Just One Look
By Valma
Part 11: Thrills, Pills 'n Spills

My Journey Through Life - Niles Crane

I am saved!

Like a desert traveler who finally reaches the oasis, I can quaff from the refreshing waters and at last forget about his terrible thirst.

It's all behind me - the loneliness, the yearning for companionship --- I now have someone to share my life with.

Mel has appeased my parched soul.

We have been out every night this week and I feel that things are developing very well. I feel like I have known her all my life in some ways. As I said before, she enjoys all the same cultural pursuits as me - art, the opera, fine dinning and has a great appreciation for rare wines. She has a keen mind and is very attentive to the details in life. Especially details that concern me - she knows just what tie I should wear with what jacket, what shoes go best with what outfit and when it is just the right time to get my hair trimmed. She likes to arrive on time to events and likes to thoroughly research anything before suggesting a course of action. There is an aura of accuracy about her that, having lived so many years with Maris, I easily can enjoy again.

But there is so much more to her. I think she is genuinely interested in me. I feel important when I am in her presence. Mel laughs at my jokes, listens to my stories and pays me all sorts of attention. Like Daphne used to do, or like she still would do if she weren't so busy preparing to marry Donny Douglas. There's a symbiosis growing between Mel and me - a connection that gets stronger each time we rendezvous.

And we share another tie as well - we both are wounded individuals. We both have suffered at the hands of a past partner.

Ah yes, there's much that we have in common.

With Mel, it was her ex-husband, Barry. She didn't want to talk about it at first, but then, after dinner two days ago, she opened up on the drive back to her apartment.

They met when they were both interns. He reminded her of her father - quiet, finical, sophisticated --- and ultimately unfaithful. She finally caught on to Barry's infidelities and divorced him after their son went off to college. She told me how devastated she was, how his adultery had scarred her and made her very untrusting and circumspect when it came to intimate relationships.

When I revealed to her that I probably was the one person who really understood her pain because of what Maris did to me, she simply nodded and then quietly asked me if I would like to come up to her apartment for some coffee.

Nooooo, we didn't have sex. But we did talk some more about our mendacious mates, commiserating with each other about the aftereffects. I told her about how emotionally drained I had been when Maris destroyed all my efforts to reconcile and took it upon herself to have a dalliance with Schenkman.

"When it happened to me," Mel said, her voice bleeding with certitude of someone who knew what treachery was all about. "I swore that I would never let myself be deceived like that again. Now I absolutely demand complete openness - no secrets. I think that truthfulness is the most valuable aspect of a relationship. You have nothing to hide from me do you, Niles?"

"No, no --- certainly not," I clumsily confessed, taken a bit off guard by her directness. "In fact, I --- I experience spontaneous nosebleeds if I tell lies,"

She smiled and edged in a bit closer to me.

"How perfectly transparent of you," she murmured. "We should get along just fine, as long as I don't catch you going through too many hankies, my darling."

My heart began to beat a little faster. She reached out and held my hand.

I couldn't squander this opening! She was offering me my salvation on a platter. Here was a chance to put all my failures behind me - the bitterness of my wasted years with Maris, a myriad of cold showers and bad dates, and of course the disastrous experience of my unrequited feelings for Daphne. It was very satisfying, a real thrill actually, to finally know that someone whom I felt attracted to could actually desire me too.

I leaned in slowly and we kissed - a long, deep kiss. I had almost forgotten what something like that can do to a person. When we broke apart I swear that my knees had the consistency of over-cooked pasta. The last time I felt like that about a kiss was --- was when Daphne and I went to the Snow Ball - but that, that is --- all in the past.

Mel is the one who is in my future now.

I'm going to ask her if she is available to go shopping this afternoon. I have to get Frasier something for his birthday and need some company while I try and find the perfect gift for the man who only thinks he has everything.

Adieu.

P.S. I have made a conscious decision not to tell Mel about my internal emotional debacle over Daphne, even though she seems insistent that we should be completely candid with each other.

I keep telling myself that I don't think it can be considered dishonest to keep that to myself. It would make things too awkward for the immediate future, when we would be at Frasier's. Although, Daphne was never cognizant of my feelings towards her, I wouldn't want Mel brooding about the "what ifs" when we are around her. Daphne's life has taken an undeniable and emphatic direction away from me and I --- I had no choice but to turn the page on that chapter of my life. So I would prefer to put that particular part quietly aside, bury it deep and far away from the surface of my consciousness, rather than offering it up to Mel as a gesture of my veraciousness. I just can't do it.

Furthermore, I don't think Mel would quite understand. I sense there is a pragmatic precision to her personality that I think indicates that she just wouldn't comprehend, or approve of, someone living so long in a --- a fantasy. And I want Mel's acceptance --- I need that more than anything else in my life at this time.

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Daphne's Diary

Dear Diary:

Gobsmacked!

I'm absolutely gobsmacked!

Flabbergasted, stunned, in a daze - call it what you may, I'm sitting here in my room trying to wrap my mind around the fact that --- that Dr. Crane has had a crush on me for the longest time apparently!

"Niles - he's crazy about you."

Those words are forever burned into my memory.

"He's crazy about you."

That's what Frasier said.

There was no mistaking the meaning - it was said with the kind of sureness that only comes with absolute certainty.

And Mr. Crane confirmed it - said it had been going on for six years!

Of course neither one of them realized just what they were telling me when they spilled this information, I think.

Dr. Crane was zonked on back pills at the time - not enough to make things up, but just enough to loosen his tongue. Mr. Crane blurted his confirmation and then scurried away, declaring that he wasn't going to get any further involved. He now thinks I was talking about a misunderstanding that Frasier and I were having when I overheard him talking about missing me when I get married.

