by
Aimee
(aimeed@earthlink.net)
Fran Fine Sheffield looked around in astonishment. Her entire family was gathered for breakfast as usual, but there was no breakfast! No Niles, issuing witty remarks along with the bagels, in fact no bagels, no polished silver salvers of eggs and bacon and Belgian waffles . . .
"What the devil is going on here?" Max asked in annoyance. "C.C. will be here any minute, and we have enough work to do today to last us a week! What's the problem?"
"I'll go find him," Fran assured him. "You sit down and be patient."
She pushed open the door to the kitchen. No Niles. Suddenly, a sound caught her attention. A faint moaning from upstairs. Please, God, no more heart attacks! I know he's not Jewish, but it's not his fault, he was raised that way! Fran came to Niles' door. The moaning was loud enough to wake the dead! Why had no one heard it before? Oh, God!
Fran burst in, only to come to a screeching halt. "Oh, My God!" she reiterated.
C.C. Babcock dove off the other side of the bed, popping up again so that just her tousled golden head and bare shoulders showed. "Nanny Fine!" she shrieked in outrage.
Niles had grabbed for the blankets, but it was too late. Fran had already seen more than she ever wanted to see of her best friend, and there was plenty there to see! Oy vey, was that man --
"Sorry," Fran said hurriedly, turning around and rushing down the stairs.
Max rose as she entered. "Well, where is he? Is he all right?"
Fran waved her hands to quiet her brood. "Sorry, kids, but we're gonna have to Captain Crunch it today."
"What's wrong with Niles," demanded Gracie. "He's not dead, is he?"
"No, sweetie, he's just a little behind this morning. He had a long night."
Max threw his napkin down and headed for the door. "Well he's still my butler, and I -- "
"Max, no!" There was a pleading note in Fran's voice. He stared at her, lifting one eyebrow in an unspoken question. "C.C.," she mouthed.
Max's jaw dropped. Then he smirked. "Well, it's about time," he remarked, leading the way into the kitchen. "Come on, kids, Niles is indisposed today. We're Captain Crunching it."
They were just trooping back out to the dining room when a low, feminine voice came from the stairs. "Niles, don't worry about the kids! I'll just sneak out the back door and come around to the front. No one will know I spent the night -- well, except Fran and Max, but -- " C.C. froze as the entire Sheffield family swiveled slowly and stared at her. She froze, a glazed, uncertain smile on her face.
Niles appeared behind her. "Nothing to see, here, folks, just giving Miss Babcock her birthday prezzy."
This provided a welcome distraction.
"Oh, yes, happy birthday, C.C.!" exclaimed Maxwell. He thought he ought to shake hands or hug her or something, but wasn't really sure he wanted to, considering where she'd just been.
"Happy birthday, Miss Babcock!" chorused Fran and the children, except Gracie, who was already on the phone with her therapist.
"Thank you Maxwell, Nanny Fine, children." C.C. glanced behind her with a mysterious smile. "And thank you for the present, Niles."
"Oh, no, thank you, Miss Babcock."
"My pleasure." Luckily, Max and Fran had herded the children out.
C.C. gave Niles one last cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. "As long as the cat is out of the bag, I may as well go home and change before work."
"Need any help?"
"I'll manage. By the way, I've been meaning to brush up on my housekeeping skills. Want to come over tonight and teach me how to use a feather duster?"
Niles gave her a stern look. "You are pretty dirty, Babcock."
"Oooh, good. We can have a shower scene."
"Get going, wench, before I show you the pleasures of leaning up against a dryer during the spin cycle."
Niles had planned a surprise for the beautiful, witchy woman. As soon as she was gone, he whipped a white-frosted cake out of the refrigerator and began decorating it with multicolored roses. He'd planned to do it while she was in the office, but this was better.
