Summer Full of Strangers
Disclaimer: See Part 1
Part 2 of 3
-One Week Later-
Frankie turns her head away from the bright rays of the sun thankful that she has on her sunglasses. She can see Maggie at the other end of the pool, her legs dangling in the water her nose in another book. Frankie wonders what Maggie can possibly find in those books she insists on reading. Most of them don't even have a plot interesting enough for Frankie to make it to the second chapter.
There is no intrigue.
There is no passion.
It is boring and bland to her but Maggie loves them.
Something about history just captures Maggie's attention just like it does their mother's.
Frankie doesn't understand it and she's stopped trying to.
Dipping her hand into the cool chlorine water she pushes herself towards Maggie's end of the pool before stopping and allowing her momentum to bring her to a slow stop, the top of her tube bumping into Maggie's calf.
Maggie only spares her a short glare over the top of her book before she puts her nose back into the book eagerly devouring the story held lightly in her grasp.
Frankie can't help but sigh as she settles herself more comfortably on the tube, her hand lazily drawing figure eights in the surface of the water. Delighting in watching the ripples travel outwards, Frankie just stares at them and the way the water captures the shine of the sun high above them.
"So, who said this summer was going to suck?"
Maggie can't help but laugh at her sister's comment.
Blocking the sun from her eyes she looks up from her book to see Frankie lounging in a blowup body tube an inch away from her. With a smirk Maggie uses her foot and pushes her sister out into the middle of the Olympic sized pool. Her blonde hair with blue highlights still damp and mussed from their swim.
Maggie winks at her glaring sister as she looks back from the center of the pool with a glare before making wide strokes to bring herself, still on the tube, back towards her.
"I admit…I was wrong. The last seven days have been incredible." Not to mention hysterical.
Maggie looks down at her own stomach and sighs. Maggie is wearing the bikini that Frankie insisted she buy. At least this way she can get a tan without lounging around in the nude like Frankie has already insisted on doing twice while here.
Poor Peter Cortlandt was scarred when he walked into his own backyard to find Frankie tanning naked in a recliner. The resulting reprimand hadn't deterred Frankie from doing it again the next day, only for Palmer to walk out and see it this time. Now that…Maggie thought as creepy and hilarious as the poor gentlemen covered his eyes as if they were burned and bumped into the patio doors several times before he succeeded in entering his own home again.
Pine Valley, Pennsylvania has thus far been nothing but kind to them.
Frankie snorts but then whips her head back to look at Maggie. "Can you say that again?"
"Really?" Maggie shakes her head. "You dope…" Maggie rolls her eyes and turns back to her book.
The sound of Frankie's laughter is the only noise in the area besides the lawn mower off in the distance and the chirping birds flying above them or the sound of Maggie turning a page in her book.
"What is it you're reading today?" Frankie asks as she notes the pile of books on the small round glass table closer to the patio doors.
"I'm reading Applied Business Laws Volume One." Maggie answers, her eyes never leaving the pages before her.
Ick…Frankie scrunches up her face in distaste. "How can you possibly read that? Didn't you see the love stories collection our dear uncle Palmer has?" They looked enough to her that she'd already read one of them and was thinking about reading another.
"How can you read those books about open heart surgery?" Maggie counters, her eyes only looking above the top of the book for a moment.
"Because it's fascinating." Frankie exclaims in wonderment. How could anyone NOT be fascinated with opening up a person's chest and watching as the heart continued to beat in their nonexistent chest?
"Well, to me anything about business is fascinating."
Frankie has to concede that her sister has a point, and she hates that Maggie always has a point. "What happened to that book about the last Russian Czars?" Frankie asks as she makes her way back towards Maggie.
"Finished it last night and found Uncle Palmer's section on business when I was putting it away…" Maggie's voice is far away and Frankie knows she's lost her sister's attention to the book she holds reverently in her hands.
An hour later, or what feels like an hour later to Frankie but is only a few minutes, she starts a conversation again. It's just too quiet and the sound of Maggie's constant flipping of pages is becoming irritating.
"Is it just me or is Aunt Vanessa a little more uptight than usual?"
Maggie lets the bound book rest on her chest as she looks down to Frankie, her twin looking up at her curiously.
"It's not just you." Maggie admits knowing that for some reason their aunt has been acting more odd than usual. And that was saying something.
"You think she's fighting with Palmer?" Frankie's curiously about other people's business worries Maggie but she can't pretend that she hasn't wondered about why their aunt has been acting oddly.
