If It Fits - 18. Chapter 18

July 12, 1995

“All these years I've raised those kids as my own and you show up to rip my family apart!” Brad yelled. “That's bullshit and you know it.”

“This foul language shows me how right I am to take them back,” Bitty said with ridiculous self-righteousness.

“I have a court order demanding that you surrender Darius and Jeremy Schluter,” said the sheriff ponderously. He was evidently the one in charge.

“Well they aren't here,” Brad said.

“Where are they?” Bitty demanded. He ignored her.

“May we look around?” the sheriff asked.

“Not without a search warrant,” Brad countered. Alejandro and Casey got there then, to witness the whole ordeal.

“Then it's a good thing we got one,” she said with a smarmy smile. The sheriff and his men handed Brad a warrant and he moved aside to let them in. He stopped Bitty as she made to follow.

“You are not welcome.”

“We have a warrant,” she snapped.

“You'll have to wait here,” the sheriff said to her. We stood there, glaring at each other for nearly fifteen minutes while the sheriffs searched the house.

“They're not here,” he said.

“They're at Stef's house then,” she said. “Search there.”

I stared at the sheriff. “You do not have my permission to enter my home or my property. You do so at considerable risk.”

“We won't bother you further without a warrant, Mr. Schluter,” he said to me formally. Clearly they weren't all that thrilled with their jobs.

“Thank you,” I told them, and headed toward my front door with Cody, Alejandro, and Casey. Bitty tried to follow. I turned on her coldly. “You are trespassing.”

“I want my kids!” she shrieked.

I looked at the sheriff. “This woman is trespassing.”

“Come along Ms Schluter,” they said.

“No!” she cried.

“If you don't come along, I'll have to arrest you for trespassing,” he said to her firmly. Defeated, she stepped back, off my property.

I got into the house and the first call I made was to Skip. “How soon can you have the ship off Malibu?” I asked.

“A couple of hours, maybe less,” he said.

“Are the seas calm enough to use the Zodiac?” I asked.

“Sure. What's going on?” he asked.

“I need to evacuate a few people from my home without going out the front door. I want you to get here as fast as you can, and send the Zodiac in to get us. Can you do that?”

“Aye aye sir,” Skip said playfully. I went upstairs to find Jeanine secluded in one of the rooms with Darius, JJ, and Will.

“Hi Uncle Stef,” JJ said cheerfully. Will looked thoughtful. He was like a little clone of Brad. Darius was pissed off.

“That bitch. She abandoned me, all those years strung out on drugs, and now she wants to waltz back into my life. Fuck her,” Darius said, enraged.

“Watch your mouth, Darius,” Jeanine said.

“It will be alright,” I told him. “We are going on a boat trip. No cars, no land, only boats. Does that sound like fun?” I asked.

“How are we getting to the boat then?” Will asked.

“We're going to get picked up on the beach. We might get wet. Is that OK?” I asked.

“We're sneaking away on a boat?” Darius asked, not in the mood for such games.

“Exactly. Unless you would prefer to go back to Ohio with your mother,” I said to him sternly.

“I didn't say that. I just want to know what we're doing,” he declared. Christ! Another teenager to deal with. I went next door to see Brad. His attorney had just arrived.

“This is what we were afraid of,” the attorney said. He turned to me. “They're trying to get a search warrant for your place, Mr. Schluter.”

“How long will it take them?” I asked.

“If they move things along quickly, I'd give them two hours. If not, could be tomorrow.”

“They will move quickly. Can you stall them?” I asked.

“I'll work on that,” he said. “You two shouldn't talk about anything illegal, say, like taking those kids out of state.”

I nodded and winked at Brad. We didn't have to talk; he knew I was working on it anyway.

Exactly one hour later my cell phone rang. “You ready for the Zodiac?” Skip asked.

“Yes.” I turned to Cody. “I need a diversion. Can you take the Bentley and try to leave?” There was a sheriff out front watching the house. “Keep the windows up and try to sneak past them. They'll chase you. I only need a few minutes.”

