90 - If I Was Your Mother

Low-heeled boots tapping on the tiled entry, Dorothea glided through the ornate red door that Tony held open for her.  Noting with pleasure that the restaurant was romantically lit, she smiled with contentment when he placed a light hand at the small of her back.  He was a comforting presence behind her as they trailed along behind the hostess who had greeted them.

With a tiny smile, the exotic Asian woman stopped in front of the most remote table in the back corner of the intimate Japanese steakhouse.  The wall side of the table-for-four boasted a rich, red leather banquette.  Heavy chairs sat opposite, upholstered in matching leather, and an elegant lantern illuminated the expanse between the two.

Thanking the hostess with a polite nod, Tony helped Dorothea with her coat and silently invited her to slide across the bench seat.  After removing his jacket too, he placed their outwear over one of the chairs and slid in beside her on the banquette.

The hip-to-hip contact felt cozy, and she shifted a little to her right, so that they were touching from knee to hip.  His body heat seeped through his dark slacks and her long, wool skirt, banishing the chill she'd gotten walking from the car.  This simple familiarity felt nice.

“It’s been ages since I was here,” she commented, opening the menu and then giving him an affectionate pat on the thigh, and leaving her hand there.  “Good choice.”

With the kids in the city, they had opted for a nice dinner out, followed by curling up in front of the fireplace at her house. Those were the tentative plans, anyway, unless something else happened along.  Considering the frigid January night, Dorothea was all about going straight home and putting on her warmest sweats. 

She smiled to herself as she perused the wine selection.  Or Tony could make her sweat.  She was flexible.

He made her feel younger than her years, and the possibilities were endless.  Tony was staying over for the first time, and in that big house all by themselves, there were no rules or boundaries - just two lovers and the promise of a wonderful night together.  A long-ago forgotten feeling of excitement zinged through her body, and she squirmed a bit in her seat.

There's nothing like the feeling of new love.

They chatted back and forth about the menu offerings, debating over getting an appetizer or not.  Their exchange was perfectly amicable, but she couldn’t help noticing that his smile wasn’t as wide, and the blue eyes weren’t as sparkling as usual.  Something was on his mind.  

Mouth flattening into a harsh line, she blindly stared at the entree selections. She would guarantee it had something to do with the conversation at his parents' house yesterday.  He had glossed over it all with a smile when she asked about their reaction, saying only that ‘it went fine’.  That might fly with somebody who didn't have a history with Carol, but not Dorothea.  She had too many years’ experience with the Bongiovi matriarch to believe it was that easy. 

Dorothea could appreciate Carol's fierce protectiveness of her boys.  She felt the same way about her own children, but Carol took it to a different level, and was also overbearing and controlling when given half a chance.

At that moment, the waiter appeared with a polite smile and bow, ready for their appetizer and drink orders.  Tony pointed out an assortment of rolls from the sushi bar that they'd decided on and ordered a beer.  She absently tacked on her wine choice and impatiently waited for the young man to depart.

“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?” she asked when they were alone, running a palm over the softly bristled hair at the back of his head.  He managed to squeak a little more wattage out of his smile, but his eyes still held shadows.   

“I’m having dinner with the most beautiful woman in the world, and I have her all to myself for the next eighteen hours.”  Inclining his head, Tony grazed her mouth with a soft kiss. “What could possibly be bothering me?”

Lapping her right hand over his shoulder, she leaned into him and spoke quietly.  “Your mother.”

He slowly reared back to look into her face.  The candlelight was reflected in the lenses of his glasses, but she could still see the surprise in his eyes.  “Did you make a deal with the devil at some point during your life?” he asked suspiciously.  “Because you know way too much shit about what people think.”

A husky chuckle floated out, and the hand slid from his shoulder to the center of his back.  “The devil in question let me out of the only deal I made when he signed the divorce papers.”

He snickered and received a brief reprieve with the arrival of their drinks.  However, once the waiter had accepted their dinner orders and scurried away, she was right back on topic.

“I’ll assume it didn’t go as well as you would like for me to believe?”

