Victoria looked nervously up at Jon. And it figured, to Jon at least, that she came without her daughter Tabitha.
"I'll repeat myself, what the hell are you doing here?"
"I wanted to see if Petula was here. And I came to apologize." Jon huffed slightly. "To you mostly," she finished. "Look, I am not a good mother."
"I won't debate that."
"But you have to understand…I fell in love. I know that isn't the excuse for what I did to Petula. But it's the truth. My husband could give me what I needed."
Jon stayed quiet, no matter how badly he wanted to yell at her.
"Why would you leave Petula and Ben? It wasn't love you had for Jake Stapleton, it was his money you loved."
"I learned to love him as well. Jake gave me comfort, structure. With Ben, it was…awkward. I had to do things for myself…"
"And being self sufficient is such a bad thing?"
"For me, I…you know what, I don't need to explain myself to you. Where is Petula?"
"She's working. There's a lot of work that needs to be done before filming in a few days."
"When will she be back?"
"I could be a dick and tell you I don't know but because Petula for some reason told me to keep my thoughts to myself, I will say later tonight, early evening I think."
"I'll be back later."
He watched as she headed to the stairs but she stopped. Virginia looked like she was debating something before she turned back around and head towards Jon again.
"I want to tell you something, Jon." Virginia said. "I understand, I really do understand what Petula has to go through."
"Yeah right," Jon said while rolling his eyes.
"Autism is genetic. My sister was autistic, and in the worse way. She was nonverbal, no sense of anything around her. All she did was rock back and forth and made strange noises. I had to live with it; I had to watch her be an emotionless shell of a person. When our mother died of heart failure, I could not stand to watch my sister, who didn't respond at all to me. I had nothing in common with her, I had no desire to waste her time. So I sent her away. I sent her to a place that could take care of her. I was eighteen, she was sixteen, how was I supposed to take care of someone like her at my age when even I couldn't take care of myself at the time?"
Jon didn't know whether he should be beyond pissed, should be screaming at her, or if his head should explode.
"So you don't deal with change very well, huh. Seemed like you did enough change to Petula, leaving her and Ben for a man you were sleeping with."
"I agree, I did make a mistake with cheating on my first husband. But I loved Jake."
"Loved, that is in the past tense. You just love his money, don't you, you would rather have his income and all the jewels."
"Do you want to know something, I couldn't be apart of my daughter's life. If there is something wrong with the pup then there is something wrong with the bitch, which is what my husband said. It's my fault that Petula is autistic." Virginia slowly raised her voice at Jon, emotional for the first time in her life.
"I don't give a damn about that. Petula is as perfect as the next person. And what do you think she thought when she realized Mommy left her, soon after being diagnosed as autistic? She told me she felt like she was a waste of space."
"What?"
"She felt like she was a waste of air on this earth because no one would give her a chance, no one truly understood what it was like for her to be autistic, to have all these facts and figures in her head and be a prodigy but still looked at her like a freak. Kids used to beat her up, Virginia; they used to tell her she was ugly, stupid, dumb, fat and so many other things. If I had been in her school I would have protected her, I would have done something but you didn't. You ran with a dick of a man who probably treats you and your daughter like trophies." The man dragged out, almost out of breath after saying his peace, well not peace but his opinion.
"Yeah, you're right, Jon. Everything about us had to be perfect. We had to be one way so that people could see how good we had it. I even became an alcoholic in my own home because of it. I cried myself to sleep thinking that my happiness was forever gone."
"Tell me something, Virginia, why did you ever leave? Why would you leave Petula and Ben?"
"Because, I couldn't handle it, I could not handle having a daughter just like my sister."
"Hello, earth to the Bitch of the East, have you seen Petula?" Okay, it felt good to say something like that to Virginia so Jon wasn't complaining. "How can you think that just because your sister has autism that your daughter would be the same?"
"I did what was best for my child. I was not a good enough mother, not to her. And I knew Ben would be there to take care of her. She would get another mother…"
"But he didn't, he didn't remarry because he was head over heels in love with your sorry ass."
"There is no use talking to you in a civil manner is there?"
"Not when you hurt my girl the way you did."
Giving a slight feminine groan, Virginia finally left. But it wasn't going to be the last that she was going be there that day.
Another work day was finished and Petula was packing up to go back home. Back home to Jon. At least she had her robots to think about to keep her mind from wandering back to Jon, to worrying about him in her home alone.
"Tully, can I ask you something?" Heather asked as she and Petula were heading towards the exit of the garage together.
Some of the things that interested Petula was seeing differences. Heather had a mass of curls, which kind of reminded her of Joe's hair, maybe even Colby's. She liked making links, connections between unrelated things, and the best way to do that was through people. Heather was a mixed heritage person. Her family came from Mexico, but there was some African DNA in her, though over the years her family had whitened out somewhat. Heather had told her that she looked more like her mother than anyone else. And she had brilliant green eyes.
"Sure, I guess." Petula finally answered.
"Since your man is in town, how about we take him to a club with us?"
"I don't do clubs."
