Chapter Ten –"West Side Zendall and Viva Las Vegas"
Previously: Zach observed Erica Kane not eating, and Kendall decided to go to Las Vegas to search for the truth. In their dream, they both realized they have a son in some parallel Pine Valley. Their dream continues . . .
--
Our Dreamers dreamed on.
When she realized she was no longer with Zach in Sherwood Forest, Kendall, who had already decided to go to Las Vegas when she woke up that morning, assumed she had landed in an Elvis Presley movie, and was fully prepared to fight Ann-Margaret for Zach's attentions or Elvis' attentions, as the case may be. She hoped her hardest that Ann-Margaret wouldn't be played by Dixie, who had appeared in several of their Dreams (once as Glinda, the Good Witch of the East, a role Kendall would never have picked out for her). But that wasn't the world Kendall found herself in. Instead, she was in the middle of a run-down playground complete with broken swings. The ground was littered with empty coke bottles, also broken, and empty cigarette packs.
"This spot seems in desperate need of urban renewal," she commented to herself.
She heard him before she saw him. He was singing. To the tune of "Maria". (No, not that Maria!)
Where's Kendall?
I'm here in a dream about
Kendall
I'm with her every night
Until the dawn's cruel light
Appears
There's Kendall!
I can't have a dream without
Kendall
My life is full of bleep
But when I fall asleep
Who cares?
Ah, Kendall My Kendall!
Say it loud and there's music playing
Say it soft
And it's nothing like praying
I'll never stop dreaming of
Kendall!
She began running to him, singing as she went, to the tune of "I Feel Pretty":
I feel sleazy
Slightly sleazy
I feel sleazy and breezy and bright!
Am I easy I am married I feel harried
Cause I want Zach more
And more each night?
I'm so married
Though at this point I'm not sure to whom
Will our dreams lead us
To certain doom?
Our realities are so far apart Why am I so sure
(So far apart!)
His Pine Valley isn't my own
That we lived before?
It's so Twilight Zone!
I feel frightened
And frustrated
Yet elated, so fears take a hike
I love Zach and I'm crazy about
Our son, Spike!
"We're in a musical!" Kendall cried out to him as she jumped into his waiting arms. "How cool is that!"
"Very cool," Zach agreed, noticing two groups of teenagers gathering on opposite sides of the playground. They seemed nothing if not menacing. "Do they generally have gang warfare in musicals?" he asked her as a point of information, since he much preferred film-noir mysteries.
"In this one they did," Kendall recalled. "With high kicks and everything!"
Zach turned his attention away from the immanent violence. "You're guessing our answer is in Vegas?"
She nodded. "I'm sure of it, Zach. As soon as I wake up, I'm getting on a plane."
The teenagers had begun to leap threateningly at each other.
"I'll be spending the day with Dixie," he heard himself saying. He regretted it immediately. "My friend, who's going through a rough patch. I told you about her." Kendall wasn't smiling. "But you'll be the one on my mind."
Kendall couldn't resist asking the obvious. "Why do you feel compelled to spend your waking hours with that pathetic played out hussy?" She sniffed. "Exactly what is so alluring about playing dead for four years?"
He had never told her that Dixie had been presumed dead for four years. He supposed there was a Dixie in Kendall's Pine Valley.
"What's Dixie like in your world?" he asked innocently enough.
"Who's Dixie?" Kendall replied. "Oh, the rough patch? She's not in my world!"
Kendall frowned in thought.
"Then how did I know she was presumed dead for four years?" she asked Zach.
He wished he knew. "What else do you remember about Dixie?"
Kendall considered that one heck of a crazy question. How could she remember things about somebody she never met?
"She was married to Tad, went to Switzerland to have their baby and was presumed dead in a car crash. She survived the crash somehow, had her baby, and was talked into giving her away by the infamous Dr. Gregory Madden. Oh, Zach, if you hadn't kidnapped me, I'd have given Spike to Madden just like Dixie did!"
A full-scale rumble had broken out all round them, complete with switchblade knives and pirouettes. Zendall looked only at one another.
"It's happened again," Kendall said finally. "I remembered something from another Pine Valley."
"Our Pine Valley," Zach added.
At this point they were face to face, which naturally prompted them to launch into a duet of "Tonight".
