The Freshmen - 85. Chapter 85

December 26, 2004

Stanford University Hospital

Palo Alto, CA

Will

“You drive,” I said to Travis, and tossed my car keys to him.

“Bitchin’,” he said, sounding like the surfer that he was. We got into the car and he started driving back to Escorial. “I thought you were breaking up with me.”

“I am annoyed with you, not angry, and it would have to be a whole lot worse than that for me to even think about breaking up with you,” I said, stunned yet again at how insecure he was about us.

“I don’t see why it was such a big deal anyway,” he said. “Shit, you were bringing Colin back to our room; Paul and I just happened to be there first.” This was so typical of him. He would try to justify his actions, when the only solution in this case was a sincere apology. I mean, it’s not like I expected him to abjectly surrender to me in every situation, but when I find him blowing another dude in our bed, that’s the requirement.

I glared at him, watching him flinch. “Who had their clothes off?” I asked acidly.

“If I’d come in five minutes later, it would have been you,” he said.

“Look, asshole, I walked into the room and saw you two, snuck back out and ran into Colin, so I dragged him in there and set him loose on your little orgy,” I spat. “You are totally in the wrong in this situation, and I don’t need this shit right now.”

“What do you mean you don’t need this shit?” he demanded.

“Fuck you!” I said loudly, or more likely screamed. “My 42-year-old uncle just died and instead of helping me deal with that, you want to try to convince me that I’m wrong because you had some other guy’s dick in your mouth in our room?” I was so mad I punched his right arm. It was just a little bit harder than playful.

“Oww,” he whined. I said nothing; I just sat there, glaring at the road ahead, waiting desperately until I could make it home. “You didn’t have to hit me.” He wasn’t hurt, he was just whining. He got no response from me.

He pulled into the garage and as soon as the car stopped moving, I jumped out and went straight to the stables. Travis was smart enough not to follow me. Psyche was glad to see me, and we took off riding, good bonding time with my horse. My mind was determined to drag me to places that I didn’t want to go. It wanted me to dissect this mini-battle with Travis, which was easy to dodge. But the deeper battle, where it wanted to go in and dive into my relationship with Jack, was tougher to resist. I thought back to 9-11 and how we’d all been devastated by the grief of that event. This could be just as damaging to Claire, Marie, and John. Inspired, I called Casey. “It is the day after Christmas,” he said as he answered.

“You were the idiot who gave me your cell number,” I said in a jocular way.

“What do you want?” he asked, being the fierce bitch that he was.

“Jack Hobart just died,” I said. “We may need your help.”

“When did he die?”

“About 90 minutes ago,” I told him. “I think that everyone is going to be pretty fucked up by this, especially because of how things were before he died.”

“Tell me about that,” he ordered. And so as I trotted and walked Psyche around the Stanford lands, I told Casey all about Jack’s behavior, starting with his affair and working up through the letter we’d gotten at Christmas. After he’d listened to my soliloquy, he paused for a minute. “How are you doing?”

I was kind of surprised by that, because I wasn’t even one of the major players. “I have been really pissed at him,” I said.

“And what about now?” he asked.

“I’m worried that if I’m not pissed at him, this will really hurt,” I said honestly.

“I think every member of your family will be going through something similar,” he said. “You know about denial. That’s where you’re living.”

“I know that,” I snapped, showing that I wasn’t dealing with this nearly as well as I hoped I was. “I know it’s going to totally fuck me up when I have to give that up.”

“How do you think people would react if I came over tonight to talk to them?” he asked.

“I think that Grand, Stef, my father, Darius and I would be totally on board, because we did something similar after 9-11,” I said, then had to pause and bite back the tears as I remembered that nightmare. I somehow managed to tell him about our counseling sessions at Goodwell.

“I had envisioned something similar,” he said.

“I think that we’ll be able to convince Claire, John, and Marie to get on board,” I said, knowing that Grand, my father, and Stef would probably be able to accomplish that.

“Then I’ll be there at 9:00 tonight, which will mean that dinner is over so those who weren’t intimately involved with Jack won’t have to attend,” he said.

“Dinner is at 7:00. Can you make that?” I asked.

“I’ll be at dinner,” he said, with an annoyed sigh.

“I’ll let everyone know,” I said.

“How are you and Travis doing?” he asked. It was like he smelled blood and he was going in for the kill.

“We’re doing well; we’re just having a spat right now,” I said. Of course he made me lay that out for him.

“Remember our conversation a while back,” he said.

“Which one?” We’d talked about all kinds of shit.

