§ § § -- September 18, 1993
Leslie awoke one Saturday morning in mid-September with a low fever; her head felt achy, but she didn't think it was enough to keep her from doing the job she loved so much. So she said nothing to Roarke when she came out to join him on the veranda after ringing the bell, and through the introduction of the weekend's guests, she actually managed to keep her father from deducing that there was something wrong. Anyway, she thought, it's not that big a deal. When I get home and we're waiting for the first guest to come in so we can get her started on her fantasy, I'll just pop upstairs and take some medicine.
Roarke, however, expressed surprise when she started for the steps. "Leslie, where are you going?" he asked.
"Just upstairs for a second," she said. "I…forgot something earlier." She rushed up before he could question her further, and found herself watching her reflection in the bath-room mirror while she was pouring out the liquid medication into a small cup. Watch out, Leslie Susan, she warned herself. If Father finds out—well, at least before the weekend's over anyway—that's it for you, and he'll bring Julie in. I haven't missed a day since I took on this job, and I'm not going to if I can help it. If I just medicate this thing and don't push myself too much, I should be okay. She stuck out her tongue at her disapproving reflection in the mirror, then tipped back the cup and drained its contents.
She rinsed out the little cup, dried it and returned the bottle to the medicine cabinet, then ducked into her room and put on the rainbow-gem bracelet that had been a gift from Prince Errico two years before so that she could defray Roarke's questions. Making her way back downstairs, she found herself barely ahead of the arrival of their first guest, just long enough for Roarke to ask curiously, "What was it you forgot?"
"This," she said, displaying the bracelet at him. He gave her a look askance but let the matter drop when their guest stepped from the foyer into the study.
The medication did have enough effect for awhile that Leslie forgot about the fever, and most of the rest of the day went normally enough. But in the early evening, just after Roarke had slipped into the time-travel room to make a routine check on a guest, she was abruptly reminded of it when she arose to file away some financial statements and saw the room begin to spin, ever so slowly. She stopped in the middle of the floor and closed her eyes, waiting it out for a long, uneasy moment. Drat it, she thought. I wonder if Father'll say anything if I tell him I'm going to bed early tonight?
Leslie cautiously opened her eyes, noted that the room had stabilized, and traversed the remaining distance to the credenza with some care. But by now she knew there was something not quite right; Roarke had asked about her lack of appetite at supper. I can't fool him much longer. Father can sense anything and everything, and sooner or later he'll know something's off kilter. But I don't want to be relegated to a sickroom before the weekend's over…
By the time Roarke returned, she was in the far corner of the room between the back of the wall abutting the stairs and the French shutter doors, where early that year they had set up a computer that they used almost exclusively as a word processor. "Leslie, I thought you had done that earlier in the day," Roarke said in surprise, noting that she was preparing a batch of response letters to would-be fantasizers. This was one of her routine tasks that had to be done every day because of the sheer volumes of mail they got.
"I fell a little behind," Leslie said without turning to look at him. "But if it makes you feel any better, I'll finish this up and then get to bed early so I can get up early enough to get a head start on tomorrow."
Roarke didn't respond, and she relaxed slightly, figuring he had accepted this. But then she felt his hand on her shoulder, and she stopped typing when he said softly but sternly, "Leslie, look at me."
Well, the fix is in, she thought resignedly. So much for the rest of my weekend. She revolved in her chair and looked up at her father with the most innocent expression she could conjure up, doubting even as she did that he'd buy it. And he didn't. "Has something gone wrong today? You've been acting slightly oddly ever since this morning, and you've barely eaten a thing today."
"I had a big lunch," Leslie said, trying to think fast.
Roarke's dark eyes narrowed in confusion. "No, you didn't," he said.
Oh blast…he's right. I wasn't hungry then either. "Well…I just…" She floundered, but they both knew she had run out of excuses.
"Stand up," Roarke requested, and she did—at which point the room began to rotate lazily on some invisible axis. Instinctively she clutched the chair and Roarke's arm to keep from losing her balance, and his eyes widened with alarm. "Leslie, are you feeling all right? And don't prevaricate in the attempt to reassure me," he added, apparently anticipating her even before she consciously realized she was going to try to head him off with some weak dismissal. "You don't look well. Now tell me what's wrong."
With a great sigh of resignation, she capitulated and told him what she'd been feeling all day. "I was okay for most of the day, actually," she insisted when she saw him frown in concern. "After I took the medicine, I felt fine."