Grace had recovered miraculously when he invited her to help set up for the party. He'd made a frosting-rose on the palm of her hand for her to eat, then given her some streamers. She was now giggling happily as she ran around the living room stringing them all over the place. Maggie was arranging raw vegetables in a basket with an assortment of dips, and Brighton was setting up a new stereo system, which was the Sheffield family's birthday gift to C.C.
They were making this effort more for Niles than for C.C., for they still hadn't warmed up to her, but they were trying hard to see what had him so besotted. Brighton even went so far as to compliment C.C.'s body.
Niles sighed in exasperation as he began putting the candles in the cake. "Naturally her beauty is one of the things I care about, that's the way nature intended. But it's more than that. I've grown to like what everyone else hates about her; her fire, her smart mouth, her ability to get what she wants and damn the torpedoes."
Brighton was still at the age where he preferred girls to didn't talk much at all, but he had a vague sense that Niles had found something special, something he might want someday. For now, there was always Miss December.
They were barely ready when C.C. burst through the door Niles had purposely left open. "Maxwell, I'm ready to -- Oh!"
She stood there in confusion, a rosy blush spreading over her cheeks. She was speechless, but when the entire family broke into a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday," she had the brightest grin on her face. "Thank you!" she gasped "Excuse me!" She fled to the bathroom, where she wiped away the tears and took a few deep breaths until the lump in her throat decreased.
When she reappeared, Brighton showed off her new stereo. He pointed out features like the "Graphic Equalizer" and "3D sound" that were Greek to C.C., but she listened attentively and only backed away when she noticed in embarrassment that the entire family was watching and enjoying her reaction.
Max took her hand. "C.C., Niles baked you a cake. Come look."
C.C. approached the monster-sized cake. How had he known how much she liked multicolored bouquets of roses? She smiled, until she read the words. Her true and accurate age was spelled out in candles. She turned red.
"C.C.? Are you all right?" Max asked.
"Yes!" she responded. "Shall we cut it? I never did get breakfast this morning."
The Sheffield children decided that anyone who would eat cake for breakfast couldn't be all bad. They took her suggestion to heart.
When Niles served his lady her cake, she hissed, "In the kitchen, Butler Boy. Now!"
After a polite token bite of her cake, C.C. excused herself and Niles and stalked into the kitchen.
"And I was stupid enough to fall for it! I actually thought you cared, but this party was a set-up, wasn't it?" she began, starting from the wrong end of things but too furious to care.
"I thought I made it pretty clear I cared a lot! What are you on about?"
"You did it just for a joke so you could tell everyone how old I am!"
"C.C., it's your birthday. They would have asked anyway."
"Niles, I'm so embarrassed!" Her throat was getting choked up again. She fought it back. She knew she was being completely unreasonable.
"I stayed up all evening until you snuck in, getting things ready for the party! Most of the Sheffields don't even like you, but they threw you a party anyway. Is this all the thanks we're to get?"
C.C. was enraged. "I'm going to go out there and smile like you never said that, and pretend I don't know. But anything you did for me you just threw away by saying that." Eyes blazing, C.C. stomped out into the living room.
She heard Niles stomp out the back way.
"Where's Niles?" Fran asked.
"He needed something at the store," C.C. lied. "He'll be here in a while." She proceeded to put a brave face on to mask her humiliation. The telling of the age had been annoying. She wanted to tell Niles off, but never supposed he'd take it to heart. She figured he'd call her a cow like usual and kiss her silly. It was his comment about nobody liking her that really upset her.
C.C. tried to be a good sport. She even danced a little to a CD Brighton put in and told him she'd be delighted if he'd help her get the stereo to her apartment and put it back together there. Brighton was flattered, as she'd intended him to be.
Grace tried to make a frosting rose in C.C.'s hand, but only ended up squirting blue frosting on C.C.'s black Chanel suit. C.C. smiled as brightly as she could and told the girl it was the thought that counted, and frosting tasted just as good in a big lump as it did made into a rose.
