66 - Act Naturally

Jon pulled a flannel shirt out of the closet and put it on over his t-shirt and jeans, flipping the ends of his damp hair out of the collar.  It was UD-Day.  Uncle Daddy Day.  Grabbing socks and his boots, he sat on the bench in his closet and dressed his feet.

Strangely enough, he had an inner peace about the whole thing.  His main concern now was that the kids would be okay with it.  You never knew with kids.  It could be an ‘okay, so what?’ kind of thing or a nuclear meltdown. 

The joys of teenage hormones.

After Petey’s abrupt departure on Wednesday, he’d gotten a call from Richie saying he was in town and on his way over.   That had prompted a shower to remove the alcohol stench from his body.  He surely didn’t need his ass dragged to some kind of AA meeting.

Jon had actually done a little writing while waiting for Richie to show.  It was predictably self-pitying in spots, but he had plans to put a positive spin somewhere in there.  When his buddy finally turned up, he looked a little worse for wear, but Jon didn’t get a chance to ask him about it.  They jumped right into the song he was working on and then he told Rich the whole Tony and Dorothea thing. 

“How the hell did you keep from having an aneurysm?”

Unwilling to tell him about Petey’s hand in the situation, mainly because it would lead to other topics he was not going to discuss, he settled on, “I drank, stewed and bitched until I couldn’t stand myself.  Then I came to see it might not be the worst thing that ever happened.”

Richie had patted him on the back.  “You might just be growing up, man.”

“Fuck you, Sambora,” he’d uttered mildly, thinking that if he was, Petey and her damn logic were responsible.  She could frustrate the hell out of him with it, but only because she was right more often than he liked. 

In between extended bouts of writing that he’d never planned on doing, Jon had tried to call her several times since Wednesday.  For some reason he was never able to connect with anything other than her voicemail.  It disappointed him more than he would have expected and he kept trying, but eventually had been forced to leave a message.  Short and simple, he told her the jukebox wasn’t going to arrive until the next week.  A couple of hours later she sent a brief text reply, thanking him for the voicemail.

He supposed he also had her to thank for the unexpected writing bug.  There was no doubt in his mind that she was at the root of at least a lyric or two:  

Thorn in my side

You won't let me run

God bless the fights

That I've lost and won

Jon missed her.  He missed fighting with her.  He missed her moments of unexpected sweetness.  He missed her sweet smell.  He missed the way she made him feel alive.

Take a look in these tired eyes

They're coming back to life

It was another song snippet that was still in the very rough stages, and there were virtually no lyrics except for those two.  So, no, he hadn’t talked to her and barely heard from her, but Petey had never been very far from his thoughts.

Disconnecting the charger from his phone, he paused before putting it in his pocket.

What the hell…

[4:37 PM]JON: Hey, Sugar. How ya been?

If he guessed right, she should still be at work.  Was she back at the studio this week?  Stuck in the middle of his own melodrama, he hadn’t even made her talk about that whole thing.  She might still be holed up in her apartment.

[4:37 PM]JON: Are you home or studio?

Petey cursed silently at the buzzing in her pocket.  She was at a tricky point in the video presentation she was working on.  Smoothly morphing a guitar into an oil drilling rig was not as easy as it sounded.  She frowned.  Maybe it didn’t sound easy after all, so it could be exactly as easy as it sounded. 

Shaking her head she withdrew the phone and, seeing the texts from Jon, forced herself into the icy detachment she’d spent two days perfecting.

[4:39 PM]PT: Busy at studio

Petey put the phone on the table and returned to her work until it vibrated loudly against the hard surface.  Bill, who was working next to her, turned his head.

[4:40 PM]JON: Everything ok? LL show up again?

Why had he decided to do this now?  She’d only thought of him a couple of times today.  It was growing increasingly easier to pretend he didn’t exist – as long as she didn’t hear from him. 

When she did hear from him, her toes curled over the edge of an imaginary high-dive platform.  If she weren’t very careful, she would find herself executing a reverse one and a half somersault dive into Stupidity with three and a half twists, in the free position.

[4:42 PM]PT: Fine. No.

[4:43 PM]JON: I don’t guess you’d wanna come over later tonight?

Tonight.  Tonight was his dinner with Tony, Dorothea and the children.  He wanted somebody to hold his hand afterward. 

She swallowed back a bout of nausea.  It wasn’t her job.  Richie was in town.  Jon could cry on his shoulder.

