The 90 Day Rule

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 myself 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.