The 90 Day Rule (2 page)

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 boy 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.”

She could. But Robert hadn’t seen that as a valid occupation for a McMahon, of the Pittsburgh new money McMahons. The road to acceptance was paved with credentials and a back door into Yale Law when the time was right.

Ignoring me, my daughter chittered about this ’n that, keeping me off-topic. Most kids would swoon if mom told them to go ahead, break with family tradition, do what
you
want. It’s
your
life.

Don’t be like me. Don’t cave.

Etty sauntered while I trotted, puffing, to keep up as we explored downtown State College. Then a quick tour of campus, empty now with the break between summer and fall semesters in full swing.

“I miss it.” I was saying that a lot. “The creamery. The old building had character.”

Etty shrugged. She was a junior so this was all normal for her with not enough time invested to make it a memory.

I persisted. “A building that’s nothing but chrome and glass has no character, no life…” It was easier to riff on architecture than to face an endless tunnel of despair and destitution.

Etty swore, refusing to allow me even a brief respite, and hissed, “It took balls to do that to you.” She steered me toward the outer reaches of campus, our destination the new-to-me Bryce Jordan Center.

I thought about an ice cream cone, willing to forego atmosphere for a sample of mint chocolate chip.

Ice cream was one of the reasons my waistline and hips commanded a sturdy size 12 presence and the disapproval of the Fifth Avenue shop clerks my mother and Tonia, the Mother-in-Law from hell, routinely dragged me through every spring and fall. The distaste of having to dress a five-eleven linebacker in the latest fashions was a thrill every woman should experience at least once in her life.

Oh wait, they did. My bad.

Darling daughter only growled, “You look like you’re working on a raging hard on for revenge.”

“Well, do you blame me?”

We waited for the light to change and when it didn’t, Etty grabbed my elbow and propelled me across the road, her hand waving a greeting to oncoming traffic.

“Yeah, I guess you’ve got more reason than most. Why the hell did you let him sequester all the assets?”

“Yo bitch…” I practically yelled, imitating Chazz, “…it’s not like I had a choice. Everything was in his name, not mine.”

“If you hadn’t assaulted him…”

Passersby crossed the street as we barreled past one of the outer research labs, maybe because I was screeching, “I did NOT assault that cheating bastard!” Waving my purple-yellow knuckles under her nose, I said, “I. Missed. His. Fucking. Face.”

That merited a ‘humph’ and an extension of stride that jolted me into a rolling canter. I swear-to-God, this girl had more gears than a Formula One.

“Loretta Evangeline McMahon, for pity’s sake,
slow down
!”

Gearing back to second, she smiled and apologized without touching on the gnarly topic we’d been avoiding.

I said, “He didn’t have to move out.” That came out as a gasp.

“Yeah, he did, Mom. He wasn’t comfortable with you sleeping on the couch while we, um…”

Barking a laugh, I couldn’t help myself, “Jesus, he’s got stamina.”

“Mom!”

“He does! Gotta admire a man who can score from every spot on the court.”

Now it was my turn to take point while I left the fruit of my loins slack-jawed and blushing crimson in my wake. Mothers live for these moments.

The problem was … I was all manner of aware that my intrusion cost the one person I loved above all others the company of a man who clearly worshipped the ground she walked on.

Etty came alongside and with a sly look in her eye she tip-toed along the line in the sand I’d sworn not to cross.

“She wants to help.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Because it’s his
mother
. Are you nuts? She’s the last person on this earth I’d ever ask for help.”