TOMMY GABRINI 2: A PLACE IN HIS HEART (5 page)

“What’s
this?” she asked.

“The
inner workings of Trammel in a nutshell.
 
Study it so that when you go in on Monday, you’ll go in with some
pre-knowledge.
 
There’s more materials to
come, I have my secretaries compiling them now.
 
But that intel on that thumb drive will give you a running start.”

She
smiled.
 
She knew Tommy would look out
for her.
 
“Thanks.
 
I’ll review it very carefully.”

“Good,”
he said, closing his briefcase.
 
“Now put
it away.
 
You’re still on vacation with
me.”

Grace
laughed and placed the flash drive in her purse.
 
Tommy placed his briefcase and folder in the
seat across from them, and Grace leaned against him.
 
He removed his glasses, placing them back in
his coat pocket, and gladly put his arms around her. He kissed her on the
forehead, pleased that she was no longer shy about showing her affection for
him.

“So,”
she said.
 
“Where are we headed?”

“To
Calli,” he said.

Grace
looked at him.
 
“Excuse me?”

Tommy
smiled.
 
“California.
 
We’re going to California.”

Grace
was floored.
 
She expected them to go to
the Space Needle or something around town like that.
 
But to California?
  
“Not that I don’t want to go, because I do,”
she said.
 
“But why in the world are we
going to California?” she asked.
 

“Because,
my dear, I want to take you shopping.”

A
part of Grace was elated.
 
She loved
shopping as well as anybody.
 
But another
part of her was saddened.
 
Was her
appearance that bad that he felt a need to take her all the way to another
state to remedy the situation?
 

Tommy
could see the clouds of doubt began to form in her expressive eyes.
 
“You’re fine exactly the way you are, all
right?” he said to her.
 
“Don’t think you
aren’t, because you are.
 
But . . .”

“But
what?” she asked, her heart still faint.

“But
I want you to have the best,” Tommy continued.
 
“When we were dating I allowed you to be yourself and dress the way you
preferred, based on what you could afford.
 
But things have changed now, Grace.
 
I’m not going to turn out in the best clothes money can buy while you,
my woman, turn out in the best clothes the least amount of money can buy.
 
Those days are over.
 
They have to be.
 
I understand you were on a tight budget and
you dressed based on that budget, I fully appreciate how well you did turn out
based on what you could afford.
 
But it’s
no longer what you can afford, but what I can afford.
 
And I can afford the best.
 
That’s why we’re going to California.”

“To
shop?”

“To shop,
yes.
 
Unless you disapprove.”

Grace
stared at Tommy.
 
There was a part of her
that wanted to be independent still.
 
He
either take her as she was or not at all, the more prideful part of her wanted
to say.
 
But he was right and she knew
it.
 
She was about to become the man’s
wife.
 
Although she dressed nice and knew
she dressed well, she didn’t dress expensively.
 
Although people in her circle probably wouldn’t know the difference, she
was certain that people in Tommy’s circle would.
 

She
smiled.
 
“Why would I disapprove?” she
asked.
 
“I love to shop, are you
kidding?”

Tommy
looked at her.
 
He knew what it took for
her to go along with this.
 
She’d been
her own woman, in control of her own destiny, every day of her thirty years on
this earth.
 
Now she was his woman, and
he was in control.
  
He knew it would
take some getting used to.
 
“Thank-you
for trusting me,” he said, kissed her again, and rolled his eyes when his cell
phone started ringing yet again.

They
boarded Tommy’s private plane, flew into Beverly Hills in right around three
hours, and ended up on Rodeo Drive in less than an hour after that.
 
Grace thought she was living a dream as Tommy
took her around that famed street, from the Giorgio Armani store to Agent
Provocateur to Prada to Robert Cavalli’s to Etro, Fendi, Salvatore
Ferragamo.
 
And from every store there
were boxes and bags of clothing all for Grace.
 
Clothes that even felt luxurious just to the touch.
 
And the shoes.
 
Tommy went all out.
 
Grace even joked that he seemed to have a high-heel
fetish.
 
He laughed, but made her buy two
additional pair of heels just the same.

By
the time they checked in at the Beverly Wilshire on Wilshire Boulevard, she
didn’t think her day could have gone any better.
 
Tommy lifted her and carried her over the
threshold of the penthouse suite, laughing as he did, but, to her surprise, he
didn’t carry her to bed.
 
He, instead,
carried her to the balcony where they had cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, and
where they held hands and watched the sun go down.

She looked
over at Tommy.
 
He seemed as content as
she was.
 
“Guess what I feel like doing?”
she asked him.

Knowing
Grace, he thought, it wasn’t going to be what he was thinking.
 
“What?”

Grace
smiled.
 
“Dress up.”

Tommy
laughed.
 
“But you tried them on in the
store,” he said.

“I
know.”

“Now
you want to try them on again?”

“I
do,” Grace said.

To
her surprise, Tommy began rising.
 
“Let’s
do it then,” he said.

And
that was what they did.
 
Tommy laid on
the big, king-sized bed, crossed his legs at the ankle, and watched his woman
try on outfit after outfit as if she was a kid in a candy store.
 
He loved that lack of pretense about
her.
 
She was happy and thrilled and
wasn’t ashamed to show it.
 