“The one where I told you that Travis may push you away from time to time because he’s too into you and it scares him,” he said.

“So I should just let this go?” I demanded.

“I would,” he said. “You have enough things to tackle.”

“I’ve got it handled,” I said, because I knew how this would play out. Travis had fucked up; he’d tried to make a bunch of excuses, but he would figure out that the only viable way out for him was a real apology.

“See you at 7:00,” he said, and ended the call.

I toured around some more, mostly talking to Psyche as we went, rambling on about my problems, my sadness, and my anger. I managed to get back to the house at 4:00, which meant I’d been riding for about two hours. “She’s all cooled down,” I said to the stable hand.

I changed out of my tack then strolled down to our room, dreading another argument. I didn’t need conflict; I needed support. I didn’t want to argue; I wanted love. I opened the door and walked in to find a huge bouquet of roses on my nightstand with Travis in bed, lying on his side, smiling at me. The sheet was pulled up but it was easy enough to guess he wasn’t wearing anything. The whole scene was so romantic, and he looked so sexy, I could not stop myself from smiling, and opted to go ahead and give myself permission. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said in a sultry voice.

“I should take a shower,” I said, since I’d been riding.

“I like the way you smell after you’ve been exercising,” he said. I all but ripped off my clothes and jumped into bed with him, but unlike that frenzy of activity, Travis made love to me like I liked, while I made him take his time to satisfy his needs. We ended up sated, lying in the bed, with me lying on his chest feeling his arm wrapped around my back. It pulled me to him, making me feel totally bonded to him. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s all you had to say,” I said, and in reality, that was his only way out. I didn’t know if he’d figured it out or was being sincere, but in the end it didn’t matter.

“I can feel your emotions going up and down,” he said to me. “You want to tell me what that’s all about?”

“I’m trying to stay mad at Jack because then I won’t be sad that he’s gone, but the good memories keep coming back,” I whined.

“Tell me about a good memory,” he said.

I knew that if I did that, it would shove me out of my denial stage. He knew that too. I swallowed hard then decided to trust his instincts on this. “I was in a situation where I was fighting a huge battle with Robbie and JJ.” I noted that when I referred to Jeremy in the past he transformed back into JJ. I’d have to think about that later.

“What was that all about?” he asked.

“That’s a very long story,” I said. No way I wanted to go back and discuss my mother’s hospitalization after Maddie was born, and that was where that topic would take me. “Robbie threw a massive birthday party for JJ’s fifteenth birthday at our house in Malibu. He called me and asked me not to attend.”

“I thought Grand was the only one who could ban a family member from a family event,” Travis said.

“That’s true only because most of our events are here at Escorial,” I explained. Grand didn’t have that kind of autocratic power, but he was so respected it was probably like that. “In this case, it was my father’s house, so Robbie really had no right to even ask me to do that.”

“So what happened?” he asked.

“Robbie came up here to visit and everyone was pissed at him for excluding me from a family function. From what I heard afterwards, Jack was the one who’d ripped Robbie a new asshole, telling him how awful that was.”

“He stuck up for you,” Travis said. I nodded.

“I have a lot of good memories with him, like playing soccer when Wade’s half-brother visited,” I said. “He was one of those people who could use humor to break the tension. I remember lots of times when he’d take a grumpy group and make it a fun party. That’s just the way he was.” I rambled on, telling Travis more stupid vignettes and stories from my life where Jack was awesome.

“And you lost him today,” Travis said sympathetically.

“And now he’s gone,” I said, and then I broke down. Tears began clouding my vision before escaping and landing on Travis’s chest. My sobs wracked my body, only they couldn’t because Travis held me tightly. He’d known that he had to break through my anger so I could feel my anguish, because he knew that I’d never deal with it until I did. He was doing for me what Zach had done after 9-11.

“He’s not entirely gone,” Travis said. “He lives on in your memories.”

“Seriously?” I asked, teasing him for using such a clichéd line.

“Isn’t that what you just did when you played back all those scenes?” Travis asked. We lay in bed like that, with him just gently stroking my back, until I felt my psyche get back to normal.

I leaned up and kissed him. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

“We have to get up,” I said, springing into action. “We have things to do.”

“Why do we have to get up?” he bitched.

“We have to take a shower and get ready for dinner, then you have to help me get invites together for the family,” I said.

