by
Aimee
(aimeed@earthlink.net)
C.C. turned slowly, expecting to meet Maxwell's hot, impassioned gaze. Instead, two merry blue eyes twinkled at her from a deadpan expression. She screamed.
Niles' eyes widened. "Mr. Sheffield's been delayed. Did you think I was him?" he asked innocently.
"Don't you EVER tell anyone about this!" she shrieked in rage. She couldn't believe she'd done that. Really, she'd met some men with some strange fetishes before, but clucking like a chicken was a little kinky even by her standards. And yet she'd gone and done it anyway.
"I wouldn't do that," he assured her. "We need the eggs."
C.C. watched him leave, longing to run up behind him and wrap her fingers around his neck and squeeze really hard. Angrily, she slammed the tray of hors d'ouvres to the floor. There! That would give that galley slave something to clean!
C.C. poured herself a glass of champagne and dropped into Maxwell's chair. She loved that chair. It was a touch too big for her, which always made her feel ambitious and reminded her that she was trying to fill a big role in life and had a huge theatrical legacy to live up to in her work. But now, it brought her no comfort at all.
A little less than a decade had passed since Sarah Sheffield's death. She'd been thirty for several years, still as slim as she could be with that impossible hourglass figure of hers, still beautiful, more powerful than ever, and so painfully, achingly lonely that she sometimes felt like a ghost walking through other people's lives. Especially since the appearance of Fran Fine around two years ago, C.C. was always on the fringes, always watching from the sidelines, living only for work and her continued, increasingly desperate pursuit of Maxwell.
Any other woman would have declared that war lost a long time ago. But C.C. just couldn't. She knew she should cut her losses and move on, but not with Niles and that damn interloper Nanny Fine ready to move in for the kill if she softened even a little. Nanny Fine, who had everything C.C. dreamed of: the beauty, the love of others, and even if he didn't know it yet himself, Maxwell Sheffield's heart on a leash.
How did this happen? C.C. asked herself for the thousandth time. She pushed her glass away and reached for the bottle. She took a small swallow then toyed with it, watching the light from the crystal lamp shine through the rising bubbles. I gave years of my life, sacrificed everything for him. Men have stopped calling me because they know I'll work late if he so much as hints he needs me. Yet when I work late, he goes running off with that damn tramp, Nanny Fine!
Introspection was not C.C.'s forte, however, and she shied away from those thoughts. She was mad as hell, and she needed an outlet.
Her long black gown rippled about her body as she rose and went to find Niles.
She found him drinking in the living room. He clucked at her. She slapped him on the back of the head.
"Take a load off," he said. "It can't be easy dragging that big butt around all day."
"So that's why you spend so much time flat on your ass."
"As opposed to all the time you wish you spent flat on your back."
He was rumpled, his tie loose, his usually neat dark blonde hair a bit mussed as though he had been running his fingers through it. "You know, you are so stupid," he said belligerently. "When will you learn he doesn't want you?" He slapped a drink down in front of her as she dropped onto the sofa beside him.
"I know he doesn't! I just don't see why. What's she ever done for him? Anyway, I don't wanna talk about it. I am finished with that man. Somehow, I am gonna figure out where the man for me is and he's gonna love me and I'm gonna love him like I never loved Maxwell Sheffield." She clamped her mouth shut. Alcohol always made her too chatty. Did she just admit she never loved Maxwell? That was weird. Of course she did.
"Do you mean that?"
"Of course not. Tomorrow when I'm sober I'll chase him just like normal and get nowhere, just like normal, and then I'll come running to you and we'll have a good rousing fight and I'll feel better."
"Just like normal?"
"If you can call us normal, Niles."
"We do make quite a pair."
"You know, ever since Sarah died, you're the closest thing to a real friend I have."
"Ditto to a truly pathetic degree."
C.C. laughed. "Niles, promise me something?"
"Not if it involves human sacrifice."
"Not even you. No, just promise me we'll always hate each other just as much as we do tonight."
Niles paused as he refilled their glasses. "Promise. Promise me?"
"Niles, I will hate you passionately until the day I die. I promise."
