During the 2008 NBA playoffs I escaped the luxurious confines of Palm Beach to watch the Celtics versus the Lakers at my friend's house in Jupiter Beach. I patted Pom Pom on the head.
"You be a good dog."
It was an impossible request.
The Airedale had been rescued from a Riviera Beach crack house. Her muzzle was laced with fight scars. She was crazy, but so was I.
"See you tonight."Andy and his kids picked me up at the mansion and we drove on I-95 north. His wife was cooking us dinner, except she was not in the house. Andy hadn't mentioned they had been fighting about her working at Macy's.
"She barely earns enough money to pay gas." Andy complained, while cooking dinner for his two sons. "It's not easy supporting a house on one income."
"Where is she now?" His wife had always been a little high-strung in contrast to Andy, who had been a hippie in the early 70s.
"At a friend's house drinking wine."
"Is her friend cute?" I hadn't seen any pretty women in Palm Beach.
"Yes, but she's going out with this salesman from the Bentley dealership in West Palm."
"Oh." A failed writer stood no chance against a good earner with any woman.
"They're pretty serious. I think they might even want to get married." Any further conversation about the couple was short-circuited by Andy's discovering that his blender was broken so he couldn't mix daiquiris for us. "Damnit, Christina probably dropped it."
"Just sounds old to me."
He wasn't listening to me and vented about his wife for several minutes. Within seconds he was on the telephone to Christina's girlfriend. "I want to speak with my wife."
He slammed down the phone.
"Guess you're wife doesn't want to speak with you."
I knew the feeling having two temperamental Thai wives. The phone rang again. It was his wife's friend. Gabby invited us over for drinks. Her boyfriend had heard that I was a diamond salesman. He was looking for a 3-carat diamond. Andy wanted to make a statement by not accepting her offer.
"Not a chance. Tell her we'll be right over." The profit on this sale could pay for a few week's in Thailand. I miss my daughter, wife, and mistress. "You get 10% of the profit."
Andy said we'd be right over and drove three minutes to another house identical to his, except the interior was a more deluxe. Gabby was on alimony payments. 5-figures a month.
"Excused the sunglasses I left my regular glasses in Palm Beach." I can't see anything without them.
"No problem, they're cool." Gabby served us drinks, while we watched the basketball game. The Celtics were killing the Lakers. Andy went home early. His kids were sleepy. I stayed to speak with Gabby's boyfriend about diamonds.
"Diamonds here are 50% to 100% more expensive than New York." I speiled the opening in less than a minute. Diamonds sell diamonds and I showed him a pair of 3-carat studs. Christina and Gabby were impressed by the sparkle and I explained that the stones were slightly imperfect but of a good color and cut. The boyfriend said nothing. It was getting late for me too. Too late to drive back to Palm Beach and chance a stop by the police, so I slept in Andy's spare bedroom.
In the morning Andy made pancakes with bacon, The syrup on the table was corn. I used raspberry jam instead.
"Palm Beach tastes." Corn syrup was good enough for Andy. He didn't eat pancakes and asked, "Gabby's boyfriend say anything about the diamond?"
"No, he didn't seem that interested. I'll email him the details and prices later in the week. Just say good for me. Car salesmen are more suspicious than lawyers. Both of them lie too much."
"I'll find out what he thinks about it." Andy stood to make a dime bone on the sale.
"Good." We went off to the beach and then I drove back to Palm Beach. Pom pom was floating with piss and spent about two minutes urinating on the next door neighbor's lawn. Good thing they were up in the Hamptons.
On Monday I spoke with Richie Boy in New York. He gave me the prices on several 3-carat diamonds. All good color, SI in clarity, and running around $30k. I emailed the information to Gabby's boyfriend and awaited a response.
None.
Two days later I called his cell and left a message.
No return calls.
I mentioned this to Andy.
"Seems he doesn't trust you." Andy told me over the phone. "You wore the sunglasses the entire time you were in the house."
"I can't see without them." They were prescription.
"He couldn't see your eyes," Andy explained without any need for further clarification. It was a dead deal and for more reasons than dark glasses.
That's bullshit."
"I don't think Gabby's ready to an engagement ring."
"Why you say that?"
"She met him three months ago and he's moved in with her and her kid. She knows nothing about him, so she had a detective do a background check."
"Find good?"
"Not really."
"That doesn't spell love to me."
"He's a good guy, but been married once before, has two grown daughters, and now wants to have more kids. Gabby's a little nervous."
"Understandable."
"And so is her boyfriend. He had a fellow worker call up Gabby and ask for a date. She told this guy that she was seeing someone, but it might not work out. The guy told her boyfriend this and they've been fighting ever since."
"That doesn't look good for our sale." Thailand was out of my reach.
"Yeah, but it's funny he said he couldn't trust you because he couldn't see your eyes. He couldn't even trust Gabby."
"Hey, everyone's gun shy in matters of the heart." It took me 5O years to give someone an engagement ring. "Hell, I don't trust me."
"Well, I do." Andy had purchase two diamond rings from me.
"You want to buy your wife a 3-carat ring?"
"I do but my wallet doesn't."
He was a school teacher in West Palm. The ring would have cost his yearly salary. "But who knows, Gabby likes him. Likes only two letters from loves."
Andy was counting eliminating 'ik' without considering the addition of 'ov'. The letters by themselves spelled nothing no matter how hard I tried to jumble sense into them. Kivo was the best and I said it to Andy.
"What's that?"
"The difference between love and like."
"I like that."
"I'll love it, if I sell the stone." Andy and I could both use the money and all we needed was for two people to trust one another, which isn't too much to ask, because the difference between like and luck was 'ieuc' and everyone knows that means nothing. Especially someone who wears sunglasses at night.
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