“For a socialite, you sure know how to put away the whiskey,” Janet says slyly. I don’t tell her how I never really drank whiskey until I met Jameson.
“Speaking of whiskey,” I say and give Royal a bright smile, “what’s with the whiskey names?” I know they were all named after types of whiskey, but aside from the fact that it appears to be the family’s favorite drink, I don’t know why. Naming your children after booze seems a bit weird, even now. She fills my glass with twice the amount of whiskey than she did the first two times.
“About time you asked,” she says. “I met Roy when I wasn’t even in my second trimester yet. I was working as a barback—”
“Wait, what?” I lean in and take a sip. It barely burns. Jeez, how often do I drink this stuff now? It used to be that I’d take a small sip and it would make me sick. This isn’t Jameson, and it’s not Hennessey. I don’t ask her what brand this is, because if I tell her I know which brands it’s not, she’s going to make a joke about sampling the available merchandise. Plus, I have far more interesting things to tend to—like how Janet was apparently pregnant when she met Roy.
“Oh yes,” she says in a guffaw. “Bailey is not Roy’s biological daughter. But it’s not something he cares to be reminded of.”
“Holy crap.”
“I’ll give you that. It’s a holy crap situation. But anyway, Roy and I fell in love so quickly and so fiercely. It was all consuming. I already knew I was pregnant—a story I’ll gladly tell you about when it’s more relevant—and I told him. I knew this big, tough firefighter with a smart mouth and a great backside would run. I kind of wanted him to. But he didn’t. He said he wanted to marry me, and so we got married. It was the late seventies, so it wasn’t as bad to be pregnant and unmarried as it would have been in my mother’s time, but it wasn’t ideal.
“Well, I’d like to say that I protested and tried to spare him the burden, but the truth is that I wanted Roy Hayes all to myself. So we got married and moved in with his mother—now that woman was a character—and from the day we married, he never told anyone that my baby wasn’t his. Well, his mother figured it out, and that was fun for a little while, but you’ve met our girl. Once she was born, it was impossible not to fall in love with her.
“She didn’t have a name for several hours. Connie, Roy’s mom, and I went through dozens of names. The boys at the firehouse wanted to celebrate and dragged Roy out drinking with them. When he returned, I asked what he’d been drinking. He just kept saying, “Bailey,” again and again until the little baby in my arms looked like a Bailey. I guess you could say a tradition was born. Whatever Roy got smashed on when our kids were born is what we named them.”
I sit and listen to her story in awe.
“Imagine the name I could have had,” Royal says. Claire and Mom break into a fit of giggles while Janet easily ignores the teasing.
“Mellie,” Mom says with a relaxed smile. She taps her freshly painted nails on the arm of her chair and adjusts herself. “Cancel with the boys, will you?”
“You wouldn’t like it if I canceled on you last minute. You raised me with better manners.”
“Sheesh. She grows up and thinks she knows everything.”
“Are you sure?” Claire asks. Her eyes are filled with sadness, and she’s going to the place I really don’t want her to go—the place she can’t go. She can’t go to that place because I can’t go to that place. Not with the ladies in my life, at least. It’s different with the men. They’re all about protecting me and making sure I’m safe. They don’t ask how I’m feeling, only if I’m okay. They don’t push when I don’t feel like talking about it, where the women want to know every bit about how scared I am.