Page 98 of Shame the Devil

“Sorry,” Blake said. “What?”

Oscar said, “I have a feeling we’re about to find out. Dyma, go get that other bottle of wine. Can’t have an Italian dinner and a knock-down drag-out without another bottle of wine.”

“I don’t do knock-down drag-outs,” Jennifer said.

“Yet,” Oscar said.

“Right,” Harlan said. He couldn’t very well stand here and declaim like some kind of B actor, so instead, he said, “Show me where those chairs are, Dyma.”

“I’ll open the wine,” Blake said, and got up to do it. “I’ll set the places, too. I had no idea this dinner would be quite so interesting. I’m reserving judgment, but if you’ve messed with Jennifer, Kristiansen, I’m going to have something to say about it.”

“Get in line,” Oscar said, the eyebrows sticking out more than ever.

Dyma said, “Whatever. I guess we’re not going to that show, Annabelle. Right. Chairs.”

* * *

Jennifer couldn’t figurethis out. Harlan looked mad, and not just because his hair was short again, which made him look tougher. Why would he be mad, though? There were no real surprises here.

A few minutes, then, crowding a couple more places onto a table that was a stretch for five, let alone seven, dishing up lasagna and salad in the kitchen, her grandpa pouring wine. But finally, she was looking across the table into Harlan’s twilight-sky eyes, focusing on him, on this, and saying, “I don’t get it. Why do you look mad?Ishould be the one who’s mad.” Clearly, her dangerously manipulative stage was going to happen sometime later than age thirty-four.

He said, “I don’t look mad. I look serious and determined.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Oscar muttered.

Dyma said, “Excuse me.What?”

Jennifer took a deep breath and said, “Well, as it happens, I’m pregnant. And I need to ask you for that job in Portland,” she told Blake. “With your company, I mean, if the offer’s still open. This is the part where I tell you that I’m going to need maternity leave in about six months, and also beg in an undignified way and tell you that I’ll take anything, and I’ll work harder than anybody else you could possibly hire, and whatever I have to learn, I’ll learn it, and you won’t be sorry.”

Blake had a hand up. “Hang on. Yeah, I can give you a job. I told you I would. You’re talent, and I want talent. But you’re pregnant? Wouldn’t have guessed that one. You know,” he told Harlan, “the NFL offers these sessions that cover this. Usually when you’re a rookie, because they figure the veterans already know. There’s a little thing called a condom. Could be a thought. Excuse me,” he said to Annabelle.

Jennifer said, “The condom broke.” Which was not something she’d expected to ever have to tellbothher teenaged daughter and her eighty-four-year-old grandfather, not to mention her once-and-future boss, but there you were.

“Now, see, that’s just pathetic,” Blake said. “Technique, man.”

“Yeah,” Harlan said. “We don’t need to go into that much detail.”

“Maybe Dyma needs to know.” That was Dakota, of all people. “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being a single mother, but it’s not the easiest path. And, hey, birth control fails. And sometimes, a guy forgets to use it. There’s that, too.”

Blake looked distracted. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Nope,” she said. “Not yet.” She smiled, slow and secret, and Blake got evenmoredistracted.

“So,” Oscar said. “You’re pregnant, and Harlan’s the father.”

“Well, I didn’t know if he was or not,” Jennifer said, which was, whoops, her telling Dyma exactly what she’d been determinednotto tell her. “Since I, uh, met Harlan a few days after I broke up with Mark. Which was extremely unusual for me,” she hurried to add. “Unprecedented, in fact. But it happened.”

“Mom,” Dyma said. “Wegetit. I wasthere.”

“So,” Harlan said, “she came to Portland a couple weeks ago to tell me all that, straight up, in case you’re wondering, which you shouldn’t, if you know her, and we got DNA-tested. Which was why she was with me when you called and told me about Dad,” he told Annabelle.

“Oh,” Annabelle said. “I kind of wondered, when she wasn’t there after that. Sorry,” she told Jennifer. “It’s just … you were so nice to me, and Harlan’s not exactly used to having other people around that he has to think about, so it would have been better if you’d been there. It explains why he looked so sad after we dropped you off, too.”

“I didn’t look sad,” Harlan said. “It was a rough day, that’s all.”

“His father killed his mom,” Dyma told Blake and Dakota. “Which is about the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard. They just found her body and arrested him for murder.”

“Oh,” Dakota said. “Well, that’s … awful. I’m sorry.”