I Dream of Genie
A Bob Newhart Show Fan Fiction
Set during Season 6 TBNS (77-78)
Story and Teleplay by CAJeannieFan57/Donna
Bob and Emily Hartley were cuddling on the sofa, watching the television news and commenting about how bad the gasoline shortage was supposed to be.
"I'm glad we don't use our car much to get around, Emily. I hate sitting in those lines!" Bob commented.
"And then the prices! One of our teachers at school was shocked to spend more than $10 to fill her car's gasoline tank!" Emily replied, just as there was a knock at the door.
Bob got up to answer it. As he opened it, he discovered a very despondent Howard Borden on the other side of it. Howard was their single neighbor, an airline navigator who spent a lot of ground time visiting with the Hartleys. "Hi, Howard, what's up?"
"Oh, hi, Bob. Do you have time? I need to talk to you," Howard replied.
"Sure, Howard, come on in," Bob answered.
Howard came in, but stopped before he came down the steps. "No, I mean professionally, Bob. According to my supervisor at the airlines, I need to see a psychologist."
"They're just deciding you need to do that, Howard?" Emily was surprised.
"Well… um…..yes …. Well, I've … um …. I've been …. Well, I've been grounded," Howard admitted.
"GROUNDED!" both Emily and Bob said at once, together.
"Why, Howard?" Bob wanted to know.
"Well, this morning on the way back to Chicago, a genie popped into the cockpit of the plane and onto my lap. And I told my supervisor about her, later," Howard explained.
"Genie? Her?" Bob's eyes widened, almost popping out of his head. It had been a long time since he'd had a patient with delusions of djinn or witches. "The genie was a SHE? A girl genie?"
"A gorgeous blond female genie. She was…" Howard's eyebrows and eyes lit up in appreciation for the female figure that had supposedly landed in his lap. "Whew, Bob."
Bob looked over at Emily, who was avidly listening and brimming with curiosity. "Emily, I think I need to talk to Howard NOW."
"Sure, Bob. Shall I get your coat and your office keys?" Emily tried to be a good wife.
"No, I think this deserves a house call. Howard, there's my sofa. Emily, could you please …." Bob looked towards their bedroom.
Emily looked disappointed at first, then at the bedroom, smiling back at both Bob and Howard. "Oh, sure, Bob, Howard. I have a lot of papers to grade and then there's that book about reading disabilities that I really want to start." She slipped into their bedroom, still looking back at the two men, longing to hear THIS story. 'Perhaps,' she thought, 'I can cajole the story out of Bob later. A female genie in Howard's cockpit! Wouldn't Carol love to hear this, too!"
It had all begun about two weeks before, Howard told Bob. As Howard relayed the story, Bob was drawn in to be a part of it…
Howard was walking through La Guardia Airport in New York City, having just come off a flight from Bangkok, Thailand. He had a six-hour layover before his return flight to Chicago, and he intended to call around and see which of his girls might be in town. Howard rounded a corner where he knew a payphone was located but was apprehended by a drop-dead gorgeous blond female. The woman grabbed his arm.
"Roger? We found you! What are you doing here?" the woman asked him.
Howard stopped and looked at the woman, immediately appreciating what he saw. This gal was dressed in a yellow empire-waist, u-neck dress – and she had a figure that would put many of the Playboy models to shame. "My name isn't Roger. It's Howard. But that's okay. You're GORGEOUS!"
"You have to be Roger. My brother-in-law has been missing for about two weeks and you look JUST like him!" the woman said.
A man dressed in a blue Air Force officer's uniform came up to Howard and the woman just then. "Rog'? What are you doing here and in that uniform?"
Howard looked down at his khaki airline uniform with its shoulder boards of three wide stripes, and back at the man in blue. "This IS my uniform – but my name is Howard, not Roger. I just told this pretty lady that."
"Come on, Rog', the joke's over. This is Jeannie, my wife, and you know her," the man said, "Just like you know me."
Howard shook his head. He was already jet-lagged from going halfway around the world and back in three days, and this was just adding to his confusion. "I have no idea who you are."
"You're a United States astronaut and you've been my partner on more space flights than I can count. You're now in the Engineering Department at NASA, but you're still an astronaut just like me," the now wide-eyed man stated.
"Astronaut!" Howard exclaimed. "Maybe in one of my dreams, I was! But I'm just a navigator for a cargo airline." He thought for a minute. "Being an astronaut would be pretty wild, I'll bet."
"You bet it is, and you know it." It was the man's turn to think. "Did you lose your memory somehow, some place? How long have you been working for the airline?"
Howard thought for a minute. "For this one, about 4 years, but I worked for a passenger airline for sixteen years before that."
The man turned to his wife, "Jeannie, I think Roger's lost his memory. Can you try to blink it back for him?"
"Of course, Master," Jeannie responded. To Howard's amazement, the woman put her feet about 9 inches apart, folded her arms, right over left in front of her, and blinked grandly. Howard looked on, puzzled. "Roger? Do you remember us now?"
