by Cynthia Dane
Cassandra seriously hopes he isn’t.
“Could I speak with you private, James?”
The whole table is dead silent.
The whole ballroom is dead silent.
James throat is dry. But why? He would be the first to testify that he has never been intimate with Cassandra. He is one of the few men in the room who had nothing to fear when he walked in. In fact, wasn’t he one of the ones enjoying the show erupting around them? What could Cassandra possibly have to say to him in private?
Exactly what everyone is thinking.
Scene 12
The Mitchell-Meranges
Gwen has dealt with a lot of bullshit during her seven year relationship with the richest prankster in the region. Usually she comes around to finding said bullshit funny, charming, or at least a fun memory to share at parties.
This is definitely, most certainly, absolutely not one of those times.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she hisses at James, now in the privacy of a sitting room in the back of the venue. “You’re a father?”
“I swear to God, Gwenny…”
“Don’t call me that. I’m too pissed off to let you call me that.”
Gwen stalks around the small room like an enraged tiger trapped in a cage. The walls are closing in on her. Because it would be one thing if James had become a father before they met.
But by every bit of math she does, one thing is for sure: she was in a relationship with this man when this child was supposedly conceived.
What a fucking Christmas.
“Obviously there will be a paternity test.” When James decides to be serious, he can be as formidable as his contemporaries. Gwen used to love that he wasn’t as serious as those men. He took his privilege and turned it into hilarity. The only son of his family’s hefty fortune, James has spent his whole life trying to find more meaning than money and work.
Apparently, an affair was one of those things.
“I never had sex with her. I can’t believe you’d even consider that.”
“How the fuck do I not consider it when she’s saying you fathered her child that nobody even knew about?” Gwen certainly hadn’t known. As for James? He had an inkling from the moment Cassandra left in the dead of night. After all, alongside Seth Christens, he was her closest male friend. James was as betrayed as Gwen right now.
And humiliated.
Good God were they humiliated.
Nobody bothered to hide their gossip the moment the three retreated into a private room. Even the table from whence they ran was murmuring over the scandal. James! Cheating on Gwen! With Cassandra! Fathering an illicit child! Gwen burning in humiliation. James? Same.
Because, dear reader, before you think the worst of James Merange, know this: he did not, in fact, ever sleep with Cassandra.
But at the same time? Cassandra has not lied. From the moment her son was born, she saw the face one of her former friends. Your humble narrator can confirm that Mr. Merange is the biological father of Patrick Welsh. A secret that, until now, was going to be taken to the grave by both Madam and Mr. Welsh, the pair that had conspired to make this happen.
You don’t need me to explain this right now, because poor Gwen could really use someone who is just as confused as she is.
And Cassandra can explain everything perfectly fine on her own.
She has been standing next to the doorway while watching this established couple go down in heretical flames. They may not have married after several years together, but they are – were – in love, content to keep things as they are until life decides otherwise. Wasn’t this life making that decision now? Was it punishing James for never formally asking Gwen to marry him? Punishing Gwen for never putting out hints that she wanted marriage? Punishing them both for continuing to live a life of sin and frivolity? What had they done to deserve this breech in love and trust?
Sometimes life can’t explain how it’s gone the way it has. No answers exist. Not the kind Gwen is searching for, and definitely not the kind that can assure James that this is some terrible mistake. All they know is that someone has most definitely been betrayed.
“I can explain,” Cassandra says. “You won’t like my explanation, but I can at least explain what has happened.”
“I don’t want to hear your fucking explanations.” Gwen attempts to leave. The only reason James blocks her is because he knows he is innocent, and he must believe that Gwen will come to know it as well.
“Please,” he says. “We better hear what she has to say. I know I’m curious to find out how I fathered this child when you’re the only woman I’ve been with for seven damn years.”
Gwen struggles against him, although her tears cloud her ability to put her athlete’s strength to proper use. One would never guess that Gwen Mitchell spends many of her days playing tennis and lifting weights with training buddies. How many times has she playfully pushed James with too much force? Now she can’t even shove him out of the way so she can escape from this hell.
“James and I have never done that.” Cassandra motions to the loveseat in a futile bid to get the couple to sit down. James places his hands on Gwen’s shoulders and escorts her to the chair. Not that he wants to sit next to Cassandra on the loveseat, but it’s probably for the best that Gwen sits by herself. “I can assure you that he has never betrayed your trust, or at least not to my knowledge.”
Is that supposed to make Gwen feel better? Is she supposed to automatically believe Cassandra because she said that? She would be a fool! “Go ahead, then. Explain to me how my partner has a child without touching another woman.”
“Yes, Cassie, it’s about time you tell me what’s going on.” James goes to stand up again, but Cassandra’s face flashes in mild surprise. No, no, she’s too flighty to spring sudden movements on. “If you think this is a joke, then it’s not funny at all.”
