53:Any Other Day

Back in the Tribeca penthouse with a cup of his own coffee by nine, Jon was on the treadmill.  Running always offered him mental clarity and, with his favorite classics playlist pumping, he was embarking on the re-evaluation of his… thing with the counselor.   

Personal relationships weren’t the ruling force in his success driven world, they were secondary.  It was perhaps a sad statement about him, and was probably the fundamental reason behind his divorce, but he was too set in his ways to change it now.

He knew lots of people and some of them were privy to certain aspects of his private life – such as the counselor – but those people weren’t necessarily part of his inner sanctum.  The invitation to that particular party wasn’t a paper and ink one to be handed out on impulse.  It was comprised of something much more precious – trust.  Trust that had to be earned and, even at that, there were rare instances where it was painfully violated.  He was still coping with the aftermath of the last one.

That was why, after two tumultuous weeks in which the truth hadn’t always prevailed, he just wasn’t ready to stamp the counselor’s hand and let her through the gates that he so carefully guarded.  His libido seemed awfully anxious to push that decision to a higher court, however, and it was making him edgy.  This was what he’d been talking about back on the boat when telling Chiara she scared him.  Jon wasn’t used to operating this way.

He desired her.  That was a given from the start.  Gradually, he was learning more and more about her that he liked, including her soft spot for a homeless woman.  The Chiara/Charlie mix intrigued him enough to stick around and see what else came along, but he damn sure wasn’t declaring it a relationship yet, no matter how many times he let the dog out. 

Rushing into a relationship with a woman was bad news, as evidenced by the marriages and divorces in his band alone.  The bottom line was that he needed to slow the fuck down.

Literally. 

He was done with his run this morning.  It wasn’t as long as usual, but it had served his purpose and Jon decelerated the pace until he was breathing normally and his heart had slowed to its habitual rhythm.  A soft towel was absorbing the sweat off his face, catching against the whiskers he had yet to shave when The Who was interrupted by a more generic tune, courtesy of Apple.

While mopping his neck, he saw that the caller wasn’t one he was anxious to talk to, but if he wanted to talk...  Jon had a bone to pick with him that he’d buried up until now.

“Hello?”

“Jon, it’s Luke.  You have a minute?”  The hammering and power tools in the background indicated that Chiara's brother must be on a job somewhere. 

“I’ll make one.”

There was muffled conversation, some thumping and then relative silence.  “I heard you saw Noah and Caleb in Vancouver.”

It didn’t escape Jon that Owen’s name wasn’t mentioned, but he wasn’t going to do Luke the favor of being the one to bring it up.  “I did.  They came to the show.”

“I also heard you met Owen.”

“Your source isn’t making shit up,” Jon confirmed dryly.  “Wanna get to the point?”

Awkward silence reigned for a couple of seconds before a distinctly unapologetic Luke said, “Look, I’m sorry you got blindsided that way, but I’m not sorry you found out.” 

“I’ll be blunt, man.  I’m pretty pissed that you were practically marrying me off to a sister who’s already fucking married.”

“I frigging hate that she’s married, since we’re being blunt, and was hoping you could convince her to get rid of that piece of shit.  She’s sure as hell not listening to me and my brothers.”

Jon was mildly amused that Luke expected her to listen.  Chiara’s actions weren’t dictated by anyone, unless she decided to allow it, but he didn’t mention that.  The story behind the Del Vecchio brothers’ dislike of Owen was a little more interesting to him than pointing out the obvious.

“Why are you so bent on splitting them up?  Tell me the deal with the piece of shit.”

Sighing, Luke admitted, “He’s a nice enough guy, I guess.  We tried to like him in the beginning, even though we never understood what the hell she saw in him.”

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.  The guy was a musician – albeit a second-rate one from the looks of it – and the counselor had a thing for musicians.  Her family evidently didn't know her as well as they imagined.

