Part 7 R
There was a knock at the door at Carly's mother's. Carly went to answer it. It was Zander.
"Hi," he said. "Your mother said I could find you here."
"Come in," she said, turning her back to him and walking back in ahead of him.
"I wanted to tell you something about my family."
"Well, go ahead."
"It's my mother. Ever since I can remember, she's never done much of anything. Shrinks, stays at spas and such for her health, and I know it was probably psychiatric institutions. I heard something once about depressive mania, manic-depressive, something, but she's always taken pills."
Carly sat down. "Thanks," she said.
"I thought you should know there is insanity in my family."
"I already knew that."
"Really funny. But this might be serious."
"She knows you, though?"
"Yes. It's not that bad. But then she never gave me a single piece of advice. She never punished me for doing something wrong."
"Your father did all that?"
"Yes."
"She never talked to your teachers?"
"Never. That's the kind of thing I mean. Her family is wealthy, so I guess it doesn't matter financially, but I would be pretty sure she could not hold down a job."
"She never was trained to do one?"
"You know, I don't know, if, when she was younger she did, but she lived at her family's mansion and rode horses and played tennis and probably would have done that anyway. She would have been a society woman type, like you see at the country club here. But she didn't do the stuff they do. I'm not sure what they do exactly, other than play tennis and ride horses and jet around, but then, she doesn't do that either."
"Is there anything else?" Carly asked.
"No, we are all physically healthy as horses," he answered. "And she's the only one I know of whose mental health is questionable in a major way."
Bobbie came in. "Are you two getting to talk? I'll go upstairs," she said.
"You can stay," Carly said.
"I don't know what to think about Sonny taking over," Zander said. "Sometimes I think it is better for a kid, sometimes not. I know you hate me for saying it, but I don't think your marriage to him is all that promising. So I'd hate that - the kid would be no better off. Parents that were separate. If that's going to be, then his father may as well be his real one."
"I don't think you idea of what marriages are promising is a good standard."
"Maybe. I still don't see it. You're the one that thinks you'll lose him over this."
"That's just it. If I don't, then we can probably weather anything."
"If I can put my two cents in," Bobbie said.
"You will anyway," Carly said.
"Well, the only way you should even consider Sonny taking over legally is if Sonny knows all about it. Up front, Carly. Knows the child is Zander's and that he's adopting Zander's child. And that he commits to raising the child as his no matter what happens between him and you."
"I agree with you, Ms. Spencer," Zander said. "I can't imagine what could be worse for some kid than to suddenly find out his father isn't his father. I mean, my father and I never got along, but even then, if I found out it was somebody else, it would blow me away. It really would have when I was younger."
"You know from your own experience that child will want to know someday who his father is, Carly," Bobbie said.
Carly was silent, as this was too true for her to argue with.
"Tell me what you decide you want me to do," Zander said.
He went to leave. "Let me show you the brownstone," Bobbie got up. "It won't take long."
"That wasn't so bad," Bobbie said, as she came back into the living room a few minutes later.
"No," Carly said. She still looked downcast.
"He talked in terms of the child. Nothing about I want this, I want that."
"He's OK that way," she said. "I'm not totally surprised. When I first told him, he wouldn't believe me, and had a fit. He always calms down later. Some ways, that is easier."
"Easier?"
"Than Sonny. The cold anger, that just gets worse."
"I don't know why you want to spend your life with somebody you're afraid of."
"I'm not afraid all the time. I wouldn't be at all if it weren't for this."
"This is just as much his fault as yours! You were separated! Things happen in life. There will be something else further down the line."
"I hope he can see it like that."
"You are trying to avoid facing the music, Carly. If he won't, then he's not for your and you're afraid you'll find that out and you're trying to avoid finding it out. But if he is, then you could find that out too. You don't take the risk, though."
"Enough psych counseling, mother!"
Bobbie smiled. "OK. I'll stop for now. How are you feeling?"
"All right, physically."
"Too much stress isn't good for you. Let me get you a Vitamin milkshake."
Zander and Brenda faced each other, crowded onto the same lounge chair by the pool. He had his arms around her waist, and she had hers around his neck.
"I win," he said. "I had a higher grade point average."
"Genius," she answered. "Your 2.4 is so much better than my 2.2. But you didn't account for something."
"Oh, no," he said mockingly. "Why do I think I'm going to lose this bet even though I had the mathematically higher average? Do you have a way to make 2.2 higher than 2.4?"
