We lost ourselves in the pretty words and promises we made to each other. We got mixed up in the fake married life we had and thought it was real. We called Moonshine our baby like we’d had her together.
Mixed up, tumbling around in a world we’d created on our own, too blind with love to realize it was all a lie.
I worked the food truck and came back to screw his brains out.
Sometimes, he’d make me wait first because he had to spray the damn orchids or take out Moonshine. Sometimes, I told him I needed to make him a night smoothie but he never waited.
I told myself he was falling for me and I was falling for him. We’d figure out the rest together.
That was my mantra. I let my horoscope point to anything positive and I blocked out the negative. The salt lamps, my crystals, and my bracelets worked overtime to protect us, and everything was perfect for a month.
37
Morina
“Mario Armanelli screwed your grandmother.” Ronald leaned on the window frame of my food truck one day and shook his head. “Didn’t she tell you any of this?”
As I wiped down the foot truck counter, I felt the bone crushing weight of the city, of the well being of children, of everything I didn’t want bearing down on me. “That’s not true.”
“Look it up. We had a spill five years ago. You remember the one?”
Everyone remembered it. We even had animals brought into Dr. Nathan’s office. We were a humane society but it was all hands on deck. I’d just started volunteering and I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation.
Not until I had to use whatever soap we had in to scrub the oil off the animals. Ducks and baby gulls and turtles all washed up on the shore. I remember my hands, how I couldn’t get rid of the smell and how I washed a turtle for hours and hours only to find out it died overnight from poisoning.
I’d been young but I’d known the toll it took on the Gulf. We couldn’t surf, the shops couldn’t sell because we’d lost tourists and vacationers, and my grandmother had cried.
She’d cried and cried and I thought it was for the city, but maybe it had been something more.
“That was Mario Armanelli and your grandmother’s doing. She was coerced, just like you are being. You want to make her same mistakes? Do you really love that man, Morina? Did he make you fall for him?”
It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about that question but it was the first time someone had asked it out loud.
“He wouldn’t do that to me.” I stood tall but found my black bracelet for strength. This time, I didn’t turn the ring on my finger, didn’t touch it for any sort of energy.
“Sure. Sure. Except he was in Texas a little over a month ago shaking my hand and the same oil refinery’s hand about more oil coming in. Have you asked him about his plan for the illegal imported cargo we still get?”
“You need to leave.” I glanced back at the parking lot where I had told my security guy to stay. He’d finally started to listen to my commands over the past few weeks. He was on the phone, not paying attention to the truck. We both stood in plain view, though. Ronald merely looked like a paying customer from afar.
“Bastian plans to phase oil out for clean energy. That’s what he’s telling everyone, right?” Ronald’s bright white teeth flashed like a shark’s. “Then why make a deal with the oil refinery in Texas, Morina? Ask yourself that question. I’m making no deals except with the government to expand. I’ll pay you fair for those shares and you know it. Add on ten percent.”
He slid the check over the window counter and I stared at all the zeros. So many.
Money I didn’t care about but my eyes still flared.
“Just consider it. Ask some questions. My deal stands for as long as you need it to.” He left me with the check and walked away, his head held high like he was doing the right thing.
I closed the window, the wood slamming shut harder than I intended it to.
Had I been naïve? I’d read the file. I’d asked questions and listened to the answers.
But it was his packet and what if they were just fluff answers? Was he just charming me and was I as gullible as I had been all those years back when my parents had done the same?
Love made you weak. Relying on others made you vulnerable.
Someone strong would always be able to prey on that.
I sped home, not sure I wanted the answers to my questions, but sure I needed to ask more. My city wasn’t big; oil would clog it, destroy it along with the clean waters we’d taken so much time to purify after the spill. I needed reassurances and answers and more understanding.