“I’m not joking.” Cassandra has foreseen this reaction, but seeing it happen before her almost frightens the once unshakable parts of her heart. She wishes to be back home in Seattle, lying in the warmth of her bedroom with her son near her heart. But even though she has given birth to the boy and claims the responsibility of loving and caring for him, she remains firm to the truth that it would be wrong to keep his existence from James. “I have an infant son who was biologically fathered by you, James. I thought you had a right to know. If it were up to my family, you would never known that Patrick is yours.”
“You’re telling me I have a son named Patrick?” James shakes his head.
“His name is Patrick James.”
“Oh, of course it is.” Gwen can’t contain the laugh bubbling from within. “Next you’ll tell me it was immaculately conceived just in time for Christmas!”
“No. That would be silly.”
“Just tell us the truth, Cassie.”
She hurts to hear her old friend use that tone of voice with her. This was the man she once trusted more than any other. One of the first boys she crushed on, even before she found out that her mother and his father had a forbidden affair. Yet Cassandra had spent too much time waiting for James to make the first move. Had she made the mistake of attaching the title of “friend” to her name? Was it impossible for James to see her as anything more than the girl he grew up with? They came from the same world yet lived different lives. Even so, James was so easy-going that he would speak with Cassandra no matter how much time had passed. As he grew older, handsomer, and bolder with his personality, Cassandra became more insecure when he still showed no signs of wanting her.
When it became apparent that he and Gwen were a long-term thing, possibly marriage, Cassandra entered her many years of unhealthily searching for any man (or woman) who was good enough to have her. She even started with Ian, one of James’s best friends.
None of them had been enough to make her feel better.
“Think back a long time ago, James. Remember when you were going off the college and your father told you of your family’s pro
tocol?”
Realization, as bitter and cold as it is sweet, dawns on him. “No fucking way. You didn’t.”
“I did. I’m not proud of it, but I did it, and now it can’t be undone.”
“What are you two talking about?” Gwen is so far beyond having had enough of this bullshit. When is she going to get some real answers, damnit!
James faces his girlfriend. “I’ve told you about the material I have on ice, right?”
Her jaw drops. “Yes, but you did that a long time ago!”
“I did. When I graduated high school and was old enoug. My father made it exceptionally clear that I was to do so, should anything happen to me before I could have children. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Still…” James glares at the woman he once considered a friend. “That doesn’t explain how the hell you got a hold of it. Only my family has access to it, and I am supposed to have final say.”
“I know. Trust me, I was shocked to find out that eighteen year old you was such an idiot that you signed a release saying my family could access it as well.”
“What!” James turns to his girlfriend, who still has a look of complete disbelief on her face. “I did no such thing. I would have known if I had signed off on some other fam…” He stops. James knows as well as anyone else that he was not reading through the forms he signed. But why would the Welshes be included in those who had access to his genetic material?
“You know our parents are screwed up, James. It was my mother who put the idea in my head. She… she really wanted us to get together when we were younger.” Cassandra will not bring up her own feelings. She has not lied about her mother’s involvement, anyway. That woman has often dreamed of her daughter and James Merange being the biggest “it” couple in town, and achieving the one thing she wasn’t able to. How often had Sarah Welsh and Albert Merange discussed the possibility of those family genetics coming together one day? Such old and established families were not above nefarious tactics to make their matchmaking dreams come true. If anything had happened to James? Discussions were in place to posthumously marry Cassandra to him (perhaps not legal, but as long as the spiritual precautions were in place, then their faces would be saved and people would smile and nod at the prospect of Cassandra Merange being a respectable widow with babies born long after her ghost of a husband died.) All it took was Madam Sarah Welsh muttering that Cassandra should take a trip to the fertility clinic to sent her volatile daughter on another wild ride. “Although I will say she was shocked when she found out I had done it. Insisted I leave town, which had been an idea of mine anyway. I was going to tell you. I swear I was, James, but I was afraid. During one of my lowest moments, I decided to transgress your trust and go behind your back. Your father knew about it. My mother didn’t, until after it was already done.”
“My father knew? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“So, yes, I have had your child. I shouldn’t have. I should have asked your permission before doing such a terrible thing. But your son is here and alive, James. I’m sorry.”
James has no idea how to process this harrowing news. If it’s true (and he will still demand a paternity test) then he has to own up to the sudden fact that he is a father.
And Gwen… who is more shocked than her!
“You went behind my partner’s back, stole his sperm, and had a fucking baby?” Gwen stands, eyes locked on Cassandra’s pretentious countenance. “You think you can come and humiliate us in public and… for what? You want his money? You want to destroy his relationship with me?”
“Absolutely not! That is not my intention. Please.” Cassandra turns to James. “You must believe me. I was not in the right frame of mind when I went along with that suggestion. But I am now. I told you because you have a right to know that you have a son with me. And… I don’t need or want your money. But if you want to be a part of his life, I will not stand in your way. He should have his father around.”