“No problem,” he said, smiling. We saw the Zodiac approaching and I nodded to Cody. He hopped into the Bentley and just as I thought, the sheriff took off after him. The rest of us, Jeanine, her three kids, me, Alejandro, and Casey, waded out into the rough surf and climbed into the Zodiac. The water was cold and the waves kept knocking us down, but we managed to load ourselves in without too much trouble. Skip was driving the Zodiac himself.

He kicked in the motor and we bounced back to the ship, all of us wet and tired, our adrenaline rush ending once we were safely in the opulent living area. Jeanine dragged her kids off to their rooms to dry them off. “Since we're on the ship, can we go visit my father?” Alejandro asked. I nodded.

“We need to go to Cabo San Lucas,” I told Skip. “Get into International waters as fast as you can though.” I didn't know if that would help or not, but it was worth trying. I gave JP a call and told him my plans. No one would get anything out of him.

July 14, 1995

“You have to stay on board,” I told Casey. “We do not have a copy of your birth certificate or your passport.”

“I understand,” he said glumly. We anchored off the Arch and the ship's boat took Alejandro into town to see his father. I took that opportunity to call JP.

“Happy Bastille Day,” I told him cheerfully.

“Same to you. I hear you're having quite the adventure.”

“Oh? Who told you?” I asked.

“Well, Brad told me all about Bitty, and Cody told me about his encounter with the sheriff. They were pretty mad and disappointed when the kids weren't in the car,” he laughed.

“What a shame to disappoint them,” I said sarcastically. I'd avoided calling Brad or Cody to give them plausible deniability in case the authorities made inquiries into my whereabouts, or those of the kids.

“Brad's lawyers have been trying to tie this up in court, and it looks like they've succeeded. The court has agreed that the kids are to stay with him until this can be worked out legally, but Bitty is to be allowed supervised visits.”

“Does that mean we should head home?” I asked.

“When you are done with your cruise,” he said.

“And when will I see you?” I asked. It had been two days and I already missed him terribly.

“Soon,” he said reassuringly.

“How soon?” I said.

“Soon. That heat wave that Mike went back to Chicago for is really bad,” he said. He was changing the subject and I let him. I hadn't really paid attention to the news.

“It is?”

“Yeah. They broke a record high yesterday, 106 degrees, and that's not counting the heat index. It's supposed to be around 130 degrees in some places with the humidity factored in,” he said sadly. “It's hitting the whole central Midwest, from St. Louis up to Milwaukee.”

“My God! That is horrible!”

“They've already had a couple of hundred deaths from it,” JP said sadly. “I have no idea how many more will die before it cools.”

“Maybe we will all get lucky and it will head straight to Claremont and stay there,” I said bitterly.

“I wouldn't wish that even on them,” he said glumly.

“Well you are certainly not very cheery,” I said in a perky tone, trying to change the mood. I did not want to mourn about unknown Chicagoans. I felt bad for them; I was just too self-absorbed with my own problems to take on that burden too.

“Not much to be cheery about,” he said. “I'm worried that Bitty will win. She's ruthless. She'll make Brad and Robbie's sexuality a huge issue in this custody battle.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Some of the slams she made to Brad, calling him a fag. She'll be able to motivate the right wing nuts with a little strategically placed cash.”

I sighed. “It is a shame that when she recovered she neglected to get a soul.”

“It is. Well, I’d better run. I'm trying to catch up on things around here so I won't have to bail on you again. See you soon.”

“See you soon” I told him sadly. All those years we'd been around each other, been friends, and I'd spent weeks away from him with no problem. But now that we were a couple, I found that I had a hard time being apart from him. Either I was twisted and obsessed, or this was love. Or both. I headed off to find Jeanine and her brood.

“This is boring,” Darius complained.

“Wanna play Playstation?” Casey asked helpfully. Darius eyed him; clearly weighing his options, then shrugged his shoulders and went below. JJ followed along playfully. He'd harass them mercilessly until they let him play too. Will stayed with Jeanine and me, of course.

“This is all so horrible Stef,” she said. “She can't rip my family apart. She just can't.”

“Well, she will try. It will be a long battle. Let us hope that the kids are 18 by the time she gets a favorable ruling, if she gets one at all,” I told her, joking.

