Outside, the sound of tires on gravel made them both turn towards the windows and Joan’s heart thumped. She instinctively gripped Antonio’s arm, not wanting to let him go to the door.
“Relax, it’s just some friends of mine from GA. We’re going to have a meeting here, you can stay if you want.”
“GA?” Joan said, in a daze, “Oh, right, gambler’s anonymous.”
A little bit of the hope that never seemed to leave her for long, bubbled up from deep inside her, as she watched Antonio’s troubled face relax into a grin as he greeted his friend. They all kissed both cheeks of Joan as they were introduced. Pablo, Ernesto and an older woman named Carmella sat down, and Joan set about making coffee for the group while they prepared to start their meeting.
They read from a very small book which talked about the disease of compulsive gambling. It had 12 Steps just like in AA, and Joan found the whole content very familiar. She’d been forced to call her sponsor after the wedding to deal with some of her recurring urges and her sponsor had suggested she download the Big Book of AA, which she’d done. Reading from it every morning and asking her higher power to hold off the urge another day had helped her tremendously. It warmed her heart to see Antonio so into his recovery.
Finally, they finished their reading and it was time to share.
“You want to tell us what the hell is going on?” Pablo asked.
“Actually I do, but on the advice of my attorney I’m going to just listen tonight.”
Everyone laughed. One by one the three GA members shared. When they finished, they asked Joan if she wanted to share. Joan decided that she did.
“My name is Joan, I’m in love with a compulsive gambler.”
Everyone smiled and Joan glanced over at Antonio and as she finished her words, wishing she could take them back as she seen him wince at the words, and look away from her. “I mean, I’m in love with his soccer skills.”
Everyone laughed again and Antonio chuckled. Good thought Joan, they were buying it. She hoped he knew she was just kidding.
For the rest of her short share, she said how she appreciated that sometimes compulsions and addictions could get the best of a person, any person. She talked about how she’d suffered from alcoholism, but was happiest when she was in recovery and working hard not to go there again. When she’d finished, there was silence in the room.
“Well, Antonio, whatever happens you know we’ll be there for you, so please keep in touch.”
“I will,” Antonio said as he let them out.
He put his arm around Joan’s shoulder, holding her to him as they drove away.
When they were gone, he turned her around.
“Did you mean that?” he said, “That you were in love with a compulsive gambler?”
Her heart banged in her chest. She couldn’t look him in the eye.
She felt his fingers lifting her chin. “Joan?”
Despite herself, she nodded. She couldn’t deny how she felt.
“Joan, I want you to know that I love you too, which is why I’m doing what I have to do tomorrow.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears. She gulped. He said he loved her, but her happiness was bittersweet. She understood what he was doing, but she didn’t like it. “I don’t want you to go to jail. Couldn’t we just run away somewhere, you and me? I could go pack right now, Lissa would understand.”
“Joan, you deserve better. I made a mistake and I’m willing to pay the price because once I have I can start my life over again as a new man. You and I can make a life together. That is, if you’re willing to have anything to do with a man who did what I did.”
“Oh, Antonio, I don’t care what you did, I love you, I want to be with you.”
They kissed, and then broke apart.
“Joan, let me tell you everything and then we’ll see if you still feel the same way.”
They sat on the bed sipping coffee and nibbling on the cookies brought by the older GA woman while Antonio told her everything - how he’d started gambling, how it had gotten out of control, and how he’d succumbed to the lure of the bookie.
“One night there was this opportunity and I didn’t have enough cash on me, because I’d been gambling it all away. This man comes up to me and offers me an unlimited credit. I was so insane at that point I thought I’d get the money back with a big win, so I agreed. But, then when I didn’t win, and I couldn’t make the first payment, they told me that I had to ...”
“Had to what?”
Antonio’s eyes filled with tears. “They told me that I had to fake an injury and excuse myself from the big game, so the competition would win.”
“And did you do it?”
