Through the plate glass window with the restaurant name painted in reverse, he sees Tommy’s red convertible pull into the parking lot and swing up near the window, where he can leave the top down and watch it from the restaurant. Tommy waves at him as he climbs out. A handsome boy — tall, lean, with the grace of a good athlete and a big infectious smile. Ted’s chest fills with pride, love, a tinge of grief: all this will pass. He wants to hug him when he enters, and he stands, arms akimbo, meaning to do so, but instead finds himself shaking his son’s hand and asking him why he’s late and why he couldn’t at least have changed out of his T-shirt and shorts for dinner. “Sorry, Dad. Stopped by to see Mom first and she wanted to chat. Why is she so mad at you?”
It was a mistake to come back here. Angela’s idea. Another romantic Saturday night at the Blue Moon Motel with that happy couple, Monica and Pete Piccolotti, meant to stir the dying embers. More like pitching cold water on them. Fleet and Monica have been at each other since they arrived. The hayseed duo, who have gone over the top tonight with gross off-color songs about incest and bus-fucks and trailer park whores (who writes this back-alley crap? and why are all these jerks in here, including the hick in the cowboy hat who runs the local radio station, whooping it up and asking for more?), are now trying to make amends with “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You,” or maybe Angela requested it. Probably. “He’s cute,” Monica says, nodding toward the beanpole singer. “He looks sort of like Jimmy Stewart after he’s had the stomach flu for six weeks.” Which is meant to be funny, but Pete, downing his beer, snaps back, “Have I told you lately that I’d like to stuff that goddamn guitar up that swamp rat’s ass?” He belches loud enough for everyone in the Moon to hear and gets up to go to the bar for another round. Monica says, “That’s enough, Pete,” and he says, “Well, no, sweet mama, it is not.”
Tommy rises to go with him, leaving the girls to talk about what sour ungrateful assholes they’re both stuck with and why isn’t there a nice place to go in West Condon where people dress up a little. Tommy is in a foul mood and Angela has picked up on it and has become snappish herself. And at the same time cloyingly affectionate. Trying to hang on. He fumbled the big midweek bye-bye and now here he is with it all still to do. He used their religious differences, why it was best to accept the inevitable, sad as it was, they belonged to two different worlds, they should call it off now before they got too deep and it became too painful; but, trying to keep the back door open in case he got desperate before this long summer is over, he softened it with too many I love yous, and Angela was convinced they could work it out. In fact, she took it as a kind of provisional marriage proposal and said they should go talk to the priest about it and he was too drained (what a night!) to argue. In fact, while he was brooding over what he might say next (tell her he had become an atheist and his kids would have to be raised atheist? no, a mistake to mention kids at all), he dropped off and didn’t come to until after Angela had already left for the bank the next morning. She left a tissue with her lipstick-imprinted kiss on her pillow beside him. He blew his nose in it. His dad had more business meetings to attend out of town, something about seeing state officials in hopes of landing something big for the town before the Fourth, so after the pool job he had to stay home with his mother the next couple of nights, settle into summertime reruns. Which was a relief, in a way. It gave him time to think, and Angela could sense that and said on the phone he was just using his mother as an excuse not to see her, and like a fool he kept insisting otherwise and making his mother’s condition out to be worse than it was.
But tonight’s the night. Has to be. A clean break. He’d imagined tender farewells, lingering kisses; it’s not going to be that way. He may not even get laid. Tant pis, as they say in Paris, which is where he should be tonight. Where it’s a whole lot easier than this. The only other French he knows is how to ask a girl to lie down with him, and that’s all you need. He had to coax Concetta into staying and to pay her overtime to get the night free, but she and her widow friends seem glad enough to get the work and the money his dad’s been giving him as compensation for missing out on Europe more than covers the cost. Only it’s a waste for a night like this. Except for Fleet, he hates everyone here. What is he doing in this stupid backwater? Naz Moroni was in here earlier with his demented Dagotown pals and there might have been trouble, but they had some women with them — breasty, big-nosed girls Tommy recognized from the pool — and they only made threatening and obscene gestures, which Angie insisted they ignore. If you want to take them on, Fleet said, let me know. Joey Castiglione was with them, or maybe he came on his own. Joey has the hots for Angela and Tommy wished he’d just grab Angie up and steal her away — it would have solved all his problems — but when Joey saw them there, he turned around and walked out again. Tommy thinks back on the college bars, the girls he knew up there, the class they had, and knows he doesn’t belong here. He has to figure a way out. Now.
“You’re trying to break it off with Angie. It won’t be easy, Kit. You’re her fucking be-all and end-all. You’ll have a wildcat on your hands.” The drinks have been made and paid for, but neither of them is in a hurry to return to the table. They drink them there at the bar and order up others. Fleet will be joining them on the golf course tomorrow afternoon, though he says he hasn’t played since high school, can’t afford the club membership or green fees. Tommy wants his dad to arrange some help for Fleet and the store, at least get him a complimentary trial membership at the club for the rest of the summer. “I suppose having babies is the sore point. The Catholic thing…?”
“No, Fleet, the problem is she expects too much. This is a summer fling for me and she wants more than that. Angela is gorgeous and awesome in the sack, but we’ve got nothing in common except for the sex.”
“Well, anyway, that’s something,” Fleet says with a rueful sigh. And it is. Tommy has been taking a more open stance at the pool these days, wondering who might be next, but when Angela turned up after the bank closed this afternoon in her skimpy strands, she simply blew everybody else away. Eye-popping. In fact he felt a touch jealous that others could see so much of her. She’s hot. And his. Does he really want to give that up? “But I know what you’re going through, Kit. Happened to me several times with Monica. And I didn’t even have the religion hangup. Still don’t know if I did the right thing. Of course I was stuck here, had the family business on my back, didn’t have your options. West Condon and a few of the towns around, none of them any better than this one. So one thing led to another and the next thing I knew I was doing the daddy act.”