"I told you, my name's not Roger - it's Howard, and I was going to try to make a date with my girlfriend here in New York City. I've only got a 6-hour layover."
"Girlfriend! Colonel Healey! You cannot do that!" Jeannie was indignant.
"Would you mind telling me why not?" Howard said, defensively.
"YOU are MARRIED! And we have BEEN through this before!"
"I am NOT married, and I don't know what we've been through because I've never met you before!" Howard had enough, and trotted quickly away to find the payphone. While he was standing at the phone dialing, Jeannie and the man suddenly appeared in front of him. They appeared to just pop in out of nowhere. "H - How did you get here?"
"Come on, Rog', you know what Jeannie can do. You've known for more than 12 years! And since you seem to have forgotten," the man said indignantly, "you are married to my sister Tracy! For the second time!"
Howard shook his head. "I'm divorced, and my wife's name was … was …" he was so flustered he couldn't remember his ex-wife's name at first, "Lois! And she doesn't have any brothers in the …." He looked at the uniform closely, "Air Force!" He hung up the phone.
"Doesn't the last name 'Nelson' ring a bell?" the man asked. Howard shook his head and folded one arm disgustedly, still hanging on to his flight bag with the other hand. "Tracy Nelson?" The head shook again. "Tony Nelson?" A firmer head shake. "Well, that's me, and I'm your best friend. Or, at least, I thought I was!"
Jeannie tried another tactic. "Do you have any children?"
Howard smiled and softened. "Yes, I have a son. His name's Howard, just like me."
"A son! You never told us! And you are not aware that you have a daughter?"
Howard snickered a little. "Not that anyone has ever told me!"
"Well, you do. She is four years old, and her name is Skylar."
"This man you think I am – what's his whole name?" Howard was suddenly curious. The thought of having a daughter intrigued him.
Tony answered, "Roger Healey – Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, on special assignment to NASA. He's been missing for two weeks. He took a plane out and didn't come back. He did turn the plane in, to Andrews Air Force Base, but we haven't seen him since."
Howard chuckled a little. "Maybe he had a fight with his wife? Lois and I used to do that."
Tony looked at Jeannie before saying, "Maybe, and decided to assume another identity instead of coming home." He got no reaction from Howard, so Tony continued, "Go ahead, Jeannie. Let's go home."
Howard watched, puzzled, as the gorgeous blond woman folded her arms again and blinked – and then wondered why he suddenly felt so weird.
When he landed, Howard looked around. He didn't recognize the place, but as a navigator that didn't surprise him. He often flew to unusual places. Only what he just did couldn't be defined as "flying". From what Howard remembered, his foot never stepped into a plane. He just felt slightly ethereal.
Standing in front of him, other than Tony and Jeannie, were five other people. Four of them were glaring at him, angrily. Howard didn't know any of them. Three of them were children. One little blond girl appeared to be about 7 years old, and the other was a darker headed girl of about four. The little boy was also about four years old. There was an older woman dressed in some very strange looking garb. The fifth was another absolutely drop-dead gorgeous woman, a brunette who looked enough like Tony Nelson to make Howard figure out that this must be Tracy Nelson.
"Roger Healey. Where in hell have you been!" the brunette hollered at him. "We have been looking all over for you, for the last 2 weeks! If you walked out on me, the LEAST you could have done was leave me a note!"
"Huh?" Howard had no idea what the woman was referring to. Memories of Lois yelling at him like that, rained upon him. "I just finished telling these two here, I am NOT Roger. And where am I? And how did I get here!"
"Uncle Roger, you're at our house," said the oldest child. "Did you forget us?"
"Really, Uncle Rog. You miss taking me golfing!" the little boy whined a little.
There it was - that "you've forgotten us" theme. Howard was frustrated. He was starting to believe that maybe he WAS this missing man and he HAD just forgotten who he was! But he hadn't even taken Howie golfing, so how could he take someone else's child to the golf course?
"I'm sorry, I never knew you in the first place, so why would I forget you? My name is Howard Borden, and nobody calls me uncle – yet."
The other little girl came up to him and tugged on his pants. Howard looked down at the bluest eyes he'd ever seen on a child – and had to admit that they looked just like his own. "Are you my daddy?" the little girl asked, which tugged at Howard's heart strings.
Howard squatted down, remembering Howie at this age. "I don't think so. What's your name?"
The little girl looked very sad. "My daddy ran away. You not smell like my daddy."
Howard looked back up at the adults in the room. "I think there you have it. What's her name?"
The brunette responded angrily, still not believing that this wasn't her husband. "It's Skylar. She's your daughter. And I'm your wife, Tracy."
To Skylar, Howard said, "No, Skylar, I'm not your daddy. But I'll bet something just happened to your daddy, and he'll come home soon." Howard wanted to hug the little girl, but decided he shouldn't.
