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Blue Collar
The woman with the too tight face-lift and the too low Versace gown was talking behind her hand. "I simply can't believe that poor Bruce had any idea just what he was letting himself in for—I mean he must be absolutely mortified. I know it was a sweet thing for him to do and all, but just a little naïve, don't you think?"
It was Bruce Wayne's twenty-ninth birthday and the grounds and first floor of the Manor were packed with anyone who could manage to wrangle an invitation.
"Oh Angela, it's really not as bad as all that. The child is just being a—child, after all. I'm sure that given some time and with Alfred in charge they'll be able to civilize him. Eventually."
Angela gave Bunny a look expressing just what she thought of that possibility. "Breeding will out, darling. It always has and it always will…case in point." She looked pointedly at the nine-year-old sitting in complete boredom on the main staircase in a miniature tux. His tie was undone, his shoes off, his hair hanging in his face and eating Wolfgang Puck's special order, customized pizza with his hands as if it were a delivery pie from Pizza Hut. Evidently the child had gone into the kitchen while Chef Puck was doing the actual cooking and asked if it would be possible to get a pepperoni pie with extra cheese. God, it was just as if he was calling in an order to one of those horrible Pizza places that delivered greasy pies in greasy cardboard boxes. Yes, of course dear Wolfgang wanted to keep Brucie happy but did he really have to give the urchin his own pie and then actually tell him it was, indeed, best when licked off fingers? Wolfgang had produced the miserable concoction and even managed to smile but, good lord—some things were simply too much.
And the fact that the grease had dripped onto that darling little tux Georgio had made especially for the boy hadn't gone unnoticed. The pleated shirt was positively ruined. And was he actually wiping his hands on the silk/wool blend pants? Dear God. Well, what can one expect, really? It was probably about the first thing he'd ever owned that wasn't a polyester blend.
"Angela Bunny; enjoying yourselves, ladies?"
"Oh Bruce! We were just saying how marvelous it was of you to take that poor child and give him a decent home. Heaven knows what might have happened to him if you hadn't—probably would have ended up working in one of those horrible fast food places or some such."
Bruce saw Dick's expression at having heard that comment—likely just one of many this evening. "I swear, I didn't have any idea just how much fun it is to have a kid around the place—really shakes the dust off this place, you know. I should have done this years ago—in fact, have you girls thought about having kids?"
Bunny shuddered just a bit. "After the hours of torture I spent with my trainer to get ready for bathing suit season? I say, if you want kids, beg, borrow or steal them for an afternoon and then send them home so you can enjoy life like a civilized human being."
Bruce retained his smile, though it had gone a bit frosty. "Yes, I believe I've heard you say that before, my dear." He looked at his champagne flute, now empty. "Heavens, if you'll excuse me…"
He swung over close to Dick's stair seat. "I owe you for this one, chum. Just you and me tomorrow, sound good?"
"Promise?"
"You can take it to the bank."
Dick managed a half smile, nodded then stood up and went out the French doors to the garden. Just then the string quartet started up again and Bruce had to dance with Madam Senator. The evening went by and the next day he was called in to work on a tough case with the JLA.
Dick spent the day helping Alfred weed the rose garden.
"What on earth are you doing, Master Dick?" He was at the kitchen table, newspaper inserts spread out in front of him.
"Cutting out coupons. My mom always said she saved a lot of money with them. One week she was telling my dad that she'd saved almost ten dollars."
"Well, in that case, by all means proceed. Ah, good morning Master Bruce. What might I get you for breakfast today?"
Bruce sat himself at the table and looked over to where Dick was tearing up some part of the morning paper. "What's this?"
"Clipping coupons—it saves money. Honest."
"…I see. Did you do this with…"
"With my parents? Sure I did."
Later that day. "Alfred, I trust you didn't really go shopping with coupons, did you?"
"I did indeed, sir. The young master was with me and we saved close to five dollars."
"Alfred, this is embarrassing."
"Really, Master Bruce. Simply because one is fortunate enough to be solvent is no reason to throw away one's assets wantonly."
"Alfred, please."
"Perhaps I could shop incognito from now on, would that be acceptable?"
Bruce ignored him. Alfred would do as he wanted, he always did.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
The two women were sitting at their favorite table at Brixton Country Club, on the terrace and overlooking the golf course. They were picking at the expected salads, dressing on the side and non-sweetened iced tea. "I swear, I thought that I'd absolutely die when I stopped in to pick up some strawberries and saw dear Alfred actually looking through a hand full of coupons! Well, I tried to pretend that I hadn't seen them, of course but then that horrible urchin came up to us and said he'd found the—now what was it?—oh yes, the soda and was actually proud of the fact that it was on sale. Oh my God."
