Eddie's last day at the store was Thursday, June 27th. He and Rita had plans to spend his last day home together before he and the band met up with The Bourbon Brothers at a little community college in Westchester county, an area, except for income level, not unlike where the boys grew up. His good-byes completed, Eddie headed home to wait for Rita to call with the plans for their last big night together - at least for a while. When the call came, it wasn't what he had expected.
The day started out well for Rita. She finally got a job in a tiny souvenir shop in Greenport, within walking distance of the ferry. When she got home she began alternately planning the night with Eddie and trying to figure out how to handle the next couple of months. The events of the next hour or so would go a long way in making those decisions.
When Rita walked into her home it was to the sound of a child crying. Screaming would be more accurate. She followed the sound to the living room and found a young woman, the woman she had seen with her father, sitting on the couch. The TV was on, she had a cigarette in one hand and a beer can in the other. The child was in a playpen and it wanted out.
"Hello," was all Rita could muster.
"Hi, I know who you are. You're Rita and I'm Julie. Your dad's told me so much about you." She was standing now, still holding both her props.
"Is that your daughter?" Rita asked.
"It's my son. I like long hair. His name is Robert." Robert was screaming louder than ever.
"Why's he crying like that?"
"Oh, he just wants to get out and run around. But I was afraid he'd break something. I'll quiet him down. Your dad will be home in a little while. He told me we should get to know each other until he gets here."
Julie only resembled the woman Rita saw with her father that night. Her hair was straight and looked to be dirty. Her sweatshirt had stains and her shorts were badly wrinkled. Even from across the room she could tell the child smelled from urine and looked to be far too big for its cell. Rita knew she should say something like "how about a cup of coffee," but this person was already drinking beer and what Rita really wanted to say was "get your smelly kid and your raggedy ass out of my house."
"Can I get you anything?" Rita said as she picked up two toy cars at her feet.
"Oh, I'll do that. No, no, I'm fine. Please don't let me stop you from doing whatever it was you were going to do."
Rita remembered that Big Bob said Julie worked in a bank. She had imagined it was as a teller, now seeing her, speaking to her, she had to ask.
"My father said you worked for a bank."
"Yeah, I'm over in Riverhead. It's a great job but it won't last much longer."
"What do you do?" Rita asked. She really wanted to ask, "What the hell could you possibly do there?"
"Well, I give out free gifts. They've got this thing goin' on where if you sign up with the bank you get different gifts based on how much you put in. It's over in two weeks and I'll be out of work again. Your dad said he told you we're gonna be staying here for a while. I hope you don't mind."
"Yeah, he told me. It's fine. Excuse me, I've got a couple of things I've gotta do right away."
What Rita had to do was get out of that room and gather her thoughts. She walked through the house and out the back door. She sat down leaning against the big maple tree that stood on the far end of their property, a good hundred feet from the house. She could still hear poor Robert crying.
Big Bob got in around five o'clock after popping a few quick ones at the only bar on the north side of the Island. He sat speaking to Julie for several minutes before knocking on Rita's bedroom door.
"Come on out, Rita. Let's talk about dinner."
Rita didn't want to talk to Big Bob or Julie about dinner or anything else but she came out of her room.
"So you met Julie and Robert. He's cute, huh?"
Rita forced a smile but she couldn't force out a word so she just nodded her head.
"I thought I'd send out for some food. Feel like Italian?"
"Whatever you guys want is fine." Rita's smile was gone and she was losing the battle to mask her feelings.
"You okay? You look unhappy."
Julie was still smoking, but she was now reading a magazine and was totally oblivious to the conversation that was starting to heat up.
"I'm fine," Rita replied, making it perfectly clear she wasn't.
Big Bob was sitting six or seven feet away and across from Rita, but the liquor smell was evident. His face, always reddish, was now red.
"Speak up, Rita. Say what you're thinking."
"What are the arrangements going to be?"
"Like what?"
"Like who watches the kid, who cleans up the house, who cooks?"
"Good questions. I was just telling Julie I got her a job in a diner over in Riverhead. She can start next week. We think you'd make a great baby-sitter for the kid. You won't have to take that job you just got; we'll pay you whatever they were gonna give you."