“I still say he wouldn’t have made it to the altar if she hadn’t gotten pregnant.  Anyway, the long and short of it is that he likes to live the struggling musician life while my sister bankrolls it.  He whines about how hard the music business is and how no one will give him a break, when he’s really just a lazy son of a bitch who won’t put in the work.  A real man does whatever needs to be done to take care of his family, not sit on his ass while his wife does it, and that’s my beef with Owen.  He takes advantage of Charlie, and she lets him.”

That explained why Mom was the one in charge of the boys’ college decisions.  Her money was paying everything.  It also explained her moment of clarity on Martha’s Vineyard when Jon asserted that laziness was the only reason for a lackluster life.  She was married to the living proof.  

“It’s good to keep touch with reality, but it’s depressing as hell.”

He recalled the moment so vividly because getting that personal with a woman who was nothing more than a night of physical pleasure to him had made Jon uncomfortable.  Kind of like finding himself feeding her dog made him uncomfortable.

“Why is she still with him, then?”

“Not a fucking clue.  She tries to say it’s because she’s a good Catholic girl, but that’s bullshit.  She was never that good.  Even my devoutly Catholic parents would rather see her divorced than the victim of what we all consider abuse, but Charlie won’t let it go.  She just yells at us all to mind our own business.”

Yet she told him she was planning to divorce.  Was this another example of the truth not prevailing, or did Jon know more than her family did? 

A better question was whether he should delve back into the topic of her marriage again – with both feet and a demand for honesty – or let it ride until that mythical moment where he decided they had a relationship and she gloriously revealed all her secrets.

“So now you see why I think she needs you,” Luke went on, unaware of the internal debate that was waging.  “You work like a damn dog, you take care of your family and – sorry, man, but I’ve gotta say it.  Charlie doesn’t listen to anybody, but when you called her ‘Chiara’ and told her to let it go in your kitchen that day…?  She listened to you.  That spoke volumes to me.”

It had spoken volumes to Jon at the time, too, because it shocked the hell out of him.  Later, he had come to realize that she simply placed her desire for sex higher than her need to be the victor in that instance.  She was a smart girl who knew how to fight the battles she wanted to win.

“Your sister listens to what she wants to hear,” he refuted.  “Doesn’t have a damn thing to do with me.”

“Iiii… dunno about that.”

“You don’t have to know.  I do.  I also know now that you’re not some twisted fuck who shops around for her illicit lovers even though you think she’s a slut.  Makes me feel better about my ability to judge character.”

“She told you that?  That’s bullshit!  If she’d been honest with me from the start, I wouldn’t have to make my own conclusions.”

“Not my problem,” Jon blandly stated, although he was in the same damn position at the moment.  “You should consider treating your sister with a little more respect, though.  I’ve got to get going man.”

“Hey!”  Despite Jon’s desire to end the call, Luke beckoned him one last time.  “Any chance of you romancing her so she’ll finally get a divorce?”

Crude motherfuckers didn’t do romance, as he’d told the counselor herself.  If she wanted to, he'd let her claim “Bed of Roses” as a consolation prize.  Everybody else did.

“I’m not the romantic type.  Later.”

J J J J J

[1:45 PM]JON: Something came up tonight.  Raincheck?

Of course something came up, she sighed with disgust as she leaned back in her chair.  Her desk was cloaked with chaos and her day had been primarily an exercise in frustration thus far.  Why should she finally get to see Neverland and have another amazing night of sex? 

Because I wanted to, dammit.

Grown women didn’t pout like Tinkerbell though, she told herself, tapping out a reply.  They handled their business and moved on to handle some more.

[1:46 PM]CHARLIE: Sure.  Let me know when.

Rushing like a madwoman out of Grand Central, she had barely caught Millie, who was in the next block after having given her up as a no-show.  Their conversation had been the nicest part of her day because Millie had the delusion that she was some kind of saint that was working too hard and deserved a kind soul in her life to reward her own kindness.  It was utterly untrue, but after having a sexy man fix her coffee and take out her dog, Charlie was in a good enough mood to accept the compliment with a smile before they parted ways. 

