Page 34 of The Bartender's Baby

Tough nut, my little mama was, but I’d get her. I’d pull out every trick in my book if I had to.

Seated at the corner pizzeria, I ordered a couple of slices for me and the usual for her, chicken parm with baked ziti. Over the years, it had been easy to spot her patterns, identify how she scrimped and saved. On more than one occasion, we’d talked about spending habits and loans. Since she helped me make almost all my business decisions, we were pretty open with each other in that respect. When she’d decided to go to school, she’d wanted to keep her expenses down and come out with the least amount of debt possible. That was why I’d given her any and every opportunity to make more money.

I’d been fortunate to have been gifted a nice nest egg from my grandfather. Walter Kozlowski had survived World War II on his family’s farm in Poland and immigrated to America shortly after with his brother. They’d found work as furniture salesmen, which eventually parlayed into their own furniture manufacturing company. Walt had married a nice girl named Doris, and they’d had three kids, including my father. When Walt died, he had left each of his grandkids a good sum of money to make our dreams come true since he had been able to do that himself. I remembered when they read the will, I had thought that line was so sappy about how his dreams were having a family and providing for them.

But boy did I get it now.

After college, I’d put Grandpa Walt’s money to use, along with my marketing degree and the same enthusiasm I’d had forplaying football, to pivot toward opening my own business. Like Walt.

“I got the permits for the new place,” I said once we started eating, and Tabby nodded.

The idea for the wine bar and bistro had come from her. Of course.

She’d mentioned she would like a place to drink a nice glass of wine and eat a good dinner in a quiet atmosphere. Basically, the opposite of Walt’s, which was more of a corner neighborhood bar, and not exactly highbrow.

Not quite Tabby’s “scene.”

“Tell me about your dad,” I said, and she froze with her fork halfway to her mouth.

“Why? What do you want to know?”

I shrugged. “I know you were close to him and he’s the one who taught you karate, but besides that… Was it like a Mr. Miyagi situation?”

She fought a smile. “No. We didn’t wax on and wax off, and he didn’t teach me. We learned it together.”

I gestured to her with my pizza crust. “Was it always just you two?”

She carefully chewed and swallowed her food, staring off into the distance over my shoulder. “Yeah. I never knew my mother. My dad was in the navy, and from the little he told me, he wasn’t with my mom very long before she got pregnant. They married, had me, and I guess they tried to make it work, but she left before I was a year old. My dad once told me he thought she was suffering from postpartum depression, although he wouldn’t have known because she was on the base with me while he was out on the ship. He came home, and she was gone the next day.”

“Oh man, I’m sorry.”

She lifted her shoulder, outwardly not too put out about it as she scooped more food into her mouth. “I never had a chance tomiss her, so it never really bothered me until I was older. Until I would’ve rather talked with my mom about stuff than my dad.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “Did you keep living on base?”

She wiped her mouth and took a sip from her personalized water bottle, which satisfied me immensely. “Yeah. He asked for a transfer to Norfolk. I was just a baby, so the base was really all I knew growing up. My dad took a job working in logistics, making sure the ships had all their supplies loaded properly before deployments. It meant long hours, but we lived in military housing. I was never far from him and sort of raised by everyone there. So, I don’t know. In that respect, I guess I was lucky. I had a lot of people around who loved me.”

I pictured Tabby running around among all the men in uniform, all of them treating her like their own daughter. I guessed that was why she was so regimented. It was literally in her blood. “Where did the karate come in?”

She smiled wistfully. “Dad started taking me to martial arts classes when I was six. Said it was important I learn self-defense, but I think he wanted something for us to bond over. By the time I was ten, my dad and I practiced side by side every night.”

“How’d you end up here?”

That was when her smile faded. “Uh, my dad met somebody, he retired, and moved us here.”

I inclined my head. “And…?”

“And that’s all you’re getting out of me today.”

I accepted her boundary with a nod and offered her something of myself. “I’d always had a crush on my dad’s secretary. She was super hot and the first real-life girl to give me a boner.”

Tabby huffed, shaking her head at me like I was a bad puppy.

“She’d always be like, ‘Hey, handsome,’ and run her hand over my head and neck. Literally sent chills down my spine.”

Tabby’s eyes narrowed, and I smiled. Because I was positive it was jealousy. Even over this story about me as a horndog kid.

“And then my dad married her.”

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