Chapter 17: Recovery. Crystal Back Home

I thought the press conference at Nashville Airport that Crystal, Terry, and I were conducting had gone pretty well, at least until a young brunette woman I didn’t recognize waved her hand near the middle of the pack of reporters. Terry called on her, “Edith, what’s your question?”

The pretty woman stood and turned to me, almost with a bow. She spoke slowly, commanding by her quiet voice others in the room to be silent. Her voice was not confrontational and spoke only out of curiosity in a polite way, “Mr. Mellon ... err, this is delicate ... I don’t know how to put this ... but, well, do you have a child ... by a woman who lives in Greenville, Ohio?”

I practically choked out loud. I did indeed have a child in Greenville, Ohio. Crystal knew too, but other than the baby’s ‘parents’ no one else should have figured out the lineage of that child. Crystal squeezed my hand to show her support, and continued to hold on to me; she instinctively knew that I needed her support on this one.

A long silence ensued, broken only by the fusillade of camera shutters that captured the moment and my apparently shocked expression.

I thought of my dear friend George and his beautiful and loving wife Summer in Ohio – the wife he had me impregnate with my seed because he’d had an injury on a Special Forces mission we were on that rendered him infertile. He wanted me, his best friend, to do that for him. Summer wanted it too, and she and I fell in love in the time we spent together, joining, and baby making. I thought how they lived such simple, serene, and quiet lives in that small town, and somehow, depending on what I said in the next minute their entire life could come completely unraveled.

I also thought about what a lousy liar I am. I would never make it as an unfaithful husband, because everything about me is written on my face. Moreover, I can’t keep a secret in response to a direct question; I amazed myself that I’d never exposed the network of sexual relationships I shared with Crystal, Ellen, Claire, Nadia, and many more. I expected my answer to this woman’s awkward question was already written on my face; did I really need to say anything.

Whether I remained silent or spoke I was cooked either way. I decided to speak.

“Edith, and members of the media, we each have private lives that I hope you might respect. Sometimes, the extent of that part of our lives involve situations and people that are not in the limelight, and that ... that could bring harm to others if they were widely publicized or criticized or analyzed. You see yourselves as trying to bring truth to the public – news, but do you also see that sometimes what you do brings harm where it shouldn’t occur. This is one of those situations. A simple answer wouldn’t even begin to explain the complexity of the situation that you hint at in your question. I don’t want to duck your question ... but I also don’t want to answer it, because some people I love that aren’t in this room are involved in the answer, and I wouldn’t presume to reply to a question like that without them.”

The room had hung on every word I said with an eerie silence ... and then, after I made it clear that was all I planned to say, the room erupted into a hundred people shouting follow-up questions and hypotheticals at me from all directions. “What if...? Did you? Who was...? Where’s Greenville? How long ago? Could you...?”

I turned and nodded to Terry. He understood; the press conference was over. We stood, and as we did the half-dozen security men in black suits surrounded us and led us off to a door on the side of the room – an exit door that would take us away from the riot that resulted from the question and my response. Reporters were falling all over themselves trying to get to me – microphones and pocket recorders in hand – questions shouted over and over. My name shouted out a thousand times to try to get my attention to their specific question. The reporters all surged towards the door we exited.

Two of the security men, the largest two of the lot – a pair of mean looking men in black suits with black shirts and black ties, black sunglasses, plus large bulges in their breast pockets where they carried obvious weapons - stayed behind in the room to secure the door and keep anyone from following us. The remaining four security men hustled us down several corridors almost at a run. There was no conversation other than instructions on how to follow them to curb side.

Suddenly, we exited a door into the area where the luggage carousels were. We crossed the nearly empty concourse, exited, and there was the white limousine. No one was right behind us, so I made sure Crystal saw the license plates with her name. She gave me a big grin.

The six of us piled into the car, and were whisked away to the airport exit.

Inside the limo, Crystal burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” I asked glumly.

“The look on your face when that woman asked the question about your baby. It was priceless. You may as well have screamed ‘YES.’”

