Brenda tried to get her life back to some semblance of normal when she got back from Florida with Josie. Her father made it more likely by flooding her with work. He obviously didn’t like her disappearing for a week, unannounced, and meant to let her know it. She often still found herself working late hours, and it wasn’t by choice.

As the days went by, she began to find it a little easier coping. Every song she heard on the radio didn’t remind her of something she and Jax had done together, and every restaurant didn’t pale in comparison to their favorites. Josie thoughtfully had sent a floral arrangement to thank Brenda for being such a wonderful travelling companion, and after a few days, Brenda didn’t even notice that it was carnations and daisies, and not orchids and birds of paradise.

About a week after her return, Keith buzzed Brenda to let her know that A.J. Quartermaine was holding on the phone for her. She was about to "accidentally" disconnect the call when she remembered her promise to Josie about getting out. Taking a deep breath, she answered it.

"This is Brenda. Can I help you?"

"Only if you’ll let me be your slave for the rest of my life," A.J. answered glibly. "Hi, Brenda," he giggled.

{Oh, Josie, this is going to take a lot more effort than I thought.} "Hi, A.J." she responded mechanically. "What’s going on?"

A.J made some small talk about the weather and the latest sports results, until he finally got to the point. "Listen, I heard you and Jax broke up."

"You heard right."

"Yeah, I guess Jax is taking it pretty hard. I saw him at a board meeting the other day, and he looks like a wreck."

"Really?" Brenda tried not to sound interested.

"Frankly, I was surprised you didn’t dump him sooner. He never seemed like the type for you."

Brenda was stunned for a moment, and then saw Jax’s hand at work again. To save her any embarrassment, he apparently was spreading the word that she dumped him. Always a gentleman, even when he was breaking your heart.

A.J. was still going on. "Anyway, there’s a new disaster flick playing downtown at the Cineplex and I thought maybe you might like to go see it tonight."

{Hmmm. A.J. Quartermaine and a disaster movie. Isn’t that the same thing?} She took another deep breath and had to bite her cheek to get the words out. "Sure, A.J. Sounds like fun. Listen, I’m a little backed up at work, though, so how about if I meet you there?"

They made arrangements to meet at the movie, and Brenda hung up the phone. She was beginning to wonder how hard this dating promise was going to be to keep.

*~*~*~*

The movie was acceptable, the company disastrous. Brenda didn’t really have to worry about keeping up her end of the conversation since A.J. seemed to love to listen to himself talk. Luckily, they didn’t have to wait long before the movie started, and he had to shut up.

Brenda tried to lose herself in the movie so she wouldn’t think about her "date," but about halfway through, she noticed a hand creeping around her shoulder to rest on the seat behind her. When the comet was headed directly for earth, the hand gripped her opposite shoulder in fear, but somehow didn’t release her shoulder when the good guys blew it out of the sky.

Brenda began to dread the end of the evening as A.J. was walking her back to her car in the office building garage. It was now mostly deserted, and had Jax been there with her, a possibility for a very romantic end to the evening. With A.J., it just meant the beginning of another disaster.

As A.J. gave her a wet kiss, Brenda thought she was going to be sick. She pulled away and tried to turn to open her car door, but A.J. pulled her back for an encore performance. She pulled herself none too gently out of his embrace.

"Brenda! What’s the matter?"

{YOU! YOU’RE NOT JAX!} "A.J., we’ve been here before. You know my feelings about getting passionate with you!"

"Still?"

"What do you mean, "still"?" As the realization dawned, Brenda felt even sicker. "Oh, I get it. You guys got the idea that since Jax "opened the new frontier," now the road is open for anybody else, right?"

"Well," A.J. said with embarrassment, "Jax never really says anything about any of the women he dates. But it’s common knowledge that he doesn’t stay long with a woman unless he’s getting some action in the bedroom, too. And you and he lasted a really long time, according to his standards."

{Well, bully for me.} "Well, despite whatever Jax may or may not have said, what happened between us was private and doesn’t have anything to do with my feelings for the rest of the male populace of Port Charles. And you can tell all your little friends that, too, because I certainly don’t want to have to make this speech again."

A.J. shook his head as he walked away to his car. "Jax always did have all the luck."

Brenda waited until A.J. was out of earshot. "No, Jax has all the right moves," she said wistfully.

*~*~*~*

About a week after Brenda’s disastrous date with A.J., Lois and Ned finally returned from their second honeymoon to Rome. Brenda hadn’t had the heart to upset Lois by telling her about the break-up on the phone, and although she missed having her best girlfriend to talk to, she dreaded seeing her for the first time and having to re-live the whole thing again.

Brenda was surprised, then, when Lois showed up at her office a day after her return from Rome. Keith buzzed her in, secretly happy to see her back. Although Brenda was in better shape than before she went to Florida, he was sure that some girl talk was probably still needed.

Brenda tried to keep up a façade, but Lois saw through it about 30 seconds after she got into the office. "OK, so spill, Brenda. What happened? Did Harlan screw up your life again?"

