Creeping Out
Originally Posted: March 2014.
Disclaimer: Days of Our Lives is the property of Ken Corday and NBC. I can't remember if Sony still owns a piece or not. Either way, not mine!
Summary: My name is Abigail Johanna Deveraux. I'm Tom and Alice Horton's cherished great-granddaughter. I was never supposed grow up to be That Woman. But I have. (EJAbby.)
When I was growing up, it never occurred to me that I might not be good at baking, much less that I might not be an exemplary human being. Remembering that only redoubles my self-loathing now.
Whatever flaws my family might have had, they always told me that I could succeed at anything.
"You're friendly and warm and kind and determined like your mother, Abigail," my father would say.
"You're smart and clever and funny like your daddy, Baby," my mother would add.
"Of course you can write beautifully—that's your parents in you. They fell in love in a newsroom, after all."
"How could you be anything but compassionate and driven to help other people? Maybe you're the next Horton doctor. Your Grandma Laura and Grandpa Bill would be so proud, and I know your Great-Grandpa Tom is smiling down on you."
"It's not surprising that you're so strong and patient. That's your Grandma Jo in you, Abigail Johanna."
But most of all they compared me to my Great-Grandma Alice, because that was the highest possible compliment. All of my family loved each other, but my Great-Gram was the one they revered. Alice Grayson Horton was the epitome of everything good. People talked about how her unconditional love made them feel safe in a way that kept them on the right track all of their lives.
Also, they talked about her doughnuts.
And sometimes her chocolate chip cookies.
The woman was a genius in the kitchen.
I wasn't even ten years old the first time I made one of her recipes all by myself. I won first prize in a baking contest.
I was proud, but I must admit that I wasn't surprised. It hadn't occurred to me to doubt myself.
(I learned about self-doubt later in life.)
In any case, when Great-Gram died, we divided up her cookie sheets and mixing bowls and wooden spoons so that every one of us could have something that would remind us of her when we cooked. It's my Uncle Lucas who has the cookie sheets in trust for Great-Gram's namesake, his daughter Allie.
Me? I got the muffin pans. "You'll actually use these," Julie said in a tone that left no room for argument. "You know how bake everything. Half the family has to fake their way through boiling water."
I made muffins and cupcakes a lot more after that. I really can feel Great-Gram with me every time I use them.
"You're so loved, Abby," she says when I feel alone.
"Just be strong. He will find his way. He's a Horton," she tells me when I worry about my little brother.
"Follow your heart, Dear," she tells me when I feel conflicted.
I feel conflicted all the time anymore.
Not least because I'm pretty sure Great-Gram is giving me terrible advice.
My heart would lead me to unforgivable, destructive places if I followed it. It already has.
Still, I hold the muffin pans against me like a shield as I ring the doorbell at the DiMera Mansion. They aren't much, but they are all I have. It isn't as if I could tell a living, breathing person that I've had an affair with the very much taken EJ DiMera and that that is why the whole town shouldn't gang up on me to tell me I should teach his little son Johnny to bake cupcakes.
I don't see why Sami can't teach her own son to bake.
(Wait, yes, I can. That would be because she's an idiot. When her older son—my cousin Will—and I were in middle school, she once showed up at a Halloween party and started chasing the other parents with a knife. All she had to do was carry a cake across a classroom, and she couldn't do that. If you can't carry a cake, how can you bake one? In a way, I feel like I owe it to Johnny. What the hell kind of life will he have if someone else doesn't step in and give him what his self-absorbed, dimwit mother can't?
And when the hell did I become the kind of person who thinks such uncharitable things about the woman whose fiancé she's made love with?)
"Abigail!" Johnny shrieks as soon as Sami opens the door and flies through it, consigning her fiancé and son to me for the morning. Johnny flings himself around my legs and a hundred emotions hit me at once. Guilt is right there at the top, of course, because I've done something that may destroy his happy family. But there's also delight in making him so happy, because he is a genuinely wonderful little boy. And excitement to share one of my hobbies.
"I'm happy to see you, too, Johnny," I tell him.
"You never come around here anymore," he scolds me. It's true; I used to date EJ's brother Chad, and I saw a lot more of Johnny then.
A chill runs down my spine, but it's not because of Johnny's reprimand. It's because EJ has entered the room. I don't see or hear him, but I know he's there. I keep all of my attention on Johnny and pretend that I don't sense EJ's presence. Maybe I can just keep that up for the whole morning.
"Abigail is very busy," EJ corrects Johnny, foiling my plan right away. "She has a new job that takes up a lot of her time. We must be grateful that she is able to spare us a few hours this morning. Perhaps you should tell her thank you."
Johnny hangs his head. "Thank you, Abigail," he says obediently.
"I'm glad that I didn't have work this morning so I could come see you," I tell him, and I mean it. It's only his father I don't want to see. "I brought you something very special."
"Alice Horton's muffin tins," says Johnny firmly. Great-Gram's baking prowess is legend even among those not old enough to remember it, or her.
"Well, yes. We'll use those. But also…" And with a flourish, I pull a child-size apron out of my purse. "This should fit you. You'll look like the great cook you're going to be."
