61 - Awk...ward

And you seem positively thrilled that I’m your… girlfriend.  It’s been a really long day, Jon.  You might want to remember whose bed you belong in nowadays.

Sheridan broke her gaze away to pin Jon with an arch look, even as she stepped forward and offered her hand to his ex-wife.  Wearily summoning her best professional smile, she vowed to make the best of this situation, despite her desire to crumple into an exhausted heap on the floor.

“Dorothea.  It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Lightning didn’t immediately strike, so she assumed that that was actually true on some level.   Or that she had credit with God for some prior good deed.  She’d take it either way, because if it was true…  That level was deep, deep down inside her.

“Sheridan.”

Dorothea briefly clasped her hand, the grip as firm as her own, but the other woman didn’t linger over the handshake.  From the way Dorothea dropped her hand like a hot potato, you would think Sheridan had swum through a pool of the ebola virus on her way over here. 

I’ve been planning and shopping for this party all day.  I’m tired.  I’m cranky.  I’m SO not playing these games.

“Jon…”  She pivoted her head to where he still stood by the sink.  The late afternoon sunshine surrounded him like a perfect golden halo, which absurdly annoyed her further.  Her professional smile degraded into a lackluster display of teeth.  “I don’t want to intrude, so how about I come back tomorrow and get all of this stuff ready for the party?  There’s nothing that has to be done today.”

“Oh, are you catering the party for him?” 

When Jon stood mute inside his Heavenly aura, it was left to her to answer the question.  His silence was one more straw snapping under the weight of this ex-camel.  If he wanted it kept a secret then he should have spoken up and lied..

“I’m making the food for our party, yes.”

Dorothea took her shot at attempted murder, casually twirling her head around and slicing him to ribbons with her eyes.  Clearly this was new information for the former Mrs. Bongiovi.  Unwelcome information.

I’m out of here.

“On that note, I believe I have a previous engagement that I’d forgotten about.  You’ll excuse me?”  She spun on the heel of her boot, the handbag that still dangled from her shoulder bouncing off of her hip when she rounded the dividing wall that would take her to the elevator.

“She’s going to be here all night with my kids?  In what world do you think that’s a good idea, Jon?  We still don’t know if she’s the one who went to the press about Richie.”

Hello?  I can still HEAR you.  She repetitively stabbed the elevator call button, willing it to hurry the hell up.  The tight leash holding her tongue was about to snap and both former spouses were going to get hit with the backlash if she didn’t get out of here.  Now.

“Sheridan!” Jon nearly barked her name and his footsteps pounded over the hardwood, tersely muttering at his ex, “It’s time for you to go, Dottie.”

“I’m not going anywhere until we discuss this.”

No.  What you mean is that you’re not going anywhere until you convince him I’m the devil.  Good luck to you, because if you can do it, I don’t want him.

Impatiently – and ineffectively – punching the button again, she refused to look at him when he materialized at her side.  It took everything she had not to shrug his hand off of her shoulder, but she was determined to come out of this with her dignity intact.

“Don’t talk to me right now.”

“Sheridan.”  This time when he said her name, it was much softer.

“I said don’t.”

“Why are you mad at me?”

The elevator finally arrived with a soft ‘whoosh’ and subtle chime, and Sheridan couldn’t escape inside its confines quickly enough.  Sliding out from under his touch, she took one giant step and gracefully pivoted to face the front of the still-open car.  Seeing Dorothea hovering behind his shoulder, she fabricated the most Mona Lisa-esque smile possible under the circumstances.

“I’m not mad at anyone, Jon.  You and Dorothea obviously have unresolved issues and I’m leaving you to resolve them in private.  That’s all.”

She’d no more poked the button for the lobby than he planted himself in entrance, holding the door back with his forearm.  Still acutely conscious of the third party that was monitoring their every word and movement, Sheridan offered him no more than an innocent look of curiosity when she wanted to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. 

“We don’t need to resolve anything in private.”

Despite the concentrated effort to keep his voice down, the quietly offered proclamation found its way to the edge of the foyer.

“Actually, I think that’s probably best.  Thank you, Sheridan.”

Dorothea may have been in a position to eavesdrop, but she wasn’t situated to see the instant concreting of the lines around Jon’s mouth or the peevish way he flung his eyes to the heavens.  When his eyes zeroed in on Sheridan’s, the sapphire depths begged her patience and understanding.

