1 Chapter 14
3 tortuous hours, lots of arguing and name calling later Mrs Morelli and Grandma Bella left to gone home for the night. As it turns out Grandma Bella was the one who I was fighting with the most, Mrs Morelli just sat there holding Joe's hand and telling her mother to leave me alone. In the end we all came to a comprise, we would take it in turns watching Joe, so that if he woke up, he wouldn't be alone. Then whom ever was there would call the other. I just hoped that it worked.
Mrs Morelli and Grandma Bella still didn't like me, but at least Mrs. Morelli was willing to put up with me, Grandma Bella just sat there throwing insults at me, giving me the evil eye, or what ever else she had to in order to get to me. In the end I just didn't look at her. She wasn't going to get rid of me that easy.
The only times I moved was to use the bathroom or stretch my legs.
After they had left, I still sat there watching Joe breath in and out, in and out, until another felt pity for me, and bought me a TV to watch.
Flicking through the channels, there wasn't much to watch, the news, lots of sport. Wrestling, Basketball – the Nets were up, so was Orlando, that Aussie Rules Football again, hell it was even the same brown and yellow team. I think the commenter called them Hawthorn. I watched the rest of the game, keeping my eye out for the cute players, woo hoo, I saw them, Shane Crawford, Daniel Chick, Aaron Lord, Ben Dixon, and they were the ones I saw close up!! MTV was showing Road Rules Australia, pretty interesting stuff, they were at a crocodile farm. Finally I settled on "The Jerry Springer Show"
Finally people with lives more screwed up than my own.
I must have fallen asleep, some time after the 4th Episode, because I had the most bizarre dream.
I was on the Jerry Springer Show, the topic for today was called "People who have stuffed up their lives"
I was sitting there in the audience, looking at myself, also up on stage, it felt like something out of the Twilight Zone.
Anyway, so I sitting there watching Jerry talking to the audience, and then asking me to tell my story, and it was something along the lines of:
"Well, I should probably explain what I do for a living, I'm a Bounty Hunter, which means that I go after people who fail to appear for their court hearings. Anyway, this whole situation started when I bought a little black dress to wear to a wedding that my on-again, off-again boyfriend invited me to, I didn't wear the dress, but a few nights later, I was, well, horny, I decided to invited someone over, but what I haven't told you is that my bounty hunter mentor had kissed me, sending me into a tail spin."
"So, in my state of confusion, I put both Joe's and Ranger's names in a bowl and picked one"
I watched as the crowd all booed at this, a few audience members put up their hands with questions.
Jerry walked over the closest to where he was standing. "Do you have a question?"
"Yes, who is Joe and Ranger, which one is your boyfriend and which is your mentor?"
"I explained that Joe was my boyfriend and Ranger was my mentor.
"What does Joe do for a living?"
"Joe's a policeman"
"Stephanie, would you please continue with your story?" Jerry asked.
"Of course, so like I said, I picked a name out of the bowl, but I peeked…"
Once more boos came from the audience.
I watched as I stood up and tried to explain to the audience why I peeked. In the end Jerry told the audience to quite down, and that we would all see them later on in the show.
"It was Joe that I rang and we had great night together, but he got called away on a job the next morning, I'm ok with this, I'm used to it. Unfortunately, this is where things start to get complicated. Ranger called me and asked if I could go to Atlantic City with him to do a job."
More boos from the audience.
"Anyway, I found out later that Joyce Burnhart had told Joe that I've gone to Atlantic City with Ranger, except the **** didn't tell him it was only a job, so to get back at me he sleeps with his ex high school girlfriend, Terri Gilman."
"Mean while my best friend Mary Lou has rung me and tells me she saw Joe kissing Terri. So being the mature person that I am, I get back at him by sleeping with Ranger while we were in Atlantic City."
Calls of slut and whore echo throughout the audience.
"Are there any questions?" asked Jerry.
"This Terry chick, do you two get along?"
"To be honest, I don't really like her, and I don't trust her when she's with Joe alone"
"What about Joyce?"
I thought for a second, "How can I put this politely, I caught her and my first husband bare arsed on my dinning room table, so I'd have to say, she and I don't really get along"
"Did you use protection of any kind?" asked Jerry.