“I'll end up living like this, ready to take the kids on the lam every time she shows up,” she said. “If this gets ugly, maybe I should take them away, to another country, one where they can't extradite us.”

“That is a drastic move,” I told her consolingly. “Let's not jump to conclusions. As long as this stays in California courts, we have a chance.”

“I don't want to lose my brothers,” Will said defiantly.

“You will not,” I told him. He looked unconvinced. “You do not trust me?”

He thought about that. “I trust you. I think if anyone can solve the problem, my dad can.” I laughed at that, really laughed. “What's so funny?” he asked, pissed off.

“You are so much like your father, it is sometimes a little scary or amusing, or both.” He gave me a dirty look, like I was insulting Brad. “Your father is very important to me, like the son I never had. If you are like him, I will be very proud of you.” That got a grin, and seemed to cheer him up enough to send him off to join his brothers. I heard the motor from the boat draw near and went aft to welcome Alejandro back. He was there, but so was someone else. JP.

“Is this soon enough?” he asked, smiling.

“It will have to do,” I said, pretending to pout while I gave him a big hug, clinging to him, drawing strength from him. I gave Alejandro a hug too.

“How was your visit with your father?”

“Adequate,” he said with no expression at all.

“You were not happy to see him?” He just shrugged and headed below to find Casey. I turned to JP. “When these things are all resolved, these issues, we must take a trip, just you and I, far away from any teenagers.”

He laughed. “That sounds like a great idea. In the meantime, maybe we can settle for some alone time.” I laughed at that, laughed really hard, and thought about how far we'd come since Benjamin's bloodless phrase for sex had so irritated me.

July 17, 1995

I scanned the paper while I waited for the social worker to show up with Bitty for her first supervised visit. I'd been the one chosen by all parties to be there with them. Evidently Bitty found me the least threatening, which I found vaguely irritating. And the heat still enveloped Chicago, unbearable heat that had already taken an estimated 500 lives. I sighed. We were having this meeting in my great room, which I liked. I was on my own turf, and that made me feel more in control.

Darius and JJ came walking over on their own, JJ looking interested, Darius looking pissed off. They were dressed nicely, in slacks and collared shirts. “Now what do we do?” Darius asked.

“We wait for your mother to get here,” I said.

“She's not my mother,” he said. The doorbell rang. I got up and clicked on the camcorder I'd set up earlier, then headed to the door.

“I'm Allison Friedens,” said the social worker, extending her hand. Bitty stood behind her glaring at me.

“Welcome,” I said, motioning for her to enter. Bitty said nothing to me, and I said nothing to her. She walked into the room with the social worker.

“JJ!” Bitty said. “You are adorable. Come give Mommy a hug!” He stared at her, then at Darius, then back at her, clearly unwilling to do anything without his older brother's approval. “JJ, come over here right now,” Bitty ordered, changing tacks.

“Don't tell him what to do,” Darius said.

“And don't you tell me what to do young man,” Bitty said, glaring at him. “I'm your mother. You owe me respect.”

“I owe you nothing,” he spat. “You blew me off to go do drugs.”

“Let's sit down,” Ms Friedens offered. The two boys sat next to me, while Bitty and Ms Friedens sat on their own couch. “I know it's been a long time since you've seen your mother, but it's important for you to get to know each other.”

“I've never seen her,” JJ said.

“They've kept me away from my children, using all their money and power to keep me at bay, and then they turned the minds of these children against me,” Bitty lied.

“Let us approach this encounter honestly. You have spent the last 12 years or so on various drugs, the primary one was crack cocaine,” I said. “Your half-brother agreed to raise your children and treat them as his own, which he has done. Darius was a toddler the last time he saw you, and JJ never did. You had plenty of money available from your trust fund. You spent it on drugs, not on your children.”

Bitty glared at me, while I merely looked back at her. “So Darius, what's your favorite subject in school?” Ms Friedens asked.

“Biology,” he said.

“And you JJ?”

“Recess,” he said, and I couldn't help but laugh. Typical JJ. Always playful, never serious.

“You'll love Claremont,” Bitty said. “Our schools are great.”

“Claremont sucks. There's no beach,” Darius said. Hard to argue with that, I thought.

