I nod my head. “I already knew that shit,” I tell him. “But she wanna claim I’m the one?”
“Oh, you know it. She’s pinning that baby on you like you’ve got a target on your back. You’re rich. You’re the mayor. You’re a Sinatra. And not just any Sinatra, but the bad boy Sinatra. The thug just like his Uncle Mick. Some women like thugs. That’s why all these women are goo-goo eyed for you. But we’re in the process of interviewing all those other potential daddies. We want them on the record. We want them ready to say they slept with her, too, whenever she has her press conference.”
Now I’m frowning. Did I miss something? “What press conference? She won’t even return my calls or text messages, but she’s holding a news conference?”
“I don’t know that for sure, yet,” Gerard says. “But we can’t be too careful.”
“What do you mean?”
“This has Matt Capecchi written all over it.”
Now that surprises me. “You think it’s a set-up?”
“Why would she suddenly call you out of the blue and announce she might be pregnant when she knew she was pregnant two months ago? But as soon as you announce that yes, you will be seeking reelection, and after Matt Capecchi makes noise that he might be running against you, she suddenly gives you a call and pin her pregnancy on you? And won’t even say she’s pregnant, but that she might be pregnant, like they need more time to get their scheme together? It’s got Capecchi’s dirty tricks written all over it, Bob.”
Got damn. I was so caught up in what she said, that I didn’t bother to think about why she was saying it. And I’m floored.
But before I can say anything else to Gerard, my dad shows up. He and his wife Jenay walk into the Hub, and I feel better just seeing them. And especially getting a chance to talk to my old man about this pregnancy news. Because he’s the one person I always know I can go to when shit like this goes down.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I’ll holler back, Rod,” I say to Gerard and end the call. My parents, my father and Jenay, my stepmother, walk up to my table and take a seat. Both look professional with Pop in his pinstripe suit and Jenay in her pantsuit. I got my own sense of style, if I have a style at all, from both of them.
“Can only stay a minute,” Jenay’s saying as they sit down. “Gotta get back to the Inn and oversee the interviews.”
“A lot of people are going to show up for those jobs,” I say to her. “Mark my words.”
“I hope so! The more the merrier. Maybe we can get some good people if we have a big pool of applicants.”
That’s Jenay. That’s Ma. Always optimistic. She’s a beautiful black woman who looks closer to my age than Pop’s, and who has a ray of light about her that me and my siblings gravitate to. She’s not our stepmother. In our eyes, she’s our mother. She came into our lives and won our hearts by the love she gave to our father, and by her devotion to us. Our adopted sisters, Ashley and Carly, sees it that way too.
While another waitress takes their orders: both of them only want coffee, and Jenay want hers to go, I look over at the woman and her boy two tables over. They’re finishing those burgers like it’s their last supper. The woman is eating vigorously too. And I feel good about that. Never let pride get in the way of your belly, I say.
“Thanks for coming.” I asked my parents to drop by.
“So, what’s the big news?” Pop asks. “Is it about the Inn?”
It’s about that, too, but that’s not the big news. “As of right now,” I say to both of them, “the council isn’t going to allow Inn expansion.”
“I’m not surprised,” Jenay says. “Those bastards have been trying to shut us down ever since we became the most popular hotel in this area.”
“Thanks to you,” I say to her. “It was a shithole before you took it over.”
Pop smiles. He knows it true. It was just a piece of neglected property he owned before Jenay came along.
“So what do they want?” he asks me. “They always want something.”
“Don’t know yet. But I’ll find out.”
“Don’t you dare approve that tax cut package,” Jenay says.
“I already made that clear to them. And don’t worry, Ma. I’ll make certain they don’t get the votes they need to vote us down.”
Jenay smiles. She loves me, I think, as much as I love her. “Thanks, Bobby. You’ve been a great mayor.”
“Ha!” I say with a laugh and fold my legs. “Not according to my poll numbers.” The waitress brings them their coffees.