"Joe and I used condoms, mostly, he thought I was on the pill, and Ranger and I used condoms, but he also told me that he had a vasectomy, but it turns out that his "snip and clip" wasn't 100% successful."
"Stephanie, please continue with your story"
"Fast forward two and a half months" I continued "I'm 8 weeks pregnant and the father was Joe, or so I thought. But I felt that I need to tell both of them that I was pregnant, except, I didn't know where either of them where, but neither of them were even in Trenton."
"Lula and Connie guess that I'm pregnant, and later that night I find Joe in my apartment, we talk and decide to forgive each other and perhaps get back together, and we were making up when Ranger broke into my apartment, as usual, and was standing in my kitchen. I should have told both of them then, but Joe and Ranger got into a fight, and I threaten to shot their nuts off if they didn't stop fighting. Then I kicked them out."
"The next morning the whole of Trenton knew I was pregnant, mainly because on page 5 of the newspaper was the headline "BOMBSHELL BOUNTY HUNTER PREGANT" plus a photo me looking for maternity clothes. So I do the right thing and go over to Joe's to tell him that HE'S the father of my child, but he doesn't quite believe me. Later Ranger told me about his vasectomy, and then I run away from Joe when he's at my parents house for dinner"
"The next day I win a trip to LA, and take it as an omen, that I'm supposed to go and let Joe figure things out for himself. So I invite Mary Lou, but she couldn't make it for a few days, but what I didn't know is that Ranger had gone to see Joe, and told him about his vasectomy, Joe's then visited by Mary Lou, who gives him her ticket to LA."
"Anyway, back in my room, I was waiting for Mary Lou to arrive, when there was a knock at my door and it was Joe. I let him in, and over the next week, we talked and started to figure things out, Joe proposed, I said yes and we organised with a couple of Joe's friends to get married in Lake Tahoe, but first we meet them in Carson City."
"Everything was going fine, we had our marriage certificate, and was getting ready to leave for Lake Tahoe, when Ranger showed up and dropped a bomb shell. He had gone to his doctor, and there is a 75% chance that he could still father a child."
More boo's echoed thought the audience.
"However, I told Joe, but he left, and I never found out how he felt about my baby, after I told him, I went for a walk and ran into Ranger, went ballistic at him, but some how ended up kissing him, that's when Joe found me, I chased after him, but he was gone. Then Ranger was gone, and I was alone"
A mixture of boo's and slut calls echoed thought the audience.
"I called my friends Mary Lou and Lula, who came straight away, they both received phone calls from Joe and Ranger respectively, asking them to come and look after me. And to cut the rest of this story short, we took out time coming back to Trenton, stopping in Philli for a few days, while I made up my mind, as to who I couldn't live without."
"I decide that Joe was the one that I wanted, and I would play dirty if I had to. So the day we arrived back in Trenton I set my plan into action. I went to Joe's house, let myself in with my keys, I made a path way of clothing leading from the doorway up to his bedroom where I was waiting, and that's where I fell asleep waiting"
"The next morning I was woken my by friend Eddie, who's a colleague of Joe's, he told me that Joe was in a coma in hospital. So that were I ended up. I got into a fight with Terry Gilman, and later with Joe's mother and grandmother. "
"So that's my story"
"Wow" said Jerry. "Ok, so lets invite out the two men in this saga, firstly Joe Morelli.
I watched as Joe appeared from behind me, and sat in the chair beside me.
When Joe walked out on stage there was a bevy of cat calls.
"Hi Joe, how are you?" asked Jerry.
"Good thanks Jerry, you?"
"Not bad, so, do you know the woman beside you?"
"Yep"
"Who is she to you?"
"Well, she's my fiancée, Stephanie"
"So your still engaged?"
"As far as I know"
"Why don't you tell us your side of the story."
So Joe started to tell his story, I listened because I hadn't heard it before.
When Joe had finished Jerry spoke up. "Ok, well lets bring out the 3rd person in this bizarre triangle, Ranger Mañoso."
I looked at Joe from the audience and saw his eyes glaze over, he wasn't happy.
I think every woman in the audience nearly fainted when he walked out on stage. Ranger sat on the other side of me.
"Hi, Ranger is it?"
"Yep"
"Do you know the people beside you?"
