by J. P. Bowie
“I’ll try,” Anthony replied, curling his fingers around Justin’s. “Crazy as it may sound, I sometimes feel I’d like to lock her in a room with your mom and Peter’s. Maybe they’d manage to talk some sense into her. Maybe if she saw just how loving they are, she’d know what she’s been missing all these years.”
“Yes,” Justin sighed. “There’s the problem, in just what you said. She’s never been able to love her children the way she should, has she? Yes, she loved you in her way, but what about Emily and Paula? All those years of allowing that horror to happen…those are not the actions of a loving mother.” He stopped abruptly as he saw the look of anguish on Anthony’s face. “Jeez, I’m sorry. I’m not helping here, am I?”
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Anthony shook his head. “I know it’s hard for you and practically everyone else to understand why she did what she did. I’ve blamed my father for that for years, but recently I’ve come to realize that I’ve been fooling myself believing it was all his fault. He was a monster, yes…but she had free will…she could’ve taken us away from that hell if she’d really wanted to. That’s what I’m trying to deal with now—the fact that she just didn’t care enough.”
“Anthony, please don’t torture yourself with this.” He stood and pulled Anthony into a protective embrace. “Do you know how much I love you—and how much I hate to see you so unhappy? Please, just for tonight at least, try to put this aside…”
Anthony sighed against Justin’s chest and held him close. “Knowing you love me is the greatest feeling in the world…I want us to go on loving each other forever. I don’t want this to ever end.” He looked at Justin as if for further assurance. “Tell me that what is going on won’t make you change your mind about us.”
Justin tightened his arms around him. “Now you’re being silly.” He kissed him tenderly. “I think you need to come upstairs with me and let me show you, in every way I can, just how crazy I am about you.”
Anthony returned his kiss, then murmured against his lips; “I think I’d like that.”
c h a p t e r 1 2
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The Reverend Jack Fellows was worried—worried that he had gotten himself into a very tricky situation with the Hastings woman. Nor was he certain that he could extricate himself from it without causing his already shaky reputation severe damage. He had cursed himself several times already for being so quick to take the madwoman’s money. He should have thought this through more carefully.
At first, he’d thought she was just another ultra-conservative woman without a sense of humor—a bit on the nutty side but one he could easily handle with his usual charm and dexterity. Now, he realized that the woman was in fact, insane, and liable to lead him into trouble with the police if he continued to do her bidding. He knew he had to tell her he could no longer be associated with her harebrained schemes. He also knew that she was not going to take it well—not well at all—but this latest episode still had him sweating at the mere thought of it. Hiring some out of work actor to intone words of warning onto a tape and then playing it over the phone. My God, if he were ever linked to it, he would be ruined.
No, he must disassociate himself from her immediately! He only had a little time before she’d be knocking at his door again with yet another list of people for him to contact and conscript to her ‘holy cause’. He groaned and put his head in his hands. If she ever found out he had not once contacted any of those people she’d referred to him…But he could not! He knew what their answer would be, and his credibility—what little he had left—would be out the window forever.
“What’s botherin’ you now?” The slurred voice caused him to jerk his head up and glare with dislike at his wife who stood, hands on hips, leering down at
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him through blood-shot eyes. “Somebody shove a plank up your ass?” She cackled at what she regarded as high wit. “You look like hell, hubby-mine.
Must be that Hastings broad is on her way over. Why the hell don’t you just tell her to fuck off?”
“Shut up, Christina,” Fellows growled. He was in no mood for his wife’s mockery. “She’ll be here any minute. I don’t want you anywhere she can see you in this state—got that?”
Christina cackled again. “Oh my, my, my. She’s really got you by the balls hasn’t she? Not that she’d know what to do with ’em. Ha, ha!”
“Christina, for the love of God, go to your room and stay there till she’s gone…”
“Naw, I think I’ll give the old gal a little treat when she gets here. She and I have never really had a good heart-to-heart, y’know? Do her the world of good to have someone like me listen to her ‘stead of you offering her all that bullshit.
Time she found out the truth ’bout what you’re doin’ with her money…”
“Don’t you dare,” Fellows roared.
Christina shrieked with laughter at the sight of her furious husband, his flabby jowls shaking with wrath, his face a mottled red. “You should just see yourself!” she screamed, doubled over with laughter. “Oh my Gawd, what a hoot you are.”
“Get out of here…you…you… harridan.” Fellows was practically foaming at the mouth as he screamed at his wife, who enraged him even more by flipping him off before she wobbled from the room, still laughing. Fellows glared at her retreating back, a murderous expression on his face. He had to get rid of her—he just had to.
The chiming of the front door bell brought him back to his senses with a jolt. “Christ help me,” he muttered. “She’s here…”
“I’ll get it!”
He blanched as he heard his wife call out. No! She must not. He lumbered from the room trying to head her off, but he was a microsecond too late.
Christina flung the door open with a drunken flourish and opened her arms expansively.
