Double Trouble: Eleven; the Ongoing Saga of the Crane Daughters
by Cariad
 
 

Double Trouble
~Eleven~
“Get up off the floor, Ivy,” Julian hissed, still holding Rebecca.

“Why are you thinking of you ex-wife now?” Rebecca asked, adding a few sniffles for effect.

“Whatever your name is,” Julian said, waving his hand in Holly’s general direction, “Get up off the floor.” Holly would have been hurt at his disregard, had she not planned once again to evoke memories of her mother. She reluctantly stood, warily eyeing Rebecca. If I were Jules, she thought, I’d be in Father’s arms in an instant, demanding that Rebecca be removed from the house. However, she continued, there is something more going on. She was almost sure that Rebecca was blackmailing her father, but for what?

“Why were you attacking my daughter?” Julian demanded of Rebecca, holding her at arms length.

The redhead sniffed several times. “She was calling me names, and I was not attacking her, I was defending myself, Pookie!”

Holly snorted in contempt, but she said nothing. Let the bitch incriminate herself, she thought. Quietly, she moved into Julian’s study, letting the situation take care of itself. She caught Gwen’s eye and gave a silent shrug as Rebecca once again crawled all over Julian. In the silence of the study, Holly once again proceeded to Julian’s desk, searching for the medical bills. Not surprisingly, the documents in question had been moved. She opened a few drawers, absently noting a Halloween mask her father must have used for one of his kinky sex-games. She rifled through the files in the desk, quickly scanning for bills from the hospital. She grabbed a few useful pieces of information and brought them to the fax machine. Thank God for copier-faxes, she thought as the documents scanned and replicated. As she was putting the bills back in their allotted folders, Holly’s eyes landed upon Julian’s check register. Jackpot!

She gingerly opened the item in question. As fitting with his station in life, Julian Crane possessed an over-large formal checkbook, with three checks to the page and stubs on the inside. Holly flipped through the shorter pages of stubs until she came upon check number 90837, addressed to Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald, for the amount of one hundred thousand dollars. If only the check was cashed into some account, Holly thought, the original would be returned and kept for tax purposes. She snapped the book closed and brainstormed silently where her father would keep his returned checks.

“And what are we doing, Ivy, dearest,” Julian’s rich voice intoned from the doorway.

Holly straightened. “Father,” she said quietly, but with dignity. “I know you may have forgotten, but I am your eldest daughter, and you named me Holly.”

Julian strode over to his daughter. “You didn’t answer my question, daughter,” he said, stressing their relationship. “What are you doing in my desk? There are things little girls shouldn’t see. They would be dangerous to your well being,” he said, sounding much like Grandfather Crane.

Holly decided on the truthful direct approach. “All I saw were some accessories for your orgiastic proclivities,” she spat. Holly had never minced words when it came to her passions—and one of her driving passions was her disapproval of her father’s well-known infidelity.

Julian gave a superior look. He hated being dressed down by that little Ivy-clone. Julia never behaved so coldly to him. Of course, he thought with a smile. That’s what happens when one is named for him and the other as Ivy’s choice. He grabbed Holly’s copies from her hands and glanced through them. “I don’t suppose,” he told her, “that you were procuring these documents for your mother.”

Holly stiffened. “I was acting in the best interests of the Crane Family,” she said, holding her chin high. “And I will in the future, Father. I want this family to be as upstanding as the press in your pocket makes us out to be.”

Julian waved a dismissing hand at his daughter, the entire fiber of her being an echo of his ex-wife’s. With Julia, he could almost forget about Ivy, but not with Holly. Holly’s entire existence seemed to be a painful reminder of why he had both adored and despised Ivy Winthrop-Crane. Julian shredded the copies of Theresa’s medical bills.

“Tell your mother that she won’t blackmail her way into a larger divorce settlement,” he said, dropping the shreds into the garbage can.

Holly glared at her father, not daring to move to where the torn-up papers beckoned from the top of the trash pile.

As if the room could not be silent for more than a moment at a time, the phone rang. As a repeat of the day before, Julian answered the phone and then slid the receiver back into its cradle as the phone was placed on speaker.

“Holly Katherine,” said the familiar emotionless voice of Grandfather Crane. Holly was beginning to understand what her father went through as the acting head of Crane Industries—orders from the true patriarch on a daily basis. Couldn’t the old man just give up and die?

“Yes Grandfather?” she responded in a polite voice.

“It has come to my attention that Young Jonathan Hotchkiss has returned to the area for his annual Holiday visit with his family. He has expressed a desire to dine with you this evening,” Alistair Crane mused. “You will escort him for dinner this evening, and will be meeting him promptly at seven in the foyer of Crane Mansion. Do not delude yourself in thinking this is an optional engagement, understood?”

Holly took a deep breath to explain exactly what dinner with a self-centered male debutante would mean to her, but expelled her breath on better thought. “I understand, Grandfather,” she said, her voice a mask of society politeness. Jules is going to pay her debt early, she thought. There’s no chance in hell that I’ll give up another evening of stargazing to spend it with someone who believed the only star in the universe was himself! She breezed to the door. “And I understand now,” she said, projecting her voice to be heard through the speakerphone, “why one of the best-selling products of Crane Industries are toilet bowls,” she finished pleasantly and exited the room.
 

