by Diane Nelson
The 90 Day Rule
By
Diane Nelson
When playing by the rules means stepping over the line…
Sometimes starting over means trying out assault and battery, especially when the object d’ violence is a cheating husband caught in the act. Restraining orders aside, safety comes in numbers and having certain … standards.
For Jessamine chaos and capitulation are facts of life. Giving up dreams to service her husband’s ambitions and enabling the same blind submission in her own daughter ends abruptly, leaving her rootless, homeless and destitute.
For some people, it is the kindness of strangers who make the difference but for Jes it is the unlikely alliance of the mother-in-law-from-hell, a devastatingly handsome basketball coach and a phalanx of determined team members who convince a woman of a certain age that beginning again doesn’t mean giving up or giving in.
The only problem is … there’s that pesky 90 day rule.
THE 90 DAY RULE
Copyright ©2012 Diane Nelson
Digital ISBN (EPUB): 978-1-936827-88-6
First electronic edition published by Pfoxmoor Publishing, PfoxChase Imprint
Published in the United States of America with international distribution.
Cover Design by D. C. Charles (Book Graphics)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
To the strong women in my life
Respect
Day One: Disgraced
Sensible shoes meant trainers, not saucy platform wedgies. Sensible was contacting a divorce lawyer, not hopping a flight to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and then taking a Trailways to Happy Valley.
What the hell was I thinking?
Happy freaking Valley?
A nice young man gave me a lift to the center of hell, Beaver Avenue. I’d soon be shortening that to ‘NYM’ given that the demographic in the town huddled in the ‘not old enough to vote or drink’ tail on the bell curve.
Beaver Avenue.
Was there ever a more apt description?
It was the same, scary the same. A canyon of frat houses on the right looking toward the metropolis of Bellefonte, storefronts and apartment high rises on the left. Pizza and bike shops, some giftee places. A din of shouts, a cacophony of strident tones that I recognized as rap, the melody of swagger and testosterone swapping taunts on the sloping lawns, giggles and the sway of rounded butts and pert boobs…
Welcome home alumna. Friday entices you into the womb and tomb of Central PA.
A thousand scents assaulted my nose as I shoved the glass door open and inched past a throng of CYTs, ‘cute young things’, barging past me and a bulging overnight bag on its last legs. Last wheels was more like it.
Setting aside the ‘if I were your mother’, I dragged my damaged ego to the elevator.
Out of order.
Of course, just like my life. But elevators can be fixed. Broken hearts and squashed egos can’t.
I slid the handle to closed and lifted the small bag with my right hand. The left was still bruised from where I’d missed and connected with the drywall. Following the Exit sign I made my way up the stairs, step by step, the sigh of fuck fuck fuck fuck echoing weakly in a stairwell smelling of piss, pizza and weed.
I was glad for the one bag. There hadn’t been a lot of time to collect my stuff, let alone my wits. Robert kept a shotgun and a handgun in the house. The temptation to find them first, foregoing underwear and warm socks in my haste to make my point, had been overwhelming.
I still had on what I’d been wearing when I came home early from lunch with a friend.
The king-sized bed was offset toward the left wall, leaving room opposite for the dresser, the walk-in closet double doors … and me. Their sweaty bodies huddled to the right. My husband wasn’t much of a mover. At least not with me.
I just looked at them. Why hadn’t they used the spare bedroom? I liked that quilt. It’d been on sale, all velvety goodness, forest greens, sable browns.
It was going to be a shame to burn it.
“Bobby, Bobby, who the fuck is she?” Her voice was muffled as he slammed her ass, driving the side of her face into the pillow, eyes-on-stalks.
Her misgivings were understandable. The taupe linen skirt and thunder thighs would be enough to rattle anyone.
I ignored her and directed my question to Judge Robert McMahon,“Yeah … Bobby, who the fuck is SHE?”
A high-pitched screech descended into a growl. If I had to guess, that might have been me.
Bobby grunted. It was what ‘Bobby’ did when he unloaded—that and a quiver in his shoulders. Surprised at my unscheduled appearance, he forgot the ‘oh, fuck that’s good’.
It was interesting in a clinical way. I actually never got to watch, my eyes usually clamped shut while I mentally waded through my grocery list or catalogued the next day’s chores or appointments. And it was always missionary style so looking at his face in a rictus of pleasure wasn’t something that exactly turned me on.
I’d played basketball, back in the day. I had a solid grip, good hands. Everybody’d said that. Big enough to palm the ball. Or make her eat more of my feather pillows.
“Jesus Christ, Jes, let her up, you’re gonna kill her!”
Your point?
The asshat was still bucking out that last bit of nookie while I dribbled the bimbo’s blond skull. To say I was pissed wouldn’t put too fine a point on it.
I might have mistaken his grimace for a grin.
So I took a swing. My right hand was busy. I’m not so good with my left. I missed.
Lungs near to bursting, I did a squat in front of the metal door and let a few regrets tumble in my oxygen starved brain.
This definitely was not a good idea.
