Keith chuckled lightly. “No, thankfully. But she was cut from the same cloth. Her name was Paige.” Elly hated her immediately. “I met Paige about seven years out of college. I was at a social function with my father, and she approached me. I was smitten immediately. She was beautiful and even more than that, she was exactly everything my family wanted me to marry: Italian. Tall. The daughter of someone important back in the old country. She was Catholic. I let myself fall madly in love with her, and at her insistence, we proceeded with our quick engagement. Our families were thrilled, especially hers.” He shook his head. “I should have seen the warning signs. I was so deeply stupid, so deeply infatuated with her that I ignored every obvious clue to what was going on.”
Elly was intrigued, but she also ached for the pain in Keith’s eyes as he recounted his story. “Once we were engaged, I let her have access to my life in every way. She was always borrowing money from me and then never giving it back, but I thought that was a part of being engaged, being married. I mean, we were about to become one, right? She always had a valid excuse, and I never even thought twice about it. She was going to be my wife, so did it even matter? She quit her job—she worked in a small boutique shop—and stayed home all day, doing God knows what while I was at work. It sounds terrible now when I say it, but I was on cloud nine—I didn’t even notice. I loved the idea of taking care of my fiancée, my wife, and I never questioned her intentions. I never suspected a thing until collectors began calling my work. I was baffled—I didn’t even have credit cards. You know I’m a cash-only man.” He was. It was mildly annoying. “Paige had taken out dozens of credit cards in my name, and racked up about two hundred thousand dollars in debt. She had taken vacations with her friends that I assumed she paid for, she had bought herself two cars, tons of jewelry, and ten-thousand-dollar dresses, and ugh, I couldn’t even understand how a person could spend that much money in six months.” He rubbed his face, obviously disturbed to recount the story. “Like an idiot, I forgave her. She cried and threw herself on my mercy and confessed that she had a shopping problem and would seek counseling immediately. She blamed it on her childhood. I wanted to believe her because I loved her. I wanted to be married to her so desperately. Now I realize that I loved the idea of marriage more than I loved her.”
Elly knew exactly what that looked like. Without thinking, she pressed her hand up against Keith’s cheek and he closed his eyes at her touch, his story continuing. “So I took Paige back, and I never told my family about the credit cards. I paid off her debt quietly and for about six months, it was wonderful again, like it never happened. We swept it under the rug together.” Keith rubbed his hands together nervously. “One night, I heard Paige whispering on the phone to someone. She kept saying, ‘He can’t know. He can’t know. Wait until next month.’ I stood outside the door, and when she hung up the phone, I was sure of two things: that she was cheating on me and that she was hiding things from me again. I immediately went to her purse and found a new credit card opened in my name. In the morning, I called the card for a record of transaction and had them fax it to me at the deli.” He took a deep breath. “I thought nothing could be worse than more cars, jewelry, and spa weekends, but I was wrong. She had been paying rent. For a loft downtown. I was in a rage. I drove to the apartment, and surprise, her car was there! I knocked on the door and a young man opened it. I prayed that it was her brother, but of course, it wasn’t. Paige broke down and confessed everything, and it was so much worse than I imagined. Her family had seen my picture in the paper. They had researched my family. She had purposefully struck up a friendship with my mother at the spa she frequents. She had targeted me for my money while still living with the man she really loved, who was a student. I asked her if she ever truly loved me, and she kept saying that she ‘had tried very, very hard.’ I walked out of her apartment that day, and I have never seen or talked to her again. That was also when I stopped talking to my parents. And in that year when I wasn’t speaking to them, my father died of a heart attack.”
Elly wasn’t sure how long her mouth had been hanging open.
“I never got to tell him goodbye. Or that I loved him. Or was proud of him. All because of Paige and my own anger.”
Elly’s heart broke for him. “Oh Keith, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
Keith used her hand, still lingering on his cheek, to wipe a single tear away from his eye. “Well, go ahead. Ask the question you’re dying to ask. The one part of this equation that doesn’t make sense.”
Elly frowned. “Well, why would she use you for your money? There must have been better people out there like, I don’t know, a banker?”
He reached out and touched her hair lightly. “Elly, did you know that my last name isn’t really Carcelo? I mean, it is, it’s our family name from the old country. When my parents came over here from Italy, they wanted a name that sounded more American. So they changed Carcelo to Cary.”
Elly squinted. “Cary, as in … Cary’s Meats?”
Keith nodded. “Yes, as in Cary’s Meats.”