* * *

Julia glanced at her watch. After calming down Theresa, and leaving her in the useless hands of her friend Whitney, Julia had proceeded to Ethan’s law office. She had plenty of time before she went home to pick up her sister—time to rile Ethan up again. She checked her ‘furious’ expression in the vanity mirror, before she stormed out of the car and slammed the door. One never knew who was watching at any given moment. Slamming open and closed Ethan’s practice door, she fumed around the corner, both pleased and disappointed that Ethan was not seeing a client. “How could you!” she screamed, and almost lost her composure at Ethan’s dumfounded expression. “How could you accuse Theresa like that!” She marched over to Ethan’s desk. “Relationships are supposed to be about TRUST and HONESTY,” she vented. “How could you do that to your intended bride—to the mother of your child!” Julia was having too much fun watching Ethan’s confused expression—and too much fun setting the stage for Theresa’s eventual exposure.
“Calm down, Julie,” he said, extending a placating hand. At least she had ruffled him enough not to make the stupid not-telling-the-two-of-you-apart joke! “What are you talking about?”

“Calm down!” she shrieked. “I went over to visit my soon-to-be sister-in-law and she was in hysterics! It seems as though her fiancé did not TRUST her enough to believe about where she got money for a certain law practice! It seems as though the stupid idiot accused her of going to his former family for money—as if such a SWEET girl like Theresa would be mixed up with such a twisted family the one we’re all trying to escape!”

Ethan sat down with an audible plop, his head cradled in his hands. “I’ve been such a putz, haven I Julie?” he asked, and Julia turned her performance off. Women had the right to abrupt and unexpected mood swings.

“Yes, Ethan,” she agreed. “You have.”

“You don’t know the strain I’ve been under,” he said. Julia groaned inwardly. Just what she needed—another poor soul with too many problems, pouring his heart out to her. Theresa and Ethan were two of a kind. Maybe they deserved each other. “Mother made me promise,” he continued without waiting for a response from Julia, “that if Theresa turned out to be hiding more things from me, that I would completely remove her from my life. But how can I do that when she’s carrying my child? And Holly comes in here talking about medical bills that Julian is paying, and Mother insists that Theresa is still hiding things from me, I wanted to hear it from Theresa’s mouth that it was not true.”

“And was it true?” Julia asked pointedly.

“Theresa thinks that it’s just rumors from people who don’t want to see us together—from people who don’t want to see us succeed.”

Of course she said that, Julia thought. The girl wouldn’t know the truth if it bit her big toe! She’s got you eating out of the palm of her hand, Ethan. It’s time we switched your feeders. “You have to look at the source, Ethan,” Julia said. “Theresa hurt Mother very much. Mother had this whole plan of revenge on the Cranes and Grandfather Winthrop. And Mother thinks Theresa ruined it.” Mother is right, Julia thought. Theresa waltzed in and used whatever for the sole purpose of sinking you, Ethan. It didn’t matter who she hurt in going after her prize. Like a cracker jax box, she thought, liking the analogy. She just wanted the prize inside, and didn’t care how much she spilled on the floor. Julia quickly smothered a contented grin. “Mother is going to worry that Theresa is going to do the same to your life,” Julia continued with her explanation. “As Holly always says, ‘she’s a mother, that’s her job.’”

“I shouldn’t doubt Theresa?” Ethan asked.

Julia sat on Ethan’s desk. “She learned her lesson, Ethan,” Julia said. “Now if she is lying again,” she continued, “then she’s fooling the both of us, and I’ll be just as angry as you. People learn from their mistakes,” she soothed. “What was that saying that they told us in school all the time? ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me?’ No.” Julia made a show of thinking. “Oh!” she finally exclaimed. “‘Someone who doesn’t learn from their mistakes is condemned to repeat them forever.’ Only it’s usually some overly upset teacher yelling it at the class. I’m sure Theresa has learned. There’s no one like her in the world!”

Julia decided that she’d had enough of Ethan, and with a cheery wave, departed his office. She glanced at her watch. Time to go back home and pick up Holly. The Crane Mansion was abuzz with the morning’s controversy and Gwen’s excitement at the return of her brother. However, she had no time to absorb the news when her sister shot out of the study and to the door.

“Can’t explain now,” Holly said. “And not here.” Before Julia could even think of taking off her winter coat, she was turned around and back in the cold winter air.

“Jules, I need your help,” Holly said in a rush. “I need you to be me tonight.”

Julia stopped dead in her tracks. “I am NOT going to be freezing in the cold looking at stars with Nerdly-boy,” she insisted.

“No,” Holly explained. “I’m going to be me for that. You have to be me and go out to dinner with your precious Johnny Hotchkiss,” she whispered. “Grandfather’s orders to me today.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” Julia grinned. “It’s a win-win situation!”

“I thought you’d agree with me, Jules,” she said, tugging at her sister’s sleeve. “But you have to help me some more,” she added. “You’ve got to tell me how you always sneaked in and out!”

Julia laughed out loud and put her arm around Holly’s shoulders. “My big sister, sneaking out for the first time!” she said, wiping a mock tear from beneath her eye. “Careful, Hollis, you might turn into a bad girl!”

Holly gave her sister a playful push into the snow, then darted off towards the car. Julia pulled herself up a moment later and took off after her sister, not letting her wet bottom get in the way of her excitement. She was going out on a date with Johnny Hotchkiss!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~