"But you still merely picked at your lunch," Roarke pointed out, "and you ate even less at dinner. I watched you at both meals. Perhaps it's time for me to call in a doctor. It's plain that you're not feeling well, and I don't want you to exacerbate the problem or hurt yourself in trying to pretend it doesn't exist. I want you to stop what you're doing and go up and get some sleep, right now."
Leslie smiled reluctantly. "I was planning to go to bed early tonight anyway," she admitted. "But please, don't call the doctor. It might be just a passing thing, and I'll be back to normal tomorrow as long as I get a good night's sleep."
Roarke eyed her dubiously, clearly thinking this over. After a moment he sighed and shook his head. "I suppose you could be right," he said, his tone stating that he didn't believe this for a moment, "but I want you to know that this is very much against my better judgment. You've been sick only once since the very first day you set foot on Fantasy Island, and to see you unwell raises quite an alarm since it's such a rarity for you."
Leslie shrugged. "It's not as if I'm fainting at your feet with the Black Plague," she kidded lightly, grinning.
Roarke rolled his eyes, and she giggled. "Really, Leslie Susan, you do try my patience at the most inappropriate moments," he complained. But she could see the smile playing about his lips, and smirked unrepentantly. "Very well. Get a good night's rest, and in the morning we'll reassess your condition."
"Don't you dare call Julie," Leslie warned him, suddenly serious. "Say what you will, but I refuse to miss out on the resolution of the fantasies. After we see the guests off on Monday morning, you can lock me in my room if you think you have to. But I'm not going to be left out. And besides, you need me. If I fall sick now, what're you going to do when you need to be in two places at once and can't send me in to be a reasonable facsimile for the less urgent problem?"
"What makes you think I couldn't be in two places at once?" Roarke retorted, pulling her up short and causing her mouth to drop open. He grinned at her. "Get upstairs, young lady, this moment. If you dare entertain any hope of seeing the weekend through to its conclusion, that is your only alternative. Go."
She blinked at him and gave him a tiny, meek smile. "Yes, Daddy," she lisped, and left behind a laughing Roarke as she climbed the stairs.
§ § § -- September 19, 1993
Leslie was quite startled to be awakened by Roarke when he paused in the doorway and called her name. "Father—?"
"You were so determined to see the weekend through," he said mock-severely, "and here you've overslept. That in itself is a sign that something is wrong—but if you truly feel up to the day's tasks, then you had better get up."
"Great," moaned Leslie, annoyed with herself. "I even set my alarm—why didn't it go off? Maybe the stupid thing's broken." She sat up and swung her feet out of bed, picking up the alarm clock that sat on her bedside table and examining it.
Roarke watched her, a slight frown on his features. "Leslie," he said, now serious, "I am not at all convinced that it's wise for you to persist…"
"Father, I can be as stubborn as anyone," she warned him with a faint smile, "and you should know we New Englanders are famous for it. I hope you didn't call Julie."
"No, I refrained," Roarke said with light sarcasm, and her smile grew into a grin. "But if you aren't downstairs within ten minutes, I will do precisely that. Ill-advised though I am convinced this is, I can see that nothing I can say will stop you. But I'll be watching you; so if I think it warranted, I will lay down the law: and then, nothing you can say will stop me. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly," she replied and saluted him teasingly.
"Such insolence," he murmured, but chuckled and left her so she could get dressed.
Through the day, Roarke deliberately kept most of Leslie's tasks light, in the hope that she could have her way and he his at the same time. But in the afternoon, on her way back to the main house in one of the station wagons, Leslie was waylaid by a guest named Arlene Simansky, who leaped out into the middle of the Ring Road and frantically waved her arms at Leslie. "Leslie, I need help!" she cried when Leslie, having slammed on the brakes, had managed to stop the car. "Casey refuses to leave the unicorns. She says she wants to stay here with them for the rest of her life! How can I possibly convince her to come back, especially after I've told her all her life that unicorns don't really exist and now she's seen them, in the flesh, on this island?"
"Wow," said Leslie, astonished, forgetting entirely the errand she had been running for Roarke. "Come on, get in and we'll find her. This actually happened once before. Maybe the same logic will work on Casey." Arlene Simansky threw herself into the front seat beside Leslie, and they headed at a fair clip along the Ring Road to the clearing Leslie remembered Roarke having taken her to, along with Tattoo, the day she'd turned sixteen.
