Chapter 6

• An hour later, we are done with the meeting. I am back in my hotel room and there is nothing more I would love to do than to sleep right now, that goes out the window once my phone starts ringing. I check to see who is calling and find out its mom.
• “Hello, Mom,” I say answering the phone.
• “Hello Dear, how are you doing?”
• “Not so good; how about you.”
• “I am fine; what’s wrong, Dear?” She asks, sounding worried
• “I have been having cramps the whole day, and Stefano has not been the easiest person to work with.”
• “Sorry Dear and why don’t you tell me all about it at lunch.”
• “How, Mom, you are in Miami? How will we have lunch together?”
• “You will see,” she says, and I hear a knock at the door.
• “What do you mean, hold on a minute, Mom? Someone is at the door,” I say walking over to the door to answer it.
• I open the door and find out mom is the one knocking.
• “Mom, what are you doing here?” I ask, surprised to see her here.
• “Why don’t I tell you why I am here over lunch like I said on the phone,” she says, smiling.
• “Alright just let me get my purse.”
• I walk over to the nightstand and pick up my purse. I join mom outside to be on our way to the restaurant. We are going to a restaurant downstairs in the hotel. We take the elevator to the lobby and walk to the restaurant on the ground floor. We take our seats and wait for the waiter to bring the menu for us. While waiting, I ask mom the same question I asked her earlier.
• “So, mom, what are you doing in California?”
• “I came to see you before I leave.”
• “Where are you going?”
• “Your grandma had a mild stroke yesterday. I am flying over to Mexico to check up on her”
• “Oh my God! I hope she is doing ok” I say, worried about my grandmother.
• “The doctors said she is going to be fine, but I still feel like checking up on her myself.”
• “Thank God, once I am done here, I will fly to Mexico to see her.”
• “That would be lovely, Dear. You said on the phone that Stefano is giving you a hard time; I am sorry about that.”
• “Thank you, Mom, you will not believe how much he embarrassed me today. I felt like hitting his head on the wall.”
• “Sorry Dear, if you don’t mind me asking, what happened this morning to cause you to feel like this towards him.”
• I tell her everything that happened in the meeting room earlier today.
• “It seems to me Dear, that there is more here than what meets the eye concerning your problems with him.”
• “What do you mean, Mom,” I ask, curious to understand what she is saying.
• “What I am saying is, maybe there is something you did to him in the past, and he has not forgiven you for it.”
• “You really think so,” I say, wondering to myself if I did anything wrong to him in the past. I can’t seem to recall doing anything, but I might have also done something wrong unknowingly.
• “Yes, people are usually rude towards someone for a reason.”
• “I guess so, Mom, but you know there are also some people who are naturally just rude to everyone, I think Stefano is one of those people. I can’t remember doing anything wrong towards him in the past. I barely even spoke to him while we stayed in Sicily that year.”
• “Of course, but you barely spoke to him. Every time you saw him, it was like you forgot how to talk. He was my baby’s first big crush; I still remember the first time you realized you liked him,” Mom says, smiling.
• “Mom, why are you smiling? It was not a good time for me,” I say, remembering how I use to get flustered around him before.
• “He might not have felt the same way you did, but it was still nice for me to watch you deal with your first love.”
• “Mom, he was not my first love,” I say, and ask myself if he was, but, I don’t think he was. I was too young to even know what real love meant.
• “Oh, trust me, Honey, he was, I am surprised you guys can’t stand each other now.”
• “It is not like I can’t stand him. He just gets on my nerves every time I see him.”
• “I know and I am sure one day you guys will work things out.”
• “I hope so too.”
• It has been a few days since I came to California, today is my last day here. I am done with the things I came to do, all that is left is to get Stefano’s signature on the new contract I drafted, and I will be on my way to Mexico. I am on my way to his office after having lunch with the engineer in charge of the renovation. I am a few minutes late, my meeting with the engineer took longer than I expected. I can already imagine the ear full I will get from Stefano when I arrive. I pay the taxi driver and walk into his office building. I take the elevator to his floor and walk over to his secretary’s desk once I arrive on his floor.