It's all so --- so confusing.

My whole world has been turned upside-down. All through Frasier's birthday dinner party tonight I couldn't even look into those dark blue eyes of his without thinking how he has been secretly feeling about me all these years. My mind kept travelling back - trying to recall the clues that I had failed to pick up on. Every fidgety little tick held a hidden meaning, the way he sighed at me, or sat staring at me from across the dinner table dreamily - it all meant something much more than what it appeared to.

I thought we were friends - close friends --- the best of friends, actually, but nothing more. Now --- now I just don't know how to view him. It's utterly unnerving.

It kind of colors our past relationship, doesn't it?

All those little gifts he brought me, all the compliments about how wonderful I looked or how kind I was, all the silly excuses he came up with for showing up at the apartment constantly - they all made sense now. He was doting on me so because --- because he had the hots for me!

How could I have been so blind, so oblivious to the obvious evidence that had been strewn like breadcrumbs along the path for me to follow? The times I caught him leaning in to sniff my hair - I explained it away with a shrug and a "That's odd." comment. The lavish gifts he presented to me - he was just being thoughtful and "generous". The times he took my side in arguments, no matter how absurd my position - he was merely flexible. I never connected the dots - until now.

The things we did together - walking Eddie, going shopping, watching videos together on rainy afternoons, me teaching him to dance --- going out --- to - Oh, my God! --- the Snow Ball!

He wasn't acting! He was pouring his heart out to me! And I --- I didn't know --- how I must have crushed him that night with my "You're a great actor," remark!

Why didn't he just tell me? Why wasn't he honest and just say "I'd like to go out with you"?

I never imagined that someone like him, so grand and so well off would be interested in someone like me, a working girl from Manchester - hired help basically.

Bloody hell!

Why do I feel so --- so rattled?

It's odd - at first when I overheard Frasier talking to himself, saying that he "loved" me and had to tell me before it was too late, my first and lasting impression was one of queasiness. Repulsion would be more accurate, to tell the complete truth. I like him as a boss and as a friend, but the mere thought of --- him --- wanting to be --- intimate, I mean, it gives me the shivers. I just couldn't conceive of -

When he assured me that he had no romantic designs on me, I breathed a big sigh of relief.

But when he let it slip moments later that it was his brother who had been yearning after me all these years - it's --- it's hard to explain, but it certainly wasn't revulsion that I felt. It was --- it was just as much as a shock to be sure, but there was also a definite amount of amazement, I guess. And a sense of panic that I didn't know how to handle the information that I had just received.

Why is it so hard? I feel like --- like I am going barmy!

I'm trying to sort out my feelings, but it isn't easy. Dr. Crane --- that is, Niles --- is someone very special to me. We have shared so many moments together. He's never been condescending or unkind to me. I liked it when he came over and the other two were out. We would talk for hours, giggling over the antics of Buster Keaton, mutually tackling the folding of the laundry or combine our efforts in preparing supper - just spending time together, enjoying each other's company. I just liked being around him.

Was all that an illusion - a ruse just so he could get close to me? What was going through his mind while I was chattering on about Michael's penchant for eating dirt as a youngster, or Grammy Moon's favourite saying when she had imbibed a quart of gin? Was he wishing that I would just shut up so he could enjoy the view down my blouse? No, no I refuse to believe that! Dr, Crane is above all that --- I think.

This isn't good!

This is a disaster! It makes everything so --- complicated.

I am in love with Donny! We are going to get married!

I love him - Donny, that is, and yet -

And how do I even know that he still is "crazy" about me? So he might have had an infatuation with me at one time. Things change - people change. He's going out with that plastic surgeon now - Mel. He seems perfectly contented with her. She's into lah-di-dah" operas, snobby French foods and all that - just like he is. I can see that! He was just so miserable with that nutter of a wife of his that anyone looked like a good deal to him back then - even a working class gal like me. Now he's likely just moved on to someone that is more suited to him --- like Mel.

So I've got nothing to worry about - have I. I love Donny. We are going to be married soon. Dr. Crane is going out Mel. They are happy.

Nothing need change, nothing will change - everything is the way it should be. Everything is in order. The wedding will proceed. I won't say anything about what I learned today - ever. Dr. Crane will remain my friend and there won't be any mess about this little revelation.

And yet --- I still feel uneasy. Why?

Maybe --- maybe it is because I took the time to look at him tonight finally --- really look at him - something I think I haven't truly done since I met him. There he was in his impeccably tailored suit that hung just right on his slim frame, his brother's neatly wrapped birthday present clutched in his long, slender fingers. He spoke first, a polite greeting on his lips, saying my name carefully, the way he always does - rounding out the vowels.

"Good evening, Daaaphneee."

His gentle eyes shone like a floodlight on my soul.

Could he somehow sense that I knew his secret? Or did he just notice that I seemed unstrung as I stood there gawking at him like he was starkers and tersely forced out his name.

"Dr. Crane."

Now it was his turn to return my awkward gaze.

"You look different somehow," was what he diplomatically said. He seemed to carefully search my face, hunting for a reason for my strained manner - some explanation for the tension that made the air brittle with uneasiness. When I indicated that it could be the hat perched on my head like a dunce cap, he accepted my verdict and moved on to the distractions of Frasier's birthday celebration.

But that fleeting moment shook me to the core.

He was right - I am different, but it isn't my hair or a silly birthday hat. It's something deep inside of me - exactly what I don't know. I wish I could put a name to this feeling - this scary, absurd feeling that is making me shake like a leaf even still.

G'night Diary.

Stay tuned for Part 12 (to be continued)