Waitress Nancy interrupted. “The fries were ready, so I brought them out first. They’re best when they’re hot.”
Carter snapped on the wide, charming smile. “Well, isn’t that thoughtful of you? Thank you, Nancy.”
Nancy Urban set down the big basket of fries between the two men and put small plates in front of them. There was already ketchup on the table, but Nancy moved the bottle to the center, as though to remind them it was there. When she left, Carter reached out and grabbed a single fry.
“Sofia and I got engaged right before I left for my summer assignment at Ramstein. We were still really young, and I was worried about losing her. She was meeting all these cool people at college. Every high school couple I knew had already broken up—or had a shotgun marriage because they were pregnant. Anyway, I bought an engagement ring from a pawnshop of all places.” He narrowed his eyes. “Do you have any trouble with alcohol, Wilde?”
“No.”
“Drugs? Any kind of addiction?”
Wilde shifted in the booth. “No.”
Carter smiled. “I’m glad to hear that. I had a bout with alcohol, though I’m twenty-eight years sober. But I can’t blame that. Not really. The long and short of it? I had a crazy summer in Europe. I figured it was my last chance as a single man, and stupidly I thought I should sow my wild oats or whatever nonsense we men used to justify acting out that way. That summer was the only time I cheated on Sofia, and sometimes, even after all these years, I look over at her sleeping and feel guilty. But I did it. One-night stands, we used to call it. Heck, I think people probably still call them one-night stands, don’t they?”
He looked at Wilde as though he expected him to answer.
“I guess,” Wilde said to keep the conversation going.
“Right. You married, Wilde?”
“No.”
“Not my business, sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Anyway, I slept with eight girls the summer of 1980. Yep, I know the exact number. How pathetic is that? Other than Sofia, they are the only women I’ve had sex with in my entire life. So the obvious conclusion here is that your mother is one of those eight women.”
Conceived during a one-night stand, Wilde thought. Did that matter? Wilde couldn’t see how. Perhaps there was some irony in the fact that Wilde was most comfortable in short-term situations or, more bluntly, one-night stands. He’d had girlfriends, women he tried to connect with, but somehow it never quite worked out.
“Those eight women,” Wilde said.
“What about them?”
“Do you have their names or addresses?”
“No.” Carter rubbed his chin, his eyes turning upward. “I only remember a few first names, sorry.”
“Did any ever reach out to you?”
“You mean after? No. I never heard from any of them again. You have to remember. This was 1980. None of us had mobile phones or emails. I didn’t know their last names, they didn’t know mine. Do you ever listen to Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band?”
“Not really.”
A wistful smile crossed his face. “Oh man, you’re missing out. I bet you’ve heard ‘Night Moves’ or ‘Turn the Page.’ Anyway, in ‘Night Moves,’ Bob sings, ‘I used her, she used me, but neither one cared.’ That’s what it was like for me that summer.”
“So they were all one-night stands?”
“Well, one girl was a weekend fling, I guess. In Barcelona. So that was more like three nights.”
“And they only knew you as Daniel,” Wilde said.
“I go by Danny mostly, but yeah.”
“No last names. No addresses.”
“Right.”
“Did you tell them you were a soldier or where you were stationed?”
He thought about that. “I may have.”
“But even if you did,” Wilde continued, “Ramstein is huge. Over fifty thousand Americans.”
“You’ve been?”
Wilde nodded. He had spent three weeks there training for a secret mission in northern Iraq. “So if a young woman got pregnant and she wanted to find the father and came to the base looking for a Danny or Daniel—”
“Hold up,” Carter interrupted. “Do you think your mother looked for me?”
“I don’t know. It’s 1980. She’s pregnant. Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe she was just one-night-standing too. Maybe she had one-night stands with a bunch of guys and didn’t know or care who the father was. I don’t know.”