The Freshmen - 22. Chapter 22

September 12, 2004

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

JJ

“Am I supposed to meet Casey in the same room?” Kris asked, referring to Grand’s study. He’d just finished fixing his hair. When I’d run my fingers through it earlier, I’d deformed the gel, so he’d had to work to get it back in shape. Since my appearance was still perfect, I had no such problems, so I was lounging in a chair.

“I don’t know,” I said, then stood up and took his hand. “Come on. I’ll help you find him.”

“J,” he said, making me stop and look at him. “My whole world has been shattered into pieces. If you weren’t here, I’d be fucking postal.”

I stared at him and blinked, and that freaked him out. I squeezed his hand to calm him, even as I processed what he’d said. He was telling me that he needed me. I couldn’t think of a time when anyone else had said that to me, and even if they had, they were probably lying. For once, someone was actually relying on me instead of the other way around. I felt empowered, and my concern and protectiveness towards him grew immeasurably. “I’m glad I’m here with you,” I said, then smiled. “I’m assuming Casey will want to meet with you for an hour, and then I’m sure we’ll have lunch.”

“Lunch will be good,” he said, smiling back at me. “You should set a goal. See if you can eat half a bag full of those nasty baked chips you snack on.” I laughed at that as we walked down the hall and was surprised to find that I was in a good mood. I decided the surprise came from being happy here at Escorial because this place usually fucked with my mind.

“I’m up for that challenge,” I said, making us laugh some more. I led him to Grand’s study and we found Casey waiting there. Walking into that room served to change our moods so they were much more serious.

Grand’s study had a mirror near the door. Grandmaman once told me that he’d hung it there as a courtesy, the thought being that someone visiting him could glance at themselves and correct any problematic parts of their appearance. Kris stopped and gazed into it sadly. “I don’t even know who that is,” he said, gesturing at his reflection.

“I know that man,” I said firmly as we stared in the mirror together, determined to prop him up. “He's the man who makes me happy.”

He gave me a slight smile, then we turned to look at Casey. “Welcome,” Casey said, and shook our hands as if we hadn’t just met with him two hours ago. Kris just nodded.

“Come find me when you’re done,” I said to Kris. He went from being somber and zombie-like to completely alarmed.

“Will you stay here with me?” he asked me anxiously.

I was going to look to Casey to see if he was good with that, but I decided that it was Kris’s decision. Fuck Casey. What he thought didn’t matter. “Yes,” I said succinctly, getting a smile from Kris. It was annoying that Casey seemed happy with my decision too, because I thought I was being awfully brave by disregarding him.

“I wanted to meet with you to see how you were processing all of this,” Casey said to Kris.

“I mean, it sucks,” Kris said. “What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say whatever you want to say,” Casey said. Kris said nothing for about a minute, while Casey rolled his eyes and I chuckled. “Let’s talk about how you handle this going forward.”

“They think this can all be swept under the rug,” Kris said a bit skeptically, which was mildly annoying, since ‘they’ referred to my family. “I guess if that’s true, nothing really changes.”

“Is that how you want it to be?” Casey asked.

“You think there’s an alternative?” Kris demanded aggressively, then calmed himself slightly. “I’m supposed to change my last name to Schmidt? Then make a decision on whether I want to be a communist or a fascist? Should I then pick someone to spy for?”

“That is not what I think,” Casey said, in his bitchiest way. I could not help smirking, because I’d been on the receiving end of that attitude, and it had shut me down. It had a similar impact on Kris.

“I’m sorry I kind of lost it there,” Kris said.

“The Casey look,” I teased. He smiled slightly at that, cracking me up.

“It’s saved me a number of times when I’m out,” Casey replied.

“I’ll bet you’re fierce at a club,” Kris said, nodding his head in approval. I felt myself starting to get seriously jealous.

“You have no idea,” Casey said, then turned to me and seemed very confused. “Why did that bother you?”

“What?” I demanded, in my full rage mode.

Casey rolled his eyes at me, which just about set me free, because not only was he hitting on Kris, he was also just one more person who refused to be intimidated by me. “You are clearly jealous.”

“I am not jealous,” I lied. Casey and Kris both looked at me, challenging that without saying anything. “Alright, maybe a little.”

“Why?” Kris asked me, and he was completely confused as well.

I sighed, and even though I knew I was about to be blasted out of the water on this one, I persevered. “You guys are talking about going to a club.”

