§ § § - October 27, 1979
As it happened, though, Leslie forgot about Weiselfarber's fantasy entirely when Roarke, just after supper, reminded Leslie that tonight he was hosting what had been dubbed a "Come as Your Fantasy" ball. "I presume you would like to attend with me?"
"That sounds great!" she blurted. "So I get to dress up?"
"Of course," Tattoo assured her. "What's your fantasy?"
That brought Leslie up short, and she gaped openmouthed between Roarke and Tattoo for a good ten seconds before sagging in her chair. "Oh, drat it," she muttered, "I don't have the faintest clue. I mean..." She almost admitted to her real fantasy before remembering that it wasn't one Roarke could grant, lacking the power; and anyway, how did you dress to indicate that you wanted your late mother to come back to life? She made a face at herself and focused on them. "Maybe you could give me some ideas."
"Maybe you can look at the wardrobe," Tattoo said with a grin. "The boss has lots of costumes you'd probably like. You'll have to have a mask too—it's kind of a masquerade ball, so when you pick out something, you can get a mask to go with it."
"Oh." Leslie considered it for a moment, then grinned. "I know. What about an ice skater? I remember watching the Winter Olympics with Mom and Kristy and Kelly back in '76, and the figure skaters were my favorites. Kristy and I pretended to be ice skaters in the back yard. Kelly said we just looked goofy, twirling around, but we had fun." She turned a sheepish grin on the two amused men. "So even if I'm not really a skater, I could still look like one, couldn't I?"
"I believe we can find you a suitable costume for that, yes," Roarke said. "If you're finished, we can go now and look through the wardrobe racks."
By eight o'clock, all three of them were at the ball. Tattoo had gone earlier, and as was his wont, was most likely cruising the room looking for young women, while Leslie stuck by Roarke's side, well aware that she was by far the youngest in the room and feeling on display. But it was clear that she was with Roarke, and several partygoers complimented her on her costume—a floaty number done in white and graduating shades of ice blue, with ice-blue tights and a matching pair of ankle boots that looked very much like figure skates. The skirt was really a series of two-inch-wide strips of chiffon that floated around her with every move, and was much shorter than she was accustomed to wearing; but she didn't mind, as the tights lent some modesty. Like Roarke, she wore a mask over her eyes and nose; a section of her longish, straight hair had been drawn up on one side and fastened back with a ponytail holder from which fell three ribbons, one in white, one in ice blue and one in turquoise.
The room at the old opera house wasn't very crowded, but more couples were arriving on a regular basis, and Leslie enjoyed watching them come in and trying to figure out what they were dressed as. Eventually she and Roarke ended up at the refreshment table, where they met Helen Philips and her date, a guy named David Hanks. The young man gave Leslie another compliment on her costume, then excused himself for a moment; and Roarke took the opportunity to refill his cup from the champagne fountain, turning to Helen. "I trust your fantasy is working out well, Miss Philips?" he inquired.
Helen beamed. "Yes, thanks to you."
Roarke studied her. "Miss Philips, I should remind you that there is a time limit on your fantasy."
She gave him a look of annoyed reproval and retorted firmly, "Mr. Roarke, I know how old I really am." Roarke capitulated with grace and raised his glass to her.
Just then Tattoo approached them, this time dressed as a vampire, holding his cape up across the lower half of his face and trying to look menacing. Roarke watched him come to a halt between him and Helen and observed in a low voice, "Ah, Tattoo, I see you have a new disguise to discourage people from picking on you."
"How do you like it?" Tattoo inquired with a proud smile. "Fearful, hm?"
"Utterly," Leslie said, somehow maintaining a straight face.
"Very fearful, Tattoo, a real terror!" Roarke assured him, as Tattoo eyed Helen with his eyelids at half-mast. She peered curiously back at him. Roarke added, "I'm surprised the ladies would even dance with such a monster as you!"
Tattoo smiled again. "No problem, boss," he said serenely. "Watch this." He turned to the far corner and let out a whistle between his teeth; Roarke, Leslie and Helen followed his gaze, and Roarke did a quiet double take while Leslie stared in amazement. A statuesque young woman in makeup just like Tattoo's, wearing black touched with shimmering green, paused in front of him, and Tattoo turned to smile smugly up at them. He winked at Leslie, who grinned in spite of herself, and started to turn away, pausing only long enough to waggle his fingers in farewell before his companion swept him along at her side, hiding him from view with her voluminous cape. Roarke shook his head with mild exasperation; Leslie giggled, and Helen offered a game, if confused, smile.