[4:45 PM]PT: No. I can’t.

                                              ☠ ☢ ☠

“Babes,” Tony greeted Dorothea affectionately as he slid outside for a cigarette.  “How you doin’?  You’re not nervous about tonight are you?”

“Hey.”  He heard the smile in her voice and it made him warm all over, just like it always did.  Just like he hoped it always would.  “No, I’m not nervous.  It’s just Jon.  The kids will be fine as long as he is, and he seemed to have a handle on things when I talked to him Wednesday.”

He exhaled the puff of smoke with a little laugh.  “Yeah, but that was Wednesday.  Who knows what kind of mood today brings.  Mr. Mercurial.”

“He’ll be fine,” she was saying with confidence as Tony glanced through the window of the studio.   “Once he’s committed to something, he’s committed.  Getting him to that point is the hard part.  I’d like to know how that happened.”

“Mm.  Me too,” he agreed absently while watching Petey’s features grow markedly more withdrawn as she tapped on her cell phone.  She hadn’t been looking so good the last couple of days.  “Babes, I’m a little worried about Petey.”

Dorothea was immediately concerned.  She’d told him about the scarf for Stephanie.  It had firmly pushed her into the pro-Petey corner.  “Why?  Has that man shown up again?”

“Nah, not that I know of.”  He took a drag and contemplated how to explain.  He knew something wasn’t right, but he was just a guy.  Explaining all the fine nuances of something that was a gut feeling was not his strong suit. 

“Then what?”

“I don’t know how to answer that other than to say she hasn’t been herself the last couple of days.”

“Details. I need more details, sweetie,” she chided gently.

Tony flicked ashes to the ground and rolled his eyes.  She expected so much more out of him than he was capable of.  But sometimes that was kind of nice.  To him, it meant she thought he was capable of more than he did.

“Tired,” he attempted.  “She looks scarier than usual, but I dunno how much of that is makeup.  The past two mornings she’s come in with a lot of completed stuff for me to look over.  It's possible that she's staying up all night working.”

“Do you have her on some kind of deadline?”

“No.”  He exhaled and flicked the cigarette butt away.  “We’re ahead of schedule, but she’s working her ass off like the hounds of Hell are at the door.”

“Talk to her.”  Dorothea made it sound like the most natural thing in the world.  

“I do talk to her – about work.  Petey’s a very private person.  She doesn’t give much away.”

“Well, talk to her about something besides work,” she insisted.  Once Dorothea picked up a cause, she was relentless.  Tony smiled affectionately.  From the tone of her voice, Petey Diehl was officially on the cause list.  “See if that makes a difference.”

“Babes, we don’t do a lot of social chatter around the studio.  We do our thing and we go home.  I don’t know what to talk to her about,” he whined in the most masculine tone he could conjure.

Her melodic laugh tinkled in his ear.  “You can be such a man,” she teased.  “Have you asked about her visit to Jon’s the other day?  It was scheduled the same day he talked to us, so I’m guessing that could have been a nightmare for her.”

“Yeah, okay.  I can do that.”

“Tony, if she’s not okay, offer to bring her to dinner.  We can always tell the kids later.”

Tony shook his head.  That was Dorothea.  Everybody else came first.  Now that she was his, he was determined to change that – at least some of the time.

“I love-“

“Don’t!” she interjected loudly, talking over him.  “Please.  Not yet.”

A sigh of resignation slipped out.  “Okay.  Lemme go talk to Petey before she gets out of here.  I’ll see you in a little while.”

“Tony?”

“What?”

“Drive careful.”

He grinned.  “You betcha.”

                                               ☠ ☢ ☠

She wondered about Richie’s usual choreography during Dry County.  Maybe he could simulate the oil drilling rig by swinging the neck of his guitar up and down?  Or could he even consciously think to do that?  Petey didn’t know how this whole live music thing really worked.  She would have to ask him tomorrow night. 

“Hey, Petey.”

She blinked rapidly, trying to climb out of her foggy mind.  “Hey, Tony.  Is something wrong with the Blood on Blood piece?”  That was the last thing she’d given him.

“No, no.”  He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, seeming awkward.  “Actually, I haven’t even looked at it yet, but I’m sure it’s fine.  Everything you’ve done has been exceptional.”

“Thanks,” she murmured, brow creasing with confusion.  “Did you need me to do something else before I go?”

He shook his head.  “No.  You’ve been working hard enough.  Are you working from home, too?”

