The Freshmen - 16. Chapter 16

September 5, 2004

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

Will

“It feels good to be back here,” Travis said. That was such an awesome thing for him to say. My mind briefly derailed as I thought about how impossible it would be for me to date someone who my family didn’t like. We were walking to Grand’s office to hang out with him before dinner, but I stopped and made Travis look at me.

“I am so glad to hear you say that,” I said and gave him a nice kiss. “I want you to think of this as your home.”

“It’s the first home I’ve lived in where I can actually relax and not feel threatened,” he said.

I chuckled. “Well, sometimes things get a bit heated, so hopefully after you go through one of those fun events you’ll still think so.”

“It’s not about what happens; it’s about the people,” he said. “Especially you and JP.”

Right before we got there my phone rang and I saw that it was JJ. I showed Travis the caller ID and rolled my eyes. “This should be fun.”

“Try to be nice to him,” Travis said. I could have flamed him for deigning to think he should give me advice about JJ, since he’d flatly ignored my counsel when it came to Taylor or Zach, but I decided to answer the phone instead. I’d just work out my annoyance on JJ.

“What?” I demanded.

“I know dinner is in half an hour, and I was hoping to catch you before then,” JJ said nervously. That mellowed me out a bit.

“Well, you did,” I said in a neutral tone. “What do you want?”

“I’m really sorry for how I treated you when you were in New York,” he said. I was most surprised by his sincerity, but I said nothing, forcing him to go on. “I’ve just been so paranoid about Kris, and about inflicting our family on him so soon after we started dating, that I made some bad decisions.”

“I get that it’s tough for you, and I tried to fight that battle with Dad, Jake, and Stef, but I don’t know why you’d think I was an issue,” I said.

“Because you were with him,” he said softly.

“Seriously?” I demanded, trying to force myself to mellow out, even though his comment had pissed me off beyond belief. “Christ, JJ, we had a one-night stand. It happened once, it was good, and now it’s over. That’s it. Just sex. I mean I like the guy, but it wasn’t going anywhere.” Travis looked at me and raised an eyebrow, so I tried to smack him with my hand that wasn’t holding the phone.

“I know that,” JJ said, annoyed. “I just view sex differently than you do, so it was hard for me to deal with.”

“Kris has been with a shit-ton of guys. You’re bound to run into some of them. Why am I an issue? I would never sleep with a dude you were going out with,” I said. I let myself off the hook with Alex because they weren’t a couple when I fucked him.

“We already ran into one of his former fucks,” he grumbled. “We were at a banquet and Michael Kors brought a date, this totally hot dude, and he knew Kris. After the main course was over, the dude even had the balls to reach over and start massaging Kris’s groin.”

“That’s bold,” I said. “Did you have this guy killed?”

“No,” he said, and chuckled. “Kris got up to go to the bathroom and I leaned over and whispered in the dude’s ear that if he touched my date again, I’d hire people to completely fuck him up.”

I started laughing at that, at the thought of JJ at his bitchiest. “Did it work?”

“It did,” JJ said proudly. “Dude didn’t talk to Kris for the rest of the gala.”

“Good job!” I said, laughing my ass off.

“Uh, I need to ask you for a favor,” he said, and that totally ruined my mood.

“I get it. You called and apologized only because you need something from me,” I said angrily. That was so typical of JJ.

“No, I called you to apologize because I was a douche,” he said. “The favor I need is kind of related to that deal though.” I knew this was agonizing for him, so I mellowed again.

“What do you want?”

“I’m planning to bring Kris out to California next weekend,” he said. “Can you and Travis be around?”

“Hang on,” I said, then spoke to Travis. “JJ wants to bring Kris out to visit next weekend and wants us to be here. You’re okay with that?”

“I was planning to be here anyway, since you leave for Boston that Monday,” he said sadly. I put my hand on his shoulder in a supportive way and resumed talking to JJ.

“We’ll be around,” I said. “Are you just bringing him to Escorial?”

“I don’t know yet,” JJ said. “He’s trying to figure out if he can get a few days off.”

“Let me know,” I said, then ended the call. Travis looked at me. “He apologized for being an asshole, and he wants to bring Kris out here to see everyone.”

“What’s that about?” Travis asked. I didn’t answer him because I knew I’d have to explain it to my relatives, so I just motioned for him to follow me into the study. I knocked and entered when Grand told us to.