December 26, 2004

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

Brad

I’d gone down to the hospital to offer my support and to say goodbye to my brother-in-law, or at least start the process. Seeing his lifeless body, empty without his charismatic personality, was hell. I’d barely been able to make it back here before I completely broke down. I understood how Claire felt because I remembered this so vividly from when Robbie had died: the complete lack of energy. I also knew that I’d entered a cycle where I’d be a virtual zombie, then without warning I’d shift into being a veritable dynamo of energy. It wasn’t fun being around me when I was like this, but that didn’t bother Jake; he put up with me in all of my various forms.

I stood in front of the mirror, tying my tie, only to do it wrong and have to start all over again. I finally got it on the third try. “We got a note,” Jake said, carrying said piece of correspondence into the room. “It is addressed to Mr. Bradley Schluter and Mr. Jacob Pike.”

He handed me the envelope and I noticed that the stationary was very nice, but not quite as posh as Stef’s, and that the names were laser printed onto it and not handwritten. I looked at Jake for permission, got a nod, then opened it up.

Your presence is requested at a special family meeting to be held at nine o’clock this evening in the study. Your attendance is assumed, so no RSVP is required.

“Will did this,” I said, recognizing his handiwork.

“What’s he up to?” Jake asked.

“Evidently he’s planned a meeting, but what it’s for I have no idea,” I said, annoyed yet again that I was being kept in the dark about things. “Let’s go see if JP and Stef know what this is about.”

We had a few minutes before dinner so we went down to JP’s study. We breezed in and greeted Claire, JP, Stef, Jeremy, and Kris. “Did you get an invitation?” Stef asked me.

“We did,” I responded. “What’s this about?”

“As I have just passed Casey through the gates, I would suspect the session will be somewhat similar to the one we had at Goodwell after 9-11,” JP said in his stuffy way.

“Did you set this up?” Jeremy asked JP.

“I suspect that Will did,” JP said, smiling softly.

“I do not want to participate in a big counseling session,” Claire objected firmly.

“As I have often been reminded, when someone sets up something like this, it’s better to go along with it,” I said. “And before you refuse, you would be wise to remember that even if you don’t need it, your children do.”

“Then they can go and I will retire to my room,” she said obnoxiously.

“If you don’t attend, they won’t,” I said. “If you want them to deal with this, if you want them to recover from this loss, you have to lead the way.” She glared at me, so pissed for backing her into a corner.

She sighed. “I suspect it would be rude to refuse to attend.” It was hilarious that she’d found a rationale to cave and go to this meeting.

Dinner was unpleasant, with our guests’ expressing sympathy for our loss while we in turn tried to be cheerful enough to make the meal enjoyable. Our efforts were a massive fail, but everyone seemed to expect that. We finished remarkably fast, so that we all left the table at 7:40, relieved to be done. I had thought that Will might move this meeting up to 8:00 since we were done earlier, but he didn’t, which gave everyone a little over an hour to mentally get ready for it. My energy dynamo persona returned, so I used it to have very passionate and animalistic sex with Jake, and to leave enough time to recover so we didn’t look flushed.

We walked into JP’s study at 8:55 and found an array of chairs and sofas arranged in a circle. The guy who’d coached us through the aftermath of 9-11 had stood firmly in the center of the room, as if to demonstrate he was in charge, but Casey didn’t do that. The room was set up with the furniture in a circle. Casey took one of the chairs and was symbolically part of the circle, and part of us. To his right sat Grand, then Stef, Kris, Jeremy, Darius, me, Will, Travis, John, Marie, Claire and Jessica. Will evidently hadn’t invited my mother, but no one wanted to make an issue out of it.

Casey started the meeting at precisely 9:00. “I am sorry for your loss. When I talked to Will on the phone earlier today, and he told me how Jack had died, I was very concerned that this trauma would upend your lives. I volunteered to spend some time with you this evening, and on an ongoing basis, to help you recover from your loss.”

“Thank you for interrupting your holiday to help us cope with this tragedy,” JP said in his stuffy way.

“I want to start out by explaining the five stages of grief,” Casey said. Will, Darius, Jeremy, and I looked at each other because we had heard these many times. We wanted to help out, so rather than sit there bored, when he talked about one of the stages, we would jump in and try to explain how it had manifested itself in our own quests to deal with the loss of relatives during 9-11. It was painful, but everyone seemed to appreciate it.

“How are you all feeling about losing Jack?” Casey asked.

“Shitty,” John said in a bitchy way. I watched Casey handle that by giving him a dour look that knocked John back on his heels a bit.

“I was in denial, but Travis helped drag me out of that,” Will said.

“How did he do that?” Casey asked.

