9:Theology

August 3

“This is why I work,” Jon sighed with satisfaction and leaned back in the Adirondack chair, stretching his legs out to kick one flip-flopped foot over the other and cross his ankles.  “It makes vacation feel so fucking good.”

It was five o’clock on the first Monday in August and there was no place else that he would rather be than on the side porch of his Hamptons house, wearing only sunglasses and swim trunks while sipping a full glass of wine.  His brothers and their wives were lined up in the other Adirondacks, similarly positioned and attired, while Jesse and Stephanie were keeping an eye on the younger kids in the pool. 

It felt a little strange without Dottie kicked back in her usual chair beside him, but the pang of loneliness was just that – a brief pang.  Overall, life was good.

“You’re so full of shit,” Tony snorted.  Jon lazily turned in his brother’s direction to see that he had one hand curled around a beer and the other nested into Lilah’s.  “You don’t know the real meaning of a vacation.  You just work with different scenery.”  

He threw up a lazy middle finger amid all their laughter.  “This time is gonna be different.  I’m not thinking about jack shit except my tan for the next week.  After that, we’ll see.”

“You mean that call you took a few minutes ago wasn’t work?” his overly observant, Southern sister-in-law queried with faux innocence. 

It had been, actually.  The Vancouver gig he had booked later this month with his “fun” band, the Kings of Suburbia, might be running into some issues.  His people were watching the situation and keeping him up to date.

“Bite me, Lilah,” he retorted blandly, to which she giggled.  The damn woman loved to jerk his chain.  “I didn’t make the call, but I can’t ignore them.”

The habitually neutral Desiree put in her two-cents’ worth for a change, suggesting to Lilah, “You are vacationing in his house, remember.  Biting the hand that provides the Hamptons isn’t the brightest thing to do.”

Lifting his glass high, he toasted his original sister-in-law, crowing, “That’s what I’m fuckin’ talkin’ about!  A little respect here, people.  Jesus.”

Lilah’s ponytail bobbed as she bent forward at the waist and deferentially bowed her head.  “My most sincere apologies, Your Highness.  Shall I kiss your feet now or later?”

“After I find a pile of dog shit, smart mouth,” he laughed, thinking that it was this house allowing him to find that amusing instead of insulting.  He loved it here.  “In the meantime, bake some cookies.”

“I plan on it as soon as I finish my drink.”  She held up the glass with the paper umbrella poking out the top.  There might not be anything more exotic in there than rum and Coke, but woman had a thing for drink umbrellas that he didn’t fully understand. 

Twisting his left wrist and making a show of checking the time, he conceded, “You’ve got five minutes, then chop-chop.”

One half of her mouth drew back in a smirk as she shook her head.  “Seriously, though.   I hope you know how lucky that I, of all people, feel bein’ here.  You’re incredibly generous in sharin’ the time and place with us, and I truly am appreciative.  Thank you.” 

He returned the tip of her glass with one of his own, indulging in an unusual moment of gratitude for the woman that had gone from mousy to mouthy in the last four years.  Tony was a miserable son of a bitch before she came along to save him from himself and provide the babies he’d always wanted.  If nothing else, Jon was indebted to her for that.

It didn’t mean he was going to be nice to her all the time, but he was indebted.

Wrinkling her nose, Desiree noted, “It’s kind of sad to think this is the last time we’ll all be here.”

His brothers remained quiet, but Lilah supplied reinforcement with, “I know, right?  I can’t think about it or I’ll get all sentimental.”

“Don’t hang up your oven mitts just yet, Suckerpoodle Queen.  I’m keeping it.”

Rolling into the driveway today, the salty air had greeted him like a long lost friend and begged the tension to ooze from his body.  No place else affected him the same way and, in that moment, Jon knew he was going to bite the bullet and pay Dorothea for her half of the place.  She may end up haunting it like she did the New Jersey house, but not as much as the place would haunt him if he let it go. 

Sitting here sharing the evening with his brothers and sisters-in-law, he knew it was the right decision. 

Unless Counselor Charlie has some friggin’ objection.

Too bad if she did.  The terms of the divorce said Dorothea was to receive half of the house value.  It did not specify that he couldn’t retain the property.  He was retaining the property – period – and shot her a mental Jersey salute to emphasize the thought.

“Huh?” Matt leaned forward in his chair to ask with bewilderment.  “I thought the bitch lawyer was making you sell?”

The bitch lawyer. 

Jon sincerely hoped she had that emblazoned on a coffee mug somewhere.  If he’d thought of it, he could’ve included another nine ninety-five in with her fees so that she could buy herself one.  Hell, he might still send it to her.

“No, she made me agree to give Dottie half the value.  What I do with the house is none of her goddamn business.”

“Oh now, see…” Lilah drawled speculatively.  “You made it sound like you had to get rid of the place.  Giving Dorothea half doesn’t sound so bad.”

