A/N: My additions to this story may be a tad erratic for a while, as my father passed away on August 26 and the family is still handling the aftermath, emotional and otherwise. But writing seems to be therapeutic for me, so I'll keep plugging and post as I can. A heartfelt thanks to Mishee for the recent wonderful reviews; you can't imagine how deeply they're appreciated! (To answer your question, I kind of implied that Mr. Roarke had celebrated his birthday with Leslie, at least during her teen years, but never really delved into it. The TV series mentioned it once, but never hinted at his age…though you got the sense that he had a far longer lifespan than "regular" humans, because when he described past events, it sounded like eyewitness accounts. Even his wife commented on that! I may explore this in a future story; thanks for the idea!)
§ § § -- May 9, 2005
Christian and Leslie were watching the triplets playing with toys on the living-room floor, while Ingrid shuffled loads of laundry into and out of the machines and they themselves were going through the day's mail. Some of Leslie's birthday presents lay atop the coffee table, including her favorites—the second-season DVD set of "King's Castle", along with the autobiography by Paloma Esperanza, which dealt heavily with her years on the series. The book had been signed by Paloma, to Leslie's delight, and her friends had jokingly congratulated Christian on giving her the present she liked best of all.
Christian set aside a few bills and unearthed a small but rather heavy package with stamps from Lilla Jordsö. "Well, this is interesting," he mused, turning it over in his hands a couple of times before extracting his penknife from one pocket and slitting the brown wrapping. "Obviously this came from the family, but who knows just what it is."
"More presents, maybe?" Leslie offered facetiously. She already had a small pile of jordiska artifacts sent by members of the royal family, some useful and some decorative.
Christian worked off the wrapping and started a little as a collection of paper fell into his lap. "What in fate's name?…oh, they can't be serious." He had tugged one of the items at random out of the pile and shaken it open to reveal the previous Friday's edition of Sundborgs Nyheter, Lilla Jordsö's largest newspaper. The headline was naturally in jordiska, but that didn't prevent Leslie from correctly gleaning its English translation. Christian read it out loud: "Glada Föddelsdag till Prinsessa Leslie!" There was a photo of Christian and Leslie under that, a still from their televised appearance with the triplets on a popular jordisk Sunday talk show the previous fall. Leslie reached over and peered curiously at the paper, testing herself as to how much of the text she could understand, while Christian poked through the rest of the items and found that every one of them mentioned Leslie's fortieth birthday. At the bottom of the pile was a note in Anna-Kristina's handwriting, jocularly urging them to enjoy the various papers, magazines and tabloids. "My niece's folly," he muttered.
Leslie giggled. "This is funny. They never even noticed last year or the year before that—not once since you and I got married. Only now when I hit forty do they bother to wish me a happy birthday. Those ridiculous vultures."
"Oh, pffff," scoffed Christian, shaking his head. "I'd have stronger words than 'ridiculous' for them, but it's your birthday, my Rose." He watched her checking out the various photos that had been printed in the publications and finally started to chuckle reluctantly. "I suppose this means you've 'arrived' in jordisk society. They just couldn't resist lauding you, as my wife, for reaching the age of 40."
A baby called out then, quite close by, and they both looked over to see Karina, on her feet and clinging to the edge of the sofa cushion next to Leslie, watching them with sparkling hazel eyes and a big four-toothed grin. They both laughed, and Leslie smoothed the child's hair, just thick enough now to be brushable. It was growing in sleek and straight, in a deep-caramel hue that was darker than Leslie's hair but lighter than Christian's. Tobias and Susanna shared their sister's hair color. "We didn't even see you there, sweetie. My goodness, pretty soon you and your brother and sister will be up and walking, won't you?"
Karina babbled in reply, and her parents laughed again while Leslie set the papers aside and scooped her daughter into her lap. Tobias threw a soft cloth ball across the room, demonstrating a surprisingly good arm, and rolled onto his hands and knees, speeding across the floor after it, while Susanna followed her brother's example by flinging away the rag doll she held. It landed behind the end table next to Christian, just barely missing the lamp, and Christian groaned playfully, rising to retrieve it. "If they're going to throw things, we should build a nice big empty room beside the upstairs bathroom, pad the walls and let them pitch to their hearts' content."
