Part 52, briefly NC-17

"It is harder than it looks," Brenda was telling Donna, as they sipped iced tea by the pool. "The hot lights make you feel like you're going to melt. It melts your make up and wilts your hair, so people keep fussing over you to fix it. Somebody's always touching you. They're just doing their job, but it still gets you jumpy after awhile. Then those artistic types who are in charge, sometimes, they can get really unreasonable. Shots that seem perfectly adequate to you are unacceptable to them and you can't identify with them enough to feel the necessity for continuing and re-doing everything."

"Everything has its ups and downs," Donna said.

"Yes. It's fun in some ways; those are some of the downs, but you get to move around, do different things. It doesn't get humdrum. Different people. So it you don't get along with somebody, you don't have to figure they are going to be around driving you crazy indefinitely."

"I've been taking classes in interior design. It sounds like it could be similar."

"I bet it could. You'll have different clients over time. But their artistic taste might be horrendous!"

Donna's phone rang. "Yes?" she answered it. "No, I'm sitting here by the pool with Brenda. The park? How come? Just come to the pool. Well, bring this surprise over to the hotel." She turned to Brenda and told her, "It's David and he wants me to go over to the park." She went back to the phone. "No, I'm sitting here with Brenda."

"Go ahead. I should study a little anyway." Brenda took her history book out of a bag.

"You're sure?" Donna asked her.

"Sure. See what he wants."

Donna went back to the phone. "OK. I'll be there in a minute." She got up. "I'll be back," she said to Brenda.

"Take your time. Zander is probably studying somewhere and I can't let him get in more study time than I do!"

"That's true. We have a point to prove about the superior intelligence of women here!"

"See you later!"

"OK."

Donna walked over to the park. She looked for David and found him. He had Ginny, and her stroller.

"Hey, that is a good surprise." She took the baby from him. "Hi sweetheart," she said, fussing over the baby a little bit. "How did you end up with her?" she asked David.

"I went back with Zander, and he wanted to study, then I went down to see Ginny, and Carly said I could take her for a walk."

"Wow, that's impressive. How did you charm her into that?"

"She came up with the idea herself."

"How did you get her to come up with that idea herself?"

"Donna!"

"All right, all right. She was happy with you right there. Almost as if – no, never mind. Here, go back to David," she said to Ginny. "For a minute." She felt choked up a little bit.

"What's wrong?"

"You'll just say I shouldn't be sad about it. I'm not going to tell you."

"You shouldn't be sad about it. There. I already told you. So, out with it, Donna."

Donna laughed. "OK," she said. "I was only thinking it was nice you could hold your baby granddaughter when you never got to -" she stopped, trying to catch her breath.

"Yes, it was a rotten thing that you didn't tell me right away," he said in a teasing tone, deciding it would be useless to be serious and argue with her. "You must have been suspicious from the earliest signs of pregnancy. Really awful of you to take three years or more to even mention it, and over twenty-two to test it. And Cam probably wasn't even there, either."

"How'd you know? He was in another part of the hospital doing surgery."

"A lucky guess. I can't picture him with a baby."

"Neither can I. Which shows you how much attention he paid to them as babies. I can't picture him doing what you're doing now, just holding Ginny. I wonder why he'd even want to see her."

"The only possible connection he has to Alexander who isn't already biased against him, maybe."

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa booooooooooooooooooooooooo," said Ginny.

"I think that means, 'you're wrong, Granddad. I already don't like him,'" Donna said.

"Oh, Ginny," David said. "Make up your own mind. Don't just adopt the opinions your elders tell you."

"Well, Cam would just think she should adopt his," Donna said. "Here, come to Granny," she said to Ginny. "I have some opinions I want to indoctrinate you with, and I can't start too early."

David gave Ginny to Donna.

Audrey Hardy was taking her daily walk through the park. She saw a couple she didn't know, with a baby. "Good afternoon," she said. "Your daughter is such a sweet little baby."

The woman laughed. "Oh, thank you for the compliment. But this is my granddaughter."

"Impossible!" Audrey declared. "You look exactly like one of those career women who put off having their children until the last possible minute. I'm a nurse and I've seen many of those."

"Thanks," the woman said, again. She even blushed a little, and looked rather prettier on that account.

Audrey smiled and walked on.

Brenda and Zander invited Donna to go with them to London, since Peter was going to meet them there.

Flying over the Atlantic, Zander said to Donna, "I'm nervous about seeing Pete."

"I hope it's not because of this paternity stuff," Donna said. "Pete said it didn't bother him. I heard him with my own ears."

"That's what he says," Zander said. "David said he thought the world revolved too much around Pete, and he resented Pete's existence for awhile. But you know something? It didn't bother me. And I feel bad about that."

"That's what I want you to have, though, sweetheart," Donna said. "Your father put you in Peter's shadow so long. I want you to have somebody like that. A friend, Dad's age, that cares about you specifically, and has nothing to do with Pete. It's not going to hurt Pete and it will help you."

"Pete could use a friend Dad's age."

"That's true. Maybe I can do better now. Like I might have, by you. I could have made a bigger issue of it and argued with Dad more. I was always afraid to argue with him. I don't think he'd have physically hurt me, so I don't know why."

"It's his hulking imposingness," Brenda said.

Donna smiled. "That's as good a description as any."

"Yeah, and that he'd say unkind words," Zander said. "He thinks if it's only words, it can't hurt, I think. But they do after you hear them enough. I know he'd say it's too easy for David, but David says kinder words."

"Well, your Dad was never so hard on Pete with his words, so I don't mind that it's 'too easy for David' which you're right, would probably be Dad's opinion. I wish I had taken more time with you to tell you the good things about yourself."