Johnny lets out a whoop of joy and tries to tangle himself into the apron without much success. I reach to help him, but so does EJ and it's inevitable that our hands touch. And as soon as they do, my mind isn't in the living room with a little boy any longer. Instead, I'm in the Horton Cabin with EJ's hands roaming over every inch of my skin until I don't know my own name and everything is possible as long as he doesn't stop.
When I get a grip, Johnny and EJ are both staring at me. "You okay, Abigail?" Johnny asks.
"Just excited about these cupcakes!" I tell him with false enthusiasm. "Race you to the kitchen!"
He takes off and I trot shakily after him. EJ starts to put his hand on my lower back to guide me through the kitchen door, but thinks better of it at the last second and puts some space between us. That doesn't keep me from feeling the heat where his hand should have been.
How could something so wrong have felt so good?
I look at the muffin pan. My great-grandmother would not have known how to answer that question. We didn't have that kind of conversation, of course, but I'm sure that in 90-odd years she was never once with a man who was not my great-grandfather. She would never have wondered why it was that the man who was perfect for her belonged to someone else.
Over the next hour, I try to teach Johnny as my Great-Gram taught me.
"We use real vanilla extract," I tell him. "Never the imitation. It makes a difference."
He nods solemnly, but his father smirks. "It doesn't surprise me, Abigail, that you would never settle for less than the genuine article."
"Why is that?" I ask, glad for the excuse of keeping my eyes on Johnny's shaky hands as he measures the vanilla.
"Because you," he tells me, "happen to be the genuine article yourself. I'm glad that you hold out for what you deserve."
In the grocery store, maybe.
"We add the flour and the milk last," I instruct Johnny. "First a little of one, then a little of the other. They take turns."
"You do milk, I do flour," Johnny decides, and it isn't a bad plan. He's surprisingly adept with his hands for such a small boy.
For a second, I wonder if the dexterity is hereditary and I confirm to myself that I'm going to hell.
The cupcakes go into the oven, and it's on to separating eggs for the frosting. I do that step on my own, and both Johnny and EJ burst into spontaneous applause when I don't break a single yolk or lose track of the smallest fragment of shell.
I laugh and I curtsey and I have to try very hard not to fantasize that it could be like this all the time. EJ is not my fiancé. Johnny is not my son, or stepson, or anything other than my ex-boyfriend's nephew.
As we add the butter, Johnny worries aloud that it looks clumpy and curdled, just the way I did once. "Have faith," I tell him in great-gram's voice. "It looks like a mess now, but things always smooth out if you keep at them long enough."
And a few moments later, we have a perfect bowl of frosting.
Johnny points, his mouth wide open in disbelief. "Look, Dad! Abigail was right! It's all smooth!"
"Abigail is very wise, indeed," EJ tells him.
"Abigail's the greatest," Johnny gushes, and I couldn't be more embarrassed if the frosting suddenly shaped itself into a sculpture of EJ and me in the shower at the gym. "Mom could never do this."
"Different people are good at different things," I tell Johnny. "Aren't you and Sydney good at different things?"
Johnny rolls his eyes. "Sydney's a baby. She's not good at anything yet. That's why we have to protect her."
"Enjoy it while it lasts," I tell Johnny. "Little brothers and sisters get harder to protect the older they get." Suddenly I'm almost doubled over by a rush of fear. Here I am contemplating my home wrecking ways and baking cupcakes for an elementary school potluck, and my little brother is getting ready for a court date this afternoon. I turn my head away from Johnny so he won't see the tears in my eyes.
"Johnny, run upstairs and make sure Sydney's backpack is ready for school," EJ injects swiftly. "The cupcakes won't be ready to frost until they've cooled."
Johnny grumbles, but he goes. I don't have the strength to resist when EJ pulls me into his arms. "I'm sorry. I forgot that Jack Junior's court date is today. If you'd like to go now, I will make absolutely certain that Johnny understands and that the tins and the apron get back to you. You don't need to worry."
I sniffle and try to pull myself together. "It's hours from now. I'll be home in plenty of time to go to the courthouse with him. If I were home now, I'd just be driving him crazy hovering over him."
"You're a good sister."
"I'm a fraud." I roll my eyes and that helps push the tears back. "Everyone holds me up to him as this great example. Look at your sister Abigail, she always does the right thing. Look at your sister Abigail, the model Horton. But you and I both know that what they should be saying is 'Look at your sister Abigail, the two faced homewrecker, and whatever you do don't be anything like her.'"
"No one's home's been wrecked," EJ hisses, urgently but not angrily. He's always gentle with me, and the fact that I know he has the power to wound and would never use it makes me want him all the more. "We like and respect each other and we got carried away a couple of times. You're the same woman you were before it happened."
EJ's smart, brilliant even. I could talk to him about books and art and theater all day and feel like only a moment had passed. But he's wrong about this. I'll never be the same woman I was. I'll always want something I can't have, and hate myself for wanting it.
Luckily, Johnny comes down and we frost the cupcakes and the first ordeal of my day ends.
I'm still a terrible person, but at least I've made nothing worse.
To be continued.