Sure enough, at the clearing there was the swirling mist that seemed made of liquid mother-of-pearl, which Leslie remembered from her trip there with Roarke and Tattoo; the clearing exhibited this characteristic only when the unicorns were in evidence, as they clearly were now. Leslie stopped the car and she and Arlene Simansky got out; the worried mother hovered close behind Leslie, who pushed slowly forward through the mist and emerged into a dreamlike scene. The colors all seemed like those in a painting; the grass was brightly green, the sky deeply blue, the clouds pure, pristine white. Half a dozen unicorns, their immaculate coats the color of the protective mist, stood in a circle around an entranced girl of eleven or twelve years, whose long glossy-brown hair had been caught back in a ponytail and who wore a long ivory-colored gown. She approached each unicorn almost stealthily on bare feet, reaching up and touching them one by one on the nose, her face aglow with delight.
"Casey!" Mrs. Simansky called out, startling Leslie. The unicorns shied, some reared, and all of them galloped away to the farthest end of the clearing. Casey's face took on an exasperated expression.
"Oh, Mom," she groaned. "Why'd you have to go and do that?"
"Casey, you've got to give this up," her mother scolded. "You know we have to go home tomorrow, no matter what."
"But I told you, I want to stay here forever," Casey insisted. "I've always told you that unicorns really exist, and seeing them here just proves it." She turned to Leslie for support and appealed, "Isn't that true, Miss Leslie?"
"Oh, well, that all depends," Leslie said, shrugging. "You know, Casey, you aren't the first person who wanted to stay with the unicorns."
Casey tilted her head aslant, amazed. "Really? Then how come she's not here too?"
Leslie cleared her throat, working out the best way to say what she needed to say. "We have a rule here, Casey. For years, before I came here, my father and his former assistant, Tattoo, had a lot of guests who wanted to stay and live here even after their fantasies had been granted. Needless to say, that created some problems. Eventually there were too many people here, and there just wasn't room for all of them. Now I admit, some of them missed their homes, and moved back off-island again…but most just stayed on, soaking up the sun on the beaches all the time, taking up all the bungalows and the hotel rooms. More than a few ran out of money and Father and Tattoo had to send them home again by force. The whole thing got a little chaotic, so they set up a rule that said if you wanted to live on the island, you had to go to work. No lying around like you were on vacation for the rest of your life." She grinned.
By now Casey wore a faint scowl. "So what?"
"Well, obviously that rule could go only so far, because there were only so many jobs to go around. And naturally, they got filled up in no time flat. When that happened, Father set up an unbreachable rule that everybody has to live by, no matter who they are. Once your fantasy's been fulfilled, that's it: you have to leave the island."
Casey stared at her, horrified. "You mean…I can't live with the unicorns?"
Leslie shook her head sympathetically. "No, sorry. I hate to sound callous, Casey, but think about it a different way. How are you going to survive alone?"
"The unicorns'd take care of me," Casey said stubbornly. Leslie immediately realized she was in for a long siege. "They like me, I know they'd do it."
"Unicorns aren't the most tolerant creatures in the world," Leslie said. "They're very picky, and not everyone gets the chance to see them. So right there, that makes you one of the lucky ones. I first saw them on my sixteenth birthday, and I knew I'd been privileged—and that was enough for me. It had to be. This is the first time I've seen them since then. Unicorns don't let outsiders into their world."
"Oh, they'd let me in," Casey said with assurance. "I understand unicorns. I've read everything in the world about them, everything I could find. I know all about them and what they like and don't like, and what you should and shouldn't do around them. I know more about unicorns than anyone else in the whole world. And I know they like me."
"They told you that?" Mrs. Simansky broke in, impatient and skeptical.
Casey rolled her eyes. "Oh, Mom," she snorted.
Leslie sighed softly. "It's not that simple, Casey," she said. "What's been written about unicorns has been recorded over centuries of finding out about them—their habits, their ways, their natures. I just told you that it's rare to see a unicorn. And not everyone who saw them gained their trust. For those who did, it took forever to do it—some grew old in the process, so that it took most of their lives to gain the knowledge they did. But no one ever learned everything there is to know about them."
"But…" Casey stared at her. "But I just know…" She turned and began to call out to the unicorns—but they had all disappeared. "Oh, no!"
"I'm sorry, Casey," Leslie said with genuine regret.
Casey squinted at Leslie, her expression suspicious. "I know Mr. Roarke isn't your real father, just your adopted one. I can tell 'cause you don't look like each other or talk the same or anything, and you haven't got his special powers, right?"
A little bewildered by the seeming non sequitur, Leslie nodded warily. "That's true, but why do you ask?"
"Well, where's your mom and dad?" Casey asked. "Did you have a fantasy to stay with the unicorns too, or what?"