The conversation lagged as each wondered what was going on in the other's head. Neither one trusted the other a bit, yet they trusted each other to keep a promise for a lifetime. Neither liked the other, yet they sat companionably drinking together and planning their next assault.
C.C. got there first. "Niles, I don't make a habit of drinking with the help."
That little cat. "I've never been any help to you," he denied hotly, giving her a scornful look.
"Exactly," she answered. He couldn't help but smile. "So tell me, Rochester," she said mockingly. "What'd you do to kill a day before I came long?"
Slumped on the couch with one foot on the coffee table, he glanced over at her, her lovely features familiar to him from hours of clandestine observations. "Truth be told, my life was a little empty," he admitted honestly. He was too busy not looking at her clingy gown to see her quiet nod. If he had, things might have been much different, but when he didn't see her respond, he smirked at her and added derisively, "But now I have a hobby."
The blasted man might as well have horns and a tail. And C.C. couldn't stand it, not after what he'd just said about how empty his life was without her. She had been about to admit the same, but now she rose to her feet and slammed down the cut-crystal glass, her whole posture screaming for a fight.
"I loathe you," she said in a low, furious voice. With her back to him, she didn't see the slight, speculative smile on his face.
"I despise you," Niles said haughtily, rising to face her squarely. Despite his deceptively relaxed posture, despite his flawless deadpan delivery, there were banked fires in his blue eyes.
"Servant!" she hurled.
"Trollop," he retorted.
C.C. placed her hands on her hips. "Bellboy!" she said in her low, husky voice, leaning forward.
He paused a moment for effect. "Brunette!"
That did it. She knew he was going to kiss her a second before he did it. I want you, yes, touch me, their eyes said to each other. Then they were in each other's arms.
She met his kiss with years of relentless, stored-up passion. Oh, God, she needed this, it was so right, and she was starving for him as his warm, demanding lips met hers and he began to stroke her tongue with his. She cupped his face in her hands and worked her soft lips against his, dueling him with her tongue, her knees weak and her whole body racked with hot waves of lust. It felt like something she'd wanted for a long, long time without even knowing it. God, it felt like they were devouring each other!
Niles' hand on her bare skin above the back of her gown was too much for him. A long-held fantasy had come to life, and the heat of lust and the light of self-knowledge burned him where he touched her. He pulled his hand away from her naked skin in a vain attempt to break that contact, but their lips still dueled and clung and dueled again. He had to touch her once more.
She ground her lips against his, but then she felt his hand, just at the nape of her neck. She felt his thumb, felt it stroke her warm skin and rotate at the sensitive spot just at the nape of her neck. She parted her lips in shock, her head tilting farther to the side of its own accord, deepening their kiss. Niles thrust his tongue rhythmically against hers. Slowly, gracefully, she started to pull his body closer to her.
It took a moment for the faint sound to register in their clouded minds, but they both realized at the same time that the door had opened and closed. They looked to the side, breaking that intimate kiss as Max and Fran looked on in shock.
Niles and C.C. clung to each other for just a moment, then broke smoothly apart as she reached for her bag. With cool composure, but aware every second that he was following her, she started for the door, her body walking calmly but her heart running away as fast as it could. She tossed off a casual, "Good night, Maxwell, Fanny Nine." Fanny Nine? she thought in horror. That little slip-up was even more telling than the kiss. It revealed that she was shaken to the core.
Niles was holding the door open for her. She paused on the threshold to give him an icy look, and said goodbye to him in their own private language: "Swine."
He replied, right on cue, "Chicken!"
Clever. She hadn't seen that coming. And then he added injury to insult by blowing her a little kiss. C.C. shivered deliciously and swept over the threshold looking far less shaken and far less thrilled than she actually felt.
She arrived back at her apartment without the slightest memory of how she got there.
Okay, she admitted to herself as she sank down on her sofa. The fighting turns me on. It's perverted. But we don't really like each other at all. Besides, I love Maxwell.
Something changed inside her from that kiss, subtly but undeniably. In discussing it with her therapist, Dr. Bort, C.C. came to the conclusion that whether or not Maxwell ever came though with a proposal, dating other men certainly couldn't hurt.