Beside the rotating decorative centerpiece in the middle of the floor stood George Crane, who hadn't bothered observing the dress code and was wearing a business suit; he too stared at Tattoo and his companion as they strolled away, before making his way over to Roarke and Leslie. "Excuse me," he began, and from behind her guardian, Leslie noticed Helen give a soft gasp and lift a glittery pink mask over her eyes.
Crane noticed and blinked at her. "Oh...did I frighten you, Miss Philips?"
Helen tried to retain some calm. "You know my name?"
Crane started to reply, but Roarke put in, "If you'll excuse us, we have other guests to attend to." He laid a hand on Leslie's shoulder blade and guided her away; she threw a look back over one shoulder, but in reality had no wish to stand there and witness whatever was about to happen, since it was likely to ruin Helen Philips' fantasy.
But Helen darted after them. "Mr. Roarke, what're you trying to do to me?"
"I'm afraid I don't understand, Miss Philips," Roarke said blankly.
She scowled. "You know perfectly well who George Crane is. Are you trying to sabotage my fantasy?"
Roarke smiled faintly. "Perhaps I'm trying to enhance it."
"Look," Helen said with a small sigh, "George is all right, and I owe him an explanation sometime...but I can't do it now!"
"As you wish, Miss Philips. Will you excuse me?" This time their leavetaking was final, and Helen drew in an audible breath to protest, but there was no further concession on Roarke's part. Leslie felt a little guilty, wondering what she was going to do.
While Roarke was speaking with someone else, she peered out from behind him in what she hoped was a surreptitious manner, watching as George Crane approached Helen again. There was a quiet confrontation that ended when David Hanks, decked out like what seemed to be an old-fashioned pilot, came up to them; after a moment Crane melted away in defeat, and Helen began to dance with David. Leslie smiled a little, hoping Crane wouldn't decide this whole thing was her guardian's fault and file suit—especially when Helen and David stopped in the middle of the floor and kissed each other.
§ § § - October 28, 1979
Leslie, accompanying Roarke on a midmorning run down to the fishing village, made a face at the dirt road he had to take in order to get there. "Do you think you'll ever get this paved, Mr. Roarke?" she asked from the rover's middle seat.
"No, I have no plans to do so," he said. "The Ring Road is really the only major road on the island, and in any case, most of the natives here rely on the shuttle bus if they need to travel any distance. No one in the village has a car, and the rovers can handle these dirt paths with little problem. Once we reach the village, Leslie, you'll see what I mean."
Before she could reply to that, she noticed a figure stumble out of the trees. "Who's that?" she asked, gesturing.
Surprised, Roarke brought the car to a halt; it turned out to be Helen Philips, clad in riding clothes and looking wan. "Oh, Mr. Roarke, am I glad to see you," she gasped.
Roarke and Leslie both eyed her in surprise; her dark hair had started turning gray, and some of the gentle roundness of her face had returned. He reached out and pulled her into the empty front seat beside him. "Our horses ran off," she panted, "and the vial broke..." Leslie sat up at that, and Roarke's gaze sharpened a bit. "You've got to give me more of the potion."
Roarke shook his head and told her, "Oh, I'm afraid that's not possible, Miss Philips."
"Not possible?" she echoed, aghast and a bit outraged. She was aging even as they stared at her. "It's my fantasy—I paid for it!"
"Your fantasy was to be twenty-five again and experience young love," Roarke said, "wasn't it?"
Helen was nearly in tears. "Please, Mr. Roarke, you can't let it end like this! He loves me! He really loves me, and he wants to marry me!" Leslie realized she was speaking of David Hanks, and looked at Roarke, waiting for his reply.
"What you are doing, Miss Philips, if you'll forgive me, is worshiping youth. A wise man once told me, 'Worship age; then you will always have life to look forward to. Worship youth, and you declare your own obsolescence.' "
The fifty-year-old Helen stared back at him with an incredulous scowl while Leslie pondered those words for a moment. Then Helen demanded, "Worship age?"
"Yes," Roarke urged gently.
She stared at him in disbelief. "How can I worship age when everything belongs to the young?" Leslie hunched where she sat, as if afraid Helen would use her as an example. Roarke gave her a sympathetic smile, and that seemed to encourage her, for she begged, "Please, Mr. Roarke, you've got to give me more time. Please!"
After a moment, much to Leslie's surprise, Roarke relented. "Very well. We'll go back to the house, and I'll give you another vial...and another twelve hours."
Helen nearly collapsed with relief. "Oh...thank you," she moaned, closing her eyes and wilting in the seat. "Thank you." Roarke regarded her for another few seconds, then glanced at Leslie with a little smile, restarted the car and sent it forward.
