EPISODE #2009-36 Part #1
Watch Marley's plan to adopt Olivia's baby (and lie to Jamie and Dennis about it) implode in spectacularly soapy fashion on the April 21, 1992 episode of Another World above.
"Dude, she could have been our sister," Kirkland marveled to Steven about his brother's cringing girlfriend, following Matt's rather sanitized explanation of how Sarah Matthews-Wheeler had almost been Sarah Hudson-Frame. "And, I guess, our cousin, too."
"I thought they knew," Matt defended weakly, earning as stone cold of a glare from his brother as Steven had previously laid on Kirkland.
Lorna, who, as far as she could tell, wasn't related to anyone in the room, tried to interest the shell-shocked assembly into finishing their hockey game.
But a shaky — not to mention slightly green — Steven simply waved away the offer with one gloved hand. "Yeah. I think I'm going to call it a day."
Jamie broke in, telling both Steven and Sarah, "You know, this doesn't change anything. You guys aren't related. Well, no more than you were this morning, anyway." He tried to make a joke of it. "I can draw you a diagram if you want. It all goes back to Iris, and she's only my stepsister, so..."
"Please stop talking, Dad," Steven asked.
Jamie complied.
Sarah stood and brushed the residual ice off her pants. "Thanks for the... educational afternoon, Mr. Frame. Mr. Cory. I think I should get going, too."
"Wait up," Matt grabbed Jasmine by the hand and pulled her towards the exit after Steven and Sarah. "You want a ride home, Kirk?"
Kirkland took one look at Jamie's face and nodded vigorously. "That sounds good."
"Lorna?" Matt asked.
She was all set to say yes. After all, she'd come with Matt, it only made sense for her to leave with him, too. But something about the way Jamie looked...
She shook her head. "You go on, take the kids home. I'll figure something out."
Matt hesitated for just a moment. He looked from his brother to his former girlfriend and thought... well, he wasn't sure what he thought. And he wasn't sure how he felt about what he wasn't thinking. He only knew that thought — and a lot more of it — was definitely necessary.
"Matt?" Jamie called out to him in parting.
"Yo!"
"I won't forget this. And I know where you live."
As Matt shuffled out the ice-rink's lobby, Lorna sat down on a cast-iron bench next to Jamie and offered, "I don't think he meant any harm."
"None of us ever do, that's the beauty of my family. Although based on what you heard today.... Yeah, I was really looking forward to my kids finding out about that period of my life. And this was even before Steven and Sarah hooked up. That made it just that much more extra special."
"You look like you could use a beer," Lorna ventured.
"I could use a case. Primarily so I can clock Matt upside the head with every single bottle."
"It could have been worse," she proposed. If there was one thing Lorna knew, it was that any given situation could always get much, much worse.
"That's true," Jamie agreed. "Matt could have told them what really happened...."
"How was your holiday?" Grant asked Lila as she stepped through the door of his home, loaded down with swatches and fabric samples.
"Nice," she dumped the entire pile on him and paused to shake the snow off her coat, hat and shoes. "Jasmine was real appreciative of the whatchamathing you got her."
"LP-to-Digital Recording System. To help get her vintage record collection onto her computer."
"Well, she was real grateful. I've got her thank-you note for you right here." Lila handed the neatly handwritten missive to Grant.
He opened it up and smiled as he read, then followed Lila into the living room.
"And how was your Christmas?" she called over her shoulder.
"Glorious," Grant sighed. "Until I phoned Kirkland the next day to find out if he was enjoying his new Vespa scooter, and got an earful about how nifty it was that Jamie managed to carve a modicum of time from his oh so busy schedule curing the world's ills to drop by and hand Kirkland a gift-wrapped ping-pong ball or some such nonsense. And no, Kirkland couldn't come over this afternoon. Jamie was taking them all to get their teeth knocked out by hockey pucks."
Lila looked at Grant and, while sympathetic to his position, felt compelled to point out, "He's Kirkland's Daddy. Same way Jamie can't change that about you, you can't change that about him."
"We'll see..." he mumbled, eager to change the subject. "I hear Cass and Frankie tied the knot. Again."
"What can I say? Man loves weddings. It's the marriage part he seems to have a spot of trouble getting right."
"Man's a fool, that much we've already established."
