2:Pit Bull

July 1

Charlie held her head high and mahogany curls flounced over the back of her suit jacket as she strutted through the outer office with a sense of accomplishment.  Her client had gotten a fair settlement.  It wasn’t quite as much as she was pushing for, but it was still a reasonably fair division of assets.  Dorothea and her children certainly wouldn’t have to worry about living on a shoestring budget, and that had been Charlie’s goal all along. 

Primarily.

Another woman free to live her own life without dependency on a man.

That thought was somewhat ironic, she acknowledged to herself while accepting a handful of messages from the receptionist and then striding onward.  

The fine leather briefcase in her left hand had been a present from her oldest brother, Dominick.  Pearl studs in her earlobes came from brother Vince, while the diamond ones were from brothers Luke and Joey.   Her dad had bestowed the expensive watch on her for completing law school and her necklace was the most recent Mother’s Day offering from sons Noah and Caleb. 

Charlie had nothing against men.  Her life was filled with them, both inside and outside of her job as a divorce lawyer, and all that exposure had proven to be beneficial.  There wasn’t a man alive who could intimidate her.  Now that didn’t mean there weren’t guys determined to take on the challenge.  Every now and again, she’d butt heads with one until he realized she wasn’t going to kowtow to his whims and wishes just because he had a Y-chromosome. 

Jon Bon Jovi was the latest man to have that realization, and she couldn’t withhold the smirk that kicked up one side of her mouth when sauntering through the doorway of her private office. 

Normally, when a client came in with a preconceived notion of what the divorce settlement should be, she went to great lengths in assuring that the desired outcome was achieved.  This case, though…  It had been impossible to keep her professional distance.

When Dorothea, whom she’d known as a casual acquaintance for several years, came into her office with the laundry list of arrangements that she and her future ex-husband had agreed to, Charlie was outraged.  Yes, there was enough there to ensure that Dorothea lived comfortably, but the end result fell far-short of what she deserved – what she’d earned as a rock star’s nanny, psychiatrist, personal assistant and maid.

That had irritated the hell out of Charlie, so she immediately started preparing a counter-proposal that was more equitable and the first target was the New Jersey estate.  She wanted it sold so that the proceeds could be divided between husband and wife, but Dorothea hadn’t even entertained the idea, calling it “Jon’s Graceland”. 

Charlie had come within a coughing fit of laughing in the poor woman’s face.  Graceland?  Really?  That’s what he thought of himself? 

The man definitely needed to be knocked down a peg or two, and she busied herself identifying each and every precedent that had ever been established in divorce of the rich and famous.  When the response came back from his legal representation that the client was unhappy about the changes, it had given her a twisted sense of satisfaction. 

So she’d rebutted with more changes.  And more.   And then, when she got word that he was flat-out pissed, she pushed the envelope one last time.

It wasn’t her usual method of negotiation, and part of her felt a little guilty because it hadn’t always been his face she visualized when delivering the next stab, but she consoled herself with the platitude about the ends justifying the means.  Dorothea got a little meatier settlement than she originally would have, and Jon wasn’t going to check into a halfway house because he gave up a couple million dollars more than he wanted to.

Charlie was feeling pretty damn good about the end result, but she still couldn’t help but snort and shake her head every time she thought of that Graceland thing.

Dropping the briefcase into one of the guest chairs, she shucked out of her suit jacket and circled the desk to drape it over the back of the rolling chair.  Her gray wool skirt had just made contact with the leather seat when her cell phone pealed, and she reached down to withdraw it from the jacket pocket.

Seeing the name on the display, she grinned.  There was no doubt in her mind that her oldest brother’s wife was calling to see if there had been a face-to-face with Jon Bon Jovi, yet she still swiped the screen to answer. 

“Hey, Vivi.”

“Did you see him?”

She was right, and Charlie glanced through the phone messages from current and potential clients while pointedly reminding, “I told you I wasn’t going to.  He and Dorothea were in agreement on the terms, so neither came to the final hearing.”

“Well, shit,” her sister-in-law huffed with disgust.  “I’ve been waiting almost thirty years to prove Jeanette Rizzo is a lying skank, and this was my best chance.  Can’t you call him or something?”

The woman on the other end of the call was a compact bundle of energy that completely offset the calm demeanor of her husband.  They were opposing halves of the same whole, and it was why they’d survived life’s extenuating circumstances and remained happily married for the past twenty-two years. 