"Shouldn't you be hoping that they are. You'd win the bet if they break up before my four years."
Frankie shrugs, "I'm just…I don't know. She's been giving me the creeps."
"You mean she hadn't before?" Maggie sarcastically asks, feigning shock.
"Oh hush…" Frankie splashes a handful of water at Maggie and smirks as Maggie shrieks and shields her book by turning her back on Frankie and letting the water hit her bare back.
Maggie looks over her shoulder, her hand gripping onto her book and holding it tightly against her chest as she waited to see if Frankie was going to splash her again. Seeing Frankie maneuvering herself and the tube so her feet are facing Maggie and she can kick water up at her, Maggie jumps up and rushes off towards the outdoor table. She reaches the glass table set covered by an umbrella just as Frankie kicks her legs like a motor, splashing large amounts of water out of the pool in Maggie's general direction.
"Brat!" Maggie calls out as she jumps back when Frankie tries to splash her again, grateful that she's too far away to actually get hit by the wayward water now.
"Chicken!" Frankie calls back before rolling off of the tube and swimming to the edge.
As she lifts herself out of the water Maggie looks around her surroundings and decides it would be better to run because Frankie is coming towards her with a gleam in her eyes. That gleam is the one Maggie has seen many times before.
It means trouble is about to be had.
Not wanting to find out what her sister has planned she abandons her book and rushes away from the stone area of the backyard and into the slick green grass of the grounds. Maggie grasps her flaying skirt with one hand as she rushes away from Frankie who is hot on her tail as she does.
Maggie looks over her shoulder for a moment and screams as Frankie starts to gain on her.
Unknowing to the two teenagers their Uncle and Aunt have moved out to the pool area, their guests following slowly behind them.
"Where are they?"
Palmer shrugs his shoulders as he looks at his wife and then over to his left where his dear friend is looking at him with a small smile. Her beautiful little girl standing at her side with a charmingly shy smile.
"I don't know my dear…"
Palmer looks out around the empty pool, the only evidence that the two Cambias children had been there being the blow up recliner floating out in the middle of the water, the skirt laying haphazardly over one of the metal recliners and a forgotten novel on the glass patio table.
"At least they're not naked."
Erica's eyes widen as she looks from Palmer to Vanessa. She wonders what Palmer sees in the evil woman—but is willing to play nice. At least for the afternoon. After all this isn't for her. This is for Bianca.
Travis had finally allowed her the time she had been begging for to see Bianca. Bianca is only with her for five weeks of the summer before she returns to Chicago to be with her father. So, hoping that she can help Bianca make friends—Travis informing her that Bianca has become very reserved and shy—she brought her here to Palmer's Manor after he informed her that his wife's nieces were spending three weeks with them while their parents traveled.
"Naked?" Bianca gasps as her eyes widen and she looks up at her mother with a fearful expression. She's not supposed to get naked too is she?
"It's alright dear…" Erica reassures as she glares at Palmer, he had said nothing about the two young women being trouble makers. This just won't do. "Perhaps we should come back at a better time." Meaning when the two young women are no longer present.
"No…no you should stay." Palmer says offering a small smile. "I'm sure the two would like to talk to someone besides us old folk."
"Speak for yourself…" Vanessa comments as she upturns her chin and looks out over the grounds, her ears just picking up sounds of her missing nieces.
"I can hear them…" Bianca comments as she looks in the direction she heard the scream. She swallows convulsively, her nerves starting to get the best of her as she stands beside her mother.
So much for being an independent teenager…she takes a hold of her mother's hand. But it's not her fault her father sent her here to Pine Valley to spend some of the summer with her mother the summer before high school. There were hardly any people here her age that her mother deem appropriate to be her friends.
Now that Adam Chandler does want her hanging out with AJ because of her mother's relationship with him. It seems they were back to hating each other.
Bianca just thought it sucked that the only kids her own age that her mother wanted her to associate with weren't allowed to associate with her because of her mother. It just isn't fair. She misses AJ and Jamie.
"There they are…" Bianca looks up at Mrs. Cortlandt's sighed announcement.
Where…?
Bianca looks around.
…There!
Across the open field are two blurs running around the grass. One chasing the other.
Bianca is shocked to feel her heart begin to race against her chest and her palms clam up as the two get close enough for her to make out what they look like. She sees a slim dirty blonde as tall as her running out from the trees that surround Cortlandt Manor and another slim dirty blonde with blue hair chasing after her. The one being chased keeps looking back at her pursuer as she holds onto her skirt wrap.
