Chapter 3 - Big Night Out
Harry picked up his best friend, and work colleague, drove the work van back to Leela's home, then restarted work on the ceiling.
At noon, all three of them, plus Alison, went to lunch together at the local Homer Simpson's Pizza Gut to eat in, which was around the corner from Leela's apartment. This helped them escape all the flying dust around the house, and get a little fresh air for the baby. Anyway, it also gave them some clean toilets to use, for a change.
Alison also enjoyed herself, for after eating her mashed apple baby food, Leela put her back into the Moses basket she arrived in, where she was mollycoddled by three pizzeria waitresses. They all tickled her tummy as she giggled non-stop. The first waitress began to speak in baby language, rubbing her nose against Alison's. "Oooohhh, aren't you a beautiful baby."
The second began to also rub her nose into Alison's face, still tickling her tummy, and speaking baby talk. "Oooohhh, you're so cute," she told the baby, as she noticed the two, big blue eyes and dinky little nose. "You look just like your daddy." However, she had looked at Chuck, who had big blue eyes and a dinky nose too... under the belief that he was the father! This caused him to go red with embarrassment, while the other two laughed at him.
The third and last waitress, who was also tickling Alison with one hand, rubbed the other one over her soft head of thick purple hair, and reassuringly declared, "Don't listen to them baby, it's plainly obvious who's your mommy!"
Just after they'd left, Leela did something that she'd never have done after only just getting to know someone: she left her baby and her doorkey with Harry, who was practically still an acquaintance she'd only just met. However, this reflected the feelings that she had for him, that he was someone she felt she could trust.
She then split for the hospital to have an STD test done. Although she never really believed Fry was carrying any sort of disease, she did see eye to eye with Harry on the safe rather than sorry question.
After returning home, she hoped that she was right about Harry, and as sure as could be, the place looked exactly the same as before she'd left: two workmen, one baby, and a house full of rubble and sawdust. Except, it seemed that the two workmen were more preoccupied with the baby's needs than with fixing the place up... still, Leela wasn't angry, it looked quite cute!
As the day before, Chuck left at 5pm and Harry stayed over at Leela's apartment, waiting for her to give him the news he wanted to hear from her. The hospital had given her the results of her STD test in an unopened letter, which she wanted to open and read together with him, as it involved the both of them. She felt as if she'd just die if it turned out to be positive, therefore gave it to Harry to open.
As she handed it over, he tore the envelope slowly, very frightened that both he and the woman he loved could soon end up getting some treatment or other. With a worried look on his face, he took out the letter from the envelope, and slowly unfolded it. He looked at it, his face remained expressionless... then he handed it to her. "I think you ought to read this."
She became alarmed at his blank look and words. She then looked down at her STD test, finding the result, then she looked over at Harry, who had started chuckling away by himself. She sat for a moment, staring at the man who found this situation funny, then gave him a mean, yet strangely cute, look and blurted out, "You little shit, you made me believe I had something!" She began to hit him repeatedly with the letter, while he covered his head with his arm, trying his best to protect himself, as he continued to chuckle away. After a couple of minutes playfighting, they stopped, and both exchanged relieved looks at the negative result.
The moment's silence was then broken by Leela proposing to make coffee, it would help in calming her down, as she had something else to inform him. So, she went off to the kitchen, to make the beverage and to prepare herself with what she wanted to say to Harry. After a few minutes, she came out holding two mugs of hot coffee. "I think you should know, Fry'll be home tomorrow night."
Harry sighed at those words, but he quickly decided that he wanted to make this last night a magical one. "Well, how about going out tonight for a big celebration? It's our last night together being alone, and seeing as I've just got paid for the week, we can make it something to remember, and anyway, I don't want Carol to get her measly hands on it."
As he crossed his finger's behind his back, praying to anybody out there that she would say yes, she grabbed him and gave him a big wet kiss on the lips. "I'd really like that a lot," she smiled, then jumped into his strong arms, which cradled her as he rocked.
As he took her weight, the embarrassed loverboy declared, "There's a great little place in Manhattan, and it's called the Casablanca. I've always wanted to escort a beautiful female past the two big doormen at the front; an intelligent female, at that!"
