Bravo Unwrapped by Christine Rimmer

incredible.”
    â€œI’m flattered you like them.”
    â€œYou’re rich, aren’t you?” Glory didn’t wait for an answer. She laid her head back on B.J.’s shoulder and went on talking. “I’d like that. To be rich. To be one-hundred-percent totally in charge of my own life. To do what I want when I want and never worry about how I was going to pay for it. To go to college… You went to college, right?” Glory paused long enough for B.J. to make a sound in the affirmative. “And you have a great job at a big-time magazine and an apartment in New York City….” It was a high-floor, corner two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath, on lower Fifth Avenue in a top prewar full-service building, to be specific. But B.J. saw no reason to rub it in or anything. Glory lifted her head again and met B.J.’s eyes. “Bowie told my father that I’m pregnant.”
    â€œOh, no.”
    â€œYeah. He couldn’t get me to say yes, so he told my Dad so that my Dad would get me to say yes. I’m furious at Bowie for that.”
    â€œAnd well you should be.”
    â€œHe had no right….”
    â€œI so agree.”
    â€œMy Dad told my Mom. And my Mom told my sisters and my sisters told…just about everyone else. And now the whole town knows and everyone in my family is after me, to do like Bowie says and marry him.”
    B.J. rubbed Glory’s shoulder and suggested gently, “I kind of gathered, from what you said the other day, that you knew this would happen.”
    â€œYeah. I did. And I knew I’d hate it, too. And I do. My great-grandpa Tony thinks I’m a slut.”
    The old guy on the bench? How could he? Outraged, B.J. demanded, “He called you that?”
    â€œNo. He didn’t have to. I could see it in his eyes. I can see it everyone’s eyes.”
    â€œNot mine.”
    A sad little giggle escaped Glory. “Well, no. But you’re from New York City. They do things differently there—plus, you’re not Catholic, are you?”
    â€œWell, no…”
    â€œI am. So’s my whole family. You know how Catholics are, don’t you?”
    B.J. had a pretty good idea. “No birth control. No abortions. Abstinence. Priests.”
    â€œYeah. All that. And all that means that when you’re a Catholic, you’re supposed to get married before you get pregnant. But if you do get pregnant first, you should get married as soon as possible—to the father of your baby, if you can. And then, once you’ve married him, you’re supposed to stay married, forever. Like a life sentence—which is fine, as long as you’re smart enough to pick the right person to be sentenced with.”
    â€œYou don’t think Bowie’s the right person?”
    â€œWell, he does feel like the right person…”
    â€œMeaning you love him.”
    â€œYeah. But, well, love is great and all that. But I have older sisters, you know?”
    â€œYou mentioned that, yes.”
    â€œSix of them. And two brothers. Nine of us altogether—but back to my sisters. The oldest is Trista. The second-oldest is Clarice. Trista’s thirty now and Clarice is twenty-eight. When they were about my age—which is twenty—they married wild guys like Bowie. It was love and passion and forever and all that. Tris and Risi are both still married. Also, they’re miserable. Tris has three kids and Risi has two. Their husbands stay out all night and neither one of those guys has a job at this particular moment. Maybe I don’t have a college education, but I can add two and two and come up with four, if you know what I mean. A leopard doesn’t change its spots—and a wild guy with no job? Well, when all the hot passion and heavy breathing wears off, that guy is wild as ever and most likely still unemployed.”
    B.J. agreed with her. But she didn’t say so. No reason to belabor what