At the house, he produced another vial for Helen and sent her off to her bungalow with it, warning her to be careful with it; she nodded eagerly, thanked him and hurried out. Leslie sat slowly in her usual chair, frowning to herself and clamping her teeth on her lower lip; Roarke watched her for a moment before inquiring, "What's on your mind, Leslie?"
"What Miss Philips said about everything belonging to the young. I'm not really sure what she meant by that," Leslie admitted.
Roarke smiled and sat at the desk. "Most likely that's because you yourself are young; but it would seem that she is right. Have you looked around you? Do you notice television shows, films, popular musical acts, models, even advertising? They all feature attractive young people, primarily in their twenties. Consider the last movie you saw with your friends, and tell me what you remember about it."
She shrugged, beginning to understand. "I guess I see what you're saying. Romance and adventure and excitement are all experienced by those young adults in TV shows and movies, aren't they? Even those romance novels a couple of the girls like to read—they're about young people falling in love. I guess American culture makes it seem like once you hit about thirty-five or so, you're too old to be worth anything." She made a face. "But that's just dumb. We get a lot of older folks here—I've seen it, especially this past summer—and they fall in love just like anybody else. And all that stuff for sale in department stores—I mean, makeup and skin creams and all that—stuff that's supposed to make you look younger. We have a pretty narrow view of what beauty is, don't we, Mr. Roarke?"
"It would certainly seem so, yes," he agreed, smiling. "Well said, Leslie. And you, just as much as Miss Philips, may be very surprised to find one day that love in later years can be just as satisfying, and even exciting—if not more so—as love in one's youth. Give it an hour or so, and I think you'll see something wonderful." He winked at her.
Sure enough, at about eleven, there was a knock on the door and Helen Philips—still looking like her true fifty-year-old self—stepped hesitantly inside. "Hi, Mr. Roarke, Leslie," she said. "Mind if we come in?" Behind her appeared David Hanks—who, to Leslie's sheer shock, had a white mustache and a band of silver fronting his burnished-gold hair. Like Helen, he wore glasses and a broad smile.
"Mr. Roarke," she blurted before she stopped to think, "you didn't tell me that!"
The adults all laughed, and David Hanks introduced himself as a fifty-two-year-old former fireman from Helen's hometown of Poughkeepsie. He explained to her that after an injury twenty-five years before, he had been cared for in the hospital by Helen Philips, with whom he had fallen in love. After he had been moved to another ward for plastic surgery, they had lost touch; it had been David's fantasy ever since then to find her again. "What we'd like to ask now, Mr. Roarke," he said with a grin, "is if you can arrange a wedding on really short notice—like, say, this afternoon. I don't want to leave here without putting a ring on Helen's finger, or I might lose track of her again."
"No chance of that," Helen assured him, and they laughed; Roarke promised to pull everything together by five o'clock, and they thanked him profusely. That put Roarke, Leslie and Tattoo on the run for the remainder of the day, with only a quick takeout lunch picked up at the café in the town square, and eventually Leslie found enough of a breather to put a few questions to Roarke. "What about George Crane?"
Roarke smiled. "I suspect he knew all along that he and Miss Philips weren't meant to be together. But it's altogether possible that, now that he is here, he too may find someone special. Never rule out possibilities."
She grinned. "Okay...and so what about Mr., uh...well, you know—our flying ace from World War I? We never got to peek in on his fantasy, and he showed yesterday morning that he's such a klutz, he might not survive it!"
"I gotta agree with that," Tattoo admitted, examining one hand for a moment as though remembering the brandy Weiselfarber had spilled on it.
Roarke laughed and said, "Mr. Weiselfarber may look ineffectual, but I daresay he has a resourceful streak—a well-hidden one. With his knowledge of locks and biplanes and the Great War in general, he should be just fine on his own. Besides, how grand an adventure could he possibly have with us looking over his shoulder half the time?"
"I guess that's true," Leslie conceded. "I just hope, with that German last name of his, he doesn't wind up getting shot to bits by the French resistance or something." Roarke laughed and patted her shoulder.
By four everything was ready; Roarke contacted David Hanks and Helen Philips to let them know, and sent Leslie to Helen's bungalow with a wedding gown while Tattoo took a tuxedo to David's. They brought the bridal couple back to the main house with them once they had changed, and Tattoo ducked back out to keep an eye on the wedding venue, being set up in the side yard of the house, while David and Helen discussed their plans for the future and asked Leslie how she had come to live on the island.
Finally Tattoo came in and announced, "Boss, the guests are starting to arrive!"
"Oh," Roarke said, checking his gold pocket watch.