"No," said Leslie, understanding then where Casey was going. "I was orphaned when I was a year or two older than you are now. And before you ask, it wasn't my fantasy to come live here: it was my mother's. She knew I'd have no one left in the world after they were gone, so she arranged for Mr. Roarke to raise me. So the rule didn't apply."
Casey's face fell. "Oh." She was a bright girl, Leslie could see that; it was plain that she fully understood the ramifications of this explanation. "So if it was your fantasy to live here, then you'd have to live by Mr. Roarke's rule, and you'd have to leave…except that if he granted the fantasy, then he couldn't make you leave, and then he'd have to break his rule—because if he didn't break it, it meant he wasn't granting your fantasy. I wonder if that's ever happened?"
Leslie, who herself had mulled over this catch-22 problem on occasion, winced at hearing it posited aloud. "How about let's not go there, okay, Casey?" she suggested.
Casey peered up at her and grinned knowingly. "Bet you never thought of that."
Leslie stuck out her tongue at the girl in a playful gesture. "You lose, Casey Simansky, so let's drop this whole subject right here and now. You're making my head hurt." This was literally true, but not for the reason Leslie blithely put forth. "Come on, we really do have to go. Much as I hate to say it, your fantasy's over now."
Casey resisted, shooting one last hopeful look over her shoulder into the still-empty clearing, then hung her head. "I didn't even get to tell the unicorns goodbye."
"You can say it now," Leslie offered gently. "Just call it out to them. They'll hear you."
Casey eyed her dubiously, and Leslie nodded encouragement. Slowly the girl turned and lifted her face to the cobalt sky. "Bye, unicorns. Meeting you was the greatest thing that's ever happened to me in my whole life. Bye."
In the distance all three, hostess, mother and daughter, heard a chorus of faint whinnies, as if the departed unicorns had acknowledged the farewell. Leslie smiled and stepped back, allowing Mrs. Simansky to slip an arm around her daughter's shoulders and lead her out of the clearing. Leslie followed, unable to resist one final peek back into the clearing, even though the unicorns were long gone.
She dropped the Simanskys off at their bungalow and heaved a great sigh of relief, finally returning to the main house. Here, she was promptly accosted by a gaggle of native children from the fishing village, who all wanted to complain to her about a teacher in their school. It took her another ten minutes to persuade them that she had no power to do anything about the teacher and they were just going to have to bear with it, by which time Roarke had appeared on the veranda and was watching her with immense amusement.
"Have you been letting those children argue with you all this time?" he asked.
She blew out her breath. "No, it just seems that way," she said. "I ran into a little problem with the Simansky fantasy." She explained what had happened while they walked into the study, where Myeko Tokita stood looking very upset, holding her 16½-month-old son Alexander in her arms and just beginning to show with her second pregnancy. Leslie stopped short on one of the steps. "What's the matter?"
Before Roarke could say anything, Myeko announced, "I got here about twenty minutes ago. I've been trying to talk Mr. Roarke into letting me have a divorce from Toki."
"Wh…at?" Leslie croaked, staring at Roarke, flabbergasted.
"Yes, it's true," Roarke replied, sounding slightly weary, stepping around Leslie and going to his desk. "Why don't you explain it to Leslie," he suggested to Myeko.
"Toki refuses to look for a job here on the island so he can spend more time with me and Alexander," Myeko said, eyes blazing. "He claims the only lucrative jobs are in Hawaii, and do you realize what kind of commute that is? It's an 800-mile round trip on the charter plane every single day, five days a week! And they make him come in to work two Saturdays a month, too, so that's just more time he's away from us."
"And you want a divorce because Toki insists on commuting?" Leslie asked.
The phone rang, and Roarke made a gesture at the young women, indicating that they should continue their conversation, before picking it up. "Well, that's part of it, but it's not the only reason," Myeko said.
"Well then, what else?" Leslie prompted.
Roarke hung up then and gave his daughter an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Leslie, I must go and take care of something at the police station, and then I must terminate the other fantasy. You understand…"
"It's okay, Father, go ahead," said Leslie, who could have sworn she saw a relieved look flicker across Roarke's features for a fraction of a second before he nodded at Myeko and left the house at a brisk clip. No sooner had he gone than Myeko turned back to her.
