The Real Thing Read online

  Oh yeah, he hit me. It still hurts. An ordinary journalist would sue his ass.

  Not me.

  I just want to squeeze his ass.

  Chapter 15

  After writing a few questions in my notebook, putting on some strangely oversized black sweats, and finding some fluffy brown bear slippers that almost fit, I return to an empty great room, a roaring fire in the fireplace. I curl up on the couch and wait for Dante.

  It is finally time to capture this man.

  I hear Dante coming down the stairs, and my heart flutters a little. I know it’s silly. I know I’m just here to interview him and go. I know nothing can come of this. Still it’s nice to—

  What’s he doing in the kitchen?

  I flip through the notebook, completely ignoring the soft questions on the first page. This will not be a puff-piece interview. This is going to go deep.

  “You like lots of sugar or a little sugar in your tea?” he calls out.

  He’s making me tea. How sweet. “Two teaspoons!” I yell.

  A moment later, he brings in two mugs of tea, the tea bags still floating inside. “I put in three teaspoons by mistake,” he says. He wears a black sweatshirt and gray sweatpants, his feet bare.

  “A mistake?” I say.

  “Okay. I put in extra because you lost a lot of sugar today. I do not want you to pass out.”

  How…almost sweet. “Um, DJ said you wanted me to do five things, and I can only count four.”

  “Oh,” he says, “but you did five things. You fished, you hiked, you worked out, you skied, and”—he smiles—“you made me do this.”

  “Do what?” Though I know. I’m a Columbia graduate.

  “You made me smile.”

  I feel all warm and fuzzy. Whoo. “Well, are you ready?” I wave the pen in the air.

  He sits in front of the fire, his back to a brick ledge. “Sì.”

  “Okay…” Should I go with the flow or start with a humdinger? This is such an intimate setting. A comfortable couch, a glowing fire, darkness and stars lapping at the big picture windows. Hmm. Let’s drop a hammer. “Why do you sleep on the floor in that closet?”

  He blinks. “You’ve been to my room?”

  “I snoop, Dante,” I say, taking a sip. Nice. Red Rose. Good stuff. “It’s what I do. So, why do you sleep there?”

  He rolls his neck from side to side. “Why do you sleep in a bed?”

  “Because it’s comfortable,” I say. Uh duh. “It’s normal. It’s where civilized people are supposed to sleep.”

  He pulls a tennis ball from his pocket and starts to squeeze it with his left hand. “It is exactly the opposite of why I sleep on the floor. It is not comfortable, though it is good for my back. It is to remind me of hard times.”

  “But all this beautiful scenery and no windows?”

  “I choose to have no windows to remind me of my ancestors who were imprisoned for fighting against Mussolini. I have no bed to remind me of my nonni coming to America and having to sleep on the floor, pick rags, and sell junk thrown away by others. My family has been through many hard times. They made sacrifices to come to America. I make sacrifices, too. I do not get soft. I stay hard.”

  What a fantastic quote! Especially those last three words. A girl likes to hear those three magic words. “Um, why are my clippings on your wall?”

  “Oh,” he says quietly. “You have seen them, too.”

  “They’re hard to miss.”

  He squeezes the ball hard with his left hand. “Motivation. That is why they are there. They represent my greatest failures.”

  “And the crucifix?”

  He begins to squeeze the ball with his right hand. “More motivation. Greatest sacrifice ever.”

  “And…your wedding picture?”

  He bounces the ball and catches it. “It is why I am fighting.” He squeezes the ball again with his left hand.

  I feel the need to probe him. “Your marriage could be considered another great failure.”

  He looks away. “We…divorced. I was not winning. It was my failure, not hers.”

  Oh, it’s like that? Damn. “Wasn’t she the one who left?”

  “Because of my failure.”

  “And now?”

  He turns to me and arrests me with those eyes. “I will win Evelyn back. I am fighting for love.”

  This is beginning to sound like a bad romance novel. “You mean lost love.”