“Don’t believe those polls,” Jenay says. “This town knows you’re a good mayor. You weren’t a good police chief because your ass should have never took over Brent’s job for that little time you had it. But you’re a good leader. A good mayor.” Then Jenay smiles. “You have my vote.”
I smile too. “My mother is going to vote for me. I’ll win by a landslide!”
Both she and Pop laughs.
“Anyway,” Jenay says, sipping her coffee in its top-on cup. “I’ve got to run.” She stands. Kisses Pop on the lips and me on the cheek. “Still going to Boston?” she asks me.
“Yup. Gotta speak this evening, so I’ll probably stay overnight and come back some time tomorrow.”
“If you see your sister, tell her I said hello.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Be nice,” she says to Pop. “Keep up the good work,” she says to me. And she’s off.
I watch Pop watching her as she’s leaving the diner. That man still has the hots for her after all these years. And I mean big time. But that’s life. He gets a good woman like Jenay. My stupid ass gets a conniving bitch like Laura.
He turns to me, ready to get down to business. He knows I wouldn’t have asked him to come see me just to tell him something I could have told him over the phone. If I’m busy, he’s super-busy. And to prove that fact, just as we’re about to go into it, his cell phone rings. And he answers it.
While he’s talking to somebody from his office, I see the woman and her boy are on their feet. And I see right away that her ass is as nice as her breasts. Tight and squeezable. And I’m getting a hard-on watching it, and watching her in general. She moves with such grace. Not clumsily or defeated. But a woman who refuses to be defeated. At least that’s how I see her. And when she walks, gotdamn. One of her butt cheeks move up, while the other one moves down, and there’s a squeeze on the fabric of her pants. It’s all so tight and nice that my dormant dick, a dick that hasn’t been interested in anybody in months, comes alive again. It’s alive! I tent my fucking pants. I can’t believe it. All these babes out here and somebody I’ve only laid eyes on for two minutes turns me on this easily? It’s crazy.
But she’s not leaving, which is crazy too. She already paid for those kids’ meals they ate earlier. Why is she going to the cashier? Maybe to thank the waitress? But somehow her look, her determined look, doesn’t have thank you written on it.
And I’m right. Because she goes straight to the waitress, who’s behind the cash register at that moment, and pays for the burgers and fries.
“I told you it’s on the house,” the waitress says, staring at the twenty-dollar bill. At least, that’s what my limited lip-reading ability tells me she’s saying.
But the woman is insistent. She hands her the money. The waitress glances over at me, as if she wants me to reveal myself, but I’m not doing that. That’ll only make it worse.
She takes the cash and gives the lady her change and her receipt. The waitress looks flustered, like no good deed goes unpunished, and she’s looking at me again. She even shakes her head and rolls her eyes, as if she’s mad at the woman. But I’m not mad at the woman at all. It only confirms what kind of person I took her for in the first place. I’m just upset she had to break her obviously already-depleted bank to prove it.
And like Pop was watching Mom as Mom left the Hub, I’m watching the woman leave with her son. I’m expecting to further nurse my hard-on with another view of her ass. But, instea
d, I find my attention drawn to the boy. Because he’s no ordinary kid as he appeared when he was sitting down. He’s a kid with a limp. And it’s a significant limp because he’s practically dragging his right foot. And he looks like he’s in pain too. Not only does this woman have a child to take care of, but a child with a disability. What happened to him, I wonder?
But after they walk out of the diner and I turn back around, I see that my dad has already ended his phone conversation and he’s staring at me. He was, apparently, watching me watching that woman and her kid. But he’s not the kind of man to get all in my business like that. He observes first. And then, down the line somewhere, he’ll have his opinions.
“Okay, talk,” he says to me.
But then a couple of women walk by our table, and one of them makes a snide comment about Pop that I know she knows he hears. “That’s that asshole that evicted me for no reason at all. I told him I was gonna get him his back rent. He knew I was good for it. But oh no. He can’t wait until I get on my feet again. Just kicking people out left and right. Mean-ass motherfucker.” And they walk on.
