La Jabita
Copyright© 2025 by A Bad Attitude
Chapter 1: Sue and Doug
Rowdy---Just over a year after the deaths of my beloved Liesbet and our son, I was supervising the loading of the harvested coffee onto the riverboat. One of the workers asked if I had time to take the restaurant’s weekly purchase to the hotel. The restaurant uses about 50 pounds of coffee a week and the gift shop sells about 25 one pound bags every week. I was on my way back to the workers camp, so I took the coffee to the hotel.
As I was walking through the lobby, I heard her shout my name.
“ROWDY! I can’t believe my eyes. Doug, that’s Rowdy!”
It was Sue, yeah, that Sue from college. She was standing at the check-in desk with an older man. After her exclamations, she ran to me, hugged me tight to her, then held me by my shoulders as she shouted, “Doug, get over here. I want to introduce you to Rowdy!”
Doug walked over and extended his hand, I shook it as he said, “It is so nice to finally put a face with all the stories she has told me about you!” I wondered if this is the ‘fiancé’ I did not know about back in my college days. What ‘stories’ has he heard about me?
“How have you been? What have you been doing? Why did you quit school? We heard you got married. Let’s go into the restaurant and get a cup of coffee we have so much to catch up on.”
I was finally able to get a word in, “Sue I’m kind of busy right now. I’ll try to catch you guys...”
“Don’t you want to hear about your son? He is such a good kid and he looks exactly like you. I’ll bet...”
I was stunned. A son? I interrupted her, “Sue, I thought you were on the pill. Why didn’t...”
“Not me. Lexie! You remember Lexie, my roommate, don’t you?”
I remember Lexie; but as usual Sue did not give me time to answer.
“Lexie got pregnant that semester, but she did not find out until she went home over Christmas break. She kept it a secret from her mother because she wanted to tell you first. When you did not come back to school, she did some checking and found out you had gotten married! I tried to talk her into having an abortion. Doug would have done it for her, you know keeping the pregnancy a secret. He did that for me when I was a senior in high school. That’s how I met him. He was getting a divorce from his wife and when she found out about us, well she took him to the cleaner’s. She is remarried now so there is no alimony...”
I interrupted her, “Is she sure the kid is...”
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