Lila shrugged. "It would be nice to believe that. For my ego, anyway. But the fact is, I was the fool, falling in love with a guy who pretty much flat out told me he'd never really love anybody again, after Frankie. But I'm good at that. Falling for men who love someone else. One day, ask me about Shane Roberts. But you might want to wait until I'm good and drunk, first."
"Donna once told me told me," Grant confessed. "That I should be head of a support group for Men Who Love Women Who Belong To Other Men."
"Vicky?" Lila guessed.
"She was referring to Victoria in that instance, yes. But, I'll admit, the pattern goes deeper than that."
"What is wrong with us?" Lila wondered. "And what is wrong with you for getting primed to go down that path again with Marley Hudson? No, I'm sorry, primed to go down that path again with Marley Frame?"
Kirkland texted Charlie: My brother is dating his sister. Call me for details.
She texted back: Busy in hell 'rents insist spend quality family time talking feelings re: wedding new baby zombie mom blah blah only thing can imagine more boring watching actual grass grow/paint peel but not same time 'cause that'd be better.
"Do you think you could put your phone down for a second, Charlotte?" Cass wrapped his fingers around Charlie's wrist and forcibly moved her hand away from her face.
"Kirkland says his brother is dating his sister. Don't you want to find out what that's all about?"
Cass took a moment, thought through the possibilities and guessed, "Steven and Sarah. Marley and Jamie were going to adopt her before Olivia changed her mind."
"For real?"
"Word," Cass deadpanned.
"That's major twisted."
"Okay. Next topic." Cass stuffed Charlie's phone behind the couch cushions and shoved his daughter one spot over, sitting down next to her. "Your mother and I specifically took this time off so that the three of us could spend it together before Lori Ann comes home."
"So where's Mom?"
"I asked her to give us a few minutes alone."
"Divide and conquer? Good cop/Bad cop?"
"Talk to me, Charlie. Please."
"About what?"
"About what's been bothering you. This brat act you've been pulling ever since your mom came back to us, it isn't you. It isn't my girl."
"I'm not your girl anymore," Charlie reminded. "Mom is."
Cass stared at her, dumbfounded, wondering why clever comebacks were always so easy to summon up in court, and so damn hard everywhere else. "Is this what all.... Charlie.... Are you afraid you're going to lose me to your...."
"Wrong tense, Dad. Lost. You know how, before she left, Lila said she always knew Mom was the most important person in the world to you? Well, I knew it, too. But with her gone, the top spot was open. You know why I never minded Lila and Jazz all that much? It's because I knew you loved them. But you loved me best. Guess it's the end of the road for that one."
"Charlie, I love you more than you can possibly conceive of. There was a time when you were the only thing keeping me alive."
"Yeah. Again. Past tense."
"You are the most precious thing in your mother's and my life. In fact, you haven't the slightest idea what she and I have been through to make sure that you're safe and happy."
"Okay," Charlie shrugged. "I'm convinced. Can I have my phone back?"
"No, you may not have your phone back!" Cass snapped. "Listen to me, young lady, this behavior has got to stop. Now. Your grasp of the situation is completely skewed, and I won't have you punishing me or your mother for crimes we haven't even committed."
Charlie nodded. And then she asked, "Just so I've got it straight. You push me to tell you how I really feel, and when I do tell you how I feel, your response is to tell me I've got no right to feel that way, and I'd better cut it out right now?"
"That's not what I said, Charlie! No matter how much I love your mother, and I'll grant you, it's a hell of a lot, that will never affect how I feel about you."
Charlie shrugged. "Now whose grasp of the situation is skewed?" She fished out her phone and, without another word, shuffled out of the room.
Leaving Cass frustrated, angry, and, for no reason that he could put his finger on, recalling Iris Cory in her prime.
"Wow." Lorna sat across a metal mesh table from Jamie inside the ice rink's snack bar and observed, "You and Marley have a hell of a history for a couple that never quite managed to make it down the aisle until a few weeks ago."
"What can I say?" Jamie took a long sip of his beer. "I'm an overachiever."
"With lousy taste in friends. And cousins."
"Now, now." Jamie wagged his finger at her sternly. "Dennis was supposedly fighting his attraction to Marley the entire time."
"Please. He was screwing you over while trying to screw her."