"Of course. Did you look at the classes?"
"I get it. I'm so smart. Your classes were harder. Well, how do you intend to prove that, Ms. Barrett? How do you know that Chase Prep in Florida isn't a bastion of intellectual scholarly achievement compared to Santa Maria Prep in California?"
"It's not that," she answered. "But you had grades for phys ed. And of course those were the only classes where you grades were actually good."
"It wasn't that many credits."
"It might have been enough to get you the two tenths of a point!"
"I don't suppose you are going to spend a second to sit down and do math to prove it," he said.
She giggled.
"All right, all right," he said. "We both win. Or we both lose. Not only do I get the massage, you get the tennis lessons."
She giggled, and reached up to kiss him. He entwined her legs a little bit. They kissed some more, playing around with each other's tongues, as if they were high school students. Brenda's transcript had taken her on a trip down memory lane.
Sonny was taking Carly for dinner at the Port Charles Grill, the restaurant in the hotel. Carly had gone in too quickly to see them, but he had.
Sonny knew Zander, having employed him for awhile, and having dealt with his legal problems before that. Earlier that day Jason had hinted that Brenda might be fooling around with Zander. Sonny had been almost amused, because Jason never talked about things like that. Zander really got on Jason's nerves, too. Zander was the only person in the world who was able to do that.
He had thought Jason must have been wrong. He knew Brenda and didn't believe it.
But there was some real evidence, right before his very eyes.
After dinner, during which Carly was quiet and tense, and he didn't know why he never tried to find out why, he sent Carly home saying he had business with someone at the hotel.
He found Brenda's room. He knocked, no one came. He continued to knock, patiently.
"Go the hell away, whoever you are!" Brenda yelled.
When they had decided to take it upstairs, they had ended up side by side the same way, taken off each other's bathing suits slowly and then entwined their legs again and started kissing again. His right hand held the back of her neck firmly while he left went from her right shoulder to her right breast down across her right hip to her right buttock down her right thigh, which he pulled forward, sliding into her easily and quickly eliciting a loud moan from her, as they both pushed forwards.
She steadied herself with her hand on his left hip and he let her control it for awhile. He let his hand travel up to her lower back. Her breathe came in short and quick gasps which turned him on so much that he thrust back at her wildly. She screeched in a shuddering of pleasure.
Then the knocking started, and was annoying as hell. Zander felt like killing whoever was doing it, and felt like somehow the world depended on his getting her to come before whoever was doing it broke down the door and barged in. Fortunately for whoever was knocking he succeeded, and he came right after her.
He practically fell on top of her, when she directed her remark to the knocker.
It kept up, slow and steady, getting louder again.
Both Zander and Brenda started to laugh. And laugh and laugh as the knocking continued.
"OK, I'm going to put a stop to this," Brenda said, getting up and throwing on her red silk robe. "Don't go anywhere."
"This place had better be on fire," Zander said.
"It is," she smiled, wickedly.
She closed the bedroom door just in case it was somebody really annoying.
It was.
She stood in the doorway. "What are you doing here?" she asked. "Do you not recognize when someone does not want to answer the door? I'm busy."
"I realize that may be so," Sonny said mildly. "But this is my only chance to warn you."
"Of what?" She laughed. "Is this place about to fall down, because it better be. I'll tell you - "
"Zander Smith," Sonny said. "He never thinks, he acts before he thinks, and you can end up getting killed."
She laughed and shut the door in his face.
"I know you are still angry at me for leaving you like that," he said, from behind the door.
She opened it, rolling her eyes, to avoid the knocking starting again.
"I did that to make your life better and if you waste it by taking up with someone worse - that makes it all useless."
"So you did that for my own good! But not to let me live my own life, after all. You did it because that wasn't your plan for me. You are still in control, in your mind."
"It isn't that, it's that you don't always think, either," he said. "You can't come up with a worse combination than you and Zander. And Zander is really stupid on top of that."
"You can come up with a list of his bad qualities. If you know him well enough to do that, you could come up with a list of his good qualities."
He was silent.
"But you can't. You can't do that for people. I'm appalled by the implication of how your kind decision not to marry me reflects on your wife. And you assigned Zander to look after her, so your remarks about him don't fit your actions, either."
"I didn't know how bad it was," he said. "I though he was getting a hold of himself, but he wasn't. He was getting dumber. He was so stupid he tried to get Carly into bed."
"Tried. Hmmm. Well, I take your advice under consideration. See? I can think. I may even get myself into college."
