7 - Merry Moniker

“So that’s what a glittered cock ring looks like.”

Jon’s hitched eyebrow showed that he wasn’t impressed by the contents of the little box in his hand.  His utter disdain made it all the funnier for Charlie, who had laughed so much in the last half-hour that her cheek muscles were going to cramp and create an immovable Joker-esque grin.

“You gonna take it out?”  That sly question came from one of the two other people sequestered in Jon’s office for the opening of this gift. 

“No, Kentucky, I’m not fucking taking it out,” he scoffed with a hard look at the snarky creator of his new bling.  “The damn thing can keep all its glitter herepes, ‘cause I ain’t touchin’ it.”

“Now, Jon.  Don’t be mean.  Lilah went to all the trouble to special-make that for you.”  Charlie barely managed to get it out before her snickering started again.

Make-up had been pointless today.  Every bit of eyeliner was gone thanks to the constant wiping of mirthful tears, and more started to flow when Jon slid a lazy stink eye her way.  He didn’t find her nearly as funny as she did.

“Thanks, Lilah,” he drawled sardonically.  “For something I can never un-see.”

“Tour isn’t gonna be the same now, is it?”

Tony was goading his brother because Lilah hadn’t just decorated Jon’s cock ring with random red and green glitter in the spirt of the season.  Oh no.  She custom-designed this little beauty with solid red glitter – and adorned it with two beady eyes and a black line of glitter glue along the top and bottom edge. 

The “Have a Nice Day” smirk had its mouth open for business, and Charlie thought it was hilarious.  Jon, not so much.

“I had better never see this replicated on one of my concert screens, or your ass is fired.”

“Never crossed my mind.”

Jon eased the lid back onto Mr. Smirk’s cardboard coffin and overlooked Tony’s blatant lie.  “You’re a screwball, Kentucky, but I gotta give you props for pulling the whole herpetology thing outta thin air.  That was pretty damn impressive on the fly.”

Lilah dismissed the praise with an uncomfortable smile and a shrug.  The self-conscious behavior was out of character, but Charlie was starting to notice that it often surfaced at times like these.

When Jon gave her hell for feeding them a “Las Vegas showgirl turkey”, she sassed right back at him.  When Tony bickered about the chaotic mess in their dining room, she waved him off with an uncaring hand.  When Matt called her a kook, she grinned, saying everyone needed a kook in their life and that he should be grateful it was her and not the guy from “Silence of the Lambs”.

The woman counter-attacked every instance of Bongiovi ridicule with feisty witticisms, but just let one of them say something nice to her.  That’s when she got all awkward and tongue-tied.  It was the strangest thing.

Shifty eyes darted to the piano as Lilah crammed both hands into her back pockets. “Sometimes it helps to be screwy, I reckon.  We’d prob’ly better go on out there and see if dinner’s about ready.  My kids are likely chewin’ on tree branches.”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Tony complained when his brother deposited the box in a desk drawer.  Holding out an open palm, he commanded, “Gimme that.  I wanna show Matt.”

“Show him your own.”

“I didn’t bring it.”  Impatient fingers waggled with insistence.  “Gimme.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jon grumbled and tossed it at Tony’s chest with a huff.  “Don’t let anybody else see it.”

“Of course not.  Nobody except Dom.  And Luke and Vince.  Maybe Dad.” 

The evil Bongiovi grin was in full force with that bullshit assurance, making Charlie laugh.  When Jon’s full lips took on a pout, she decided she’d picked on him enough for one family holiday and offered her support in the form of a stern, “Keep it away from all the kids – even the older ones.  Those boys don’t need help finding trouble.”

There wasn’t a chance for Tony to offer up a promise.  Before he could do more than pretend to think about it, a knock came on the door that Jon answered with a loud invitation to enter – while stabbing a threatening finger at his brother. 

Caleb’s tousled head popped around the door’s edge.  “Hey Mom? Becca and I want to do the gender and name thing before dinner.  Is that okay?”

Excitement and anticipation flip-flopped in her stomach.  As if the girl’s pregnant belly wasn’t enough, things were about to get very real.  The baby hiding under Becca’s soft red sweater was about to get an identity, and Charlie would finally know whether to buy blue or pink.  

She was going to be a Nonna.  To an actual person, and not just the mooching dog who was weaving around everyone’s ankles in search of dropped scraps. 

Poor Nana.  She wouldn’t like not being the baby anymore. 

“You’ve got names picked out already?  I didn’t know that.”  Nobody had mentioned names, and she’d been waiting for that conversation with a few of her own suggestions.  The again, she was behind the curve in most everything involving this pregnancy.  Why should she be included in the naming?

Don’t be a bitch.  Enjoy your achy cheeks and give the kid a breather from your abundance of opinions.

“Yep.  Can we do it now?”

“Yeah, yeah.”  Undoubtedly knowing that she was on the verge of sticking a foot in her mouth, Jon took it upon himself to deliver the answer and placed an ushering hand at Charlie’s back.  “C’mon folks.  We’ve got a baby to unveil.”