“No, I just said that he was probably really formidable at a club,” Kris corrected.

“Visualize one of your former competitors on the ice, someone who is very handsome,” Casey told me. I conjured up a picture of Evan in my mind, even though I hadn’t spent any time alone with him since Norway. “Imagine that he’s in this room. What would you talk to him about?”

“Skating, probably,” I said.

“Because it’s a common interest you share,” Casey suggested, then began to pontificate. “That’s what Kris and I were doing. He and I have clearly both spent a lot of time at gay bars and clubs. We’ve never been to a club together, but we know how it works.”

“Have you ever been to a gay club?” Kris asked me.

“No,” I snapped, annoyed since once again I was showing how I had absolutely no experience at hooking up with people.

“Maybe that’s part of the problem,” Casey said as he mulled that over in his mind. “Because you don’t understand it, you see it as a threat.”

“I thought we were supposed to be helping Kris out with his issues, not diving into my fucked-up mind,” I said, fully exasperated at having been turned into the star of this session. It figured that the one time I didn’t want the spotlight, I got it.

“We’ll work on it,” Kris told me, which bugged me even more, because I didn’t want to work on this at all. “I’ll take you to a club and show you how it is.”

“We’ll see,” I said skeptically. They stared at me, until I finally gave in. “Fine. I’ll go out with you. But if it sucks, I’m leaving.”

“Cool,” Kris said.

“I think that what happened to you today is much like a death,” Casey said to Kris, thankfully bringing our focus back to him. “You lost your heritage.”

“It’s worse than that,” Kris said. “It’s like having your father die, then finding out he was a serial killer. It’s not just losing my heritage that is awful; it is that my real heritage is awful.”

“You put that into much better words than I did. Thanks,” Casey said. “I think that the process of grieving is probably the best way to put this into context.” Casey then went on to delineate five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I’d been through this before after 9-11, so I zoned out a bit while they were chatting about it.

“I’m wondering if I just shouldn’t just lock myself in denial,” Kris mused.

“You certainly can do that,” Casey said. “But these stages don’t come in sequence, and you will probably experience all five aspects at different times.”

“I’m sure I’ll work it out,” Kris said confidently. Casey looked at me, my cue to intervene.

“What I’m hearing with Casey’s comments is that he thinks you need to get some help with this, at least by seeing a psychologist,” I said.

“That’s bullshit,” Kris said, getting angry pretty fast.

“It is not,” I said firmly, telling him with my eyes that I was not going to be his fucking punching bag. He got it, which made me happy since my expression actually worked for once. “I agree with him. You have to do this.”

“I have to do this?” he challenged.

“You do,” I said firmly, not giving any ground. “I have been through some shit that is probably at the same intensity you’re at, so I know what this is like.”

“Yeah, but I’m different,” he said dismissively. He saw my anger and beat a hasty retreat. “I meant to say that I think I’ll handle this differently.”

“Differently?” I demanded, then turned away from him, pouting.

“Come on, J,” he pleaded.

I pivoted toward him and glared. “You think you’re so much fucking smarter and more together than me? You think I’m some fucking flower who will wilt if the water and lighting aren’t just right? Well let me tell you what’s playing out here.”

“J…” he said again, trying to stop me, probably because he’d never seen me this enraged.

“My family has jumped through fucking hoops to try and make this better for you,” I spat at him.

“How did they do that?” he asked a bit rudely, because he was still blaming us for ruining his world.

“They got that report done; Travis spent a whole night translating it…”

“He did a good job,” Kris said, interrupting me, but that didn’t really stop my crazy train.

“…Everyone got together to try to figure out how to make this as easy on you as possible. Why do you think Casey is here?” I demanded.

“I can see that,” Kris said sheepishly.

“And the only thing that they, I mean we, want in return, is for you to meet with a psychologist about this,” I said. “So what’s it going to be?”

“Fine,” he said resignedly, then smiled slightly. “Thanks.”

“You are welcome,” I said, but it sounded bitchy since I’d just finished a tirade. He ignored my tone.

“So I have to start seeing a psychologist, and every time I go, you have to go to a club with me,” Kris concluded.

“Not every time,” I objected.

“Every time,” he said firmly. I tried to weasel out of this by giving him my dirtiest of looks, but as usual, it wasn’t working. I was so mad it was all I could do not to stomp my foot.

