Author's Notes on The Fourteenth:
Since posting my last story, I've gone back and read several of the transcripts from 2004 and 2005. In the course of my research, I found two significant storylines crucial to understanding Tracy's relationship with her parents, her sons, and the world at large. First, the series of the episodes from July 14-16th, 2004, which chronicle Lila's death and funeral, give a strong insight into Tracy's relationship with her mother. Secondly, the episodes from February 16-19, 2004, where Edward has a heart attack after the fire at the Port Charles Hotel, show with cold, hard clarity the relationship she has with her father, as well as her sons.
The Daddy & Mommy Factor
When Edward is dying, Tracy's main focus, what she clings to, is E.L.Q. Even more so than her concern for her father's life, Tracy seems obsessed with protecting the company, the legacy her father is leaving behind. She berates everyone, from Alan right down to Dillon, for "not understanding," for refusing to see what really matters to Edward.
Conversely, when she learns of her mother's death, Tracy seems almost oblivious to the money. Because she's Tracy, she's going to overreact, she's going to berate people, and she's going to lash out. During Edward's heart attack, she accuses everyone of trying to steal control of E.L.Q. After Lila's death, however, what people are stealing is her mother's love. She begrudges every anecdote she hears of personal memories, loving relationships, and special fondness for Lila.
Tracy can't bear to share the memories of love for her mother anymore than she can bear the thought of sharing her father's wealth. As she told the viperous Heather Webber, "I just had this conversation with another mongrel my mother stopped to pet, and I'm going to tell you what I told her. That sliver of attention that my mother gave you does not give you the right to consider her death as a personal loss."
This might seem absurd, until one considers the values both Edward and Lila taught to their children. In Edward's eyes, money and power were love, with E.L.Q. the holy church of paternal devotion. The empire he has built is a living expression of his love for his family, the only expression he seems capable of sharing. Every time Tracy grasps for control of E.L.Q. or the Quartermaine fortune, she is in fact grasping for her father's love as she knows it. And every time Edward snubs her or disowns her or forces her out of power, he is revoking that love.
Lila, on the other hand, expresses love in a more conventional way, with kind words and deeds, loving experiences, good times, laughter. As starved as Tracy is for affection, it is understandable that she would hoard her mother's love and begrudge anyone who dared try to lay claim to it. And as much as she loves her mother, there is a part of Tracy that is hurt by her mother's kindness to others. In Tracy's way of seeing things, Lila's showing kindness to other family members, to friends, and to pretty much every hard luck case she meets is no different from Edward lavishing praise and power on people like Justus and Skye. To Tracy, these people are interlopers, thieves who have come in and charmed love away from her parents, love she has worked very hard to earn but never seems to get enough of.
Abuse or Tough Love
It's not hard to look at Edward Quartermaine and see his treatment of Tracy as abusive. In word and deed he has taught her, to the core of her being, that she is not worthy of love. He berates her at every turn, questions her every motive, puts her down and drives her away. He views her constant need for validation as weakness, belittles her successes, and amplifies her failures.
Lila, on the other hand, has a more subtle crime to answer to. Lila, whom everyone loves, whom everyone turns to, seems to turn a blind eye towards her husband's treatment of Tracy. Even though she may defend Tracy from time to time, in the end, the woman who would help the neediest stranger on the street is curiously absent when it comes to protecting her own daughter from the verbal and psychological abuse dealt her by her own father.
In the story, The Fourteenth, Tracy constantly says that she "is not Lila." But it is also true that Tracy is not Edward, either. There's too much of Lila in Tracy for her to truly become another Edward Quartermaine. There's too much love in her, too much sensitivity. It's battered love and skewed sensitivity, no doubt a result of her stunted emotional growth and deeply twisted views on love and loyalty; but it's still there. It's strong and fierce and sometimes overwhelming.
You can see it in the way she reacts to finding out that both Ned and Dillon survived the hotel fire. This is not a woman who merely tolerates her sons; she pulls them to her hard, holding on for dear life lest they turn out to be a mirage. You can see it in the way she reacts to her mother's death, the way she clutches her mother's picture to her heart. This is a woman who cries openly for her mother, onlookers be damned as she weeps, "I want my mommy" to an uncharacteristically sympathetic Edward.
Tracy has too much love in her to ever be Edward, but too much Edward in her to ever be Lila. She has schooled herself in the harsh reality of Edward's world, taking her knocks like a prizefighter, standing hard and facing the world with fangs and claws bare. She could never be a society wife, a server of tea and cookies, even if she wanted to. She understands Edward's world, revels in it to a large degree, and would thrive in it if circumstances were different.
But the most curious part of the Tracy make-up is not how much of Lila or Edward she has in her, but how much of that transitory essence called "Tracy" she has in her. One is hard pressed to imagine what Tracy Quartermaine would have been if not for the influence of her parents. You see traces of it throughout the series, bits of personal flair that are pure Tracy--smug glances, witty remarks, certain gestures. There is always that tantalizing hint of what this woman would have become, in a kinder environment, in a more giving, more generous environment.