“He asked me to talk about Uncle Jack and the times when I’d had fun with him, or when he’d supported me,” Will said, trying not to get choked up. “As a result, I didn’t remember the man who’d been an asshole for the past year; I remembered the guy I’d grown up with.”

“That is a very healthy approach,” Casey said. “Can any of you remember a significant time you spent with Jack.”

“I remember so many good times,” I said, then had to pause as I got choked up. “Jack was a stellar guy, and he always had my back. We had that kind of relationship, where we always knew we’d be in each other’s corner.”

“Do you remember an example of when you helped Jack out?” he asked.

I smiled then grimaced. “I think the only time I’ve ever known Jack to be afraid was when Claire got pregnant in high school and he was terrified to go face JP and tell him what had happened.” I glanced at Claire and got a frown, and suddenly realized that I wasn’t supposed to reveal that, especially to her kids. “I’m sorry,” I said to her, while she just shook her head to tell me not to worry about it.

“You got pregnant in high school?” Marie asked. Claire just looked at her, trying to formulate the words to explain. “What happened to the baby?”

“Jack and I made the decision to abort the pregnancy,” she said, and was so obviously uncomfortable that her voice quavered.

“You got an abortion?” John asked. “You mean I could have had another brother or sister.”

“That’s a bit judgmental,” I said in a firm yet unpleasant way.

“If I had had that baby, it would have turned my entire life upside down, and it would have done the same thing for Jack. I was sixteen years old, and I was not ready to have a child,” she said. “And to answer your question, I don’t think that you would have had a brother or sister if I’d had that baby.”

“What do you mean?” John asked.

“I think the odds of a relationship surviving a teen pregnancy are very low,” she said, speaking almost in a monotone. “I don’t think we would have made it, and that means that you and your sister would not have been born.”

“I can see that, especially back in the day,” I said.

“And Daddy was there and supported you the entire time?” Marie asked.

“He was,” she said, with a weak smile. “He drove me down to get the procedure done, then when we got home, he held me tightly and we cried together.”

“He supported you just like he supported me,” Marie said. It only took a second for all of us to realize that Marie had had an abortion.

“Dude, I didn’t know about that,” Will said.

“We weren’t exactly doing very well when that happened,” she said, reminding him of their rift around 9-11. He nodded to acknowledge the situation, and to presumably let her know he understood why she hadn’t mentioned it.

“You didn’t use birth control?” John asked. A fearsome look from Marie shut him up.

“I didn’t know about that either,” Claire said, and was clearly irritated.

“I got pregnant when I first started having sex with Noah,” she said. I could feel how much her mentioning Noah’s name bothered Will. Noah was the first guy Marie had slept with, and it had been a clusterfuck mostly because it had happened during our post-9-11 grief days. “I knew that if I had the baby, it would be a connection with him that I could never sever, and I didn’t want to be linked to him.”

“Makes sense,” Will said. “I’m just bummed that you didn’t tell me. I would have been there for you.”

“I know you would have been,” Marie said to him soothingly.

“I’m sad that you had to go through that alone,” Claire said, and clearly felt guilty.

“I wasn’t alone,” Marie said. “Daddy was with me the entire time. He let me cry on his shoulder, but more importantly, he solved my problem for me. He set up the termination of my pregnancy and made sure nobody knew about it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Claire asked, because that was really upsetting her.

“Why didn’t you tell me about yours?” Marie demanded. “This is exactly what John and I were trying to tell you. You keep all these secrets, all of your feelings locked up and hidden from the rest of us. Why would I open up to you when you don’t do the same thing for me?”

“I guess you wouldn’t,” Claire said softly. I mean, I got Marie’s point, but it seemed cruel for her to rip into her mother about it right after Jack’s death.

“I remember when Dad had the sex talk with me,” John said, chuckling.

“What did he say?” Darius asked.

“He spent about ten minutes telling me how girls get pregnant and how to prevent that, then he spent another half hour telling me how their bodies worked, and how to make sure they enjoyed sex with me,” John said.

“Seriously?” Kris asked, amazed. I was pretty surprised by that too.

“Seriously,” John said. “He had this diagram and showed me the clitoris and how to manipulate it to make women go nuts, and told me how to fuck them to make sure my dick rubbed against it the right way. Then he showed me another picture of the G-spot and told me to make sure I adjusted my angle to try to hit that.”

Darius laughed, and so did the rest of the younger crowd. “I didn’t get that kind of talk from Dad or Pop, probably because they didn’t know how to do it.”