“Gee, thanks. I’m still trying to figure out how she knew enough to ask that question. I’m sure George and Summer wouldn’t mention it to anyone, and neither you nor I did.” I looked at Ellen and Claire.

Ellen said, “I didn’t even know until her question. From the look on your face, it was pretty obvious what the answer is.”

Claire shrugged; she wouldn’t have known unless I talked in my sleep. Nadia just smiled benignly. She knew how to keep secrets.

I brooded about the situation for a few moments, and noticed the limousine had headed downtown to the area near Terry’s office and the recording studio.

I asked, “Hey, where are we going?”

Ellen smirked and said, “Well, we took a vote and decided that Crystal and you should be alone tonight to reacquaint yourselves with each other, so Terry, Claire, Nadia, and I are going to a movie downtown tonight and we’re sleeping over at my condo. You’ll have the house all to yourself, well, except for some outside security.”

Nadia, Claire, and Terry all nodded confirmation to the plan. I just shrugged but with a slight smile of happiness.

A few minutes later we stopped in front of Ellen’s condominium, and the quartet got out amid well wishes, and taunts to ‘Have fun!’

The limo headed back onto the Interstate to head to Crystal’s home on the edge between suburbia and rural Tennessee. She snuggled into my arms, but my mind continued to stew about the baby question.

I thought a moment and said, “I’d better call George or Summer.”

I messed with my cell phone for a minute and then heard the ringing at George and Summer’s home. “Hello, this is Summer.”

“Summer, this is Jim.”

“Oh, ... Wow. Are you coming to see us ... to see James Mellon Ellis?” I knew they’d named the baby after me, but as of yet all I’d seen were a few photos of a normal looking baby and his smiling parents. I’d been touched by their gesture to name him after me. I’d even tried to talk them out of it because I didn’t have an ego need in that way.

“Not right away ... at least I don’t think so. Look, I just got out of a press conference and something happened that you and George should know about.”

I could hear Summer’s rapid uptake of breath at the portent of bad news.

I went on, “Some woman named Edith, I’ll find out her last name sometime soon, asked me whether I had a child by a woman in Greenville, Ohio.”

“Oh, my God. What did you say?”

“I’m a lousy liar. I told them the question was out of line because it would hurt people, but the paparazzi don’t care. They’re out for blood. Anyway, I may as well have yelled ‘Yes’ in the room, although I tried to leave my response vague and unspecific.”

“Shit,” Summer mumbled, and this woman was much too nice to use vocabulary such as that.

“I’m in the car with Crystal who was also at the press conference. Frankly, we don’t know where to take this. I certainly want to protect you, James, and George somehow, but I don’t know how.”

“Look, let me get to George. This is his poker night. I’ll be back in touch.”

“OK. You might want to button up the house, even go elsewhere in case the news people figure out where you live.” There was an awkward pause, and I added, “Summer, I love you.”

“Oh, Jim, I love you – hardly an hour goes by that I don’t think of you. Please come and see me – see us. Bring Crystal, but please visit – you’re all welcome. We have space, even with the baby taking up a room.”

“Talk to you soon.” We rang off.

Crystal turned me to her, “Jim, you can weather through this. I’m here to help anyway I can; maybe because I didn’t react it’ll help diffuse the situation.” She kissed the end of my nose in a tender and supportive gesture.

The proverbial shit hit the fan. Crystal’s presence at the press conference and her visible and loving grip on my hand during the press conference did not diffuse the situation. Instead, I again found my name splashed across the front page of practically all major newspapers; it was a slow news day. What amused me and took the edge off ‘being discovered’ was that all the papers included a photo of a generic baby – and they were all different stock photos. That said, the headlines screamed out.

Daddy? Mellon a Dad Jim Left Package in Ohio Wild Oats by Mellon? Did Star Abandon Baby? Who’s the Kid? Mellon Spreads His Seed

I gave some of the headline writers an ‘A’ for creativity and for capturing the readers attention in only a few words.

When I read the articles, I discovered that all of them knew little more than what had happened at the press conference at the airport. A few made some idle speculations, and of those, one or two turned out to be pretty accurate up to a point.