"But it doesn't work," she complained a few sessions later. "I'm dating all the right men. What am I doing wrong? I want to date, but it never lasts."
Dr. Bort merely smiled. She believed in letting people figure things out for themselves. If C.C. didn't know the answer to that question, then she probably wasn't ready to know.
The next year and a half contained more fun, more frustration, and came closer to pure insanity than any time in C.C.'s life. There was the time Noel came to visit and she lost her favorite horse to him, but it was worth it to know there was one person in the world who loved her better than Nanny Fine. Then there was that cruise they all went on. The most bizarre thing had happened; for a few minutes, it had looked as though she were Niles' lucky charm at the gambling tables! Oh, she'd gotten some serious mileage out of that one. And that wonderful evening at the Broadway Guild Awards -- who knew Niles could be so sweet and charming? And dangerous?
Okay, so she'd gotten nowhere with Maxwell, but then neither had Nanny Fine! Fran went around acting like they had a relationship, but in reality Maxwell had no more committed himself to her than he had to C.C.. Of course, there was the minor difficulty that they were both in London at the same time, but that didn't necessarily mean anything, did it?
"After all," as she'd pointed out to Niles. "I've been to London with him several times, and we've never -- I'm going to shut up now."
Niles chuckled, but then she noticed he winced. "What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing. My arm's a little numb."
"Duster's cramp, Pugsley?" C.C. giggled. Then, just when she thought she was over it, she took another look at his newly dyed black hair and went off into peals of laughter again. Niles' new "youthful look" left him looking like a member of the Addams family -- or maybe one of the Little Rascals.
"No, just my close proximity to an ice princess."
"Jesus, I just had to get stuck here with you, didn't I? I wish I'd gone to London with Maxwell."
"Sure, you could have visited your old neighborhood, Stonehenge."
The battle was on. "Oh, you mean the place where the rocks are older than yours?" she shot back, laughing with the sheer joy of combat.
He didn't answer.
"Niles, don't make me get ugly." When he didn't answer, she grimaced disdainfully. She'd handed him that one on a plate! Bored with her victory, C.C. let her glance fall to the paperwork in her hand.
Suddenly a trembling hand clutched at her sleeve, and when she looked up, Niles had collapsed to the floor.
"Get up!" she commanded. "This is sick even for you. Niles, I'm serious." Her voice grew high and piercing. "Niles!" She sank to her knees beside him. His face had gone totally gray, and he didn't respond to her shaking him. His breathing was shallow and getting more so by the minute, and his skin, to her touch, felt clammy and as cold as a dead body.
C.C. tried desperately to control her hysteria. She looked around. The children had all disappeared, and for once there were no Fines running around. What a time for them to give her some peace and quiet! C.C.'s terror at being left alone with Niles as he lay dying was so great that it took her two tries to dial a simple 911.
C.C. watched the paramedics carry him out with her heart in her throat. Niles, her sparring partner, her secret crush, her worst enemy. A thousand times, she'd wished him dead. What if he really was? She didn't want him to die!
The next twelve hours until Maxwell arrived and took over were the most terrible of her life. The doctors swore Niles had only had a mild attack, but nevertheless, C.C. refused to leave his side.
By the time Maxwell got there, C.C. was too exhausted both physically and emotionally to resist when they took her back to the townhouse. Thank god they didn't try to take her home and leave her alone. Not only could she not sleep despite her exhaustion, she was having new and strange and disturbing thoughts about Niles.
What it all boiled down to was that despite her attempts to hate him, Niles meant something to her. In fact, he meant a lot.
"I'll tell him when he's better," she promised herself. "I'll let him know we really are friends. Maybe more."
"She's not taking this well," Grace said warily as C.C. wandered through the kitchen for the third time in five minutes cradling Niles' feather duster against her cheek.
"Oh, honey, she said it herself," Fran pointed out. "She misses him. And she's not a well woman to begin with."
