Jackpot! (17 page)

“Oh,” I answered, trying not to sound too psyched.

“Don’t worry. I have an IUD.”

The look on my face must have confused her, because she giggled and said, “I thought that would make you happy. You look like a kid whose dog just died.”

“Janine, I don’t feel so great.” I zipped my pants up. Then I ran back into her living room, somehow found my shirt in about four seconds, and put it on. I held my stomach and said, “I think I may have food poisoning.”

Chapter 17

The second of the three girls I had dates lined up with was Ronna Bliss, who interestingly enough was a former sportscaster at WGB, where Jamie worked. My sister had introduced us a couple years earlier and we began dating. Six weeks into the relationship, Ronna told me she loved me and wanted to marry me. In true Danny style, I felt otherwise and broke up with her. I didn’t want a wife. I wanted someone to have fun with. That was it.

Ronna was devastated. Jamie would tell me how she would come into her office in tears and want to talk about it for hours. She would ask Jamie, “What’s wrong with me?”

And my sis would answer truthfully, “Nothing, Ronna, I promise. It’s Danny. He just doesn’t want to get married. Ever.”

“What did I do wrong?” she would ask.

“Nothing, Ronna, I promise. It’s Danny. He just doesn’t want to get married. Ever,” Jamie would repeat.

“Maybe if I would have been different, less demanding…” she would say, “What can I do to get him back?”

And of course, Jamie would reply, “Nothing, Ronna, I promise. It’s Danny. He just doesn’t want to get married. Ever.”

My sister said to me with sarcasm, “I could save a lot of time by recording my response and just pressing a button every time Ronna comes into my office. Truly, though, I feel for Ronna.”

I knew Jamie was sincere. I knew this because when her husband cheated on her and moved on, I saw sadness in my sister that truly made me sick. I wanted to kill my ex-brother-in-law for hurting such a good person. Jamie had married for love, and instead was lied to and then dumped. But as badly as I felt about what John did to her, Ronna and I were in a completely different situation. Yes, I felt badly about ending a relationship and being unable to commit, but at least I was letting her know upfront, before too much time had passed. And now, Ronna could move on. Although, according to Jamie, that wasn’t happening too fast.

Ronna’s frequent visits had started to irritate my sister and she wanted desperately for the girl to stop coming into her office every two minutes for counseling.

“I have to do something,” she said to me one day, so I offered up a suggestion.

“Why don’t you set her up with that camera guy? What’s his name?”

“Drew?” she asked, her voice filled with surprise.

“Yeah. Girls like that guy, don’t they?”

“Umm…yeah, I guess.”

“Unless you like him for yourself.”

“Hello…does the name Max mean anything to you?” she responded.

I wanted to tell her that no, that name didn’t mean anything to me because I knew it didn’t really mean anything to HER. I kept my mouth shut, though, and reiterated what a good couple I thought Ronna and the camera guy would make.

Drew and Ronna ended up dating for about a month, and then decided to be just friends. But the mission had been accomplished. Whatever the guy did, Ronna was over me. She ended up leaving the station a few months later and went to work for some sports marketing firm. Rumor was, her salary alone was over a hundred thousand. I also heard Ronna now had a serious boyfriend, but that didn’t stop me from calling and asking her out in my time of desperation. I figured these things blow up so often that chances were, the relationship was over. And when Ronna agreed to get together with me, my theory was confirmed.

We decided to meet for drinks at
Glascots,
a local, no-frills Lincoln Park bar where they serve peanuts in baskets and people throw the shells on the floor. Ronna and I had gone there a few times when we were dating, and in Ronna’s eyes, it was “our place.”

We sat at the bar and sipped cold beer out of frosty mugs, talking about Ronna’s new career, and my jobs, including my latest gig as a marketer for
Ed Debevic’s,
a famous hamburger place, where I actually had to dress up like a hamburger and pass out coupons.

I found it interesting that most of the girls I went out with always asked about my acting career. Except for one. Courtney. She had spent most of our date asking me questions about my teaching job. She seemed more interested and impressed with that career than she did about acting. And that said something to me.

“Which is better?” Ronna joked, “The pretzel costume or the burger?” At this moment, thinking about the answer to that question would have made ending my life right then and there easy, had I not had Frankie’s money to look forward to. Hope was on the horizon, though. If tonight went well, I’d be sleeping and impregnating Ronna, and I’d be a multi-millionaire in nine months.

The sad part was, however, that when Ronna began taking me on a trip down memory lane, talking about our brief relationship, she was beaming while I was feeling majorly relieved that it was over. It was ironic. I was trying to get this girl to have my baby, yet I was thrilled we weren’t together anymore. Thanks, Ma, was all I could think.