"So what did Alfred do? He must have been humiliated, the poor man." She looked closely at her manicure, not quite sure about the shade she'd chosen.
"Oh, you know Alfred. He actually smiled at the brat and congratulated him on a job well done. Poor, poor Bruce. This can't be what he had in mind."
"Of course it isn't, Bunny, but with any luck maybe one of the relatives will finally come out of the woodwork and claim the child."
"One can hope, I suppose." And if Bruce managed to get rid of the frightful rat, maybe she'd seriously consider Brucie for her next husband.
"But we can make his birthday cake ourselves, Alfred. It'll be fun."
"Indeed we could normally, Master Dick. I fear that I've simply overscheduled us this afternoon and we shan't have the time."
"But a bakery cake will cost at least fifteen dollars and we can make our own for like nothing, practically." Dick wanted Bruce to have a birthday cake, that wasn't the issue. He just thought it stupid to buy something you can make yourself. "What if I made it by myself and you could go do whatever you have to do today?"
"I fear that I'm disinclined to allow the use of the oven if I'm not here to supervise, Master Dick. You know that."
"But…"
"Just this once we shall allow extravagance to hold sway and purchase a cake. However, we shall economize by selecting one of a reasonable size without the overdone bells and whistles. Would that be acceptable?"
"But what if we got one at the supermarket? That has to be less money or—I know!—my Mom sometimes got cakes at Costco. She said they were really good and were really cheap. Could we do that?" Dick didn't want to waste Bruce's money on something that's gone in a couple of days; it was like his parents always said—money doesn't grow on trees and even if you're lucky enough to have some, why throw it away? A cake was just a cake, after all. That belief had been drilled into him all his life. The idea was to celebrate the person or the event, not the stupid cake.
Alfred considered and nodded. Of course they'd have to join the 'club' to get in the door and heaven forbid anyone might recognize him in such an establishment but if it would make the child happy he'd go along and pray the master had the sense not to make any tactless remarks about results. Perhaps if he took the Ford instead of the Bentley…
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
"Honestly, Angela, you'd have fallen on the floor if you'd been with me this morning. I swear. There I was on my way to my yoga class and who should I see but dear Alfred and that appalling brat going into—I couldn't believe it—they were going into the horrible warehouse place Costco."
"Ohmigod, Bunny." Wait till the girls at the Garden Club heard this.
"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I mean, seriously—I thought the idea was to raise the little monster up to a civilized level, but I guess…"
"You guess what, honey?" Do tell, do tell.
"I guess that breeding will out, even with Alfred as a guiding force. Some things are simply inbred." Maybe she'd rethink this whole 'making Bruce her newest soon to be ex' concept.
"But that's dumb, Alfred. I'm only going to wear this thing like maybe twice and then we both know that it will be outgrown."
"Perhaps, but we needn't lower ourselves to wearing castoffs from total strangers with questionable hygiene, Master Dick."
This argument had been going on for days now. Dick needed a new sports jacket for the school concert and he was determined to purchase one from the local resale shop for ten dollars. Alfred was arguing for either Brooks Brothers or Ralph Lauren and considered himself thrifty for not agreeing to the Master's request that the lad's measurements be sent to his bespoke tailor in Saville Row in London. "But Master Dick, as I've tried to explain to you, as the Master's ward you have a certain image to maintain and it simply isn't…"
"C'mon, Alf. You know as well as I do that if I wear it then all the other parents will assume it's something fancy and won't even look too closely. Right?"
The child had a point about that but still… "Might I suggest that we look at the—ahem—resale shop and see if they have anything suitable and if not then we might move on to our more usual clothing outlets in the city. Would that be a reasonable compromise for you"
Dick smiled at that, knowing full well that Alf was assuming that all they'd have would be total dreck. Maybe, but maybe they'd get lucky. It had happened before.
An hour later they were on their way home, the very gently used and in seemingly perfect condition classic navy sports jacket with the Armani label in the used plastic bag on his lap. It was a perfect fit, the lady in the shop told him that it had just come in that morning and apologized that she had to charge him twenty dollars for it.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
The two women were at the local day spa, having facials next to one another. "So this afternoon I was dropping off some of Stevie's old things at the thrift shop—you know, the one next to the hospital? Anyway I was hauling this big bag of things in and who should be coming out—you'll never guess!"
"Angela, tell, tell."