Leela blushed; all this flattery for poor old her! "So it's a fancy place then?" she asked, wondering exactly how he wanted her to dress up.
"Oh yes, everybody's in either a tuxedo or evening gown, depending on what sex they are, of course. Although, even that rule is broken, now and then!" Both laughed.
"Well, I have plenty of evening gowns. Fry acquires them for me, to drag me up the casino with him occasionally, just to show me off to some of his gambling so-called 'friends', trying to make them believe he has some money. Not that we have any of our own, after all, we've given it all to them!" Thinking of Fry changed her expression from happiness to depression.
Harry kissed her again, relieving her of bitter memories, and then let her down on her own two feet. "I better go home, get out of these dirty clothes and have a bath. I'm going ta get dressed in my best suit for the girl of my dreams. Oh, I'm gonna have ta leave my wallet down here though, so you-know-who can't get hold of it. Then I'll be back and pick ya up in our blood-red sports car. God knows why she wanted it for, she can't even drive! I think it's just to sit outside our house for show."
Leela knew that the sooner he left, the sooner he'd be back in her arms again. She let him out, asked the lady upstairs to babysit for her tonight, then started to look forward to her big night out.
She went through her wardrobe and flicked through most of the dresses Fry had got (probably stolen by Bender, more like!) for her, until she'd arrived at a long black silk number. It was a very sexy, slinky dress, with a very low neckline, and a long slit up the side. It also had sparkling silver trimmings, covering these most provocative areas, to catch her man's eye. Leela really felt he was something special... or she wouldn't have worn this dress, with just its two stringy silver trimming straps helping to hold it up.
As she looked at herself, up and down her full-length mirror, she thought, "I don't think I've ever worn this dress for Fry before, it was always too revealing for me to try. But, as the captain, I suggest life's worth a risk every now and again, especially something so right... don't you agree?"
As she stared at herself in the mirror, asking her reflection for approval, the woman in the mirror looked into Leela's eye with approval, and seemed to reply to her, "Yes, definitely take the risk, Captain. This is the dress you absolutely must wear tonight! It highlight's all your best points: your shapely bosom, tiny waist, and incredibly seductive rounded bottom!"
She gave a full head-to-toe wiggle to herself, then continued asking her reflection for a second opinion, who was pleased to answer: "The total look is just so erotic on you, just so worthy of being taken on a hot, steamy night out with your new passionate guy. You only have one more lusty night of love left, with which you can replay the fantastic memories of being treated like a celebrity; to be an American Beauty. That is until your redhead dork of a husband comes home tomorrow, and spoils everything for you! Grab the chance to at least enjoy yourself for at least one day since you were born... or you may never get the chance again... ever!"
Leela stood there still for a while, thinking hard about what the lady in the mirror had said to her, echoing her every thought. She thought the woman deserved some sort of reaction for her sound advice, then perhaps the reflection would think about giving her some more sound suggestions. "Oh, Miss Mirror, can you help me with an even bigger problem?" Leela asked her out loud. "Since you seem to know Fry just as well as I do, tell me what I should do? You see, I thought after marrying me, Fry would stop all his childish games and become much more responsible; gradually start to be less influenced by people like Bender, and come ever closer to me, have a family where we could both be loving parents to our children, and lastly, even get a house with a backyard where the kids could play. Is that too much to ask?"
The reflection was a very wise woman, and as she seemed to know Leela's total life story, she was very well equipped to act as counsellor. "Fry was never really the right man for you, was he? After all, you even had doubts before you married him, five years ago. But, he didn't change, did he, even when he said 'I will' for you? He's still exactly the same... like an idle clone of Bender, nothing different.
"But life isn't perfect, it's full of ups and downs, and things going wrong. You have allowed yourself to be taken for granted by others, for as long as you can remember. In fact, the only thing that's ever gone right for you was Alison."
At last, the wise woman had persuaded her to do what she knew was the right thing all along... to go out and get her right man. After all, she couldn't communicate with Fry even a little, and she had little in common with him, bar the fact that both of them had felt, at the time of marriage, at the least, to be alone and out of place in this world. For a start, he acted like a teenager, instead of his real age of 33, and being the same age as him, she had to act like his mother! She felt as if she'd been cut off from the world... till now!
