Chapter Thirty-Seven – Beware of What the Past Beholds

Chloe and Philip sat in the waiting room of Salem Middle School awaiting Ms. Mason, Jarod's school counselor, to come and speak with them.  They were both nervous about this first meeting with the counselor because it could possibly be something very alarming or nothing at all.  But, either way they would find out soon, since Ms. Mason hadn't specifically stated what the problem was so all they could do was wait.

"Are you worried, about this meeting I mean?" Chloe questioned as she touched the part of her stomach where her child kicked.

"No, are you?" He replied slightly surprised to see his wife so worried with concern written all over her face.

"A little, I mean other than the usual parent-teacher meetings we've never had to meet with counselors or anything for the kids.  This is new territory for us Philip, I'm just concerned that being the first time, it's something serious and I won't know how to react." Philip nodded understanding Chloe's concern as he raised her palm and kissed it in an attempt to calm her down. 

Evangeline Mason walked over to the elegant couple.  "Mr. Kiriakis, Dr. Kiriakis, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting.  I'm Eva Mason, the seventh grade guidance counselor."  The slim brunette said with a kind smile as she moved to stand before the couple.  "If you'll just follow me to my office." She requested leading them both to her office. 

Philip helped Chloe stand and then moved to follow his wife and the counselor.  As they entered the office, he assisted Chloe in sitting down.

"I know you both have busy schedules but I really appreciate you making the time to come in today."  Eva said as she took her seat behind the desk.

"Yes, well our son's education is very important to us so it was no problem."  Philip replied.  "Is our son in any trouble?"

"Oh no, Jarod's not in any trouble, at all."

"That's a relief.  When you called last week, I'm afraid, I assumed that Jarod might have gotten into some trouble."

"That's not the case at all, Dr. Kiriakis.  Jarod is wonderful and from what his teachers have told me, he's very studious and well behaved.  We'd had no problems with him.  The reason I asked for this meeting is to discuss a potential issue may become a problem."  She paused, "Has Jarod spoken to either about any problems with other students recently?"

Philip glanced over at Chloe, cautiously before answering.  "Actually, he did voice some concerns to be about how other children reacted to me when I was his age.  You know it they treated me any differently because I was a Kiriakis."

"You didn't tell me that."  Chloe replied surprised.

"I know, I just didn't think the question was important at the time.  When he asked me it seemed like it was an after thought, so I didn't think anything of it."

"Well if this happened recently it maybe in regards to the initial reason I called this meeting.  Last week, I observed a … verbal altercation between your son and three other classmates.  I was heading over to check it out when Conrad Black came up.  Some words were exchanged and then the boys disbursed.  Now, I'm not 100% sure but I would say that without Conrad's timely arrival there may have been a physical altercation."

"You're saying that Jarod almost got into a fight?" Chloe asked incredulously,  "That doesn't seem like him at all.  Do you have any idea what the argument was about?"

"Unfortunately, no. When I arrived the other boys had already left and Jarod was heading to his locker.  I asked Conrad what happened but he wouldn't say." She leaned back in her chair.  "Since that time I've made it a point to speak with all of Jarod's teachers and to observe him with these other students to see if anything else happened.  According to what they have told me the conversations seem to revolve around you."

"Me?" Chloe confused pointing to herself.

"Well you and Mr. Kiriakis, that is.  Although, again, I don't know what specifically they've been talking about.  If I were to guess I'd say that a large part of the issue revolves around the fact that Jarod wasn't a Kiriakis when he was at school last year.  He was a new kid on the block for all intents and purposes.  But, now he isn't," she paused, "May I be blunt with you?"

"Yes, of course."  Philip answered.

"This year, your son is in a rather precarious position being the son of one of the richest families in Salem.  He has to attain for being a part of a very powerful family that he only came into a couple months ago."  She turned her gaze to Philip.  "Mr. Kiriakis, I'm sure you understand better than your wife or I can, the expectations put on you as a rich man's son."

"Yes, I do have an understanding of what that can be like."  Philip agreed.

"Good, then you'll be of great help to your son in the future.  I don't pretend to know exactly what's going on in the mind of my students but I know enough to say that we are avoiding a potential problem with your son here and that's what's important.  As for his slight altercations with other students … well I'd say that nothing will happen there because your son has a good friend in Conrad Black."

"Yes, that's true Jarod and his cousin are very close together."

"His cousin?"  Ms. Mason replied surprised.  "I wasn't aware they were related."

"Conrad's father is my nephew — I have a very sordid family history," Philip laughed.

"I'll just take your word for it.  I don't want to take anymore of your time so I'll just let you know if anything else comes up with Jarod, I'll talk with him and I'll let you know."

"You're speaking with Jarod?" Chloe asked as Philip helped her to stand.