"Yep"
"Who are they?"
"Stephanie and Joe"
"Do you know why you're here?"
"Yep"
"Do you ever give answers longer that on word?"
"Yep"
"Ranger, could you please tell us your side of this bizarre triangle?"
Now Ranger recounted his side of the story, and the next thing I knew Joe had jumped up and was fighting with Ranger. The rest of the time up there with Ranger and Joe was a bit of a blur. But I do remember being knocked of my chair several times, in the end Jerry had to send them out the back.
Once they were gone, Jerry introduced my mother and Grandma Mazur, and Joe's mother and Grandma Bella, and before Jerry had time to ask questions Grandma's Mazur and Bella where going at it like rabid dogs, hurling abuse across the stage, fighting and in the end Grandma Mazur pulled her stun gun on Bella and stunned her. Grandma Mazur was waving around her stun gun like it was a walking stick, threatening to stun everyone including Jerry, but in the end I managed to get her to give me the stun gun, and security hauled her and Bella of the stage.
Mum and Mrs. Morelli where a little be more restrained, until that is when Mrs. Morelli called me a slut and mum went psycho, and remained Mrs. Morelli that she had to have a "hurry up wedding". Mum had many years of pent up ager towards Angie Morelli.
Next on the magical Jerry Springer show was Lula, Mary Lou vs Terry and Joyce. This would make for interesting viewing.
The crowd cheered for Lula and Mary Lou when they came out to sit with me, I had to get up and moved to sit between them, because there was no way in hell I was sitting next to Terry and Joyce. I told Jerry to have security ready, because I could blow at anytime.
As it turns out it wasn't me that had to worry about. When Terry and Joyce came out, there was a lot of booing, and to my joy, Joyce was called a slut by a few audience members.
Terry and Joyce went straight for me, but Terry was incepted by Lula who sat on her and Mary Lou got her hands on Joyce, I just stood up, and walked to the side and watched them go.
Somehow, Lula managed to smuggle her Taser out on stage and stunned Terry, she then tossed the Taser to Mary Lou who in turn stunned Joyce, the crowd went absolutely mental. They were loving it.
After they cleaned up all the carnage they bought Joe and Ranger back out to sit on either side of me.
They started to fight over me, Joe had one are and Ranger the other, ad they were shaking me, back and forth, when I suddenly opened my eyes and saw a nurse looking at me.
"Excuse me Miss. Plum, but Mr. Morelli is awake"
"Huh, what?"
"Mr. Morelli is awake"
"Ohmigod, ohmigod, your awake"
The nurse looked at me, "I think it was to dream you were having, you were squeezing the life out of his hand, he had to call us to wake you up. I've called the Doctor, he'll be here soon, so why don't you go and call his mother."
I got up and nodded. I looked into his brown eyes, and saw him raise an eyebrow, and faintly smiled at me. I grinned back, and went to call Mrs. Morelli.
2 days later I was sitting with Joe in his room, the doctors where finally letting him sit up, and we where just enjoying the time along, the first time we had been alone since he had woken up.
"So Steph, what are we going to do now?" Joe asked out of the blue.
"I don't know, but I'm still wearing this" I said showing him my left hand.
A smile came across his face, before the cop face mask.
He took my hand, and started to speak. "Steph, you know I love you, and I still want to marry you, I realised that when Eddie and Carl told me how you stood up to Terry and that you had been here the entire time. Hell, Eddie even told me what you weren't wearing when he found you" I felt my face to all hot. "I just think that you need some more time to get over what ever it was or is that you feel for Ranger. Just remember, I told you, marriage in the Morelli family is forever, so don't think your getting out of it."
I felt tears welling up in my eyes, threatening to spill down my checks.
"Joe, I don't need any more time to think, what Ranger and I didn't have is over, because we didn't have anything. And what I wasn't wearing when Eddie found me, well I'll wear it for you on our wedding night. Plus I found another pair of your favourite purple shoes"
With that I got up and walked out of his room, at the doorway, I looked back at him, I could see that he was really excited about those purple shoes.
"By the way, I have an appointment with my OB-GYN - Doctor Wheeler, at the end of the month, I'll let you know, when and where, so you can come it you want."
I blew him a kiss and left the hospital.
