Chapter 9

That night the party was in the restaurant above the Clifford & Jamison offices. The firm had taken it over for the evening. As they were about to enter, Marie looked at Bobbie and Tom and said, "We decided to take our chances with Alcoholic Beverage Control and let you two drink if you wish."

Then she winked and said, "Bobbie, I'm sure you can hold it ... But I'm not too sure about Tom."

When they got off the elevator, Marie took a moment to check Tom's appearance. Her heart rolled over as she looked at him in his dinner jacket thinking he was the most handsome man in the world. After straightening his tie, she lifted her face. Seeing it, he lowered his lips and without touching each other their lips merged in a glorious kiss.

"Thank you, my darling," she whispered.

Then the threesome went into the dining room to meet the people, most of whom Tom had heard about but had never met.

While Marie was going through her customary greeting of Kathy Carlson — kneeling and kissing her feet — a girl came up to Bobbie with her hand outstretched. Turning to look at her, Bobbie was utterly stunned by her beauty. The girl was wearing a dress like her own and also wore her hair very short the way hers was now. Her most striking feature were her eyes — a vivid dark blue verging on purple.

"Barbara Dawson?" she asked. Bobbie acknowledged with a smile and took the outstretched hand in a very firm grip as the girl continued, "Hi! I'm Kristin Bradley. As the only unmarried teenagers around, I understand that we have been elected to babysit over the holidays."

Kris extended her other hand and now was holding both of Bobbie's in hers. She just looked her over carefully with an incredibly piercing gaze that seemed like it could penetrate steel. Finally, the girl just focused on Bobbie's eyes. Then she grinned and said, "It's tough, isn't it, to be madly in love with a guy you can touch but can't have? You're the most incredibly beautiful girl I have ever seen. I think we're going to have a lot of fun together. Now come and meet my parents."

Taking her by the hand, Kris led her to a corner where two young people were talking. When she came up to them, they turned and Bobbie stopped dead in her tracks. She found herself looking at the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. The woman had brown hair and brown eyes, but her hair, worn very short in the same boy's haircut both Bobbie and Kris had, was naturally streaked in colors ranging from platinum blonde to medium brown. Her skin was a warm vibrant gold and her figure was perfect.

She, too, was wearing the gown that Marie had referred to as 'Clifford & Jamison Standard.' It highlighted the perfection of her body. Yet as Bobbie looked more closely at the woman's beauty she realized that, as beautiful as her features and figure were, the real beauty was radiating from within.

"Mom," Kris said, "I would like you to meet my newest friend, Barbara Dawson. Isn't she gorgeous?" Then with a grin she added, "A genuine California blonde from USC." Turning to Bobbie she said, "This is my mother, Evangeline Bradley."

"How do you do, Mrs. Bradley," Bobbie said extending her hand.

Vangie Bradley took the offered hand in a very firm grip. Still without speaking she extended her left hand and Bobbie took it as well. Meanwhile the woman was just studying her and ended her inspection by staring intently into her eyes — the same behavior as her daughter's a few minutes earlier. Bobbie did the same thing and realized she was seeing in the woman's eyes the same love and goodness she saw in Ali's and Marie's.

Still without speaking directly to Bobbie she turned to the tall man by her side. He was a somewhat older Tom Conroy, Bobbie realized. Although not quite as tall — he appeared to be about six feet two — he was as broad across the shoulders and as well-muscled. Like his wife, he had a deep golden tan.

"Ed, buy her for me? Please?" Then with a vividly warm smile she added, "You don't even have to bother with gift wrapping, either. I'll just eat her here!"

Then she said, "How do you do, Barbara Dawson." Then she looked at the girl and said, "I understand you and Imp, here, are going to be sharing a suite. I think it ought to be fun."

Then to her daughter she said, "I told you that you're sadly out of shape. This girl is going to trim your tight little ass and it couldn't happen to a nicer girl, either." Bobbie's eyes widened at the comment because, with her body almost completely revealed it was obvious that Kris Bradley's figure was also youthful perfection.