Instead, he stood up and looked into the woman's eyes. He sucked in his breath with admiration before telling her, "Check my passport if you like, but I'm not Roger, I'm not married, I don't have a daughter – though this little girl is so cute – and I don't even know where I am, or how I got here."
Jeannie looked at the older girl and the boy. "Janae, T.J., take Skylar out to the backyard, please."
"Yes, Mama," said the older girl, taking Skylar by the hand.
Skylar looked back at the man in the khaki uniform. "I wish you could find my daddy. I miss him! Bye!" and she walked out the back door with the other two children. The little boy put his nose up to the glass sliding door to peek in, but Jeannie pointed outside and he left.
When the children were gone, Tony and Tracy took turns attacking Howard.
"I don't know what game you're playing, Roger, but it needs to be dropped right now," Tracy said. "Your daughter needs you."
"NASA is worried sick about you, Rog'. Rather than listing you AWOL, they've listed you as MIA. They did that when you didn't pick up your plane at Andrews," Tony said.
This went on for another two minutes before Howard went into his flight bag and took out his Passport. He handed it first to Tracy, who opened it. It had a lot of stamps on it, more than she remembered Roger's passport having. She noted the different name, birth date, a strange next of kin, and an address of an apartment in Chicago. Tracy handed it back to him. "This doesn't prove anything. A lot of people can get fake passports."
"Call the airline I work for in Chicago. Call my neighbor in Chicago – he's known me for more than five years," Howard was still befuddled.
Tony took Tracy aside for a minute and made a whispered suggestion. "When I can't tell the difference between Jeannie and her sister by looks, there are two other ways I can tell."
"What's that, Big Brother? I'm willing to try anything." Tracy was desperate. "I tell ya, if this turns out to be Roger, I'm taking him to Dr Bellows immediately!"
"Skylar already used one of them. She said that this man doesn't smell like her daddy. That's one way I can tell my wife from her sister," Tony stated.
"And the other? A man trying to hide might change his cologne."
"Well…." Tony hesitated with this suggestion, and then went on. "Why don't you try kissing him?"
Tracy giggled a little. "Well, it's hard to kiss a man that you're mad at for running off on you. And if it ISN'T Roger, I've just kissed a man not my husband."
"I think Roger would forgive you, Tracy, because of why you're doing it. And Skylar's outside," Tony continued.
After thinking for a few seconds, Tracy whispered, "Well, there IS another way to tell if it's Roger. But I think I'd rather kiss this stranger, than ask him to show me something like that."
Tony wasn't sure what Tracy was referring to, and didn't ask. Tracy went up to Howard and walked around him once. He looked at her, puzzled, and braced himself.
"Are you going to blink and take me someplace else?" he asked her.
"No, I don't blink. That's Jeannie's thing. I'm just getting up my courage to do something," Tracy responded. She finally took her small frame and planted it in front of Howard, put her arms around him – and kissed him. Howard reacted typically, enjoying every second of this unexplained kiss. Tracy stopped and caught her breath. "Well…."
Tony was avidly watching the whole encounter, as was Jeannie. "Well, Sis?"
Tracy looked up at Howard. "Wow. I have to say I enjoyed that, but – no – you aren't Roger." Tracy looked back over at Jeannie. "Wherever you found this man, Jeannie, I think you better blink him back." To Howard she said, "I hope we didn't inconvenience you too much. Your blink from Houston back to – New York City? – will take you about 20 seconds."
"Sorry I wasn't your husband. But if you ever get free – um – look me up, will you?" Howard was just coming off that kiss himself. Within seconds, though, he found himself feeling ethereal again, and then landing in the same place at La Guardia that he had left a few moments before.
Up until that point, Bob Hartley had avidly listened to the story without asking any questions. But now, as a psychologist, he had to ask some. "Howard, how did you feel about that?"
Howard looked over at Bob, who was sitting in one of the chairs while he took up the entire Hartley couch. "I really wanted to be able to help them, Bob. I mean, I've never felt that way before. They wanted me to be this … Roger fella … and I disappointed them."
"You had a twinge in your voice about the little girl."
Howard gulped. "That was most of it. She was – just as I would want a little sister for Howie to be. Howie would love her, too."
"And the mom? How did you feel when she kissed you?"
There was a chuckle before Howard answered, "Well, that's kind of hard to describe. But I told her the truth – if she ever gets free, she could look me up. I'd take her out in a heartbeat."
"And this method of transporting you from New York City to Houston and back – how do you explain that happening?" Bob was mostly curious about that.
"I don't know. I felt like I'd been turned into millions of little bitty pieces and then put together again when I landed. It was a gas!" Howard definitely enjoyed being blinked, once he did it the second time.
Bob looked at the clock. It was still early, and he wanted to see how this story worked its way into the cockpit of Howard's plane. "So, Howard, the next time you saw this blond woman, the one who blinks, it was in the cockpit of your plane?"
"No – about a week ago, this Jeannie popped into my apartment. As a matter of fact, Bob, you've met her!" Howard exclaimed.
"ME? I've met a genie?" Bob asked, surprised.