The Devil You Know: Chapter 20

When Clint opened the door to the mansion, he saw Renee Buchanan chatting with Madame Delphina.  Rolling his eyes, he asked politely, “This is who you stood us up for?”

Renee chuckled.  “I wanted to have a talk with Asa before the big day, so I arranged a session with her.”

“Yes, Mr. Buchanan and your father said ‘It’s about damn time.  Fool boy wasted too much of it already, gettin’ back with that filly of his,’” the psychic said.  As she made her way to the door, Cord and Blair stepped inside.  Madame Delphina looked at Blair then around the room, as if hearing voices.  “Yeah, that’s her.  You want to what?”  Her face softened and she looked back at Blair.  “She says, ‘Thank you for loving my precious boy.’  Also, something about telling Harry she loves him still and June third, nineteen seventy seven.”  With that, Delphina left.

Blair watched her go, giving off an odd look.  It was Renee who noticed.  “Blair?  Blair!”  When the younger woman turned back to her, she asked, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, I mean, I think she’s full of it,” Blair said.  Then she shook her head wondering if Delphina was talking about who Blair believed she was talking about.  “Sorry, she just got me distracted.”

As she entered the living room, Tea came through the door and followed her.  Clint looked up to see the ladies join them.  “Ah, we are almost all here,” he said.

Cord looked around the room.  “We’re missing someone?”  But his question went unanswered.

Blair went over to fix herself a drink.  “So, we’re here to swap war stories?  Who wants to start?”

Clint went to fix drinks for himself, Cord and Tea.  “Before we do that, I’d like to propose a toast for the man responsible for all of us being here tonight.  Because, if it wasn’t for him, I certainly never would have come to Llanview, which means you, Cord, wouldn’t have come looking for me here and the chances are neither of you two would have been here either.”

“What, one man is responsible for all that?” Tea asked, skeptical.

Blair smiled, having an idea who Clint was talking about.  Then he went on.  “Yes, one man.  He asked me to come take over as managing editor of The Banner because he was dying and leaving behind a young son and pregnant wife.  I think his intention all along was to set Viki and I up.”

“And it worked, eventually, right Pa?” Cord asked.

“Yes, it did,  Viki didn’t like me at first but we did fall in love.”  Clint raised his glass.  “To Joe Riley.”  Cord, Blair and Tea all clinked theirs, repeating his sentiment.

The doorbell rang and Clint smiled.  “That must be our last guest.  The first Lord in-law that’s still around.”

“Dr. Wolek, sir,” Nigel said as he showed the doctor in.

“Hi, Larry.  Welcome.”

“Thank you for the invitation, Clint,” Larry responded, taking a drink from the other man’s left hand while shaking the right.

“That’s right, I’d forgotten you were married to…what was her name?” Tea asked.

“Meredith,” Blair answered quickly.  “Viki’s full sister.”  A small smile formed on her face as she remembered Todd talking about the dream like state where he met his other sister. 

Larry nodded, a note of sadness on his face.

“And the only one of us who ever had to deal with the old man,” Clint went on to say.

At that, Larry smiled.  “And I can assure you, all of us would have been in the same boat with Victor that I was and that Joe was.”

“How so?” Tea asked.

“He wouldn’t have approved of any of you.  He didn’t like Joe or I involved with either of his daughters, being we were Irish and Polish.  Victor was strictly Main Line Philadelphia society-minded,” Larry explained.

“This from the model of fatherhood,” Blair snarked.  “I still can’t decided who was worse, Victor or Peter.”

“When everything came out, about what he did to Viki, Pa confided in me that it was a good thing he was already dead, because he would’ve gone after him wit his shotgun,” Clint confided. 

“I can only imagine,” Larry commented.  Then he turned to the rest of the group.  “Cord and Tea wouldn’t have been up to his standards because you’re Latino.  He would have hated that--”

“He was that prejudiced?” Tea shocked voice came out.

“Oh, he was even worse,” Larry began.  “I remember a dinner party once where someone mention Grace Kelly’s father.  Now, here was a wealthy man who’s daughter was married into one of the oldest royal families in Europe, and Victor had nothing but disgust for him.  Merrie so appalled by her father’s comments, she insisted we leave early.”