“Cassandra.” James’s voice drowns in the betrayal, the shock, and the decisions he now has to make when his own mind is clouded. “You have done something I will never be able to forgive. Any respect I had for you is…” He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t have to, for Cassandra knows damn well what he means. “Don’t just apologize to me. Apologize to Gwen for foisting this on her as well. And for making her doubt me for even a second!”
The two women meet eyes for the first time in many minutes. Cassandra wishes to express the remorse she feels for what she has done, but she struggles to feel too sorry for Gwen who, at the end of this long and trying day, will still have the option of going home with James and sharing his bed with him. Gwen knows nothing about Cassandra other than what she has heard from her boyfriend and the other rich people in their circles. Until tonight, she has not had a real opinion of her.
Until tonight.
From now on, Gwen will only see a lying, scheming, sack of shit who has tried to destroy James’s life. And for what? Oh, no, Gwen can see it. She doesn’t want to see it, but how can she ignore that look of desperation in Cassandra’s Bambi-like irises?
“If I don’t have this, then I have nothing from him!”
What. A. Bitch.
“James.” Gwen doesn’t take her eyes off this woman who has swept in like an emotional hurricane and threatened to destroy whatever happiness may have existed between these two. “I know you haven’t done anything wrong, but I am still so… so pissed. I can’t deal with this right now. I’m going home. Don’t come home until you’ve settled this.” She takes what pride she has left, calls their driver, and has him meet her out back where nobody will be able to see and pity her. Already her phone is blowing up with messages from women she calls her friends. She won’t return any of their messages tonight.
The silence between Cassandra and the father of her child is almost too much to bear even for this narrator.
“Do you want to see him?” Cassandra’s fingers tangle together. This manifestation of her fear will continue for the next half hour. “I brought him with me.”
James slams his face against his palms. He doesn’t know who he is angrier with: this woman or his father. Either way, James Merange is now the proud father of a bouncing baby boy, and that is going to change his new year in ways the resident prankster will never be able to get over.
His main concern is, of course, Gwen. But first he must meet this son of his and then call his public relations counselor. Immediately.
(Merry Christmas, James.)
Scene 13
The Taylor-Feldmans
The Christmas party is as good as gone by the time Gwen and James disappear with Cassandra into another room. That isn’t to say the party is boring. In fact, the party is so not-boring that the Welshes have to intervene by attempting to distract the guests from scandal.
But no matter how much Sarah Welsh talks up the decorations or suggests couples get up to dance to the live orchestra, she is brushed off so her magnanimous guests can spend the next hour blabbering about James Merange cheating on Gwen – with Cassandra Welsh!
“I can’t believe it.” Kathryn is slumped over in her chair, her boyfriend just as flabbergasted as she is and best friend sneering in contempt. “I never pegged James as the cheating type. He and Gwen seemed so in love.”
“I know.” Ian brushes his girlfriend’s bangs away from her eyes in an attempt to tell her I would never do that to you! Ian is perhaps the most betrayed person in the room. Not once has James ever insinuated that he is in a relationship with another woman. In fact, every time he and Ian talk about women, it usually descends into a one-upmanship of who loves his girlfriend more.
“True love is dead.” Eva won’t let the others know, but she’s as put-out by this supposed betrayal as everyone else. While she and Gwen have never been BFFs, they do spend a lot of time together thanks to their affable personalities. “Good thing they never got married, I guess. I can’t imagine Gwen staying with him after this.”
Ian’s phone buzzes i
n his pocket. Sure enough, it’s James. “I need to talk to you man. This shit is fucking insane. You’ve gotta hear me out. Meet me in the back though, ‘cause I ain’t showing my face out there.” He’s tempted to turn his phone off and let James stew in his comeuppance, but a quick look from Kathryn prompts him to reply with, “All right. Tell me where you are. Otherwise it’s a rendezvous in the men’s room, and that’s awkward.”
Two minutes later, he’s up and en route to where James is waiting.
This movement of Ian Mathers does not go unnoticed by the other guests. Many of them don’t have the personal connection to James that Ian does. Not even Zachary Feldman, the guy who was once hazed by the both of them in college.
“This is the best party ever.” He downs champagne while catching glimpses from his family a few tables over. The other Feldmans are whispering to one another about the grand transgression, but they’ll be over it by Christmas dinner. Too bad. Zack would love to have something to talk to them about for once. “Too bad it’s going to implode on itself now that everyone knows who the daddy is. Oh, look, there’s the first casualty.” The Monroes are shuffling out of the venue as if the Andrews have just said, “No, but really, how about swapping partners, eh? Ken’s always wanted to fuck a woman in her second trimester.” Not that the Andrews are looking much more amused. Zack figures Lana will last five more minutes before she starts harassing people for gossip.
One by one couples and whole families leave the event early. Even the table full of old and new friends is getting up and leaving together. The Coles and Warrens lead the way while their west coast friends follow. Zack makes a note to send his hearty congratulations to Henry Warren for not being the father.
“I’m sure that bothers the shit out of you,” Seth says beside his friend.
“Not as much as the knowledge you’re having a threesome tonight and I’m not.”