Over the past few weeks, Bobby, our Caribbean contractor, and I have settled into a companionable rhythm.

Sometime after 11 o’clock, he buzzes. When I answer the door, he says, “Bobby here.” He comes in, and I offer him coffee. He refuses and asks me, “How’s that baby boy doing in there?”

We don’t know the baby’s gender, but Bobby is certain of it. So are the old men who congregate at the tables outside Vinnie’s, the pizza place across the street. And the Chinese mother and daughter at the dry cleaners. And every old lady I pass on the street. The verdict is nearly unanimous. I’m beginning to think I should paint the soon-to-be-nursery blue. If I wasn’t too superstitious to set up a nursery, that is.

And, of course, Bobby would actually be painting it anyway. Originally hired to install our track lighting and build a few things, Bobby sort of does everything around here now.

For example: Yesterday, as I made one of my 10 million trips to the bathroom, the light bulb blew out. Seeing me fishing through the hall closet for a new one, Bobby insisted on changing it. “Not a problem,” he said, when I asked if he was sure he didn’t mind doing it.

A few times last week, Andy had forgotten to take out the trash. As soon as Bobby entered the apartment, he noticed the bag sitting by the door and insist on taking it out. “Not a problem,” he said, heading back out to the cans. And, returning from a walk the other day, I dropped my keys on the floor. Bobby rushed over to pick them up. “Not a problem,” he said when I thanked him.

In the meantime, he has built the two bookshelves we asked for. This week, he’s been hard at work on the cabinet/countertop/stool-ready island that will ultimately act as a room divider between the living room and the kitchen.

“I love having Bobby around,” I told Andy one night at dinner. Because the apartment was under construction, we were eating out.

“Yeah,” Andy agreed. “He’s done a great job so far. Except for that week he went AWOL.”

I grimaced at my husband the party pooper. True, there had been a week where it seemed that Bobby had dropped off the face of the earth – or at least left the borough. But as soon as our landlord, Johnny, who had recommended him, put in a call to Bobby, he was back on the stick.

“You know what Johnny said,” I reminded him. “Bobby works on island time.”

Andy nodded. “What time did you say he gets there in the morning?”

Though Bobby was always there by noon, I said, “Around 11.” Andy raised his eyebrows, “see what I mean” style, to which I said, “He’s getting everything done, and that’s all that matters.” After the kitchen island was finished, all Bobby had left to do was build a storage unit in an oddly shaped corner of what would soon be the baby’s room.

The next day, after refusing my coffee offer, Bobby said, “Do you mind if we take a look at the area in the other room now? I’d like to do some thinking on what we can do in that space.”

“Sure,” I said, waddling behind him to take a gander.

“Hmm,” Bobby said. One of his hands was on his hip, the other fiddling with the brim of his painter’s cap. “You know,” he said, “we could close it off as a closet, like we originally said, or -” he turned to me and his eyes were twinkling, “we could do something really special.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“I could build you a multileveled drawer unit, and you could use the top of it as that baby boy’s changing table.”

“Really,” I said, seeing the possibilities. I’d been planning on getting a dresser/changing table combo anyway. “But are you sure about this, Bobby? It seems like a much more complicated job …”

“Not a problem,” he said, smiling. “I built everything for every one of my seven children – crib, dressers, changing table, everything. I want to do something nice for that baby boy of yours.”

I smiled and told Bobby he was sweet. I said I liked the idea, and I’d run it by Andy.

“It sounds good,” he said that night, as we eyed the space together. “I guess we should go for it,” he shrugged. “So what’s next? He’ll draw us up some sketches?”

I scrunched my nose. “I don’t think Bobby works that way,” I told him. “He didn’t draw up sketches for the kitchen island and look how great that’s turning out.”

“True,” Andy had to admit.

“Besides, he said he wanted to do something special,” I said. “Like as a gift. I get the feeling that asking him to draw up sketches might hurt his feelings or something. Besides, the high-low dresser units I’ve been looking at run at least $700.”

Normally Andy would have been skeptical, but the idea that proceeding in this unorthodox fashion might lead to a deal was enough to get him excited. “Do you think ‘something special’ means coolly carved cabinets?”

“Who knows?” I shrugged. “We’ll just have to see.”

The Brooklyn Chronicles, a work of fiction, appears each Friday. Previous installments are available at www.nysun.com/archive_chronicles.php. The author can be reached at kschwartz@nysun.com.