Leslie laughed, nodding. "I'll say. So when are you going to post all those birthday pictures on the family website?"
"I dare not," Christian admitted, giving the doll a gentle toss in Susanna's direction and watching his daughter crawl after it when it landed short. "With these three as active as they are right now, I think it's better to wait till they're napping before I leave you to endure their antics alone. That's probably why I still haven't uploaded the wedding photos." They had both been utterly stunned when Anna-Laura had called on April 25 and informed them that Roald had been married the previous day to Princess Adriana of Arcolos, Errico's daughter and Michiko's stepdaughter.
"Oh, so that's it," said Leslie. "Tabitha asked me about it last week, and I had to tell her I wasn't sure, maybe you were just busy. Look, my love, Ingrid's here, she can help me keep these imps in line. Why don't you go ahead and do it now?"
Christian hesitated, staring dubiously at her. "You're very sure?" As if to underscore his father's trepidation, Tobias threw his ball again and chortled when it bounced off Karina's head, making Leslie's eyes widen in surprise. Karina blinked and stared at her brother, and Christian tried to smother a grin.
"Well…" Leslie began, pretending to think it over, and he let the grin have its way and grow into a laugh. She grinned back. "Go on ahead. Once these three go down for their afternoon nap, I want to get into town and pick up some things. I noticed you're getting low on printer ink again."
Christian raised a brow and inquired, "How did you see that?" She just grinned, and he rolled his eyes playfully. "Then we may as well go in together. I wanted to drop in at my office and grab a couple of things I left behind yesterday."
They left just after putting the triplets in for their nap, and after a stop at the bank they went to Enstad Computer Services. Everyone was there except for Beth, whose day off it was as well as Christian's, and the others expressed surprise to see him. "Busman's holiday again, huh, Boss Prince?" inquired Jonathan.
"Just retrieving some things I left by accident," Christian said. "How's traffic today?"
"Busy," Anton spoke up from his desk. "We're keeping up with it well enough, though, thanks to Taro over there. You made a shrewd choice hiring him, Christian."
Christian looked over to the side of the room where Taro Sensei sat deeply engrossed in the repair of a computer tower, a studious frown on his face. "Yes, he's been a very good worker," he agreed, strolling over to Anton's desk and gathering up some paperwork from one corner to check over it. "Too good, possibly. Sometimes I think he's going to outdo me. Is there a report yet from the Santi Arcuros branch?"
"It came in this morning," Anton told him, digging through a stack of mail on the desk and extracting a large mud-brown envelope. "I've been going through so much paper today, I never even opened it." The phone rang and he muttered something in German that sounded questionable enough to evoke a smile from Christian; Anton looked up, caught it and let out a sheepish chuckle. "The phones have been insane today, too. Good afternoon, Enstad Computer Services, Anton speaking."
Christian plucked a letter opener out of a thick stoneware mug on Anton's desk and slit open the envelope while Anton pressed a button, put down his receiver and called across the room, "Taro, phone's for you." Leslie caught up with Christian and looked on over his shoulder while he pulled out a small pack of paper, held together by a metal brad in the top left corner, and began to peruse it.
"What, again?" Taro grumbled audibly. "Thanks, Anton." Both Christian and Leslie looked up and watched him pick up the phone.
"Does he get a lot of calls?" Christian queried idly.
"Ehh…mostly it's his parents. He does have a baby daughter, doesn't he? I suppose they're just getting used to caring for her while he's here working," Anton said, shrugging. "It's been a few years since they had a baby in the house, he said."
"Nobody forgets how to take care of a baby," Leslie remarked, amused. "Myeko was always going to her mother for help when she had Alexander, and got a lot of good advice from her. Maybe Taro's little girl has colic or something."
"My sympathies to him if she does," Christian murmured, flipping a page, his attention back on the report. He had started to smile. "Well, this is a pleasant surprise. Errico seems to have put his money where his mouth is. The Santi Arcuros branch is turning some very tidy profits, even after the five-percent deduction for Michiko's charity. We may be able to afford to celebrate the triplets' first birthday after all."