"But you can't be Kris's mother..." Bobbie stammered. "You couldn't possibly have given birth..."

"You're right," Vangie said agreeably, "I'm not. Kristin is adopted." Then her brows knitted and she said, "Technically it's true, I guess, but the fact is she was a bridal shower gift to us from our children."

With a warm smile she asked, "Bobbie, don't you think it's an original gift? You see, when my daughter married, she realized that I would miss having a teen-aged girl to hug and to love, so she and Ken made one for us. For a do-it-yourself effort, she didn't come out too badly, did she?"

Now Barbara was totally bewildered. "Gift? From a married daughter? That's impossible... ! I mean ... You can't possibly be over twenty-five..."

Vangie yelped, took Bobby in her arms and gave her the most loving kiss the girl had ever had. Then she said, "I adore her, Ed, and I'm going to have her as my daughter."

Then she looked at the two girls and said, "Do you realize this would give us a matched pair? Of course she doesn't have Imp's ridiculous purple eyes, but that's an advantage."

Then she said to Barbara, "Why don't we sit down and get acquainted." Her eyes turned serious as she added, "You see, Bobbie, I'm very serious about adopting you. It's an idea that first crossed my mind when Andy Cartwright and Ken Clifford couldn't stop talking about you."

While shaking her head, Bobbie allowed herself to be led to a table in the corner where they all sat down. Finally she said, "I still can't believe it. Am I correct? Do you actually have a married daughter?"

"Sure do," Vangie replied with a grin. "She's married to my son." Again Bobbie's jaw dropped. She was stunned. "We fit right in with Ali's extended family," Vangie continued, "because we're at least as weird as they are."

Then she grinned and explained, "You see, Bobbie, before you start giving me a lot of garbage about how unworthy you are, let me tell you a little about us. First of all: me. I was born Evangeline Pierce and was the poorest excuse for a human being God ever placed on this earth. I spent my childhood terrorizing nurses and governesses and being thrown out of schools.

"I married Bill Collins when I was nineteen and then did about the only worthwhile thing I've done in my whole life: I gave birth to my daughter, Cathy. Of course, I immediately hired a wet nurse for her because, God forbid, I wasn't going to have grubby little hands pawing my beautiful tits.

"Who do I hire? The widow of one of our greatest military heros — a man who earned the Medal of Honor and gave his life for our country doing it. Later I farmed Cathy out to a string of people so she didn't interfere with my social life. Would you believe, I never even went to her graduation? Any graduation.

"Anyway, a few years ago Bill was killed in a plane crash. After sleeping with anything in pants — and a few in skirts — I heard of a very rich widower, Ed Bradley, who had a son. I conceived of the idea of a family merger. At that point, Cathy disappeared. There was no way she was going to have anything to do with an arranged marriage.

"Of course the same thing was true of Ed. His son, Ken, graduated from Yale, Phi Beta Kappa — that's where Kris is now, by the way — and as a Baker Scholar from the Harvard Business School. Ed didn't know any of that, nor did I know that Cathy was summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa and valedictorian of her class at Carleton College. Anyway, it seems that my daughter and his son met on their own, fell in love, and were about to be married when we learned about it for the first time.

"How did we find out? The same way most parents do, I expect," she said with a quick grin. "We see them on the national telecast of the Super Bowl! A funny thing had happened in the meantime, though. While Ed and I were spending a lot of time scheming to get our two children together to make a merger, we fell in love with each other.

"Curiously, as lousy and rotten as we are individually, together we seem to neutralize each other's poisons. Anyway, Cathy and Ken were married and went out to Maui for their honeymoon. On the plane flying out there they meet a fourteen-year-old girl who was seventy-two hours away from death by starvation: Kris.

"About a year earlier Kris and her whole family were returning home from a night football game. A drunken driver ran a stop sign and broadsided their car. He killed her parents and her brother and put her in the hospital. We know that her family was very loving and very close.