Neither was staying with an abusive sumbitch, piece-o-shit First Court of Appeals Judge for twenty-two years. Robert McMahon was likely issuing a restraining order as I gasped for breath.
Girding loins, I shoved through the door and gulped back dismay as the sounds of mayhem and frivolity raged up and down the dingy hallway. Eyes still swollen from tears raked up and down the battleship grey painted corridor. I decided on the side of optimism and angled left, away from the Roman orgies and drunken brawls emanating from open doors to my right.
The gods of happy hour were with me. Counting off the odd doors I found number 317 and stalled, heart-in-throat.
Not a good idea.
Running my hands past ample hips, I smoothed the wrinkled linen skirt and adjusted the buttons on the matching jacket. I fingered the pearls, bludgeoned into muddy yellowish balls in the absence of color.
He had selected it, a tailored statement in conservative taupe befitting a judge’s wife. I hated taupe. It made me disappear, my coloring already mousey brown and non-descript. Brown eyes, brown hair streaked with highlights to hide the gray, I was a forty-two year old portrait in dull and lifeless. Chatter, shrieks, high-pitched estrogen-laced bundles of youth swarmed past.
“Ma’am?”
The voice was surprisingly deep. Nice young men should have voices still cracking with the tentativeness of becoming.
Brushing away a stray tear, I turned to find myse
lf staring up at an adult male … a very tall, adult male with intense blue eyes framed in wire-framed aviator style glasses, seriously out-of-date but somehow perfect on a face that only a Greek god should own up to.
“Ma’am, are you all right? Can I help you with anything?” He looked concerned.
Mumbling, “Um, I’m, uh…” I quickly consulted the slip of paper. Relieved, I smiled and said with more conviction than I felt, “No, I’m at the right apartment, thank you.”
Go away.
For some reason this … adult … had grown roots in the linoleum, waiting patiently for me to make the first move. I had no idea why he’d even stopped, let alone why he hung around like I was some bag lady going door to door looking for the local crack dealer.
What did he take me for, anyway?
Ignoring him, I knocked briskly and willed myself not to teleport to hades for a well-deserved rest.
Nothing. Crap, maybe I should have called.
Tall, handsome and nosy said, “Chazz is usually around this time of the evening.”
Chazz.
I checked the slip of paper again, brow furrowed into pancake makeup hillettes.
“Maybe I don’t have the right…” I let that trail off as he pried the paper out of my hand. “I’m here to see my…”
“Etty?” Pausing, he looked from the paper to me and then to the door. “Oh.”
“Loretta.” My mother’s voice wafted to my ear, prim and proper. One never addressed anyone in the family with anything other than one’s full Christian name, sans the middle appellation that came with the rite of passage of Confirmation. The full name was reserved for serious misdoings.
Shit.
I clenched my fist, the sore one, the one that had French kissed eggshell painted drywall with a half carat in a platinum setting.
With a smile quirking the corner of his mouth he mentally tipped an invisible ten gallon hat, did me another ‘Ma’am’, and sauntered down the hall.
Apartment 317. Home to Chazz and Etty.
Twenty-year-old Etty.
“Mom?”
Something poked my shoulder. I think. Mesmerized I watched Mr. Nosy vanish through the metal door. Tight buns in worn jeans, Doc Martens and swagger had my full undivided. Not even the prospect of a restraining order or the mewl of confusion from my only child deterred me from the fantasy
“Mom.” Not a question now. “What the fu—?”
That woke me up from my daze.
Swiveling to face my progeny, I mumbled, “Hi.” Eyes snapping right, I wanted to ask, who was that masked man? Instead, I chirped, “Surprise.”
“Yo, bitch, where’d my practice jerseys get to? Ja wash ’em like I said?”
That would be Chazz.
And this would be me glaring at my only daughter with a measure of shock, dismay and righteous feminine liberation army outrage.
Feminazi alert!
Etty grinned and moved back to allow me into the apartment. Summoning what little dignity I could, I hauled luggage and indignation into a miniscule living, dining, kitchen area. Off to the right a narrow hall led, presumably, to a bath and bedroom combo—assuming this den of unsanctioned sexual indiscretion had real indoor plumbing.
Oh, I was rolling up to a rant that had nothing to do with cheating husbands and too dumb to live bimbos.
“Um, let me take that, Mom.” Etty relieved me of the burden and parked it next to a peeling oak veneer end table. “Have a seat,” she waved to an old but serviceable couch and walked into the kitchen. “You look like you need a drink.”
Sinking onto the seat, I tucked the edges of the skirt firmly about my thighs and nodded. To what I wasn’t sure.
Etty fumbled around in the apartment sized fridge and withdrew a bottle of vodka. Frosty, grey-iced and welcoming. She poured a finger into a tumbler, glanced my way, and filled it to the rim.
With shaking hands I reached for the glass and allowed, “I raised you right,” and chugged half of it. My daughter backed against the stove, crossed one foot over the other in one of those careless stances that didn’t fool me for a minute. Bracing against the porcelain she raised both eyebrows while I swilled the balance of the bracing libation.