This whole experience had made me reminisce about the week I spent with George and Summer.

Greenville, Ohio: Over A Year Earlier. My best friend and later my Army buddy George Ellis brought my mind to a standstill: “Jim, Summer and I would like you to make her pregnant.” They’d tried for several years, but George was shooting blanks, probably resulting from shrapnel from a mine he stepped on – the mine also blew away his lower left leg and foot.

After much discussion, I made love to Summer. There were late-summer thunderstorms those nights, the windows were open, and we’d hear the wind gusts and thunder as we loved. Amid the sweat, the mix of our fluids, and the millions of kisses we shared, something special happened: Summer and I fell in love as we made a baby. She didn’t fall out of love with her husband, just in love with me.

We spent only a few days together, but Summer was at her fertile peak. George joined us for several of our nighttime sessions to fill his wife with my sperm. Those times were especially erotic, and I carried warm and erotic memories of our threesomes.

Nine months to the day later, Summer gave birth to a healthy baby boy. We had talked almost weekly as I’d continued on my Road Trip, so I knew the pregnancy ‘had taken’ and had progressed normally. My swimmers had done their job. George and Summer both asked me about giving the baby my name. I felt honored and humbled. I also would be the godfather.

The paparazzi had taken to camping out at the end of our Nashville driveway. For a day, I also heard frequent over flights by helicopters, enough to keep me inside except for my morning runs. I kept my running to the forest where the press were a lot less likely to wander, and any drones or aerial surveillance would only see tree tops.

Crystal came and joined me one morning after I’d showered. She snuggled up against me as I read a couple of the morning papers: “Can I see the photo of Summer and the baby again?” She put my iPad into my lap.

I thumbed through the device until I found the last photo George and Summer had sent me. Summer stood in front of their modest house holding the one-year old in her arms. Summer was beautiful: thirty three, ash blond, a trim figure even after her pregnancy, breasts that turned heads, and a personality that made everyone want to be her friend. She had become the ‘earth mother’. In the photo, she smiled at the camera; I could see the love in her eyes.

My offspring also had a giggly smile. He had my brown eyes and my sandy brown hair color. He was cute, and I felt guilty for not having gone to see him. Yes, he was mine, but I didn’t want to interfere with George and Summer’s life, or their marriage. I worried about how Summer felt about me when I left, and I wasn’t sure she knew how to love two people simultaneously. Now, having gotten to know her after some long telephone calls, I knew she’d always be devoted to George, yet she had a passionate and loving spot in her heart for me.

Crystal studied her photograph. She tapped on the face of the iPad, inadvertently making it do crazy things. “You should go and see her – see them.” As an afterthought she said, “And, take me along; I’d love to see ‘Little Jim’ and meet George and Summer. You’ve made them seem so real and approachable as you’ve talked about them.”

I thought a moment, “We could take the motorcycle up there. It’d take us less than a day – maybe eight to ten hours of travel.”

“Let’s do it. We have another week after this one before we have any serious commitments. Let’s go tomorrow. Call them; see whether they’re up for two visitors.”

Thursday, I drove the motorcycle down to the local Harley dealer. It didn’t need servicing, but I knew that if Crystal and I left the house we’d be followed by the paparazzi, and my trip down there was no exception. The pressmen who followed me in a caravan of cars were disappointed when I walked over and told them I was just dropping the bike off for routine maintenance. I refused to respond to any of their questions about the mysterious baby I might have.

Actually, I’d arranged for the shop to hold the well-maintained bike for me overnight, so Crystal and I could slip away the next morning without a gaggle of reporters chasing us. The saddlebags on the bike were already packed with our clothes and travel kits. Crystal picked me up and drove us back home, followed closely by the reporters. She waved tauntingly at the reporters as I got in the car.

Friday morning, Nadia drove out the gate in her car, an aged and rusting Chevrolet. Crystal hid under a blanket on the back floor, and I’d made myself comfortable in the darkness of the car’s trunk along with a few more items to add to our modest luggage for the trip. By arrangement, Nadia went to the local supermarket, a trip the reporters judged unworthy of pursuing.