A third of my brain was focused on tuning my guitar, a third on what I was going to play that night and a third on Elizabeth and the goddamn bomb she dropped on me this morning.
Alyssa interrupted my thoughts by shouting at the top of her damn lungs, "MARYANN, TIM WANTS TO KNOW IF YOU GOT THAT CHARDONNAY?!"
Alyssa was loud. Cute! But loud. I guess when you have the lung capacity for large brass instruments, you just get naturally loud. And she was really cute. It would be nice to focus on her cuteness. But I didn't think I'd be able to quarter my brain. Thirds was about the best I could do.
"Alyssa," Maryann said. "I am right here. I am handy. Close. Nearby. Accessible. Please, for the sake of all that is good and blessed in my little store, take it down a notch!"
Alyssa laughed and Maryann started talking, in a normal speaking voice, about what kind of chardonnay she was currently pouring. And I went back to my thoughts.
But the guitar was tuned and Maryann had already asked me to stick to an 80s theme (she was partial to my version of The Go Gos "Vacation" my acoustic coffee house version of "West End Girls."). So that left just Elizabeth to think about.
Elizabeth was pregnant.
It was never supposed to be a thing, y'all! Elizabeth is 38 years old. She is a whole practicing lawyer! She owns a three bedroom Lincoln Park condo. She leases a Lexus. She shops at Whole Foods. I am 25 years old, a recent college graduate (which took me seven full years, by the way). I share a Rogers Park apartment with three other 25 year old guys. I ride a bike to get where I need to. I work at Whole Foods.
That's where we met, by the way. She was strolling the aisles, doing a weekly shop, and she asked me where to find soy noodles. And Elizabeth is hot, y'all! She has this whole sexy, sophisticated lawyer lady thing down. I mean, of course, I chatted her up.
I don't do the apps. I'm better at meeting girls in real life. Women. Elizabeth is fully a woman. So I chatted her up, she showed me some wine and cheese she'd bought, we chatted some more, she asked me when I got off and next thing you know we had kind of an arrangement. She'd text and I'd come over and we'd drink wine and have sex and watch TV. It was chill and fun and relaxing until this morning when she told me she was pregnant.
She was planning to have it. She said she was 38 and the clock was ticking. But that I didn't need to worry about it. She said she would raise the baby on her own, but felt like it would be dishonest not to tell me.
So here I am. 25 years old. An employee of Whole Fucking Foods. A dude who plays guitar at a little bar on weekends. A father.
What. The. Actual. Fuck.?
I decided to just start playing. I needed to do something else and I was tuned up and amped up so I said into the mic "Hey" and then started in with "Papa Don't Preach." Sometimes the music leads me in weird directions.
Hal's was hopping that night, or as hopping as it could be (Hal's was not large). Tim was there with his husband, Dan. Some of Alyssa's friends were hanging out with her. Hyacinth was off in the corner, holding court among some other Hal's regulars, Maryann was at the counter, singing along Daddy daddy if you could only see, just how good he's been treating me...
Maryann was having a good time. That's the thing about Maryann - she was usually having a good time. It made it kind of hard not to have a good time around her. My mood lightened just a little. I played The Go Gos and Duran Duran and then moved into some of the hair bands.
Alyssa ran back to Jason and Maryann's and got her tuba. She joined me on Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again." You wouldn't think a tuba would work as well as it did with my guitar. But she was really good.
I was going to be a father.
I was playing Whitesnake with a girl and her tuba and was going to be a father in seven months.
God, my life was weird.