"Cam thinks that's going to spoil a child, no doubt about it," Brenda said, clearly not in agreement with the opinions she attributed to Cameron.

"I'm glad you talked to David, just you, Alex," Donna said. "Like when you knew that his ex-wife was a police chief. I didn't know that. I like that."

"You like that he was married to the police chief?"

"I like that you found out something I didn't know. Shows you're friends."

"For lack of a better way to put it," Zander said, "I don't think we can be just friends. We know we're related."

"OK," Donna smiled. "You can be more than friends, as far as I'm concerned."

"So can you," Brenda said.

"Hush, you," Donna said. "We are anyway, or were, that's why we have Alexander in common."

"You get no complaints from me," Brenda said, sighing and smiling and taking Zander's hand. "I like what you and David can come up with just fine."

Julia met them at the airport. She was polite, thin and regal, and taller than Brenda.

"Nothing like you," Zander said to Brenda in an undertone.

"I'm glad you think so," she said.

They checked into the hotel. Julia helped her unpack a little, while Zander went downstairs to change dollars for pounds.

"So how is it going? Must be going well, since you brought him here."

"Sure is."

"What happened to the heart condition?"

"The treatment works, so far as we can tell. It can't be certain, but no new attacks. He hasn't had any before that, though. It's weird. But he's feeling normal."

"And he's OK learning his father's not his father?"

"Pretty much. It's affecting him, but not in some negative and devastating way."

"He has a bad past and now two new issues since we last talked," Julia said.

Brenda made a face at her.

"But he's cute," Julia added, repentantly.

"Life is going to pass you by, while you wait for perfection, Julia."

"Point taken."

"Where's Simon?"

"On an assignment in Africa."

"For long?"

"A couple of months."

"How does that impact this relationship?"

"Such as it is? Minimally, I hope. Unless he meets the love of his life there."

"Or you meet yours here."

The next day they went to the train station to meet Peter.

Walking along the embankment on the Thames, in the late summer evening sunlight, Zander found the girls had gone ahead and he could talk to his brother.

"Alex, you know all this makes no difference to me, and I love you just the same. But does Dad know? I guess he's angry."

"He knows. He's angry."

"I'm shocked. I told Mom it didn't fit her."

"Nobody thinks it fits their mother. But now that I've seen both of them, I think they fit better than Mom and Dad. A better team, anyway."

"You know for health purposes," Peter said. "But I don't see why you need to see the guy now. Hell, Alex, you have enough issues with Dad. All this does is complicate your life."

"Don't feel alone, Pete. I'm still here. I won't turn away from you because you're the son of the Evil One."

Pete laughed. "Alex, I liked having a fellow sufferer!"

"I still am, anyway. I grew up with Dad. But anyway, you'd like David fine. Mom thinks we both need a friend in Dad's age group."

"I guess you've got one."

"He might have been your stepfather, so it's not impossible for you."

"Well, he wasn't. Not that I don't agree that they are better off apart. Mom and Dad, that is. At least, she surely is."

"I'll say."

"I try to picture the guy she could end up with," Peter said. "I'm prepared to like him, whoever he is."

"You'd have to," Zander said. "He can't possibly be worse, whoever it'll be. Now as to the woman who could end up with Dad. . ."

"A real witch!" They laughed. "But seriously, Alex, actually, that could be good. She could end up being a better foil and bring out the better qualities rather than the worse. I love them both. But they weren't meant for each other."

"Yeah, that's true," Zander said. "Nothing truer could ever be stated."

Julia dropped back, and talked to them.

"You and Brenda are so different," Zander said to her. "Like Pete and I. Brenda and I were bad in school and you and Peter were good in school. Then get into our fathers. Psychiatrists could have a real job studying both sets of siblings."

"We're different," Julia agreed. "It's good though. We can keep each other for real. I tell her to settle down, which she needs, and she tells me to live it up more, which I need. She was wild in school. My father came down hard on her. It didn't work, but he kept doing it."

"That sounds familiar, too," Pete said, looking at Zander.

"You've got a good relationship with your sister," Donna said to Brenda. "On the surface, anyway. Do you think so?

"It's better. I always got compared to her. Like Zander with Peter. We had that in common, in a big way. My father was similar, but in kind and not in degree. Not as bad. With it, it might have been from the different mothers. Julia's died. He loved her, I'm sure of that. Then he married my mother, which must have been some kind of disaster."

"Do you know what the diagnosis is exactly?"

"No. I should find out. I usually leave all that alone. I figure I can't help her out."

"You grew up without a mother. Your father doesn't seem to have accounted for that?"

"No, or he'd just figure, so did Julia, and she's a success, you know?"

"Did he know how successful you became?"

"No, he died before that. But if he started being nice to me because I had become successful, I don't think I'd have cared."

"You'd see it for how shallow it is."

"Yes. Same with Cam, really. But I don't think Zander will have that kind of success. Just the kind Cam doesn't appreciate."

"I like that you don't treat me with kid gloves," Zander said. "You know I can take a lot of pressure." He was lying back, feeling Brenda sucking down on him. He moaned.

"If I hurt you though, you can tap me on my left ear," she said.

"Oh thanks! Great idea. You're not, though."

After a little while, he said. "that way's not going to help with conception."

"Plenty of time for both," she grinned. "This trip alone should do it."

"If it doesn't happen this trip, I don't know what it would take," he grinned. "I hope you saw as much of London as of the inside of this room."

"I saw enough of London," she said. "But if it didn't happen, all we have to do is keep trying."

"Oh, yeah. No problem with that. No problem at all."