“I don’t know. We never got around to talking about it.” Bill thought of his wife locking herself in the back room of their house. She was protecting herself from him, frightened he would beat her. She was right; he wanted to. He felt aroused just yelling at her through the door. Before he left to go to his mother’s, he jacked-off in their bathroom, making sure to leave the evidence for that bitch to see. He knew he was slipping into a place of insanity where, if he weren’t careful, he would not be able to come back from. Then he thought of Sandra. “So did anyone else show up today?” he asked his mother.
Bernice thought a moment. He could see her struggling to remember what she did five minutes ago.
“Sandra. Sandra came, too. They talked me into selling Harold’s art collection. It’s for the best. Pam said she thought just what was in this room alone was probably worth over one million dollars. I’m ready to find out. What about you? It’s your inheritance.” Bernice looked at him. It would ultimately be up to him.
“I don’t want an inheritance. I want to live now. I can’t even afford to feed my boys.” He remembered that he hadn’t seen his sons yet. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough. Anne might go to jail. He would bring his sons here to live and sell the house in the Village. It had been a huge mistake buying it.
“How are they?” his mother asked, looking intently at him. “Have you even seen them yet?”
He shook his head no.
“Ha! I didn’t think so.” She looked down at her magazine.
“Mother, what the hell does that mean?” He was challenging his own mother. This had never happened before in his recollection. Falsely, she had been held in highest esteem by both of her sons, the misdeeds of her parenting buried along with the ugly secrets her husband kept. “You weren’t exactly Mother Superior,” he said, not sure if the reference was appropriate, but not caring at that point. Like Anne yelling at Bill, Bill had just crossed a line with his mother that had been drawn many years before.
“My children were always fed, and there was always a parent available to them here in this house.” She blanched slightly, hoping that her son would not go there. But she had started it.
Bill leaned over, close to his mother, and all of the tenderness he had felt for her yesterday dissolved. His wrath for his father may be unleashed full force on his mother if he didn’t do something to control it.
“Mildred fed us, Mother dear. Mildred, not you. And do you remember why our maid had to feed us?” He forced his mother to look at him by standing up and leaning across the table so he was face to face with her. “Answer me, Mother.” He had managed to keep his voice low, but it was more intimidating that way. Bernice pulled away from him, scared of him and what he was about to say to her.
“Yes, I remember why!” She didn’t say
because I was drunk
out loud, but she thought it. And looking him in the eye, she repeated, “I remember.”
“So you don’t want to go there now, do you?”
She shook her head no.
“I didn’t think so,” Bill said. “Hurry up and ring for Mildred. I want to eat and then get started making our list. We need to call an auction house tomorrow. They will be thrilled to get this house, I can tell you that much.” He sat down, throwing his mother a kiss. “Love you, Mom!”
T
om Adams was known as a good guy around the precinct. He was young, just twenty-nine, the son and grandson of policemen, and he was neither Italian nor Irish, so he managed to avoid any in-house altercations. His counterparts in the force, young men who took advantage of their status as officers of the NYPD and had reputations as scoundrels with the women, were in awe of Tom.
“So you are an urban legend,” Sandra told him.
Tom laughed. He was the guy who older cops were trying to fix their daughters up with for a date. “No, I don’t think so. I’m just a nice guy.” He smiled at her as they sat in the unmarked car in front of her apartment. After they left Bernice, he took her to his favorite place in the neighborhood for lunch. Time flew when he was with her. “You could say I’m trustworthy.”
Sandra looked at him.
Oh my God, that smile
. He was so terrifically handsome; even his teeth were perfect. But it wasn’t in a smug, self-satisfied way as Jack had been.
Too gorgeous for his own good
was the silent thought of the other women in the office about Jack.
“Can you come in?” she blurted out without thinking. “Oh, of course you can’t; you’re on duty.”
He looked at his wristwatch. “I’m finished in ten minutes. Let’s go in.” They got out of the car, leaving it
on the street. Being a policeman had some advantages. He followed close behind her as she walked up to her door.
Down the street, from approximately the same place where Sandra had watched him talking on his cell phone to her the day before, Bill Smith observed the attractive couple as Sandra attempted to unlock the door to her apartment. Bill watched as she struggled with the key, and the handsome man placed his hand over hers to assist her. Sandra turned around and looked up at the man as he looked down at her face. Bill could see her smiling, all the way down the street. He was seething.
He’d dropped off his suitcase at his mother’s house, and while she talked nonstop about Sandra, they made a list of the art that hung on the street level of the house. He was determined to go to Sandra’s as soon as he could slip away. Now he had to wait for this pencil-neck to leave her apartment. Not that he had anything to hide! He simply didn’t want to share his time with her while another man was around.
Who is this guy, anyway?
Bill hadn’t noticed the unmarked car parked on the street, blocking eastbound traffic on Eighty-second Street.
Sandra led the way down the dark hallway to her apartment door. She could feel Tom behind her, and she liked it. She would not resist this relationship. There was no reason to; he was single, employed, and seemed to like her. She would reveal the only fly in the ointment—Jack’s unborn baby. But, so far, Tom had given her no reason to think that what was happening here was anything more than a police detective watching over his charge. He
hadn’t said one thing that could even be misconstrued as flirtatious or romantic. And until he did, her secret would remain just that. She was barely showing, so he probably wouldn’t guess it—yet.
“I’m going to fix a cup of tea. Would you like one?” she asked. She put her purse down and walked into the kitchen, Tom following behind her. She turned to see if he was nodding an answer, and then he made a move that gave her the reason she sought.
