Chapter 15: Welcome to Port Charles!

Clint Buchanan slammed the trunk to his rental car at the Port Charles International Airport; which technically straddled Port Charles and Moriches. To say he was frustrated was an understatement. For all the time he spent awaiting take off, you would have thought there was a major blizzard. In reality, only four inches had actually fallen, and he had still been grounded for almost twenty-four hours. Clint had no patience for incompetence; and he viewed the airport situation as nothing other than that.

As he got into the car, he realized that his entire trip was the result of incompetence or general lack of integrity. If Julia had just been forced to tell the truth years ago, he wouldn't be faced with the possibility of having another grandchild that was also technically a great grandchild. The situation with Duke, Kelly, and Kevin still rankled him; but Sarah and Cooper having a child together could be even worse.

Logically, he supposed, he should have been furious with Julia; but he couldn't be. So, he turned his fury to the lab technicians that must have participated in altering the test results. He blamed his other son for challenging his attempts to assert paternity after Julia's death. He even had moments where he blamed, or at least resented, Viki for her neediness; which had forced him to return to her in hopes that perhaps their children wouldn't all self destruct.

Clint pummeled the horn at the car in front of him that had practically come to complete stop at the bottom of the access ramp to the highway. "Merge pinhead!" he screamed, laying on his horn again. It was clearly going to be another great day.

Forty minutes later, Clint had finally reached the Port Charles Hotel. Unfortunately, there were really only two five-star hotels in Port Charles, one of them belonged to the Quartermaines and the other belonged to Jasper Jacks. The Port Charles Hotel was a little nicer and didn't have pictures of the late John Jacks prominently adorning the lobby. Both of those things made it Clint's accommodations choice.

While waiting for a family of five to check out, Clint planned his attack. It was tempting to just confront Cooper directly. Unfortunately, Sarah had been rather evasive about where Cooper actually lived; so that left him with Brenda. He had tracked her address down the year before to send Julia's Christmas present. It hadn't been hard; Adriana had left her palm pilot open while visiting Natalie with Rex.

Clint supposed the Christmas gift had been his attempt at a truce. Their son had made it home safely from Iraq, they should be grateful, and Clint had tried to be. Still, it was hard to not to resent Cooper's rejection and let his bitterness take over.

"Welcome to the Port Charles Hotel, Sir, may I help you?" the hotel desk clerk asked intruding into Clint's thoughts.

"I have a suite reserved for the next three days, the last name is Buchanan," Clint replied.

The clerk hit a few keys on his computer. "Ah, yes and this will be charged to the Buchanan Enterprises Corporate account, right?"

"Yes," Clint said.

"We're going to put you in the Excelsior suite. If you take the East Elevators to the tenth floor, take a left after the elevator bank and it's the third suite you will come to. There is a nameplate outside the door. Do you need help with your bags?"

"I believe in traveling light," Clint said.

"Very well then, Sir. Enjoy your stay in Port Charles."

Clint grunted, draped his garment bag over one arm, and pulled his carryon behind as he headed to the elevators. When the doors opened, he stepped in, and then frowned at the brown-haired woman already in the car having come up from the ground level. "Just when I thought my day couldn't get any worse," he said.

Celia Quartermaine gave him a smug smile in return. "Well good morning to you too, Clinton. I must say this seems like a bad mood, even for you. Did you have to fly commercial or something?"

Clint snarled in Celia's general direction. "What floor did you need?"

"Ten, but it's already been pressed."

"Great! We can enjoy the entire ride together. That really makes my day," Clint said with a roll of the eyes.

"You know Clinton you really should do something about all the anger and hostility. It just really isn't healthy."

"I don't think the daughter of the woman who murdered her father in law gets to tell me what is healthy," Clint fumed.

"My mother made a less than informed choice. Something I don't think any of us can say we haven't at different times. I don't really think we want to discuss our parents' various shortcomings though, Clinton. You know that conversation wouldn't end well."

Clint tensed and stood more erect. "You have no idea what you are talking about!"

"That is where you are wrong," Celia said as the elevator finally stopped at the tenth floor. Celia stepped out quickly and then turned back to face Clint. "Well, I must go prepare for the day. Edward and I are discussing development of some new acquisitions in Arizona. Don't worry I'll alert ELQ security that you are back in town," she said and then she was disappeared down the hallway.

Behind her, Clint lumbered out of the elevator and down the hall to his suite. Perhaps hating Celia Quartermaine was petty but there were so many reasons he just couldn't stop. The list started with her compulsion to consider the environment and the future more than the bottom line. She claimed it could be both profitable and conscionable.

Apparently, she passed that Kool-Aid around liberally at ELQ Board Meetings. ELQ Enterprises claimed to be so proud that no former or present ELQ drilling or mining site had become a superfund site. They had received some EPA award the summer before which was all fine and good until Celia refused to let BE purchase the oil rights on some ELQ land in Nevada.

July 9, 2007

Clint Buchanan slammed a hand down on his desk in frustration at the run around he seemed to be getting. "I don't care if she's in a meeting! I want to talk to her now!" he raged at whatever incompetent secretary Celia must be trying out for the week or something.