  He switches hands with the ball. “We are still in love.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I will win her back when I defeat Tank Washington.” He sighs. “But I do not want you to put any of this in your story.”

  But this is the story! “Why not?”

  “It is my wish.”

  “And this is an interview, which I earned today, right?” I not only earned it—I’m going to pay for it for days. “It is my wish to use this material.”

  “Please do not.”

  I shake my head. “C’mon, Dante. It’s romantic.” Okay, it’s cheesy as hell, too, but…“It’s sexy—”

  He crushes the ball and holds it. “And if I lose, I will lose much more if this is known. I have gone away for ten years in shame. If I lose, I lose Evelyn. I lose all respect. I will disappear forever.” He releases his hold on the ball. “I know it is your job, but this is my life. Think of what will happen to DJ. ‘Your father lost twice when he lost that fight,’ they will say. ‘What a fool your father is!’ I do not want this to haunt him for the rest of his life.”

  He has really thought all this through. “But I thought you were sure you were going to win.”

  He tosses the ball back and forth. “As you have said, I do not have one-punch knockout power anymore. And I do not have much of a jab. And since I do not have these skills, Washington may beat me on points like he did last time. He is a warrior. He is relentless. He puts on much pressure. There is no telling with judges. I bleed. Washington does not seem to. Blood earns points. I must wear him down until he falls. If he gets up and finishes the fight, I could have a knockdown and still lose.”

  These are all valid points, but…“But consider who I work for, Dante. My editors would want the human side of this story. Fighting for love is human.”

  “No. Please keep why I fight out of your story. Keep Evelyn out of your story.”

  “I can’t guarantee it,” I say, and I can’t. Shelley will howl if I keep the “fighting for love” angle out of this.

  He looks at the fire. “Paper burns. You could, how you say, withhold this information until after the fight.”

  I could, but…“Few people will believe it afterward, Dante. Think about it. Oh, by the way, he was fighting for love and he won. I forgot to mention that before. See how much more special that makes his victory?”

  “I will not beg you.”

  “I’ll think about it.” For about a second. “Fighting for love” has to be in the first paragraph. It may even be the title.

  “Grazie.”

  I look through my questions. “Why do you train up here?”

  “You have already asked more than five questions,” he says, and he sips his tea.

  I take a sip of mine, too. I hope this doesn’t mean the interview is over. “I want to capture you. I can’t possibly capture you in five questions.”

  He smiles. “Bene.”

  I smile back. “So…why train up here?”

  “No distractions.” He looks at the ball. “Except for you. You are a major distrazione.”

  “Grazie. Why else?”

  He takes the deepest breath. “The air is pure, you know? Clean. Has a flavor. The water is pure. Clean.”

  “And ice cold,” I add.

  “Ah. You would get used to it. Most of all, it is a place where I can focus. It is a place where DJ and I can be together all the time. It was where I went on my honeymoon.”

  “Oh?”

  “Not at this place. Friends of ours have a place on the other shore. It was so bea
utiful that I bought some land and built this place.”

  I look at him slyly. “You’re very handy.”

  “Grazie.”

  He doesn’t get the hint. Oh well. “So, how did you and Evelyn meet?” Though I really don’t care, a reader might care.

  “She was a ‘fight doctor,’ so to speak. She was the nurse who stitched me up one evening after a fight. She was in the emergency room.”

  How romantic. Not. “Was it love at first sight?”

  “Is there any other?”

  I certainly hope so! He is such an Italian. “Did you ask her out while she was stitching you up?”

  “Yes.”

  I laugh. “You didn’t.”

  He shrugs. “She said no. She said she did not like boxing. ‘It is so brutal,’ she said. I did not give up. I sent flowers to her. Many flowers over many months.”

  While he didn’t exactly stalk her, and flowers are nice, um…“Where did you propose?”

  “In the emergency room. She was on break, and I asked.” He bounces the ball. “In front of everybody, she said yes. Later, not in front of everybody, she said no.”