“Wow, never realized that about him,” Cord said, refilling his glass.

“And yet, look at the image he projected,” Blair mused.

“You, Blair, he would have pegged you for gold digging, social climber from the get-go,” Larry pointed out.

“Well, luckily, I have a thick skin.  Besides, that’s what his daughter thought of me originally,” she replied, a rueful smile on her lips. 

Cord returned it, adding, “Well, you did have a track record.”  Then he pointed to Clint.  “What would old Victor have thought of him?”

Larry thought for a minute.  “Actually, of all the people who have been involved with his kids, you’d have been one of the few he actually approved of.  The only mark I could find in his thinking is, you weren’t old money.”

“Okay, as fascinating as I find this talk about out father-in-law, I think its time we talk about his kids,” Blair said.  “More to the point, how alike they really are.”

“They are that,” Cord reasoned.  “And you and I are stuck with the two who are most alike, even more so than the ‘twins’.”

“”Oh, definitely!” Blair exclaimed.  “Coming back from the dead, baby switches, what else can I think of that Todd and Tina have both pulled?”

“How about every scheme ever imagined to get back together with us.  I still laugh at Tina’s idea for a Halloween costume last year…bride and groom, for Natalie’s engagement party,” Cord laughed. 

“Try getting me and my daughter on a plane for the Dominican Republic for a quickie divorce and quicker wedding,” Blair replied.

“Well, if we’re talking weddings, I was the one with the coffin entrance.  At least Victor was a little better at planning a wedding,” Tea said. 

“Oh, I never said he was bad at planning a wedding.  Hell, he planned all of ours,” Blair shot back defensively. 

“Expect the one in, Key West was it?” Clint asked.

“Yes, if I remember correctly, that was when you told him you were pregnant to get him to marry you,” Tea remarked snidely.

“For your information, I did have to convince him, he felt honor bound.  And as for the pregnancy, I may have jumped the gun a little,” Blair admitted, giving Tea a sidelong glance.  “At least I didn’t carry my briefcase down the aisle.”

“Okay, ladies, I can see where this may be heading, so why don’t we drop it,”
Clint advised.  “In the end, you both got the brother you wanted…and who wanted you.”

“That is true, Clint.  And as much as Victor was supposed to be like Todd, in the end he really wasn’t.  I still remember the look on his face when he found out what Victor did to Marty,” Blair said. 

They all grew silent for a minute.  Then, Blair asked, “When did you first meet Viki?”

Clint laughed at the memory and described the day at the carriage house with him and Joe getting drunk and returning to a perturb wife.  That led to asking the same question of Larry.  Blair told of the summer night in Rodi’s and Tea described her lunch with Viki and Kevin at the country club. 

After the got through with that round of reminiscing, Cord just shook his head.  “Why do we keep going back to them?  They all have issues, they’ve all pulled things that most normal people would have walked away from permanently.  And yet…”

“And yet, there is something about them.  The heart of it, I think, goes back to the father.  They are all wounded children,” Tea said.  “Viki of course, for what Victor did to her.  But also Todd, Victor and Tina.  None of them had what we would deem as stable households.  Tina was abandoned when she was a teenager.”

“And Irene screwed up both her sons real good,” Blair completed.  “At least for a time there, Todd thought he had a loving mother, one who didn’t want to give him up.  As much as I am thankful to have Todd back, I wish to God that Irene Manning had stayed dead.”

“At least Tina had Viki to care for her.  Who raised Victor?  We still haven’t answered that question.  And then there’s Todd’s adoptive father,” Cord said.

“And yet, between the five of us we have fifteen, soon to be sixteen marriages with them,” Tea responded.  She picked up the decanter and poured more into everyone’s glasses.  “I think we deserve a toast, to us.  For putting up with their antics and protecting them from the fallout.”

“For caring for and about them, especially when they can drive us crazy,” Cord said.

“For remembering them, even after all these years,” Larry added.

“For understanding them, faults and all,” Blair put in.

“For loving them, now and forever,” Clint finished as they all clinked their glasses one last time.


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