• “Hello,” I say to his secretary.
• “Good day Ma’am, Mr. Costanzo will be with you shortly. He asked me to tell you to wait for him to wrap up his current meeting.”
• “Alright, do you know how long it will take? I have a flight to catch.”
• “I can’t say Ma’am.”
• “Alright, thank you,” I say taking my seat on one of the waiting chairs.
• If feeling like hitting Stefano’s head on the wall was terrible, I don’t know what you would call what I feel like doing to him right now. I want to throw him into a volcano till he is burnt to death and when he returns alive to sign these papers I could be on my way to Mexico.
• You won’t believe that Stefano kept me in his office for the whole day. I arrived at his office at 1 p.m. and it’s 3 p.m. now. His secretary might have said I should wait a few minutes but what she meant was to wait for a few hours. I would have left, but I really need to get these papers signed today to be on my way to Mexico to see my grandma. I am about to give up on seeing Stefano today when his secretary finally tells me the words I want to hear.
• “Mr. Costanzo will see you now, Ma’am.” She says after hanging up the phone.
• “Thank God,” I say, walking towards his office, so much anger in me that I fear I could burst any minute. I don’t even bother to knock before entering.
• “Who dares enter my office without knocking?” Stefano says, with his head buried in papers.
• “Me,” I say walking over to a seat in front of his desk.
• “I should not be surprised,” he says, lifting his head to look at me.
• “I would normally ask you what you mean by that, but I am too tired and annoyed to care right now. This is the new draft for the cost of expenses for the new additions to the renovation,” I say, placing the document in front of him.
• “This is not the price we agreed on,” Stefano says after taking a look at the document I placed in front of him.
• I start to feel a headache coming and I don’t think I am going to Mexico tonight.
• “Of course, it is not the price you wanted. I told you the price you want me to work with would be impossible to make these additions happen.”
• “And I told you to find a way to make it work,” he says, handing the document back to me.
• “Stefano, that will not be possible and if I have to spend the whole day explaining it to you then you better clear your schedule for the rest of the day, because I am not leaving your office till you sign these papers.”
• “Be my guest,” he says, determination in his voice.
• Stefano and I spend the whole evening reviewing the additions he would like for the hotel and their cost. By the time we are done, it is dark outside, all because Stefano was unnecessarily difficult during the whole meeting.
• We walk outside his office and step into the elevator to go home. I am exhausted, I can’t wait to get to my hotel room and take a nice warm shower. I stop my train of thoughts when something unexpected happens. The elevator suddenly comes to a halt.
• “Stefano, is something wrong with…” I don’t get to finish my statement as the lights go off. “Oh my God, what is going on?” I say searching my bag for my phone to switch on the flashlight.
• “I don’t know, but I don’t need you panicking, so stay calm. The backup generator will come on soon,” Stefano says and in less than a minute, light comes back. I press the buttons of the elevator, but they don’t seem to be working.
• “What is going on? Why are they not working?”
• “I don’t know, I will call for help,” Stefano says picking up his phone, the words that come out next don’t make me feel any better about our situation.
• “There is no service on my phone? Someone…” He doesn’t get to finish his statement as the elevator starts going down at an uncontrollable speed, it’s moving so fast that I am surprised I am still alive once it stops.
• “Oh my God, what just happened?”
• “I don’t know, can you let go of my hand,” Stefano says, and that’s when I realize I am gripping his arm tight. I was so scared; I didn’t even know I was holding it so tight.
• “Sorry,” I say, letting go of his arm.
• “Do you have your gun with you?”
• “Yes, I do,” I say, retrieving my Glock 43X.
• “Be ready,” Stefano says, retrieving his Glock 19.
• “For what?” I ask, confused as to what is going on.
• “For anything,” Stefano says, as the elevator doors slowly open.