Bianca gasps as she watches the one with blue hair try and jump and tackle the dirty blonde but miss her and she lands in the grass and slides several feet gathering up a multitude of dirt and grass about her bare stomach.
The look of angry frustration that Bianca can see on the blue haired girls face leaves her hoping that the other girl can run fast enough to get away.
Maggie stops running when she sees Frankie land in the grass. It isn't until Frankie looks up at her, spitting out a glade or two of grass that Maggie shrieks and takes off back towards the pool. As Maggie gets closer she realizes that there are people standing at the patio entrance to the pool but for now she can't worry about that. Leaping over the small hedge of cut bushes Maggie slips slightly and has to catch herself.
"Be careful Margaret!"
Maggie looks up at her Aunt's scolding and stands up straight, her heart racing at her near face plant into the slick wet brick.
"Gotcha!"
Maggie turns just in time to see Frankie leaping over the same hedge of bushes.
With a gasp she can only step back towards the pool as Frankie comes towards her. This time Frankie's approaching her slowly with a darker gleam in her eyes than before.
"Now…Frankie…" Maggie looks over her shoulder to see how close to the edge of the pool she is. "…wait…" Maggie tries putting her hands out in front of her as if to calm or hold off her sister.
Bianca watches as Margaret—Mrs. Cortlandt called her Margaret—raises her hands up and she thinks that Margaret is trying to hold off her pursuer—who she realized is her twin sister—as she steps back slowly. Her steps bringing her towards the pool.
Bianca gasps and can't help but warn the girl as she realizes what—Frankie, Margaret had called her—is about to do.
"Watch out!" Bianca calls out just as Frankie rushes at Margaret. Frankie's arms outstretched to keep Margaret in her grasp no matter which way she jumps and pushes them both into the pool.
Maggie thinks she hears someone issuing her a warning just as Frankie's body connects with hers.
Kicking as she is pushed backwards into the pool, Maggie turns her head into Frankie's neck. Her eyes closed tightly as she grasps onto Frankie's shoulders tightly and takes her sister into the water with her.
Once under the water Maggie pulls and rolls Frankie around as they remain under the surface of the water. The clean blue of the water becoming brown around them as the dirt that had covered Frankie's stomach is washed away as they remain under the water.
The two sisters wrestle with each other, twisting and turning as they spin underneath the surface of the water.
Maggie loses her breath first.
She pushes up and gasps for air as she comes up from the water.
Bianca gasps and can't keep her eyes away from the sight of Margaret coming up from the water. The sun making the pool water shimmer as it falls away from her as she emerges from underneath the pool's surface. The sight is breathtaking and Bianca looks away when blue eyes open and look towards her after scanning the people on the patio.
Bianca feels her cheeks burn a bright red as she turns towards her mother.
Frankie pushes up from the water and immediately jumps on top of Maggie's shoulders and drags her sister back under the water, unconcerned with the crowd that has gathered at the opposite end of the pool.
Vanessa can only roll her eyes at the rambunctious teenagers. "My apologies…" Vanessa tries to apologize for the two but is stopped before she can truly begin her speech of blame placing it on their mother in their lack of sophistication and manners.
"Please, don't. They are teenagers…it is summer." Erica says with a smile as she looks out to the pool to see the two sisters emerge from the water laughing hysterically as they try and dunk the other one.
Bianca smiles up at her mother and looks up at her for permission. The two girls are far from naked and they are both having a lot of fun. Fun that Bianca is dying to participate in. So far her summer has been nothing but boring and the thought of actually meeting new friends makes her both excited and a little nervous.
With only a small nod of her head, Erica grants her daughter permission to join in the excitement.
Erica watches as Bianca's smile brightens and she moves tentatively towards the pool.
"Here…" Palmer steps forward with Bianca, going to lend the shy heiress a hand in introducing herself. "Girls…" Palmer calls out and can only smirk as the two laughing teenagers either ignore him or can't hear him over their bellowing laughter and groaning in their attempts to keep from being dunked under the water.
Palmer brings his fingers up to his lips and sticks two into his mouth and whistles loudly.
The two fighting siblings look up from where they are now treading water in the middle of the pool, both of them too short to be standing, and meet his eyes.
They look at each other before looking at him once again. It only takes a simple, 'come here' gesture for the two to swim towards him. Somehow the two decide silently that they need to race to him.
Maggie and Frankie look at each other before taking off. They swim as fast as their tired bodies can muster to their Uncle Palmer. Who they notice is standing with a young girl that looks to be about their age and their Aunt and some strange woman behind him.