I look at Pop. He’s the richest man in town, who does a lot of good for people, but nobody gives him credit. To them, he’s Big Daddy, like Uncle Sam because of his power and influence, only not in a good way. But he hears women like her denigrate him like he has no feelings, and he don’t let it bother him at all. He’s blunt and stern and don’t take their bullshit: that’s why so many people in this town hate him, and he knows that.
But I’m my father’s son. I don’t take their bullshit, either. That’s why I’m not riding my reelection on a wave of popularity. But I can talk to Pop. Because he may not be popular, but no man on the face of this earth is more grounded in right and wrong and what’s moral and ethical. And given my past, a past he only knows pieces of, I tend to gravitate more toward the moral crowd nowadays. I’m trying to live a better life. Except when I’m with girls like Laura, when all I wanna do is fuck. I’ve been trying my best to stay away from girls like Laura.
But now I’ve got to deal with her phone call.
“I got a call this morning,” I tell Pop. “It was from this woman I know. Laura Dixon.”
My dad rubs his chin and is giving me that I’m worried look even before I tell him what to be worried about. He knows I’ve had problems with females in the past. Lots of problems. What he doesn’t know is I’ve kept away from them for months now.
“She says she thinks she might be pregnant,” I tell him, “and that I’m the daddy if she is.”
Pop is still rubbing his chin, and still staring at me. He’s looking really concerned. “Are you?” he finally asks me.
“The father? I don’t know,” I say honestly. “She says it’s me. I was with her three months ago, which is supposed to be around the time she conceived. Her ass was supposed to be on birth control at the time, although she could have been lying to me about that, and I thought I used a condom, but I can’t say because I can’t remember what happened. So, yeah, it’s possible.”
“Has Gerard investigated?”
I want to smile. My dad knows and respects Gerard, too, because he knows Rod has my back. “He’s on it.”
“What’s he finding out?”
“That she doesn’t think she’s pregnant, but that she knows she’s pregnant, and she found out two months ago.”
Pop frowns. “Then why did she tell you she think she’s pregnant if she already knew she was?”
“Gerard thinks it has something to do with politics.”
“Politics?”
“A set up.”
“But why? Your opponent thinks it’ll scare off the blue-haired old lady vote if they found out you’re having a kid out of wedlock?”
“Because Matt Capecchi is thinking about getting in the race.”
“Ah, shit,” Pop says. “Not that fucker.”
“He’s making noise about it. And you know how low he’ll go.”
“And Gerard thinks he got this Laura woman to try to put her pregnancy on you?”
“Think about it, Pop. She doesn’t have to prove I’m the father before the election. She can just say I’m the father. The election is four months away. Unless that kid comes early, her baby won’t be due until after the election. After I lose the conservative Christian vote, which is a large part of the vote in Jericho. Nobody can win if they lose that many votes. He knows what he’s doing.”
Pop points at me. “What are you going to do?”
“Fight back, in whatever form that takes. I’m not letting that punk take anything from me. I said I’m running for reelection. I plan on winning.”
Pop smiles. “Good,” he says. “Fight fire with fire if you have to. But don’t pull none of that shit you were pulling in Boston. Keep it aboveboard if you can.”
“And if I can’t?”
Pop gives me a weary look. He doesn’t like to go there because, like I said, he’s a very moral man. But he’ll go there and beat the worse of them there if he has to. “If you can’t, you can’t. But talk to me first.”
I can do that. “Yes, sir,” I say.
But then Pop’s not just leaving. He’s giving me that worried look again.
“What?” I ask him.
“This Laura,” he says. “You love this girl?”
I know why he’s asking. He’s worried that I’ll never find love like he found. But I’m not going to lie to him. “No,” I say. “Never.”
“Have you ever loved any girl?” he then asks me. And that question throws me. Because I’m a man in my thirties now. I’m no kid anymore. That’s why I don’t answer. But the answer is no.
WHAM!
