The Devil of DiRisio (23 page)

“This was very damaging to your psyche and made you depressed. Then I think you unconsciously latched on to the one thing you thought was preventing you from being the best dancer you could be: Food.  Somewhere along the way one of your instructors calling you fat stuck.  Unlike most anorexics, I don’t think you made a conscious decision to stop eating.  I think it was a manifestation of the depression that has made you sleep an extraordinary amount as well.”

I wanted to argue with her diagnosis, but I couldn’t.  I opened my mouth to dispute what she was saying, but all that came out was, “So, what do I do?  What’s going to happen to me?”

“Well, you’re already making a lot of progress. You’ve been gaining about a pound a week. I tell you what: I’ll give you a nutritional plan.  If you follow it for a few days, I’ll discharge you on the condition that you continue to see me once a week. Can you do that?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said excitedly.  After five weeks of living in a hospital room I would have agreed to give up a kidney to get out of that place.

I was in such a good mood that I agreed to go for a walk, well a hobble, with Will around the hospital.  It was kind of nice to do something besides lying in bed and moping.  I didn’t know how he continued to put up with me. 

“How ‘bout a race?” he challenged while we were outside in the gardens. “And to make things even, I’ll only use one leg.” He held up a pair of crutches he must have borrowed from another a patient. The crutches were a little too short for him. It was going to be hilarious watching him try to use those things.

“Where?”
I said, intrigued by the prospect of showing him up.

“Around the fountain to those benches and back,” he said pointing.

“Fine.
On your mark, get set, go!” I yelled taking off before I had completed the phrase.  I got a good two paces ahead of him before he caught up.  His height gave him an unfair advantage.  Before long, he had a commanding lead and was increasing it with each forward thrust of his crutches.  I knew I would never catch him this way so I threw my crutches down and started hopping.  When
Will
saw I was gaining on him, he threw his crutches down as well and hopped on one foot.  In the end, however, my balance and agility paid off and I beat him by a mile. 
Or, at least by three hops.
 

I was doing a few celebratory hops with my fists pumping in the air when Will said breathlessly, “You … cheated
… ”

“No … whining.  I beat you … fair and square.”  We were exhausted. I could barely stand upright without
mycrutches
.  We held on to each other for support as we hopped back to retrieve them. Then we sat on a bench to catch our breath.  A man in a wheelchair gave us a scorn-filled look and called us stupid for hopping around like idiots which made us start laughing hysterically.

When our laughter died down, Will turned to me, placed his hand at the base of my neck and brought his lips to mine.  I didn’t push him away.  It was the first time in two months that we had kissed.  It was a slow, sweet kiss that was filled with so much emotion it made my stomach do pirouettes and brought tears to my eyes.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he whispered as he rested his forehead on mine.

“I’ve missed you too.”

The next day I woke up.  I mean I really woke up. I opened my eyes and saw Will sleeping awkwardly on the recliner in the corner of my room. And for the first time in a long time, I really saw him.  He had been sleeping on that thing for over a month all because he didn’t want to leave me.  Meanwhile, Damian Karl said he would call me every day and I hadn’t heard one word from him. 

And speaking of Damian Karl, Will thought I was pregnant from him yet he still wanted me.  He was willing to raise another man’s child just so he could be with me.  That was love.  That was real love.  Not some sort of twisted
infatuation like
Damian and I had.  Will was the one.

 My cast wasn’t scheduled to come off for another week, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from what I was planning.  I had to do it before I lost the courage.  I called Anna Marie and enlisted her help.  Will knew I was up to something, especially since I borrowed his credit card, but he would never guess exactly what.

“I knew you were throwing me a surprise party,” he said with a broad smile when we entered his house greeted by his teammates and my classmates.  “You’re not very good at keeping secrets.”

“Oh really?
Well, I will have you know that this is not a surprise party,” I said with a sly grin.  Will
looked
confused. “It’s a surprise wedding.”  He was stunned speechless. “I’ve got all our friends here,” I continued when he didn’t say anything. “I’ve ordered flowers and Anna Marie and
Raffaele
decorated the patio.  I thought we could do it there around the pool.  And
Raffaele’s
father is here, he’s going to do the ceremony. It’s all perfectly legal. I mean, you finished the paperwork months ago.”

The longer
Will
stayed silent the more nervous I got.  What if he didn’t want me anymore?  I just kept rambling to hide my trepidation. “And I thought I could wear the dress I wore to prom last year. You remember the white empire cut dress with the red accents. And I thought you could wear the same tuxedo you wore when you proposed. And cake!  There’s even a cake,” I said leading him to the dining room where a white three-tiered wedding cake with red rose petals was waiting. 

Will was still quiet.  All the guests started to stare at each other.  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, I thought. I was going to be completely humiliated in front of the only 30 people I knew in the country.

The guests started whispering to themselves as Will continued to stare at the cake in disbelief.  Then he turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, “Are you serious?”

“Yeah.
  I mean … if you still
… ”
Will interrupted me with a kiss that lifted me off my feet.

“Let’s have a wedding!”  Anna Marie called in Italian.  Actually, what she really said was let’s have a nose, but I think everyone knew what she meant.

Will tried to blink away the tears and seem manly in front of his teammates, but when he saw me walk toward him in my dress he couldn’t hold back any longer.  Even my cast that we had decorated with rose petals made him
laugh
and cry at the same time.  Tears were streaming down his face as he repeated what
Raffaele’s
father
told him to say. 