"Dear Alfred and that brat of Bruce's. I guess he's about twelve of thirteen now, all gangly and legs and arms everywhere." She stopped to sip her diet soda. "Well, I have to admit that he's not a bad looking child, but I suspect he's going to grow up to be rather dark looking—like maybe Italian or Arab or something greasy like that."
"Go on, don't leave me hanging here, honey."
"Well, they were walking out with the little rat carrying a bag as if they'd just bought something."
"No!"
"My God, Bunny—I mean can you believe it? Bruce would be livid if he found out." She wasn't sure if she should get a bikini wax while she was here…
"You wouldn't think of telling him, would you?"
"Me?" She pretended to be shocked. Maybe someone should let the man know what was going on when he wasn't there…
"Hey Bruce, would you care if I painted my room?"
Bruce was reading the Wall Street Journal over breakfast. "Why on earth would I care? Have Alfred call Peter to bring over some swatches and arrange a day for him to do the work."
"No. I mean would you care if I painted it?"
Bruce paused mid article and actually looked over the top of the paper. "Why, in the name of God would you want to do that?"
Dick suspected that this would be about the way the conversation would go when he decided that plain white was boring to live with. "I'd just like to do it myself. You know, like a project. I was going to ask the rest of the Titans to help, maybe get in some pizza—make a kind of party out of it."
"A painting party?" Bruce was suitably appalled.
"Yeah, right. Alfred—you okay with that?"
Alfred refilled Dick's glass of orange juice. "I've no problem with it so long as you take the proper precautions of using a goodly number of drop-cloths and retain your sense of decorum—not forgetting that the wainscoting in your suite is hand carved from the nineteenth century and would not benefit from a coat of whitewash."
"No, not the woodwork, I just wanted to paint the plaster part. That okay?" If Alfred ever shrugged, this would have been one of the times. Instead he merely nodded, indicating his agreement. "Great! Later—gotta get to school."
Bruce nodded toward his coffee cup, implying that he'd like more, thank you. "He's serious, isn't he? About doing the painting with his friends."
"He certainly seems to be, yes."
"But…why?"
"Well, Master Bruce, I suppose the question is more 'why not'." Bruce refrained from rolling his eyes, but barely.
"He's still trying to save me money, isn't he?"
"I suppose that he is, yes—this is not a bad thing, you know, Master Bruce."
Bruce pretended to read the Wall Street Journal. It made sense, of course. No one, even a youngster wants to be dependant on someone but this as getting out of hand. A painter wouldn't even cost that much, maybe a couple of hundred dollars. But then again, it was healthy for Dick to demand this kind of independence. Fine. Let him do it the way he wants; no real harm done, after all.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
"So Alan was down at that horrible Home Depot place last weekend and you'll never believe this, I promise you won't." The ladies were having their regular Tuesday bridge party/charity meeting.
"We can't guess, Angela, darling. You'll have to tell."
Annoyed that no one was biting she answered as snidely as she could. "Brucie's urchin—he's a teenager now, for goodness sake— was there with some of his unwashed friends and they were buying paint to redecorate the boy's room. I mean they were going to do it themselves. I can't say I was all that surprised, to be honest, considering his background and all."
"Do you think that Bruce –or Alfred—knows about this? I can hardly believe that either one would approve."
"Lord knows, but they were buying all kinds of tarps and brushes and rollers and heaven knows what else." She sipped her martini. "That's trump, darling." She lowered her voice bit, "They were even asking what was on sale and seemed to be confining themselves to those items. I can't imagine what kind of a ruin they'll make of the beautiful woodwork Bruce has in that place."
The looks of horror she received were gratifying. The minute she had the ring on her finger and moved in she'd make sure there was an immediate stop to this kind of ridiculous waste of time.
"Hey Alfred, do we have any soft rags?"
Alfred looked up from his morning cup of Earl Grey. "I believe we have a bag in the pantry. May I ask what you need them for?"
"My car needs washing."
"Might I suggest that the simple answer is to take it to the car wash in town?"
"C'mon, Alf—it takes like twenty minutes to wash a car and the place in town charges like twenty dollars."
"As you wish. Waste not, want not."
"You got it, Alf."
"Hey Bruce, I hate to ask but I really think that I may need a new computer. The one I have is like almost six years old—it's like a dinosaur."
"Fine. Go over to wherever and pick out what you want."
"Great, thanks."
Bruce's eyes remained on his own computer screen. "You're not going to try to find something on E-bay for half price?"
"I already looked. The one I want isn't listed so I watched the flyers and found it on sale over at Best Buy."
