80 - Moving On

The Georgia miles were flying by under the wheels of the rickety Jeep as Cassidy belted out a series of tunes ranging from Florence and the Machine to American Authors to Whitney to Queen and, yes, even a little Bon Jovi.  Nothing that was sweet or melancholy, though.  She was sticking strictly to uplifting songs that made her want to wiggle her butt in the seat or tap out a staccato beat on the steering wheel.  Life was beautiful and she was determined to live it. 

It was fortunate, however, that she was listening to the music stored on her phone.  With the windows rolled down and the tunes cranking, she would have completely missed the incoming call that interrupted the chorus of “Complicated”.

She flicked a brief glance toward the screen to find it was the call Jon told her to expect – David.  Cassidy didn’t have much interest in an apology from him, but she didn’t want to ignore the call either.  He’d been awfully kind to her up until that last conversation and was a good friend of Jon’s.  It was only right to see what he had to say.

“Hey, David,” she answered over the speakerphone, rolling up the windows and turning on the lackluster air conditioning to reduce the environmental noise.

“Hey, Dixie Chick.”  He didn’t seem quite as exuberant as usual nor did he seem disgruntled.  He was just… normal.  “Fed Ex says you should have your suitcase.  I was calling to make sure you do.”

“I haven’t been home since early yesterday morning, so I don’t know if it’s there or not.  I’ll find out in a couple of hours.”

“Oh, yeah?  Where ya been?”

This mainstream version of David was surprisingly disturbing.  When you got to know how nuts he was, normal equated to dull. 

“Back in the Nashville area to pick up a couple things.”

“I should’ve known since Jon’s there.  He called me a while ago.”

Deliberately putting aside the annoyance that tried to surface at his “should’ve known” comment, she forced cheeriness into her reply.  “I reckon he should have a football team by now.”

“I have no idea.  We talked before his meeting.  He, uh…  He told me why you did what you did.  Sorry for calling you a bitch.”

Her mouth contorted into a wry smirk at the blunt apology.  She bet there wasn’t a single greeting card with that particular sentiment embellished on it.  Maybe he could start a new line for the socially awkward.

“Water under the bridge,” she brushed off the apology.  “But thank you.”

“Actually…”  His tone was warming a bit and it sounded as if he was about to go into one of his weird philosophical tangents.  “Most women would’ve given up the wife in a heartbeat.  Your reluctance to do so is a little baffling.”

Perhaps most women would have, but she’d never been like most women.  Cassidy attributed that to her grandmother, who had raised her to be right instead of popular.

“If you’re waitin’ for me to explain that, you’ll be waitin’ a while.  I did what I thought was appropriate.  That’s all.”

“Damn,” David huffed.  “You can’t even be a decent bitch.  It’s just not in you, is it?”

Snorting softly, she told him, “I can if I need to be, but it’s not something I enjoy.  As long as my loved ones don’t get crossed, I’m pretty easy to get along with.”

“If he gets what he wants, you’re the one getting crossed in this deal, as far as I’m concerned,” he piously declared.  “Then again, that’s none of my damn business.  You going back to your nursing gig?”

It wasn’t his business, but Cassidy appreciated the thought. 

“I don’t know yet.  If ever there was a chance to change my stars, this is it, and so I’m tryin’ to think about my happiness instead of my comfort zone.”

“Good for you,” he approved.  “If you go for music and want more piano lessons, gimme a shout.  Hey.  Can you act?”

There was the random, off-the-wall man she had come to know.

“Never tried.  Dare I ask why?”

“Eh.  New musical I’m working on.  You’ve got the pipes and the looks.  Thought if you could act, maybe we could slide you in someplace.”

“As interesting as that sounds, don’t you worry about me,” was her laughing reply.  “I’ve got plenty of options to choose from without addin’ actress to the list.”

“If you say so.”

“I do,” she affirmed.  “David, I appreciate you callin’.  Thank you so much.”

“I haven't done shit to thank me for, babe.  As you said, I’m just doing what I thought was appropriate.  Laters.”