"Ha!" Frankie cheers as her fingertips touch the wall of the pool first. "Beat you!"
Maggie, in retaliation for being teased for losing, swipes up a handful of water in the direction of Frankie's face.
"Girls…" Palmer's tone leaves the two no further room to begin another water fight.
They do however take the time to stick out their tongues at each other before turning to him.
Palmer notices that Frankie takes a great deal of time and care to look over the blushing Ms. Montgomery. Maggie on the other hand has only spared the girl a simple glance and smile before she's turned to him. Noticing that Frankie has yet to remove her gaze from the now fidgeting young woman, Palmer speaks to Maggie.
"Girls, this is the lovely Bianca Montgomery…." Bianca's blush deepens at the compliment. Her head bows in bashfulness. "Bianca this is Mary Margaret…" Palmer indicated Maggie with a gesture of his hand.
"Hi…" Maggie greets with a warm smile. "…and it's Maggie."
"Yes, and this is Mary Frances…" Palmer gestures to Frankie who is still riveted on the young woman beside him.
"Frankie..." Maggie hisses under her breath as she bumps her sister's shoulder.
"Oh…" Frankie shakes her head slightly and extends her soaked hand to Bianca. "I'm Frankie Cambias."
Bianca's eyes widen in shock at the name but she keeps her composure as she takes the offered hand before her, shivering at the chill that races through her at the slight chill of Frankie's hand due to the pool water.
"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Bianca Montgomery."
"Yes…so you are…" Frankie offers a charming grin to the blushing beauty before her.
Maggie rolls her eyes as she kicks Frankie under the water, giving her sister a warning look as she gestures towards their looming Aunt Vanessa. Their crazy and very religious Aunt Vanessa. She does not need to be informed about Frankie's admiration to both men and women's beauty.
"Cambias…?" Erica questions in mirrored shock as she looks to Vanessa.
"Yes, my sister's children." Vanessa sighs, how her sister Gwen snagged the prize bull without even trying still amazes her.
Sadly, Gwen is under the impression that she is in love.
Vanessa has hopes that soon enough her younger sister will realize her foolishness and divorce the man who has left himself wide open for her to take everything from him. Sadly, she has been waiting for Gwynne to make a move for fifteen years. Still she persists that she is in love with Alexander Cambias and that although he has faults, he too loves her.
Rubbish…but what can she do? Hmm…what can she do indeed...!
"Your sister?" Erica questions, her eyes narrowing. Another con artist she's sure. Except her sister must be very talent to capture the heart of Alexander Cambias Sr. one of Erica's role models and rivals.
"Yes, much younger. Fell in love as a girl got herself pregnant out of wedlock. He thankfully was a decent man and married her. Helped her raise the girls and she helped him raise his son. Dreadful man that boy of his."
"Oh…" Erica wonders if she should even bother listening to anything Vanessa has to say about her sister. Her word is not something Erica would ever use to swear by.
"Oh, nonsense." Palmer waves off his wife's words as he joins the two women back by the house. "Michael is a wonderful young man."
"Not that one," Vanessa waves off, "his eldest…"
"Ah, yes. Well, dear he is a very troubled young man. Hmm...he has surely become a very troubled man." Palmer recounts sadly and notices Erica's curiosity.
Sadly he knows very little more than what he has already said. His wife's words about her sister's life with Alexander very different from the stories the two young girls have told him about during their stay.
"Would you two like to have tea and coffee here on the patio or should we retire inside?" Palmer asks and watches as Erica looks out towards the pool.
Erica sees Bianca sitting on the edge of the pool with her feet dipped in the water talking amicably with one of the young women. She's not sure if it is Margaret or Frances.
"So…" Frankie nods her head down slowly trying to come up with something to talk about with the pretty girl before her. Her dark brown hair and deep brown eyes easily captured Frankie's attention instantly. Her flushed cheeks and bashful smile charmed her immediately. She had to get to know this girl. She had to. "…do you live here in Pine Valley?"
Frankie hears Maggie snort at her efforts to make small talk as she moves to swim away. It is a routine that they have decided on. If Frankie shows in obvious interest in someone Maggie will find somewhere else to be. Frankie never asked Maggie to do this, but is always grateful that her sister does not feel the need to subject herself to her flirtations. It would be awkward and uncomfortable if Maggie stuck around while she flirted with a pretty girl or cute guy.
It always steered the conversation towards what it was like being twins and after fifteen years of people asking her how that felt, Frankie was sick of answering it. What did it feel like to be a twin? It was annoying most of the time.