“You are back!” Stef said and got up to give us warm hugs. He was followed by Grand, and then by my father.

“It’s good to see you,” Dad said warmly. “I’ll have to show you my new rolling office.”

“Rolling office?” I asked. “Sounds pretty slick.”

“It is,” he said proudly.

“It is not as awesome as my new car will be,” Stef declared.

“Will be?” Travis asked.

“It is top-secret, because the car has not been released yet,” he said. I looked at Grand in annoyance that Stef was being so cryptic. He looked briefly up at the ceiling to tell me it bugged him too.

“What kind of car is it?” I asked.

“That is the secret,” he said, like a villain who was pleased that his evil plot was coming to fruition.

“I talked to JJ just now,” I said.

“And what did he have to say?” Stef asked.

“It is a secret,” I said, and gave him a smarmy look. Grand and my father were trying to hide their snickering.

“I do not know why I am not allowed to have secrets and surprise people,” Stef said, being incredibly bitchy.

“If you didn’t talk about your secret, we wouldn’t have a clue, and this wouldn’t be an issue,” I said, getting a chuckle from Dad and Grand. “Besides, can’t you see how badly this is freaking Dad out?” That shut up my father but made Stef laugh instead.

“I had not thought of his obsession with knowing everything,” Stef said, shooting that dart at my father, who just rolled his eyes and shook his head. It was as if we all realized that we were still standing up, so I got Travis and me a drink, and a refill for my father, then sat down on Grand’s sofa with Stef.

“I am getting a new Rolls Royce Phantom VII,” Stef said to me in an almost conspiratorial way. Dad and Grand were paying rapt attention now.

“Those are pretty cool,” Travis said. He was kind of into cars, so he’d seen the premiere of the latest Rolls. It was a work of art.

“Why is that a secret?” I asked him.

“Because they are expanding the wheelbase to turn it into a limousine, and the prototype will be shown at the Geneva Auto Show next March,” Stef said. “That is the car they are building for me.”

“Holy shit!” Travis said. “The first one? That is awesome.”

“It is,” Stef said, then focused on me. “So what did JJ say?” We all started laughing at how intently he was focused on gossip. After that happy bubble popped, I answered his question.

“He wanted to apologize for being a total douche, and he wanted me to do him a favor,” I said. I’d already told them about our encounter with JJ in New York. My father had unsurprisingly been the most supportive because he had been seriously annoyed by JJ’s being late when he’d been there.

“That is rather presumptuous to apologize and immediately then ask for you to do something for him,” Grand said.

“I thought so too,” I said. “He’s planning to bring Kris out to visit next weekend, and he wanted to make sure that Travis and I were going to be around.”

“That’s the weekend before you leave for Boston, right?” Dad asked, pulling out his calendar.

“I’ll be right back,” Travis said abruptly, then got up to leave. I watched him go and felt awful for putting him through this.

“This is going to be hell,” I said to them sadly. “Absolute, fucking hell.”

“It will be,” my father agreed.

I turned and spoke to Grand. “I need to ask you for a favor.” He probably thought I was planning to skip Harvard to stay with Travis, because he seemed mildly annoyed.

“Go on,” he said.

“I need you to keep in touch with Travis,” I told him. That request seemed to confuse him. “He totally respects you. You are really important to him. It’s almost like he’s adopted you as his surrogate father.”

Grand looked at me and something extraordinary happened: a tear fell out of his eye. “That is truly flattering. No, it is an honor. I will do that.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ve really considered staying here with him.”

“I can see why you would,” Dad said, and got an evil look from Grand, one that faded quickly. “Are you going to do that?”

“No,” I said, then explained my reasons. “First of all, Travis won’t let me, or at least he’d be completely pissed off if I did that.”

“That is an incredible level of selflessness,” Stef noted.

“It is, and of course that makes me want to stay that much more,” I said. “The other thing is that I promised Marie we’d do this together.”

“I think you two will thrive there,” Grand said.

The doors burst open and Travis came back in, shutting down that conversation. “Sorry,” he said.

“No apology is required,” Grand said, then asked a question for all of us. “Why is JJ bringing Kris out here?”

“You do not want him to be here?” Stef teased. “I forgot. You have not met him yet. When you do, you will want him to be here.” That was hilarious, which caused Travis and I to bust out laughing. Even Dad chuckled.

