“When everybody else finds out?”
He nods, clearly uncomfortable with his own answer.
“That’s just great.” I’ll probably have to order lunch for the announcement, too. When I’m dumped, it’s a public, catered affair.
“I’m sorry. It’s not ideal,” he admits. “But I promise we’ll talk about it alone as soon as we have a chance. I have a lot to say…”
“Whatever,” I sigh, dismissing his offer. “I’m just a cog. On the Jude wheel.”
“How can you say that?” he asks, slumping into a chair.
I resume my perch on top of the dryer, where it’s warm. “That’s the reality, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely not! Where are you getting that?” Pulling his knit hat from his head, he drops it into his lap, then tries unsuccessfully to press his hair down against his head. It looks unwashed.
Actually, upon closer inspection, he looks terrible, in general. I experience a small twinge of satisfaction from that. I’m not sure how much credit I can take for it, but I’m sure it’s a little bit.
“All signs are pointing there,” I reply vaguely.
“You’re reading them wrong.”
I shrug as if it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. “Doesn’t seem like I am.”
His jaw tightens, then he says, “I guess we’ll have to table that one for now, because I’m not at liberty to tell you anything that would change your perceptions.”
“How convenient.”
“Speaking of… I have to say… your use of the word ‘inconvenient’ last night really threw me off.”
“What?”
“Yes. You said you hated to inconvenience me, or some such thing, and it reinforced my suspicions that you were giving me the, ‘I’m pregnant’ speech. Again, I’m so sorry I misunderstood.”
Coldly, I reply, “Well, since you’re so familiar with it, I can see how you would think you could name that tune in two notes.” Suddenly, my heart is pounding. This is it. I can tell by the caught look on his face.
“Oh, that. Well. Yes.”
“Do you have a kid?”
“No, I haven’t,” he answers calmly and quietly.
“You and Kiersten don’t have a child together? Or you and anyone else?” I feel like I have to ask every possible question so he can’t slip through any honesty loopholes.
He shakes his head once. “No.”
“Just ‘no’?”
He throws his hands up. “That’s the answer to your question. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
“I want you to explain the sentence, ‘I know this talk,’ which you said when you incorrectly assumed yesterday that I was telling you I was pregnant.” I cross my arms over my chest and wait.
His nostrils flare. He rubs the back of his neck. “Right. When we were getting divorced, Kiersten came to me and told me she was pregnant. I reacted a bit more maturely with her than with you,—again, sorry—but still not as well as I should have, looking back…”
“Maybe you can perfect your technique with subsequent girlfriends,” I snipe.
He grits his teeth, then continues, “Anyway, the more I thought about it and did the maths, the more I realized that something wasn’t adding up. I knew about her boyfriend, of course, so I was legitimately suspicious the child wasn’t mine. I told her I wanted a DNA test done when the baby was born. It turned out to be unnecessary, however.”
“Why? She decided it would be easier to just raise the kid alone than drag you kicking and screaming into fatherhood?”
“The child was black.”
That shuts me up. “Oh.”
“The best thing about it? Her boyfriend wasn’t.”
I catch myself snickering with him about that and immediately stop. I clear my throat and play with my shoelace. “That still doesn’t excuse the way you acted last night.”
“I didn’t say it did.” He flaps his hat against his knee. “To my credit, though, I never once asked if I was the father.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“What? I think that’s important.”
“That you didn’t add insult to injury? That makes you a prince, huh?” The dryer stops, so I jump down and open it to retrieve my clothes. I’m so ready for this conversation to be over. All I need to do is collect my things and go upstairs, where I can lock the door in his smug face. “You’re disgusting.”
“I only mean that I could have been a bigger jerk, believe it or not.”
“You were still inappropriate.”
“Granted.”
“Especially because… never mind. My feelings were really hurt by the whole thing. Your reaction to the possibility of my being pregnant is an infinitesimal part of it.” I slap the last pair of panties on top of the pile in the basket, then impulsively bury them under some other clothes.
When I turn around to leave the laundry room, he stands, too. “I reacted badly all round. I admit that. I feel especially badly about giving you the impression that I’m glad it was merely your parents’ deaths you wanted to talk about and not the other thing.” He reaches out to touch my shoulder as I pass him. I shrug him off.
“Don’t. You can tell a lot about a person by the way he reacts under stress. I found out a lot about you last night. A lot I didn’t like.” He turns his head and juts out his jaw. “So… I hope it’s a relief to have one less thing to occupy your mind during this stressful time in your life.”
His eyes snap back to me. “What do you mean?”
My eyelids flutter as more tears gather behind them, but my voice is steady when I say, “If you think I’m going to sit by like a pathetic… virgin… and wait for you to leave me behind while you move on with the rest of your fabulous life and career, you’re nuts.” I flip the light switch