Left to her own devices, C.C. wandered into Niles' room for the first time. His bed was neatly made, in fact the entire room was neat and tidy. But it was so plain. It wasn't anything like her satin-and-mirrors bedroom. It looked like some third-rate log cabin with its faded quilt and nondescript pictures. It brought home to her the mediocrity of his life: unchallenging job, little social life, and he lived in the only room of the entire mansion that wasn't decorated to the point of showiness. Witty, clever, fun Niles seemed so out of place here. C.C. left quickly, unable to stomach her horror or face the serious, potentially life-changing thoughts that her presence in his room evoked.
C.C. resisted the temptation to go nosing through Niles' belongings. In a way, it was too bad. She would have found a framed photograph of herself in the top drawer along with his few other treasures.
After Niles' return to health, life became too confusing for C.C. and she began to retreat. She never did tell him he meant anything to her, not after a nasty practical joke he played on her at his bedside. If a man could come that close to dying and still think only of torturing her, it would be a dangerous mistake to admit she cared.
Max had finally acknowledged his relationship with Nanny Fine. C.C. still wanted Max, yet she was forced to acknowledge that she had some kind of feelings for a man whose brush with death seemed not to have softened his approach for her at all. In fact, if anything, they'd softened towards each other in the weeks leading up to his attack, especially the night he'd escorted her to the awards ceremony. They'd danced for hours in the living room, and not only were they friends, there was just that little spark of something more that confused and excited her. But now, he treated her with more contempt than ever.
Both Max and Niles seemed to have abandoned her in one way or another. For the second time in her life, C.C. rebelled inwardly against the impossible demands she placed on herself. Back then, she'd willfully tried to be "normal." Now, she was too closed off to be able to acknowledge that she demanded too much of herself. She just ate and drank until her perfect features became round and plump, and her delectable body became more out of shape than Niles had ever been, even at his most ill. He for one was looking better and better.
Nanny Fine and Maxwell were engaged, and none of C.C.'s schemes did anything to break them apart.
And then it happened, C.C. hit rock bottom. Maxwell had hired some rap-artist relative of Nanny Fine's to star in their newest musical. C.C. followed him into the office to conduct negotiations as usual, but Nanny Fine and Irwin got there first. And they slammed the door in C.C.'s face.
C.C. Babcock, Executive Vice president of Sheffield Babcock Productions, the second most successful production company on Broadway, suddenly felt confused. Everything around her looked hazy. Work, the last support she had, was pulled out from under her by a nosy nanny and an unknown would-be rapper, and without it C.C. tumbled into the mental pit of a lifetime of unacknowledged grief and rage.
It was days before she knew who or where she was, and she woke up in a hospital.
A mental hospital.
Lucidity slowly returned, and with it, a growing horror. She'd lost her carefully maintained control. She might have ruined her career, had certainly ruined her chances of making a good marriage. Moreover, that bitch Nanny Fine had won. She'd broken C.C.. Now C.C. spent her days wandering the halls of a foul-smelling psychiatric ward while Fran spent her days shopping and planning her wedding.
At "The Place," as she would refer to it from then on, C.C. came face to face with her most terrifying demon -- defeat. All her life, she'd seen everything as a competition. The one with the best career won. The one with the best man won. The one with the most money certainly won. And C.C. was losing in a big way.
With the help of her counselors, C.C. began to assess her life. In many ways, it wasn't great. She was essentially alone, not well liked except by those who only saw the "sincerely insincere" side she showed to the theater community. Her dreams of love came crashing down around her ears every time. But in some ways, life was amazing. She had her dream career, or would as soon as she pulled it back out of the toilet. She had a formidable degree of natural beauty when she was in shape, and an amount of money that most people never even dared to dream of. In short, she was starting over, but she had some major weaponry on her side. She decided to make the most of it.
One obstacle remained in the way: the wedding. Well, she'd be calm, happy, and do her best to have some fun.
C.C. awoke with a head that felt like Thor's Hammer was attacking it on all sides. Her mouth was dry. And when she looked around her, she didn't recognize where she was. Oh, she'd had that fun she'd planned on, that was clear. She thought as hard as she could. The wedding. Nursing a drink as she sat by herself. Talking to Niles. Dancing with Niles.