And C.C. hated every minute of patronizing these people who were only patronizing her. Only Maxwell or Niles could possibly know her well enough to tell the difference, though.
Niles marched in an almost military style through Central Park, he was so angry. He'd tried so hard, they all had, and to please a woman who was so selfish she could take an effort like that and only see the bad. Even more hurtful and infuriating was the memory of her uninhibited response to him the night before, made even sweeter by anticipating her pleasure at the party.
Even angry with her, he grinned at all the things they could do with the leftover frosting.
But she was being so selfish and high-strung. Niles didn't realize the enormity of what he'd said to her.
He needed to go back. They'd be wondering about him, and he needed an excuse. He sat down on a park bench to think of one.
Between the party and C.C.'s visit, he was exhausted. In a few minutes, he dozed off to sleep.
When he awoke, it looked like afternoon. He was horrified. What had C.C. told them to explain his absence? What would he tell them, or her?
Niles started back through the park. As he went, he noticed some new, but rather old-fashioned buildings had been erected along the street. He also couldn't help but grin at the fashions. Everyone had gone retro. It looked like the late sixties.
Central Park was a zoo of families, not unusual for a weekend. Niles stopped to watch a group of children play tag. It made him feel happy and rather nostalgic for the fast-growing Sheffield kids.
Suddenly, he remembered just how cruel children could be. A blonde girl in a white dress approached the children. She seemed totally alone, yet she couldn't be more than five. She spoke to a boy in overalls, who seemed to get very angry. He pointed away. The girl looked at the other children, but they continued with their game and refused to include her.
She ran up to one of them and said, "Tag! You're it!" To Niles' horror, they shoved her so hard she fell down. She picked herself up and walked slowly away.
The blonde girl tugged at Niles' heart. He followed her. Where were her parents? Why would an obviously wealthy child be alone in Central Park trying to play with a bunch of ragtag children who didn't want her?
Niles found the child hidden behind a tree. Up close, her exceptional beauty stunned him. Her hair shone golden in the sunlight, her eyes were large and blue, her skin porcelain white.
She was crying and trying to mop up the blood from a skinned knee.
Niles knelt before her. "May I help you, Miss?"
She looked frightened, and told him, "If you try to hurt me, my father will see you in prison forever!"
Niles opened his hands wide. "I only want to help. Will you let me use my handkerchief to stop the blood?"
Warily, she nodded. "I'm Niles," he said as he applied his clean white handkerchief to her knee. "There, I'm sure it stings, but you'll mend."
"Thank you," she said, obviously still uncomfortable. Niles felt it was best not to push her for her name.
"Who were those children who pushed you?"
"I don't know. My nanny says I shouldn't try to play with strange children. I guess she's right, because they sure didn't like me."
"Their loss," Niles said gallantly. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"
"No, thank you."
"Why are you alone?" She started to look frightened again, and he rephrased, "Where has your nanny gone? Your parents?"
"Father's at work, Mother's making calls, and Nanny said not to go anywhere while she talked to her boyfriend the hot dog man, but I got bored and decided to find someone who'd play with me. I make my own rules. She doesn't love me, she just gets paid to pretend she does, and she's a rotten actress."
Niles laughed at her sharp wit. Not as good as C.C. Babcock would have come up with, but pretty good for a child. Another firecracker, then, like the woman she so resembled.
"I know a lady who'd like you," he said, even though C.C. disliked children. "You two are a lot alike."
"What's she like?" asked his new little friend. Niles sat down beside her and began, "Well, she's very lovely, to begin with. I imagine she must have looked very like you as a child. For another thing, she's very smart and brave and plays by a set of rules all her own."
"I like her already. Do many people like her?"
Niles thought carefully before responding. "I do. In fact, I fear I'm rather in love with her, despite myself."
"Does she love you?"
"I wish I knew."
There was a long, uncomfortable pause. Then, in a very small voice, the little girl asked, "Do you like me?"