"Oh, you," Leslie said, snickering and playfully batting his arm with the back of her hand. "We're not hiring a three-ring circus or a Disney character to come out for their party, you rogue."
"But those quilts are going to run us some serious money," Christian bantered back, "and I just wanted to be sure we could pay for them." Leslie made a face and he laughed; and at the same moment Taro slammed down his phone with a crack that made everyone in the office turn around and stare at him.
"You okay?" Julianne asked a little tentatively.
Taro looked a bit startled when he realized that everyone's attention was on him. "Oh," he said, coughing, clearing his throat and smiling sheepishly. "Sorry. Your Highness…I just got a call from the elementary school. My son…well, I'm afraid I'll have to go and get him. I'm sorry, I hope it's all right. I'll be back after I've taken him to my parents'."
"Your son?" Christian repeated blankly.
"Noah," said Taro. "He's seven. It seems…he threw a tantrum in the school cafeteria when his class went to lunch and he found out they weren't having hot dogs."
Jonathan, Julianne and Leslie laughed; Christian quirked an amused eyebrow, and Anton peered at Taro with an odd sidewise look. "Hot dogs?" he said dubiously.
"A staple for American kids in particular," Leslie said. "They taste pretty good, but they have a bad nutritional reputation. Sorry to hear that, Taro, good luck."
"I'll need it," Taro murmured, setting down an electronic component and rising from his chair. "I'm sorry, Your Highness."
Christian shrugged good-naturedly. "Don't let it bother you too much, Taro. Children make life interesting. Go ahead and don't worry about it."
" 'Interesting', my love? That's quite a euphemism," Leslie teased as Taro strode to the door as though in a hurry.
He smiled slyly at her. "Just wait, my darling Rose, till our three become mobile, articulate and aware. They'll have food preferences, they'll have fights, they'll have strange dreams and imaginary monsters for friends. They'll develop their own personalities and they will definitely have peculiar escapades both in school and out. It's how things are with children. While they're still relatively easy to deal with, take your cues from Taro's example just now, and our friends with children under ten, and brace yourself."
‡ ‡ ‡
Taro kept casting bewildered glances at his young son, who sat slouched on the seat beside him, arms folded over his chest and his lower lip sticking out as far as it would go. They were riding the island shuttle bus back to the neighborhood where Taro and his children currently were rooming with his parents, and Noah hadn't spoken a word since Taro had arrived at the elementary school to pick him up.
He released a long breath and let his mind wander, trying to understand what had happened to the sunny little boy he remembered back in Samoa. It was probably Iriata's fault, he figured; all roads seemed to lead back to her eventually. Ever since she'd left, things had been weird. No, he thought suddenly, frowning, they'd started getting weird even before then. He had to consider it very carefully, but he was pretty sure it had become noticeable not too long before they'd learned she was pregnant with Tia. She'd begun to lose weight and had a lot of extra energy all of a sudden; he remembered the lavish, busy birthday parties Iriata had organized for Stephanie and Noah that year, and how she slept less during the night, but much more soundly. She went to bed after the rest of the family and woke up before anyone else, but in between she was utterly dead to the world. Taro had tried to shake her awake and failed once. There was just something unnatural about that.
And she'd gained almost no weight during her pregnancy either. This had pleased her no end, though her doctor had worried enough to issue several stern warnings about low birth weight in the fetus and other possible consequences. In itself that wasn't much of a surprise. After all, Iriata was a former Miss Samoa, and she prided herself on her beauty and her slim figure. What didn't make sense to him was that she had never complained about gaining weight during her previous two pregnancies.
Then there was the way she'd bankrupted them. Taro knew it was her fault, that the savings he'd so carefully built up over the years had begun draining at an alarming rate and he hadn't been able to make her understand that they needed that money. "What about the kids' college education?" he'd demanded urgently. "What if something happens to me and I can't work anymore? Where's all this money going?" She had only turned away, telling him primly that she needed it, and refused to offer any further explanation. When it had finally occurred to him to grab what money remained to them and tuck it into an account accessible only by him and not her, there had been less than five thousand dollars remaining.