Oh, God. Niles. She was in his bed. That's where she was. And that was his scent filling her nostrils.
Had they -- surely not. They couldn't have. If nothing else, both of them had been too drunk to "perform." C.C. moved her arms and legs experimentally, and the aches in her over-stretched muscles told her all she needed to know.
They had.
When she rose, she couldn't find her dress but she found a woman's bathrobe at the foot of her bed. She found herself hoping desperately that it was Nanny Fine's. It would be too humiliating to wake up in his bed and don the clothes of a former -- or for all she knew, current -- lover.
Well, this didn't change anything. It was just an accident. As C.C. descended the stairs into the kitchen, she heard Niles' low, deep voice and Sylvia Fine's shrill response. Then, they both turned and stared.
C.C. met them with her head high. Like Monty Python's Sir Robin, who bravely turned and fled, she made it plain she remembered nothing. Niles claimed to remember nothing either, and she felt a profound sense of relief mixed with sadness. Then, he insulted her royally, she snapped at him, and everything was back the way it was. Or so the embattled lovers told themselves.
Within a matter of weeks, C.C. Babcock was back in control. Her weight dropped off, her mental state was much improved, and she was back to her old, spirited self.
C.C. was dead serious about getting her life on track. She frequently found herself getting back into the old patterns of flirting with Maxwell, but she did manage to start dating again, a great guy named Colin. He was so witty! Much more entertaining than Niles. Niles was being a perfect bitch lately, and she couldn't understand why.
Then Colin broke up with her, and Niles asked her to marry him.
C.C. awoke to the sound of birds twittering outside a window and was momentarily confused. Her apartment in the sky was too high to hear the birds. But then, as she shifted and opened her eyes, she felt the warm, heavy arm across her stomach and it all came flooding back. Niles' several proposals. The argument in front of Fran and Max and all the hateful things she'd said and done to fight what was happening to them. His resignation and hers. The way she'd gone looking for him and they'd argued again, but with the barbs turning to passion. And finally, the night of hot, furious coupling and mutual promises not to leave.
She grinned. He was going to have a blast getting chocolate sauce out of the sheets.
C.C. closed her eyes and reveled for a few minutes in the feel of waking up to a warm male body nestled against her, a leg thrown over hers. She felt sore in quite a few places, but a lightness she couldn't identify pervaded her whole body.
Eventually, she looked over at the clock and sat straight up in alarm. She was due at work in half an hour. Downstairs, everyone must be up. They would certainly be looking for Niles to make breakfast. He'd told her, and they'd laughed together, about his midnight meeting with his employers when he went downstairs to fetch C.C. a snack they would both enjoy.
That lightness stayed with C.C. as she took a quick shower and put her clothes back on. As she brushed her hair and turned the blow drier on it, she looked at her face in the mirror and realized she looked ten years younger than she had the day before in spite of her sleepless night. Her eyes looked wider, her skin had a healthy color, and she felt bouncy.
It took her a while to identify the feeling. She was happy, completely and totally happy.
She was already quite a bit late, and if anyone came looking for Niles, they were sure to find her with him, but she decided that a couple more minutes wouldn't kill anyone.
She perched on the edge of his bed and crossed her long legs. She reached out with one hand and stroked his cheek and brushed back his dark blond hair. Opening his eyes, he smiled at her and touched her face experimentally. She turned her lips into his palm and kissed it.
"You're here," he murmured sleepily. "It isn't a dream."
"Yes, and I wanted to see you before I leave. I didn't want you to wake and find me gone without a word."
He reached for her and she lay down next to him for just a moment. Then, she pushed away. "I have to go. They'll find me. We're both already very, very late." He looked disappointed, and she whispered, "I don't want to go!"
"I'll see you downstairs," he promised her.
"I'll see your 'downstairs' and raise you 'in the office!'" she quipped. He laughed. Then she pressed her lips to his.
She got up to go, but he held her hand tightly. "C.C.?"
She turned back to him. "Yes?"
He wanted to tell her he loved her, but he knew it was too soon. Too much pressure and this bird might yet fly away. "See you soon," he said.