That mood dissipated after passing through the front door to the office, however.  The receptionist was in a panic, quietly hissing that the senior partner had called a meeting to which Charlie was now twenty minutes late. 

Silently swearing like the proverbial sailor, she didn’t even bother stopping by her own office before heading into the conference room with an apology for not having seen the meeting on her calendar.  It was her way of subtly letting them know if they’d actually scheduled the damn thing she would have been on time for it.

Nobody took it to heart, though, because the topic of the day was a new client that needed immediate representation.  The man went to college with the same senior partner who called the meeting, where they both had been on the football team.  For some reason, Charlie ended up with him because of the expected custody battle that would require some delicate handling. 

Delicacy wasn’t exactly her trademark, so she wasn’t sure how that factored in, but her job was to ensure that the client was one hundred percent pleased with the outcome.  That was something Charlie was good at, so she accepted the case without a fuss. 

The details on that custody battle consumed the remainder of her morning, in between phone calls from Vivi, her mother and Luke. 

Vivi was simply issuing a dinner invitation because Dom was taking the night off from the restaurant and she knew “how lonely Charlie must be” in the house all by herself.  Originally, Charlie declined the offer, but entertained the idea of reconsidering now that Jon had cancelled.

Her mother called to chat about how nice it was having her come visit yesterday and asked if Charlie was getting along okay without the boys because she seemed lonely yesterday.  Like a good daughter would, she assured her mother that she was doing great and that yesterday was just an off day.

Luke’s sole objective was to be a pain in the ass, chewing her out for passing along the information that he’d implied her to be a slut.  Her response was that if he didn’t want people to know what a jerk he was then it might be a good idea to not be one in the first place. 

God only knew what else he and Jon talked about, and Charlie was too busy to ask.  If she had to guess, though, that conversation was the reason behind her cancelled plans for tonight.   Lately, everything that didn’t go right was tied to Luke in one way or another.

She had just found a relevant precedent in the custody case when her cell phone rang again, causing Charlie to stifle a groan.  The interruptions were making her research harder than it already was, but she still looked at the screen to see who it was this time. 

The New Jersey number was an unfamiliar one, but she took a deep breath and answered, “Hello?”

“Hi.  Charlie?  It’s Desiree Bongiovi.  I hope that’s okay that Lilah gave me your number.”

That explains the unfamiliarity. 

“Hi Des.  Of course.  What’s up?”

“Not much.  I found pictures, but there were more than I expected.  Since I’m not exactly sure what you have in mind, I thought I’d see if you wanted to get together so you can look at them and see what works best?”

“Uh, sure.”  That was actually very good news.  She’d been worried that Des and Lilah wouldn’t find anything useful or, worse yet, forget about it entirely.  Too much material was far preferable to a shortage of it, and after Jon’s enthusiastic reaction to her preliminary sketch, she was excited about this project.  “When did you have in mind?”

“It depends on your schedule, really.  If you felt like schlepping out there this evening, we’ll be home.  If not, tell me what’s best for you.”

It was a good thing that Charlie hadn’t gotten around to accepting that dinner invitation yet.  Fine-tuning the details on Jon’s mural sounded so much more relaxing than dinner with Vivi and Dom, and after today, she could use relaxing.

“Tonight’s great.  I need to go home and let the dog out, so it’ll be… seven before I can get out to Jersey.”

“Sounds good.  I’ll have Lilah come over, too, so you can get everything you need at one time.”

“Great.  I’ll see you both then.”

With that to look forward to, she hoped that the next two hours of research might not seem quite so endlessly grueling.  Halfway through the first day, Charlie was already fed up with the case that was too stupid to be believed.  Both her new client and his future-ex were spiteful, vindictive people who were using a parrot as the pawn in their divorce. 

A parrot. 

Jeez.