"Yes, I speak with all seventh graders to get them familiar with the guidance system and just get to know them better, in general."  She explained escorting Philip and Chloe to the doorway of her office.

"If you find anything more out about the situation between Jarod and the other students please give me a call."  Chloe said as she held her hand out the shake the counselor's.  "It was lovely meeting you."

"Yes and I'm sure we'll be meeting again in a much more appropriate time.  Nice meeting both of you."  Ms. Mason said again escorting them out; Philip and Chloe left the guidance office hands entwined.

"Hey Eva, who was that?"

"Philip and Chloe Kiriakis."

"Ahh, the reigning King and Queen of Salem."

Eva turned toward the other guidance counselor.  "You know them, Debra?"

"Nope, I just went school with them and man could I tell you some stories about them."

"How about I take you to lunch where you can tell me all about it." Eva replied grasping Debra's arm as they headed toward the teacher's lounge.

~*~*~*~*~*@*~*~*~*~*~

Jarod and Conrad were sitting side by side at the island of the Wesley kitchen stirring, mixing, and sampling two large bowls of chocolate cake mix.  They had been there since their school bus had dropped them off at the house a little over two hours ago.  They were helping Nancy find the perfect recipe for her double chocolate fudge cake that she was entering in a contest.  So far they'd sampled three prior attempts at getting the recipe right and this was the last batter Nancy was going to try.

"So my young chefs, what do you think about this batter?  Do you think this is THE one?"  Nancy asked as she dipped her finger into the batter for a quick taste.  "Umm … it needs something.  I think a dap of nutmeg and a little of vanilla should be just right.  Boys I think I've found my recipe."

Jarod got the vanilla extract off the counter and handed it to his grandmother, watching as she dropped a few drops in the mix before capping off the bottle and handing it back to him.  She then stirred the mix briskly for a few moments before pouring the new mixes into two buttered pans and placing them in the oven.  Leaving Jarod and Conrad to clean the bowls.

"So Conrad, Jarod, I understand that the two of you have some questions you'd like to ask me for a project," she started turning to take the bowl to sink to soak for a few seconds.

"Yeah Grandma, it's for our family studies project.  We've supposed to find out stuff about our parents when they were our age, you know, to see how different or alike they were with us."

"Oh, well honey, I'm not quite sure I can tell you everything about your mom when she was younger.  She only came to live with me when she was fifteen.  She was in an orphanage at your age."

"Well what was Aunt Chloe like when she first came here then Mrs. Wesley? Like when she was in high school with Uncle Philip.  That should be good enough for the project."  Conrad answered licking some chocolate from his spoon before placing it in the sink with the bowl.

"I take it then that the two of you are working on this project together?"  Nancy asked.

"Yup.  Our teacher figured since we're related it might be easier to do a project together."  Jarod replied promptly.

"Of course, I don't know why I asked."  She paused.  "So what would you like to know about Chloe?"

Jarod and Conrad exchanged telling looks before one of them answered.  "What was she like? Was she popular?  Did she and Dad fall in love at first sight?"  Jarod chimed in with a barrage of questions.

"Whoa," Nancy laughs, "those are quite a few questions to start with but I'm sure I can give you the answers you're looking for.  When your Mother first came here she was different from the kids at school.  She dressed in all black, much to my dismay, she wore these glasses with this horrendous black frames; she wore her hair as long as she does now. She only listened to opera or classical music, no pop or rock music. She was … sarcastic with a sharp wit and that intimidated the kids at Salem High."
           

Jarod brow furrowed.  "How so?"

"Well, they teased your mother mercilessly.  They called her juvenile names —like ghoul girl and Vampira.  I had never been so furious in my life than when teased Chloe like that.  They didn't even try to get to know her." Nancy replied reminiscence. "Kids can be cruel."

Biting his lip lightly he asked the one question that he needed — wanted to know the answer to.  "What about my Dad, did he — was he one of the kids that teased her?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact he was one of the main ones in fact."  Then as if realizing what she had said, continued hurriedly.  "But, your father did something that none of the kids bothered to do.  He got to know her and found out what a special person she truly was.  After a while, they started to date and your mother began to blossom under our very eyes.  She stopped wearing only black clothes, took off the black glasses and became the beautiful, strong woman she is today." 

"Hey do you have any pictures of Aunt Chloe when she wore all that black?"  Conrad asked attempting to dissuade Nancy from noticing how upset Jarod was,

"Yes, I believe I do.  Stay right here and I'll go get one."  She walked out of the kitchen and returned seconds later with an album.  After flipping through it for a few seconds she placed the album in front of the boys.  "Here, this one was taken when we first moved into this house.  This is your mother at fifteen, Jarod."  She pointed to a picture with Chloe standing next to Craig with full Goth wear.