The Dillon and Ned Factor
Tracy's relationships with her sons are almost as intriguing as her relationships are with her parents. Dillon and Ned not only came from different fathers; they came from different universes.
Ned was raised in privilege, shuffled off to the finest boarding schools in Europe and basically ignored by his jet-setting mother. The only influence Tracy really had on him in his early years was in absentia, and this reflects clearly in their adult relationship. Tracy is not "Mom" to Ned except in the most extreme circumstances. She is "Tracy" or "Mother." She is a subject of amusement and distraction, and quite often a thorn in his side. But one never gets the idea that Ned takes his mother that personally. She is his mother, yes, but she's still Tracy. And that distance gives him an edge over his younger half-brother, Dillon.
Dillon, unlike Ned, did not always have it so easy. While Tracy did her best to raise him in a style she found befitting a Quartermaine heir, the two did their share of skipping out on hotel bills and living in dives. When Tracy had Dillon, she tried to make up for her mistakes with Ned by keeping Dillon with her as much as possible. This made for years of loneliness, watching old movies in hotel rooms while Mom wheeled and dealed her way across continents, trying to regain the fortune she lost when Edward and Lila banished her from the family time and time again.
Unlike Ned, Dillon thinks of Tracy as "Mom," because that's what she is to him. She's not this distant entity who showed up on the occasional birthday and holiday and sent big fat checks to compensate for her absence. She is the woman he lived with, the woman he saw trying (and failing) to win back her family's acceptance. And because of this, Dillon is not only fiercely loyal to his mother, he is also equally vulnerable to her.
Dillon cannot separate himself from Tracy the way Ned can; it's personal to him. When Tracy fails Ned, as she so often does, to him it's just "Tracy being Tracy." But when she fails Dillon, it's Mom hurting Dillon. On the other hand, this closeness also gives Dillon a hand-up on controlling Tracy. He knows her too well, and has seen too many things, to let her slide behind the "Tracy Quartermaine, Bitch from Hell" mask completely.
When Edward had his heart attack, all Ned could do is urge Tracy to behave. Dillon, on the other hand, gets inside her hard, protective shell, if only for a moment. He reminds her of the watch she bought for Edward in Paris, the beautiful watch that had to be wrapped just so, the one she sent as an Easter gift, the one Edward returned unopened. She denies the story, but Dillon forces her to remember, telling her that although she told him to throw the returned gift into the Seine, he never did it. He still has the watch, perfectly wrapped, and he knows she loves her father because he saw her crying after she got the watch back unopened. For a split second, Dillon cuts through to the Tracy beneath the mask. For a split second, the viewers see the recognition in her face, the horror and shame at the memory, the remorse that she allowed Dillon to see her weakness. It's gone immediately, and what's left is pure Edward Quartermaine, only tempered by Tracy's own obvious love for her son. It's apparent that Tracy has swallowed Edward's parenting philosophy, hook, line and sinker, as evidenced by the following excerpt from the February 17, 2004, episode:
Tracy: That Easter that I sent him the present, I showed weakness. That's why he sent it back.
Dillon: Oh, God, Mom, he was wrong. Grandfather was wrong. When you reject somebody, you're -- you're not teaching them something, you're not making them stronger. You're making them feel alone, that's it.
Tracy: I guess I love you the way my father loves me. I know it's not easy, but it's who we are. Daddy and I fight all the time. But we respect each other, and that's more valuable than sentiment.
Dillon: So you'd rather I respect you than love you?
Tracy: I don't need you to think fondly of me. What I need -- what I need is for you to stand up for yourself.
Dillon: Whether I like it or not?
Tracy: Mm-hmm. Whether you like it or not.
The interesting part of the above exchange is that careful viewers will not buy Tracy's story any more than Dillon does. She spouts the party line about earning respect rather than love and, on the surface, believes it fully. But her actions show, time and again, that Tracy would sacrifice every dignity for just a moment of her father's unfettered love.
The Husband Factor
Perhaps the most influential person in Tracy's life, after her parents and her sons, has turned out to be Luke Spencer, Husband #5. Unlike her previous husbands, who each in their own way have tried to charm her or change her or control her (usually with disastrous results for all involved parties), Luke actually seems to embrace the Tracy he's got without trying to rehabilitate her or manipulate her (except of course within the context of their $15 million tug-of-war). Perhaps because the marriage began with no pretense of romance or love or even friendship, there is a raw honesty between them that seems to work for Tracy.
One of the things that seems to grate on so many people about Tracy Quartermaine is her bluntness. She tells it like it is and isn't really all that concerned with tact and niceness. Ironically, in her history with men, it is deception that has always been the downfall for Tracy. Of her five husbands, the first three were notoriously unfaithful. Two were in love with other women when they married her. Time after time, Tracy's faith in love has been dashed to bits, usually in a very public and humiliating way.
