stops by the house with Joel, he’s happy and distracted.
In any case, I know I don’t have much time. I try to tell Joel when he spends the night, but I end up feeding him instead. I hand him a Heineken when he walks through the door, because I know he likes to have a few bottles at the end of the day. Over the past two weeks, I have made two meat lasagnas, a key lime pie, a roasted chicken, seafood risotto, and turkey sausage chili. I realize, as I cook, that I am making my favorite foods, not his. We haven’t been together long enough for me to know his favorites. Or maybe most women know their boyfriends’ tastes by the four-month point. Maybe I should have asked.
When I serve him the seafood risotto at eleven o’clock one night, I study his face to see if he likes it. He seems to like everything. Joel is very agreeable. He is very nice. He is someone I was probably a few weeks from breaking up with, before this whole pregnancy thing happened. He’s not in love with me, which is fine, but he is in love with someone else. He is not even close to being over his last girlfriend, a loudmouthed redhead named Margaret. He’s actively terrified of her. When he and I are out in public, Joel is always looking over his shoulder, checking to make sure she’s not in sight. I wonder if she used to hit him. He denies it, but she must have done something pretty terrible to make him this nervous. Sometimes, while we’re having sex—and the sex is pretty damn good, which is probably the best explanation for why we’ve stayed together for four months—I catch him glancing over at the bedroom door with that same look of fear on his face, as if he fully expects her to walk through any minute.
It may be that the spying Joel does in his other job has helped make him paranoid. He is the assistant to Ramsey’s mayor, Vince Carrelli, which sounds impressive, but Joel got the job because his dad is on the town council. He took the position because it gives him the flexibility to devote most of his time to the fire department. What he does for Mayor Carrelli is check up on activities around town. Joel drives by the local parks and keeps an eye on the high school (which is conveniently right across the street from the fire department), the alley behind the 7-Eleven where most of the small-town drug deals take place, and various construction sites. He runs into my father frequently on his rounds, as many of the construction sites in town are my father’s. Mayor Carrelli also owns and works part-time in the barbershop on Main Street, so between the gossip in the barbershop and the information Joel comes up with, the mayor is able to maintain a nearly complete knowledge of what goes on in Ramsey.
Clearly, if I want Joel to hear the news from me, it’s imperative that I tell him about the baby soon. I’m lucky he doesn’t know already.
On the afternoon following the second meat lasagna, when I am driving down Main Street with the ingredients for a key lime pie in a grocery bag in the backseat, I stop at a red light and Weber opens the passenger-side door of my Honda. He climbs in and slams the door behind him.
“Jesus Christ, Weber.” I press my palm against my collarbone. “You can’t do that to a person! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
Weber smiles. His crew cut looks freshly mowed. He is wearing a black T-shirt covered with Jon Bon Jovi’s smiling face. “Can you give me a ride to the fire department, please, milady? My truck’s in the shop.”
“Fine.” Now that the fright has passed, I am annoyed. I have enough to worry about without car doors flying open when I’m not expecting it.
I haven’t driven ten feet before he opens his big mouth. “How about you let me read your tarot cards?”
“My what?”
“Your tarot cards. Let me read your cards. Your aura has been really screwed up lately, and the cards will let us know what’s going on.”
I stare over at him. “You’re a crazy bastard.”
“I’m betting the deception card will come up big time.”
I look for an opening in the traffic, so I can pull over and kick him out, but I am blocked in