"See you soon," she replied. "And Niles?"
"Yes?"
"Hurry up with my tea, will ya?"
They burst out laughing together. Then, hand on the doorknob, she paused and turned. Looking very young and almost shy, she whispered, "Tonight?"
Niles flashed her that naughty smile. "Oh, I'm not waiting until tonight. See you when Mr. Sheffield goes to the theater."
CC cast him a coy, flirtatious smile.
C.C. Babcock Niles, after much persuasion, agreed to deliver her baby in the hospital.
"But it's so depressing!" she complained. "It's ugly and it smells bad."
"You've been living with that for a couple of hundred years," her husband pointed out.
"Oh, shut up, Methuselah."
The family were gathered around the table for dinner one night when, just as one of the footmen brought in Niles' homemade Death by Chocolate Cake, C.C. gripped his hand and quavered, "Niles, I don't think I'll be having dessert tonight."
Niles' eyes widened. "Go get her suitcase," he ordered one of the footmen. "And call for someone to bring my car around. Can you walk, baby?"
C.C. nodded. They progressed slowly, and Niles' '57 Chevy was already waiting at the door with C.C.'s suitcase in the trunk when they came out onto the porch.
To C.C.'s surprise, Fran and Max were right behind them, coats in hand. "Are you coming?" she asked in surprise.
"Hey," Fran said softly. "You were there with me when I went into labor. You think I'm gonna miss seeing you go through what I went through?"
C.C. laughed, then a contraction hit her and she gasped, her whole body going rigid with terror. Niles stopped just as he was about to hand her into the passenger seat of the car. "Are you scared?" he asked tenderly, squeezing her gently around the nonexistent waist.
She nodded. "Yeah," she whimpered.
Niles looked alarmed. "Well, I'll be in the bar getting drunk if you need me."
It took all three of them to bundle C.C. into the car before she could get her hands around her husband's neck.
After a grueling eighteen hours of labor, during which Niles almost never left her side despite the curses she leveled at the selfish sex-crazed bastard servant and his satanic spawn, C.C. was finally able to sink into blessed unconsciousness as her baby was taken away to be cleaned up. C.C. first held her daughter briefly, smiling weakly into her own blue eyes before fainting from exhaustion and slipping from there into a healthy sleep. The screaming infant had quieted down immediately upon being handed to her mother, and made some noises that sounded suspiciously like happy gurgling when transferred to the trembling arms of her awestruck daddy.
While Fran followed the nurses to the nursery to see that the baby was looked after properly, Max stood by Niles as the butler tenderly stroked his sleeping wife's hair. "She's looked better," Niles admitted, tongue in cheek. In truth, he was still a little shaken. He'd never seen anyone go through an ordeal like C.C.'s even though the doctors assured him it was all perfectly routine and normal. No wonder she looked so pale and colorless, her hair tousled and matted.
"Well, old man, she came through it just fine. One thing C.C.'s never lacked is courage."
"Did you hear the way my daughter screamed? She's going to be just like C.C.," Niles predicted with a silly grin.
"Indeed she will. Her first words will probably be 'hello, hello!' That, or one of those dreadful names C.C. called you while she was in labor." Max shook his head, grinning.
"Yes, did you hear her accuse me of seducing and marrying her just to do this to her as a practical joke?"
Soon after, Max left to call home and tell them that C.C. had come through just fine and that Morgan Victoria Babcock Niles appeared to have her mother's stamina and her father's sanguinity.
C.C. awoke late that evening to find her husband napping in a chair at her side. She rang for the nurse to bring her a drink so as not to disturb him.
"I'd like some water, please. And then I'd like someone to bring me my child. I only saw her for a second before I passed out."
"The Sheffields are outside. Morgan is with them."
C.C. laughed. "That nanny is already making up to my child. Well, tell them all to get in here. Niles, wake up! Everyone's coming to visit."