“You’re welcome,” she offered cordially over his shoulder, facial expression unchanging.  She wanted to protect their privacy from Dorothea as voraciously as she wanted to be exonerated from having her nose in theirs. 

In her happiest of places, the ex-wife would disappear in a cloud of post-fireworks smoke.   Since it was evidently not going to happen, she would be civil to the woman until it was time to…  not be civil.  The heaviness in her fatigued limbs and the urge to spout profanities at both of them told Sheridan that she wasn’t capable of making that distinction at the moment.

“I’ll call you in a little while.”  Jon came forward to brush her lips with his and retreated before her lack of response became obvious.  

She nodded and tapped the ‘Lobby’ button again as he turned the doors free.

For your sake I hope it’s after I get a relaxing bubble bath, or there’s no telling what I’ll CALL you.

❧❧❧

“Yeah?”  With no trace of common courtesy or manners, Jon had stalked into the living room and dropped his ass on the couch before responding to the cellphone that had been incessantly vibrating in his pants pocket for the last twenty minutes. 

That was how long it took for Dorothea to get the idea that he didn’t give a fuck what she thought of his girlfriend and threaten to keep the kids from him.  To which he’d offered her the option of a new custody arrangement, the likes of which he ASSURED her would tie up the court system until Romeo graduated law school.

The woman who had been his childhood sweetheart knew him well enough to guess he wouldn’t do it, but, then again, he knew she wouldn’t keep his kids away either.  She was just on some kind of fucking anti-Sheridan – or maybe it was anti-girlfriend – crusade and felt the need to prove she could still exert her ovarian authority over him.

Wrong answer.

Neither party had been fully satisfied when they parted ways, but Dorothea understood in no uncertain terms that Sheridan, her nieces and nephews would be in residence at tomorrow night’s party.  Whether she liked it or not was entirely inconsequential. 

Now he was left to clean up the lava spew of her volcanic vindictiveness.  The biggest part of which was finding a way to prove to Sheridan that he wasn’t a total prick.

When Dorothea started in, he’d frozen just before falling into the age-old trench of loyalty to her that he’d dug when they were still in high school.  It was a shock to him, because he thought he was out of the rut of ‘keeping the wife happy’ – until faced with the ex-wife versus lover showdown. 

You screwed the pooch standing there with drool on your chin, man. 

It didn’t matter that he’d more than set Dorothea straight after Sheridan left.  She didn’t know that, and he didn’t know that she would be persuaded to take his word that it happened.

“Hey, you do answer your phone!  I was starting to wonder if you realized that vibrating thing was a communication device and not a sex toy.”

“Lemma, you fucktard.  You ever think I might be too busy to answer the damn phone?”

“Pfft!  You’re never too busy for me.  I have blackmail material.  LOTS of it.” 

The maniacal cackle of his long-time friend and keyboardist actually soothed his frayed nerves, and prompted a smile out of his sour puss. 

Nothing  - or at least very little – was serious in David Bryan’s world.  His theory was that life was a party and, accordingly, had adopted the motto of, “Party on, Wayne!”  Jon couldn’t always buy into the theory – he was too anal-retentive for that – but he could say that Dave boasted picture-perfect blood pressure and the fucker always seemed happy.

Maybe I should take a lesson.

“What the fuck ever.  You have a legitimate reason for calling, or is it a general all-purpose annoy-the-shit-out-of me kinda thing?”

“Wow.  Wish I could say I thought of that, but alas…  I do have a legitimate reason.”

Silence ticked between them and Jon shook his head.  If the idiot weren’t so damn likable he’d kill him.

“Well?  What is it?” he finally snapped, more for show than anything.  It was what they did.  And he often wondered if that made them Dumb and Dumber.

No that’s him and Sambora.

Whom he hadn’t heard from since the ‘incident’.  He was going to have break down and call to see how he was doing.   New Year’s might not be good for his friend. 

“So very glad you asked mi compadre.  I was just wondering what time to get my twins.”

Again, the silence ticked away as Jon waited for the punch line.  The punch line that didn’t come.  David was such a pain in the ass.  He sighed and reached in to pull another proverbial tooth. 