We hear it, and we instantly know it’s a car wreck, but we can’t see anything from where we sit. We both stand up. Only it’s not right in front of the diner like it sounded. Me and Pop, like some of the others in the diner, hurry outside to see just what happened.
But when we get outside, and I see that it’s that woman, that same woman with that limping boy from the diner, and that she’s behind the wheel of one of the two wrecked cars, something insane happens. My heart drops. And I’m suddenly scared to death. I break away from my father’s side and run to that car as if it’s my wife and kid, not strangers, in that situation. And I know my old man’s got to think I’m losing it. Why else would I be that concerned about two strangers? But I am. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know the fuck why.
But I am.
CHAPTER EIGHT
We’re in the car and I’m backing out from that diner. I figure we’d go and wait at the hotel, at the Jericho Inn, until four, when they’re supposed to conduct the interviews. But I notice Ayden’s rubbing his leg.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him, looking down at his leg. “It’s hurting?”
“It’s okay.”
It’s the stress, I know it is. He doesn’t know what school he’ll go to next, or if he’ll even like this town. He doesn’t know where our next meal is coming from, or if we’ll have a place to lay our heads tonight. It has to be stress.
“We’ll be fine, Ayden,” I say to him. “God’s gonna let me get that job, you hear me? I asked Him and He’s gonna let me get it. And it’s gonna be a good job, with good pay, and we’ll gonna be fine. You hear me? Have some faith.”
“In you?” Ayden asks, looking at me as if he wants me to finally disprove all that negative stuff my mother said about me.
But that’s too much to ask. I’m not lying to my child, not even about that. “In God,” I say to him. “Have faith in God.”
He nods, but I notice he’s still rubbing his leg. And that’s when it happens, when I look down that second time. I’ve only driven a few hundred feet from that diner when it happens.
WHAM!
My car runs a stop sign just as I’m looking down at Ayden’s leg again and runs right smack into another car, hitting the back-passenger door. I slam on my brakes so fast that they seem to lock up and I’m sliding across the interse
ction. I place my arm in front of Ayden, to make sure he doesn’t get tossed around, as we keep sliding and swerving. Then we come to a stop.
I ask Ayden if he’s okay. He says he’s okay, which makes me feel better. But when I look through the rearview, to make sure nobody’s driving up behind me to hit me too, I notice that the people are pouring out of the diner, like this little wreck is gonna to be the highlight of their small-town day. All I need. I unbuckle my seatbelt.
I’m mostly worried about the man behind the wheel of the car I just hit. He’s getting out, and looks okay, but I can tell he’s pissed. His car isn’t brand new, but it looks better than mine. I tell Ayden to stay put, and I get out too.
As soon as I step out of my car, the guy, a white guy wearing shades and looking all arrogant, runs up on me like he’s gonna fight me. What the fuck? Then, before I can even register what he’s doing, he pushes me so hard that I fall against my car door.
Now I’m mad too. It was a fucking accident. What’s his fucking problem?
But just as I pushed myself off of the car door he’d just pushed me into, ready to beat his ass even though I know I can’t because who’s gonna take care of Ayden if I go to jail, another white guy grabs the man who pushed me and punches him so hard he falls down. I remember the guy. He was in the diner. And he’s even more pissed than I am.
He grabs up the guy again by his shirt, and slams him against my car, too, right beside where I’m standing. “It was an accident,” he’s saying to the guy. “What the fuck’s wrong with you? She didn’t do that shit on purpose!”
He’s talking my language, because I was thinking the same thing! And the guy, the guy whose car I hit, does calm his ass down. Maybe because the guy who punched him is so much bigger than him. Or maybe because the guy who punched him has eyes so big and chilling that he knows better. I don’t know. But I’m glad the big guy is on my side. I’m glad he’s taking care of a problem I couldn’t afford to take care of. I’m not going to jail and leaving my son alone for anybody, I don’t care how mad they make me.
Bobby Sinatra: In All the Wrong Places (The Rags to Romance Series Book 1) Page 5