“I did not say that I did not want him to visit. In fact I am quite looking forward to it, and that attitude has nothing to do with his personal appearance,” Grand said stuffily.

“I don’t know why JJ wants to do this,” Dad mused.

“I do,” I chimed in. “This is his way of announcing to his family that he’s with Kris, and to informally get our blessing.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Dad said. “I don’t think JJ is worried about our opinion at all.”

“I disagree,” Stef said. “I think that what we think matters to him, but even more importantly, it matters a lot to Kris.”

“You think Kris is pushing JJ to do this?” Travis asked, then thought about it. “I don’t think so.”

“Well regardless, they’re coming, so we will all have to be nice to them,” Dad concluded, almost giving us an order.

“I’ll be nice to Kris,” I said. “With JJ, I’m going to wait and see how he acts.”

“Dude,” Travis said, admonishing me.

I gave him a fearsome look. “Do not even go there.”

“So you’re going to start a fight with him?” my father asked, getting an even more intense glare than Travis had gotten.

“Look, I’ve put up with his moods for my entire life. There are times when being nice to him just doesn’t work,” I said angrily.

“I would agree with that summation,” Stef said sagely. His validation calmed me down considerably.

“Remind me to call Darius later,” I said to Travis. “Maybe he can fly up too.”

“I can do that,” he said.

“What’s going on with Jack and Claire?” I asked them.

“They’re not saying anything, but Claire has been staying here,” Stef observed. “So have Marie and John.”

“That’s not good,” I said.

“It is not,” Dad said. “I had lunch with Jack a few days ago and tried to talk to him about it and it didn’t go very well. I don’t know what more I can do.”

Jake came into the room without knocking, which was unusual unless something was urgent. He was carrying what looked like about ten pages of paper stapled together and he had a serious look on his face, an expression that vanished instantly when he saw Travis and me. “Welcome back!” he said enthusiastically, then gave us big hugs.

“It’s good to be back,” Travis said.

“What have you been up to?” Jake asked. Travis started to answer him, but I intervened. I could tell Jake was just trying to deflect attention away from what was on his mind.

“Why did you look so serious when you just barged in here?” I demanded.

He sighed and gave my father a frustrated and knowing look. “I’ve been working on Kris’s lawsuit, and it’s turning into a pretty interesting project.”

“Indeed?” Grand asked.

“The only problem is that I got this big report but I can’t read fucking German,” he said in annoyance. “I’ll have to hire someone to be an interpreter.”

“I can do that,” Travis said. “I’m fluent in German.” I almost kicked myself for forgetting that.

“You are?” Dad asked.

“Ich bin unglaublich heiß und jeder will mich,“ he said.

“What did you just say?” I asked.

“I am amazingly hot and everyone wants me,” he said, making all of us laugh.

“Here,” Jake said, and handed him the papers. “Maybe you can work on this after dinner.”

“I can do that,” Travis said happily. It was always a good feeling when you were in a room with these geniuses and could actually be useful.

“I’ll run them back to our room,” I said. He handed me the papers and I raced down the hallway, looking at my watch to note that I didn’t have much time. I put the papers in the room and was hurrying back to the dining room when I almost plowed into Claire.

“It is so good to see you back here,” she said. I looked into her eyes and could see her pain, and our connection seemed to spark her to shed a tear.

I immediately enveloped her in a massive hug and felt her head against my shoulder as she quietly wept. “You will be fine,” I said supportively.

“No, I won’t,” she said, almost a sob, shaking her head to emphasize her words. I started poking her back, and that caused her to pull away from me and give me an odd look.

“I’m trying to find your ‘pride’ button,” I said, and smiled at her. She smiled back at me, then wiped her eyes. We heard the clock chime, telling us that it was 7:00.

“I need to visit the ladies’ room,” she said.

“I’ll cover for you,” I promised. I walked into the dining room and had to greet everyone. Presumably Travis had already gone through this. When I got to John, he looked really angry.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

“I’m better now that you’re here,” he said, which was nice, but he was just saying that to deflect my attention.

Marie looked just as pissed off. “How about you, Starfish?”

“Peachy fucking keen,” she said, but gave me a nice hug anyway. With Ryan, it was a distant hug, all very masculine, and when that was over, I sat next to Travis, who was seated next to Grand. My father was on my other side.

“I took your place,” Travis said, and made to get up.