Disconnecting the call, Cassidy shook her head and angled the Jeep off the exit ramp toward a rest stop.  She was chalking this one up as another beautiful day in the life of Cassidy.  Now, if she just knew how Jon’s signing went, her day would be complete.

###

“Where the hell have you been?” Dorothea demanded when Jon entered the family room that evening.  “Didn’t you get my messages?”

A little depressed, a little drunk and a whole lot mentally exhausted, Jon couldn’t even muster up enough irritation to snap back at her.  It was all he could do to plop down in one of the arm chairs, letting the back cushion cradle his head as he offered a bland, “I got ‘em.”

He just hadn’t given a fuck about them.

He had been preoccupied with other things, and his wife’s rhetorical questions about where he was and why he’d left without her didn’t take priority.  It wasn’t like she hadn’t known his plans. 

Now, however, this had to take priority.  He’d rather have an elective root canal, but it was time to get this done and over with.

“And yet you still didn’t bother to respond?”  Dorothea’s hand pushed through her hair as she glowered at him from the corner of the sofa. 

“Obviously not.” 

It wasn’t that he was trying to be an asshole, but she was asking inane questions.  They both knew he hadn’t answered her.  Why beat a dead horse?

When her face pinched with annoyance, he knew she was going to flog the shit out of that horse.  “I’m going to assume you were in Nashville.”

Poor damn horse.

“You knew I was going down there to buy a football team,” he sighed.  Couldn’t they move onto new territory?

“It doesn’t take two days-“

“Stop,” he commanded with an upheld hand.  If he was waiting on her to move things forward, it was going to be a long fucking night.   “Let’s cut to the chase here, shall we?  You’re pissed that I went to Nashville without you.  Okay, fine, whatever.  I’m more interested in what you were doing when I left.  Glad to see you got your phone back, by the way.”

That threw her for a loop.  The annoyed pucker relaxed into surprise for just a split second before indignation took up residence on her face.  “I was in the city, which is precisely why you snuck away when you did."

“I didn’t fucking sneak away,” he mocked.  “I got the call and had to go.  Sorry I didn’t wanna hang around and wait for you to finish fucking the guy in SoHo.”

He was reliant upon Tony’s word for the accuracy of that little bombshell since he’d opted not to watch the footage.   Nobody needed graphic images to signify the end of their marriage and he decided it would be better for his mental health to refrain.  The knowledge that it happened was enough and, judging by the slackness of her jaw, he’d say his brother’s word was as good as gold.

She sure as hell wasn’t expecting to have the tables turned on her, but she didn’t stay stunned for long before launching her own attack. 

“Yet I’m supposed to sit around and wait for you to finish fucking Cassidy before you can drag your ass home.”

No.  This was not an option.  She could give him whatever ration of shit she deemed necessary because he probably deserved it and more, but he wasn’t going to tolerate her belittlement of Cassidy.

“Don’t,” he warned, sitting up straight and pointing a finger in her direction.  “You don’t know a goddamn thing about her, so leave her out of this.”

“Oh, really?”  Cue the Queen of England haughtiness as she crossed her arms.  “I know she’s a thief and an arsonist.  You’re keeping classy company nowadays, Jon.”

“Jesus Christ,” he marveled, shaking his head.  “You really did turn her over to the cops.  I thought there had to be some kind of mistake.”

“The mistake here is yours, not mine.”  Both bare feet hit the floor and she closed the distance between the couch and chair to loom over him.  “You fuck her at David’s house, then have the nerve to come crawl into my bed?  That’s vile, nasty and disgusting.”

He had actually taken a shower before getting in bed with her.  Not that he was going to use that as a line of defense, but it was true nonetheless. 

“How did you know where she was?”

“It didn’t take a super sleuth,” she scoffed.  “I didn’t believe you were going to David’s, so I tracked your phone.  Since you did go to his house, when she sent that text the next morning, it wasn’t hard to put together.”

That’s what he got for not changing the passcode on his phone.   That’s what he got for using their anniversary for every fucking four-digit passcode he had.  First thing tomorrow he was changing them all.

“Un-fucking-believable.”