“Patricia—how great to see you,” she crowed. “Jack and I were just talking about you. Come on in, sweetheart.” She led the startled woman into the hall and smiled brightly at her husband. “Jack, why don’t you take Patricia into the den? Would you like a drinkie, dear? Scotch, Vodka…?”
Patricia’s face stiffened with shock. “I don’t drink,” she snapped. “And I would have thought that in this house, those excesses would not be tolerated.”
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Christina guffawed loudly. “Are you kiddin’? If you lived with this asshole you’d be as big a lush as I am. Ha, ha, ha…”
Patricia turned her shocked expression on Fellows. “Reverend Fellows, I really must…” She stammered to a halt as she saw the look of pure hatred on Fellow’s face.
With an effort that Fellows himself did not know he was capable of, he pulled himself together long enough to say in an almost controlled tone;
“Christina, please go to your room and lie down for a while. You are not yourself.” He turned to Patricia, the oily charm oozing to the surface. “Forgive my wife, dear Mrs. Hastings, she has not been herself of late, I’m afraid. The doctors are quite worried about her…”
“Shut the fuck up!” Christina sneered at her husband. Then, to Patricia’s horror, she reached out and slapped him hard across the face. Patricia staggered back, unable to believe the scene in front of her. Christina fixed her with a malevolent leer. “You poor deluded bitch…You think this moron’s a man of God don’t you? Well, let me tell you somethin’. He’s a thief and a liar is what he is. He’s bilking you like he’s bilked dozens more like you—stupid bitches with more money than sense.”
“Christina, I’m warning you…” Fellows grabbed his wife by the arm to silence her. She swung at him again, but this time he blocked the slap and twisted his wife’s arm behind her back.
“Reverend Fellows, enough of this.” Patricia stared at the couple, appalled.
“You are obviously not the man I thought you were—and as for this…this creature, you call your wife—I just can’t believe any of it. It’s t
oo grotesque.”
Turning on her heel, she rushed toward the door.
“Mrs. Hastings,” Fellows panted, trying to block the exit. “I beg you, please do not leave in such haste—I can explain everything.”
“No explanation you could give me about what I have just witnessed—and I may add, have long suspected—could deter me from leaving this house of horrors. Stand aside, Mr. Fellows—I no longer require your services. Good-day.”
She pushed past him, wrenched the door open and stumbled outside. Ignoring Fellows’ entreaties that she stay, Patricia hurried to her car and drove away. Fellows stood in the doorway watching the Mercedes burn rubber down his driveway, then with murder in his heart, he turned to face his wife.
Christina returned his look of fury with a satisfied smirk. “Told ya I’d get rid of her, didn’t I?”
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Patricia was still in a state of shock as she entered her home in Newport Beach. How could that man bear to be around that horrendous drunken Jezebel? She had pondered this for the umpteenth time since she’d driven away from the Fellows’ house. How could a so-called man of the cloth ignore what was going on under his very nose? And to try to pretend the woman was not well…did he take me for an idiot? The only thing wrong with that woman was a lack of abstinence! What a disgusting person—and such vile language.
Nancy, her housekeeper, came into the living room at that moment. “D’you need anything, Mrs. Hastings?” she enquired.
“Just some hot tea, please.”
“You look a bit shaken.” Nancy peered at her. “Is everything all right?”
“No it is not.” Patricia felt very close to tears at that moment, but she was not about to discuss what had just happened with the help. It would be all over the neighborhood before the day was out. Patricia had never been the type of woman who could confide easily with others—not even with her sister—and in this particular situation the fewer people who knew about it, the better.
Nancy was now frowning at her.
“Just the tea please, Nancy.” She turned away and walked to the windows to look out onto the lush gardens that surrounded her home. She sighed with relief as she heard the housekeeper leave, heading for the kitchen. Nancy had only been with her for six months and already the woman was getting on her nerves. Patricia had never been able to keep household staff very long. When her husband was alive and the children all at home, she’d had a live-in housekeeper, a cook, a gardener and various handymen around the place. Over the years, the turnover in staff had been prodigious and the rehiring time consuming. But now that she was alone in this big house, she’d shut up several of the rooms and made do with Nancy who arrived at nine and left at five. She’d kept on the gardener, although she liked to tend some of the flowering shrubs and bushes herself. It gave her something to do—helped ease the loneliness…
She glanced at the answering machine and sighed as she saw the message light blinking. “Anthony,” she murmured, pressing the play button. Her son called her every single day. It still pained her to listen to his voice, especially when he would sign off with, “I love you, Mom—please return my call.” She had not returned any of his calls—ever. Often she had wanted to, but she knew the conversation would go badly. As long as Anthony lived with Justin and J.P. Bowie
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indulged in that sinful choice of lifestyle there would be no reconciliation between mother and son. True, she felt the estrangement from her son more sharply than that from her daughters—they were after all, the cause of her unhappiness. Poor Anthony had been seduced by the evil charm of a man who had pulled him into a life of licentiousness and depravity. She would still forgive him, if he would only renounce his sinful ways and come home to her.