“Fine,” I agreed.

We sat there in silence for a minute, then Kris spoke up again, talking to Casey. “You talk about acceptance, like that’s the last step in this thing. What is that like?”

“I can’t tell you for certain,” Casey said, then smirked when he saw Kris get frustrated. “This is about you. There are too many variables to tell you what will happen.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Kris said. “I want to know what success will look like.”

“And he’d prefer that it not be prefaced by a bunch of disclaimers,” I said in a smarmy way, annoying the fuck out of Casey. Inside I was gleeful at scoring a victory over him.

“I’ll tell you what my guess is,” Casey said, ignoring my attitude and annoying me as a result. “I think that when you can accept that you are the true representative of the von Schulenbergs, you will have reached that stage.”

“What are you talking about? I’m trying to accept that I’m not one of them,” Kris objected.

“Kris, the real family members were wiped out by the Nazis. There is no one left to carry on their legacy, is there?” Casey asked.

“No, at least I don’t think so,” Kris said. “My grandfather told me that we were the last representatives of a family that goes back over 1000 years. I guess he could have been mistaken.”

“It was in the report,” I added. “It confirmed that you were.” Kris was annoyed that his Prussian precision had missed that part.

“So even though their blood doesn’t flow through your veins, their traditions do,” Casey said. “Can I see your ring?”

“Sure,” Kris said, then pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to Casey.

Casey looked at it for a minute, gently took Kris’s hand in his, then slid the ring back on his finger. Was Casey going to propose to him? I couldn’t believe he was hitting on Kris right in front of me. “This is a symbol of what they were as a family. It’s ended up in your hands.”

“So even though I’m not really a von Schulenberg, it’s still my obligation, kind of like payback, to maintain the family name?” Kris asked. Of course he would get all that bullshit. He really wasn’t all that much different than Alex Granger, well, other than Alex’s grandfather was a real duke and certainly no Nazi. On the other hand, Alex’s father was a drug lord.

“Not all aristocrats have honorable pasts,” I said, as I thought of the Marquess of Preston.

“No they don’t,” Casey agreed. “Kris, at the meeting this morning there were some very smart and powerful people there. As JJ said, they went through a lot of work to set this up so you would be able to cope with it.”

“I have to remember to thank them,” Kris said, not getting Casey’s point.

“That’s not what he’s saying, dipshit,” I said in a slightly joking way. “What he is saying is that these smart and powerful people obviously think you have some real potential.”

“Seriously?” he asked, amazed.

“Seriously,” I said. “I’ll bet that my father and Stef have already convened and plotted about how to steal you away from Goldman.”

“No way,” he said in disbelief. I just shook my head at him.

“Those kinds of opportunities don’t come to idiots,” Casey said, then grinned at Kris. “At least most of the time.”

“I have to think about this,” Kris said, but Casey had given him an out, a way to deal with his dilemma. It was a good one. “It’s just weird to think that I never really knew who my parents were. They were all involved in this evil shit.”

“It sounds like your mother was sort of forced into being involved,” I said, sticking up for her for some reason.

“I can’t imagine how you can even comprehend this level of bullshit,” Kris said to me. “I mean, you’ve always known who your parents were.”

“I guess,” I said, even as I started to think about that.

“I’ve met your father. You said your mother died in the South Tower,” Kris said, and put his hand on my shoulder in a supportive way.

“That wasn’t my real mother; she was my adopted mother,” I explained.

“Who was your real mother?” Kris asked.

I started to talk then stopped. “My real mother was an awful person. She spent most of her life on drugs, and when she finally cleaned up her act, she turned into a complete bitch. She flew out to LA and tried to get custody of Darius and me so she could take us back to Claremont with her.”

“How could she do that if your father already had custody?” Casey asked curiously.

I just stared at him, blinking. I’d never really thought about this, about my parentage. My father was Brad Schluter, but my mother was Bitty Schluter. Bitty was his half-sister. There was no way that she could be my mother and he could be my father, because my father would have had to have had sex with her, and that was gross enough to almost make me puke. My head spun around and around in circles. “J, are you alright?” Kris asked.

“He can’t be my father,” I said softly, as my mind grappled with that.

“What do you mean?” Kris asked.

“My mother was his half-sister. They hated each other; plus it would be incest. There’s no way Brad is my real father,” I said in a daze.

“You’re just figuring this out now?” Casey asked.

