As Chibuzo is at his office dealing with the dozens of paper citation Amy Huang and her crew are bestowing upon him, I skip on a sunny day to meet the girls for lunch: Chelsea and Kelly.
An hour before leaving for girls lunch, I was blessed with intercepting a video file from Nicolas where he gets Mary Poros on film admitting a few things which we all knew, and have on video now. I guess?
Either way this is great gossip and dark humor to share - considering my background with Nicolas from high school hookups, to Italy at a hospital after banging all weekend.
Girls Power Lunch
I get to the cute outdoor garden area of the restaurant to meet Kelly who is, for once, early?
Me: Sup girl! Glad to see you out of a minivan for once?
Kelly: For sure. I’m stoked, just dealing with some heart burn
<Kelly motions her chest. The truth is she is afraid she might be pregnant something very much unplanned a this moment of her life. She panicking>
Kelly: I have tums tho, what’s up with you?
Trying to contain my new Nicolas video gossip - BECAUSE I NEED CHELSEA TO BE HERE- I somehow bottle myself to get some normal answers out
Me: apartment is cute, things are cute. Oh wait!
I remember the whole voter registration debacle and whip the paper letters stamped from the morning of my political candidacy and voter registration.
Me: Come for the queen, you best not miss
Kelly: you found a printer?
Me: Nooooooo! There was some bullshit and the city tried to block me from voting so I’m voting AND you and Chelsea are right… I’m going to run for city council
Some footsteps can be heard of boots and at that moment Chelsea walks in, seamlessly joining the conversation
Chelsea: I’m always right, what this time?
<The girls run together for hugs as the lunch group is now complete>
After several seconds acting like school girls we all seat down like, somewhat adults.
For a second I forgot about the Nicolas video and Kelly says nothing. We all say nothing. Then we bust out laughing at the same time in sync
Kelly: I’m afraid to even ask but something tells me it’s one of the two of you who should kick this tea spilling off. Not me. I’ve been with hubs in the office all week. I’m all ears
Chelsea: So, Nicolas IS MARRIED! SAME GUY FROM COLLEGE… FIVE YEARS MARRIED NOW
I pause in my tracks. What. Nicolas? Physically arranged me for days on end in Italy, who just made some oddly heroic video somehow providing me buffer… Nicolas?
Nicolas. That Nicolas. No.
My brain spins as I thought that I would be the one with exciting news, yet my news makes all of this more complicated: the married (and gay) kid of a real estate developer spent the weekend with me across the world because of Mary Poros, quits the gig, goes along with hubby like all is fine?
How does one capitulate someones morals especially when they seemingly are righting a wrong?
I gasp. It takes me a minute the waiter comes by, she sees the distress and weirdness on everyone’s faces.
waitress: Guessing, wine?
Me: I will take a white wine please
Kelly: Bubble water with a lime
<kelly motions tummy ache>
Chelsea: Soda whatever hipster option you have
Still shook over the Nicolas happily married thing, I realize the girls are not drinking alcohol. Suspicious.
Me: what is this? Even the retirement home drinks
Kelly: I would but seriously my acid reflex is too much right now
Chelsea: I’m usually down, have to debug this shitty widget after lunch and just want to bang it out. I took a bunch of adderall earlier, let’s pray.
The waiter walks away unabashed by our comments and likely to seen more vibrant discussions.
Me: Okay so Nicolas. Happily married man, tracks me down in Europe to fuck my brains out all weekend just to find out some info for Mary Poros?
At this moment it clicks that Chelsea has no clue of the additional context of the video I have from Nicolas himself and a conversation with Mary Poros.
Me: Lets table aside this one emotion, state of concern. And allow me to introduce another one…
I hold the ugly USB stick with small chess piece glued to the end to show the table
Me: Don’t worry I downloaded it to my phone
The group sighs in relief
Me: it’s a video… not that kind of video, Chelsea! Its a video of… Sir Nicolas and its about something else than his freaking <cough> HUSBAND
I pulled out my iPhone and play the video from it, the girls huddle near enough to see.
REPLAY VIDEO OF NICOLAS
The intro of the video begins
Nicolas: Hi, Chibuzo, you don’t know me. I wanted to send you a video to explain a few things and also maybe give you something to help with all the Amy Huang heat
See the thing is, I know for a fact some people are after you. Maybe the same people I have some issues with, we will have to see. Time will tell.
I skip to the videos part where there’s Mary Poros and Nicolas talking:
Nicolas: Nooooooo. Remember we, he, we do not need your money. We need your peace.
