John Francis

The next letter arrived on Saturday, again with no return address. Amanda was beginning to be fairly certain these weren’t coming from Jackie, but if that was true, who was sending them?

This one was a picture of her and Jon, smiling at the cameras, with the words “ENGAGED” under the picture. Her head had a black magic marker circle around it, with a slash through the circle. There were no cut out letters this time. She thought back to Chris’ warning about the fanatics and was now starting to understand what he meant. This letter was also put at the bottom of one of her drawers. She knew that even if she didn’t want to bother him, she would have to show these to Jon soon.

Linda was once again off for the weekend and Amanda got together a grocery list, having been unable to go Thursday as she had planned. She checked with both Jon and Richie to see if they wanted anything. Apparently both were craving Mexican for dinner that night and she added the needed items. The guys were in the studio and although Jon offered to go with her, she declined as she could see it was an offer made out of politeness as they were both involved in their music.

Vividly remembering what had happened the other day at the bookstore, Amanda attempted to change her appearance. She pulled her hair back into a French braid, grabbed a hat that had “Soul” written across the front, and put on large sunglasses. The gates of the estate were clear at this time of the day and she hummed along to the radio as she drove to the store.

She was about halfway through her shopping trip when again she heard whispering and more and more people starting to follow her through the store. Today was a bit different, however, as only a few women approached her and they were all polite. In fact, they were so polite that she felt unable to refuse speaking with them for a few minutes.

“Congratulations Amanda!” One of the women spoke first, leading the others to offer their own best wishes.

She answered thank you as she attempted to look at her list for the remaining few items she needed. As she went along, the women hung back, but she could hear them whispering and a quick glance showed she was being pointed out to others. Trying to keep her head down and just finish her shopping, she didn’t see all the cell phone cameras getting pictures.

Arriving at the checkout, she was again surprised to see both hers and Jon’s pictures splashed across the cover of some of the tabloids.

The Sun had JON’S SURPRISING ENGAGEMENT! While the Inquirer was bolder, WHO IS AMANDA? with a picture of her and Jon from the Soul dinner earlier in the week. Shaking her head, she unloaded her cart, hearing the chatter all around her from the clerks and patrons. Trying to move the clerk along, Amanda started bagging her own groceries until suddenly there were three bagboys there taking over, with a man with a manager’s name tag on his shirt behind them.

“Ms. Matthews, we’ll take care of this.” The manager spoke and the bagboys hurried to comply with their boss.

It seemed a small parade accompanied her out to the car as two bagboys and some of the people from the store followed her out. So much for the hat and sunglasses! She grinned a little at all this attention, but tipped the bagboys and hurried to step inside the car. Before she could do so, more of the people who had followed her moved around the car and she found herself once again in the middle of a throng of people now shouting questions at her. Now she also saw the cell cameras and with a few “no comments” and “please let me get in my car” she moved toward the door.

The crowd, while never reaching dangerous proportions, still impeded her path and she stood rather nonplussed as she tried to figure out how to get out of the middle of them. She again tried to politely get them to move, but they were now getting closer to her and she found herself being pushed and jostled by their over-eagerness. Over the shouts and questions she heard the WHOOP WHOOP of a police siren and a moment later there were two police officers working their way through the people to the center where she was.

The officers didn’t recognize her, but did know there was something going on that had gathered a crowd. Several of the people started moving away once the police arrived and the others began stepping back at the officer’s orders.

“Ma’am, what’s the problem here? Has there been an accident?” The taller of the two officer’s began questioning Amanda.

“No, no accident. I … uhm … it’s just …” She stammered a little as she didn’t quite know how to explain what was going on.

“Was there some sort of fight? Why is there a crowd of people around you?” The officer continued to question her as his partner worked to disperse the few remaining people after interrogating a few as he did so. The responses he received answered the ‘why’ of the origins of the crowd more quickly than the officer talking to Amanda.

“I need to know what’s going on here, ma’am, and I need to know now!” His voice rose a little as he felt the woman he was speaking to wasn’t answering quickly or clearly enough. Before she could respond, he was demanding ID. Amanda dug into her purse and pulled out her driver’s license. The officer looked at it and saw it was a Florida license.

“Is this your car?” He moved back to get the tag and called in over his radio for the tag to be run. He also gave her license number and name to check for any warrants.

“No, it’s not my car, but I have permission to drive it.” Amanda answered. He just looked at her as he waited for the response from dispatch. His radio squawked and Amanda heard a woman tell him that the car was registered to Jon Bongiovi and there were no warrants on an Amanda Matthews.

“This car belongs to Jon Bon Jovi, ma’am. You’re telling me you have permission to drive it?”

“Yes sir, I do. I’m…” She stopped as the man’s partner approached and they had a quick discussion.

The officer who had been speaking to her listened to his partner, then asked “how do you know that?” The second officer replied that he had asked several of the people in the crowd and they had identified her. Both men turned to Amanda.