“No one tells me shit, so I’m not surprised they didn’t even bother to explain to me who my sperm donor was,” I said bitterly.

“You’ll have to ask them,” Casey said.

“Oh I’m going to ask them alright,” I said, all pissed off. “And I’m going to get the truth!” I’d said that last line in an overly dramatic way, making it sound like I was on one of those tacky crime shows on television.

“I want you to do something,” Casey said, zeroing in on me.

“I already agreed to go to gay clubs to make you happy,” I groused, which both he and Kris thought was funny.

“Try to be as patient and calm as you can when you talk to your father about this,” Casey said. “You have all been through an awful lot over the past few years.”

“So that gives them the right to keep it from me? That gives them the right to withhold information on who my father is?” I demanded.

“They may not have wanted to do to you what is happening to Kris,” Casey suggested.

“What is that supposed to mean? You’re trying to tell me my father was a spy?” I was clearly losing it, since my logic made no sense even to me.

“It means that they may not have wanted to rock the boat, so to speak,” Casey said. “You were grappling with your moods, and they may not have wanted that to derail you.”

“I’ll bet Will knows. Darius too,” I said, and now I was furious. “How is it fair that they know who my real dad is and I don’t? They know something so personal about me but I don’t even know what it is.”

“Do you know for certain they know?” Kris asked.

“No, but I’m betting they do,” I said. They both stared at me for being completely off the wall.

“It’s lunch time,” Casey said, looking at his watch. “Let’s ask them.”

I got up and made to storm out of the room, but Casey locked his eyes on me to stop me. “What?” I demanded petulantly.

“I’ve been invited to stay for dinner,” Casey said.

“It’s good to know you’ll be around,” Kris said politely, making me look boorish.

“I’ve got some work to do, so I’ll be here, in this room. If you need to talk, come see me. If not, I’d like to touch base with both of you at 5:00,” Casey said.

“We can do that,” Kris agreed. When I’d walked into this room, I figured that I’d have to spend all of my effort propping Kris up, and I assumed when we left it, he’d still be a basket case. As was so typical of my visits to this place, I’d ended up as the one who got totally screwed. Kris seemed to be coping pretty well, while I was a bastard. Literally, a bastard. If the people in the fashion world found out about this, my reputation would be seriously tainted. It would almost be as bad as if they found out about Kris.

September 12, 2004

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

Brad

“I am so glad Casey was here to help,” I said to our group as I sat down at the dining room table. “That was a good idea.” That last comment was directed to Will.

“Thanks,” he said. He was independent, but he still thrived on praise, especially from me. I’d have to remember to do that more.

“Did anyone see Kris before he went in to see Casey?” Stef asked. Everyone shook their heads.

“Where’s JJ?” Will asked.

“I am assuming he is with Kris,” JP said. I looked at my watch, looked at the sandwiches on the table, then looked at JP. It was noon, the food was here, and I wanted to eat.

“Jake was working on a few things, so he told us to go ahead without him,” I said, hoping to prod JP into letting us start on lunch.

“I think we can give them a few more minutes before we start,” he said glacially.

“A few,” Will joked. At 12:05, Kris, JJ, and Casey came into the room. Casey looked a little worried, Kris looked much more relaxed than I thought he would be, and JJ looked enraged.

They came in and took their seats, all except JJ, who stood at the table and glared at me. “I want to know who my father is!” he demanded of me.

I stared at him, stunned into silence. Of all the things I had expected to deal with, telling JJ about his real parentage was not on my bingo card for this lunch. “Your father?” Travis asked, confused.

“Yes,” JJ snapped at him. “My mother was his half-sister, so he can’t be my father.” He gestured at me in a contemptuous way when he said that, and it was so dismissive it was painful.

“I am not your biological father,” I said to JJ, working to keep my voice even. “I adopted you immediately after you were born, although formally I was only your guardian.”

“Then who is he? What reprehensible person is responsible for my genes?” he demanded loudly.

I glanced at JP in a meaningful way, asking him nonverbally to help me out with this. He nodded slightly then obliged. “Your biological father is my brother, Jim Crampton.”

“My great-uncle is my real father?” JJ asked, totally blown away.

“I would like you to do me a favor,” Stef said to JJ, who just looked at him, demanding that he go on. “I would like you to refer to Jim Crampton as your biological father, to distinguish him from the father who raised you. Jim has not been a ‘real’ father to you.”