"Yeah," Jamie admitted. "That's how it felt to me, too."
"Although what either of you saw in Marley... " Lorna trailed off. "Sorry. I didn't mean to sound... I'm not really this much of a bitch. Honest. Well, okay, I am sometimes. But that's not what I was shooting for, in this case. I like Marley. She was very nice to me when... after I was raped."
Jamie shuddered. He slowly set down his beer bottle. He looked Lorna in the eye and, voice barely above a whisper, said, "I — I forgot... I forgot that happened to you, too."
"Yeah, it did. And Marley was a huge help at the time. I owe her a lot." Noting how stricken Jamie still looked, Lorna took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. "Please don't worry about it. I'm okay. I've moved on. It's not a favorite period in my life, but I'm not walking around traumatized either."
"I'm glad," Jamie told her sincerely. "Really. I'm happy to hear it."
"But the point I was trying to make," she hurried to change the subject. Anything to make Jamie stop looking so sickened. "Was that no matter how grateful I feel to Marley and how good of a friend she was to me back then, the fact is, she really did a number on you. And that sucks, any way you look at it."
"Pretty much," Jamie nodded. "Although if I were honest, Marley and I...we were never as solid as I would have liked to believed. My first clue probably should have been the way she kept dumping me and taking me back. And dumping me and taking me back. And dumping.... "
"I get the picture," Lorna smiled, disproportionately thrilled when Jamie finally did the same. Something about that sad, haunted look in his eyes.... Something in Lorna felt desperate to chase it away. Even if it was only for a little while.
"Though, in her defense," he countered. "I did keep falling for it. Every single time. The final straw, her lying to me about Olivia's baby... Marley always thinks she knows best, she always thinks she's right..."
"Always? As in then and now?" Lorna interrupted, and Jamie stopped himself, muttering a curse under his breath. "Is that what's got you so down? Has Marley done — "
"Nothing. Everything. The usual crap." Jamie exhaled in exasperation. "And as usual, I'm to blame."
For a moment, the image of a smiling Marley beaming at an equally smiling Grant, flashed through Lorna's mind. "Somehow I doubt that."
"There's a lot going on with Marley and me that you don't know about. And I'm not going to tell you," he cut off her inevitable question.
"Why not?" she asked crossly, understanding that she had no right to be offended. Feeling offended, nonetheless. "We're friends, aren't we? I feel like, at this stage of the game, we're friends. I mean we nearly had sex on your kitchen table, for Pete's sake. If we're not friends, we're definitely past friendly acquaintances."
"Definitely," Jamie nodded in agreement, a fleeting twinkle in his eye. And, once again, Lorna felt disproportionably thrilled to have been the one to put it there. "But everything is going to be okay. Remember, I have this." He held up the bracelet she'd given him at Thanksgiving. "To help me not be stupid, remember? All I have to do is think What would Lorna do?"
"You carry that thing around with you?" Lorna scoffed, reluctant to admit how happy it made her.
"Are you kidding? I live by it. Well, I try to, anyway."
"Perfect. Then whatever it is about Marley that's got you so upset, ask yourself: What would I, that is Lorna, do about it?"
"Well, you wouldn't do that," Jamie said after a moment's thought. "Or that. Or that..."
"Maybe I would," she challenged. "Try me."
"I'd love to," he said, then closed his eyes and furrowed his brow with effort. "But I'm busy thinking right now."
"Yeah, I can tell. You're sweating buckets." Lorna laughed and grabbed a handful of paper napkins from the dispenser, making a big show of dabbing his brow, scrub-nurse style. Only to freeze mid-gesture when Jamie unexpectedly opened his eyes, and, following the trajectory of her arm starting with the fingers, met Lorna's gaze head-on. She swallowed hard and wondered why, all of a sudden, she was the one sweating.
"What's wrong?" Lorna choked out.
"Nothing," Jamie looked away, the moment — had it even been a moment? More like an instant. Was there a difference between the two? — broken. "It just came to me what you, rather what I should do about Marley. Thing is, though, I'm not sure how I feel about it."
"How the hell could you not tell me about Allie?" Amanda stormed into Kevin's suite; grabbing the document he was holding from his hands and flinging it on the floor.