  That should have told him something. “But eventually…”

  “I wore her down, with flowers, visits after every fight, no matter where I fight. ‘You are my personal doctor,’ I told her. She kept my face together. I tell her she is my portafortuna, my good luck charm. I cannot win without her. Eventually, she said yes.”

  Some of this is quotable, but…“Um, I hate to have to ask this, but why did your marriage end?”

  “I already told you. I lost. I was no longer champion.”

  An unlikely story. “You mean she lost interest.”

  “No. Because I lost. Next question.”

  He’s squeezing the hell out of that ball again. I better back off. “Did you…no.” I’m not here to back off. “Did Evelyn ask you to retire after you lost to Washington?”

  He drops the ball, and it rolls away. “How did you know that?”

  “Woman’s intuition. But you didn’t retire, did you?”

  He stands and retrieves the ball, squeezing it furiously. “How could I retire then? I was in the prime of my life. I could not. I wanted a rematch right away. Johnny Sears, my trainer, he wanted me to fight Cordoza first. ‘To have another knockout under your belt,’ he said. I made a deal with Evelyn. I will fight Cordoza, win, get a rematch with Washington, win, and retire. She says my record is good enough. She says my legacy is good enough. I say, I want to go out a champion. She says, ‘You could get seriously hurt.’ Back and forth…It was a long argument.”

  His losing didn’t end their marriage. This argument ended their marriage. He had the gall to disagree with her.

  I need to get this interview away from Evelyn for a spell. “Were you ever in love before Evelyn?” I ask.

  He sighs. “Twice. With the same girl. I was nine. At mass. She was beautiful.”

  So cute. “What was her name?”

  “Bettina. She was cioccolata. I had never seen such beauty before. Her face shone like the sun.”

  Bettina? Hmm. I haven’t heard that name before. “Did you ask her out?”

  “At nine, no. I saw her again when I was eighteen, a brand new pro boxer.”

  This is strange. “You only saw her twice?”

  “Sì. She did not attend mass so often. She was probably not from Brooklyn.” He sighs. “She was even more beautiful, so small, such small hands. But she was holding another man’s hand. I never talked to her.”

  Loving from afar.

  “I have learned that she died on nine-eleven.”

  So sad! How do you follow up on that? “So, um, would you consider her your first love?”

  “I never spoke to her, but…I suppose I loved her. I was young.”

  He has such a sweet spirit! “So, have you always had a thing for black girls?”

  “Yes.” He holds me with his eyes. “I have always thought black women were beautiful. Their eyes shine so bright, like angels. And their shapes…”

  My shape is sweating. I must have used too much lotion.

  “Very athletic,” he says. “They are put together like scultura, like sculpture. Silky black hair that also shines. Yes, to me, beauty is a black woman. No equals.”

  I wish more men had this attitude. Madison Avenue, too. We do have no equals. “What do you like best about black women?”

  “Their eyes,” he says, penetrating my eyes with his. “They do not seem to age. They are always bright.”

  This could be chancy, but…“What about the rest of her?” I stand and turn slightly sideways. “Do you like fronts or backs better?”

  “Fronts or backs?” He smiles. “You mean, do I like breasts or booty better?”

  I shouldn’t have worn these sweats. “Um, yes.”

  “I like proportion. As much front as back.”

  I sit, my proportional front and my back rejoicing. “Didn’t you ever want a nice Italian girl?”

  He looks at the tennis ball. “They did not want me. I was skinny. And poor.”

  They didn’t know what they were missing. “How about any other kind of girl who could cook like your mama?”

  “Black women are tremendo cooks. Red’s mama taught him everything he knows.”

  “Could Evelyn cook?”

  He blinks and looks away. “It is why I have Red.”

  Evelyn couldn’t cook. For some reason, this also makes me rejoice. “Did you ever have any, oh, flings?”

  “Flings?”

  “Before you were married, you know, one-night stands, weekend rendezvous, that sort of thing.”