After a couple brewskis, Ronna moved closer to me, put her hand on my thigh and whispered in my ear. “I really missed you, Danny. I’m so glad you called.”

“I missed you, too,” I said, trying to act as sincere as I did when I told people how great Ed Debevic’s burgers were.

“You know,” she went on, “I never told you this when we dated, but…”

“What?”

She seemed tentative, afraid to continue.

“What? Tell me.”

“No, I can’t. It’s too embarrassing.”

“Please, just tell me.”

She looked at me shyly. “I really think I loved you. I mean…” She took a deep breath, “I wanted to settle down with you. Have kids even.”

Upon hearing this bold statement, I wanted to scream and shout as loud as I could and do jumping jacks around the bar. This scenario couldn’t have been working out any better. How easy everything was going to be!

“Hey, want to get out of here?” I asked, seizing the moment.

“Sure,” she said with a big grin.

I threw some money down on the bar, put my arm around Ronna, and led her to the front, toward the door. I was home free, beginning to see the pay-off ahead. I envisioned Frankie handing me a check. I pictured my future clearly now, and in it were cars, expensive vacations, a nice, new condo, a Rolex, perhaps. Unfortunately, what I failed to see was the huge beefy football player-type guy who had just walked into the bar.

Ronna saw him first. “Oh my God!” she shouted, “You’re following me?”

‘Is Ronna talking to this big guy who looks like he could kick my ass?’ I asked myself. I got an answer pretty quickly.

“Ronna, what the hell?” answered Big Guy.

“Umm, who is this?” I asked Ronna, who just stood there unable to move.

“I’m Ronna’s boyfriend, asshole,” said Big Guy, as he stuck his face right in mine.

I backed away and looked at my date. “You have a boyfriend?” I asked.

Ronna suddenly looked really sad. “Well, kind of…” she answered, sounding like she was six years old.

Big Guy didn’t like her answer. “Kind of?” he shouted at her. People in the bar started to stare and watch the dramatic scene taking place. They all wondered if there was going to be a fight.

Ronna spoke to Big Guy as if they were the only ones in the bar. It was as if she suddenly forgot I was even there. “Well, you’re so into your job these days. You never even look at me and I’m sick of it.”

I then saw something shocking. Big Guy started to cry. If what was happening wasn’t screwing up my plan, this would have been hilarious to me. Here was this huge, tough guy, sobbing worse than my mother did during the movie
Steel Magnolia’s
.
The guy actually had big teardrops running down his cheeks. I wasn’t amused, though, and I didn’t want to laugh. Actually, I wanted to cry, because it wasn’t hard to figure out where things were headed.

“Ronna, I love you. I thought you knew that,” Big Guy said through tears, “I’m just trying to make as much money as possible for both of us. That’s why I’ve been working so much.” When I looked over at Ronna, the girl who had just told me indirectly that she’d have my child, I saw she was crying. Then Big Guy got down on one knee. “Ronna, I want to marry you. I want to have babies with you. Will you be my wife?”

I made one last desperate attempt to get what I wanted, which was Ronna out the door with me quickly. I looked down at Big Guy, still on his knees, and said, “Look, we were just leaving.”

Instantly, I heard the crowd moan, as if they were upset that the villain might still win.

Big Guy looked up at me. Suddenly his tears were gone and his face turned to rage. He then stood up and pushed me really hard, knocking me down onto the floor. I looked up and watched Ronna put her arms around her guy and kiss him hard on the mouth.

The crowd applauded and the happy couple walked out the door holding hands, smiling and kissing. No one was paying much attention to the guy on the floor who was brushing peanut shells off his shirt.

Chapter 18

I had one last shot. If this didn’t work out, I’d have to go back to square one and think of new girls and/or a new strategy to collect Ma’s millions. That’s why I really wanted date number three, Connie Kleinberg, to work out.

I’d known Connie for years, and had always liked her. I’d met her in the emergency room at Northwestern Hospital several years earlier when she’d treated me. She gave me three stitches on my chin that I needed after attempting to slide into home plate so my baseball team could advance to the Chicago Social Club World Series. We lost the game, but I still ended up getting a prize; my beautiful, sexy doctor, Doctor Connie Kleinberg.

When Connie first introduced herself as “Dr. Kleinberg,” I was stunned. She was so pretty! So, I made the mistake of telling her she looked more like a Victoria’s Secret model than a doctor and I swear, to this day, I think she skimped on the anesthesia to get back at me. Getting stitches hurt a ton, but Connie was worth every single suture.

She was different than any girl I’d ever met. She was older, divorced and very independent. The night of the stitches, I asked for her phone number. She told me she was flattered, but really didn’t have time to date. She was nice about it, though, and told me I was sweet and adorable, which made me feel like an eight year old kid. I wanted her to know I was more than sweet and adorable! I had to get her to go out with me.