"When she recovered consciousness in the hospital, all Kris wanted to do was to rejoin her family as quickly as possible ... by starving herself to death. She had almost succeeded when she met our children. Ken and Cathy brought her back to life. Moreover, she claims that she is their creation, top to bottom.

"Then, while Cathy and Ken were on their honeymoon and putting Kris together, one of Ali's daughters was beating me into shape. In spite of all I am, Ed still claimed to love me and wanted to marry me, so Kris was our children's shower gift to us."

Then with a broad smile she said, "Subsequently, I adopted Ken Bradley as my son and Ed adopted Cathy as his daughter. The reason is the same: I'm hoping to get Ken away from my daughter and get him into my bed, while Ed wants to trade me in for the younger, more athletic and nubile model — and is Cathy ever nubile!"

With a pout she added, "But it's not working. All those two do is fuck and make babies." Then she was transformed by the most vivid smile Bobbie had ever seen and added, "Of course our grandson, Ken, junior, is the most beautiful young man God ever created; our granddaughter, Krista, is the most beautiful little girl, and Cathy is about to hatch a brother or sister for them."

"But you can't..." Bobbie stammered. "I thought I understood it when you said Kris is adopted. That can happen, I suppose. But a grandmother! That's preposterous. You can't be even thirty."

Turning to Ed again Vangie exclaimed, "Edward Bradley we have to have her! No one has flattered us so much in years." Turning to Bobbie she said, "Darling, I'm forty-five and the love of my life here is fifty-one. Believe me when I say we are honest-to-God grandparents — not even that synthetic adopted stuff like Ali!

"I'm very serious, Barbara," Vangie continued. "We would like very much to adopt you as our daughter. I think you will like Kris and I'm sure you'll love Ken and Cathy. Besides, we really need a genuine California blonde in the family."

"I guess I'm genuine, then," Bobbie said. "Like most people in California, I'm from somewhere else."

"Where?"

"A little town in Illinois that I'm sure you never heard of," Bobbie answered.

"What town?" Vangie persisted.

"A little town north of Chicago called Deerfield."

"Good heavens! That's where Jan and Pete are. Have you ever heard of Janice and Peter Stewart? Illinois Technologies... ? Although now it's the Peters Drive Company..."

"Of course!" Bobbie replied. "My mother is in the Junior League and years ago she came back from a winter meeting raving about ... Janice Stewart!"

"Jan is the one who beat me into shape," Vangie said softly. "She's one of Ali's adopted daughters, too." Then she raised an eyebrow and asked, "Since you're from Chicago, maybe you follow the Bears. Maybe you've heard of Ken Bradley?"

Now Bobbie's jaw dropped. "My God! The All-Pro wide receiver ... Married to ... Cathy Bradley, the Pro Bowl kicker ... Your daughter?"

"Sure is," Vangie replied, "but as I said earlier, I claim no credit at all. It was all Cathy, by herself, overcoming nearly unbelievable handicaps — mostly me — to do it. Anyway, how about joining our merry band? I think we can probably support you ... If you don't eat too much, that is."

While they were talking, other things about the Bradleys started to surface from Bobbie's memory. One of them was that the Bradleys were nearly as rich as the Cliffords — certainly in the same league.

She shook her head and said, "I'm afraid it's impossible. First, I have been disowned by my parents for being a slut and a whore." Looking at Ed she asked, "How would you like it if you went outside to pick up the paper and found Kris, here, naked on the doorstep covered with semen, and stoned out of her mind? That's the way my father found me early one morning."

"I would give serious thought to hunting down the beasts who drugged her and killing them all," Ed Bradley replied coldly. She looked into his eyes and shuddered realizing he meant exactly what he had said.

"Moreover, we have just the guys around here who would love to help me do it: Bill Cartwright, another Medal of Honor winner from Special Forces; Ken Carlson, a double Medal of Honor winner from Army Rangers; Mike Morris, Judy's husband, another Medal of Honor winner, served in the Marines with the Marine Recon...

