Basic Search
First Name Angelina Last Name Valerio
City or ZIP/Postal Boston State/Prov MA
What the fuck am I doing? I’ve considered a lot of reasons as to why I’ve decided to contact my Spring Break ’91 fling—the most meteorically intense but brief love of my life and, in fact, the only other woman besides Beth I had ever considered marrying—when my wife is nearly nine months pregnant with twins. Being in a sexless, emotionally abusive marriage for the last six months might have something to do with it, but the reason I seem to have settled on is actually a rhetorical question: what’s wrong with a guy on the cusp of being a father again taking stock of his past and wanting closure with someone who used to be important to him? And by rhetorical, I mean I don’t want anyone to answer that question, because the obvious answer is nothing’s wrong with that—if you’re an insensitive douche pump.
“What are you doing, Hank?”
“Nothing, Urwa.”
Urwa Mashwanis is College Ave’s silver-haired, middle-aged Pakistani IT director. He’s a nice guy, annoying as hell but forever well-intentioned. He constantly and, too often, graphically whines about his marital woes, a typical conversation with him going something like this: “How’s Beth doing with her pregnancy? My wife put on a hundred pounds with our baby and never lost it, and now she refuses to have sex doggie style because she doesn’t want me to see her cellulite ass. Only missionary, only missionary. She doesn’t even like the cunny-lingus. You want to grab lunch?”
Urwa looks at the top of my computer screen, reading aloud. “Whitepages.com? Who you looking for?”
“Nobody.”
“Angelina Valerio doesn’t sound like nobody to me.”
Aaron Rosner tends to err on the side of apocalyptic—maybe it’s a Jewish thing—so in anticipation of Y2K, he hired Urwa away from Eli Lilly’s patent division for twice the salary. Predictably, Y2K amounted to a whole lot of nothing, but Urwa was retained at the same level of compensation. This pisses me off a little. While, yes, my family’s seven-figure settlement with the Indianapolis Auto Auction has paid for three cars and half the mortgage on my house, my actual salary still skirts IRS tax brackets with the reckless abandon of someone who, minus a dead father, would be flirting with abject poverty.
“You want to grab some lunch?”
“We’ve been through this before, Urwa. You don’t eat lunch.”
“Sure I do. Large fries. Best deal in town.”
Urwa insists that the $1.75 the MCL Cafeteria down the street charges for a Styrofoam box filled to the rim with French fries is the steal of the century. “I figure I get about a thousand calories for less than two bucks,” he is fond of saying.
I just need to stop arguing with Urwa and let the potato-addicted Pakistani face his maker—probably sooner than he’s likely anticipating—on his own grease-laden terms. “Fine, Urwa, eat your damn fries.”
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
“What question?”
Urwa points at my computer monitor. “Who’s Angelina Valerio?”
“She’s nobody.”
“She’s not nobody. I’ve seen the letters you typed to her.”
“How about you get back to your desk and mind your own business? It wasn’t multiple letters. There was just one.”
“I counted at least four.”
“Damn, Urwa,” I say. “You are one nosy fucking Pakistani. There was only one letter. I sent copies of the same letter to four different people.”
“Oh,” Urwa says. “Why did you do that?”
“Angelina Valerio is an old friend who I lost track of is all.”
“Friend?”
“Fine, an old girlfriend. Beth and I have had a rough go of things the last couple months.”
“Beth’s body is going through lots of changes,” Urwa says, empathetic apparently as long as it doesn’t involve the prohibition of doggie style and the cunny-lingus.
“Don’t you think I know that?” I say. “It’s not like I’m going to do anything stupid. I’m just real lonely and want to talk to an old friend. I’ve spent the last three weeks searching the Internet for any Angelina Valerios along the East Coast.”
“The East Coast?”
“Angelina was from Boston.”
“Got it.”
“I found four Angelina Valerios in the greater Boston area and sent four duplicate letters out to these women.”
“What if they call you back and Beth answers the phone?”
“Won’t happen.”
“How do you know?”
“I listed my office phone number and office return address on the letters.”
“Smart thinking.”
“I thought so.”
“Deceitful thinking, but smart thinking.”
“You can shut up and listen to my story, or you can be an asshole. Your choice.”
“Sorry,” Urwa says. “Go on.”
“Three of these Angelina Valerios have returned my call, all of them telling me the same exact thing—‘I’m not the Angelina you’re looking for, but your letter was so beautiful I wish I was her.’”
“Some letter I take it.”
“I thought so.”
My phone rings. The caller ID on the phone flashes Out of Area. “You going to answer that?”
“Nope,” I say. “Probably just Cindy again.”
“Aaron’s former secretary?”
“Admin assistant.”
“Yeah, whatever. I thought Aaron fired her.”
“He did.”
“She still calls you a lot.”
“That’s because she still wants my dick.”
“You have a highly inflated opinion of yourself, Hank.”
“That’s a fair comment,” I say. “But in this case I’m not exaggerating. Remember when Aaron, Cindy, and I went to that Canadian bookseller convention in Windsor?”
“Vaguely.”
“Well, the three of us went out on the town one night. We ended up at Jason’s.”
“Jason’s?”
“A famous high-end strip club.”
Urwah’s face practically lights up. “Continue,” he says.
“Cindy had never been to one, so we took her. She got really drunk.”
“Really drunk?”
“Really drunk.”
“What happened?”
“Aaron disappeared into one of the back rooms with three girls and a wad of hundred dollar bills, so Cindy and I took a cab back to the hotel. The moment we got back, Cindy stuck her tongue in my ear in the elevator, told me she was going to her room to draw a bath, and asked me to join her.”
“So she didn’t really come right out and say she wanted your dick.”
I shake my head. “You’re right, Urwa. She didn’t say that. I guess she could have just been implying that my personal hygiene left something to be desired and that in the interest of being environmentally conscious we do some innocent tandem bathing.”
The phone starts ringing again. Again the caller ID flashes Out of Area. “Just pick it up, Hank.”
“Fine,” I say. I pick up the phone. “Hello, this is Hank.”
“Hank Fitzpatrick?”
“Yes.”
“Hank, how ah yuh?”
My chest hurts. Hearing that deep Boston inflection for the first time in nine years makes me dizzy, short of breath.
“Angelina?”
“You muss think I’m so wid callin’ yuh like this.”
“Weird?” I say. “I’m the one who wrote a letter and mailed it to four random Angelina Valerios in the greater Boston area.”
“Foh-uh?”
“Yeah, Angelina.” I close my eyes and smile, inhaling the memories. “Foh-uh.”
“Yuh always knew how to sweep a gal off huh feet.”
Urwah hovers over my desk. “Angelina, can I put you on hold for just one second?”
“Shu-uh.”
I stare down Urwah. “What?” he says.
“Aaron coming in at all today?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Urwah says.
“I’m taking this in Aaron’s office.”
He swats his hand at me. “You’re no fun.”