“I would prefer that you stay where you are,” Grand said. Travis all but beamed, he was so happy.

“I would as well,” I said to Travis, pretending that I didn’t want to be sitting that close to Grand, and that made Stef chuckle.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Claire said as she almost glided into the room. She was that smooth. Stef was sitting across from Travis, and Claire took the seat next to him, which was right across from me.

“You are just fine,” I said supportively.

“So tell us of your journey back from Athens,” Claire said, so while we ate Travis and I regaled them with our travelog. We’d started out and spent three days in Paris, where Grand had joined us.

“Going to Paris with you was an amazing experience,” Travis said to Grand. Grand had shown us all the various historical sights, and even got us a private tour of the Louvre in the evening.

“I enjoyed it as well,” Grand said in his stiff but friendly way.

“Then we went to London, to Westminster Abbey,” I said. We’d said goodbye to Grand in Paris and taken the train to the UK. The plane met up with us after it had dropped Grand off in Athens. “That’s our big romantic spot.”

“At a church?” Marie asked, acknowledging my hard-core atheism.

“Did you get married?” John piled on in a snarky way.

“It’s not legal there, but otherwise I might have,” I said. Travis gripped my hand under the table to tell me that he loved me. “We spent a couple of days surfing in Portugal. The waves were like they are at Jaws on a good day.”

“Seriously?” Dad asked in a way that said he was both intrigued and jealous.

“Seriously,” I confirmed.

“Next stop was Disney World,” Travis said. We’d met Wade, Matt, Tiffany, and the kids there and had an absolute blast. We did the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and Animal Kingdom, and the kids had a blast.

“Maddy and Riley really loved it,” I said. Bobby had been a little too young to fully appreciate it, plus the characters scared the shit out of him. He’d completely melted down when Tigger came over to see him. Matt had freaked out, worried that his son was being a pussy, which was so fucking stupid. I mean, Bobby was just shy of three feet tall, and Tigger is like eight feet tall, so that’s like asking Matt to act calmly when talking to a 17-foot person.

“I got a great pic of you with your Mickey Mouse ears on,” Travis said, giving me shit, which was my cue to move on to our next destination.

“After that we stopped in New York and we went to Ellen’s Diner, where Travis sang Kokomo so incredibly well, they wanted to hire him,” I said proudly.

John looked at Ryan, silently counted to three, then started singing.

Off the Florida Keys
There's a place called Kokomo
That's where you wanna go
To get away from it all
Bodies in the sand
Tropical drink melting in your hand
We'll be falling in love
To the rhythm of a steel drum band
Down in Kokomo…

Travis joined in after the second verse, and the three of them sang the entire song for us. It was amazing.

“That was very well sung,” Claire said, which prompted everyone to clap for them.

“Sure you don’t want to join our band?” John asked.

“I’m good,” Travis said, turning him down. “I’ve got auditions next week.”

“You do?” I asked curiously.

“I do,” he said. “I just found out.” He added that last line to keep me from being mad at him for not keeping me in the loop about his schedule.

“And what did you do after that?” Grand asked, sensing that Travis didn’t want to talk about his upcoming engagements.

“We went to Sandusky, Ohio,” I said.

“Why?” Ryan asked.

“To ride some of the most amazing roller coasters in the world,” Travis said excitedly. “That’s where Cedar Point is.” He went off on a long tangent about the various roller coasters there, and everyone humored him by listening.

“When we’re in Malibu, we should go back to Magic Mountain,” I suggested.

“That would be kick-ass,” Travis said excitedly. He was so cute.

September 5, 2004

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

Brad

When dinner was over, we’d all gone out onto the patio to smoke JP’s ritual joint with him.

“Here, try this,” Will said, and handed JP a spliff.

“And where did this come from?” he asked.

“I met with this sketch dude in his basement,” Will said sarcastically, getting an annoyed look from JP. “We got it in Amsterdam.”

“You did not tell us you went to Amsterdam,” Stef noted.

“If I did, I wouldn’t be able to surprise you with this awesome joint,” Will said to him.

“I guess that’s part of that whole thing where if you don’t want people to know about your secret, you don’t give them clues that you have one,” I taunted Stef.

“Whatever,” he said, in a much bitchier way than Will did. “Where are Travis and Ryan?

“Ryan decided to go back to his room and pout,” Marie said in annoyance.