“What’s un-fucking-believable…”  She leaned over to stab him in the shoulder with her index finger.  “…is that you think she gives a damn about you.  When did you become so gullible?”

Jon pushed to his feet to change the landscape.  Now he towered over her instead of vice-versa.  “I told you to goddamn well leave her out of this!  You were fucking around before I even knew she existed.”

“You don’t know that.”

“The fuck I don’t!” he shouted, his temper finally exceeding his fatigue.  “There’s HD motherfucking video of you and him in my goddamn bed on Mercer Street!  Bring up her name one more time and I’ll plaster that shit all over CNN.”

For the first time, she looked uncertain.  Her eyes still snapped with anger, but she silently folded her arms and pursed her lips up at him.

“Now.”  With Cassidy out of this discussion, he could continue more calmly and was able to lower his voice by several decibels.  “I want to know if you threatened to kill my football deal.”

Her chin went haughtily up in the air. “I’d have to bring up her name to answer that.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he growled, spinning to pace to the far end of the room and then whirling back around to face her.  “Jesus, Dorothea!  You know how much I wanted an NFL team.  How long I’ve wanted one!  Do you hate me so damn much that you’d sabotage it for spite?”

Biting her lip, she looked away toward the darkened windows before bringing her eyes back to his.  “I agreed to stay so you could have that stupid team.”

“No,” he immediately contradicted.  “You stayed because I threatened to make a divorce ugly.  Good news on that front, though.  I’ll have the papers filed tomorrow.”

After leaving the lawyer’s office in Nashville, the first thing he had done was reach for his phone to call Cassidy, compelled to share the epiphany he’d had about Titan ownership being meaningless without her.  Then he mentally played out how that conversation would go.  When reaching the end, he was still married, she was still a dirty little secret and they were still an illicit affair.

So he hadn’t called.

Instead, he contacted his lawyer to find out what was involved in getting a divorce.  No action had been taken as of yet, but he’d gotten the rundown based on his specific “circumstances”, or a case of dual adultery – one with proof and one without.  As long as Dorothea couldn’t prove anything, he would give her what was fair without getting gouged.  If she got proof, things could get messy.

In the interest of preventing that proof from materializing, his guy had heavily discouraged any contact with Cassidy until after the divorce hearing.  If Jon’s phone records were summoned as part of the proceedings and found to include regular and recurring contact with her, further incriminated by length of call and contents of text messages, et cetera, et cetera…

Well, he was fucked right in the heart of his bank account.

Hence, the depressed part of his evening.  Not only had he not called Cassidy, he wouldn’t be calling her for a best-case-scenario of two months.  Depending on how things went, it could drag out for up to a goddamn year. 

There was no reasonable expectation that she would wait a year for him to get his shit together, and that’s why he was going to heed the lawyer’s advice about contact.  The cleaner he could keep his nose in this deal, the faster it would move.  All he could hope to do was make it up to her when it was over.

In the meantime, there was an artisan jewelry store that caught his eye on the way to the Nashville airport.  He hoped his gift would remind her that he could be worth the wait.   

Jon provided very specific ideas on what he wanted, consulting with the woman in the shop for a good thirty minutes before the two of them came to a consensus on what would work best.  After requesting the shipping address from Libby and supplying it to the shop, he continued on to the airport.  There, he climbed on his charter back to New Jersey and drank most of a bottle of wine along the way, accounting for his slight drunkenness when he arrived home.

The argumentative set of Dorothea's features had him wishing for a fresh bottle.

“She convinced you to choose her over that team,” she scoffed with incredulity.  “Twenty-six years of marriage and you’re going to throw it away for some trashy woman with a prison record.”

Closing his eyes, he began counting to ten, knowing that Cassidy had never – not one frigging time – asked him to choose anything other than happiness. 

He made it as far as five before his lids flew open so that he could look his wife in the eyes while coldly stating, “Call your fucking attorney because I’m through talking.  You might wanna remember that it’s up to you whether this is quick and painless or long and ugly.  For your sake and the kids’, I hope you go with quick and painless.”