One because people always thought that made them different from them and they were always referred to as 'the twins' or 'girls'. They didn't have separate identities when the conversation was stirred on their identical DNA.
Two because no matter what Frankie was feeling Maggie could always tell just like she could always tell if Maggie was upset or happy or confused. They did share a connection but Frankie didn't like sharing that connection or the knowledge about it. It was something that was special, unique to only them, and no one else needed to know about that.
Bianca became curious. She watched as Maggie swam away and floated on her back at the farthest end of the pool, her eyes closed. Bianca felt the obvious rejection acutely. Obviously the other girl wasn't interested in talking to her. Bianca wondered why and then shook it off and turned her focus to Frankie, the girl that was actually trying to get to know her. While silently wondering what Maggie was thinking about.
"Not anymore. I live in Chicago with my father during the year. I'm here to spend the summer with my mother." Bianca jerks her head back towards where her mother is standing, her eyes sullen.
"Ah, your parents are divorced?" Frankie asks feeling a slight pang in her chest. She wouldn't know what she'd do if her parents ever got divorced. But that wasn't going to happen. They were too in love to get a divorce. Even if they did argue a lot. That is just something that they do because they are two different people and have different opinions on a lot of things. It doesn't mean they are going to get a divorce—no matter what her crazy Aunt Vanessa said.
"Yes…" Bianca admits sadly her chin resting against her chest again.
Frankie feels her heart pang at the sadness in Bianca's eyes. "Hey…" Frankie touches Bianca's knee drawing the girl's thoughts away from her parents' quarry and her eyes to her. "…none of that." Frankie reaches out and brushes away Bianca's only tear.
"I'm sorry…" Bianca whispers as she tries to look away, her heart hammering in her chest at the gentleness of Frankie's touch.
"Don't be. It has to be hard…I can't imagine my parents not being together. If you want to talk about it we can, I just…" Frankie feels a blush spring to her cheeks and wonders how the girl before her has so easily gotten under her skin, she never blushes.
"You what?" Bianca questions curiously.
"I don't want to see you cry. Your eyes are too pretty to have tears in them." Frankie whispers her cheeks inflaming all the more at the shocked expression upon Bianca's face.
Bianca feels her heart swell and a small smile spread across her face at the show of wariness.
"Erica…?" Palmer asks once again his eyes moving from Erica to where she is intently watching her daughter.
"Perhaps we can enjoy the afternoon sun later?" Erica says with a small smile. She is hesitant to leave Bianca alone but is very aware that she cannot smother her daughter. She needs to make friends without her around to hinder her.
"Ah, a very wise decision." Palmer offers his arm to Erica and his other to his wife. Smiling as the two women take their offered limb and he leads them into the house.
"Don't you wish to take your books inside Palmer?" Erica asks as she looks back over her shoulder to see a stack of books on Applied Business Law on the table. Erica knows how Palmer would hate for them to get wet.
Palmer smiles kindly at his friend, "I'm afraid that I am not reading those books, my dear. Maggie has asked if she could read them. I understand that she is only on volume one but I expect she shall finish the next two volumes in the next day."
Erica's eyes widen as she looks back towards the patio doors they are slowly walking away from. "My my…does she understand any of it?" Erica asks, wondering if the young girl comprehended anything she was reading from the volumes.
Palmer laughs lightly as he pulls out a chair for Erica and pats her hand before moving to pull out his wife's chair.
"She is a very intelligent young woman." Vanessa admits, sounding almost sour about this fact.
"She already shows a great deal of understanding for the running of a business. I wouldn't be surprised if Alexander was already grooming her to be his successor."
This, Erica finds, astounds her. "She is only fourteen…"
"Fifteen…" Vanessa corrects.
"Still…" Erica looks from Palmer to Vanessa in wonderment.
Palmer can only shrug, "Would you not be giving Bianca lessons on how to run Enchantment if you believed she would understand a word you were saying? Would I not be talking to Peter about the correct voltage power in a battery if I thought he could?"
Erica must concede that he has a point. If Bianca had showed an interest in learning how to run Enchantment she would have had her daughter in her office teaching her everything she knows instead of here at Cortlandt Manor.
"Let us forget about Alexander's protégé…" Palmer tries as he pours a cup of tea for his wife and guest. "…how are you and Bianca doing, my dear?"
Erica sighs and shakes her head as she retells her friend how difficult it has been to connect with her daughter as she has stayed with her.
End Part Two