"Not only would they do it, they would delight in it. All that would be left of those butchers would be a few small scraps." Looking deep into Bobbie's eyes he said, "Do you believe they would do it?"

She shivered and said, "Yes, sir. I guess they would believe it, too."

"Bobbie," Ed Bradley continued, "I guess it's a problem with having a few bucks: You can become known as a target. Bill Clifford and I handle it the same way: We make it painfully clear to anyone who gets such an idea that it's not the brightest idea they ever had. In other words, we don't offer free bites."

Then he held out his arms and said, "My wife has been monopolizing things. While she's been running off at the mouth, I need to correct something she said about herself. She would have you believe that she's the personification of evil." He smiled ruefully and said, "It's so typical of her, too."

Then looking into the girl's eyes he said, "I saw you looking at Vangie very carefully, Bobbie. What did you see?"

"I saw an incredible beauty," Bobbie replied. "At the same time, as beautiful as her face and figure are, that's the least of it. Her real beauty — and it's in overwhelming abundance — comes from the goodness she radiates from within. Looking into her eyes all I see is goodness and love."

Ed just nodded and stuck out his tongue at his wife. "I told you," he said. "Vangie Bradley, you're a god-awful actress. You can't even play the part. Your goodness just shines through in spite of anything you say or do."

Then to Bobbie he added, "Of course in bed this woman is utter perfection. You see, I love a woman who's nice and wet — and Vangie always is. Moreover, when she's in my arms, in addition to the goodness and love, I get to see the most intense personal love for me coupled with a level of passion that's beyond belief.

"Bobbie, this is the woman who wants to be your mother. In spite of the fact that she was half right — I really am a shit — could I have a kiss? Please?"

Bobbie rose from her chair and went to him. Ed swept her off her feet and sat her across his lap. Then he proceeded to kiss her thoroughly while he ran his hands lightly over her exposed body. His kiss is just loaded with pure love, Bobbie thought and then realized, and it's love for me!

She looked into his eyes and saw exactly the same thing she had seen in Vangie's: incredible goodness and love. She pulled away and with a cute grin said, "But Dad, I hate to say this to my brand-new father, but you're full of shit, too! All I see in your eyes is an incredible depth of goodness and love."

Ed shook his head and grinned ruefully as she continued, "I can certainly believe what you said about Mom, though. I'll bet she is passionate. On the other hand, even sitting on your lap I can feel your sex beneath me, so I'm also sure that your lovemaking must be pretty special! Does she retain consciousness when she cums with you inside her?"

"Hell, no!" Vangie exclaimed. "In fact on our wedding night I was out so long my whole damned family — Ed, Cathy, Ken and Imp, here — all feasted on my cunt."

With a shake of her head and a wry grin she added, "Can you imagine using your cunt to provide a feast... for a family of four? Of course, to be fair, a lot of it — including all the nourishing part — was from Ed's glorious cum inside me. Can you drown on internal fluids, do you suppose?" Vangie mused.

Bobbie just giggled, but she believed what she had heard was true. Her new parents — she was already thinking of them in those terms — were so madly, passionately in love with each other, it was a beautiful sight to behold.

When Ed finally released her, she found Kris standing over them looking down at her. "Is it my turn yet?" she asked. "Don't I get to kiss my brand-new twin sister?"

Rising to her feet again Bobbie went into the girl's arms and received the most breathtaking kiss she could ever imagine. Then Kris said softly, "Welcome, Sis! I think we're going to have a marvelous time together." Then with a little yelp she added, "And guess what, parents? Now I'll finally get some help in trying to spend your damned money!" Then she shook her head and frowned, "I don't know, though. I don't think Bobbie has what it takes to be a real Valley Girl. Do you?"

