Baby Be Mine

swim in the heated pool. I don’t imagine Johnny and Dana will emerge for some time. We splash about for twenty minutes and are just about to get out when a familiar figure walks around the side of the house in khaki board shorts and a red T-shirt. Santiago! He stops in his tracks and then his face breaks into a grin.
    ‘Hello, stranger!’ he shouts. ‘How the hell are you?’
    ‘I’m good!’ I beam, getting out of the pool and wrapping Barney in a towel before seeing to myself. ‘How are you?’
    ‘Still the same.’ He shakes his head and stares at Barney. ‘I can’t believe it.’ He meets my eyes and I shrug.
    ‘Mmm.’
    ‘They made me sign another privacy agreement.’
    ‘Did they?’ I laugh. ‘Probably for the best.’
    ‘Jesus, the shit’s really going to hit the fan when this comes out.’ My face falls and he apologises. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean . . .’
    ‘No, it’s okay. I know you’re right. Guess we’ll cross that bridge, hey?’
    He looks older and broader – he must be twenty-four or twenty-five now. But he has the same olive skin, short jet-black hair and pearly white teeth. He always was good-looking, if a bit short.
    ‘What’s his name?’ Santiago asks, referring to the bundle in my arms.
    ‘Barney,’ I tell him and he holds out his arms to take him so I hand him over. I remember now that Santiago used to babysit his little brother when his mum – a nurse – had a shift.
    ‘How old is your brother?’ I ask.
    ‘He’s thirteen now.’
    ‘Not so little anymore.’
    ‘Still little compared to me.’
    ‘That’s true.’ I laugh. ‘Hey, listen, let me go and get us dressed and then we’ll come and keep you company. I want to know all the gossip.’
    ‘Oh, and there’s plenty,’ he says with a wink. ‘Let’s go out back to the hedges so we’re out of sight.’
    ‘Sounds like a plan.’
    I throw on some clothes and see to Barney and then root around in his downstairs giant golf-ball toy box for some children’s gardening gear I saw in there the other day. Then we go out of the front door and up the back of the garden to the hedges, where Santiago is already at work.
    ‘Tell me everything!’ I command, plonking Barney on the grass with a plastic spade.
    ‘You’ve met Dana, I take it?’ Santiago asks with an unamused look.
    ‘Not keen?’ I turn the tables on him.
    ‘Hell, no. Demented crazy bitch.’
    ‘Eesh.’ I sit down on the grass and cross my legs, staring up at him as he clips away at the greenery.
    ‘That’s putting it mildly,’ he says. ‘You know Rosa quit?’
    ‘She found Johnny after the overdose, right?’
    ‘Yeah, that’s not the only reason she left, though. She couldn’t stand Dana.’
    ‘Really?’ I sit up in anticipation.
    ‘Bad influence. You know it was her dealer that got them into that mess? So much for rehab.’ He snorts.
    ‘God.’
    ‘She was also always getting Rosa to do stuff for her.’
    ‘Bossing her about?’
    ‘No, that was the thing. She tried to wheedle her way into Rosa’s affections, batting her eyelashes at her, giving her shoulder massages, but Rosa was having none of it.’ He puts on a silly voice. ‘“Rosa, baby, you couldn’t do us some popcorn, could you?” There’s a friggin’ popcorn machine in the private cinema! All you’ve got to do is switch it on,’ he rants.
    ‘How do you know all this?’ I ask, because Rosa was no gossip.
    ‘Sandy told me.’ The maid. ‘She’s a friend of my aunt’s and we caught up at a barbecue recently.’
    ‘Can sign a privacy agreement, but can’t stop the staff from talking, hey?’
    ‘Exactly. Everybody’s gotta blow off steam.’
    ‘Have you spoken to Rosa?’
    ‘Nah, not me. We didn’t work together much. But I liked her. She was a nice lady.’ He looks down at Barney and then back at me. ‘So what about you? Are you going to tell me how this happened? I mean, Jesus, it was pretty obvious you were into each other. That time he flipped out when I gave you a cigarette? Jealous as hell, I knew that straight away. But a baby ? A frickin’ baby , Meg? How did that happen?’
    ‘Didn’t your mum tell you about the birds and the bees?’ I ask sardonically.
    He rolls his eyes at me. ‘Okay, so you ain’t gonna talk, but, Jesus,’ he says again, shaking his head. ‘I never would have known.’
    ‘He’s surprised me,’ I admit honestly. ‘I didn’t think he’d take it as well as he has.’
    ‘I can’t believe you’re here