The women he
knew were often so jaded that a day of shopping for them, on his dime, was
their right, not their privilege.
 
But
Grace was different.
 
She was so
grateful, and so excited, that it warmed his heart.
 
And made him love her even more.

“Now
that’s the one I want you to wear tonight,” he said when she came out of the
dressing area in a gorgeous Armani evening dress and heels.
 
“That’s most attractive.”

“Tonight?”
she asked.
 
“Where are we going
tonight?
 
Dancing maybe?”
 
She said this as she shook the dress from
side to side, letting the frill hem swing freely.

“A friend
of mine is having a dinner party tonight in your honor,” Tommy said.

Grace
immediately stopped swinging.
 
She looked
at him.
 
“In
my
honor?”

“Yes.”
 
Then he smiled.
 
“Don’t worry, I’m not sending you to the
firing squad.
 
It’ll just be a few
couples, that’s all.
 
Old friends of
mine.
 
Whenever I’m in this area we get
together.
  
They want to meet you.”

Grace
knew this day would come, she just didn’t expect it to come this soon.
 
She sat on the edge of the bed.
 
“So they’re friends of yours?” she asked him.

“Good
friends, yes.
 
You’ll wow them I’m
sure.”
 
Then he rubbed her arm.
 
“Don’t worry, babe.
 
Be yourself.
 
You’ll be fine.”

But
Grace was a long way from fine.
 
Even
after she dressed, and Tommy stood in the living area pleased by her entire
look, from head to toe, she still felt a sense of dread.
 
But the way he stood there, in his white
evening jacket, looking about as perfect as perfection could get, made her know
that she was in his world now.
 
And she
had better get used to it.

It
wasn’t easy when the limo drove up to a Beverly Hills mansion that made Tommy’s
house look like a cottage.
 
And this was
where his “good friend” lived?
 
In a
mansion half a city block wide?

But
once she got inside, and was introduced to Brody Childress, the home’s owner,
who joked that she looked as if she was entering a prisoner-of-war camp, she
relaxed.
 
And actually enjoyed herself.

Although
Tommy said there would only be a few couples there, it was more like ten or
twelve couples, but each and every one of them were kind.
 
Although Grace was the only African-American
in sight, she worked the room with little effort.
 
Mainly because all of the ladies were
girlfriends too, as if the only people Tommy really hung out with were
bachelors just as he was.
 
But as it
turned out, Grace was the only girlfriend in the room with an engagement
ring.
 
The girls, instead of being
envious, wanted to know, to a person, how she did it.

“How
I did what?” Grace asked as the females congregated on one side of the room
while the men hung out on the opposite side.

“How
did you get a rascal like Tommy Gabrini to ask you to marry him?” Sheila
asked.
 
Sheila was the ringleader.
 
At forty-five, she was the oldest of the
girlfriends and the one who had been trying for years to get Brody to put a ring
on it.
 
She was particularly
curious.
 

“After
his debacle with Shanks where she all but left him standing at the altar,”
Sheila went on, “we were absolutely certain he’d never go down that road
again.
 
And then Shanks is killed and
right away he’s engaged.
 
When Brody told
me that this morning, I was floored.
 
Absolutely thrown.
 
I did not
believe it.
 
I had to call Sal Luca for
confirmation.
 
Sal was still reeling from
the news himself.”

Grace
smiled.
 
She liked Sal Luca.
 
He was a mess in a lot of ways, but she liked
him.
 
“I was a little thrown myself,” she
admitted.

“But
how did you do it?” Carrie Lynn asked.
 
She was right around Grace’s age and was one of the prettiest of the
pretty ladies.
 
“What’s your secret?”

Grace
laughed.
 
“I don’t have a secret, Carrie
Lynn.
 
Tommy just asked me.”

Sheila
shook her head.
 
“You must be putting it
out with dynamite attached to it,” she said to laughter from all of the women,
including Grace.
 
Tommy and Brody looked
over, wondering what could be that funny.

“No,
no,” Grace said as the laughter died down.
 
“There’s no dynamite attached.
 
We
just hit it off.
 
I fell in love with
him, and he fell in love with me.”

“Yeah,
but what about all the others?” Sheila asked.
 
“He just asked you last night, but I guarantee you this news is going to
spread like a cancer in our circle.
 
And
he has many, and I mean many lady friends in our circle.”

“I
know,” Grace said.
 
“And I’m sure some of
them will be disappointed.”

“Disappointed?”
Carrie Lynn said.
 
“I have a word for it,
and it ain’t disappointment.”

“Oh,
yeah,” Grace asked, trying with all she had not to show her concern.
 
“What word would you call it?”

“Anger,”
Sheila answered for Carrie Lynn, “mad, ready to kill somebody.
 
Oh, you’d better watch your back.
 
Those black girls love them some Tommy, and
Tommy love him some black girls.”

“She’s
black too,” yet another one of the white girlfriends, whose name Grace couldn’t
recall, pointed out.

“Yeah,
but you know what I mean,” Sheila said.
 
“Grace is sweet.
 
Tommy’s ladies
can be very territorial.
 
They’re more
like Shanks than Grace, and I know what I’m talking about because many of them
are good friends of mine.
 
They’re just
like me.
 
Let Brody propose to some new
thang that just hit the scene, please.
 
She and him both will be laid out in caskets.”