“He didn’t think that your hooking up with Grant was a good idea?” Will asked, his question making John chuckle.

“He did not,” she said, and when she did, she sounded just like her mother.

“Dude, don’t mess him all up,” John said. “All he’ll want to sing are those plaintive love ballads.”

“You do those really well, so she’s probably doing you a favor,” Will commented, then switched topics. “Travis went back to work on your project,” he said to Jake.

“He didn’t have to do that now,” Jake said, and got up to go track Travis down.

“He wants to,” Will said, and zeroed in on Jake enough that he sat his ass back down. “He’s excited that you gave him a job to do, and he’s determined to do it well.”

“He wants our approval and acceptance,” I said, almost as if I were in a daze, as the reality of how Travis functioned became clearer in our minds.

“Let’s call it that,” Will said.

Everyone but Claire chuckled at that, causing me to focus my attention on my sister. “What’s wrong?” I asked her, making sure she could hear the love and sincerity in my tone.

“I had really hoped that our time in Athens was like a fresh start for Jack and me, almost as if it really were a honeymoon,” she said, and wiped away a tear. Marie put her arm around her mother in a loving way, which indicated what I’d said to Jack. Marie had been Jack’s biggest defender, but that non-verbal gesture made it clear that had changed.

“It did not?” Stef asked. The caring tone in his voice was so pure and sincere it was really touching.

She shook her head. “He told me that he was happy that we’d worked things out, and that we had modified our relationship to include other people.” She stopped to wipe another tear from her eye. “I told him that I couldn’t handle that.”

“What did he say?” John demanded, his eyes on fire with rage.

“He told me that he was the happiest he’d ever been,” she said. “He didn’t seem overly concerned that I was the most miserable I’d ever been.”

“Did he suggest you go to counseling?” Jake asked. He recoiled at the fierce look Claire gave him, then she modified her attitude.

“He did, but I just don’t see what good it would do,” she said. “He doesn’t want to be with just me, so the whole thing would be painful beyond belief.”

My mind went off on a tangent as I remembered how I’d felt when Robbie had first asked me to open up our relationship. “I know exactly how it was for me, and it was awful, only you have it worse.”

“Why do I have it worse?” Claire asked, as if we were in a competition.

“Because Robbie talked to me about it before he had his affair, and Jack didn’t talk to you until after it happened,” I said.

“She seems to be handling it a lot better than you did,” Will said to me. He was being truthful, but also giving me shit. I ignored the attitude.

“I remember how I felt,” I told Claire. “I felt totally rejected, but even more damaging than that was that I felt worthless.”

“How can you even think that?” Jake asked. God how I loved him.

“Because he needed someone else to make him happy. I wasn’t enough. And because that someone else was about fifteen years younger than me, it made me feel really old. And I gave myself a lot of internal crap for thinking that I was a completely shitty lover, so bad that I wasn’t enough to fulfill him,” I said. “And before you give me shit about that, about how we could work together to make me into a lover he would cherish, remember that nothing I did could fix the age problem. In the end, my love wasn’t enough.” They were all surprised at how bitter I was, while I was just enraged, reliving that nightmare.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Jake said to me lovingly, and with that, all of my anger evaporated. Instead of being mad at Robbie for driving me crazy with shit like this, I appreciated Jake for not doing that.

“That is exactly how I feel,” Claire said adamantly. “And I am not willing to be treated like that.”

“Maybe counseling would help you understand what is happening with him,” Will suggested.

“You don’t get it,” Claire snapped. “I don’t care what’s happening with him.”

“Do you still love him?” Will demanded. He could be so annoyingly probing at times like this. I felt my sister’s pain in having to deal with him.

We sat there for a minute waiting for an answer. “I still love him,” she said sadly.

“You see this as him trying to hurt you,” Will said. “Seems to me that he’s really asking you for help.”

“He’s asking her for help?” John asked, and now he was completely pissed off. “What the fuck?”

“He’s trying to find a way to be happy, and he clearly wants to be with you in some way,” Will said to Claire. “Who else is he going to turn to? Who else can he trust to help him with this?”

“When I fought this battle with Robbie, when I overcame the anger and really looked at him, he was like a lost little boy who was totally confused and completely out of his league,” I said, understanding Will’s point.

“I think you should try to help him,” Marie said to her mother, in almost a pleading way.

“I’ll think about it,” Claire said.