"Oh, Leslie, it's awful. I'm five months pregnant, you know. I love Alexander and I'm gonna love the new kid too, but that's enough. Toki wants at least five kids, maybe more, since he's part of a big family. I want to stop after this one, whether we get a boy or a girl. And he won't listen to me. And then there's…" Once started, Myeko got going with aplomb, carrying on to Leslie about quite a few beefs she had with her husband that ran the gamut from petty to deadly serious. One of them concerned the fact that she wanted to start working for the newspaper as a gossip columnist, something that apparently met vociferous resistance from Toki and incited amused surprise in Leslie. Myeko was so worked up that she didn't notice her friend's struggle to hide her reaction.
"And most of all, he thinks it's better if he just stays the full week in Hawaii and comes home only on the weekends," Myeko concluded, her eyes finally welling with tears. "I say, if that's what he wants, he might as well just move there lock, stock and barrel!"
"Without you and Alexander?" Leslie asked.
"What, and leave Fantasy Island?" demanded Myeko, genuinely horrified. "I've lived here all my life—how could I live anywhere else? I don't think we can work this out, Leslie. Please, please get Mr. Roarke to give me a divorce. It's not fair to me or Alexander that Toki won't make any effort."
"Have you talked to Toki about this?" Leslie asked. While she had never cared much for Toki, she didn't like the idea of seeing his and Myeko's marriage come to such an undignified end. Besides, Myeko tended toward an impulsive streak, and something told Leslie she was pursuing an impulse this time as well.
"Oh yes," Myeko assured her, nodding vigorously and beginning to pace the floor with a fretting Alexander in her arms. "Toki knows my feelings all right—I've told him loads of times. He just keeps telling me that this is the only way things'll work out. And he came up with that stupid idea about staying in Hawaii during the week after I complained about the commute—does he really think that's a reasonable solution to this mess? If you ask me, that's his way of solving the problem here so he can start carrying on with someone in Honolulu. If he didn't have some girl on the side, that never would've crossed his mind."
"Oh, I'm not so sure," Leslie mused. "Toki's not exactly known for his expertise with rocket science." Myeko looked sharply at her and she shrugged apologetically. "I'm sorry, but you know I'm right—and you've known him longer than I have. If I know what I'm talking about, then how could you not?"
"Well…" Myeko hesitated.
"Do you really think Toki's the type to cheat on you?" asked Leslie. "Be honest."
Myeko bit her lip so hard Leslie was surprised she didn't draw blood. "Well…I did always have this crush on him, but it took him a really long time to see me as someone besides his sister's friend, you know? Now that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure he really wanted to marry me at all. Maybe he did it because his parents expected him to—you know how traditional they are. Oh geez…" Her tears overflowed, and Alexander began to cry as well, discomfiting Leslie.
"Hey, come on…sit here," she said and pushed her friend gently into a chair. "Come on, let's talk this over and see if we can figure out a rational solution."
They were still talking, sometimes arguing, and Alexander was still crying off and on when Roarke came back fully thirty minutes later. He watched them with open surprise for a minute or two before they saw him and suddenly cut off their discussion.
"Forgive me for interrupting," Roarke said, stepping into the study, "but apparently there is more to this issue than you seemed willing to let on, Myeko. But before I agree to your rather impulsive request—" He held up a hand when Myeko opened her mouth to protest. "Look at it from my point of view. You gave me barely a word of explanation when you first came here asking for a divorce."
She sighed. "Oh, I guess you're right. But Leslie and I've been going around and around the whole thing, and all it does is convince me more and more that getting a divorce is the only way out."
"Does Toki know you came here, and the reason why?" Roarke asked, noting in his peripheral that Leslie had slumped back in her chair and closed her eyes.
"Well…no," Myeko admitted with enormous reluctance.
"Then I suggest you return home and discuss this with him, in at least as much depth as you have been discussing it with Leslie, if not more," Roarke advised. "You must be very certain that this is what you want, for if you go forward with it, you may be damaging several lives beyond repair. Furthermore, I might remind you that island law states that both parties must agree to the divorce before it can be granted. I have seen no indication that Toki also desires a divorce. Before you make this request of me again, Myeko, I am afraid I must insist that you and Toki discuss it; then, if you still believe this is the only solution and Toki is in agreement, you must both come to see me, together."
Faced with the highest authority on the island, Myeko had no choice but to give in. "All right, Mr. Roarke," she said, sighing heavily and getting to her feet, gently bouncing Alexander in an attempt to comfort him. "Thanks for your time, and yours too, Leslie."
Once she had gone, Roarke turned his full attention to his daughter. "Are you all right?" he asked, coming back around the desk to look more closely at her.
She opened her eyes and wearily looked up at him. "My head…" she began; then, out of nowhere, her eyes rolled back and she slowly toppled forward in a dead faint.