"I know. He's going to be there with you. And considering that he has a cane, he can beat men off with a stick."
"That analogy doesn't seem right."
"Look girl, we need you to go out and have some fun. I know a good place. It's not as big and fancy as a lot of the other places around the city, and…maybe you can get lucky."
"Get lucky? You want me to have sex with Jon?"
"I know you want to." The way Petula was looking at her made Heather frown. "Look, Tully, I need to tell you something. If you are willing to change you have to jump into a real woman's body."
"I've only been with Jon for a week, maybe a little more. I don't think I want to rush into it."
Heather sighed. "From what I have seen of your Jonny Boy, he looks to be a capable man in bed. I'm just saying." Petula gave Heather a look of anger, the first Heather had seen from her since they had been working together. "Okay, okay, I get it. I over stepped the boundaries. I will just shut up now about the whole thing."
They only remained quiet for a little bit. But after thinking about some of the stuff Petula sighed.
"What is the name of the club?"
"You want to go?"
"No, I don't want to go but I'm willing to spend some time with Jon and because he likes drinking places like clubs and bars, I want him to have some fun while he's here in LA."
"And what would your fun thing be?"
"I told Jon I like to fish…"
"Girl, come on. Look at me."
The high cheek boned woman had a pout to her face. She looked better in her jump suit compared to how Petula filled hers out. At least that's how Petula thought.
"A man like Jon wants to get drunk. Just let him."
"He smokes like me."
"Great. This place actually allows smoking on the property. But there is one thing you have to do."
"What's that?"
"Dress up like a 1920's gangster. It's a place that was a speak-easy."
"Weren't those the places during prohibition where people would create bars in basements and in hidden rooms?"
"Exactly."
"Well, I can talk to Jon about it and see what he thinks. He has to take it easy because his knee could get hurt worse than what it is."
"Great. Call me when you want to go."
"Wait, what's the name of the place?" She asked when they were outside the garaged.
"It doesn't. My boyfriend runs it. It has to be a secret if it's a speak easy. See you later, Tully." And she headed over to her cherry red convertible.
Truth was that Petula didn't know if she wanted to go. Spending time with Jon was her priority, taking care of him was her ambition at the moment and there was nothing she would rather do than make Jon happy.
Petula went over to her car. It was always parked next to the entrance, and it was within view of the building. As she was getting in, Petula remembered that she had shut her phone off because of the fact that her job didn't allow for personal calls during work hours. Once her phone was turned on, she watched as the fact that there were missed calls and texts, at least the texts went straight to her garbage icon on her phone, she didn't need to figure out who it was from, she already knew.
As it was, when Petula was about ready to buckle up the phone rang this time.
"Hello?" She answered her phone.
"Petula, love, I've been trying to get a hold of you." Stu said, making the dark haired woman sigh.
"I thought I made it very clear I wanted nothing to do with you, Stu." Petula sat in her car, close to breaking her phone just to shut him up.
"Pet, listen to me. You have to give me a chance. I didn't mean to break your trust, I definitely didn't intend to break your heart. I will never do it again."
And then Petula said something that she had never done before. "Why don't you just go sleep with that skank you were kissing, Stu. I'm with a man that treats me right. I care for Jon and I am not going to hurt him like you did to me."
If Stu was shocked, who had never once heard Petula cuss or call anyone a bad name before, then he didn't voice it. In retrospect was something that no one had ever thought this woman was capable of.
"Look, Pet, I promise you I can be the boyfriend you want me to be."
"Okay, you can, Stu, but not with me. I am through with you. And if you keep this up I may as well get legal actions where you can't call me anymore."
And like that, she hung up. Not only to Petula hang up, she turned off the phone.
And just as she was about ready to pull out of the parking spot, someone rapt on her window. Jumped, she looked out and sighed in relief.
"Chris, what do you need?" She asked, rolling down the window with her free hand resting over her beating heart.
"I wanted to tell you to have a nice night. Who were you talking to anyway? You looked disturbed."
"I keep getting calls and texts from Stu Bennett. He won't leave me alone."
"Do you want me to do something? Talk to him."
"I think that would make it worse. And Stephen has seen a change in his friend. He's worried about me."
"Stalking is a serious issue, even though it seems harmless."
"I feel like I could be a victim."
"I wouldn't want that to happen, Petula. Look, do you want me to talk to someone, Vince maybe."
"If you think you can get me some help because I don't know where to turn to…then I guess that's fine with me. I have to go, Jon is expecting me back after work."
"Jon's here?" Chris looked vaguely shocked.
"Yeah, he arrived last night. But I told him he needed to relax. He wants to come to the filming days but he has to talk to Vince about it. He'll be here for at least two weeks, longer if his knee doesn't heal on time."
"Great. I'm proud you can have some time. I know I love being with my wife and kids. I'll let you go."
"Sure. I'll see you tomorrow, Chris."
And then she left, with every intent on seeing Jon again.
I would really love your honest opinion on this chapter. I think I messed up on a few places, but I'm not quiet sure. Also any suggestions on what to do next would be helpful.