Jaime Summers looked at the tall, blonde girl; she knew that Helene was a dancer. Kelly had seen her dance on several occasions, and always returned back to Northwestern with stories about how good her half sister was.
"Yes, I'm Jaime," she said now; "It's nice to meet you, Helene. How old are you?"
"I turned 16 just a couple of weeks ago, on April 30th."
"I'm 16, too. My birthday is four days before yours!" Jaime said.
"Cool," Helene said.
A short distance away, Jaime's mother, Julia was talking to Christian and Kathryn DeWitt, Helene's parents. Kathryn held a very sleepy two year old boy named Eric. "All this was too much for him," Kathryn was saying. "He doesn't understand what a graduation is, just that Sissy is in it."
"He crashed hard," Christian DeWitt said. "Sleeps the sleep of the dead, always has. We were always checking on him when he was a baby."
"We're still checking on him, Christian!" his wife said, laughing.
"Oh that was our youngest, Rachel," Julia said; "She came a couple of months early and her father and I lost a lot of sleep over her during her first year."
The two graduates looked over at their families talking. "Looks like Jaime and Helene are getting along," Kelly said. "Weird how their birthdays are so close together."
"I hope that they'll be friends once they get to college," Miri said; "Maybe they'll even be roommates like we were."
"The chances of that are slim to none, you know," Kelly said; "For now, I want to get out of this damn dress and take a nap!"
"I hear that," Miri said; "But I better get used to wearing uncomfortable dresses. John wants to get the show going for the wedding and all."
"I thought that wasn't going to be until New Year's Eve," Kelly said.
"Lots of stuff to do before then, Kel," Miri said; "It's nothing that Sandy and Danica can't handle. I hardly have to think about it. My mom, on the other hand, she's kinda freaking out!"
"She looks so composed to me, Mir," said Kelly.
"It's all an act," Miri said, laughing; "My mom is the typical mother of the bride!"
"Too bad John couldn't be here to see you get your degree," said Kelly; "I know he was looking forward to it."
"Unfortunately, the Army doesn't agree and sent him to Oklahoma for six weeks," Miri said; "I think they just like to mess with his head."
Kelly's mother walked over before Kelly could respond to the last thing Miri said. "We need to get back to the hotel and put Eric down for a nap, Kelly," Kathryn said; "We've asked the Summerses to join us for dinner later. Miri, looks like Helene and Jaime are getting to know each other. They just discovered they're four days apart in age and are both coming here to Northwestern in August."
"Kel, looks like we'll be seeing you all later," Miri said; "Let your baby brother get a nap. I've babysat for Kimber enough to know that little guys and gals who don't get a proper nap are hard to deal with, if you know what I mean."
Kelly laughed, knowing that Miri's aunt, Kimber Duncan, had two kids- a son, Drew and a daughter, Joanna. Kelly realized early on in her college career that she was spending more time with Miri's family (and there were a lot of them!) than she remembered spending with her own. It made her happy that her family and Miri's family were getting along.
The DeWitts were on their way back to the hotel when Kelly remarked to Helene, "I saw you talking to Miri's sister, Jaime. She's a nice girl, isn't she?"
"Yes," Helene said, trying to hide her excitement on finding a new friend; "Jaime and I are both coming here to Northwestern in August, we're almost exactly the same age, and we like a lot of the same things. But she's going to study biology, while I study dance. We're going to talk more at dinner after Eric gets his nap."
"Trade email addresses and stuff like that?" Christian asked his daughter.
"Yeah, I guess, Dad," Helene said; "But it's cool that Miri has a sister my age!"
"We've always liked Miri, Helene," Kathryn said; "So I'm not surprised to hear that you and her sister get along."
"I wish Grandpa Eric and Krysta were able to come," Helene's sister, Erin, said; "It's too bad that Neil had to have surgery. He's so little to have to have his appendix taken out."
"Better out than in, in that case, Erin," her father said. "Neily will be just fine, I'm sure."
===
Audrina d'Alessandro sighed heavily. She'd had so much freedom in Vermont without Giuseppe looking over her shoulder at everything she did. Audrina knew that her mother paid him well to watch out for her welfare.
Not that he'd understand what she was doing on her computer, but still, she hated it. She knew he wasn't too thrilled with the arrangement, either. Audrina knew there was more going on between him and her mother than they even realized. She thought that her mother thought she was stupid. Mama, don't keep secrets from me, she thought to herself. You're a terrible liar.
Her hometown was beautiful, and was glad that the tourists hadn't yet discovered everything it had to offer. But she was growing up, and she had plans. One of those plans was to attend college in America at Northwestern University. They had an excellent computer sciences program there, and she hoped that they could teach her something she didn't already know.
Audrina d'Alessandro was a computer wunderkind. It was something her mother didn't understand. Maybe her father would have if he'd lived long enough. She liked to think that she inherited her intelligence from him.
It was part of the reason that Audrina didn't think he died. He was alive somewhere, and she intended to find out where. When she found him, she had all kinds of questions for him, starting with, "Why the fuck did you walk out on your family without a word?"
When she got the chance to ask that question, the answer he would give her would shock her to her core.
Then she would allow a couple of 22 year old assassins to kill him. And she wouldn't mourn the man.
===
What would the American public think about a candidate for the highest office in the land stalking a 16 year old girl?
No, he would keep his sick secret to himself.
He knew early in life that how he thought about certain females was not normal. He tried for years to forget, and sometimes, he was successful. But when he hit puberty, the thoughts returned stronger than ever.
Then he acted out on them.
He wasn't even ashamed the first time his parents were called to the school about his promiscuity. He sat there smug faced at 13 years old and denied everything. The girl made it up. She came on to him and he did what she wanted. She didn't like it so she tried to get him in trouble.
The stupid adults believed him.
It got worse, and there were times he couldn't lie his way out of it. Usually it ended up that his rich parents bailed him out. There were never any charges.
Then his parents divorced, and he believed the lies his mother told about his father.
It would take him until middle age to figure out she was the one who had done all the things she accused his father of.
He left the country, married into European royalty after one of his trysts got the girl pregnant, and was unhappily married to her for fourteen years.
He'd managed to keep his abnormal desires at bay until one day when his daughter was nine years old and just starting to go through the early stages of puberty. He then realized that he could never do that to his own little girl.
He fought the urges, and found outlets for his sick lust. As his daughter got older, he wasn't sure how long he could hold out. The thought of him doing to her what he had done to countless young girls made him physically ill.
The marriage he got roped into was in shambles, so he decided to fake his own death, then leave his "widow" nothing in his will. It would all go to his kids.
He stayed long enough to ensure that they all thought he was dead, then he headed back to the land of his birth. With his fortune, he changed the way he looked so much that not even his own father would know him.
In the back of his mind, he knew he did the right thing. But he missed his daughter terribly. He didn't know that her mother had sent her to a boarding school in Vermont. But, she wouldn't know him on sight either.
Still he watched the one he wanted as she interacted with his father's new family. What he wanted from her was what he couldn't bear to do to his own daughter, yet someone else's daughter was fair game.
He wouldn't get a chance for another ten years, because another desire took the place of it.
The desire was to become President of the United States, turn the country over to the Occupational group he had taken over years before, and punish people who weren't "ideal".
In the middle of all that, the teenage girl he watched now would be an adult with a family of her own.
And his daughter, unbeknownst to him, was one of her best friends.
===
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