"Can I keep this?"

"Sure, honey.  I have lots of photos of your mother, in fact Conrad I have some your parents as well would you like to see them as well?"  She asked flipping through the album until she found pictures of Brady and Mimi, not noticing her grandson lost in thought expression as he stared at the picture of his mother, lost in thought.

~*~*~*~*~*@*~*~*~*~*~

Chloe was on the phone with Philip later that afternoon discussing the meeting they had with Ms. Mason earlier that day.

"I don't understand why anyone would tease Jarod.  He's not as moody as I was or as arrogant as you were."

"Thanks," Philip replied dryly.

"Don't get offended Philip, you know what I meant."

"Yes, I know.  Jarod is the best of both of us, he's a nice, easygoing kid and I don't understand why anyone would tease him. But, he's also a Kiriakis and I'm sorry say that name comes with a lot of unnecessary baggage."

"Like what?"

"Like having every single thing about your parents — good or bad— broadcasted repeatedly amongst gossip mongers and thrown in your face.  You have to be the best at everything to show that you aren't just some rich man's son.  You have to work harder than everyone else just to be accepted for who you are."

"Why didn't we ever talk about this with the twins, Philip?  I feel like this is catching me completely off guard as if we never even thought about it."
           

"Maybe it's different for the twins because there are two of them.  There's a difference between being the only son of a rich man and being a twin.  Besides that Jarod came into this family as a preteen last year, he's on his own much of the time.  The twins have each other to fall back on and they can stick together when things happen.  I don't know why it's happening now or with Jarod but whatever the reason we have to step up and let him know that we don't have those expectations for him."

There was silence on the other end of the phone as Chloe thought about what Philip was saying.  It was hard for her to understand the kind of pressure being a Kiriakis child was on Jarod.  But, the one thing she knew was that she wouldn't allow for her son to be teased as she had been by the children in this town.  "So what do we do Philip because I don't want anyone messing with my son.  No one is going hurt him."

"Chloe, I hate to say this but there's much we can do.  Kids get teased all the time and as much as we want to stop it, there's no way we can control it."

"I don't care Philip, I will not allow my son to be teased because some idiot kids are intimidated by him.  And if I have to I will talk to everyone of their parents personally."

"Wait a second Mama Kiriakis.  I know that's exactly what you want to do but you can't do that."

"Why not?  Why shouldn't I do what I can for my son?" She asked becoming irate.

"Look calm down Chloe, getting upset isn't good for you or the baby and it's not going to help Jarod if you're in the hospital.  Obviously, if this has been going on since school started, Jarod hasn't said anything to us—"

"What's your point?"  She interrupted.

"Chloe, if he hasn't said anything to us its because he doesn't want us to interfere—,"

"We wouldn't be interfering we'd be helping him."

"No, Chloe, think about it when Nancy tried handle the kids in high school for you how did you feel about it?"

"Oh, that's different, she was interfering and I could have handled it myself."

"Exactly, Jarod doesn't want us to help him because he wants to handle it himself."

"But, that's ridiculous."

"Yes, ridiculous to us, his parents, but to him — it's about being an adult and handling your problems on your own, without having to go to your parents.  Look, I'm not saying we completely abandon him with this, we can give him time to fix it and if he can't then we'll step in and help him.  To go one more step, we'll be honest with him about everything so he doesn't have to hear about from someone else first.  Just being honest with him is best thing we could do to help him."  Philip replied thinking back on his own high school experience when his family life crumbled around him.

"I get what you're saying. Most of what happens in this family is public knowledge but Philip; you're forgetting we don't know what these kids will say to Jarod.  It's nice to think that we can predict what will happen.  But, even our own history has proven that the kids who tease can be vindictive, mean, and most importantly unpredictable."

"So we'll just do what we can then."  Philip glanced at the clock in his office.

"It's almost time to pick up the kids so we'll continue this later."

"Okay, so who am I getting today, the twins and Jessie or Jarod?"  He asked clearing up some stuff off his desk, placing some files into his briefcase.

"Well, I need to speak with Ana's Ballet instructor about missing her class last week for her soccer game and then I need to pickup Dominic's new tap shoes.  So unless you want to do all those errands I can get Jessie and the twins and you can get Jarod."

"I have a better idea, it's been a long day so I'll get all of our kids and run the errands so you can stay home and rest.  See you when I get home, love you."

"I love you too."  Chloe replied replacing the phone back on its cradle as she leaned back against the chair thinking of all the things that had occurred during that day.  Her thoughts were put aside when she felt a kick, she sighed placing her hand over her stomach.  "Well, baby you'll learn that being a Kiriakis is never as easy as it looks."

P.S. Bitter Vengeance Sequel entitled Sweet Revenge will be out soon.

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