CHAPTER FIVE

What sort of person was Ally McBeal-Collins? Ally McBeal wanted to know. If she had replaced her married counterpart for right now, where was she and was she going to be home any second? Ally poked through her closet looking through photo albums of memories she didn't have and wished she had. Her own face stared back at her from those pictures with infant daughters, people she didn't know and William's relatives. She found a memory book of objects she wanted to cherish, but obviously belonged to a person she never was. Countless shoes and expense clothes filled the closet she wanted to smuggle back to New York and an enigmatic white box in the top of the closet caught her attention. Taking it down, she pulled it out of the closet and placed it on the bed as she opened it.

"Yes!!!" She screamed out loud it ecstasy. It was the mink coat that William had promised her if they had married. As giddy as a schoolgirl, she pulled it on over her t-shirt and pranced over to the mirror to admire herself in it. It was just a bit heavy, but it felt so good and soft to her. She could truly get used to this very extravagant way of living at the risk of getting just a bit obnoxious from this fine living. She noticed extra faces in the mirror watching her.

"Mommy," Little Georgia Collins looked at her. "Where's daddy?" Her younger sister loitered behind her in the hall.

"He's napping in the other bedroom." Ally tried to keep from beaming. She saw so much of herself in them. She loved their little faces and prepubescent little bodies and tiny fingers and big brown eyes. Georgia scampered into the room and climbed on the bed to stand eye to eye with her as her little sister did the same.

"Will you play with us?" Little Georgia asked with her innocent little voice. Ally's heart just bumped faster with the concept of the tiny favor.

"I sure will." She promised as the little babies cheered out loud and scampered off hurriedly to get ready. Ally's heart was in ecstasy as within a few hours her every desire was brought to life. She finally had her big house, her children and best of all her loving husband. She lifted her head and giggled happily for the first time in her life as somewhere in the house a phone rang. It seemed as if her life finally had meaning and her dreams had come true as she dutifully tried to box up the mink coat once more and hurry to join her daughters.

Her daughters… What a wonderful sound!

"Mom," Maddie stood at the phone at the top of the stairs and motioned her to come closer. "There's a Mr. Roarke on the phone."

"Oh…" Ally reacted a bit worried as Lainey, the littlest daughter of all of them, rushed up and handed her a naked brunette Barbie.

"This one will be yours…." The effervescent toddler looked up at her. "Hurry up, we're ready."

"Just a minute," Ally beamed at her once more and took the phone from Maddie. Maddie turned back across the balcony above the foyer and vanished into a bedroom on the other side of the house. Ally lifted the receiver to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Mrs. McBeal…" Mr. Roarke responded very friendlily to her. "How are you enjoying your fantasy?"

"I'm loving it!!" Ally shrieked happily. "It's my ever fantasy come true! I don't know why or how, but I don't care. This is the most incredible and happy… ecstatic time of my life I've ever had. I don't want it to end."

"Well," Roarke's voice seemed to lament a little bit. "I'm sorry to say, but I'm afraid even your fantasy must come to a subsequent end."

"What?" Ally whined a bit in shock.

"Mommy!" A child cried out.

"Just a minute…" Ally called back.

"I'm sorry, but I thought you understood." Roarke replied back as his African-American manservant stood by him. "This is but a temporary arrangement. Subsequently, I'm afraid, you must come back."

"No." Ally decided.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I belong here." Ally finally replied with a lump in her throat and a breaking in her heart. It was starting to turn into a cruel trick to her as she finally had true happiness, but if to give it all up. A tear fell from her eye. "This is my home, my family, my husband… I don't have anything waiting for me back there but… loneliness. I can't go back. Please, just leave me here."

"But Mrs. McBeal…" Roarke heard the phone hang up as he now lamented giving her a taste of paradise. Maybe he was hoping the reality of marital bliss might have dissuaded her or the reputation of the Collins girls might have made her rethink her desires, nut now he realized that even through all of that, she would not let go of any of it.

"Sounds like she's not coming back." His manservant replied. Beyond the retired Yoruba mystic, another mysterious figure was wandering the house ready to replace Roarke when he retired. A figure with an English accent and snowy white hair most of the islanders speculated was not just their employer's apprentice… but a relative.

"Apparently not, Mojo," Roarke leaned back in his seat. "But I'm afraid Mrs. McBeal must realize that life much like a highway, there are not always short cuts…"

"Unless you make them yourself." The would-be successor chimed in himself.