Part 3

Brenda put on a bikini and sat by the pool. She pulled out her cell phone and called Zander Smith.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Looking at the help-wanted ads," he said.

"You can do that out by the pool?"

"Why would I want to do that out by the pool?"

"I'm here."

"That'll do it."

He came out with the newspaper and sat in the lounge chair next to her.

"What kind of job are you looking for?"

"Oh, I have some experience in: auto repair, shipping clerk, drug dealing, and kidnapping."

"Is anyone looking for a kidnapper?"

He grinned. "Not today."

"I have an idea," she said, suddenly thinking of it, and feeling playful. "You say you paralyzed two people. Bad things come in threes. Paralyze a third. Except this time, make it someone who really deserves it. It can be figurative. A figure of speech, you know where you don't literally paralyze them but . ."

"I know, Brenda, I'm not that uneducated."

"Where did you go to school?"

"At an expensive prep school in Florida."

"Is that where you grew up?"

"Yes. Where did you grow up?"

"California."

"So we're both from sunny states. Another thing we have in common."

"I can think of something we don't have in common, but it would be nice if we did."

"What's that?"

"You and a pair of swimming trunks. Race me in this water."

"I'll beat you!"

"That remains to be seen."

He went up to his room to change.

She sat back, and smiled. This didn't last long. She scowled when she saw Jason Morgan looking down at her.

"What are you doing here, Brenda?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"I mean, what are you doing in town?"

"None of your business. What is Sonny doing here? He was gone when I last left, you see. You remember that. How was I to know he would have the nerve to come back?"

"He knew you were no longer here."

"Oh, really? So he moves out when I'm here? Tell him I said good-bye, then."

"He'd like you to leave."

"He doesn't own this town!" Brenda exclaimed, knowing that in some ways, he did.

"You don't need to be here."

"What's it to him? He can just ignore me. Oh, I know. It's Mrs. Carly. She's afraid. Well, he can tell her he no longer cares for me. Doesn't she believe him? If they have a strong marriage, what danger am I?"

Jason Morgan sighed and walked away.

Brenda hated the way he did that.

When Zander came back, they had a race in the pool. He let her win.

"Don't let me win!" she said.

"OK." He beat her.

"I'll beat you next time."

"Whoa, enough of this competition. Here, lay on this raft for awhile."

"What happened with your brother?" she asked.

"Oh, Carly," Bobbie said.

"What am I going to do? Do you think my plan might work?"

"Carly. You know the right thing to do. You have to tell the real father and Sonny the truth."

"I'll lose Sonny, after all I worked for!"

"No, you won't, if he really loves you. He'd have to understand. You were separated."

Secretly, Carly wondered if Sonny loved her enough for that.

As if reading her mind, her mother said, "Sonny already adopted AJ's child."

"Mother! That hardly means he would do the same for another one."

"Why not? If he loves you, what does it matter, really? You'll work it all out with the real father like a million other couples have to."

"Oh, man, it'll be a reminder every time we'd see him."

"You'll forget it all eventually. Do what's best for the child."

"But wouldn't that be a stable home with two parents, and no other parent outside?"

"If possible. But here it's not. It would be better for the child if the child knew who he or she really was."

"If you knew the real father, you might not say that."

"Who is it?"

Carly hesitated.

"I won't talk, Carly. Who could it be? Not AJ?"

"No! Mother! It has to be my bodyguard's."

"Oh, so he did do a good job."

"Are you trying to be funny?"

"If it were someone else, he wouldn't have been doing his job too well, would he? He's not that bad. Compared to Sonny he's positively benign."

"You think it is better for a child to have a father like Zander than to have Sonny for a father?"

"In a way, I do. You know how impossible it proves to be for Sonny to stop living a life based on crime. Zander's young, he's still open to other possibilities. But it really doesn't matter whether it is better to be Zander's son or Sonny's son, to this child. This child is Zander's. That's a fact, I take it, from you."

Carly sighed. "Oh God, I would hate to lose Sonny over this."

"If you do, there was nothing much to lose," Bobbie answered.

"Hey, would you put this stuff on my back?" Brenda asked.

Zander rolled his eyes. "Of course, I would love to."

He put the sunscreen on her and massaged her back.

"That's great," Brenda said. "Now why sell drugs when you could have been a gigolo? All you had to do was find some rich older woman."

