67 - I'm Moving On

“So you’re telling us that Mom and Uncle Tony are dating?” Stephanie asked, her eyes darting around the table to each of her parents and her uncle.  Dinner was over and Jon had just broken the news, as the adults had previously agreed.

“Yes,” Jon told his daughter firmly, with no sign of indecision. 

“And you’re okay with this?”  That was clearly unfathomable to Jon’s teenage son.  “You’re really okay with this?”

“Yes.”  Again, no indecision or uncertainty.  “Kids, just because your mom and I got a divorce doesn’t mean we don’t care about one another.”  His eyes slid to Dorothea with a small smile.  “How can I not care about her?  She gave me the four most important things in my life.”

“That’s us!” Romeo declared proudly. 

“That’s you,” Jon confirmed with a grin.  “Mom deserves another chance at happiness, and your Uncle Tony makes her happy.  If your mom’s happy, then I’m happy for her.”  He could still see that the teenagers weren’t quite sold on the idea.  “Guys, you don’t have to be ecstatic about it right this minute.  I know it’s a little unusual, and you can take all the time you need to get used to it.  Just think of it this way, though.  At least you don’t have to get to know some stranger and worry whether you’ll hate him or not.”  He grinned unashamedly at his brother.  “You already know you hate Uncle Tony.”

“I thought you were supposed to be helping,” Tony said sarcastically to Jon over the younger boys’ laughter, but he was smiling.  He still couldn’t believe how well Jon had accepted the whole thing.  At the very least, he’d expected to get the stink-eye, but it hadn’t happened.  Jon greeted him this evening with a handshake, a smile and one more not-so-subtle threat to be good to Dorothea.  That had been it.

“What about you, Daddy?”  His head swung around to find Stephanie’s blue eyes troubled.

“What about me?  I told you this is all cool with me.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she said, hair swinging as she shook her head.  “When are you ever going to start dating?  Are you already dating and we just don’t know about it?”

His grin was easy and unaffected, despite the racing of his heart, and the images of Petey flashing across his mind’s eye.   Jon wouldn’t exactly call what he’d been doing dating, but he was definitely involved.  “You know me, baby.  Work is my girlfriend.  Your mother is very nearly a saint.”  He winked at Dorothea flirtatiously, even as she gave him that goddamn look of hers.  Bullshit rating:  eight out of ten.  “If she wasn’t willing to put up with it, I doubt any woman would.”

“But Daddy, I don’t want you to be alone.” 

“Now why would I be alone?  I’ve got four amazing kids who keep me busy when I’m not working.  You guys are plenty for me.  I don’t need a woman.”

Jesse snorted quietly, and both parents shot him a look that said to keep his horny teenage hormones quiet, if not out of the gutter.

So, in the end, the younger boys blew it off without a second thought and the older kids accepted the idea.  If they didn’t accept it whole-heartedly, they at least accepted it with the agreement to try before condemning the whole thing.

“Jon, thank you.  You were great,” Dorothea remarked after the kids had gone to their rooms and the adults were sitting in the kitchen having a cup of coffee.  He would really prefer wine, but he was pretending to stay away from the alcohol for a while.

“Yeah, man,” Tony agreed, his hand slipping around to rest in the small of Dorothea’s back. That would take some getting used to, Jon thought, looking away.  “You being on board with this helped it go down a lot more smoothly.”

“Don’t thank me for doing what was right.”

“Uncle Tony,” a child’s voice whined plaintively.  “Romeo messed up the Wii.  Again.”  Jake’s disgust with his younger brother was written clearly across his face.  “Can you come fix it?  I did what you told me last time, but it didn’t work.”

“Sure, buddy.”  Tony rose and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, guiding him out of the room.  “I’ll show you another trick that might work.”

Jon watched them go, man and boy, side by side, and a pang of jealousy struck him.  “Dottie,” he implored quietly.  “They’re still my kids.  I’m not going to be replaced in their lives.”

She leaned forward and laid her hand gently over his on the countertop.  “No.  You’re not.  I have always made sure you were part of their everyday lives, even when you were thousands of miles away.  That’s not going to change.”

He nodded once and stood to get more coffee, more for a distraction than anything else.  “You remember when you said I could talk to you anytime with no judgment?”  He asked, putting the pot back and absently blowing across his steaming cup in an effort to cool the dark brew enough to drink.   His head had been screwed up all over again today. 

When Petey wouldn’t agree to come over tonight, her refusal hit Jon harder than it should have.  Surprising himself, he hadn’t responded to the short text message of rejection.  He’d had the word ‘please’ tapped out on his screen, but never hit the send button. 