“More?”
Hand steady, I held the tumbler out while she slopped a less generous amount that I sipped, appreciating the icy burn and feeling of euphoria coursing through my veins.
“Wanna talk about it?”
No … and yes. How do you tell your daughter the man she adores, the man who thinks you are the apple of his eye and treats you like a princess and indulges your every whim is a lying cheating hang-dog fucking lying…
…misogynistic less than human not-deserving of your adoration…
I sipped and swayed, waiting for inspiration and Christian charity, or good manners and common sense, to replace the pain and outrage.
Before I could get up and bolt for the door, something huge in baggy nylon shorts and tank top spun past my field of vision and wrapped himself around Loretta’s tall frame.
“Babe…” nuzzling her neck, “…this shouldn’t take long tonight…” sucking her collar bone, “…and then I plan to fu—”
Etty snorted and clamped a hand over his mouth.
This must be Chazz.
The man-boy-tower of dark-skinned sinew and muscle stared down at her, then swung around to greet me with a look of horror and embarrassment. Sidling away from Etty, he carefully tucked the voluminous tank top into the shorts.
Props for presentability.
Etty said solemnly, “Chazz, this is my mom.” She moved close and took his hand. “Mom, this is Cha—, um, Charles Andrew Johnson.”
The tumbler rested on the wrinkled linen skirt, leaving a moisture stain. Better that than on the nondescript wood coffee table. Thoughts fractured, I commended myself on my good manners and ability to handle any social situation.
Just not this one.
Please God, let this be her room-mate, her very friendly gay room-mate.
Of course he wasn’t.
He was Charles Andrew Johnson, guard for the Nittany Lions, a walk on who impressed his way to a starting position. In his fourth year of eligibility. 3.8 grade point average. Pre-med. Smart and tall. When someone says ‘six-foot-eight’ you don’t really grasp what it means until that body occupies a room like a mountain fills all available space.
Jesus, Robert would shit a blue brick. That thought left me all warm and fuzzy.
Not that I was a groupy but I followed college basketball with the fervor of a true believer. Robert didn’t approve of sports but he allowed my passion because it cost him nothing to do so.
Uh-oh, deep soothing breath.
“Mom?”
Scooting to the edge of the couch I held out my hand and watched with interest as Chazz’s super-sized, very black hands engulfed mine. We exchanged shy smiles.
Smoothing the jacket top, I said the first thing that came to mind, “That was a fucking bad call.”
Chazz looked interested, Etty was puzzled.
Growling, “I dunno wass wrong with those damn Big Ten officials, but you were robbed.” We’d, they’d, lost to a three that should’ve been a foul.
Etty snickered and muttered, “She’s snookered.”
“Am not.”
Chazz interrupted, his face split into a huge grin, “Ma’am, I think we’re going to get along jes fine.” His southern roots snuck through, the voice ever so slightly accented, smooth as caramel-colored whiskey.
He turned to Etty and said, “Hon, I have to go. Coach will kill me if I’m late again.” He turned to me, “Will you be here when I get back, Ma’am?”
“Jes. Call me Jes.”
I looked at my girl with some confusion. I hadn’t thought much beyond knocking on her door. “I, uh, I don’t want to…”
“Yeah, she’ll be here. Pizza later?” This to both of us. We nodded yes.
Chazz planted a kiss, this time on her mouth, relatively chaste. The b
oy had some sense. I liked him. How could I not? This ‘situation’ would give my soon-to-be ex-husband a coronary. What’s not to like?
When he left, the apartment seemed to acquire some additional inter-dimensional space.
Etty joined me on the couch, at the other end, a bit tentative now that we were alone. I finished off the vodka and carefully wiped the bottom of the glass on the skirt and set the tumbler on the table. Each movement was rendered with the slow, exaggerated care of the fully inebriated.
“Tell me.”
Shrugging, I blushed scarlet to the roots of my hair.
“Does she have big tits?”
I thought about that. “She’s blonde.” Logic dictated connecting the dots. “And yeah, they were … bodacious.” From my limited viewpoint.
Etty skipped over that and went for the bonus round, “Ass?”
Bingo.
“Oh yeah.”
Etty rubbed her mouth. I couldn’t tell if she was laughing or holding back a sob. Whatever I was seeing was not the reaction I expected. She scooted over to sit next to me, her arm around my shoulder.
That was too much. Daughter comforting mother. How in the world did I come to this pass in our relationship?
With a soul-searing wail, I sobbed, “She’s your age!”
“Oh, Mom.”
Chapter Two: Day Five
At a hair shy of six feet my daughter had that rangy, coltish look some women keep well into their dotage. And unlike me, she had natural ash platinum blonde, straight as a pin, shoulder length hair. She gathered it carelessly into a tail at the base of her neck. The press back along her temples stretched parchment thin skin over prominent cheekbones.
I sighed.
“What?”
“Nothing. You could be a runway model, you know.”