3 tortuous hours, lots of arguing and name calling later Mrs Morelli and Grandma Bella left to gone home for the night. As it turns out Grandma Bella was the one who I was fighting with the most, Mrs Morelli just sat there holding Joe's hand and telling her mother to leave me alone. In the end we all came to a comprise, we would take it in turns watching Joe, so that if he woke up, he wouldn't be alone. Then whom ever was there would call the other. I just hoped that it worked.
Mrs Morelli and Grandma Bella still didn't like me, but at least Mrs. Morelli was willing to put up with me, Grandma Bella just sat there throwing insults at me, giving me the evil eye, or what ever else she had to in order to get to me. In the end I just didn't look at her. She wasn't going to get rid of me that easy.
The only times I moved was to use the bathroom or stretch my legs.
After they had left, I still sat there watching Joe breath in and out, in and out, until another felt pity for me, and bought me a TV to watch.
Flicking through the channels, there wasn't much to watch, the news, lots of sport. Wrestling, Basketball – the Nets were up, so was Orlando, that Aussie Rules Football again, hell it was even the same brown and yellow team. I think the commenter called them Hawthorn. I watched the rest of the game, keeping my eye out for the cute players, woo hoo, I saw them, Shane Crawford, Daniel Chick, Aaron Lord, Ben Dixon, and they were the ones I saw close up!! MTV was showing Road Rules Australia, pretty interesting stuff, they were at a crocodile farm. Finally I settled on "The Jerry Springer Show"
Finally people with lives more screwed up than my own.
I must have fallen asleep, some time after the 4th Episode, because I had the most bizarre dream.
I was on the Jerry Springer Show, the topic for today was called "People who have stuffed up their lives"
I was sitting there in the audience, looking at myself, also up on stage, it felt like something out of the Twilight Zone.
Anyway, so I sitting there watching Jerry talking to the audience, and then asking me to tell my story, and it was something along the lines of:
"Well, I should probably explain what I do for a living, I'm a Bounty Hunter, which means that I go after people who fail to appear for their court hearings. Anyway, this whole situation started when I bought a little black dress to wear to a wedding that my on-again, off-again boyfriend invited me to, I didn't wear the dress, but a few nights later, I was, well, horny, I decided to invited someone over, but what I haven't told you is that my bounty hunter mentor had kissed me, sending me into a tail spin."
"So, in my state of confusion, I put both Joe's and Ranger's names in a bowl and picked one"
I watched as the crowd all booed at this, a few audience members put up their hands with questions.
Jerry walked over the closest to where he was standing. "Do you have a question?"
"Yes, who is Joe and Ranger, which one is your boyfriend and which is your mentor?"
"I explained that Joe was my boyfriend and Ranger was my mentor.
"What does Joe do for a living?"
"Joe's a policeman"
"Stephanie, would you please continue with your story?" Jerry asked.
"Of course, so like I said, I picked a name out of the bowl, but I peeked…"
Once more boos came from the audience.
I watched as I stood up and tried to explain to the audience why I peeked. In the end Jerry told the audience to quite down, and that we would all see them later on in the show.
"It was Joe that I rang and we had great night together, but he got called away on a job the next morning, I'm ok with this, I'm used to it. Unfortunately, this is where things start to get complicated. Ranger called me and asked if I could go to Atlantic City with him to do a job."
More boos from the audience.
"Anyway, I found out later that Joyce Burnhart had told Joe that I've gone to Atlantic City with Ranger, except the **** didn't tell him it was only a job, so to get back at me he sleeps with his ex high school girlfriend, Terri Gilman."
"Mean while my best friend Mary Lou has rung me and tells me she saw Joe kissing Terri. So being the mature person that I am, I get back at him by sleeping with Ranger while we were in Atlantic City."
Calls of slut and whore echo throughout the audience.
"Are there any questions?" asked Jerry.
"This Terry chick, do you two get along?"
"To be honest, I don't really like her, and I don't trust her when she's with Joe alone"
"What about Joyce?"
I thought for a second, "How can I put this politely, I caught her and my first husband bare arsed on my dinning room table, so I'd have to say, she and I don't really get along"
"Did you use protection of any kind?" asked Jerry.
