[legendsport]

December 6, 1941: Cincinnati, OH:

"I appreciate you doing this for me, buddy," Charley McCullough said.

Deuce Barrell nodded. "Well... this is my twin sister you're marrying, Charley," he said.

Charley cocked an eyebrow and said, "I still don't know how you two could be twins and be so... different."

Deuce laughed. "We're fraternal twins, not identical."

Charley shook his head and said, "That's not what I mean. I mean your personalities..."

Deuce shrugged. "Apparently, I'm more like my father and Gloria's like Mom."

Charley shuffled his feet and said, "I've heard your Dad was quite the athlete."

"He was. He was also hot-headed and tempestuous," Deuce replied.

"Tempestuous?" Charley's eyebrows had climbed nearly to his hairline as he said this.

"Haha. I'm not dumb, Charley," Deuce said. "I only act like I am," he added with a grin.

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"Quit squirming or I'll stick you with this pin," Edna Daniels told her daughter.

Gloria sighed. "This dress is too big," she moaned.

"Well now, that's why I'm pinning it," Edna shot back. She knew Gloria was nervous, but the fidgeting? She might as well be five years old, not twenty-four.

"You think Charley's nervous?" Gloria asked.

Edna snorted in laughter. "I doubt it," she replied. "Men are too dumb to get nervous. He's probably looking forward to the party... and the wedding night," she finished.

Gloria blushed and blurted out, "Mom!"

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"That's two in a row," Jack Barrell told Rollie.

"Two in a row what?" Rollie replied.

"Two weddings in a row where the bride is the kid of one our deceased brothers," Jack said.

Rollie gave his brother a sidelong look. Jack looked more than a little melancholy. "Yeah, I miss them too, Johnny."

Jack frowned and growled, "Johnny? I thought I beat that out of you back in, oh, 1905 or so."

It had been a ploy, cooked up by Joe, to get Jack's goat by calling him "Johnny" - and it had worked. Rollie and Joe had referred to their younger brother as Johnny for the better part of the summer until Jack had snapped and jumped both his brothers. Luckily the tussle had been broken up by their mother before any damage could be done. Jack was game enough, but Joe alone would have been too much for him to handle, let alone Joe and Rollie together.

"I heard you're scheming to fly off to Pittsburgh after the reception," Jack said to change the subject after both brothers took a trip down memory lane, thinking of Joe.

"Yep. And would you believe it, James is going to fly the plane."

Jack shook his head. Rollie had somehow managed to find a fellow with a plane, only to discover the man wouldn't fly. "Too cold in December" was his reason. But James, on leave from the Army Air Corps for the wedding, was more than willing to fly, anywhere, anytime. The old codger who owned the plane had agreed to let James fly Rollie and Allie to Pittsburgh as long as he flew straight back (and after Rollie had paid a handsome "rental fee" of course).

"Try not to let that kid get in trouble," Jack said.

Rollie looked offended. "I would never," he said.

"Well, he is Jimmy's son and lord knows Jimmy got into plenty of trouble with you by his side," Jack said.

Rollie laughed and replied, "True, but James has too much of Claudia in him for any shenanigans. Plus I have wife and daughter with me, and I would never let anything happen to them."

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An hour later Gloria Barrell was a married woman. Her family was well-represented in the wedding party. Charley's brother Bill was, as Admiral Stockdale had predicted back in October, stuck on his ship due to increasing "aggression" from the Japanese, and the two McCullough brothers had but one other sibling, a sister, who acted as Gloria's maid of honor, with Gloria's cousins Jean, Vera and Allie acting as bridesmaids. Deuce was Charley's best man and his groomsmen included James Slocum and Gloria's half-brothers Roger Cleaves and Charlie Barrell. Charlie's mother, the actress Dorothy Bates, was there too, looking so distractingly beautiful that she drew the eye of Deuce so often Gloria wanted to slap the silly grin off his face.

Of all the Barrells and their offspring only Marty (off at Noble Jones) and Aggie (with her husband in Hawaii) were not on hand. Even Betsy's football-playing husband Tom Bowens was there (like Detroit, Boston's season had ended the previous week). Charley had joked to Gloria that "I hope you don't think I'll ever be able to remember everyone's names." She did expect just that, but decided not to make an issue of it on their wedding day.

As the party wound down and the happy couple headed off for Niagara Falls, Rollie sidled up to James Slocum. Looking extremely fit in his tuxedo and achingly like his dead father, James asked for a moment to change and say goodbye to his mother, stepfather (Powell Slocum), favorite uncle (Tom) and grandparents. Rollie couldn't begrudge the kid - he hadn't seen most of the family in well over a year, after all. But he was itching to get to Pittsburgh. He had half a mind to see if he could get Carl Boon drunk. Boon, who owned (and coached) the Wildcats was known to tip the elbow occasionally and he was an old friend & team mate of Rollie's brother Joe.

Rollie pretended not to hear the conversation between James and his mother when the youngster returned from the restroom.

"Now you be careful, and be sure to be back here as soon as possible. I will worry," Claudia told her son.

"Mom, I'm an officer in the U.S. Army now," James replied.

"You are, and always shall be, my baby," she said.

"Aw, Mom, come on," James moaned. Rollie could almost picture the blush.

"Let's go Uncle Rollie," James said a moment later, having kissed his mother and shaken hands with Powell Slocum. Rollie collected Allie and Francie and they headed out.

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Deuce Barrell was caught staring once too often. Not by Dorothy Bates, but by his mother, which was infinitely worse.

"Quit staring at that woman," she told him. He considered denying that he was doing any such thing, but he'd never been able to fool his mother. He wondered if she was jealous - Dorothy had been Joe Barrell's second, and final, spouse. And she was a knockout.

He shook his head, looked sulky and offered a muttered, "Fine," instead.

"Did you meet Roger?" he asked Edna, knowing this would throw her off-balance. It wasn't quite fair but Deuce was never content with allowing someone else to have the moral high-ground.

It took Edna a moment before she said, "No. Why would I?"

"Well, he is the half-brother of two of your kids, you know."

"I am aware of that Rufus," she replied. "And that's precisely why I don't want to meet him."

Deuce leaned forward. "You know, it's not his fault," he told her softly. "He's an innocent victim in all this."

Edna's mouth firmed in a solid line for a moment, but then relaxed. "I know," she replied. "But I'm sure you know that it's a sore subject for me."

Deuce did know this - heck, he'd felt the same way himself. The kid - he was nearly eighteen now - was a walking, talking reminder that his father had cheated on his mother and destroyed their marriage in the process. Deuce told his mother this, adding, "But I've come to terms with it. No one picks their parents but they do sometimes end up dealing with the mess they leave behind."

Edna nodded and gave him a small, sad smile. "You still surprise me sometimes," she told him.

"Huh? Why?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Well, you remind me of your father," she said and looked even sadder. "I desperately loved that man, but if Joe Barrell was anything, he was a living contradiction. He could be a complete brute and utter fool, but he was also heartbreakingly sweet, utterly charming and devastatingly handsome." She paused and shook her head. "Which was the problem - he attracted women like a magnet attracts metal shavings. But one thing he never really was..." she paused again and said, "Was insightful."

She patted his arm. "And what you just said was incredibly insightful," she said, then smiled and added, "Must have gotten that from me."

She stood up and looked across the room where Roger was standing and talking with Betsy and her husband Tom Bowens. "So introduce me to your brother, why don't you?"

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