“If you’re doing twins, you better be ready for that wife of yours to touch up that circumcision for ya.  But… since you’re one of those stupid brainiacs, I’ll assume you’re referring to something else, Autistic Annie.”

“Ah.  I see what you did there.  Annie.  Curls.  And they say you’re not witty.”  All of this was presented in the most bored, deadpan voice Jon could imagine.

“Stop bustin’ my hump and explain yourself already, for Chrissake!”

“Let me speak slowly so you understand, oh Feeble Minded One… New.  Year’s. Eve.  Party.”

Oh yeah, that cleared it up.

“Gaby and Colton said it’s an all-nighter.  What time is this teen angst-athon over with so I can pick them up?”

Okay, now some light bulbs were getting some juice.  Jesse must have invited David’s twins to the party, which made sense he guessed, since they were all the same age.   He was starting to wonder if he should have made Jess give him an actual guest list. 

“Early.  Like seven o’clock.”

“Geez.  Way to put a cramp in MY New Year’s plans.  I don’t get up before seven on a good day, much less in the aftermath of a mandatory alcohol consumption holiday.”

“At least YOU’LL get some sleep.  No sympathy man.  None.”

A soft huff rattled like static in the line.  “Fine.  Seven o’clock.  Party starts at eight?”

“Yeah.”  He thought.

“Alright.  I’ll be there at 7:30.”

Jon allowed his head to fall back and sink into the cocoa colored cushions of his couch.  He could be certain there was some kind of convoluted logic hiding in there somewhere, but he was at Dave’s mercy to show him what it was.

“Whyyy?”

“To meet your girlfriend, of course.  Colt said she was going to be there and I want to see if she’s really Satan incarnate.  With a boob job.  That’s the rumor going around.”

Bristling at the unflattering description of Sheridan, Jon bit out, “Who the hell told you that?”

“Um…  Richie?  And Jesse didn’t actually use the term ‘Satan incarnate’.  I think it was just ‘Soul Sucking Siren’.”

Jesse?  Richie he could understand, but Jesse?

“When did Jess say that?” he demanded.

“Back down, there, ya friggin’ hothead.  I don’t think that was his personal assessment.  He was just repeating something Dot said.”

Oh for the love of…  What was wrong with everybody in his life?  Why did everybody hate Sheridan?  There was nothing about her to hate!

One way or another, this would stop.  If they didn’t like her, they would at least have enough respect for him to keep their yaps shut.

“Richie’s pissed because he was stupid and somebody caught wind of it.  Dot’s…  Well Dot’s pissed in general.  I just had it out with her before you called.  There’s nothing wrong with Sheridan and she for damn sure hasn’t had a boob job.”

“Hey, don’t kill the messenger.  And what’s up with the Richie thing?  Is that shit really going on?  I didn’t wanna ask.  He was on a tear about Tokyo Rose and I didn’t want him turning on me.”

That was a valid question, and one he was afraid his gut knew the answer to.  Regardless, he didn’t feel right speculating, even to someone who shared the trenches with them both.    

“I don’t think he’s as well off as we’d like to believe.  Other than that, I dunno.”

“And did your girlfriend – Sherry? – rat him out?”

“Sheridan.  No, she didn’t.”

“Well then who was it?”

If he knew that then this whole fucking fiasco wouldn’t be swirling around him like a plague of gossip rag locusts. 

“No idea.  At all.”

“You know…” 

Jon sat up in his seat, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees and listen intently.  He may give Dave a hard time, but he really was a smart guy.  Maybe he’d thought of something the rest of them missed. 

“That housekeeper of his is awfully ballsy. Rich has told me more than once that she looks down her nose at him and that he’d fire her if it weren’t for Bill.  You think she’s been waiting for the right scapegoat to let the cat out of the bag, so to speak?  She’s using your woman as the pawn in her ‘scare him straight’ campaign?”

“Gracie?  Nah.  I can’t see her doing something like that.”

Could he?  It would at least a possible identify for the phantom that had been thus far eluding them.  No one would suspect the woman who’d been taking care of Richie so well for so long.  But why?  Was it like David said?  A well-meaning attempt at ‘helping’ a man who couldn’t seem to find his way?  Or did she have something else to gain by it?

I don’t know now, but you can bet I’ll be asking some very pointed questions.