She loved Vivi almost as much as Dominick did, but it didn't change the fact that the woman was a pit bull.  Once she sank her teeth into something, she wouldn’t let it go without a battle, and Charlie didn’t have enough ammunition to fight her off.

It was horrible but, knowing full well that she would never lay eyes on the man, she hadn’t really paid attention to Vivi’s very detailed instructions for what to do when meeting him.  Her sister-in-law had taken Jeanette’s name in vain forever, but Charlie didn’t recall every sordid detail of the backstory – or even the Cliff Notes version. 

“What exactly is it that you want to know?”

“Are you freaking kidding me?  You don’t remember?  I’ve only told you this a thousand times.  Like every damn time Bon Jovi plays The Garden.”

More proof that Charlie was horrible because she tuned Vivi out on those occasions, too.  Honestly, she did pay attention when it was something that actually mattered.

“So tell me again.”

“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Vivi muttered, as insulted as though her mother’s grave had been spit upon.  “Jeanette says that she slept with Jon Bon Jovi on August 2, 1987, after the show at Madison Square Garden.”

Didn’t every forty-something woman in New York make that same claim?  Or something incredibly similar about at least one of the band members?  A good percentage of them could probably even make the story stick, and she personally knew of at least one who could.  Back in the day, they were five horny Jersey boys enjoying the privileges of fame.  Jon had probably indulged in more than his fair share, so who was to say Jeanette wasn’t one of the lucky indulge-ees?

“You have more than that, I hope?  Because that’s like asking him to recall a specific French fry he ate twenty-eight years ago.” 

“Oh, he’d remember this,” came the decisive assurance.  “If it happened.  To hear the skank tell it, he was so smitten with her that he insisted on ‘making love’ on a bed of roses and then wrote the song about their night together.  She still has some dried out old petals she’s trying to pawn off as being ‘fertilized with his seed’.”

 “Oh sweet Jesus,” Charlie groaned, seeming to recall that song had something to do with a blonde giving him nightmares.  Jeanette had never been a blonde as far as she knew.  Then again, she hadn’t known the woman had deep-seated mental issues until just now either. “That’s frigging disgusting.  She is a severely disturbed woman who could benefit from some professional help.”

“Ha!  Tell me something I don’t already know.  Now do you understand why I’m dying to get up in her face with proof that she’s a compulsive liar?”

Honestly, she could.  That level of crazy needed to be slapped in the face and medicated so that it didn’t infect the rest of the world.

“First of all, even if I do understand, I can’t casually call my client’s ex and ask that kind of question.  It’s gross, bizarre and potentially insulting.  Secondly, you can’t legitimize that garbage by acting as though it’s even possible the man ‘fertilized’ some crotchy rose petal.  Ew.”

There was no way in this world she would ever make that phone call.  Once upon a time, there was someone who might have gotten the information for her, but she’d lost that phone number a very, very long time ago.  It probably wouldn’t be valid in this day and age, anyway.

“Well you don’t ask him if he spewed on crotchy roses, for the love of God,” Vivi pointed out.  “You’re a lawyer.  Show a little professionalism.  Lead the witness or whatever those guys on Law & Order call it.  Or be vaguer!  ‘Have you actually ever laid someone down on a bed of roses?’  That’s not gross; it’s idle curiosity.”

Rolling her eyes, Charlie spun her chair around to look out the window at Park Avenue as she crossed her legs.  “You realize I’m not a criminal attorney, right?  That’s what Law & Order is.”

“Whatever.  You’ve seen the show.”

“The show, yes, but I’ll never see the man, so it’s a moot point.”  As was this conversation.  It was time to make her escape.  “Listen, I have to go.  Why don’t you call Anna?  You two can figure out when he’s going to be in the city again.  Corner him and ask for yourself.”

There was no way Anna would embarrass her husband, Charlie’s second-oldest brother Vince, by getting caught up in something like that, but she could talk a good game.  Maybe the two of them would create some elaborate cat and mouse ruse that would be enough to get it out of Vivi’s system. 

Or maybe Charlie could look forward to at least half a dozen more calls just like this one…

“Because he’ll be so forthcoming to a couple of stalkers,” was the sarcastic observation by the woman who sounded nowhere close to getting it out of her system.  “Just promise me that, if you do see him, you’ll ask.”

It might be closer to a dozen calls.

Sighing, she offered up the appeasing words that would end the current one.  “Yes, Vivi.  If I ever see him, I’ll ask.”

*There will be daily posts for the first 7 chapters, 

then we'll move to Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday posting.*