Elbow propped on the edge of the table, his wrist tipped upward to deliver a healthy portion of beer and Tony stared blankly out over the room.  Before them was a tiny sea of candlelit tables, mostly occupied by couples huddled close together in quiet conversation.  Soft, tinkling music wafted through the restaurant, enhancing the ambiance with its gentle tune.

He didn't see or hear any of it.  He was lost in his mind, reliving the events that took place late yesterday afternoon.

Upon leaving Dorothea's house, he had taken advantage of the free afternoon by running some errands for both the studio and himself.  Several hours later, when he pulled into his parents' driveway, his SUV was piled with cabling, a spare camera lens, and some maintenance equipment.

He also had a new pair of black slacks and black silk shirt that he'd purchased for his dinner with Dorothea tomorrow night.  Jeans and a Harley shirt weren't going to cut it for his first 'official' date with her.

Slamming the Durango's door shut, he shook his head in exasperation.  

I have got to get a place on this coast.  Staying with your folks at my age is not cool.

Going in the side door, he put the personal packages in the bedroom where he was staying, and went in search of the parental units.  The smell of Italian spices, and the sound of bickering voices lured him toward the kitchen, where he found them both.  His dad was mixing up some of his famous sauce and his mother was putting together a salad. 

“Hey,” he greeted them, bussing his mother’s cheek when she offered it.  “How are you guys?”

His mother rolled her eyes and continued to chop carrots. “You’d think your father was brewing up the cure to cancer over there instead of pasta sauce.  A little extra oregano is not the end of the world.”

“Hey.”  John, Senior glanced at his wife in annoyance.  “I’m trying to come up with a consistent formula here.  It has to be exactly the same, every time.  That’s what they call a secret recipe, you know.”

Tony leaned over and rested his forearms on the island, watching his parents quibble much as he had for his entire life.  There was never any real anger in their words, but they liked to pick back and forth.  It was their favorite hobby.

“Whatevah,” Carol pooh-poohed, waving the chopping knife in the air.  The pretty blue eyes that had been inherited by all of her sons glanced at Tony.  “Are you staying for dinner?”

“Nah.”  He swiped a piece of radish and popped it in his mouth.  “I think I’m going over to have dinner with Dorothea and the kids.”

“Did she invite you?”  The blue eyes went from pretty to interrogating.  “Because you can’t just drop in on the poor woman.  She’s a saint that would never turn you away, but she has four children, Anthony.  Dot doesn’t need someone else underfoot.”

“She invited me,” he said, stuffing down his irritation at being treated like a damn child. 

Don’t get pissy with her.  Tell them what you have to say and move on.

“As a matter of fact…”  He looked over the rim of his rimless glasses, and toyed with another piece of radish that had skittered off the cutting board.  “…I have a standing invitation.  Dorothea and I are seeing each other.”

His mother’s knife slipped and the tomato she was sectioning shot out like a slimy, red cannonball that thwacked his father in the ass before tumbling to the floor with a sick ‘splat’.  Tony would have laughed his own ass off if he weren’t busy holding his breath in anticipation.

John swung around, waving his wooden spoon through the air as a maestro would with his orchestra. “Watch what you’re doing!” he howled, looking highly disrespected. 

“Hush, John,” Carol ordered crossly.  “Did you hear what your son just said?  Because I’m not sure I did.”  She tucked one side of her professionally tinted blonde hair behind an ear and affixed a look of dedicated concentration on Tony.  “Would you care to repeat that, Anthony?”

The knife was firmly on the counter, he was happy to see, but fact that she was completely ignoring the tomatoey mess on the floor wasn’t a sign in his favor.   This did not bode well.

“I said Dorothea and I are seeing each other.  As in dating.”

“Why-yyy?”  The single-syllable word was drawn into two very long ones, and ending on a higher pitch than it began.  It almost reminded him of that character on the TV show “Friends”.  Janice Somethingorother.

“The usual reasons.”  He hid his trepidation under a mask of sarcasm.  “I happen to love her.”

“Oh, Anthony.”  Carol shook her head sadly and reached across the island to pat his cheek.  “I don’t think that’s true.”

