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Not thirty seconds later, Rick Jackson entered the little lounge area off the garage. “Sounds like Saint beat me to the punch.”
She turned around, stunned. “I guess it’s okay to eavesdrop here at #34.”
“Only when important issues are at stake, and asking you out was important to me.”
Speechless, Bridget wanted to laugh. Out of nowhere, two eligible men were interested in her. She never dated much, and the few guys who bothered with her had swept her off her feet right away. Facing that she was a little needy, it had already gotten her into trouble with lifetime consequences once. After that, she was extra careful about whom she let into her life.
“I guess not that important,” she finally said. “Why’d you wait to tell me until after Tony asked me out?”
“I didn’t think he’d have the balls, oops, excuse me, because he’s got a girlfriend. They’ve been together for almost ten years. And frankly, I wasn’t sure about dating someone with a child. But after being around you, I’ve come to the conclusion that any kid of yours would be great.”
“Is that right?” Grabbing her cup, she waited for him to move so she could get by. “Back to work. So long.”
Trying to put what he had said out of her mind, by the time Tony called her that night and she called him back, she had vacillated between sadness and outright anger, but at that moment, she was disappointed. There was no response from him for a few seconds, and when he finally spoke, she was relieved. It wasn’t ideal, but at least he didn’t lie.
“I did have a longtime girlfriend, but we broke up last night. It’s been coming for a while. The relationship was sort of fueled by inertia.” He cackled. “She used to say that the only reason we stayed together was because it would take too much energy to get out of it.”
Waiting, she didn’t know what to say at first and then decided honesty and openness was the only way to go. “I’ve never had a long relationship. I might as well be up front with you. Everyone probably thinks because of my baby, you know, it was from a serious relationship. It’s not that I didn’t want that, but it never happened.”
“Are you still involved with the baby’s father?”
“No. He lives back East. I hardly know him. This will sound terrible, but we were together for a week, and it happened fast. He only got in touch once after that, and when he found out I was pregnant and going to have it, he never called me again.”
“Ew, that’s harsh.”
“Actually, it’s wonderful. My biggest fear was that he’d come back and want to take the baby back East with him. My attorney sent him a letter giving him the option to sign off on any parental rights in return for not having to pay child support for the next eighteen years, and he took it without hesitation.”
Tony didn’t reply, and suddenly, Bridget got nervous, like that might have been too much information. “Look, I’m trying to be up front about everything. I hope you won’t share that with anyone else.”
“Never. I’m thinking about this guy—how can he give up his kid? But how glad I am that he did.”
“Me too,” she said with a big sigh of relief.
“You should know my father is probably going to give us some grief. He liked my ex-girlfriend, but it was more than that. Her father is a friend of his. This town is so interconnected, especially the Italian population.”
“She’s Italian, too?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t make any difference to me. You’re Irish, right? I’m excited about dating an Irish girl.”
“Oh, is that right?” she asked, laughing, relieved the conversation steered away from babies and irresponsible fathers. “My parents will be thrilled if they find out I actually went out on a real date with someone local. They won’t care where you came from.”
“How’d they take it when you had the baby?”
“Well, when they found out, it was horrible. I waited until I couldn’t hide it anymore. My sister was like, ‘Ah, are you trying to tell me something?’ So I told them I was pregnant and that I wasn’t going to marry the father, that was never even an option, and they were in travail for about a week. But when Flynn was born, everything changed. They love him so much!”
“They want to babysit, right?”
“Right! You remembered.”
So two topics discussed openly and averting catastrophe, they made plans for their picnic.
Tony chose to tell Big Mike and Roberta about breaking up with Patty as soon as he could because the longer he waited, the more satisfying it would be to let them find out when Patty had a meltdown, which was bound to happen.
On Friday morning after his first full night’s sleep in five days, he ventured down to the kitchen before Big Mike left for the station. On behalf of the job, Big Mike would try to hold it together. If Tony had waited until the weekend, the possibility that he’d explode existed.
“What are you doing up?” Roberta asked.
Tony had to bite his lip when he saw his mother. It was six thirty in the morning, and she was dressed for, well, no one ever knew exactly what she had in mind except that Big Mike liked it. Her bleach blond hair, done up in a poufy style from the nineteen sixties, topped the glamorous look she was going for. Dangly earrings, false eyelashes, blue eye shadow, pink frosted lipstick and a little pink blush high on her cheekbones rounded out the look. Then a tight, buttoned leopard-printed cardigan with the sleeves pushed up over her elbows, a few buttons left undone to show an ample amount of youthful cleavage, a gold chain with a locket holding pictures of her sons with room for grandchildren, and skintight white capris took care of her ensemble. But what amazed Tony was that his mother still wore stilettoes, even as she prepared her husband’s breakfast.