Petey needed to redo her nail polish, she realized, picking at her right thumb.  “A little.  Is that a problem?”

“Only because you look tired.  Don’t kill yourself over this, okay?  We’re ahead of schedule.”

A nasty case of insomnia had set in and work was the only thing to occupy her time in the middle of the night.  She likely wouldn’t stop working, but she would take care to make sure it wasn't as obvious.  Petey pursed her lips and nodded, standing.  It was time to go catch her train.

“So, uh…”  Why was Tony being so strange?  He acted like he didn’t know what he wanted to say.  “How was the thing with Jon the other day?”

Her hands stilled on the laptop lid for a moment before she forced herself to continue with sliding the computer into her messenger bag.  “Fine.  Why do you ask?”

“No reason.  I was just wondering.”

Throwing the flap over the opening, Petey rested her hands on the bag and looked up at her boss.  “Tony, is something wrong?”

“No!”  He shook his head and held up his hands.  “Not a thing.”

“Okay,” she said skeptically, putting on her coat and hoisting the bag over her shoulder.  “I’m going to grab my train then.  I’ll see you on Monday.  Happy New Year.”

“Hey, do you have plans for New Year’s Eve?” he asked as followed her to the door, acting as though he was happy to have found a topic of conversation.  He was acting truly bizarre tonight.

“Yeah, actually I do.”  She smiled to herself.  Richie had spent a long time at her place the other evening.  She’d modeled the dress and boots, which he had declared ‘hot as Hell’, and they’d ordered Thai and spent the evening just hanging out.  He’d been so very sweet.  By the time he stood at her door to leave, he wasn’t the only one wishing she’d fallen in love with him. 

There was no arguing or discomfort between them, but then again, there was no heat or passion sizzling below the surface either.  He was practically the polar opposite of Jon on all levels.

Richie had stood at her door, brushing the hair from her face and looking speculatively at her, his eyes softening as he did.  She knew he was going to try and kiss her a split second before it happened, and Petey pressed her palms gently against his shoulders. 

“I don’t do kissing, Richie,” she murmured apologetically, sorry to disappoint him, but knowing he wouldn’t be angry.

Surprise flitted across his face and he tipped his head curiously.  “Ever?”

“Not that kind of kissing.”

He sighed deeply, then bent to press his lips to her forehead.  “New Year’s I get a kiss at midnight.  It can be platonic, but that’s what you do on New Year’s Eve, sweet thing.  Consider yourself warned.”

“Okay,” was her laughing reply.  “I’m warned, but so are you.  Keep your tongue in your mouth.”

His eyes twinkled with amusement and he gave the pink tips of her hair a playful tug.  “You are a very special woman.  I hope dipshit is worth it.”

She smiled wistfully up at him.  “Dipshit is history.”

“Petey?”

Looking around, she realized she was practically leaning against the studio door, but hadn’t pushed it open yet.  And that Tony said something she hadn’t heard.  “I’m sorry, I zoned out for a minute.  What were you saying?”

“I just asked what you were doing for New Year’s.”

“Oh.”  She eased the door open and stepped one foot out.  “I’m not really sure what we’re doing.  Richie said we were going to Connecticut.”

Following her out the door, Tony’s shock was plain to hear.  “Sambora?  You’re going out with him on New Year’s?”

“Yeah.”  She shivered, pulling her coat tighter around her body.  “I owe him a date from a while back, so he chose New Year’s.”

“Good for you, kiddo.”  He seemed genuinely pleased for her.  “If you’re going to Connecticut, I’d say you’re headed for 84 Park, my brother Matt’s nightclub.  Richie likes to dance, if I remember correctly.  You’ll have a good time with him.”

“He’s a sweetheart.  I’m looking forward to it.”  She sidled away from Tony, not wanting to be rude, but if she didn’t get moving she was going to miss her train.  “I hate to cut this short, but I have a train to catch.  I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Okay, kiddo.  Be careful out there.”

"Oh," Petey called walking backward away from him.  "I hope he's the only one you gave my address to?"

"Yeah," he chuckled sheepishly, his hand on the studio door.  "I didn't want his fashion crap showing up here, so I pretended to let him bribe me with good cigars.  Are you mad at me?"

She thought of how Richie had held her, been indignant on her behalf, and supported her through a truly agonizing afternoon. "No."  She broke out her dimples to support the claim.  "But don't let it happen again!"