"That would really be using another person, wouldn't it?"

"Selling drugs to teenagers is better?"

"Yeah. They're spoiled brats. Like I was. Trying to buy a thrill. Escape. Be cool. They don't have to do it. But the woman, that is so much more personal. A big fraud."

"She'd know what she was doing, or getting. It's not really a fraud. You'd get much less social condemnation. And it isn't illegal."

"True. I wouldn't end up in jail over it."

"Sonny always hated jail. He was claustrophobic."

"Well, maybe he should consider getting a real job, then."

Brenda laughed.

"Well," he said. "All safe from the sun. I don't suppose I get a turn?"

She looked at him. "Why do you suppose you wouldn't? Here, turn around."

She ran her hands over his back. He was quiet awhile. Then he said, "It was a hunting accident. I thought I saw a deer, and a shot at it. But it was my brother."

She was stunned a moment, her hands stopped, then she willed them to go on. "Poor thing," she said. "What a horrible accident."

"He was paralyzed from the waist down," Zander said.

"What was he doing there?"

"The way I understand it, he was OK. It was me who made the mistake."

"How old were you?"

"Me? I was 17 then."

"How old was he?"

"He was 19."

"Did you leave home right after that?"

"No, not quite. I went to the hospital a lot."

"Did your brother blame you?"

"Not a whole lot. It was my father who did that."

"Didn't he teach you guys the safety rules?"

"I'm sure he did. I don't always listen well. Pete, that's my brother, and my father, they will always get something if they hear it once. If they read a book once, they remember it. I don't. People swear they told me things I don't remember. I can read a book and then if you ask me what was in it, I don't have the foggiest idea."

"Well, your father should have known that."

"He did. He was always complaining."

"How did you get into criminal charges?"

"The hunting accident."

"But it was an accident, right?"

"Yes, but it is still against the law. Involuntary manslaughter, something."

"But your brother didn't die?"

"Attempted involuntary manslaughter. Something like that."

"I don't see how they could put you in jail over it if it was an accident."

"I'm not sure of that either."

"Couldn't your father get you a lawyer?"

"He could have financially. But he didn't want anyone to know."

"What does he do?"

"He's a heart surgeon. Very wealthy. And his family had money he inherited, too."

"But didn't everyone in his social circle know anyway? How else to explain your brother's condition?"

"I guess he told them it happened, but let them think some stranger had done it."

"How does he explain your leaving the country?"

"I was old enough for college then."

"He could have just sent you to college."

"With my grades, he wasn't willing to invest in that."

"They were that bad, huh?"

"Pretty much so. I don't know why I told you all this. It is easy to tell you things. I try to forget it, mostly. As much as I can. And I never told anybody."

"Do you ever want to see your brother?"

"Yes. I can't, though."

Later, she called him again. "Come up here, for a drink," she said. "I got you to tell me that, but now I've woken up your memories, so I don't want you to be alone."

When he came up and was sitting on her couch - she made him a gin and tonic at the bar in her room - she told him how Jason Morgan had tried to lecture her out of town.

"I think you are right," he said, stirring the drink with his finger. "Carly's threatened."

"You'd think her husband could reassure her."

"You'd think. Well, if you had been around this last year or so, you would know how hard that might be for him."

"OK," she sat down next to him. She leaned against him a little, and her thigh touched his lightly.

"You're not going to bed me because you feel sorry for me," he said.

She laughed. "Could I do it for other reasons?"

"Maybe. Someday."

"I would like you to feel a little better. Would you feel better if I sat next to you like this?"

He smiled as if the smile had been coaxed out of him. "Yeah," he said, taking a sip of the drink.

"So who is the third person you want me to paralyze?" he asked her. "Figuratively."

"Sonny."

"He'd have us both for lunch!"

"He would think so."

"I think you're as bad as me," he said. "Look how much we have in common. Another thing we have in common, would be, as my father says, the inability to make, carry out, and execute a plan."

"We may not need a plan."

"Sounds like we do."

"I'm sick of him acting like he owns the world. I come to Port Charles, to see my friends, after he left me at the altar, and he sends his ambassador to tell me I have to get out!"

"It really is very galling."

"Well, I don't plan on changing my plan to suit him."

"Good for you."

"I'll let things take their course," she said.