“Lord a’mercy, don’t talk about unveilin’ that baby yet.  You’ll have it thinkin’ today’s a good day for bein’ born,” Lilah scolded.

Herding everyone in front of him, Jon mocked, “It’s not like you can will things like that into being, Kentucky.”

“Speak for yourself.”

With their sister-in-law’s intuition, it wouldn’t necessarily be a shock to find out Lilah possessed the voodoo powers he believed her to have.  She may even be descended from a black magic priestess for all they knew, but Charlie was more inclined to believe that Lilah just liked spooking Jon.

Charlie was usually on board with that, but this time she took his side.   

“There will be no premature labor until at least Groundhog Day,” she asserted as they emerged from the office into the living room. 

“Well, it’s about damn time.  So good of you to join us.”

“Shut up, Luke.  We were gone for ten minutes.”  Charlie would’ve offered him a Jersey salute – complete with a shiny red bow – if she didn’t think their mother would throw a fit.  Brothers were such a pain in the ass.

“Well, you held up this announcement for at least eight of it.”

“Over here, Mom.”

She was so distracted by Luke’s whining that the empty armchair at the center of the room escaped her attention until Caleb directed her toward it. 

An empty chair never happened by accident.  With this crowd, there were never quite enough spots for them all to sit comfortably in one room.  At least a handful of people were always perched on chair and sofa arms or cross-legged in the floor.  If there was a vacant seat, someone had been evicted to create it. 

Well, it wasn’t entirely vacant, she found upon approach.  There was a gift on the cushion.  The size of a shirt box, it was wrapped in white paper and tied with a gold ribbon. 

“What’s this?”

“Pick it up and sit down,” her son instructed with a grin as his girlfriend sidled up next to him.  “Becca and I want you to do the reveal as your Christmas present, and the envelope is your gift from me and Noah.  And Jon, kind of.  He got the right people together.” 

That sounded like her husband.  Jon knew everybody, and if there was someone he didn’t know, he knew someone who did know them.  The man could make things happen, and it warmed her to know he was using that ability on behalf of the boys. 

The thick, oblong envelope labeled “Mom” was practically hidden under the fluffy double bow, but it slid free when Charlie lifted the box.  She had to make a grab to keep it from falling to the floor.

Settling into the chair under the watchful eyes of their huge family, she caught Jon’s attention and subtly tilted her head.  He couldn’t even even take his cue to sit on the chair arm before getting hammered with an accusatory glare. 

“I see you’re still keeping secrets from me.”

He was so used to their full-blown fighting that her disgruntled gripe practically qualified as love talk.  With a lazy smile, Jon just kissed the top of her head and murmured, “Last one, and it’s a good one.”

“It better be.”

“Jeez, Mom.  Can we do this before I become an uncle?” 

This from Noah who had shifted through the crowd to stand beside his brother in a cloud of impatience.  The amount of patience in this room could be collected in a shot glass with room to spare.  None of them were known for it, and she could feel the wave of fidgeting begin.  If she didn’t get this show on the road, there was going to be a riot.

“Alright, alright.”  Before the any of her brothers decided to join in on the nagging, she pushed her finger under the flap of the envelope. 

As she did, there came a snicker from over by the windows, and it lifted one corner of Charlie’s mouth into her cheek.  It sounded like Matt just got his first look at Lilah’s handiwork. 

A thick, tri-folded stack of papers was now free from the confines of the envelope.  Tucking it between the cushion and chair arm, she then flipped up the top edge of the Christmas gift from her sons.  There was an eerie sense of déjà vu as she saw the header for a legal document from Kings County, New York, and she flicked a look of suspicion toward two grinning sons. 

“What?  Is it the trend to spend money on legal services for a former lawyer?” she demanded wryly.  “Is this what I’ve got to look forward to every year?  Court-appointed sentiments?”

“If it makes you happy, who cares?”

“Touchè.”  Her husband was right.  If this was even a quarter as good as last year’s donation to the legal community, she had no room for complaint. 

“Read it, already.”

“I’m reading, I’m reading!”  Caleb’s prompting should make Charlie wonder how she got such pushy children, but she knew how.  They were hers. 

A quick scan of the document caused her heart to stutter, and then she went back to read it more carefully.  There were actually two documents here, and both were approved orders for name changes – one for Noah and one for Caleb. 

They boys no longer carried the surname Foster.  They were now legally and officially Del Vecchios, and before she even thought to ask why, a puddle of emotion pooled in her lower lids.  They really were her children.

“We decided we’d never really been Fosters, anyway,” Noah explained to both her and the room at large without prompting.  “And after finding out what went on all those years….  Well, we’re Del Vecchios.  Always have been, and now that we legally changed our name, the rest of the world will know that.”

Dropping the hands that still clutched thick parchment, Charlie just looked at her kids through a sheen of moisture.  She’d never taken the Foster name and had wished countless times that they carried her name instead of Owen’s – and now they did. 