Niles was astonished "Oh, very much!" he assured her. He wanted to tell her so much, give her so much advice for getting along with people, he didn't know where to begin. He wanted to save her from whoever taught her that she was unlovable.
"When I'm grown up, I want to marry somebody like you," the child said seriously. "He's got to be very handsome and very rich, and smart, and kind. I hope maybe he'll love me," she said forlornly.
This moment was so poignant. "Your beauty will win you love," he assured her. "But I think you should find someone who loves your mind and spirit, too."
"Men don't like smart women," she said. "That's what Nanny and Mama said. Though if that's true, I wonder why Daddy doesn't love Mama?"
Niles wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time. But before he could think of a suitable reply, he heard a voice shout a very familiar name. "C.C.! C.C.! Where are you?"
Suddenly his young friend looked scared and angry. "Bobo," she screamed. "Where are you?"
A buxom dark-haired woman holding a black leather book rushed up to the child and shook her hard. "Don't you ever run away from me again, C.C.! Your parents don't pay me enough to put up with this!"
Young C.C. retorted, "Do they pay you to flirt with your steady?"
Nanny was so furious she never even noticed Niles. He kept in the background so he didn't get her in trouble.
C.C.? Great, just what the world needed, another C.C.
"C.C. Babcock! Get moving and no lip, or I won't let Noel take you to the movies today!"
Niles was stunned. A relative of his C.C.'s, maybe? It sure sounded like her family. "I beg your pardon, miss," he said, beginning to have a horrible suspicion. He picked up his handkerchief from where C.C. had dropped it, and offered it to her. "You'd better keep this to tend your wound until you can get home and bandage it properly."
"Wha -- Oh, thank you, sir!" the nanny said in surprise.
"If you don't mind, may I look at your calendar? I'm afraid I've forgotten the date."
Niles opened the black leather book, which he'd correctly guessed was a day planner. What he saw there shocked him to the core. According to this woman's book, today was indeed C.C.'s birthday. Her fifth birthday.
He knelt before her, tying the handkerchief around her leg. As he did, he whispered, "Have faith, C.C. You won't see me again for many years, but when you do, I'll be there to look after you as always. Keep your chin up." She looked at him, wide-eyed and nearly in tears.
"Good afternoon, ladies," he said, and left.
He was sick with fear. How had this happened? More important, how was he to go home to his family?
He was still exhausted. He returned to his park bench in a daze. The children were still playing tag, and he still felt drowsy. Niles, more in an act of faith than a conscious decision, let his head fall to his chest and drifted off. When he awoke, it was still early afternoon, but Alannis Morrissette blared from a nearby boombox, and thoroughly modern cars clogged the streets. Niles ran home as fast as he could, and threw open the door of the Sheffield mansion in a panic.
Fran was cleaning up the party in the living room. He set to work helping her.
"Niles, where've you been? We got so worried! I thought Miss Babcock was gonna cry and Max was gonna have a coronary!"
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Sheffield. I had a job to do."
Fran rolled her eyes. "That's so melodramatic, like the stuff they say in sci-fi movies where they travel time and play with lasers and stuff."
Niles grinned and set to work clearing away the remains of the party. He also dished, discreetly of course, about his night with C.C. Babcock.
"I hope she knows how lucky she is," Fran said.
"I'm lucky, too. That fireball in there is smart, gorgeous, has a way with a one-liner that turns me on, and the little demon is an absolutely fantastic -- well, umm . . . "
"Okay, don't paint me a picture. I was scarred for life from walking in on you two this morning. Sorry about that, by the way."
"I'll survive. So will she. She's survived so much worse."
"Like what? Being rich, beautiful, spoiled, having a pedigree going back to God and an Ivy League education? Yeesh, my sympathies!"
"What about the family that never loved her, the friends she doesn't have, the man of her dreams who preferred the nanny... "
"All right, all right, I didn't need that picture either!"