Bobbie was swept by a feeling of relief. Then her knees threatened to collapse beneath her so she dove for Ed Bradley's lap. He gathered her into his strong arms and just held her tightly. Suddenly she burst into tears and started to bawl like a baby. It was as if a dam had burst. Ed just held her even tighter and held her head to his shoulder while he gently stroked her hair and the satin-smooth skin of her bare back.

As he did she felt comforted for the first time in years — it felt so wonderful just to be held. Slowly she regained control and her weeping stopped, but she just snuggled closer into his shoulder. Then she lifted her head and he gently kissed the tears away as he murmured, "Darling Barbara, your new mother and I adore you!"

Realizing that her tears had soaked the shoulder of his dinner jacket, Bobbie tried to get up to get a napkin to wipe it off. "Oh God, Mr. Bradley!" she exclaimed. "I'm so sorry! Can I..."

"I'm not sorry at all," he interrupted softly. "Darling, there are few things a man likes more than to hold and comfort a beautiful girl. Barbara Dawson, like your new sister, you're a delight to the senses."

As she started to get up from his lap, she realized that Vangie was on her knees beside her whispering, "Do you feel better, darling? It's terrible to feel totally alone, isn't it?" Then she softly added, "Could I have a kiss, too?"

Reaching out, Bobbie hugged Vangie tightly and then started bawling again. Vangie just held her close and listened to the tears. When she finally ran dry, Vangie kissed her eyes gently and then melted her lips to hers. Then she finally pulled away and Vangie asked Kris to accompany her to the ladies room to make repairs to her tear-streaked face. In spite of the ravages of her tears, Bobbie was radiantly beautiful and happier than she had been in years.

While the girls were away from the table, Ed and Vangie talked to Ali about legal arrangements for Bobbie's adoption. When the girls returned to the table, they spent the dinner time getting acquainted. Bobbie realized to her amazement that in just a few short hours she had come truly to love this remarkable family.

After dinner the band began to play big-band dance music. After dancing with her new father — she found he was a marvelous dancer — Bobbie found herself sought out by virtually all of the men present. A man who looked very much like Ed Bradley came up to the table and asked her to dance. He didn't bother to introduce himself until she was in his arms on the dance floor.

Then he held her slightly away from himself so he could look directly into her eyes. After studying them for a few moments he said softly, "Kenny is absolutely right! You're a truly remarkable young woman and I'm sure you're going to be very happy with the Bradleys. They are now among our very closest friends and are delightful people." He grinned and added, "Incidentally, I'm Bill Clifford, otherwise known as Ali's husband."

Again Bobbie felt foolish as her jaw dropped. Like Ed Bradley, Bill Clifford appeared to be in his early thirties with prematurely grey temples. "But you can't ... My God! What do you people do? You must have found the fountain of youth! You can't be..."

"Fifty-two?" he interjected. "That's how old I am. Of course between Ali, Kenny and the baby, they serve to keep me young. And unlike my child bride, I am — like Ed Bradley — an honest-to-God grandfather — several times over. All of my children — Jennifer, Bill and Brian — have children of their own now. I know you met Joan the day she delivered her little boy. Isn't she a delight?"

Bobbie moved closer to him and murmured into his shoulder, "Mr. Clifford, you have to be so very proud! But how do you do it? How do you stay so young?"

"It's easy," he replied softly. "It's all Ali. She's—"

He stopped and grinned, then said, "I was going to say she's the love of my life, but I stopped myself. It's inaccurate. The fact is that she is my life." He smiled warmly and said, "Bobbie, I can't tell you what it was like that Christmas night when Ali told me she was going to have my baby. I was so happy I was afraid I was going to explode.

"You see, I always thought that the fruit of her glorious loins would be very special. Well, you've seen Ken and I think you'll agree that he certainly is. Anyway, she keeps me young."

Later, she danced with Ken Carlson and then with Mike Morris. While she was dancing with Ken, thinking about what Ed Bradley had said, she asked him about it obliquely. It turned out that he knew all about her history. She looked into his brown eyes and shivered.