Mary: Okay fine. I will stop bothering you to be a spy or get intel on Ella Taylor. There I said it. Happy?
Nicolas: A little bit happy. You know I am not a fan of yours but I also want no issues with you
Mary: Nicolas, it’s always been this way. I want to enhance your life, really. If you want out of the local politics that is your luxury I guess. Your father knows how this works.
Nicolas: there’s a girl out there who had to recover from a coma from literally, your crazy text messages
<Mary looks down at her nails and mumbles>
Mary: I have that effect
Nicolas: Alright AS PLANNED I am leaving for my retreat. Keep me out of things. I am not your spy, I also don’t care about taking you down or anything bitch moves like that. Just. Keep it real Mary, Ciao.
VIDEOS ARE WORTH 1,000 WORDS
Watching a hidden video at a lunch table we had a jury of three to figure it out.
Kelly seemed out of it perhaps she’s not in the drama the same as Chelsea and I are.
Chelsea looks at me confused, bites her bottom lip for a minute in a nervous tick.
Chelsea: This is good, I guess. How does it really help us and it says its TO Chibuzo?
Me: That.
There is a moment of silence as Chelsea and I cannot find a plausible answer until Kelly speaks up
Kelly: This is an immunity card for Chibuzo. See, Chibuzo can show this video to Mary Poros and she will have to call off the dogs, er dog, her Amy Huang.
I am kinda confused though, does Chibuzo need… help?
Chelsea and I stare at each other in shock at Kelly’s in depth analysis as she is not wrong. Leave it to Kelly to understand local political game-theory.
Kelly shrugs her shoulders
Kelly: we do this kind of sh*t all the time in my HOA
And it makes sense, the girls do not know yet about Chibuzo… as I have not told them.
Me: I forgot to mention that this morning Amy Huang raided Chibuzo’s office and writing him violations and tickets for anything randomly
Kelly: ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Chelsea: ohhhhhhhhhhhhh
Kelly: Alright and you just got this mail video hostage thing this morning? Do you know the date
Chelsea: I know the date
Me: how?
Chelsea: Show me again? Right there. In the Mary Poros video he’s in the same clothes and bag when I saw him in downtown so maybe, 3 days ago?
He must have mailed this like right away and pre packaged it like a serial killer
Me: how do you know that? Hacking the city cameras?
Chelsea: No dumb dumb. I remember his stupid bag and outfit when I saw him downtown because I was busy getting a GIRL FLOWERS someone I have been wanting to mention. This Nicolas douche takes up way too much of our damn time I swear.
Me: For sure just real quick. If Nicolas sent this video to help Chibuzo days ago, it means he obviously knew in advance to the raid of Chibuzo’s office?
Kelly: duh
Chelsea: you heard her <points to Kelly>
Me: for a gay daddy he is seemingly acting a little bit of a protector daddy to me. I mean he DID facilitate a chunk of my head bashing in at a hotel… but… he somehow has me a bit protected at the moment, is protecting our homie Chibuzo AND still rejecting Poros real estate money. I would say, kinda hot.
Everyone looks at me oddly, this was an amazing joke. Wrong time.
Me: I’m joking. Let’s look at the bright side of these things okay? Let’s now talk about Lesbian love. Chelsea?
Chelsea begins to start rambling about her latest crush. Cute techie hipster who works in the building next to hers, she arranged for flowers to be delivered this week by J’adoube, the new flourist that is all the rave with posh lesbians in town.
Somehow lunch conversations return back to the normal topics. For another normal day. In a city ran by an incompetent mafia…that even a bi-sexual hidden camera having real estate townie can have shaking in their boots.
CITY ON THE BAY
Later in the day everyone returns home to different settings. I get back to my temporary and sorta long term apartment owned by Chibuzo. I try to send a text to Nicolas only it’s green and not going through. Did anyone catch that he said… retreat in the video? I look up at his large clock in the kitchen and realize the ticking sound in my head is now… gone? When did it stop?
Kelly returns home to her kids and husband, uses the bathroom alone to take a pregnancy test. It shows a negative. She sighs in relief.
Chelsea comes home after a long day of bug chasing to see the vase with flowers she ordered are on her doorstep with a note “return to sender.” She’s devastated.
I make an en email with a link to where I saved the Nicolas video online for Chibuzo. Title it “Castling for Chibuzo.” With this I’m sure his “violations” and “citations” will be gone in no time.
Perhaps this mafia stuff was not so hard after all?