"How'd she do at the party?" he asked.
"Fine. I could tell she was affected, and a little confused, but she kept her chin up." Niles smiled. "It woulda been better if you were there."
"I already spoiled it for her. We fought and I said the worst thing I ever said to her."
"What? Oh my God, you didn't take back The Thing, did you?"
"No, that was entirely in her -- "
"Niles, down boy! What'd you say?"
Niles muttered the story under his breath.
"I'd have socked you for putting my age on a cake! Then you told her we didn't like her! Never mind about it being kinda true, now how are you gonna get her trust back?"
"I don't know, but there is one hope. If you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about it until I've talked about her."
"I'll get Max out, you go in and do what you gotta do, but if I do this for you, you owe me mucho details!"
Fran pranced into the office. Max smiled and held his arms out to her, and she sat on his lap as they listened to C.C.'s diatribe on the telephone.
"No, we're not letting him out of his contract! He has an obligation to do this, and if he doesn't hold out until we can get a suitable replacement, he'll never work again! If he doubts I have the power to do that, ask him if he wants the whole world to know about KiKi and the hotel room incident!"
C.C. slammed down the phone and grinned devilishly. "God, I love my job!"
Max patted Fran's rump. "What brings you in, sweetheart?"
"Well, C.C. already had her present, so I thought I'd come see if you wanted yours."
"But darling, it isn't my birthday."
"It is now."
"But sweetheart -- "
"Go ahead, Maxwell," C.C. said, and she sounded infinitely tired. "All I have to do is fax this contract & I'll be done for today. Is it all right if I go shopping?"
"By all means, have a lovely day. Take Niles with you if you want." Fran had Max by his Saturday tie and he was nearly out the door.
Niles entered soon after. "C.C., I apologize for earlier today. It isn't true, I just said what I knew would hurt the most because I was angry."
C.C. remained cold and distant. "Thanks, OK, bye. I've got to fax, then I'm out of here."
"C.C.," he said softly. "If I could bind up this wound with a hanky, I would, and this time I wouldn't send you home with your nanny for her to hurt you."
"What?"
"Do you remember your fifth birthday, C.C.?"
"Who does?"
"I do. You ran away from your nanny in Central Park. Some kids didn't want to play with you, so you went behind a tree and cried. You'd skinned your knee."
"A man bandaged it with a handkerchief and talked to me," she reminisced. "I went home with Bobo and she wouldn't let me go to the movie with Noel because I'd smarted off. Not like that ever stopped me, though." She turned deathly white. "Niles. How?"
"I fell asleep today in the park when I left here during your party. I woke up in nineteen sixty-- well, we both know, no reason to reopen that wound! I found you crying. You poured your heart out to me and then went off with your horrible nanny."
They had both been cool and matter-of-fact throughout this exchange, but both were wary and shaken to the core.
"It enabled me to understand you," he said.
"You protected me."
"You grew up into a lovely, strong woman who needs no one's protection."
C.C.'s hands shook violently, but with her chin up, she took a bold step toward Niles. He opened his arms.
C.C. held him tightly. Niles didn't try to comfort her. She needed to experience her own strength.
Suddenly she laughed. "My therapist would say this might be the cause of our nearly fifteen years of fighting," she commented. "You helped me then left me, and I got to lash out at you even though I didn't consciously remember you."
Niles thought for a minute. "Nah, I'm just obnoxious."
C.C. cracked up. "That's for sure."
"And you're so much better?"
C.C. gave him a meaningful look. "Last night you told me I was pretty damn incredible."
"That was no lie. Wanna do it?"
"Here?"
"The Sheffields have, why shouldn't we?"
C.C. smirked and turned around for him to unzip her dress. When she turned back to him, she was wearing a black lace ensemble that very nearly gave him a second heart attack. She lay slowly and gracefully back on the sofa. Niles stood there and grinned at her. "Let me go get my feather duster."
The End
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