Brenda shook her head sadly. "Nope. I managed to do it all by my little own self this time."

"So?"

"So…. Jax and I aren’t seeing each other anymore."

Lois let out a long breath, and then went around the desk to put her arms around Brenda. "Oh, Brenda, I’m sooo sorry." After a few minutes, Lois’s fighting spirit spilled out. "Well, obviously you didn’t dump him, since you were nuts about the guy. So why would he be such a creep and do that to you?"

Brenda sniffled as she and Lois moved to the couch. "That’s just it. He said he did it FOR me."

Lois looked like she was about to explode. "Oh, no, not the old "I’m-not-good-enough-for-you" routine? What a crock!"

"He said he was still in love with Julia and he realized that I loved him. He thought he would only hurt me worse by leading me on to expect something he could never give me. I don’t know – maybe he was right."

Lois shook her head. "Well, I don’t know him that well, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that deep in his heart, he probably DID think he was looking out for your best interests. But he’s still a knucklehead. I could just shoot myself for urging you on to seduce him and go after him."

Brenda patted her hand. "Don’t worry about it. You weren’t telling me to do anything I didn’t already want to do. And I’m doing better, really I am." Brenda proceeded to tell Lois about her trip to Florida with Josie. "And I actually went through about 5 hours yesterday without thinking about him once. So," she said, changing gears, "tell me all about Rome!"

Lois took a good look at her girlfriend. Brenda looked thinner, and Lois suspected she probably wasn’t taking care of herself the way she should. She was taking the split-up really hard.

Suddenly, Lois had a brainstorm. There was an ELQ board meeting coming up, she was sure she had heard Ned mention it. Maybe she would make it her business to try to see Jax to see how he was taking this little event. If he looked as miserable as Brenda did …. Well … it was time to see if she could do something to remedy things. After all, she WAS Gloria Cerullo’s daughter, for goodness sake!!

*~*~*~*

Normally, Lois tried to stay as far away from the main house on the Quartermaine grounds as possible. But, for her friend Brenda, she would even subject herself to the possibility of running into her nemesis, Edward Quartermaine.

It was an afternoon Board Meeting, and Lois kept walking through Lila’s rose gardens, hoping to catch sight of the board members when they were leaving. Really, it was one board member that she was watching for, and that was Jax. She was about to give up the plan when she saw Ned and Jax coming out the front door of the mansion, and she almost trampled some of Lila’s prize roses in her haste to get to the driveway.

Cutting through a hedge, she managed to just be "ambling" up the driveway when Ned was walking Jax back to his Jag. Jax looked thinner to her, and a little pale. His face didn’t look as animated as it did when they all had been in Boston together. Lois called out to Ned, and Jax looked up when he heard her voice. He had already gotten into the car, but got back out for the chance to talk to her.

"Lois, how are you? I haven’t seen you since Boston. Go to any good concerts lately?"

She tried to play it cool, but put on her best detective mode. "I’m OK. Eddie here was a big hit in Boston, but old Edward won’t let him take much time off from ELQ to go on tour again." Jax nodded, but a spark seemed to be missing from his eyes. As Lois took a close look, she could see lines etched on his face, hopefully from some sleepless nights.

Jax looked at her sadly. "I guess Brenda told you about us." Lois just nodded. She wasn’t about to make this easy for him. "How is she doing? I haven’t seen her around anywhere, and Grandma just keeps telling me how marvelous she is…"

Brenda had told Lois about Grandma Josie’s plan to make Jax see the error of his ways, but she didn’t want to lay it on too thick. "She’s managing," was all she would say.

Jax seemed apologetic. "Lois, you must understand that I didn’t mean to hurt Brenda by doing this."

Lois couldn’t help herself. "Yeah, well you did." {Good move, Lois. He’ll get so defensive you’ll scare him off before you find out what’s really going on.} "So, how do you feel about it?"

Jax shook his head. "It hurts more than I ever imagined it would. It seems like I miss her more every day. And to think I caused this pain myself…" Jax’s voice trailed off as he stared at his shoes. He suddenly changed the subject. "Tell me about the music business. Have you booked any more concerts?"

Jax proceeded to grill Lois about the business, particularly where Brenda was concerned. He wanted to know every concert they planned, Brenda’s part in the plans, Brenda’s ideas for songs or light cues, anything having to do with Brenda. He was like a starving man. Lois decided to shift gears on him again.

"Jax, why don’t you talk to her about it?" Lois suggested softly. "Are you sure you did the right thing, letting her go? Maybe if you two got together and talked it over again…"

Jax pulled back. "Don’t tempt me, Lois. I have to think of Brenda’s best interests. I have to let her go so she can start building a life with someone new."

Lois’s intense blue eyes burned into his equally intense blue/green ones. "Maybe she doesn’t want to."