He put his hands on her shoulders, pulled her to him, and kissed her smack on the mouth. She didn’t resist, but sort of fell against him and put her hands up on his shoulders, too. They finally made their way around his head.
She ended the kiss and put her head on his chest, snickering. “Was that a yes or a no?”
He held her gently but firmly and then laughed a full, deep, hearty laugh. “A yes,” he answered, looking down into her eyes. “Wow, I’m not sure what just happened, but I guess a thank-you is in order.”
She backed up a little from him. “You don’t know what happened? You kissed me full on the lips, and I kissed you back!” She laughed, needing so badly to keep things real, not to read anything into what he had done.
Let it be real
.
She allowed him to pull her to him again, but this time, it was just for a hug. If this moment could last, she would do what she could to facilitate it. Only pulling away when she felt the time was right, she went back to fixing their tea. She took the teakettle from the stove, filled it with water, and placed it back on the stove, and all the while, Tom was right behind her, with his hands on her
shoulders, offering her companionship and not willing to break the mood, the physical connection. Sandra decided then she had to tell him about the baby. He would accept it or not. They barely knew each other, but she felt the instant attraction, and it was obvious he did, too.
“Here, let me take this to the table,” she said, lifting the tray with the tea things on it. “Come sit with me. I have something to say to you.”
He followed her obediently to the table and sat down. He was thinking,
I’m in trouble for stealing a kiss
. She put a mug down in front of each chair and took the tea things off the tray. He sat in the same chair he sat in yesterday, and she took the tray back to the kitchen. Tom watched her and smiled.
Boy oh boy, I didn’t expect feeling this!
he thought. He’d never lived with a woman or been engaged or even wanted to “go steady” with someone. Sandra came back from the kitchen with the teakettle and poured hot water into each mug. She was graceful for being so tall. Poised and willowy. She sensed him smiling at her and smiled back, although she didn’t look up at him. She didn’t want to lose her nerve.
“So sit down and talk to me. I’m moving too fast, is that right? You want me to slow down. I stole a kiss and am proud of it!”
They laughed together.
“No, that’s not it,” she replied. She cupped the teacup with her hands to warm them, even though it was ninety degrees outside, and looked into the cup. “I wasn’t going to tell you what I am about to tell you because it wasn’t relevant. But since the kiss—and now tell me if I
am wrong.” She looked right up into eyes. “But we have something here, am I right?”
He nodded yes without hesitation and said, “We definitely have something.”
“Well then, I have to tell you—I’m pregnant.”
He looked into her eyes, the smile still on his face. He pushed the chair back and stood up, all six feet three of him, and walked around to her side, bending over her and looking down at her belly. “May I?” he asked.
She nodded yes.
He placed one hand on the back of her chair and the other over her belly. No one else had felt the baby move yet, or really even acknowledged it yet, outside of Pam. Her heart soared. She had just laid eyes on this man one day ago. Was she daft?
“The father of the baby is dead,” she told him. “Bill’s brother, Jack. It’s another reason that Bill is so angry with me. Jack was married,” she added. “But his wife, Pam—the woman I introduced you to this morning—and I have become the best of friends.”
The sensation Tom had, he would later tell Sandra, was of being on a small boat with her, out in the middle of the ocean. They had no paddles or motor, but the wind was blowing them to all the right places. He pulled up a chair so he could keep his hand on Sandra’s belly.
“How far along are you?” he asked her.
“Almost five months,” she answered. “Jack didn’t know about the baby. We would have probably broken up if he hadn’t died,” she lied. “He loved his wife; our relationship had run its course.” She didn’t add that if he had known about the baby, she was almost certain he would
have left Pam and they would have gotten married. She would never repeat that; it was possible she had it all wrong.
“The baby doesn’t change the way I
think
I could feel about you,” he said. “I mean, I am trying to be as truthful as I can, and I have never, ever felt this way about anyone before after twenty-four hours.” He chuckled. “You’re probably thinking, ‘What a schmuck.’ Go ahead, say it.” He was laughing, though. She liked him more and more. “Thank you for telling me, though. I’m not scared off or anything.”
Not yet, anyway
. He picked up his mug and sipped hot tea, thinking to himself,
Tea, babies…Oh my God, if my mother could see me now
, while another voice said a little louder,
Run, Tom, run
.
O
n Monday morning, the company Marie worked for merged with a larger firm, one whose employees were going to move into the Midtown offices that Marie loathed so completely. When she arrived at work that day, the receptionist whispered that a bevy of cute men from across town had just arrived with boxes of files—their new coworkers. Marie’s ears perked up. She was ready for some cute men.
Hopefully, they weren’t all married
, she thought.
Married or gay
.
“Meeting in the conference room in fifteen,” her boss yelled to her from down the hall. Marie frowned; he was such a jerk. She went to her office, head down and eyes averted. Strangers were standing around, talking, staring at her, smiling, and trying for friendliness. She wasn’t biting. She had been ignored by the staff for all the years she worked there, and there was no reason to change the system now. Closing the door quickly behind her, she was happy that she had her own office, and there wasn’t any chance that someone new would be sharing it. It was hardly big enough for one person.
She turned on her computer and went to the window to look out while it started up. She could see the top of the Empire State Building if she looked between buildings. Off to the right was the UPS terminal. She loved watching the trucks zoom in and out, picturing them empty going
in and ready to explode they were so full going out. The men who worked there were potential dates, but she never looked, never gave them a minute of her time, because she had a permanent date with Jack. Maybe she should give those men a second chance. Later, she would go to the deli on the corner for lunch and, this time, not be oblivious to the conversation swirling around her. So many years had passed, and she was no longer young.
Her phone ringing brought her back to reality.