Fran came first holding Morgan. She carefully transferred the tiny baby to C.C.'s arms. C.C.'s eyes teared up, and she bent her golden head over the smaller one, not speaking for many minutes. When she could finally look up through clear, tear-free eyes, it was to find well wishers of the Sheffield and Fine families crowding her room. Niles sat down on her bed and wrapped his arms around her from behind.
"Guess what?" he asked. "I have another surprise for you." He nodded to Gracie, who returned leading a tall man with glasses and sandy blonde hair. "C.C.!" the man exclaimed, pronouncing her name in his strange way, with the accent on the last syllable.
"Noel!" C.C. cried in delight. Since her less than illustrious marriage, he was the only member of her family who still expressed any caring or interest whatsoever.
Noel bent down to embrace C.C. and the baby. He then shook hands with Niles. "I brought you a gift, C.C." She opened a small box to reveal a stunning suite of ruby jewelry: necklace, bracelet, and earrings.
"Noel, they're gorgeous."
"And this is for Morgan. By the time she's ready for it, it should be about ready for her." Noel handed Niles an envelope. Niles opened it and was so surprised he said a word for which C.C. smacked his thigh and told him to watch his mouth in front of the baby.
Noel grinned. "There never was a Babcock who didn't sit a horse like a pro. So I took the liberty of buying Morgan her first pony. I figured that in a couple of years when she's old enough to start learning, it will just be well trained enough to trust a child with. That envelope contains the registration and ownership papers."
"Oh, Noel! Thank you! Here, Morgan, go give your uncle Noel a hug." C.C. passed Morgan to Noel, who held her awkwardly but managed a lopsided smile. C.C. watched him in amusement, knowing he was no fonder of children than she generally was.
Maxwell stepped forward. "C.C., how are you feeling?"
There was that British gushing. "Just fine, but I am starving!"
"I'll ring for a nurse," offered Niles, reaching for the call button.
"I so don't think so! I just spent eighteen hours bringing your child into the world and you think I'm eating hospital food for my last meal before the dieting starts? No, I distinctly remember there being a Chinese restaurant across the street, and if I'm not shoveling in egg foo yung within half an hour, you're dead meat. Hey Nanny Fine, do you mind if I have a few of those Godivas, since they are technically for me?"
C.C. managed, with a nurse's help, to get to the bathroom, where she showered and restored order to her hair and make-up. By the time she was through, Niles, Noel, and Maxwell had returned carrying huge boxes of food. In no time, C.C. and her guests were enthusiastically inhaling cheap Chinese food.
"Too bad Morgan's not old enough for this," Fran joked. "Well, Ma's eating her share and then some."
C.C. and Niles laughed as they nibbled off the same plate. "Hey, where is Morgan, anyway?" asked C.C. "Niles, that's my sparerib, keep your claws off it."
"That's what Adam told you, but did you listen?" he retorted. "I don't know, who's got Morgan?"
"The nurse took her," said Fran.
"Well, get her back!" demanded C.C. "It's her party, she should be here."
Fran hurried off to the nursery to return Morgan to her mother. When she arrived, she asked, "Hey, do you want me to watch her during the party?"
"No," said C.C. "It's our party, hers and mine and Niles'. She belongs with us." She was going to be a good mother if it killed her!
C.C. scooted over to make room for Niles on the bed. He sat up next to her, arm around her shoulders, and they took turns holding their daughter.
"She's got your eyes," he murmured, both delighted and doomed.
"She's got your smile," she answered, knowing she'd never be able to refuse this child anything.
"She's got your hair."
"She's got a dirty diaper."
As C.C. hastily turned the baby over to Niles, Sylvia Fine remarked to her mother, "Oy, who woulda thought it? That Shiksa harridan a happy mother. I never thought I'd see the day."
"Yeah," agreed Yetta in her raspy voice. "I just hope her husband doesn't find out that the butler did it."
Their voices carried, and C.C. heard them and rolled her eyes. "He sure did," she remarked with a grin. "I just don't know how I'll get through the next month until he can do it again."
The party stopped dead when Niles' incredulous voice was heard to roar, "A month?" Then, the smiles and voices and joy of the partiers swirled through the room, obscuring everything except the celebration of a new life, not only for the baby but for C.C. as well
The End
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