77:Tragic & Beautiful

“Okay family!” Dom’s voice bellowed out over the crowd of Del Vecchios and filled the crowded restaurant.  “You all know this is Vivi’s fiftieth and, because I love my wife, I arranged to have one of her favorite singers come and play a couple songs for us – actually Charlie did, but I asked her to.  I know I’m very grateful to have him here, so all of you show some appreciation, too, would ya?  Jon Bon Jovi!”

“Are you still sleeping with him?” Izzie asked under her breath as Charlie and everyone else looked toward the kitchen end of the restaurant and the corner furthest away from the brick pizza oven.  A stool had been produced from God only knew where, and Jon was sitting atop it, looking like the sexiest man alive in his black shirt and jeans as he strummed the scuffed guitar with the Notre Dame Irishman stuck its face.

“I’m not sure,” she answered honestly to the woman seated at her side, being careful to keep quiet.  Vince's wife Anna, her daughter Holly and grandbaby Gracie were all seated across the table from them.  Since they weren’t paying attention, she thought it was okay to speak openly but softly.  “I now I was until Friday morning, when we had an argument.  I think he’s still mad at me.”

“What was the argument about?”

“Me.”  Keeping her eyes trained on the smiling man who hadn’t smiled at her for days, she sighed to her friend, “I’m a stubborn bitch and some days he doesn’t appreciate that particular personality trait.”

“Him and everybody in this room,” Izzie snorted softly as Jon began talking about how he would never dare bring up the word “old” at a woman’s birthday celebration and how that eliminated his first choice of songs, “Just Older”.   

“Shut up,” was Charlie’s bland rebuttal as he started into his second-place selection, “Welcome to Wherever You Are”.  “As of the time of the argument, we were seeing each other.  Like, dating, not just sleeping together.”

Her friend made a huge production of drawing back and turning to look at her with incredulity, but Charlie kept her sights fixed on Jon and hoped they hadn’t caught the attention of Anna or Holly.   “Excuse me?  You’re dating him?   How exactly does that work, seeing as there’s the whole Owen thing?”

“That was part of the argument.” 

Along with the fact that he wanted her to end it ten years ago.  Oh, and present her guts to him in a pretty jelly jar with a ribbon tied around it.  Mustn’t forget that. 

Even as the sarcastic addendums paraded through her mind, she really would like to give him what he wanted.  Honestly.  She just… couldn’t, and now they wouldn’t see each other again for another month – if then.  There was always a chance that absence wasn’t going to make the heart grow fonder. 

“Well, I can’t say I flippin’ blame him, Charlie.” 

“I can’t say I do, either.”

Tucking a hank of hair behind her ear, she watched his eyes fall shut as he serenaded her family – who all thought he was simply Luke’s friend.  It was her own doing, but it was still annoying as all hell.  He was here because of her, not Luke. 

“If you agree, then why in the world-“

Lifting an interjecting hand, she murmured, “Please don’t.  You’re not asking anything I haven’t asked myself a dozen – two dozen – times in the last few days.  The answer’s always the same though.  I just can’t.  Not yet.”

“As much as you frustrate the crap outta me,” Izzie curled an arm around her shoulders and squeezed.  “I worry about you, honey.”

“Don’t waste the energy.  I’m fine except for a couple of tiny quirks.”

In all reality, she was about as screwed up as she’d ever been in her life.  All of this repressed fear of hers was bubbling to the surface because Jon was trying to shake it loose, and that was carrying along lots of memories that she’d rather not revisit.  She was on the verge of seeking out Izzie’s couch, in fact.  Pride and the worry of mucking up her mind even worse were what kept her from doing it.

“Thank you,” their troubadour for the evening humbly acknowledged the applause at the end of his selection, and valiantly endured Vivi’s grateful kiss without grimacing.  Charlie gave her own round of mental applause for that feat.  “I hope your kindness extends to my next song choice.”

With a forearm propped on top of the scuffed black guitar, he revealed, “The songs I write are typically inspired by thoughts, events, or issues of the day.  When they come to life, the lyrics speak of that moment in time.  Sometimes, if I’m lucky, they speak again to the listener on a more individual basis.  It’s not very often that they talk to me a second time and bring with them a new meaning.

“That’s what’s happened tonight, though.  I overheard the story of a woman carrying a painful burden that she refuses to share, and I got to thinking that she could probably use a hero to help battle her ego.  It brought this song to mind, and I’m probably singing it into the wind, but I appreciate your indulgence while I do.”

The strummed chords sounded familiar yet different to Charlie.  Presented slowly and gently, they bore a resemblance to a tune that he typically performed at a more upbeat pace, but she couldn’t place it.

“There's some-thing about youuu.

I wanna ress-cuue.

I don't e-ven knoww ya

So what… does… that meannn?”

With those first few words and his reference to a hero, Charlie recognized it.  “Superman Tonight” was on one of his semi-recent albums, but she couldn’t imagine what prompting event had him singing it this evening  – or to who.

“Maybe I'm cyn-i-call.

I'm painfully log-i-cal

You're tragic and beautiful

And that's… good enough for mee.”

“Holy shit,” Izzie incredulously breathed into her ear.  “He’s singing to you.”

She opened her mouth to dispute it, but with soulful blue eyes riveted on her as he crooned about selling his soul to be a hero and stars falling from the sky… Charlie couldn’t.  He was deliberately talking to her in song and, since she didn’t know these lyrics well, she listened closely to get the full gist of what he was actually saying. 

“If some-body sent youu

An angel to saave youuu

What would you teell him to turn him a-way?