“Ms. Matthews, my partner tells me you’re engaged to Mr. Bon Jovi. Is that correct?”

“Yes, it is. I was here to do some shopping and that crowd followed me out to the car. I was just trying to leave.” She waited to see if she was free to go.

The second officer spoke to her.

“Ma’am, I’m sure you were trying to do just that, but you might consider bringing someone with you next time. Our dispatcher informed me that this isn’t the first time the police have needed to respond to this type of situation.”

“I know and I’m sorry. I really tried today to not look like I usually do, but I got recognized anyway.”

Both men nodded at her and told her that they would escort her back to Jon’s house. Giving a grimace at that which both officers saw and returned with frowns of their own, Amanda reluctantly agreed. Once they reached the gates, Amanda expected them to wave as they drove off and was surprised when they followed her up the driveway to the front door.

Getting out of the car, Amanda approached the police vehicle and thanked the men for their trouble. The lead officer, the one who had spoken to her first, acknowledged her thanks, but informed her he would like to speak with Mr. Bon Jovi. With surprise in her eyes, Amanda nodded and dialed Jon’s cell. She gave a brief explanation and shortly both Jon and Richie were coming from the direction of the studio. The officers got out of their car.

“Mr. Bon Jovi, Mr. Sambora, I’m Officer Johnson and this is my partner, Officer Stevens.”

Jon shook their hands, as did Richie, and Officer Johnson explained the reason for his request to see Jon.

“…and this is the second time as I found out from dispatch.”

Both Jon and Richie turned to look at Amanda at that bit of news and she frowned and looked at the ground.

Neither officer was unobservant and both realized Amanda had not told Jon about the prior incident.

“Mr. Bon Jovi, I certainly don’t mean to tell you your business, but it seems to me that this is going to happen again. It was just lucky today that we were close by when the call came in. The crowd around her was preventing her from leaving and even if she had been able to get in the car and drive, there was a good chance someone might have been hit as there were just too many people around.”

Jon nodded at the officer and told him he would do his best to make sure nothing like this happened again. He thanked them both for their time and with nods of agreement, the officers departed.

Both Jon and Richie turned to look at Amanda. She scowled and began getting the groceries out of the car. The two gave her a hand and then Jon started in once they were inside the kitchen.

“So…what happened the first time and when was it?”

Explaining the situation, but downplaying it a little, Amanda relayed the incident the day she had visited the salon and saw both Richie and Jon exchanging looks.

“Wait just a minute!” Amanda growled at them. “You both go out by yourselves and you get crowds all the time! What’s so different from that with me going out?”

Jon tried to keep his voice calm as he was more worried than he wanted to let on.

“The difference is that we’ve been around a long time and most people know when to back off. Not to mention the fact that we usually have some sort of security with us, or a car and driver close by, and we can get out of a situation pretty quickly.”

“You aren’t saying I can’t go out by myself, are you?” Amanda asked in a shocked voice.

“No, but I am saying I want you to either take one of the security guys with you or a car and driver.”

“But…” Amanda tried, not wanting to lose her autonomy.

“Manda … “ Richie spoke her name in a low tone. “You’re not stupid, honey, you’ve seen that we have a car close by when we’re out in public.”

“Well, yeah, but I also know that both you and Jon also go out alone sometimes.”

Jon nodded in agreement. “Sure, in New York at times, or Richie in LA, places where people are used to seeing us and even then…” he lowered his voice in emphasis, “…even then we have a security guy nearby.”

“What do you mean? I haven’t seen anyone with us!” Amanda protested.

“That’s because they aren’t supposed to show themselves unless there’s a problem.” Jon countered.

There was silence as Amanda weighed the words of both. They had lived this life for such a long time she couldn’t reasonably discount what they were saying. The two men waited for her in silence.

Finally, with a sigh, Amanda responded.

“Okay, I’ll go along with what you decide.” Her voice was reluctant, but accepting.

Jon kissed her cheek and she grinned at him. Richie also had a smile going.

“Before we get some arrangements made, is there anything else that’s happened?” Jon looked at Amanda as he asked this and saw a flash of something in her eyes that prompted him to explore this further.

“Amanda?” He asked in such a tone that Richie’s head snapped up and he looked at her too.

Mumbling under her breath, they heard “oh hell” as she walked out of the kitchen. The two exchanged glances as they waited for her return, hearing her going up the stairs. She returned in a few moments with papers in her hand.

Holding up her other hand, she looked at the two of them.

“Before I get yelled at, remember what Chris said about the Jovi fanatics?” They nodded at her and she winced as the squint of consideration in both sets of eyes.

“Okay, so I think these are just from those type of fans.”

She placed the two letters and envelopes on the table. The men looked carefully at the papers, seeing the slashed photo of Amanda in one with the word ‘bitch’ and the engagement photo in the other with the circle and slash around her head. Richie spoke first.