The reflection was right, somebody out there was finally giving her the loving relationship she deserved, so the captain should take one of the biggest risks in her life, and grab her chance. She could talk to Harry, confide in him about both love and life in a very adult way, as he could with her. Yes, she could communicate with Harry, he was everything Fry wasn't; he was everything she ever wanted. Yes, he was everything!
Time was passing quickly, and she knew she had to pull herself away from the mirror if she was going to be ready for her dream date, as she wasn't the keep 'em waiting Amy type of girl. As she realized her dream lover could arrive any moment now, she felt that time was too short to fix her hair, and let it hang loose, flowing over her shoulders.
While she sat in front of the dressing table, completing her American Beauty, cool babe look, with two long dangling silver earrings, she heard a knocking at the door... Harry was here, and she had finished just in time. She zoomed to the door like lightning, to open it fast.
"FRY!" she yelped.
"Hi honey, I'm home... Surprised to see me?"
"You're back early, aren't you?" As Leela smelt alcohol on Fry's breath, which wasn't unusual for him, and he seemed to be in quite a happy kind of mood, she gathered she may just be able to escape being caught in the act, so to speak.
"Yeah, we were there and back, just like that; it was a very quick delivery," he stuttered aloud, fumbling on every word and flopping his whole body entirely over her. "Sorry, but last night when we finished the delivery, me and Bender popped in at an open bar, and we spent all our wages on getting drunk and picking up a couple of chicks we met inside... isn't it funny what you can pick up with a drink, nowadays."
As far as Leela was concerned, it was anything but funny; it was completely destroying her life. Not only had he spent his wages, he'd also gone behind her back. She sensed the irony and seeming hypocrisy of the situation; nevertheless she had reasons, but what reasons did he have! "You picked her up with a drink!" she screamed into his bulging red eyes, with blood capillaries about to burst. "Good God, you could catch anything!"
Fry seemed to get a buzz out of maddening her, and therefore continued his mission of provoking her for his amusement. "I think mine was called Cool Carol. Bender's robo-femme was called Gold-er-lina, and she was made of real golden metal."
"It's a shame you never melted her down and brought her back home with you," came Leela's sarcastic reply, while thinking of their incredible debts. It then suddenly hit her, that Carol was also the name of Harry's wife. It just may, or may not, have been the very same woman. Either way, Fry could have caught a sexually transmitted disease of some sort; she was surprised he hadn't caught it years ago.
With Fry slumped over her, she lifted his arms off of her shoulders, and allowed him to drop to the floor, still laughing hilariously at something he did with Bender on their night out clubbing. She was left speechless for a moment, he'd gone out and spent his wages on not just drink and any old babe, but he'd gone out with that floozy!
She finally decided she would take him to the hospital on Monday, so that he could have an STD test. She then left him slumped against the front door, as she went to get a bucket, in case he started puking before she got his head into the toilet bowl.
While she was in the kitchen, occupied by searching for the bucket... knock, knock, knock was rapped on the front door. Behind the door, a very well-dressed, handsome Harry, was expecting to find his very beautiful, lovely Leela!
Leela, though, couldn't hear a thing, as she was in the other room, and so a jolly drunk dork reached for the door knob from the floor, where he sat, forcing it around as he flopped back down to the floor again. As somebody pushed the door open from behind, then popped his head around the door, a madly blinking Fry had to take a second look, just to check he was seeing correctly, then he turned his head around to the inside of the house to tell Leela who he'd just seen.
"Hey Leela, Humphrey Bogart's at the door!" He then turned around to face Harry again. "Shouldn't you be a head-in-a-jar, Humphrey?" he asked, just a little curious as to why this 20th century celebrity had his own body.
After Leela had found the bucket, she made her way back to the hallway, towards the door. As she walked through the final entrance to where Fry was interrogating the man who was dressed up to take her to dinner tonight, the also dressed up dinner date to be became frozen stiff with shock, as she stopped where she stood and dropped the bucket to the floor.
