother.  After dinner Daddy was three beers in and
Nadrea’s
heart was pumping a substance closer to gasoline than blood filled with oxygen. 

The conversation bounced from his obsession with cars to her latest diversions, her work,
his
social commitments and mothers crazy and slightly overzealous schedule. 
Nadrea
was swaggering on her heels, the legs of a drunken sailor who has just come ashore for the first time in far too long.  As they finish and wonder toward the car it became obvious that the night is still young by the fading twilight but will soon be over at least for daddy and Ronald.  The three block walk doesn’t help her sober up at all, since it was a brief walk in the warm evening air. Just three blocks away she knows of a great club and wants them all to go.  But daddy politely declined and Ronald has not the slightest interest in any such thing.  Grabbing her phone she called her usual circle of friends, the only one who shows even a flicker of interest was Donna.  They see her to the door and are on their way to the other part of town for a quiet and eventless evening.

Things were always exactly what Vincent thought them to be.  What he thought was rarely associated with reality in the universally accepted meaning of the word.  It was after all his reality, and he could have cared less if anyone else in the world shared it with him.

So it was a Sunday night after a long day of drinking and yelling.  The pushing and shoving just ended a few hours back, his body was stiff, and sore and tired.  His fake assed energetic positive attitude was always at the ready.  Somewhere, sometime ago, he learned to be that positive person for most people rather than the cruel, detached, sarcastic driven soul that he truly was.  Vince began to yell over the mild din of the less than crowded, mostly subdued room.  “Where’s my drink, FUCKER?”  The only thing truly buzzing was around the bar where Vincent was sitting.  Normally the words he had just uttered if taken at face value were harsh
,  but
for him it was his normal tone of conversation.  Typically most passersby thought he was little more than a jerk, and they avoided making eye contact with him.  

“If I had tits I bet I’d have my drink by now!”  The bartender just tried to ignore
him,
this wasn’t the kind of place to have security.  So, in complete frustration based on the lack of response, he let himself behind the bar and started taking orders.   Suddenly, he went from being ignored to causing a great sense of panic that was so intense it was visible on the bartenders face. Vince started taking orders and mixing drinks for the other patrons. 

“Vince!  GET OUT FROM THERE”

“Fuck off douche bag”
Vin
replied completely unflustered.

“No, really man, you can’t be back here.”

“Steve, fuck off, you can keep the tips.”

The Nuevo Riche crowd was obviously uncomfortable with the two
bartenders
conversation, but much like a car wreck with mangled metal and a little bit of blood they can’t help but watch.  Steve was nervous, was understandably nervous, his bar is half full and he couldn’t keep up, he thought he was just a little behind but reality was Steve brutally behind to the frustration of his patrons.  Vince was not an
employee,
he seemed to be a fixture and was
thought to be the owners friend.  The place was a second home for Vince and what no one who worked there knew was that his closely held holding company was the majority owner of the place.  So, behind the bar he went and behind the bar he’d stay…as long as he fucking wanted and no little wimpy bastard would cause him to do otherwise.  The drinks began to flow and the tips came rolling in as Vin carried on with the customers, verbally abusing Steve, heckling his customers in a ribald off color humor that many would have found offensive to completely unacceptable had was not such a likeable character.   

“Guinness” a customer called out.

“Really?
  You drink that crap?”  Vincent replied.

The customer was stunned and taken aback, but before he could respond Vincent added “if you like it dark and thick try putting this in it.” 
and
a brown runny substance that looked like sewer water was put down next to the pint on beer. 

“What is it?” The patron inquires still stunned from the first response he has gotten and at that very second time he realized that Vincent was wearing a black polo shirt that had the Guinness logo on it, now realizing that he was merely playing.  Begrudgingly, but now with a mild curiosity the patron complies…”But what is the drink called”? The patron again inquired. 

“First drop the shot glass in the in the beer.  It’s called The Devil’s Shit
”  .”
  Waiting for a reaction the customer just smiled dropped the shot glass in the pint and tried his drink.