Antonio’s face fell.
“Yes, and no.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d decided I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t betray my teammates, my city, my team. Just before the twentieth minute, when I was supposed to get injured, I got fouled badly and my left ankle was pretty messed up. I saw my bookie in the stands, giving me the thumbs up as I lay there on the ground dying from the pain. If I could have moved, I would have gotten up and told the bastard that I hadn’t done it for him that I’d been fouled for real and he hadn’t influenced the game.
But, by then the pain was so intense that the trainer arrived. They took one look at my ankle and carted me off the field. I kept trying to insist that I was okay, but I wasn’t.”
“So, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know, but someone took a tape to my manager with a recording of me agreeing to take a fall in exchange for forgiving my gambling debt. It didn’t include who I was making the promise to, it just implicated me. My manager confronted me on it and even though I’d already been placed on a legitimate injury leave, they extended it and basically kicked me off the team.”
“Oh, Antonio, I didn’t know.”
“Instead of throwing one game by not being there for my team, my gambling ended up making me unavailable for the rest of the season.”
“But, your team did okay without you didn’t they?”
Antonio smiled wryly. “I thought you didn’t follow soccer,”
“I don’t, but Julio was always talking to Marco about AC Milan, so he did it for me. But, if they won why were you still in trouble?”
“Whether my team lost or not wasn’t the point. The point was that my breaking the rules about not doing sports betting had made me a liability and they couldn’t trust me.”
“If the bookie was convinced you’d done it, then why didn’t your troubles go away after that?”
“Because, even after that incident I couldn’t stop gambling. I was basically cut off from my playing salary and given only the minimum non-playing salary, so I was feeling the pinch. I’d wasted a ton of money not just on gambling, but on living the high life. I did not have any money. When Dante came back to me and offered me a line of credit with an online sports book I couldn’t resist. I knew it was stupid, and I’ll regret that decision for the rest of my life, but there’s a part of it, I won’t’ regret.”
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Joan gave him a puzzled look. “What’s that?”
“If I hadn’t needed to go to Barcelona to try and pawn the car, I would probably never agreed to attend the wedding in Barcelona. If I hadn’t come to Spain, then I’d probably never have run into you at the café. I might have never found you again.”
His voice cracked a little on those last words.
His fingers grazed the side of her face.
“Joan,” he said, his voice husky.
Joan gazed up at him, then her face got serious, and she pulled away.
“What is it?”
Joan’s brows furrowed and her jaw clenched. She looked him straight in the eyes. “I need to know why did you dump me in Milan?” She wanted to give her whole heart to him, but she couldn’t bear him abandoning her again like he had after the mishap in Milan.
It hadn’t been entirely her fault.
“I’m sorry about that, Joan, but you have to understand. I’d fallen in love with you even though I knew you were still in your addiction. I thought you were recovering on your own, and I came back from the away games with a ring in my pocket. When I found you in my apartment with all those druggie friends of yours trashing my house, and you sitting on some asswipe’s lap as he stuck his tongue down your throat – I snapped. I saw what I saw and there was nothing you could say to change it.”
Joan bowed her head. She didn’t remember him coming back, or how the party got started. She remembered her old modeling friend Rebecca knocking on her door, and then the next thing she knew she was staring at her picture, looking like a lunatic as Police carried her away while Antonio stood in the background cursing her.
“I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what happened, I honestly don’t remember any of it.”
“I know. I found out later, about a month after you – well – after you did what you did in my house.”
She’d been so despondent that he wouldn’t hear her out or give their love another chance that she’d broken into his house and tried to commit suicide by taking too many pills. He’d saved her life, and he’d called Lissa to come get her.
She’d just come out of rehab when he’d tried to reach her again, claiming he was in New York. She thought it was a booty call and during her rehab she’d vowed to forget about him, to never let him hurt her again, so she refused to take his call – then she blocked his number and that was the last she’d heard of him.