"That's a good idea."
"Oh really, was that part of your plan?"
"I never dreamed you would not make it up with Jax."
"Oh, I get it. Your plan was that I would live safely and happily ever after with Jax. You should have stayed out of it the first time, then. Seems you don't always think, either. Seems you don't control the world, either. That really panics you, doesn't it?"
"Be careful, Brenda. Find a nice guy. Go and ask the Quartermaines if you don't believe me about Zander."
She slammed the door again.
She waited a few seconds, and looked out through the peephole to see if he was gone. No one was there. She opened the door to make sure the hall was clear of him.
She went back to the bedroom then.
Zander was sitting on the bed, covered up to the waist with the bed sheet, reading her Santa Maria transcript. "Give it up," she said, with a smile of amusement. "It is easier to teach me to play tennis. I'm starved. I feel like having Chinese. What do you say?"
"Sure."
"That was Sonny," she said, when they were sitting across from each other at Wang Duck's. "He says you are dangerous."
Zander laughed, slowly. She watched him, enjoying it. The smile broadened out over his face. "Did you warn you against himself while he was at it?"
"No. Here's what I don't get. He left me at the altar to keep me safe from himself. So why didn't he do that for Carly?"
"Yeah, how does he explain that to her? It's OK for you to be involved with a dangerous man like me, Carly. You even have a child, and it's OK to break him from his father and have me adopt him. But for Brenda it wasn't good enough. It's like telling your wife that she's not good enough to be left at the altar for her own good."
"I'm beginning to think it is he that is insane."
"And Jason. Man! That guy is a nut. Doesn't he feel anything?"
"I don't think so. He had to have repressed everything to do what he does."
"This poor kid. Damn. I wonder if I should even try to get custody. Am I really that bad? I almost don't think so. How can it be good for anybody to live with them? And be raised by them. Even being raised by my father might be better."
"I definitely got the vibe Sonny doesn't know yet. He doesn't even suspect. He said you had tried to seduce Carly. Tried. This is when I pointed out that he hired you for her bodyguard, and why did he hire a stupid and out of control person to be her bodyguard? He actually admitted to a mistake, come to think of it, which is a miracle all its own, but he actually admitted he was wrong, because you tried to seduce her. Tried."
"Carly's mother Bobbie thinks Carly should come clean with him."
"Do you agree?"
"I think so. There's no good in telling Sonny the kid is his, or fooling him about it. Is there? Wouldn't it come out? Why would it? Maybe it won't."
"She'd always have to worry about it. It would come out. Just her luck the kid would need a transplant and Sonny won't match."
"I think you are actually starting to feel bad for Carly!"
Brenda smiled. "She's nuts! I haven't had the chance to tell you how she attacked me at Kelly's!"
"How?"
"She hit me, then she pushed me. Jason appeared mysteriously, the way he does, and got her off me. I was taunting her. So I shouldn't have done that."
"With what?"
"With you, what else?"
"You got a good grade in health, which by the way, isn't much of a subject, sort of like phys ed, but anyway. You must have learned about hormones and pregnant women."
"Yeah, she was over emotional, I guess. Didn't expect her to attack me, though. I thought she would insult me. I wasn't thinking. I guess it's not cool to tease a pregnant woman. But her reaction was out of proportion. You know, I think you can empathize with your kid."
"Empathize! I don't care what they say about Santa Maria prep, they sure do provide a good education! How?"
"I could too. For having a crazy mother."
"You know you are really brilliant. Now I am just sad that Santa Maria failed to have a grading system that recognized it. Though this is active craziness, whereas my mother was sort of passive craziness, but the general overall condition of unavailability is still the same"
"Whereas? Chase wasn't appreciative, either. The kid should know where he gets his brains from. He'll be bewildered if he thinks he is the son of Sonny and Carly."
"Bobbie Spencer is sane. Down to earth. One crazy grandmother, one sane grandmother. One mean grandfather who will never be satisfied and an unknown grandfather. Not real good. Crazy mother. Out of control, stupid, father."
"Could be worse."
Zander laughed. "Let's see how bad it will get," he said, opening up his fortune cookie. "You flair for the creative taken an important place in your life."
"That's what it says?"
"Exactly like that. Chinese guy didn't pay enough attention in English class. What does yours say?"
She opened the cookie and took out the slip. "This is a night for love and affection." She pounded the table. "Damn! I already knew that! It's my past, not my future!"
"It could be your future," he grinned. "How late is it?"