“What difference does it make what we call him?” JJ asked and was really starting to lose it.

“It makes a lot of difference,” Will said.

“Did you know about this?” he demanded of Will. “Did you know that Jim Crampton was my biological father?” He used air quotes when he said biological.

“No one told me that Jim Crampton was your biological father,” Will said. That barely calmed JJ down at all.

“My mother was Jim Crampton’s niece,” JJ said, connecting all of the dots. “He was having sex with his own niece?”

“He was,” JP confirmed.

“When were you people going to tell me about this?” JJ asked. “Were you just going to let me roll on down the road and say nothing?”

“I was going to tell you when you asked,” I said to him, but the words were cold because he had gutted me really badly by talking about Jim Crampton as his real father. I hadn’t been the best father, especially for JJ, but I had tried, and I had done what I could for him.

“When I asked?” he queried. “What the fuck?”

“I will thank you to watch your language at this table, and to sit down,” JP said, finally losing patience with JJ. JJ gave him a smarmy look, did a surprisingly good curtsy, then sat in his chair.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Dad can’t be your biological father,” Will said. “I mean, like you said, your mother was his half-sister.”

“Yeah, well incest doesn’t seem to be a problem around here,” JJ spat. “Jim Crampton boned his niece.”

“I am not Jim Crampton,” I said, probably a bit self-righteously, but I was not about to allow anyone to hang Jim’s lack of morals on me.

“Fortunately, you are not,” Stef said.

“I assumed that ultimately you would figure things out and you would ask me about it. In my mind, that would show that you were curious and mature enough to know the truth,” I explained. “There was no major effort to hide this from you.”

“I thought Darius and Will were my brothers and we were linked because we were all your sons,” JJ said.

“You are all my sons,” I insisted.

JJ looked at Will and shook his head. “You and I aren’t related at all,” he said with a hint of disdain. “You’re not really my brother.”

Will stared at him, seemed to be struggling with something, then abruptly got up and left the room. I saw him wiping a tear away as he did. “That was raw,” Travis said to JJ, then took off after Will.

I took a sandwich and started to eat, while the others followed my lead. Part of me wanted to make sure that Will was alright, but I was confident Travis had that under control. “And how are you doing?” Stef asked Kris.

“I told Casey I don’t even know who I am, but he helped me start to grapple with it,” Kris responded. “I promised J I would find a psychologist to talk to, to help me through this.” Will and Travis came back into the room and took their seats, then started eating without commenting.

“I explained to Kris that this is much like losing a loved one, so we used the five stages of grief as our theoretical framework,” Casey said.

“Unfortunately, we are all very familiar with those steps,” JP said.

Jake finally came in and joined us. “Sorry I’m late.”

“I have a question for you,” Kris stated. Jake focused completely on him. “What happened to the dudes posing as lawyers, the guys who were blackmailing my mother?”

“They disappeared,” Jake said matter-of-factly.

“You had them killed?” JJ asked.

“I don’t know what happened to them,” Jake said. “I told you that I was almost completely certain this would stay hidden, so that’s what you’re getting at, right?”

“Right,” Kris said.

“Those guys were messing around with confidential information. Top secret information. I don’t know who they were, or their backgrounds, but I do know that by doing that they ended up pissing off the CIA and their German counterpart, the Bundesnachrichtendienst,” Jake said, slaughtering the name of the German agency.

“They’re known as the BND,” Kris said, smiling.

“That’s much easier to say,” Jake said, smiling back.

“So the CIA and the BND made them disappear?” Will asked.

“That would be my guess,” Jake said.

“My concern would be that they haven’t actually vanished; instead they’re lurking out there and they could come back and really jack things up for Kris,” I said.

“I share your concern,” Jake said. “But I have spent a lot of time badgering people to the point that I’m pissing them off, and no one is telling me what happened to those guys and who was involved.”

“I understand,” JP said smoothly. “I appreciate all the effort you put into trying to give us closure on this.”

“You’re welcome,” Jake said. I finished my lunch, trying to avoid the fact that JJ spent the rest of the meal glaring at me, while Will was glaring at JJ. It slowly dawned on all of us how incredibly pissed off Will was.

When he was done, Will stood up slowly, folded his napkin and put it on his plate, then zeroed in on JJ. “See you at dinner, Mr. Crampton,” he said, then stomped out of the room.