"No thanks, I like my new job. I don't know anything about watching a kid." The irony in those words wasn't lost on Rita.
"Listen, it's just till you go back to school. By then Julie'll find somebody. Maybe she'll find somebody quicker than that."
"But I won't have a job if I don't take it now. Anyway, I gave my word."
"Screw your word. We need you." Big Bob was trying to stay cool. "Come on, Rita, we'll be like a little family."
"I'm not doing it." Rita got up and walked to her room.
"You'll do it 'cause I'm your father and I say you'll do it. You're living here and I make the rules." Big Bob followed her into her room.
"Please shut the door. I want to talk to you," Rita asked from a chair in the corner.
"Okay, what is it?"
"Daddy, she's a drinker. Looks like a big drinker. Looks like she doesn't take care of her kid that great, but that's not my business. But the drinking... You're bad enough without living with someone like that."
"Hey, that's none of your goddamn business, my drinking. She takes care of me and I love her."
"Takes care of you? By the looks of her, she can't even take care of herself. You know I watched mommy drink herself to death, now I've got to watch you? No way.
"Don't worry about me. I'm gonna be just fine."
"I'm not gong to baby-sit for that kid, daddy. I'd rather go live somewhere else."
"Come here, Rita, come on." Big Bob took Rita by the hand and walked her back to the living room.
Robert wasn't crying. In fact, he was sleeping and so was Julie. She'd fallen asleep on the couch, spilling the remains of her beer can on the rug. Her cigarette had dropped onto a pillow cushion and was smoldering. Rita ran over, pulled the cushion out from under Julie, waking her up.
"What happened?"
"You burned my mother's cushion and spilled beer on her carpet, that's what happened." Robert started crying again.
"Hey, cut that "my mother's" shit out. It's my house and my stuff. Get the hell out of here. Go back in your room."
"Gee, honey, I'm sorry." Julie was rubbing the beer stain with a shirt Robert had discarded.
"Stop, you'll make it worse." Rita took the shirt out of Julie's hand. Big Bob took Rita's arm and yanked her away.
"I said get your ass out of here."
He looked at Julie. "She's as stubborn as her old lady. Come on, let's go, we'll get something to eat."
Rita was just standing in the corner of the room watching Big Bob and Julie pack up Robert. Neither person said anything else or even looked at Rita. In a moment they were gone.
Rita sat down on the floor, thinking about what had just happened. It took her a few minutes to decide her next course of action and when she did she sat with it for another few minutes before acting on it.
"Eddie, come on over right away. You've got to get me out of here before they come back."
"Who's they?" he asked into the phone.
"I'll tell you about it when you get here. Just come over."
When Eddie got to Rita's, she was waiting outside. In a couple of minutes they were on line for the ferry. Rita had been quiet until then and Eddie didn't push her. She was staring out her side window, seemingly into a bright sun while deciding what it was she wanted to say. The ferry arrived and Eddie rolled his car on.
"Let's stand on the deck," she said.
They got out and he took her hand. The action seemed to free her and she proceeded to give him a two minute synopsis of the last hour.
"You got any ideas?" Come on Eddie, she thought.
Eddie thought it over for a moment.
"Maybe I'll talk to my parents about our situation. Maybe we need to move everything up." He was working hard now. He knew what needed to be done, but it was a struggle to say the words.
"We'll ah, get married right away, before I leave tomorrow night." He was having difficulty breathing.
"Are you sure?"
"Hey, what's the difference, now or in a couple of months? You need his permission, you know."
"No, I don't know. How do you know?"
"I knew a guy. He was kind of in the same boat as us and his girl friend wasn't eighteen. Her parents had to sign. You've got to tell your old man."
"Gee, I never thought about that. I kind of thought that once I saw you wanted me to have the baby and for us to be together that was it. I've got to think about this."
The ferry was docking.
"Shit, I'm scared again. Will you come with me when I tell him?"
"Like ask for your hand, right?" Eddie was smiling and that made Rita smile.
"Yes, that's right."
"Do I ask for your hand before or after you tell him you're pregnant?" He smile was smaller now.