Taro winced, remembering the screaming fit she'd had when she discovered the money was no longer within her reach. "I need it! I need it!" she'd kept screeching, over and over, without embellishing. When he'd adamantly refused to give in to her temper, her soft coaxing, her pleas, her tears, she had appeared to give up. Foolishly, he'd thought the matter settled—till he got notice from the bank when Tia was six months old that repayments were due on a huge loan she had taken out against his business. He'd confronted her with this that very evening…and the next day she had walked out, never to be seen again. He'd been forced to sell his business and their house at a financial loss, and the only thing he had been able to do was take the money he had squirreled away from Iriata and use it to bring Stephanie, Noah and Tia back to Fantasy Island to start fresh.
The bus lurched to a halt near the small Asian residential settlement, about a mile or so west of the hospital, where he'd grown up, jolting him back to the present. "Come on, Noah, time to get off," he said, rising. Without a word Noah trailed him, still looking rebellious and ready for a good fight.
His father, just about to retire from his job as CFO at the company that ran the ferries between Fantasy Island and Coral Island, wasn't home; but his mother, Junko, was folding laundry while a soap opera played on TV. She looked up when Taro and Noah came in and paused, but without surprise. "Not again," she said with sympathy.
"Yeah, again," Taro confirmed wearily, ushering Noah up the stairs and into the living room of the split-level ranch house where he, his twin brother Tomi, and their sisters Myeko and Sayuri had grown up. "Trouble is…this time they suspended him."
Junko stared in astonishment at her grandson, who stomped into the living room and dramatically threw himself into a chair, slouching low on the cushion. "Sneakers off, Noah," she reminded the boy gently, and Noah's scowl deepened, though he obeyed her. "They suspended him because he wanted hot dogs?"
"Because he threw a king-sized fit when they didn't have any in the cafeteria," Taro explained, removing his own shoes before coming up the stairs in Noah's wake. "The way I hear it, he deafened half the people in the lunchroom, and he could be heard as far as the closest four classrooms to the lunchroom doors." He snorted, taking another chair. "That's kindergarten behavior. I can't figure out what the problem is."
"He misses his mother, Taro, that's what the problem is," Junko said.
"Well, why's he blaming me? She's the one who got up and walked out. I don't even know where the hell she went." At a reproving look from his mother, he corrected himself grudgingly, "Okay, heck."
Junko chuckled and resumed folding clothes. "How long does the suspension last?"
"Till next Monday," Taro said moodily, staring at the TV screen where two actors were exchanging threats. "Good grief, Mom, you actually still watch this junk?"
"It's cheap entertainment," she said with good humor. "And considering the scene that's been playing out over there for the last several minutes, it just serves to remind me that adults can be as petty and childish as kids—they just show it differently."
Taro grunted, uninterested in the soap opera or whatever lessons it might have to teach, which he privately thought wouldn't be worth much anyway. "I suppose so," was all the concession he would make. "Mom, I can't figure out what to do about this. I mean, he won't eat anything else."
"He's been uprooted, Taro," Junko said patiently. "And considering the way it happened, it's going to be an issue. Eventually he'll adjust, but it'll take time."
Taro stood up and shook his head. "Well, I can't wait that long, at least not on this. No more hot dogs—at all, period. You can eat whatever else is in this house, Noah, but we aren't buying any more hot dogs just for you. This stuff has got to stop." He returned to the foyer and stepped into his shoes. "I've gotta get back to work…sorry, Mom."
Junko watched him leave, then looked at Noah, whose scowl had crumpled into a look of horror. "Gramma…" the boy protested.
She wasn't about to go against Taro's decision; it was her policy not to undermine her children's discipline of her grandchildren, even if she herself disagreed with the method. "I'm sorry, Noah," she said. "But your father's right. You can't eat only hot dogs for the rest of your life. You won't get all the good stuff that helps you to grow up strong."
"But I promise I'll never yell and scream in school again," Noah begged.