“It doesn't suck,” she argued. “It's a nice place.”

“I'm not going there, I'm staying right here,” Darius said firmly. “This is my home, where my friends and family are.” It was a very mature statement.

“You are my son and you will do what I decide is best for you,” she commanded. She was evidently unable to keep her old evil self contained.

“You are nothing to me,” he said. Then he turned to Ms Friedens. “How long will I have to stay here with her today?”

“I think it has been long enough. We will see you again in a few days,” she said, dismissing them.

“But I hardly got any time with them at all!” Bitty exclaimed as the kids scampered off to their house.

“You are demanding a relationship with them when you have none,” Ms Friedens said, irritated. “You need to relax and get to know them first. But in any event, the first meeting is usually short.”

“I think I know what is best for my own children,” Bitty said arrogantly, then stormed out. Ms Friedens just shrugged and followed her. I popped the tape from the camcorder and took it to Brad.

July 18, 1995

I sat out on the patio with JP enjoying the pleasant weather. The sound of the surf, the cool ocean breeze, all combining to drown out the more pressing issues waiting for me inside. I heard the door slide open and looked up to see Marcel and Max come strolling out.

“You are back!” I said enthusiastically, and jumped up to give them both big hugs. “What a wonderful surprise!”

“Thanks Stef,” Marcel said. “It's good to be here and away from the heat. It's been miserable.”

“Well it is nice here. And Max, you will notice that we still have waves. Brad could probably use some company to cheer him up.” I filled them in on the issues with Bitty.

“Maybe I'll go see if I can tempt him into the water,” Max said, and wandered off next door.

“You are doing better?” I asked Marcel.

“I am. We're doing really well. He's forgiven me, and I feel so much stronger, so much more secure. I guess that comes from losing what I had and learning how important it really is,” Marcel said philosophically.

“You have resolved your legal problems?” I asked.

“Yeah, I have. I have some community service to do, but that will be good for me. And I lined up a post-doc at Northwestern for the next year too, so that will keep me busy. Things are coming together Stef.” He was so upbeat and enthusiastic, just like he used to be.

We watched as Brad and Max walked down to the surf with their boards. It was the first time I'd seen Brad smile in days. This thing with Bitty had really taken a toll on him. I saw Alejandro and Casey playing around in the surf with Boogie boards, and they waved at the two stud surfers as they moved past. Casey was thinner; Cody's workout plan was already paying off. He was shedding that dorky image he'd had when he first came out here. I lit a joint and passed it to JP, then to Marcel.

“What are you thinking about?” JP asked me, watching me gaze off into the distance.

“I am trying to decide if Casey is less dorky because of his haircut, his new clothes, or because he has sex all the time,” I said honestly.

“I think it is the sex,” JP observed. Marcel was about to chime in when the door slid open and Cody came out. He saw Marcel and froze up for just a second, then forced himself to relax.

“Well look who's back,” he said in a friendly manner. “Too hot in Chicago?”

“Too fucking hot,” Marcel said. He got up and extended his hand, which Cody took in a friendly way. They just looked at each other, staring intently into each other's eyes.

Marcel swallowed, breaking the spell. “I'm sorry I was a dick to you. I owe you a lot. Thanks.” Cody just shrugged and reached down to grab the joint from me.

“Make it up to me,” he said to Marcel.

“What do you mean?” Marcel asked.

“You bottom. You did it for Bruno. Make it up to me.”

Marcel smiled. “I need to check with someone first. God, I hope he says it's OK.” Marcel tore down the stairs and across the beach and waited until Max came in with a wave. I saw them talking, and then he tore back up the stairs, out of breath.

“Fuck yeah!” he said to Cody. “Let's go!” Then the two of them went up to formalize their peace treaty.

“You know Stef,” JP said. “Sometimes these guys are hard to figure out.”

“That is because you are getting old,” I teased him. “Your brain has moved back up to your skull where it belongs.”

“Not all the time,” he said. He led me upstairs to the bedroom then and showed me that just because he wasn't 27 anymore didn't mean he couldn't satisfy me better than anyone.

We lay there in the bed, enjoying the afterglow, when he suddenly turned to me and looked very serious. “I need to tell you some things,” he said.