"After. Maybe I need to talk to him alone. I've got to think about this."
"You already said that. You don't have a long time to think. I'm leavin' tomorrow and if you're gonna stay at my house we've got to do everything right away."
Rita was quiet as Eddie just drove around the edges of Greenport, never wandering too far from the ferry dock. When Rita finally came to a decision, it was what he'd expected.
"Look, they went out to eat with the kid so they probably went to the diner. That means no booze. If I go talk to him now at least he'll be all sober. Take me home and go tell, I mean go ask, your parents."
"You sure?"
"No, but that's the plan."
When Eddie dropped Rita off, Big Bob and his potential new family hadn't yet returned. She went to her room, lied down on her bed and thought about her mother's last minutes of consciousness. The tears came quickly but she found herself wondering if she were crying for her mother or for herself and from the fear of what she was about to do. She came to think about Margaret Brodsky and how sad she'd become since Harold Stoneman killed himself. How so much had happened in such a few days.
She heard them come in the front door. She waited a few moments, took a deep breath, bit her lip and walked into the living room. Big Bob was lying on the sofa watching a baseball game. She sat down across from him without saying anything. He saw her but he, too, was quiet. They sat that way for a moment.
"Where's Julie, Daddy?"
"She's putting Robert to sleep." His words conveyed no discernible emotion.
"I'm one month pregnant. Me and Eddie want to get married and live at his parent's house." Rita was trembling.
Big Bob never moved a muscle. He immediately thought of the circumstances of his own marriage to Diana and considered telling Rita the story. He'd sworn to his wife he never would, and it was about the only promise he'd ever kept to her. Bob Willis was having a monumental struggle in his head as his daughter sat facing him across the room. He'd often thought he'd lost his best years, his late teens, early twenties, being married. The fact that he'd spent the next fifteen trying to make up for them wasn't a conscious consideration for him. Telling Rita would be the ultimate payback to the woman who stole his life. You're just like your mother he could say. Go ahead ruin that kid's life like she ruined mine.
"Would you want to marry him if you weren't pregnant?" He was still lying down, not facing Rita.
"No, not now, but eventually. We do really love each other."
"It's your decision. Do what you want."
Rita noticed Julie standing in the corner of the room. She was lighting a cigarette but looked up to catch Rita's glancing at her.
"I heard the last few things you guys said. Congratulations, sweetheart, I'm very happy for you."
Rita thought of responding to Julie, thanking her, but instead she got up and walked into her room.
Eddie's conversation with his parents was calm and uneventful. A few questions from his father, a few (more) tears from his mother and their promise of full support. They seemed to be a lot better with all of this than Eddie. He was having the coldest of feet. The more he thought about it, the more he knew that he didn't want tomorrow to be his wedding day.
When Rita heard Eddie's voice on the other end of the phone she knew something was wrong.
"Did you tell your parents?"
"Yeah, they were fine with everything. How 'bout you?"
"He just said it was my decision. Come pick me up."
When Big Bob heard Eddie's horn, he got up and walked to the door. He stood facing the room and in the way of his daughter.
"Excuse me, Daddy, Eddie's waiting."
"Bring him in. Let's talk." Big Bob motioned Rita to the door. She knew, under the circumstances, there was no choice. She walked outside and in a moment she returned with her newly betrothed.
"Hello, Mr. Willis."
"Hi Eddie, sit down. Would you like a beer?"
Eddie and Rita sat down on the sofa that Big Bob had just deserted. Julie sat on a chair in the far corner, beer can and ever-present cigarette. Big Bob stood.
"No, sir."
"So, you're gonna be a father, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
"And a husband."
"Yes, sir."
"Do you have any money?"
"I've saved almost three thousand dollars from my job at the I.G.A."
Big Bob had no idea Eddie had quit his job and was about to go on the road for two months.
"What do your parents think of all this?"
Big Bob also didn't know Eddie's parents had never actually laid eyes on Rita.
"It's okay. They're okay with it. We'll be living downstairs."
"Are you ready to give up .... to be a one woman man? Forever?"