"I do hope George Crane doesn't show up as an uninvited guest," Helen remarked.
"Don't worry," Tattoo said. "When he heard you were getting married, he took the first plane home."
Roarke smiled at that and informed them, "But not before asking me to wish you all the happiness in the world." On Helen's surprised, reflective look, he noted the time and arose from the desk front where he had been leaning. "Oh...we'd better hurry. After the wedding ceremony, you are due on the schooner that will take you on your honeymoon trip around the world."
This met with astonishment on the parts of David and Helen; Leslie gasped enviously, and Tattoo looked up at Roarke. "Around the world! Boss, that's great! Will you do the same thing when I get married?"
"Of course, Tattoo," Roarke agreed generously, then caught himself and peered at his assistant. "When do you think that might be?"
Tattoo thought about it. "Oh, uh...when I'm fifty," he decided.
"The perfect age for marriage," said Helen, and Tattoo grinned; they all laughed softly, and David and Helen shared a final kiss.
"What about me?" Leslie queried on their way out to the yard for the ceremony. "I wouldn't mind an around-the-world cruise myself, you know."
"As soon as you get married," Roarke parried, "come to me and I'll arrange it."
"Who says I want to get married?" she shot back. "I just want to go around the world!" Roarke laughed and gave her a paternal squeeze.
§ § § - October 29, 1979
Cornelius Weiselfarber stepped out of the rover alone on Monday morning, looking a bit pensive. "Well, Mr. ..." Roarke paused, lifted a finger and, with deliberate care toward the correct pronunciation, concluded, "Weiselfarber...ready to return to your Boy Scout troop and tell them of the glories of World War I?"
To Leslie's surprise, Weiselfarber said, "You've cured me of that, Mr. Roarke. I'm no longer a hero-worshiper of those flying aces. Besides, I think that the romance of war is a subject that shouldn't be taught to children." He winked at Leslie as he said this; she smiled agreement, glancing at Tattoo and noticing for the first time that he was wearing sunglasses. She peered oddly at him but held her questions for the moment.
Roarke smiled a little and nodded, and they watched him pull apart the two halves of a small gold locket. "Something troubling you, Mr. Weiselfarber?" Roarke inquired.
Weiselfarber looked up and asked wistfully, "Did you ever get the feeling you were living in the wrong time?"
Roarke smiled again. "I think I know the feeling, yes."
"Mr. Roarke, I was wondering...perhaps, maybe, someday soon...you could transport me back to France...you know, right after World War I, say, 1919, 1920?"
"Well, it's a very unusual request to want to return to a fantasy...but why don't you come back in six months or so, and if it still means that much to you..."
"It will, Mr. Roarke, it will," Weiselfarber assured him. "And this time, I think I might stay." He smiled faintly then. "Au revoir."
Roarke smiled back. "Goodbye, Mr. Weiselfarber." With that, the Wisconsin locksmith turned away and started toward the plane dock; they watched him go, waved when he turned around, and then returned the salute he gave them.
With Weiselfarber aboard the charter and the band's farewell melody beginning to wind down, Roarke started to turn to watch for the rover, and only then noticed Tattoo. "Uh, Tattoo, I've been hesitating to ask, but...I've never seen you in dark glasses before."
"Yeah, what's the story with that?" Leslie wanted to know. "Some kind of disguise, again? Is somebody still picking on you?"
"I'd rather you don't ask," Tattoo said reluctantly, and removed the glasses only to reveal a large purple bruise partially encircling his left eye.
Leslie gasped; Roarke let out an impressed breath, then offered, "Oh, I know—it was the jealous fiancé of the beautiful girl you dated last night."
"No, it was not!" Tattoo snorted, scowling.
Roarke and Leslie looked at each other, and he said, "It wasn't? Then who was it?"
"Him!" Tattoo said with exasperation, pointing across the clearing. Roarke and Leslie stared at Chester the Chimp, wearing a pair of bright yellow boxing shorts and with his hands wrapped in white gauze; the animal did a neat heels-over-head leap in the air as they gaped at him. Tattoo went on with great indignation: "I dressed him in a Godzilla outfit, and he punched me in the eye!"
"He—?" Roarke began, then despite himself began to laugh; it was contagious, for Leslie burst into chortles as well, while Tattoo glared incredulously at them both. Chester actually crouched in a stance that suggested he was ready to resume the fight; Tattoo aimed his glare at the chimp, shook a fist, then made a karate-chop move that caused Leslie to explode altogether. Still laughing, Roarke reached around and patted Tattoo's shoulder, then pulled Leslie over to him and allowed himself to join her in giving his mirth full voice.