"Joe and I used condoms, mostly, he thought I was on the pill, and Ranger and I used condoms, but he also told me that he had a vasectomy, but it turns out that his "snip and clip" wasn't 100% successful."
"Stephanie, please continue with your story"
"Fast forward two and a half months" I continued "I'm 8 weeks pregnant and the father was Joe, or so I thought. But I felt that I need to tell both of them that I was pregnant, except, I didn't know where either of them where, but neither of them were even in Trenton."
"Lula and Connie guess that I'm pregnant, and later that night I find Joe in my apartment, we talk and decide to forgive each other and perhaps get back together, and we were making up when Ranger broke into my apartment, as usual, and was standing in my kitchen. I should have told both of them then, but Joe and Ranger got into a fight, and I threaten to shot their nuts off if they didn't stop fighting. Then I kicked them out."
"The next morning the whole of Trenton knew I was pregnant, mainly because on page 5 of the newspaper was the headline "BOMBSHELL BOUNTY HUNTER PREGANT" plus a photo me looking for maternity clothes. So I do the right thing and go over to Joe's to tell him that HE'S the father of my child, but he doesn't quite believe me. Later Ranger told me about his vasectomy, and then I run away from Joe when he's at my parents house for dinner"
"The next day I win a trip to LA, and take it as an omen, that I'm supposed to go and let Joe figure things out for himself. So I invite Mary Lou, but she couldn't make it for a few days, but what I didn't know is that Ranger had gone to see Joe, and told him about his vasectomy, Joe's then visited by Mary Lou, who gives him her ticket to LA."
"Anyway, back in my room, I was waiting for Mary Lou to arrive, when there was a knock at my door and it was Joe. I let him in, and over the next week, we talked and started to figure things out, Joe proposed, I said yes and we organised with a couple of Joe's friends to get married in Lake Tahoe, but first we meet them in Carson City."
"Everything was going fine, we had our marriage certificate, and was getting ready to leave for Lake Tahoe, when Ranger showed up and dropped a bomb shell. He had gone to his doctor, and there is a 75% chance that he could still father a child."
More boo's echoed thought the audience.
"However, I told Joe, but he left, and I never found out how he felt about my baby, after I told him, I went for a walk and ran into Ranger, went ballistic at him, but some how ended up kissing him, that's when Joe found me, I chased after him, but he was gone. Then Ranger was gone, and I was alone"
A mixture of boo's and slut calls echoed thought the audience.
"I called my friends Mary Lou and Lula, who came straight away, they both received phone calls from Joe and Ranger respectively, asking them to come and look after me. And to cut the rest of this story short, we took out time coming back to Trenton, stopping in Philli for a few days, while I made up my mind, as to who I couldn't live without."
"I decide that Joe was the one that I wanted, and I would play dirty if I had to. So the day we arrived back in Trenton I set my plan into action. I went to Joe's house, let myself in with my keys, I made a path way of clothing leading from the doorway up to his bedroom where I was waiting, and that's where I fell asleep waiting"
"The next morning I was woken my by friend Eddie, who's a colleague of Joe's, he told me that Joe was in a coma in hospital. So that were I ended up. I got into a fight with Terry Gilman, and later with Joe's mother and grandmother. "
"So that's my story"
"Wow" said Jerry. "Ok, so lets invite out the two men in this saga, firstly Joe Morelli.
I watched as Joe appeared from behind me, and sat in the chair beside me.
When Joe walked out on stage there was a bevy of cat calls.
"Hi Joe, how are you?" asked Jerry.
"Good thanks Jerry, you?"
"Not bad, so, do you know the woman beside you?"
"Yep"
"Who is she to you?"
"Well, she's my fiancée, Stephanie"
"So your still engaged?"
"As far as I know"
"Why don't you tell us your side of the story."
So Joe started to tell his story, I listened because I hadn't heard it before.
When Joe had finished Jerry spoke up. "Ok, well lets bring out the 3rd person in this bizarre triangle, Ranger Mañoso."
I looked at Joe from the audience and saw his eyes glaze over, he wasn't happy.
I think every woman in the audience nearly fainted when he walked out on stage. Ranger sat on the other side of me.
"Hi, Ranger is it?"
"Yep"
"Do you know the people beside you?"