It was pretty obvious to Harry what had happened, so he answered Fry with the first thing he could think of: "Umm, err, I bought the body from a pawn shop, just especially to come and tell one Mrs Turanga Leela Fry, that her name had been pulled out at random to be my special, exclusive escort to the Casablanca tonight." Harry looked towards Leela's direction. "Are you the beautiful lady I'm suppose to be escorting? I was given this address by the New New York Film Academy to come here personally and pick you up, then drive you down to a once in a lifetime, behind the scenes, look at the making of a still very popular classic." It came out fast and a little fumbled, as it was a quick answer, in reply to Fry's own question about the head-in-a-jar.
As Fry had been drinking, he wasn't quite with it, so as he believed Harry was the real Humphrey Bogart, Harry had become the real Humphrey Bogart. Fry's drinking had backfired on him, for if he was completely sober, he would have known that the man at the door wasn't, of course, a celebrity head-in-a-jar sitting on top of a pawned body, but just a lookalike, with his own head firmly attached to his own body.
Fry crawled happily towards his wife, cheerfully spilling out the so-called good news to her. "Leela, Leela, did you hear that? It's your lucky day today... ohh, so that's why you're all dolled up, you'd been told he was coming previously, hadn't you?"
Whenever Fry was completely intoxicated like this, Leela could never leave him, or even trust him to look after himself, but had to make sure he was safe, which usually started with her dragging him to the toilet bowl and sticking his head down it. She would force two of her fingers between his teeth and down his throat, until she could finally make him puke up. Besides, she also felt very guilty about leaving him alone, to have an affair with another man, who was standing on her doorstep.
"Please understand," she looked at her lover with a tear running down her face, as she softly spoke, "I want to go, really I do, but I just can't."
"I understand," he answered, as he stared into her big beautiful eye, noticing how the tears of emotion streaming down her cheeks were for him. He supposed he'd always guessed her love was true, and couldn't leave her alone with the drunken slob. "Can I help ya with him... he looks a handful?"
"Thank you, I would appreciate it... it'd take me quite some time by myself."
As Leela grabbed hold of Fry's arms, and Harry his feet, they carried him into the bathroom together. Harry forced his head down the toilet, while she did what she had done a hundred times before: stuck her fingers down his throat.
"Come on Fry, get it all out!" she screeched, trying to encourage him to extract as much as possible.
"Errrhhh... errrhhh... errrhhh, " puked Fry.
"Is there any more Fry, just a little bit even?"
"Errrhhh... errrhhh... umm, I think that's it Leela," he croaked, just about managing to speak one line.
She turned to face Harry, to ask for a little more help. "I think he's almost done now. After he's gotten the last of it out, could you help me get him into to bed, so he can sleep this off?" Harry helped Leela bring Fry to the bedroom, where they undressed him and put him into the bed. He was so drunk that he didn't know what was going on, but just fell asleep like a baby.
By the time they'd finished, they were both exhausted. Harry wondered how Leela managed to cope with the drunk by herself. She'd done it so many times before though, she'd gotten used to it throughout the years. She then took her lover to the kitchen, and asked him if he'd like a coffee. "That'd be lovely... I think I'll need one after this," he answered, gratefully.
They sat there, on either side of the kitchen table, quite silent while drinking their coffee. The events that took place before Fry's arrival couldn't easily be forgotten, yet using her lover to help out her husband seemed to make her feel as if she was cheating on both of them... an incredibly guilty sort of feeling! Harry also knew though that she couldn't go out with him that night, needing to sort her own life out first, so after they'd finished drinking their coffee, he bid her farewell.
She took him to the front door, and as they looked at each other, they worried about what was to become of them both, now that Fry had returned. They had also both made crazy fantasies inside their heads about their big night out, yet both were now sad at the opportunity that had been missed. All they had left was an unknown dream-world of what could have been, based on the memories of what had happened previously. Leela, who realized it was getting very late, gave Harry a goodnight kiss, then bid him goodnight.
Now, she had to remain at home with Fry, while her lover had to go back to his carefree Carol. Life had been so cruel to the two of them: both madly in love, but just in love with the wrong person, it seemed. Nobody said life was supposed to be easy!