Kevin bent over to retrieve it and calmly informed Amanda, "She's my client. Anything Allie tells me is privileged information."
"My college-aged daughter is pregnant and you didn't think I had a right to know?"
"I did. That's why I strongly urged Allie to tell you."
"And what if she hadn't?"
"Then I would have strongly urged her again."
"But you wouldn't have done it yourself?"
"I couldn't."
"You son of a bitch. So you were just planning to go on sleeping with me, while keeping me in the dark at the same time?"
"We could have kept the lights on."
"This isn't funny!"
"It isn't tragic, either." Kevin said, "Yes, Allie made a mistake. Yes, it's unfortunate that she is going to have to go through something like this so early in her life. But she is taking responsibility for her actions. She is trying to do the best thing for everyone. I respect her for that."
"Giving the baby up for adoption was your idea, wasn't it?"
"She came to me for advice. I answered her questions."
"I don't want you offering my daughter advice. Especially not without checking with me first."
"My conversation with Allie was strictly professional. It had nothing to do with you. It wasn't personal. My God, why can no one in this town understand the difference? First, Felicia Gallant accuses me of waking up every morning thinking of ways to make her life miserable, and now you — who, may I point out, know exactly what I think about first thing in the morning; and it certainly isn't Felicia Gallant — are angry because I did my job where your daughter was concerned, ethically and professionally, nothing more, nothing less."
"So you've never, ever allowed personal matters to intrude on your professionalism?"
"Never," Kevin said confidently.
"Liar," Amanda challenged. "You never would have taken Grant Harrison's case in a million years, if it weren't for personal reasons. You've never defended a biological parent over an adoptive one in your life until he came along. You're working for Grant because you want to stick it to my family, admit it."
"I already have," Kevin said stiffly.
"Tell the truth: Do you really think Kirkland would be better off with Grant?"
"No," Kevin said. "But I am also not letting my personal opinion affect the services I'm providing. I am fighting for Grant with everything I have, regardless of how I really feel about the subject."
"So you're a hack. You really are an ambulance chaser, just like Felicia said."
"I'm a professional."
"You're a hypocrite," Amanda said, then stopped abruptly, when they both heard the door behind her open and close.
Amanda turned her head to spy a young African-American woman with waist-length dark hair standing in the doorway.
She looked sheepishly from Amanda to Kevin, then said almost apologetically, "Hi, Daddy."
"I think I finally understand what you feel towards Donna," Rachel told Carl upon coming home from her confrontation with Alice, still shaking with anger. She filled him in on Alice's role in Jamie's hospitalization, and then Rachel confessed, "Obviously, this wasn't the first time I'd gone head to head with Alice. But it was different."
"How so?" Carl wondered.
"Previously, when it was Steve or even Mac that she and I were fighting over, it was... She was... I didn't care. What I mean is, of course, I cared, she was an obstruction to my getting something I wanted, something I honestly thought at the time I couldn't live without. But my feelings towards her, they were the feelings you'd have for... for an inanimate object, an obstacle, a hindrance. I didn't give a damn what happened to Alice outside of the problems she was causing me. She could leave town and live happily ever after, for all I cared. I just wanted her out of my way."
"And now?"
"And now it was all I could do to keep from tearing her to pieces," Rachel admitted, realizing that she should be ashamed of herself. Realizing that she wasn't. "Because this wasn't some man we were fighting about. This was my son. Jamie could have died. And she didn't think I warranted being informed. I know what it's like to lose a lover. I know what it's like to lose a husband, and a mother, and a friend. But I cannot even pretend to imagine what it would feel like to lose my child. Especially Jamie. I know it sounds horrible, I love all my children equally, I would be destroyed if anything happened to any of them. But Jamie... He and I, we grew up together. Sometimes I think I didn't so much raise him as he raised me. He was there for everything. The things I put him through, the lies and the men and the interference. I love all of my children equally. But I owe Jamie the most. And the idea that Alice kept me from helping him when he needed me.... I've never felt that kind of anger in my life."
Carl nodded his head thoughtfully. And then he brought the conversation back to Rachel's opening statement, the one about her finally understanding his blatantly justified wrath towards the woman who'd lied and ultimately killed his own child.
Carl asked, "Does that mean you are at long last feeling predisposed towards allowing me to handle Donna as I see fit?"