“Alright,” I said nervously.

“I'm really nervous about it,” he said. “I'm nervous not because of what it is, but because I haven't told you before. As close as we've been, I feel bad that I didn't share this with you earlier.”

“You are secretly an alien?” I teased. “That would explain your amazing skill in bed.”

“I'm serious Stef,” he said earnestly. Then he handed me a letter, or a copy of one. It was written by his grandfather to him when he was a baby, but he hadn't received it until after his 26th birthday, a few days after he and I traveled to Chicago for the first time, the day after I gave him the pinky ring he still wore on his finger. And the message was simple. He wasn't a Crampton; his true father was one of the other Claremont town moguls, Bill Hendrickson. His mother had fucked around with him, and JP was the result. I felt so bad, so horrible.

“You hate me?” he asked, misinterpreting my tears.

“No, I do not hate you. I do not care that your mother fucked Bill Hendrickson. He was really cute anyway. I just feel bad that I fucked up our relationship so bad back then. If I had not, I would have been there to help you with this. Because of my idiocy, you had to deal with this all by yourself.”

“Stef, don't go there. Don't feel guilty. You have been there for me more than anyone else. You are my best friend. You are,” he said, and pulled me to him.

“I wondered why you did not really look like your brother,” I said. “I never dreamed you'd be a bastard like me.” He laughed at that.

“Telling you about this is so liberating,” he said. “I've never been able to laugh about it before. But there's more.”

“You're kidding. More?” Good lord. What next?

He handed me a couple of unsigned notes written in a feminine hand. They were written to André, his first love, the straight man he'd ultimately seduced and all but married. The man who had loved JP despite his dick, until his death in Vietnam had galvanized JP into a fervent anti-war activist. I could see the tears in his eyes just from thinking about André. The letters weren't anything special, typical love letters, with the last one acknowledging that André had broken up with her. And that was the big question. Who was this woman who competed with JP for André's heart? “Who was she?” I asked.

“My mother,” he said. I just stared at him. This explained so much about him, about his secretiveness, about his unwillingness to share himself, to bare his soul.

“I am feeling quite inadequate,” I told him.

“Why?” he asked, concerned.

“I thought I was the sluttiest person in Claremont, but here your mother was giving me a run for my money,” I joked, trying to make him laugh. It worked.

“I think she was just lonely and unsatisfied with my father,” he said. “He worked all the time and she must have gotten lonely, especially after I went away to school.”

“So you have forgiven her for these indiscretions?” I asked.

“I have. After Billy died, I sat down and confronted her and we worked through things.”

“After Billy died?” I asked. Billy was my uncle, Brad's father, and had died on a nuclear submarine.

He nodded. “I realized that family was much more important than that. That's when I stopped hating my father, when I forgave him for not loving me for being gay, and that's when I forgave my mother for being a slut.”

“You carry so much inside,” I told him. “It is a wonder you do not burst.”

“There is one more thing,” he said.

“Your mother fucked someone else? Not Barry?” I asked. JP really cracked up at that, at the thought of my grandfather screwing his mother.

“No.” He handed me one final letter, this one from Jeff. Just the thought of Jeff made my eyes fill with tears. It was his final letter, the one he'd written before he killed himself. He apologized to JP for threatening him. For blackmailing him.

“So you told Jeff these secrets, he's the one you relied on?” I asked. JP and Jeff had been together when much of this shit had come out. He nodded. “And then at the festival when he came back from Europe, all strung out, when he threatened you, this is what he was holding over your head?” He nodded again.

I thought back to those times, to all that shit. “So this is why Sam was going to kill him, because Jeff was blackmailing you?” He nodded again.

“Well I will never betray you,” I told him. “I'm glad you shared this with me. I feel closer to you than ever.”

“I never doubted you Stef. I just wanted to fill in the blanks, to fill in the past for you. This stuff has helped make me who I am, so now when you look at me and see a fucked up guy, at least you'll know why.”

“I love you,” I said. “More than ever. More than I've ever loved anyone.”

“I love you too, Stef. More than any of the other men in my life, now or before.” And that was probably the nicest thing he could ever say to me.