"Of course you did. You had me worried there for a second."
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
"Well, I simply couldn't believe it when Stevie walked in with that thing. I made him march straight out and toss it in the garbage but you should have heard the protests he made!"
The ladies were on Angela's deck overlooking the pool, sipping iced tea. "Where did he get the thing?"
"Oh, well you should ask, Bunny. He said that the Grayson boy—you know, Bruce's urchin—was getting rid of it and said that he could have the thing. I was mortified."
You know, maybe you should have let him keep it."
"Whatever for Angela? It was positively ancient."
She smiled and sipped her tea and nibbled on one of the carrot sticks. "You never know what might have been left on that hard drive, that's all. There might have been some interesting things left behind."
"I thought of that. It was wiped clean, worst luck."
"Dick, what is this?" Bruce was holding up some kind of official looking letter.
"I give up, what is it?"
"Hudson University wrote to let us know that they're reviewing your application for student aid. Is this some kind of a joke?"
"What do you mean?"
Bruce was starting to think that Dick did this to him on purpose just to aggravate him. "You're not seriously applying for financial aid, are you? Not to put too fine a point on it, I do have some assets, you know."
"No kidding, but they're your assets. I'm the circus rat you made your ward, remember? My parents didn't have squat."
"But you're my ward and I've always told you that your college was taken care of. You don't really think that I wouldn't, do you?"
Dick kind of ducked his head. No, he didn't think that and he never had, but, "My parents wanted me to go to college, at least my Mom did and I know they didn't have the money so I'd like to do it on my own, as if, you know…"
"As if they were still here and you had to rely on yourself to finance school, is that it?"
"Well, yeah." Dick got up and crossed over to the big sofa Bruce was sitting, reading some boring merger contract. "C'mon, Bruce, don't look like that—you know how grateful I am for everything you've done for me all this time—I mean you have to know that, right? But this is sort of between me and my parents—does that make any sense?"
No, not really it didn't. "I suppose—if you're sure that you want to do it this way then I won't stand in your way." He shifted the papers in his lap, wondering how far he could push this so that Dick might let him help a little. "Would it be all right with you if I contributed to your housing up at school? We both know that you can't stay in a normal dorm if Robin is going to be active up there. You'll need your own place and it's in my own best interests to have you where you can have privacy."
Dick knew exactly what Bruce was doing and was annoyed by the implication that he needed the Wayne money behind him but screw it—if it made Bruce feel like he was helping or still in some kind of control what difference did it really make? "Sure, that would be great, thanks Bruce."
Dick knew that was more that he really could have hoped for—like it or not, his wardship ended with his eighteenth birthday next month and that meant Bruce's legal and financial obligation towards him was over. He'd need all the money he could get his hands on if he was to pay for college—assuming that he stayed the entire four years.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVV
"So you know that Blake is going to Hudson this year, Bunny, right? He told me that Bruce's urchin is a freshman there and refused to stay in the dorms. Or maybe Bruce refused to let him or something. Evidently he has this tiny room in some nasty little rooming house off campus and Bruce had to pull like a million strings."
"Why?
"Because all the freshmen are supposed to live on campus but I suppose he simply wouldn't fit in. I'm almost surprised that he didn't just pitch a tent on the quad for God's sake."
Bunny inspected the new color of polish she'd just had applied to her toenails. "But that doesn't make sense, Angela darling—why on earth would Bruce care where the boy is living, for God's sake?"
"Because," She explained with studied patience, "after all the gossip about the two of them, do you really think any parent would let that horrible boy room with their son? Be serious, darling."
Angela's girlfriend looked up from her toes. "You mean—it's true?"
Angela gave one of her frostiest smiles. "Well, what do you think? Why else would dear old Bruce still be a confirmed bachelor? Isn't it obvious?"
Her friend picked up a slightly used issue of Vogue, wondering if the rumors really were true or if her Angie was just still angry that Bruce never succumbed to her charms.
"Master Dick, you can't be serious. I mean really; this has gone on entirely far too long and I must insist that you listen to reason immediately."
Dick maneuvered the crutch under his arm so that he could get his coffee cup from the kitchen. "It's getting better." He was in his apartment in Bludhaven, his leg was injured and he was being as pigheaded as Master Bruce was at his worst.
"Common sense tells us that if you were under a doctor's care your leg would be recovering at a far greater pace than by using your home remedies. Surely even you would agree with that."
Of course he agreed with that. Any idiot would agree with that. "It's fine, Alf, and it really is getting better." He was not having a good month, not any way, not anyhow.