“We mentioned it to Jon and he hooked us up with a lawyer,” Caleb supplied, prompting her to reach for her husband’s hand.  “What do you think?”

“What do I think?”  The unopened package was put aside so that she could rise and fold both young men into her arms for bone-crushing hugs.  “I think this was more a gift to yourselves than it was to me, but I’ll take it.  Gladly.  I love you both so much.”

“Guess you haven’t ruined the desire to be part of this family for everybody.”

A loud thwap followed Luke’s blurted sarcasm, and his yelp of pain incited a round of laughter along with Dominick’s, “It’s Christmas, you idiot.  Stop being a horse’s ass.”

“Language, Domnick.”

“Yes, Ma.”  The sigh was followed by another audible thwap to his younger brother, and Charlie gave a watery chuckle as she released her boys.

“You may live to regret publicly claiming those morons, but I’m thrilled with your decision.  Thank you.”  Kisses and fresh hugs were exchanged before she turned to drop grateful lips to Jon’s mouth.  “I love you for loving and supporting them.”

Not financially, either.  Thanks to an interest-bearing account, the boys were still sitting on a joint trust that had scarcely dipped below million-dollar payout of Owen’s life insurance policy.  Money was nice, but it wasn’t the same as emotional support that not every step-father was qualified or willing to provide.  This man had gone above and beyond as of late, and Charlie was immeasurably thankful for him.

“It’s what family does, baby.”

It was as simple as that in his mind, and she couldn’t keep herself from stealing another impulsive kiss.  Jon was imperfect perfection – and he was hers.

“Okay, okay.  Enough of that,” came a bellow from the peanut gallery.  One of her brothers, Charlie was sure.  “Are we getting a grand-niece or a grand-nephew?”

The next voice she positively identified as the oldest Del Vecchio sibling.  “Doesn’t matter.  Dominick or Dominique are both great names.”

“Which they won’t be using.”

“And they won’t be using yours, either,” Vince scorned.  “Because this family already has a Luke and a Lucas, little brother.  That’s plenty.  Personally, I think Vincenzo would be nice.  Or Vincetta.”

“I vote for Julian or Juliana.” 

Of all those suggestions, Charlie agreed most with the last one, from her father.  It would be a blessing to have a grandchild named for her mother.

“How about you get on with this to shut them up?”  Jon prodded under his breath.

With a grin, she plopped back down with the unopened package.  “Excellent idea.  Okay, who wants to see if we’re having a Del Vecchio girl or boy?”

An approving roar went up from the quibbling crowd, and Charlie sought Becca and Caleb. 

“Are we ready for this?”

Both grinning kids nodded as their arms tightened around each other’s waists, giving every appearance of a young couple in love.  They would end up getting married, Charlie silently predicted, and bestowing more grandbabies upon their family.  When the time was right.

A gentle tug on one end of the bow had it unraveling, and impatient hands stripped the paper away.

Do I want a boy or a girl?

Boys were what she knew after raising two of them, but it would be so much fun to dress a little girl.  Their combined five sons produced plenty enough testosterone at family gatherings, so it might be nice for a pink bundle of joy to offset it.

Either way, she would be happy.  Love knew no gender when it came to grandchildren.  Pink or blue, nuts or no nuts, – as she heard one of Jon’s brothers joke – prince or princess.  There was no wrong answer, but when she lifted the box lid…

“Ohhhh!”  Her head whipped around to demand of Jon, “Did you know this, too?”

His blinding grin was wide enough to light the whole room.  “Nope.  This, I would’ve told you.”

“Well?  What the hell is it?”

“Language, Luca!”

“Sorry, Ma.  What the heck is it?  Julian or Juliana?”

Charlie brought the fuzzy pink blanket from the box to her face for a heartbeat before lifting it to reveal both the color and the embroidered name.

“Charley Corinne.  It’s a girl.”

“She’ll probably be called Cici,” Caleb clarified.  “But I wanted some version of Charlie, and Corinne is Becca’s grandma.”

She hugged the little blankie to her chest.  “I think it’s beautiful, and I’m honored, just like I know Becca’s grandma is.”

So, he didn’t run to her for help with his unexpected news.  So, he’d gone to Jon instead of her.  Those things would fade into memory eventually.  This baby’s name would not, and the fact that Caleb chose to bestow her nickname on his child…

“Told ya little gifts are the best.”

Beaming across the room at the all-knowing Lilah, Charlie concurred, “Little gifts rock.”

“They do at that,” Jon agreed with a kiss to her temple.  “But I gotta tell you.  The guy that’s gonna butt heads with Charley Del Vecchio 2.0 is gonna need my advice.  I think maybe it’s time to write a book.”

Charlie’s head toppled back with what must be the millionth burst of laughter in this beautiful day. 

If anyone ever wrote their story, she certainly didn’t want her granddaughter reading it.  The only thing this little girl needed to know was that she was a gift to the family who loved each other as much as they would come to love her.

Merry Christmas