Fantasy Susan Takes Charge by TMaskedWriter

[Ramesh_Rocky]

"Ok." I said, setting the coffee down on the table. "So, we schedule something for next week, after Helen gets back, and she can handle..."

Maria interrupted me.

"It is to be this evening! I tried to stall; told her that Great-Grandmama wanted to spend more time alone with them, but Lucinda said that La Familia are insistent. Every day they have not been allowed to meet Vincenzo and Byroni has been seen as an insult by some, and she said that they have all come to her to approach Great-Grandmama."

"Maria," I replied. "I know you love them, however, La Familia don't do anything as one without an ulterior motive."

"Si, I am aware of this. If Lucinda knows that Great-Grandmama is out of the country, she did not indicate it to me. Usually, there would be no complaints if any of them went a month or more without seeing La Contessa face-to-face."

"But the boys change all of that." I thought aloud.

"Si. I think that they wish to 'size her up.' To see if the twins have, perhaps, mellowed her. If her being a mother now means that they will have something to work with in future schemes."

"And Helen needs to be there, because everyone knows that there's no way in hell she'd let them meet the twins without being present." I thought some more on that, the last of the fog leaving my head. "We could ask Rita if... no, no, they've almost certainly seen her show; and I don't think she'd be able to stand up to their scrutiny."

"I have thought of this already." Maria said with a smile. "And then I had another thought. That you, Susan, could make them believe that they were speaking to the real Contessa!"

I gave that some thought. As a rule, Helen almost never went over to visit the Business Wing unless it was for one of two reasons: She wants you to do something, or you've fucked up and she's caught you. "Not having to deal with La Contessa" is one of their favorite things over there. In the past month, the country, and therefore they, hadn't seen much of her except for those quick or distant shots of Rita on the news. And how many of them spend their Saturday nights watching television, anyway? As for my role in Maria's plan, that might be a bit trickier.

"Maria," I told her. "It's only within the past few months that I've gotten confident enough with it to stop telling myself 'I'm learning to control minds' and say 'I know how to control minds.' I know Helen's managed to control a ballroom full of people before, and Troy and Julie could do it, but they've been doing this most of their lives; I'm not at their level."

"You would not have to do it to the whole room at once." Maria replied. "It will be a reception. Rita can sit with the babies, they will approach her, and then you can convince them that she is Great-Grandmama!"

I smiled at Maria. She's known about this ability for the past eight years since Helen married her great-grandfather. (Helen refers to it as "The Thing," Troy & Julie call it "Doing What We Do." Sometimes, just to be different, I'll go with "The Thing We Do.") She's the next person we plan to teach it to, but Helen wants to wait for a few more years. Maria's late teen years were spent doing Jeanne's job, as Helen's personal maid. (She did some of the other stuff Jeanne does, too; but Maria has no regrets and knows that Helen was acting out of grief for the Count and has forgiven her Great-Grandmama, so we have, too. Julie and Helen also didn't speak much at that time, for complicated reasons, so everyone just kind of avoids talking about that period of their lives.) The positive side of this was that Maria grew up to be a nice person whom everyone gets along with, because she doesn't view anyone else as "beneath her" just because she was fortunate enough to be born a Princess. Maria also views it as Helen saving her from the "San Finzione Curse" of a short and often stupid life of excess that claimed her parents and grandparents. Helen thinks Maria could handle The Thing, and the rest of us agree, but she wants her to have as much of a normal life as someone like Maria can have first.