Jax stared at her for a few moments, then got into the Jag without a word and drove away. Lois was amazed. Here was a man supposedly in love with Julia Barrett, and all he could think about was Brenda Barrett. He hadn’t asked one question about Julia, hadn’t cracked a joke or made one of his usual double entendres, and had only been concerned about one person. And that person, Lois suspected, was the woman he really loved – Brenda.

*~*~*~*

Jax put his hand at the small of his date’s back, and she turned and smiled at him immediately. Miranda Jameson was small, dark, shapely – everything Jax found attractive in a woman. Her doe-eyes looked up at him with longing, and he wondered whether he should make an attempt to seduce her after the theater. There was just one problem – she wasn’t Brenda Barrett.

She was making small talk – something about how much she loved live theater – when Jax’s eyes were drawn to a couple across the lobby. The man was muscular, dark, and dangerously handsome. He couldn’t see the woman immediately, but then she turned and he saw her profile, causing his hand to tremble at Miranda’s back. She had on a dark orange burn-out brocade suit with a gold lame camisole underneath. The skirt of the suit was slit up the back to show her shapely calf – one that his lips had traced many times. Her hair was swept up into a mass of tiny dark curls, exposing the delicate nape of her neck. He knew she had a pleasure point there. As Jax moved Miranda into the theater, he had to take one more last look back at Brenda.

Her eyes looked a little dull, and he realized that she had lost some weight. He longed to take her in his arms and comfort her. But more than that, he longed to kiss her until she was senseless, take her home and slowly remove the suit, and make love to her until she begged him not to stop. And it pained him to admit it.

As he and Miranda settled in their seats, he wondered about Brenda’s companion. He mentally went through the eligible bachelor population of Port Charles, and finally matched a name with the face. It was Nicholas Cassidine. That didn’t make sense, though. The last he had heard from Ned, young Cassidine was heavily involved with the police commissioner’s niece. Jax chanced to take one more look at the couple as the lights dimmed. They seemed cordial, but not intimate. Probably a business date to please Harlan Barrett.

The play started, and Jax began to squirm immediately in his seat. The narrator of the play, Bobby, began to explain to the audience that all of his friends were married, but he was the smart one. He saw their mistakes, and he didn’t intend to make them too, so he was staying single.

{Married? Single? Relationships? No wonder Grandma was so insistent that I go to this one.}

As the play went on, Jax could’ve sworn his grandmother had a hand in writing the script. Bobby realized that even though the marriages weren’t perfect, they were better than his life alone. Bobby’s friends all tried to point out the errors of his thinking.

"Don’t worry that it won’t be perfect," they all tell him,

Miranda was decidedly leaning in her seat, bringing her body as close to Jax as possible. She had on a pale blue sheath dress of some clingy material, emphasizing her curves. She glanced up at his profile every now and then, and he felt her gaze on his lips. He knew it wouldn’t take much to get her to grace his bed tonight.

Then Bobby came center stage for his big solo. Jax listened to the words, and they penetrated his soul.

Had he done the right thing with Brenda? It seemed so right when Jerry had discussed it with him. But it hurt so much – how could it be right?

Miranda could see that he was deep in thought, but she misunderstood his confusion for passion. As she gazed up at him lovingly again, he looked at her in pain. It HAD to be right. He was a smart businessman who made decisions every day. He had always followed his instincts, and this seemed so right at the time. He just had to move on, as Brenda was apparently doing. Maybe by being with another woman, it would erase his longings for Brenda. And here was the perfect opportunity.

He leaned down to her. "Do you really want to stay for the rest of the play?" he asked. She nuzzled her head next to his and blew in his ear.

Grabbing her hand in his, he made his excuses to get out of their seats, and they beat a hasty exit up the aisle. He dared not look back at Brenda. Once they were in the lobby, he pulled Miranda into his embrace to give her a passionate kiss, his lips and teeth grinding into hers.

Since it was a gala, he had brought her in the limousine tonight, and once they were safely in the car, Miranda wound her arms around his neck to continue what they had started in the lobby. Jax kissed and caressed her with all the skill he had, until she was panting and whimpering for him to make love to her right there in the car.

But all Jax seemed to notice was that she didn’t smell like Brenda. She didn’t feel like Brenda. There was no magic, and soon for him, there was no spark. Miranda sensed him slipping away, and she did everything she could to bring back the passionate man she had left the theater with.

But soon, Jax pulled away from her. "I’m sorry," he said sheepishly. "This was a mistake." He knocked on the glass partition in the limo. "Would you take us to Miss Jameson’s home and stop at the office building for a minute on the way?"

Miranda thought for a wicked moment that he meant to make love to her in his office, or in her own bed, but Jax got out of the car at his office building. He looked in at her. "Chris will take you home. I just remembered that I have some work that won’t wait until tomorrow."

Jax didn’t hear her expletives as he slammed the car door. He ran his fingers through his hair. {Was I wrong to let Brenda go?}

To be continued….

Song credits: "Being Alive" from the Broadway musical "Company" (Stephen Sondheim) and from "The Broadway Album" by Barbra Streisand