Zach:
Tonight, tonight
I dream of you tonight
Kendall:
We're not a dream
We're real, you and me
Zach:
Tonight, tonight
Perhaps there's just tonight
Kendall:
Don't despair
Truth's out there
Zach, you'll see
Zach:
Today
I'll look at Dixie's photos
She needs to find her daughter
Kendall:
I wish she'd fade from sight
Zach:
Oh moon, shine bright
Kendall, stay with me
Till the light
Tonight!
After the applause from the rumbling teenagers died down a bit, Zach and Kendall walked away arm in arm into the sunset, singing a duet of "Somewhere".
Kendall:
There's a place for us
Zach:
A time and place for us
Kendall:
Storylines that we both can bear
Zach:
Storylines that we both can share
Kendall:
Some way
Zach:
Somehow
Both:
But where?
--
The FBI Agent shifted uncomfortably on the too comfortable chair. He scanned the Casino lobby warily, searching for any of his enemies, who might be hiding, ready to pounce. He didn't enjoy feeling like a sitting duck, although that's what he had come to feel like that most of the time. He checked his watch. His Partner was late. His Partner was never late. Something must have happened. Again. Meeting there was a bad idea. One in a series of bad ideas. She'd call him, he knew. Even if she was in grave danger, she'd call him. Especially if she was in grave danger. Nothing to do but wait until then, he thought. He could go back to his suite, of course. Or return to the afternoon workshop of the International UFO Convention that he had walked out on. The International UFO Convention was their reason for their being in Las Vegas in the first place. But how many times could he stand to watch that same dopy Alien Autopsy Video? Actually he never tired of watching any Alien Autopsy Video. What he was tired of was going around in circles. And not only crop circles.
He focused on the wildly beautiful young woman in the blue sleeveless dress a few feet from him, who was gesturing wildly at the quietly handsome young man in the tweed suit with the cockney accent. He tried to listen to what they were saying. He didn't have to try all that hard since the young woman was screaming at the top of her lungs.
"I need to see Zach Slater!" she was howling. "What part of that don't you understand?"
Aidan Devane regarded the upset young woman benevolently. If women were his cup of tea, this one would definitely be somebody worth chatting up. As it was, all he wanted was for her to disappear as quickly and quietly as possible. He had unceremoniously ushered her out of his Boss' office and down into the lobby. Now if he could only get her on the street and out of his hair.
"Again, I apologize, Ms. --"
"Mrs.," Kendall fumed. "Mrs. Slate – Mrs. Lavery. Look, Zach knows me. We spoke on the phone yesterday. Were I you, Sunshine, I'd head for the hills when he finds out that you wouldn't let me see him."
Aidan gave her a withering look. "As I've already told you, Mrs. Lavery, Mr. Slater is on an all-day teleconference. If you will kindly leave your name, I am certain he will contact as soon as he's free."
"I'll wait," Kendall said as curtly as she could.
"He may be unavailable for hours," Aidan sneered in reply. "And hours."
"Well, I've got nowhere else to go," Kendall said expansively, plopping down on the chair next to a stranger. "Be a good lad and inform your Boss that I'll be right here whenever he surfaces. Whether you like it or not."
"That's telling him," the FBI Agent told her when Aidan exited in a huff.
"I don't know when Aidan became such a twit," Kendall confided, still annoyed.
"You know that guy?" her new friend asked her, surprised.
"No, of course not," Kendall replied. "Never saw him before in my life."
She began to hum.
"Catchy tune," he said to her.
"I've been humming it since I left Pine Valley this morning," she said to him. "I'd give anything to stop. I think it's from a Broadway Show. Or a Movie. Or my Dream. Or all three."
"It's 'I Feel Pretty'," he informed her, Show Tunes being one of his minor fields of interest. "From 'West Side Story'. Words and Music by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim."
She nodded, still humming.
"So how did you know the twit's name was Aidan?" he persisted, since it was in his nature to persist.
She stopped humming. "Your guess is a good as mine," she sighed, having no notion of how she knew Aidan's name. One more Mystery Memory. "Think he'll tell Zach Slater I'm here?"
"Fifty-fifty chance," the stranger estimated. "Why do you need to see Slater so badly?"
Not the it was any of his business, he thought. But Scully wasn't calling and he needed to pass the time.
"It's a long, unbelievable story," the beautiful young woman was telling him.
"That's my favorite kind," he told her with a smile.
--
Who could that FBI Agent be and will he help Zendall reunite somehow? Fifty-fifty chance? Please come back next week for a non-singing episode! Promise!