And then it was done.  I was Mrs. William Riley Maddox. 

Towards the end of the evening, the party started dying down.  People gave us their words of congratulations and left.  Eventually, it was just me, Will, Anna Marie and
Raffaele
. 
Raffaele
was in the middle of one of his stories that seemed to last forever.  Will and I kept glancing at each other and smiling knowing what was going to happen next.  But we knew it wouldn’t happen if
Raffaele
kept blabbing about how happy his father was about Maria.  He hadn’t realized that the underlying reason why he and his father didn’t get along was that all this time his father thought he was gay.  He said he was finally able to sit down and talk to his father and explain that he wasn’t homosexual and that he just enjoyed beautiful things which included beautiful women. 

I tried to throw Anna Marie a look that said ‘get out’ but she didn’t get it.  She was completely enthralled with what her boyfriend was saying, hanging on his every word.  She could listen to him talk for hours on end which is probably what happened most of the time since he could chat incessantly to anyone about anything.  Anna Marie was probably the first woman to not only put up with it but enjoy it. 

Will
got
up, stretched and yawned, but they still didn’t get the hint.  Finally, I said, “You know, I think Anna Marie’s highlights are getting dull.” 

Will picked up on my plan and said, “Yeah, and are those roots I see?” 

Raffaele
inspected Anna Marie’s hair closely and agreed it was time for a touch up, so off they went to the store to buy some more dye.  I’d never seen a man, a straight man, who loved to play in hair more than
Raffaele
.  It was like Anna Marie was
his own
personal, living, breathing dress up doll.

Before the door was even completely closed behind
Raffaele
and Anna Marie, Will and I were in each other’s arms kissing and tearing clothes off.  We bumped into a chair and nearly toppled over before Will swept me up and carried me to the bedroom.  Soon we were both naked and rolling around the bed.  Then he stopped. 

Oh God what now?
I thought. 
We’re married now. There’s no reason to stop.  There’s no need to wait. There’s no one and nothing to interrupt us like runaway llamas.

But Will wasn’t stopping, he was just getting started.  He sat up on one arm and stared at me, whispering his undying love while tracing my curves with his fingertips.  Then he began to kiss every inch of me until I was quivering with expectation.  Then finally, when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, when I thought I would die of anticipation, we became one.  Slowly and steadily, with each thrust, he took me closer and closer to a place I had never been before.  Soon we were both shouting out with sheer ecstasy.  And after an explosion of warmth, we clung to each other shivering.

“You’re crying,” I told him as we stared into each other’s eyes.

“So are you.”

“Am I?  I didn’t realize.”

After I got my cast off, we took a real honeymoon.  One of Will’s teammates loaned us his beach house in San Marino and we spent a week taking long walks and just enjoying each other’s presence.

When we returned to Rome, we fell back into the daily grind.  Will had games, practice, and classes.  During my hospital stay, I caught up on all my classes and finished my schooling so I didn’t have to worry about that anymore, but I had to put in extra practice to rehabilitate my ankle.

I knew I would eventually have to see Damian Karl again.  We still owed
DiRisio
six performances.  I didn’t know how I would react to seeing him or how he would respond to my marrying Will.  I didn’t have to wait long to find out, though.  A few days after our honeymoon, Will and I were taking a swim when the doorbell rang.  After I lost a quick round of rock, paper, scissors, I jumped out of the pool and went to answer it.  I thought it would be Anna Marie.  She said she would be dropping by to show me a few of the items from the new line of clothing
Raffaele
was designing.  But when I opened the door, it wasn’t Anna Marie.

“What the hell are you doing here?”  I asked Damian Karl as he stared at me soberly.  He didn’t respond.  “What do you
… ”
  I started to ask him what he wanted, but the last time I did that he just said he wanted me.  “If Will sees you, he’ll freak.”

“You married him,” he said with painful resignation.

“I did.”

“I tell you I love you and then you go marry him?”

“Damian, you didn’t love me.  You just wanted what you couldn’t have.”

“I loved you.  I still love you.” Damian’s fiery blue eyes filled with sorrow and regret.  For a second, I felt sorry for him, I actually began to think I’d made a mistake in marrying Will. But then I realized that Damian was just playing his head games again.

“If you love me so much, why haven’t I heard a word from you in almost eight
weeks.
  You said you’d call me every day. You didn’t call me once. 
Great way to show your love.”
  Damian didn’t respond. 

I felt I had adequately made my point.  I was just about to slam the door in his face when he said, “I called you every day for 55 days. Sometimes two and three times a day,” he said with an expression of shock singed with confusion.

Damian whipped out his phone and handed it to me. “I called you at least a hundred times and left just as many messages,” he said as I scrolled through his phone log. Sure enough my number was there an extraordinary amount of times. I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t gotten a single one of the calls.

“Damian, I don’t know –”
  Just
then, I heard Will get out of the pool and ask who was at the door.  My pulse quickened.  I couldn’t let Will know Damian was here, he’d flip out.  But I didn’t want to run Damian off either, when he so obviously needed me.  I just stared at Damian’s smoldering blue eyes brimming with pain not knowing what to do.  Then I heard the door to the patio open.  Will was coming into the house. 

Suddenly, Damian cupped my face and pressed his lips to mine.  Then, with a possessed look in his eyes, he whispered, “This is not over.  I don’t care what I have to do in this life or the next, you
will
be mine.”  Then he left.