Jon realized that he’d been on the verge of begging, wheedling and cajoling to have her smart mouth show up at his front door.  To have her in his arms.  Hell, just to hug her.  That scared the shit out of him.

“Who is she Jon?” Dorothea asked with a kind smile.

He’d thought many times during their marriage that Dottie was a gypsy.  At the very least a psychic.  She knew shit that there was absolutely no reason for her to know. 

“It doesn’t matter who she is, other than she’s somebody that won’t fit neatly into my world.” He slid back into his seat and watched the black liquid swirling in his coffee cup.  The darkness reminded him of Petey.  “But I can’t stop thinking about her.”

“So she’s not a Senator’s daughter or a captain of industry?  She’s just an average girl.”

A rueful smirk curled up one corner of his mouth.  “She’s anything but average.”

“Oh, really?”  Dorothea was leaning forward with interest.  “What makes her not average?”

“Everything,” he chuckled.  “She fights with me at the drop of a hat, but at the same time she calms me down.  She has these quirks that are…  beyond unusual, but they’re endearing, too.  She’s incredibly smart, yet unknowing about things.  She’s unique like nobody else I’ve ever known.”

“And?  Why are you telling me this, Jon?”  Dottie was watching him with the soft brown eyes that had ferreted out hundreds of secrets and half-truths throughout the years, trying to pull his thoughts from him.

“Because I’m hoping you can tell me when my image became more important than what I believe in?” 

That was what it all boiled down to.  He knew Petey was, without a doubt, a good person.  She had held his hand when she didn’t have to, she’d called his bullshit, she’d pushed him when he needed pushed.  He’d be surprised if she didn’t care about him at least a little bit.  If she didn’t, she would’ve turned around and left him and his liver to pickle the other day.

“The day some reporter made you the poster boy for rock and roll marriage,” she told him without hesitation.  “For whatever reason, that made you a valued member of society.  They suddenly stopped talking about your hair and listened to what you had to say.  It was all you ever wanted, because you had – have – so many ideas to share with the world.”  She sipped her coffee and shrugged.  “I’d say you’re afraid if your image fades, so will your voice.”

He hated Dorothea sometimes.  Why could she see things like this so clearly and concisely when all he saw was a clusterfuck?

“Are you telling me this woman will screw up your ‘image’?”  Dorothea’s brow was creased with disbelief.  “Is she a hooker?”

“Jesus!  No, she’s not a hooker,” he laughed.  “She’s just not you.”

“You don’t need me, Jon,” she informed him in no uncertain terms.  “You need somebody who makes you a better you.”

He set the coffee cup down and looked at her with complete seriousness.  “Does Tony do that for you?”

“He does.”  No hesitation. That hurt a little.

“You know he’s going to be on my schedule.  He won’t be here all the time once the tour starts.”

“I’m very much aware, but that’s never been an issue.  I’m fine on my own.  The difference is that when he’s with me, he’s with me.  That was something you never quite mastered,” she remarked a bit sadly.  “Your head was always on the next album, the next tour, the next big deal.  I deserved to have that attention.”

He dipped his head in shame.  He was an emotionally stunted fuck.  “You’re right.  You did.”

Dorothea reached across the table and curled her fingers around his hand.  “There’s no blame anymore, Jonny.  It is what it is and we’ve moved on.”  Amusement lit her eyes.  “Both of us have moved on, apparently.  I’d like to meet your anything-but-average woman sometime.”

You already have.

“Let’s wait and see if I can get past my own ego.”

She nodded, eyes still thoughtful.  “You know that a part of me will always love you, Jon.”

He squeezed her hand.  “Same goes,” he gruffly assured her before changing the subject.  “I’m having a little New Year’s thing at Matt’s club tomorrow night.  Why don’t you and Tony come?”

She nodded, and he knew that she knew what he was doing.  “I’ll talk to him, and we’ll see.  Thanks for asking.”

“Oh.  I just remembered.”  He released her hand and scooted his chair across the tile so that he could stand.  “I brought something for Steph.”  A quick trip to the foyer and he was back, handing the festively wrapped package to Dorothea.  “When Petey was at my place on Wednesday, she asked me to pass this along.”

Dorothea accepted it, placing it on the table with a little smile.  “It’s a scarf.  Petey said it made her think of Steph when she saw it, and she wanted her to have it.  She looks like an odd duck, but she’s really a very nice woman.”

Truer words were never spoken.

“Yeah.  She is.”

“That reminds me,” Dorothea said lifting her eyes to meet his.  “How did your lessons go?”

"Good.  They went good."