The penny dropped. "You've lost your medical insurance when you lost your job with the Bludhaven police department, didn't you—along with your weekly salary?" Dick didn't answer, just looked into his coffee cup. "This is entirely unacceptable and you know that, young man. If Master Bruce were to discover that you were endangering your health and rising permanent injury for the want of a few doctor visits he would be beside himself…"
"Which is why you're not going to tell him, right? C'mon, Alfred, cut me some slack here, will you?"
"I feel compelled to point out that you do have more than sufficient assets of your own to purchase an entire medical facility and so to go with out proper treatment is completely inexcusable…"
"Alf, drop it." Dick showed Alfred one of his few genuine displays of actual anger towards his old friend.
Alfred closed his mouth, his lips in a tight line making his own displeasure clear. He would speak with Leslie this evening and make sure that the young master was, indeed, on the mend and if not, well, he would simply have to accept aid, whether he wished to or not. Enough was enough.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
"Angela, sweetie—so have you completely given up your crush on Bruce? I mean now that his little circus diversion seems to be permanently out of the way and living on his own, there might finally be some room in that old barn for Bruce's better half. A legal one, I mean."
Repeated calls and notes, invitations and large donations to Bruce's numerous charities had resulted in little more than polite thank you's and a couple of too chaste pecks on the cheek. Multi-billionaire or not, this was wearing thin. Her last husband was finally—finally!—gone but the miserable wretch had hidden his assets a little too well and then there was that damn pre-nup... "I do have one last idea and if it doesn't work I'm going to set my sights elsewhere."
"Do tell, Angela. What do you have in mind?" The two of them were in Paris for the fall fashion shows this week—the Chanel collection looked like it had some potential but the Valentino was to die for. If only dear Yves hadn't retired…
"You know that big party Bruce is throwing for whatever it is he's raising money for next month?—what is it this time?"
"Pediatric cancer research, Angela darling."
"Of course—all those dreadful bald children. Anyway, I've gotten myself on the board and, well, we'll just have to have a few private dinners to work out the details and discuss ideas."
"That's a little obvious, don't you think, Angela?" She didn't tell Angie that she'd tried the same thing last year with that big Doctors Without Borders fundraiser. Bruce had been polite—he was always polite—but that was as far as it went and then he'd left the last meeting with that little blonde snip from San Francisco and they'd disappeared for three days. The tart couldn't have been more than twelve, for God's sake. All right, maybe she was twenty-five or so, but she looked twelve. Dear old Angela wasn't the only forty-something divorcee looking for some security. Water was rushing under her own bridge faster than she wanted to believe. Heavens, after Tom took up with that little office slut, she'd been making due on alimony and it wasn't anywhere near enough. Live-in underage boy toy or not, Bruce was still the best catch around and there was no reason why she should stand back just because dear, dim Angela couldn't take a hint.
"Bunny, did you hear that the boy actually joined the police force down in Bludhaven, of all places? Poor Bruce must have been mortified! Talk about blue collar—I believe it's finally literally true." She examined her nails for a moment. "Are you sure that the circus boy is really gone for good this time?" Angela was looking dejected and there was nothing worse for your complexion than depression.
"Well, no I'm not. In fact I rather doubt it—didn't Bruce actually adopt the stray not too long ago? What was the man thinking?" There went a large chunk of his estate, damn it all. "Didn't I hear that he's actually an honest to God Gypsy?" She shuddered at the thought but privately conceded that he was damn good looking, even if class will always tell. And Poor Angela was starting to look like she finally had a suspicion that she was wasting her time regarding the mistresship of Wayne Manor. "He could have simply bred his own spawn and then there wouldn't be any question about whether or not that child would be capable of running Wayne Enterprises eventually; but then I guess you can't assume anything where true love is concerned." And since she was almost ten years younger than dear old Angela was, she could still have her own brat, if that was what Bruce wanted.
"You know, Bunny? I never really believed all those rumors about Bruce and the boy. I know everyone else did, but I used to watch them together and I never really thought there was anything going on there."
In fact, Bunny didn't think so either, but it made it so much easier to rationalize Bruce not being interested in any of the ladies in the set. "I understand he adopted the boy so that there'd be no easy way to challenge Bruce naming him to the presidency or as CEO of the company in a few years."
The two old—and getting older—botoxed, dyed, lipoed friends locked eyes. So much for that. "Did you hear that wonderful Greek shipping fellow—Nikkos— was just dumped by his wife?"
"…I love the Greek islands…"
7/28/07
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