Celia Quartermaine's secretaries never did last long; she kept encouraging them to further their education. Clint realized that was the politically correct thing to do, so of course it would be Celia's motto. Just once he wanted to be able to call ELQ-West and not run across some darn secretary, who probably just started the day before, and didn't realize that he was an important man and shouldn't be kept waiting.

When Celia finally made it to the phone, a full five minutes later, Clint could hear her soothing the secretary who was apparently named Marcy in the background.

"Good morning, Clinton, and what can I do for you this morning?" Celia asked.

"This is just a courtesy call before I go over your head to Ned and Edward. I want those oil rights!"

"I'm sure you do, Clinton, but there is no way you can drill there without contaminating the ground water. Did you even read the environmental impact report?" Celia asked.

Actually, he hadn't; but that wasn't the point, Clint thought. "Listen, Celia, I know you and your friends at Greenpeace think us oil folk are evil, but the next time you're filling up at the pump you might want to grasp reality a bit."

"First of all, I understand that there is a real need for onshore oil sources, that isn't the issue. The issue is I can't condone drilling in an area that is nearly certain to destroy the lives of entire communities. As for GreenPeace, I'm not particularly a fan. I think they tend to be melodramatic sensationalists who perhaps are in as much need of a reality check as you are."

"So, you really want me to let Ned and Edward in on how incompetent you really are?"

Celia laughed. "You make it sound as if I didn't discuss this deal with them before I turned it down. We're all on the same page on this, so you might want to just quit while you're behind; before you look more foolish than you already do."

"You're crazier than your mother if you believe that," Clint said.

"Ok, Clinton, I think this conversation has descended below anything productive. Have a wonderful day anyway," Celia said and she hung up the phone before Clint could say anything more.

Clint had been seething mad that day, not a new feeling where Celia was concerned. He had never understood why, out of all the people Julia could have befriended, she picked Celia Quartermaine. At first, he had thought it was just a jab back at the old man. As Celia had quite aptly pointed out in her piece of Julia's eulogy, Quartermaine was not exactly a family friendly world in the Barrett family.

January 27, 2007

Clint Buchanan sat silently in the second row at his former lover Julia Barrett's funeral. Their son sat in between his Aunt and Ned Ashton. Julia's death had left Clint with many questions, but at the front of his mind was whether he would finally be able to have a relationship with the son Julia had never admitted was his.

Clint saw a little red as the next speaker, Celia Quartermaine; a material sciences and environmental engineer, who had headed the ELQ-West subsidiary of ELQ Enterprises since her own father Quentin's death in 1998, stepped up to the podium.

"I graduated from Briarton-Griggs Academy in 1981. Last night, I was surprised to learn that Julia graduated from Taft only a year earlier. I am humbled by what someone only a year older managed to accomplish. Julia and I should have been adversaries; I'm a Quartermaine, and proud of it. Julia was a Barrett, there is that whole issue with that property in White Pine County, Nevada, and although that deal happened, back when ELQ stood for Edgar Louis Quartermaine and Roderick Barrett was in control at Barrett that history was in our blood. Like I said, we should have been adversaries," Celia paused and took an audible deep breath.

"Yet, beyond that, Julia and I were kindred spirits of sorts. We were little girls growing up in our daddy's world and determined to find our way on our own. Some might say that Julia was my mentor, and informally perhaps she was. I did admire what she accomplished and indirectly I learned a lot from her. ELQ closed those White Pine County mines shortly after I finished my engineering degrees because of environmental concerns with our leaching and smelting processes. At the time, ELQ CEO Edward Quartermaine declared that we would be back in White Pine County when the technology to do it in a way that wouldn't compromise his grandchildren's world was understood," Celia said before pausing again.

Clint saw her make eye contact with Edward Quartermaine who seemed to beam back at her. The exchange sickened him.

"In 2004 that dream was realized. When that White Pine County Mine reopened, I was heading ELQ-West and I received a very short email from Julia. It was only three words-You go girl! I sent her the same email when she opened her own Copper and Silver refinery outside London a year later. For Julia, that was truly, I think, her finest moment and a testament to her courage. She knew that she would never be the Barrett CEO. It just was not in the cards for lack of a Y chromosome. Many other people would have fumed about the inequity of that. Do heirs have to be male? However, as Julia always said you have to accept what you cannot change, and Harlan Barrett's mind is probably one of those things. Accepting it and moving on to start your own company takes courage. I have been more fortunate, I may or may not become an ELQ CEO but my female gender is not an automatic disqualifier. Still, I can recognize the strength of Julia's accomplishments. These were several big steps for her, but even bigger steps for womankind. You go girl!" Celia stepped down from the podium hugged her cousin Ned and then made her way back to her seat.

Celia's part of the eulogy had bugged Clint because he didn't believe that she had ever really known Julia at all. The truth was that no one, not even his oldest son, who insinuated they would have married had she lived longer, had really known Julia the way he had.