The events of her marriage with Paul Hornsby, Dillon's father, seem to have been a turning point for Tracy and her views on love and relationships. It was the pain of that break-up, combined with the knowledge that she'd been used as a pawn by the Cartel to steal E.L.Q., that inevitably destroyed her faith in love and marriage. Never again, after Paul Hornsby, did Tracy enter a relationship for love. Convenience, sex, leverage--these were the only legitimate reasons for being with a man. Otherwise, Tracy, post-Paul, was a single woman to the core.
The oddly appropriate thing about Tracy's marriage to Luke is the blatant, often brutal, honesty of it. There is no delusion on either of their parts that this is anything but a sham marriage, a mildly inconvenient stand-off between equally-matched combatants over a $15 million prize. There are no hearts and flowers here, no protestations of love and desire. At best, they respect each other (remember that word? Respect is more important to Tracy's mind than sentiment.). At worst, they loathe each other. And through it all, they're wickedly amused by each other, addicted to the game of one-upsmanship that tests them both to the limits of their ability.
It is this very lack of conventional romance that frees Tracy and Luke to grow as a couple. Tracy, who has never known real love from a husband, is no longer looking behind every corner, waiting for the betrayal she's been taught by experience to expect. There is no hidden agenda for her to seek out--it's all there on the table, including the girlfriend (who ironically cuts him off sexually the minute he says "I do.").
Luke, who is still broken from the loss of his One True Love, does not have the guilt issues with Tracy he's had with all his other lovers. He knows this is business only, so he can allow himself to relish it freely, to explore it with abandon. He can have fun with Tracy in a way he cannot with his other (former) lovers because he believes he is not at risk of betraying Laura by falling in love with her.
While their baggage sets up a particularly interesting set of roadblocks to happiness, knowing about them and accepting them actually offers Tracy and Luke more freedom to bond than not. It is truly amusing to watch the two interact, particularly later in their marriage. For all their protests of wanting a divorce, Tracy and Luke act like an old married couple. He knows how she likes her drinks made; she hovers over him when he's sick. They connect on an intellectual basis, and spark on a psychological (is that psychotic?) basis.
The only connection they haven't made is physical. Sure, Luke insists he's " seen a side of Tracy that I -- well, who knew? True, originally, it was just that primal animal sexual thing that she does so well…" But it's a fairly good bet that they actually haven't consummated the relationship. On the other hand, while it may not be as obvious as in other couples, there is definitely sexual tension in the Luke/Tracy relationship.
The best evidence of this came in November, 2005, when Tracy has Lulu hauled into the police department for grand theft. When Luke realizes Lulu might go to jail, he tells Tracy the game is over, that it's not fun anymore. He offers her a divorce, without alimony, in exchange for Tracy dropping the charges against Lulu. When Tracy realizes he's serious about his offer, her guard drops for just a moment--there's almost a little girl disappointment in her voice as she says, "Really?" Then the mask snaps back up, and she accuses him of having an ulterior motive. She then lectures him on parenting, saying things like how is Lulu going to learn anything about responsibility if they let a little blackmail between them get her off the hook. She basically says that to go through with the deal is enabling Lulu's bad behavior and that she won't have any part of it. That's when Luke accuses her of not wanting to divorce him, and the real fun begins.
When Mac asks Tracy if she's going to go through with the plan to drop the charges in exchange for the alimony-free divorce, she grins and says, "I haven't decided yet." This prompts a long diatribe from Skye, who accuses Tracy of using Lulu to hang on to Luke because she's lonely and bitter. But during the entire monologue, Luke and Tracy can't take their eyes off each other. It's an incredibly sexy look, combining lust and fierce competition, of two equal players who realize that the game is not over; in fact, it's just moved to a higher level of play, and they're both relishing the prospect. Seriously, they come just short of licking their lips in anticipation, and Skye just keeps sounding more and more desperate as she hurls accusations at Tracy.
In truth, Luke gives Tracy something she's craved for a long time--a challenge. And unlike the challenges offered to her by her father, Luke's challenges are actually winnable. Unlike those offered by her former lovers and husbands, his are fair and honest. Luke brings out the cunning and the wit in Tracy, and he seems to enjoy losing to her almost…almost as much as he loves winning.
With Luke and Tracy, the fun is in playing the game. Who wins and who loses changes from day to day, with each winding up on top in turn. But at the core of their incredibly functional dysfunctional relationship, there's always that sense of respect, that joy of the game, and that real understanding they have for each other.
Personally, I don't know if Luke and Tracy are ever going to break through to a real romance on the show. I'd like to hope they will, because these two have the potential of being a real rarity on television--a sexy, older, perfectly matched power couple.
But even if they never get past the game-playing stage--wow! What a great game it is!