“You have two new messages,” the electronic voice intoned. Sure enough the first message was from Anthony and as she listened to his young and earnest voice, Patricia felt a pang of sadness that what had happened could not somehow be resolved. She looked up as she suddenly realized Nancy was standing watching her, a tea tray in her hands. From the look on her face she had obviously overheard Anthony’s message. Patricia turned off the machine. “Just put it here, thank you.”
Nancy put the tray down on the side-table with a clatter and Patricia glanced at her, annoyed by her carelessness. “Take better care, please—that is very expensive china.”
“It’s a pity you care more about your damned china than you do your own kids.”
“I beg your pardon?” Patricia glared at the housekeeper who was staring at her with a defiant expression.
“You heard me. What kind of a mother turns her back on her kids when they need her love and support? I watched that Olivia Winters show and listened to your son say he still loves you, despite the fact that you threw him and his sister out of their home…”
“This is none of your business…”
“You’re right. But I just wanted to let you know, before I quit, what I think of you. You’re a heartless, cold, unfeeling old cow…”
“How dare you.” Patricia sprang to her feet. “Get out of my house immediately!”
“It’ll be a pleasure, Mrs. Hastings, I can assure you.” Nancy turned to go, then paused for a moment. “You know you should try and get some help. Mental help I mean. There must be something very wrong with a mother who can’t love her own kids. That boy of yours—so personable and well spoken…So he’s gay—so what? He loves you—heaven knows why.”
“I said, get out of here!” Patricia screamed.
“I’m going, don’t worry,” Nancy said. “You’d better find another employ-ment agency, by the way. I’m going to spread the word about what a heartless J.P. Bowie
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bitch you are. No one’s going to want to work for you when I’m finished, believe me.” With that, she turned and left the room.
For a long moment Patricia stood stock still, almost unable to breathe.
What on earth is happening all around me? she thought. Has everyone gone completely mad? Her orderly and tractable way of life was suddenly being turned upside down. People’s ignorance and vileness were being thrown into her face no matter which way she turned. She sat down and tried to lift her cup of tea to her lips, but her hand was trembling too much. I am surrounded by treachery, she told herself. Was there no one out there who could understand she was only obeying God’s commands? Why did everyone take sides against her when all she was doing was taking a stand against sinners? Why was she being vilified, rather than being praised for trying to do God’s work and uphold the standards of decency and morality?
As she sank back into the soft cushions of her chair she heard the front door slam, signaling Nancy’s departure. The silence that then filled the house seemed heavy and oppressive. Patricia shuddered as an unexpected feeling of loneliness and depression swept over her. Perhaps she should return Anthony’s call…She glanced at the phone and noticed that the message light was still flashing. Of course, she thought, there had been two messages. She pressed the play button and listened to an unfamiliar voice:
“Hi, Mrs. Hastings—my name is Brenda Shapiro and I represent Olivia Winters, the host of the Olivia Winters’ Hour. I don’t know if you are familiar with the television talk show, but recently your estranged son and daughter were guests of Miss Winters…”
Patricia’s eyes bulged and she gasped with anger as she listened to the message.
“…Anyway, Miss Winters feels that there are always two sides to a story, and wanted to give you a chance to repudiate the charges made against you by your kids. If you are interested in being interviewed by Miss Winters, please contact me at the number I shall leave at the end of this message. I will arrange a meeting with you so we can go over the content of the interview and determine whether it is suitable for airing. Please understand, this would be a completely unbiased and fair-minded discussion and, of course, would only be aired with your complete approval and cooperation. If you have any questions p
lease call me at…”
Patricia pressed the stop button and lurched angrily to her feet. Was there to be no end to this? Was she always to be surrounded by fools and charlatans ready to bring her down? Did those dreadful television people think for one J.P. Bowie
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moment that she would entertain such foolishness—to go before thousands of people and bare her soul for their enjoyment?
And yet, what if she could actually reach them with her message of moral values and integrity? What if they could be made to see the crassness and superficiality of mainstream television entertainment? She could beat Olivia Winters at her own game—she could turn the tide of popular opinion and destroy the woman’s position as a credible and unbiased interviewer. She would make everyone see just what a dangerous person Olivia Winters really is—someone who worshipped at the altar of false gods and prophets and toad-ied to left-wing extremists.
Yes! She could do all of that by simply accepting the challenge of facing Olivia Winters and sending out her message of truth and righteousness. With a determined step she returned to the answering machine and pressed ‘replay’.
“Tell me again how I let you talk me into this.” Jeff was leaning against the marble wall by the elevator that was about to take him and Peter up to Olivia’s penthouse apartment. He fixed his partner with a not altogether friendly look as Peter shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
“I whined a lot,” he said, “and you finally said; ‘Okay, okay, I give in. Stop whining.’ That’s how it happened.”
Jeff shook his head, the corner of his wide mouth lifted in the beginning of a smile. “You just say ‘Jump’ and expect me to say ‘How high’—right?”
“I promise I’ll make this up to you,” Peter said, looking contrite. “She just pushed so hard about taking us out for dinner and I ran out of excuses. Even my creativity was running low in the end.”