Acts of Violet(41)

CAMERON FRANK: What sorts of things?

BENJAMIN MARTINEZ: It started small. She got me this Beastie Boys ringer T-shirt and wanted me to wear it all the time. The Beastie Boys were not really my thing—I was more into old-school hip-hop and punk—but she said I looked sexy in it, so I wore it for her. Same with the red Chuck Taylor high-tops she got me. Then there was my hair. I wore it down to my shoulders back then, but she thought it would look so much better short on the sides and shaggy on top. So, I cut my hair, wore the clothes she bought for me, and continued being her arm candy.

At some point during that first year, her uncle died, and she asked me to fly out to Jersey with her for the funeral. I hadn’t met her family before, and it was … kinda weird.

CAMERON FRANK: Was there tension between Violet and Sasha?

BENJAMIN MARTINEZ: Not at first. Violet was pretty broken up about losing her uncle—this was on top of her dad dying the previous year—but it had been a while since the sisters had seen each other, and they seemed happy to be reunited. Sasha was welcoming but gave me a couple of funny looks when she picked us up from the airport. It wasn’t until we got to Willow Glen and I met her husband that I understood why … It wasn’t quite like looking in a mirror, but Gabriel could’ve been my long-lost brother. We even had the same haircut.

The day after the funeral, Violet and I met up with Sasha and Gabriel for breakfast before we headed to the airport. You know that ringer Beastie Boys shirt Violet got me? I wore mine to the diner … and Gabriel showed up wearing his. And both of us wore red Chuck Taylors. We all had a laugh about it, but I caught Sasha glaring at Violet.

CAMERON FRANK: What was going through your head at the time?

BENJAMIN MARTINEZ: That Violet and Gabriel had some kind of history and she was obviously trying to get me to look more like him. When I confronted her about it, she said she’d been friends with Gabriel since they met at magic camp, but it was never anything more than that. She denied ever having feelings for him—she just thought he had a really cool style.

CAMERON FRANK: Did you believe her?

BENJAMIN MARTINEZ: Back then, I kinda had to? Or it wasn’t gonna work between us. Years later, after we divorced, when that website came out ripping her to shreds, I did wonder if the stuff about her and Gabriel was true.

CAMERON FRANK: I was actually going to ask you about violetisafraud.com. A lot of people suspect you wrote that takedown. It felt personal, and since things did end on a sour note between the two of you …

BENJAMIN MARTINEZ: Come on, man, that wasn’t me. I don’t go for such petty bullshit.

CAMERON FRANK [STUDIO]: Normally, I might press the issue, but my years as a journalist have made me pretty good at sensing when someone is hiding something. I didn’t get that feeling from Benjamin. There might have been topics he didn’t want to discuss in detail, but he struck me as an honest, upstanding guy. So when he said it wasn’t him, I believed it.

I asked him to tell me more about those early days in Vegas.

BENJAMIN MARTINEZ: I was too busy working and falling in love to notice how orchestrated it all was. Ultra-Violet was a huge hit, we were living in a sick penthouse suite, and we got VIP treatment twenty-four/seven—it was easy to get caught up in it.

Violet had this warehouse built out for her off the Strip to develop new effects with a team of consultants, and she started spending more time there. It was confusing—we lived together and worked together, but by November, I felt like I hardly ever saw her.

I told myself it was temporary. After all, we had a couple weeks off in January, and talked about taking a vacation somewhere in the Pacific islands. I figured we’d get some quality time together soon. Plus, one of my sisters was about to have her first child, and I planned on finally introducing Violet to my family.

Of course, it didn’t work out that way.

CAMERON FRANK: What happened?

BENJAMIN MARTINEZ: Right after Thanksgiving—which we spent in Vegas, working—Violet was offered a booking to do a week at some private retreat in January. I don’t remember where—maybe off the coast of Peru? Some exclusive getaway for rich and important people. The money was so good, Violet couldn’t really say no. And she couldn’t take me with her; this was a solo deal. There was so much secrecy around the whole thing, she couldn’t tell me much about it.

I was livid. We finally had some time to spend together, and she was going somewhere else without me? When I asked her not to go, she accused me of being controlling and said I needed to trust her. We were arguing about it by the pool in our suite, and at one point, she got so mad, she pushed me in. That made us both laugh, and Violet jumped in after me, fully clothed. Then she got all sweet and told me how much she loved me and would marry me that very day if it would put my mind at ease.

I actually planned on proposing to her after she met my family—already had the ring and everything. Since she brought up the subject first, I went and got the ring, and got down on one knee, right by the pool. She said yes. On the condition that we get a confidential marriage license, have a private civil ceremony, and keep our nuptials secret for the time being.

CAMERON FRANK: That’s … not a typical response after being proposed to. How did you react to that?

BENJAMIN MARTINEZ: I was happy she wanted to marry me but found the rest ridiculous and a little insulting. What was I, some dirty little secret? And after all her media whoring, a private civil ceremony? How could I get married without my family there, without being able to tell anybody about it? What was even the point of getting married?