He was tempted to remove the sunglasses so his sister-in-law could receive the full benefit of his stink eye, but it wasn’t worth losing his vacation cool.  She’d just retaliate with one of her own.  Since she wasn’t a Bongiovi by blood, he had no idea how, but she did a better job of replicating it than either of his brothers did. 

So he ignored the sassy Kentuckian and directed his commentary to the menfolk instead.  “Did I tell you I met her a couple weeks ago?  The bitch lawyer?”

It was a rhetorical question because he very purposefully hadn’t called and screamed to either one of them about her the night of the awards dinner.  On the ride back to New Jersey, he had desperately wanted to call and vent his frustration to someone but had feared coming across as crazy, so he’d kept it to himself and gone slightly crazy in the process.

She hadn’t been far from his thoughts after that night, in one way or another.  Either she was electrifying him in pornographic dreams or suffering the brunt of his temper and mental cussing during the daylight hours.  There was no rhyme or reason to the way she occupied his mind and he had fought like hell to get past it.

It was only now that he could – probably – manage to not be pissed off over his attraction to the Lord of Darkness’s henchwoman.

When she ran into him coming from the ladies’ room, he hadn’t realized who she was and grabbed her out of sheer instinct to prevent a woman from face-planting on the marble floor.  No big deal.

Then she’d laid her hands on his chest and looked up at him with glossy lips parted in the perfect ‘O’.  Jon realized who he held and had immediately gone hard behind his zipper.  It was infuriating.  Of all women for his body to react to, it had to be the one that he hated on sheer principle.

Her whispered, “Shit” had perfectly summed up his thoughts on the situation with no need to add anything more.  That left him grunting, making sure she didn’t fall when he released her, and continuing on his way to the men’s room.  Later, he’d spent twenty minutes talking to her brother – studiously avoiding the subject of Charlie and gradually becoming more irritated.  He simply could not figure out how a guy that he genuinely liked and that bitch could possibly be related.

It had been a maddening evening all the way around. 

“Oooh!” Both Bongiovi women drawled simultaneously, with Desiree tacking on a hearty, “This I gotta hear.”

“How the hell did that happen?” was what Tony wanted to know.

Shaking his head and swirling his wine, Jon kept his voice neutral when outlining, “I went to the Food Bank awards dinner and met a guy named Luke at the bar.  He was pissing and moaning because his nameless sister dragged him there and then pointed her out across the room.  She was good lookin’, I’m now single, so I asked to meet her.”

Lilah’s hand came up to cover her mouth and her blue-green eyes danced with mischief.  “You asked to meet her?  The evil lawyer woman?  Oh, Lord a’mercy, that’s priceless!  I would pay every penny of your money to have been there.”

Other than flipping a spirited bird, he ignored her again and continued.  “Even when Luke introduced her, it was as ‘Kee-ahrah’.  She recognized me, obviously, then said most people call her Charlie and that she hoped I was enjoying the wine she sent.”

“At which point you shit a brick, and then what?”

Glaring at Tony from behind his sunglasses, Jon now questioned why in the hell he looked forward to this time with his family. 

“I politely excused myself, asshole.”

“Okay, so I’m gonna be the dumbass, I guess.”  Setting his empty wine glass between his huge feet, Matt propped bulky forearms on his knees and asked, “How the hell does ‘Kee-arah’ translate into Charlie?”

His wife patted him on the back of the head with a quiet laugh.  “It’s spelled C-H-I-A-R-A.  I went to school with a girl by that name, and everybody mispronounced it.  They always called her ‘Chee-arah’.  I can easily see why the lawyer went with Charlie.”

Jon owed his brother for taking the hit on that one.  He had been wondering the same thing for days now without coming to any brilliant conclusions, so he was glad to hear Des’s explanation.  He’d also wondered how such a beautiful name could be attached to such a bitch, but chances were slim to none on finding that answer.

“Okay.”  The sighed word came from Lilah, who was rising to her feet.  Leaving her empty glass on the arm of the chair, she passed up her husband to come stand in front of Jon with her arm down at her side, twirling the little paper umbrella between her thumb and forefinger.  “I know our usual thing is to aggravate the hell out of each other, but will you answer a sincere question for me?”

That kind of lead-in had the hackles on the back of his neck rising.  Allowing his head fall to rest against the high back of the wooden chair, Jon regarded her stoically at the same time that he braced himself for it.

“Possibly.”

“I’m takin’ that as a yes,” she grimly asserted.  “Now that you’ve met this Charlie and talked to her, do you really still think she’s somethin’ akin to the devil?”

Having no delusion that he was a theologian, Jon wouldn’t involve himself in a deep discussion on good, evil and all the presentations of both.  In fact, all that came to mind was a quote that he’d once read someplace.  “The devil doesn’t come dressed in a red cape with pointy horns, he comes disguised as everything you’ve ever wished for.” 

Charlie Del Vecchio was not everything he’d ever wished for, but his visceral reaction to her clearly said she was everything his hormones had ever wished for.  Based on that simple premise, he looked up into his sister-in-law’s face and answered her with the utmost certainty. 

“Yes.”