He pulled away from her condescending patting and stood up straight. “Yeah.  It is.  And she loves me.  I’m not asking for your approval, I’m just telling you as a courtesy.”

His pop looked over his shoulder briefly, and then turned back to the sauce with his own unhappy head shake.

“Sweetheart.”  Tony’s mom came around to the opposite side of the island, putting her arm around his waist in a hug.  “You don’t have to do this.”

His forehead crinkled in bumfuzzled confusion, and he shot a glance at his father, looking for a clue as to what the hell was happening.  No luck.  Pop was whistling some obscure gondola rowing music and stirring his sauce.

“Do what, Mom?”

“Honey, come sit down.”  She herded him over to the kitchen table, encouraging him to take a chair before settling herself across from him.  Heavily jeweled hands folded over one another and she tucked her scarlet nails under as she regarded him solemnly.

“I know it’s been hard living in your older brother’s shadow,” she said gently.  “He’s been a star his whole life, and I know you’ve felt… insignificant at times.  You even started working for him so you could feel like you had a little bit of that stardom for yourself.”

Wha… HUH? 

“I know your first marriage didn't work out and that you're getting older, but it's not too late.”  Her blood-red nails came to curl around his hand – in comfort?  “You can still find a nice girl of your own.  You don’t need to take Jonny’s hand-me-downs and emulate his life to validate your own.”

Sonofamotherfuckingbitch.  His mother thought he was trying to be Jon, because his own life was too pathetic to live.  Did she think he sniffed Jon’s dirty laundry too?  And snuck used socks out of the reject pile so that he could walk in the same greatness?

Un-fucking-believable.

“You’ve done... things to be proud of, Anthony,” his mother encouraged with another condescending pat – this one on his hand.  “Even if Jonny did  get you started and still writes most of your paychecks. Don't let that weigh you down.  You need to live your own life, honey, because there can be only one Jon Bon Jovi.”

A tiny, retractable ladder fell over the edge of the flower pot of poinsettias in the center of the table.  Shortly after, itty bitty aliens in a rainbow of colors started vacating the holiday plant and lying down on the table’s light wood surface.  They quickly dispersed to form the letters L-O-S-E-R.

It may as well have happened.  Reality was just as much of a trip.  His mother thought he was psychotically recreating his brother’s life, and was sad for him because he would never live up to it.

And she was calling Dorothea a hand-me-down.  Jesus H. Christ.

Pushing the chair back, he rose to his feet, saying, “I don’t even know what to say to that.  Pop?”  He turned to his father.  “Is that what you think, too?  I’m so inadequate that I’m forced to try and be a pale imitation of my brother, Saint Jon?”

“That’s not what your mother said,” was the gruff reply, but he never turned away from his goddamn sauce.

“She may as well have.”  He swung his head back around to his mother, astounded at how effectively she’d belittled him and crapped all over every bit of self-worth that he had.  Tony didn’t need his brother to validate his existence.  He was doing damn fine on his own, and wasn't going to hang around for this patronizing crock of shit.

“I’m out of here, and considering what you think of me, I’m not sure I’ll be back for a while.”

“What are you going to do?” Carol ridiculed.  “Are you going to go stay with Jonny’s wife in Jonny’s house and play Daddy to his kids?  Show a little self-respect, Anthony.”

“Tony?  Sweetheart?”  Dorothea’s hand on his tightly bunched shoulder vanquished the memories and brought him back to their romantic evening.  In a restaurant Jon had likely brought her to a dozen times before.  What made him think he could do this any better?

Whether he could or he couldn’t, whether he was hijacking a shadow of his brother’s life or he wasn’t, Tony would never tell Dorothea what his mother had said – about either one of them.  It was humiliating and it was degrading.  It was his mother’s patented brand of parenting.

He forced out the most convincing smile he had, and inclined his body toward her for a kiss, trying to put it out of his mind.  The next eighteen hours belonged to them.  After that, he could replay the whole damn thing over and over until he needed years of therapy and a bib.

“It went fine.  Everything’s good, Babes.”