“That is not true,” I objected. “I know exactly how that works.”

“I’m sure you do,” Darius said in his snarky way, making me feel like an idiot.

“I guess if no one told you about it, you just had to find out by trial and error,” John said. “No wonder you had so many trials.” Darius’s promiscuity was well known, so that garnered a nice laugh.

“Actually, Uncle Jack explained it to me, probably the same way he explained it to you,” Darius said. I was a little stunned and a bit upset that Darius had had to go to Jack for heterosexual advice, but then I smiled, thinking of how awesome that was for Jack to teach Darius how to be a good lover.

“I don’t know how it worked out for you, but it was amazing advice for me,” John said to Darius.

“Dude, learning how to give a woman an orgasm was an incredible gift,” he said.

“Jack was such a giving person,” Jessica said, her first comment since we started. “None of the other lovers I’ve had cared so much about my pleasure, and no other lover has worked so hard to maximize it. That’s one of the reasons I fell in love with him, and one of the biggest reasons I wanted to have his baby. Unfortunately, I was counting on him to be around to help me raise it, but instead I find myself all alone.”

Claire reached over and held her hand. “Two things. He did the same thing for me, so I know just what you mean. And you are not alone.”

“You are not,” JP insisted. “I’m quite sure I made that clear when we read Jack’s letter, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to reemphasize things like that.”

“He’s saying it again in case the rest of us didn’t get it,” Will said, smirking at JP.

“Yes,” JP said grumpily.

“Do you know if your baby is a boy or a girl?” I asked.

“The ultrasound shows that he’s a boy,” she said, then wiped a tear from her eye. “I’m going to name him Jackson Hobart Fletcher.”

“I like that name,” John said. It was interesting that in this case, his word on it was like a formal blessing.

“I’m glad that you do,” Jessica said. “Thanks.”

“So how do all of you feel about Jack now?” Casey asked. We recognized that this was a summary question, so most of us said we were sad that he was gone and that we already missed him.

“I feel guilty, like I failed him,” Jessica said. Everyone looked at her, waiting for her to explain. “He set this up so nobody else would know about it, and isolated himself from all of you. I think that, to the degree that he could have mentally worked his way through this, he set himself up to fail. The people in this room could have helped, but he refused to see all of you.”

“Then how did you fail him?” I asked.

She frowned at me, reminding me that she didn’t like me. “I should have told you sooner. If I would have done that, it might have made a difference, and then he’d still be here for all of us.”

“If I am not mistaken, you took an oath of silence,” JP said.

“I did, but it seems so stupid now,” she responded.

“Living up to your word and adhering to your pledges is never stupid, and it was not wrong in this situation,” JP responded.

“I want to know why you don’t like me,” I said to her. “I’ve tried to be nice to you, to be welcoming, but you are constantly either giving me dirty looks or going off on me.”

“I’ve had negative feelings about you because Jack didn’t like you,” she said candidly. “He said that the confrontation you had at a dinner at Escorial, when you almost got into a physical fight, was the death knell for your relationship.”

“Ouch,” Will said, and put his arm around me in a supportive way.

“So you decided to hate me too, even after he’s gone?” I demanded. I was angry about this because I was devastated by her words.

“I don’t hate you, and I don’t think Jack did either,” she said. I just stared at her, confused. “He told me a number of times that Claire didn’t need him because she had you to lean on. I think he saw you as a major stumbling block to rebuilding their relationship.”

“Didn’t that bother you?” Will asked. “I mean, it seems like it would have been better for you if they weren’t together.”

“You may be able to understand this when you are more mature,” she said to Will, and everyone in the room gasped and held their breath, waiting for his response.

“Do not patronize me, and do not treat me like I’m a child,” he said. His voice was loud, but not a yell, his eyes were blazing, and his entire body posture was aggressive. Travis put his hand on Will’s leg to try to calm him down, while Jessica visibly retreated from that challenge.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Will. “This hasn’t been easy for me. I think I’m taking it out on all the wrong people, especially by lashing out at you and your father.”

Will eyed her warily, then nodded. “It’s all good.”

She glanced at me, as if she wanted an answer. “Ditto,” I responded tersely. There was no way I was going to let this bitch walk into my life and judge me, and Will obviously felt the same way. He’d just done a better job of explaining it to her.

“And how do you feel?” Casey asked Claire. She looked at him and blinked. “He was your ex-husband, and I sense that there was a lot of love left in your relationship.”

“How do I feel?” Claire asked somewhat theatrically, and even paused for effect. “I feel relieved.”