"Yes, sir." The resolve that was in Eddie's voice at the beginning of Big Bob's interrogation was diminishing.
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yes, sir, definitely."
The last three syllables of "definitely" were indistinguishable.
""Sure you don't want a beer?"
"No, sir, we're going to the movies. Got to catch the eight-thirty show."
Eddie grabbed Rita's hand, got up and just about pulled her to the door. Only Julie spoke.
"Have a nice time you guys."
The two lovers rode toward the ferry without speaking. Eddie was feeling a weight pulling down on him. It began in his throat and filled his body down through his stomach. It was just starting to effect his breathing when Rita broke the silence.
"What movie were you talking about?"
"I just said that to get out of there. How do you think I did?"
"What do you mean?"
Eddie realized he was heading down the wrong (or was it the right?) road.
"Do you think he liked me?"
"You mean did he believe you?"
"No, that's not what I mean."
"Well, it's what I mean and I don't know if he did, but I didn't. You sounded scared out of your mind."
"Give me a break. It's a big step. Aren't you a little scared?"
"Yeah, but not about what you're scared of."
Eddie, getting better at this new game, understood her meaning.
"I love you and you know it."
"That's not the issue, Eddie. Do you want to get married tomorrow? That's the issue."
The word "tomorrow" sounded like it came from out of a bullhorn six inches from Eddie's ear. They reached the line for the ferry.
"Don't get on, Eddie. Turn around."
"Let's go to my house, Rita. It's time you met my parents in person."
"I'd rather not right now."
"We're going." Eddie put his foot down, maybe for the first time, and the thing was he wasn't sure why.
"Good, they're home." Eddie saw his parent's car in the driveway and brought Rita in. He expected to see them watching TV in the den and when he didn't, he called out. At first there was no response, then a "We'll be right down," from his mom. The fact is when a nineteen year old young man leaves the house to be with his girl friend on their last night together for two months, the parents can expect to have the night to themselves. So, when Eddie came home, they were, to put it delicately, deep in each other's arms.
Eddie's dad came down first.
"Dad, this is Rita."
"Pleasure to finally meet you. Please sit down. Mrs. Brown will be right down. Eddie, go pour us a few glasses of soda. So, Rita, how you doing?"
"Fine thank you. Eddie's told me a lot about you."
Eddie's mom, looking mostly back together, joined them.
"Well, well, look at you. I can see why Eddie's so crazy about you." Sherry Brown hugged Rita for more than a few seconds and Rita hugged her back. Eddie brought in a tray, glasses and a big bottle of Coke.
"Eddie," his mom called out, "go get some pretzels and chips. It'll be like a little party. So, how are you feelin', hon?"
Jesus Christ, Eddie thought, from a badgered witness to a butler - some night! But his problems for the evening weren't over. After a few minutes of junk food and pleasantries, Dennis Brown figured he'd get the ball rolling.
"Well, this is kind of awkward, but what are you guys going to do? Rita, we want you to know we want to help you two any way we can and if you'd give us the honor, we'd love you to stay with us until you get something better. I assume you spoke to your dad and he's okay with all of this?"
"Yes, he said it was my decision."
"Eddie seemed to say you two were going to get a little justice of the peace kind of marriage tomorrow before he left," Eddie's mom said. "But then he seemed to say you both weren't sure."
If Rita was sure of anything it was that Eddie didn't want to get married tomorrow.
"Mrs. Brown, everything happened so fast. I'd like to stay with you here. My father's girl friend and son just moved in and .... ah, well, I'd like to stay here. But we were thinking, instead of rushing, maybe we'll get married in September when Eddie gets back."
Eddie's mother loved the idea and said so. But Eddie, now there was a man experiencing a joyous moment. And relief. He really wasn't sure what the hell was going to happen when he brought Rita home, but this, well, he couldn't have asked for a better going away gift. No sir.
In another moment the two women (now) of the house were downstairs making arrangement plans and Eddie was lying on the sofa, content as all get out.
"When you get back, son, things in your life are going to be changing a lot. You know that, right?"
Ah, reality. "Yeah, I know. It'll be okay."
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Material Copyright © 1998-2003 by Jim Bearden