Author: Regency

Title: The Whole Thing In Reverse

Summary: What if 20 years ago, Eve was the spoiled rich kid and Julian was the struggling musician? And what if 20 years ago, they fell in love? Now, two decades later they meet again. When Eve falls in love with Julian again, how far will she go to have him back?

Author’s Notes: I’ve changed some history to write this story. The company Johnson & Johnson belongs to Eve’s parents. Other than that, read and see. Oh, and please don’t take offense at the somewhat racist remarks made by the people in this story. It’s kind of the tone of the thing.

Disclaimer: The show “Passions” belongs to JER, but the idea is mine.

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It was the seventies, she was young, spoiled, and rebelling. Her parents wanted her to finish college, meet and marry a nice young, black, prospective businessman. She wanted to do neither. She just wanted to party and make boys beg. White boys, black boys, whatever boys. She didn’t think of them that way. That was her parents, the racist billionaire black folks.

Sometimes, she just wanted to hang her head when she was with them. They got money and lost their minds. Yes, they were black and yes, they were proud. But did that mean that everyone else of any other color meant nothing? They thought so. Everyone was either white or black to the Johnson’s. There was no Hispanic, Asian, or whatever. There was just white or black. Another thing that made Eve want rebel. She like having choices. So, she dabbled with all the crayons in the box.

And of course, when her eyes met those of a young Julian Crane across a smoky club in Boston, she knew that she’d found her latest conquest. It didn’t occur to her that he’d be the one to change her life.

She’d ordered him a drink and sauntered over to him as he played the piano. He was still playing so he couldn’t drink it, but he’d smiled at her and invited her to sing. That was the first time she sang for him. He loved her voice. That very night, she followed him up to his apartment on the Lower East Side and stayed for awhile.

For the first few weeks, she’d do that, stay, play, and slip quietly away out after he’d fallen asleep to return to her penthouse apartment with her bodyguards on the Upper East Side and her nice limousines with their drivers. She did have a reputation to uphold. She couldn’t be seen on the Lower East Side. Still, she went out with him everywhere else. Her parents hated it. She treated him to nice things. She showed him how the rich people played. The drugs, the sex, the music. She took him to places that he never could’ve gone to on his own. It was all in fun in the beginning, until something happened. One night, they were rolling in the sheets after some party and he’d looked into her eyes and told her that he loved her.

She’d been so shocked that she’d just kissed him and distracted him with other things. It hadn’t occurred to her that one day he might fall for her. He was just supposed to be an idle fling. Just something she did to piss her parents off. He wasn’t supposed to love her and she wasn’t supposed to love him back. But she did. She loved him back.

She stopped going back home after that night. She stayed the night and slept through. He wore her out and she loved how it felt to be worn. She knew that her parents would be furious, but the didn’t care. Julian was who she wanted to be with. She wanted to marry him and be with him for the rest of her life. She told her parents that.

“You want to marry him?” her mother’d said.

“Yes. I want to spend the rest of my life with him.” She’d been so certain of their love. Until her parents started in on her.

“How? He has nothing, Eve. This young, white boy has nothing and it doesn’t look he’s going to get anything any time soon. Are you prepared to lose everything? Because if you leave with this boy, you’re leaving with nothing. I won’t have any daughter of mine marrying a white boy and bringing half-white children home.”

“Why are you so cold, momma? I love him and he loves me.”

“Are you sure? Are you sure you’re not just some toy for his amusement that he’ll throw away when he gets around his white friends?” Eve had flinched at the thought. She’d thought about it. She’d never met any of his friends. He wasn’t the most social one. He liked to spend time alone with her in his apartment, listening to her sing.

“You can’t even be sure, can you, Evie?” That was her daddy. He was not as prejudiced as her mother, but he was so protective of her. He hated to see his baby girl hurt. He just wanted her to be happy.

“It doesn’t matter now, daddy. I’m having his baby.” She immediately wished she’d kept that to herself. Her mother was furious that she’d had the nerve to get pregnant.

“You’re pregnant. Eve! You’re having that lily-white, po-boy’s baby?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes, momma.”

“Not as long as I’m alive, Eve Denise Johnson. You will not have this baby, you will not keep this baby. No grandchild of mine will have an ounce of white blood.”

“She does and she will.” Her mother’s reach was strong and there was nothing that she could’ve done whether or not she’d had the inclination to try. She was still a girl, without her parents she had nothing and Julian had even less than nothing. He couldn’t possibly take care of her and a baby. She had that drilled into her head for months and months. Eventually, she’d believed it.

Her mother had told that if the baby was dark enough, she could keep it, but if it was too white, it would have to be put up for adoption. She’d believed her mother. She prayed and prayed that the baby would come out like her, but seven months later, her prayer went unanswered. When she was given a chance to hold her baby and the doctors had left the room, she snuck out and took a cab all the way down to the Lower East Side to Julian’s building. She didn’t look at the baby she’d fought so hard to have. She didn’t know if it was a girl or boy or it if it had ten toes and ten fingers. She couldn’t miss something she’d never known in the first place. That child had never belonged to her. She should’ve known that from the start.

She returned it to Julian, because she knew that he’d take of his child. He had that kind of heart. Her heart ached from the loss of that warm weight in her arms. She laid the swaddled babe down, still wrapped in the hospital blanket, down in front Julian’s door. She knocked and then hid around the corner to see if he opened up. The door opened a few moments later and Julian stepped out. The baby started to cry and he picked it up with all of the care of a natural-born father.

“Well, who are you, little one? You look so familiar. You know, you look like someone I’ve loved before. Could you be my baby? Could you be? I bet you are.” He looked both ways down the hall one more time before disappearing back inside the apartment with their child. Then, she took another cab back to the hospital and shut her mouth when her mother asked her what she did with the child. When her mother did find out where she took the child, she sent her minions there to find Julian and the baby already gone.

Eventually, her mother gave up her search and Eve tried forget about Julian, the child they made, and the love they’d shared for such a short time. She married a young, black prospective businessman and made three pretty black children. She’d done her part, but spent the next twenty years trying not think of the family she’d given away. She used boy-toys and money and over-extravagance to drown the pain. But it never left her.

And sometimes, when she was alone at night, she’d cry. Because she could’ve had so much. If only she’d been brave enough to risk it and strong enough to trust Julian to take care of them. No one ever knew about her secret life. She mourned it endlessly.

Until the day she saw Julian Crane again and it all came rushing back.

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