“You pictured them together, you saw her making him lunch and dropping him off at school. First grade, second grade. All that time, you couldn’t sleep at night, right? Wondering if he was okay, if she was treating him right.”
“That’s right,” said Ravi.
“I think Eliza doesn’t want to wonder the same thing about her kid.”
Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Eliza just wanted to stick it to Johnny.
“So she’d rather give the child to a stranger?” Ravi looked exhausted.
“A stranger would want the baby because they want a baby,” Jude said. “Not because they wish Teddy was alive.”
Ravi took a final swill of his oversweetened coffee. He shook his head, but he didn’t dispute this. It was true that he hadn’t been in the market for a child. Arpita had taken some convincing. But he hadn’t been in the market for a wife, either. Surprises happen, he’d told her. Wonderful surprises, Arpita. Not long after their meeting at the restaurant, Johnny had called with the proposal that had already been forming over the Milans’ dining room table. “Ravi, how big is your house?” And that was it. Ravi could not say no.
He leaned forward and tapped his briefcase. “This is a shame, quite a shame. It would be easier for all parties if she would cooperate. We wouldn’t have to sue for custody. We could avoid the court battle, the battery of tests. We would be acting in the best interest of the child.”
The boy stopped rolling his skateboard. “What kind of tests?”
“A DNA test, a drug test. Johnny tells me the girl has been abusing drugs. If we must, we will request that the judge order a test to determine if she is fit. Fit to decide her child’s fate.” The waitress returned with their bill, and Ravi placed a credit card on the table. “I have witnessed my share of unfit mothers,” he said. “I know one when I see one.”
Rooster answered the door with a towel around his waist. He’d had a good thirty seconds between the buzzer and the knock to throw on some clothes, but he stood there at the door bare-chested, barefoot, the black curls on his tattooed chest matted and wet. He was a hairy motherfucker, and he’d lost even more weight. He looked like a drowned black cat.
“Where’s Johnny?”
“Why? You gonna finish kickin’ his ass?” Rooster did not sound threatened, but the Band-Aid on his forehead, covering his own wound from the riot, made it difficult for Jude to take him seriously.
“I know he’s staying here. I know he sleeps in that bed with you, okay?”
Rooster thrust Jude into the apartment and closed the door. It seemed bigger, though not big, with the Murphy bed hidden away. Johnny’s army duffel was in the corner, next to his tattoo case and his guitar. “Jesus, you got a loud mouth, kid.” Rooster was half-laughing. “Tell everyone for all I care, but Johnny won’t be very happy with you.” He swaggered into the bathroom. With the door open, he sprayed a shot of deodorant into each armpit.
“I’m not happy with him, either.” Jude dropped his skateboard against the door. “Where is he?”
Rooster said, “Went out to buy some rubbers,” examining his teeth in the mirror. Rubbas. “Regular and Magnum. I won’t tell you who gets which.”
“Oh, Jeezum, don’t make me throw up.”
“You axed me.”
Jude stood with his arms crossed in the middle of the room. He didn’t want to sit. Every surface he imagined Johnny and Rooster fucking on. He had been mostly successful in fighting off these images, but now, in this apartment, they were not to be escaped. It wasn’t long ago that he’d learned how gay men actually had sex; Teddy’s mother, laughing at them, had used the word heinie. Now he saw Rooster bending Johnny over the bathroom sink, the kitchen counter, the milk crate on his delivery bike. Johnny fucking his hairy back, this man named Rooster who said “axed,” this bald, punk, homo Tony Danza. Rooster crying out, Ay, oh, oh, ay!
“Did you come over here to tell Johnny he’s a fag? ’Cause it ain’t news to him, not no more.”
“I need to talk to him about Eliza. His wife.”
“Soon to be ex.” Rooster came out of the bathroom. “His lawyer guy’s workin’ on a divorce as we speak. The Krishnas don’t look kindly at divorce, but it don’t look like he’s got a choice.”