That your heart don't breaaak

That your lips don't kiss

That life is just a liiiiie

That heaven don't exiiist?”

What she heard was… not something Charlie was willing to believe.

After their arguments as of late, his unhappiness over the “leech on her ass” and the month-long relationship status that was about to go into effect, crude motherfucker Jon Bon Jovi couldn’t possibly be offering to save her from herself.  It wasn’t plausible. 

And, now that she’d glanced uncomfortably away and back again, he wasn’t even looking at her. 

“He is not.”  She could finally make the claim because he had his full attention focused on her mother, who looked just as charmed by him as all the other women in the room.

“It is my fondest wish that, someday, you’ll decide to stop constantly living in denial.”

Twisting her neck, she met the psychiatrist face head-on and belligerently hissed, “He likes me and wants me.  He doesn’t want to freaking save me.  Stop taking an artistic expression that was written years ago and trying to literally apply it to present day.”

“He just said…”  A long, slender finger pointed past Charlie’s face to the man who was soulfully finishing up the last strains of his performance with another look in their direction.  “That he found a new meaning for it tonight.”

Jesus.  What if it was intended for her?  A shiver stole through her at the gesture before a different kind of shiver materialized.  What if Izzie wasn’t the only family member who noticed?  What if…

Stop.  Just freaking stop.  He’s not the romantic kind, remember?  It’s a coincidence.

With his performance complete, Jon was standing around shaking hands and making chitchat with those who approached him.  There were plenty who wanted to offer their compliments and thanks, including Vivi and her half-dozen sisters and sisters-in-law from the biological branch of her family tree who had been invited tonight.  The man would deserve sainthood after wading his way through them all.

Even Anna was venturing in that direction, vacating her seat and taking Holly and Gracie along as cover.  The timing was perfect for a passing Luke to swoop into their seats and lean forward on his elbows. 

“Did you hear that?” he demanded of his sister in a low voice.

“Hear what?” she asked innocently, but that ploy wasn’t going to fly with Izzie jumping in to answer for her.

“She heard.  He was singing to her, wasn’t he?”

“I’m going with ‘yes’,” Luke confirmed with a sober nod of his head.  “She’s the one he was talking about at the start, anyway.”

Her brother seemed very convinced that Charlie was the woman whom Jon heard a story about tonight.  Why would he be so certain, unless…?

Narrowing her eyes across the table, she coated her question with ice-cold titanium.  “Luca, what did you tell Jon?”

“Hey.”  He gave her both a frown and a dirty look.  “Why do you automatically assume I’m the bad guy here?  Dom and Vince talked more than I did, so why don’t you go jump down their throats for a change?”

Oh, Holy Mary, Mother of God.  If all three of her brothers were involved…

“What.  Was.  It?”

“Nothing,” he declared obstinately.  “We were just deciding who was going to stay with you Friday.  Jon is going to talk to Lilah about you two having a spa day.”

Well.  Wasn’t that just marvelous?  Her brothers had emptied that pocket of crazy into her boyfriend’s lap and recruited him into their annual day of nut patrol. 

It saved you from doing it yourself, didn’t it?

That was beside the point.  It was none of their business, and she didn't need a freaking keeper.  She needed to be left alone and allowed to forget that day and her part in it.  “I hate you all.”

“No you don’t,” Izzie calmly refuted.  “You love that they care about you – and Jon does, too, if he’s making arrangements for a diversion.  The only thing I find odd is that he’s sending his sister-in-law instead of spending the day with you himself.”

Charlie also hated her friend for being right.  She did love that her brothers cared.  She loved even more that the lover she was currently at odds with was looking past his anger to show a streak of thoughtful protectiveness.  

“He’s leaving the country tomorrow and will be gone a month," she defended his actions to Izzie.  "I assume he considered Lilah the next best thing to keep me from feeling a familial obligation.”

He wasn’t wrong about Lilah.  If she wanted to completely disregard the day and forget what it meant, his sister-in-law would be a great choice of companion.

However, Charlie been toying with the idea of pulling on her big-girl panties and listening to the memorial online this year.  She still wasn’t capable of going to Ground Zero but was thinking she might be ready for her first baby step.   If choosing that route, Izzie would be the only person she wanted at her side. 

“I’d like to meet Lilah.”

Izzie's emphatic proclamation was a little surprising.  "Yeah?”

“Yes.  I’ve heard enough about her to be intrigued.  We can all three go to the spa.”

Relieved that the decision had been made for her, she nodded.  That actually sounded much more fun than putting on her big-girl panties, and she embraced the thought of another year's reprieve.

As she gave Izzie her agreement, Charlie’s phone vibrated on the table in front of her and the screen lit up with an incoming text message.  Swiping across the glass, she found that it was from Jon, who must’ve escaped Vivi and her sisters to go to the bathroom, because a quick perusal revealed that he wasn’t in the main part of the restaurant.

[8:41 PM]JON:  I’ll be waiting at your house.  Luke gave me his key.    

“You gave him the key to my house?” she demanded of her brother, who couldn’t have possibly been less concerned.

“Yeah.  So what?”

With a sigh, Charlie realized she had nothing.  Luke knew what Jon was to her, so it wasn't like he was giving a stranger free rein of her home.  It didn’t matter that Jon would be in her house alone.  It only mattered that she wasn't with him.

“So, I’m going home,” she stated simply, standing and looking for her purse.  Slipping the strap over her shoulder, she leaned in to kiss each of them on the cheek.  “Izzie, I’ll call you after I talk to Lilah.  Luke…  I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but thank you.  I love you both.  Make my excuses to everybody else.”