"Yep"
"Who are they?"
"Stephanie and Joe"
"Do you know why you're here?"
"Yep"
"Do you ever give answers longer that on word?"
"Yep"
"Ranger, could you please tell us your side of this bizarre triangle?"
Now Ranger recounted his side of the story, and the next thing I knew Joe had jumped up and was fighting with Ranger. The rest of the time up there with Ranger and Joe was a bit of a blur. But I do remember being knocked of my chair several times, in the end Jerry had to send them out the back.
Once they were gone, Jerry introduced my mother and Grandma Mazur, and Joe's mother and Grandma Bella, and before Jerry had time to ask questions Grandma's Mazur and Bella where going at it like rabid dogs, hurling abuse across the stage, fighting and in the end Grandma Mazur pulled her stun gun on Bella and stunned her. Grandma Mazur was waving around her stun gun like it was a walking stick, threatening to stun everyone including Jerry, but in the end I managed to get her to give me the stun gun, and security hauled her and Bella of the stage.
Mum and Mrs. Morelli where a little be more restrained, until that is when Mrs. Morelli called me a slut and mum went psycho, and remained Mrs. Morelli that she had to have a "hurry up wedding". Mum had many years of pent up ager towards Angie Morelli.
Next on the magical Jerry Springer show was Lula, Mary Lou vs Terry and Joyce. This would make for interesting viewing.
The crowd cheered for Lula and Mary Lou when they came out to sit with me, I had to get up and moved to sit between them, because there was no way in hell I was sitting next to Terry and Joyce. I told Jerry to have security ready, because I could blow at anytime.
As it turns out it wasn't me that had to worry about. When Terry and Joyce came out, there was a lot of booing, and to my joy, Joyce was called a slut by a few audience members.
Terry and Joyce went straight for me, but Terry was incepted by Lula who sat on her and Mary Lou got her hands on Joyce, I just stood up, and walked to the side and watched them go.
Somehow, Lula managed to smuggle her Taser out on stage and stunned Terry, she then tossed the Taser to Mary Lou who in turn stunned Joyce, the crowd went absolutely mental. They were loving it.
After they cleaned up all the carnage they bought Joe and Ranger back out to sit on either side of me.
They started to fight over me, Joe had one are and Ranger the other, ad they were shaking me, back and forth, when I suddenly opened my eyes and saw a nurse looking at me.
"Excuse me Miss. Plum, but Mr. Morelli is awake"
"Huh, what?"
"Mr. Morelli is awake"
"Ohmigod, ohmigod, your awake"
The nurse looked at me, "I think it was to dream you were having, you were squeezing the life out of his hand, he had to call us to wake you up. I've called the Doctor, he'll be here soon, so why don't you go and call his mother."
I got up and nodded. I looked into his brown eyes, and saw him raise an eyebrow, and faintly smiled at me. I grinned back, and went to call Mrs. Morelli.
2 days later I was sitting with Joe in his room, the doctors where finally letting him sit up, and we where just enjoying the time along, the first time we had been alone since he had woken up.
"So Steph, what are we going to do now?" Joe asked out of the blue.
"I don't know, but I'm still wearing this" I said showing him my left hand.
A smile came across his face, before the cop face mask.
He took my hand, and started to speak. "Steph, you know I love you, and I still want to marry you, I realised that when Eddie and Carl told me how you stood up to Terry and that you had been here the entire time. Hell, Eddie even told me what you weren't wearing when he found you" I felt my face to all hot. "I just think that you need some more time to get over what ever it was or is that you feel for Ranger. Just remember, I told you, marriage in the Morelli family is forever, so don't think your getting out of it."
I felt tears welling up in my eyes, threatening to spill down my checks.
"Joe, I don't need any more time to think, what Ranger and I didn't have is over, because we didn't have anything. And what I wasn't wearing when Eddie found me, well I'll wear it for you on our wedding night. Plus I found another pair of your favourite purple shoes"
With that I got up and walked out of his room, at the doorway, I looked back at him, I could see that he was really excited about those purple shoes.
"By the way, I have an appointment with my OB-GYN - Doctor Wheeler, at the end of the month, I'll let you know, when and where, so you can come it you want."
I blew him a kiss and left the hospital.