  He looks confused. “Like a crush?”

  “Um, no.” I don’t know why I’m stuck on this. “It would have been purely sexual.”

  “No. I have had no flings. I believe love and sex must go hand in hand. No love, no sex.”

  He made that perfectly clear. “But if there’s love?”

  “Yes. It is natural because of love.”

  I wish he had a ceiling fan. I am burning up! I had better change the subject. “Um, what have you been doing for the last ten years?”

  “You have seen it. Fishing, traveling, staying in shape.”

  “Why do you fish so much?” I ask.

  He nods. “A good question. I think I fish to teach myself more patience. When I was young, I rushed to my opponent and tried to beat him early. My opponents hit me a lot. Since I have been fishing, I have learned much patience. I am learning when to strike and when to fight. It is a way to calm me down.”

  Hmm. That quote is okay. It might go better in Field and Stream, though. “Why did you disappear?”

  “I have not disappeared.”

  “Yes, you did,” I say. “For ten years, the world has known nothing about you.”

  He shrugs. “What was there to know?”

  Here’s a strange question for a celebrity: “Was it easy to disappear?”

  “It was easier than you think. Not many recognize me wearing clothes and without my boxing gloves.”

  I think I would.

  “It was okay to be anonymous,” he says.

  Back to Evelyn. Discussing her will cool me off even more. “Over the last ten years, did you ever try to rekindle your romance with Evelyn?”

  “It is what I am doing now,” he says. “More flowers, lots of visits. She says to stop the flowers. I send more. The waiting room in the emergency room at University Hospital is always so beautiful.”

  I’ll bet. I’m sure they appreciate all those dying flowers rotting in their emergency room. “Why are you making a comeback now?”

  “I have already told you. To win Evelyn back.”

  There has to be more to it than this. “Are you financially strapped?”

  “No. I have made good investments. DJ is set for life.”

  I sigh. “Dante, you have to help me out here. If I don’t tell people the real reason you’re making a comeback, I’ll need to tell them some
thing else, something reasonable. You will be making a lot of money for this fight.”

  “I do not fight for money. I have never fought for money.”

  I know…he fights for love, yadda, yadda, yadda. “Why else are you fighting then?”

  “What other reasons are there?”

  He really doesn’t know! “I don’t know. Say you needed a challenge. Say you were bored. Say you have a grudge against Washington. Say you’re having a midlife crisis. Something like that.”

  “Oh. I see. Hmm.” He dribbles the tennis ball around his back. “Tell them I wanted to be a hero to my son. Be a good father. Give him someone to look up to.”

  “That’s better,” I say.

  “It is true, too,” he says.

  I believe it. I flip back a few pages to my notes. “Um, where is your mother?”

  “Heaven.”

  That was a quick answer. “What was her name?”

  “Connie, but her friends called her Con. What does that have to do with me now? It has been many years since she died.”

  I shrug. “Just background, you know, in case my editor wants to know. When and how did she die?”

  “Before I turned pro, when I was eighteen. She smoked a lot. Lung cancer. Dead at thirty-seven.”

  That sucks. “Did she get to see you at the Olympic trials?”

  “Yes. She saw me lose in the semifinals. Then she died.”

  In that order. Geez, I’ll bet he blames himself for her death. “Do you still feel guilty about that?”

  “A little. She was very sick. She should not have been traveling. Next question.”

  I can’t leave this line of questioning alone. This is crucial. “What kind of a woman was your mother?”

  He smiles. “Best cook. Worked at Monte’s Venetian Room. Never learned English. Never needed to learn. Carroll Gardens was like that. Sitting out on the stoop, she could talk to anyone. That was a long time ago. The neighborhood has changed. Cammareri Brothers Bakery is gone. Not so much Italian heard on the stoops. Mama would not like it as much.”

  Good stuff. I underline this quote. “What about your father?”

  “I do not speak of him.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “I do not care. Non importa.”