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“Mr. Partridge!” he says, addressing Alessandro. “I’m so sorry, I thought I had you and your daughter scheduled for 3 o’clock. Do you want to come in?”
My face instantly feels hot at the assumption that I’m Alessandro’s daughter. He’s been wearing a short beard since our trip, which I suppose does age him up a bit. But even so, it’s a stark reminder of our age gap.
But my husband just smiles, glancing at me with amusement. “Yes, that would be great. You’re Mr. Talbot?”
“Oh, please, call me Jacob.” He ushers us inside the office and closes the door. “Sit down, sit down.”
Jacob Talbot sits at his desk chair and puts down his empty coffee mug. Alessandro remains standing. “This won’t take long. You made an arrangement not too long ago with Tony Gagliardi. You know what I’m talking about?”
Talbot stares for a moment, as though confused, then his face turns red. “Tony Gagliardi? The… gangster? He got arrested. I saw it on the news.”
“Yes. But before that, you had an arrangement with him.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Talbot stutters. “An arrangement? What kind of arrangement?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” says Alessandro, dropping his tone. I almost squirm in place at the sound of his domvoice. Fuck, the effect it has on me. “You reversed his daughter’s acceptance.”
“He made me do it!” protests Talbot, dropping the pretense. “I don’t know why he wanted to screw over his daughter, it’s not my business. He said he would clear my debts. I only did what he said.”
“I understand that,” says Alessandro calmly. “Now you’re going to undo it.”
“Undo it? You think I have a magic wand? It was hard enough to make it happen in the first place. I had to fake those pictures of her doing drugs.”
“You faked pictures of me doing drugs?” I say indignantly. “You motherfucker!”
His eyes widen as he recognizes me. “Shit, you’reGagliardi’s daughter? Come on, what the fuck. Why is she here? I don’t have business with her. Gagliardi’s in jail. I thought this was over.”
Alessandro steps forward. “Which means there’s a new boss in town. Whatever deal you had with Tony Gagliardi is in the past. Now there’s a new deal: you do what I say. And what I say is you get Ava Gagliardi back into school.”
Talbot gulps, then shakes his head. “Respectfully, my debt is clear. I don’t owe the…you guysanything anymore. I can’t get somebody back into school who we already denied for using drugs. So I’m…” He looks like he’s gathering his courage. “I’m going to ask both of you to leave.”
Alessandro steps forward again, but then there’s a knock, and the door opens. A bald, bearded man in his 50s pokes his head in. “I’m so sorry to interrupt. Is this Jacob Talbot’s office? My daughter and I have a 3 o’clock appointment.”
“You’re not interrupting,” says my husband, smiling. He turns over his shoulder and gives the admissions officer an icy stare. “We were just leaving.”
***
“So, what do you think his story is?” I ask Alessandro as we sit in his Tesla in the university parking lot. We’re waiting for Talbot to walk out to his car, and I’m starting to get bored.
“Talbot? Not much of a story. Had a gambling problem, got in too deep with the mob. Needed to start doing favors to keep his head above water. I’ve seen it a hundred times before.”
“Well, yeah, I know that part. But you know, what’s his backstory? Like pretend he’s in a movie?”
Alessandro raises an eyebrow. “Are you trying to play a stakeout game?”
“Exactly. A stakeout game.”
He shrugs. “You first.”
I rub my hands together. “Okay, okay… He was married, two kids, but they divorced four years ago, and now he lives in a shitty apartment and only sees his daughters every other weekend. He tried online dating at first, but it didn’t work out, so he turned to online gambling instead. Then gambling became a habit, and soon, he’s spending every night at my dad’s poker tables.”
My husband stares at me. “You just came up with all that?”
“Well, I was thinking about it earlier. What do you think?”
“I think you should be a screenwriter.”
“What’s your version?”