"Honey, that's what you said the last time," Junko reminded him, and Noah started to cry. "There are lots and lots of other yummy things, and you can't have hot dogs every single day—that's just not good for you. Do you want a sandwich for lunch?"
"No," Noah screamed and leaped out of the chair, racing for the bedroom he was sharing with Taro. A door slammed, rattling the framed pictures in the hallway, and Junko winced, then shook her head. She thought about inviting Nick and Myeko and their children over for supper; Dawn, going on three, was as voracious an eater as Noah used to be, and maybe they'd help set an example.
§ § § -- May 15, 2005
"That's the last freebie, kiddo, sorry," said Hotaia Sese, handing his sister a Mason jar filled with a thin black fluid. "You want any more, you'll have to figure out a way to come up with the money."
She took the jar and cradled it against her chest as if it were a baby. "It's gone, Hotaia, I don't have any left. Please, you can't do this to me!"
"Then start hockin' stuff, kiddo. My supplier won't give me anything else till I can pay him, and I can't pay him till you pay me. I know you're not so dumb you don't understand that. It's a business, just like any other one." He grinned, showing a row of stained teeth spotted with gaps where some were missing altogether. "And I ain't lettin' you run mine into the ground like you did your ex's."
She reddened. "I had to. Taro caught on to me and transferred the ready cash into an account I couldn't get access to." Her brother shrugged, and Iriata Sensei's perfect face set into hard, angry lines. "You forced me to it, raising the price like you did."
"Don't blame me," he said, his mock affability vanishing instantly. "I didn't force you to start usin' the stuff. Now if you can find some way to bring in some money so you can pay me for it, great, I'll give you all ya want. But till then, you better make sure that jar lasts awhile, 'cause there's no more." He pushed her out the door. "Go on, I got business."
She tried to battle back her rising sense of panic as she stumbled down the long curving driveway to the battered gunmetal-gray sedan that waited for her. "Good," said the driver as soon as she slid inside. "Good goin', Iriata, y'got a nice little supply there."
"We need to come up with the money," she said insistently, staring at him in the hope that he'd have the solutions she needed. "Hotaia won't give us any more till we get the money to pay him. What'll we do?"
"There's always the arrangement we discussed last week," said the driver without inflection, sending the car down the quiet street.
"I won't do that. I can't do it," Iriata protested.
"Then there's only one place to go. Where's your ex, in the same place?"
"No…he sold the house and the business. I don't know where he went. I haven't seen him since the divorce."
"Then you'll just have to start walkin' the streets." The driver spared her one quick glance, but it was that all-encompassing glance that Iriata had learned to loathe. " 'S all there is to it."
"Please, no," she protested. Imagine the horrible publicity that would ensue from it—a former Miss Samoa, selling her body for drugs? Sometimes she wished she'd never won that damned pageant.
"Listen, babe, you don't have much choice. If your brother isn't gonna give you the stuff out of the goodness of his heart anymore, then you need to get hold of some cash, quick-like. And unless you can tell me everything you know about your ex, then you know how we're gonna have to get that cash. Pure 'n' simple, babe, so what's it gonna be?"
Iriata stared at the Mason jar and its precious contents, knowing in her heart of hearts that she was squandering her life for this substance, but lacking the strength to resist its allure. Deep inside she was afraid to reveal anything about Taro—not so much for him, not after the way he'd cut off her access to money that belonged to both of them and not just him, but because she wanted to protect her children. That heart of hearts knew they were better off in Taro's care. But if she revealed too much information, what would happen to Stephanie, Noah and Tia?
"C'mon, babe," the driver said, in that weirdly expressionless way he had that gave her the creeps. It was as if he were a robot, without the capacity to feel anything. "What's it gonna be? You want the stuff, you gimme the info."
A lightheaded, faint feeling began to assault her, only teasing at first, and Iriata shook her head abruptly, trying to dispel it. But as though defying her, it merely grew stronger, and she realized she'd gone too long without a dose. The car jolted across a pothole and the black liquid inside the Mason jar sloshed noisily, singing a siren song.
"Taro grew up on Fantasy Island," she muttered, unable to take her eyes off the jar. "If he's not here in Samoa, then that's where he is."