Six of One

by Joann Spears

  “Whatever’s going to happen, I’m ready to go back home,” I answered stoutly.

  Elizabeth addressed herself next to the Queen of Scots, as though she had only just noticed her.

  “Hello, Cuz.”

  “Hello, Lizzie-Beth,” Mary replied. “Have I overstayed my time?”

  “I’m afraid you have, Cuz. I must ask you to leave now.”

  “Good-bye, then,” said the Queen of Scots, blowing me a kiss as she exited the room.

  Mary, Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth I were probably the two most famous protagonists never to meet in history. Mary plotted Elizabeth’s assassination, and Elizabeth signed off on Mary’s long imprisonment and execution, but the two never actually had a face to face encounter. Dramatists have made many a meal out of the conjectured fireworks that would have gone off if these two had met in real life. Schiller gave their fictional meeting 1,980 words. Unless he saw for himself the crux of the exchange put as economically as I had just seen it put, he probably would not believe it was possible to do it in under twenty-five words.

  “Nice rainbow,” I said to Elizabeth, gesturing toward the blown-glass rainbow arc she held in her hand.

  “I like to wear my Rainbow Portrait outfit when I work this detail,” Elizabeth told me.

  The glass of the arc refracted the sunlight coming in through the window, making for a colorful spectrum.

  “No rainbow without the sun,” I said.

  “That was the motto of the Rainbow Portrait,” she replied. “And now it is back to the Rainbow Lounge you go, Dolly, by dawn’s early light.”

  “Tell me how to effect my departure, please!” I begged Elizabeth. “The sun is up, and I don’t want to miss my…my…whatever it is that will get me back home.”

  “Don’t worry, Dolly, there’s nothing to miss. Just listen to me now. I must give you the rules before you go. Rule number one: Favete linguis.”

  “‘A religious silence.’ That means I can’t tell anyone what’s happened to me tonight,” I said.

  “That’s right, Dolly.”

  “They wouldn’t believe it anyway.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Rule number two?” I asked.

  “There is no rule number two,” she answered. “We say that rule number one is rule number one because it is so important. It is the only rule.”

  “Okay, I’ve got the rule thing down. What do I do next?” I asked.

  My rainbow friend lifted the hem of her skirt to expose the toes of her tawny slippers and looked at me expectantly, so I did the same, exposing my own red shoes.

  “Mercury had winged shoes, and so do you!” said Elizabeth, directing her handheld rainbow to my feet. “They will wing you back to the real world. You just have to click your heels together three times and say—”

  “I think I know what to say, thank you! It’s just like The Wizard of Oz, right?”

  “Wizard? What wizard?” she asked. “My mother, Ann Boleyn, has mentioned wizards she knew from her coven, but I don’t recall the name ‘Oz’ being among them.”

  “The Wizard of Oz is a children’s story,” I explained. “The heroine travels to a dream world after a knock on the head. While there, she learns valuable life lessons from the friends she makes. When it’s all over, she clicks her ruby slippers together three times, says ‘There’s no place like home,’ and presto—before she knows it, she’s back home in Kansas.”

  “I must admit, it does sound very like what we have always done here,” Elizabeth said. “Someone must have broken rule number one. When did this tale originate, Dolly?”

  “At the turn of the twentieth century,” I answered.

  “Not so very long ago, then,” she replied. “Penned by one of our former lady visitors, perhaps?”

  “No, penned by a gentleman named L. Frank Baum.”

  “Was he a married man, Dolly?”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “A good husband?”

  “Yes and no. They say that he and his wife made a happy couple, and he even dedicated the story of The Wizard of Oz to her, calling her his good friend and comrade. I don’t think it was a very easy life for her, though. Baum was a dreamer, not at all a practical man. He moved his family from town to town for years, changing jobs, investing in crackpot schemes, and going bankrupt. I think his poor wife even had to take in sewing at one point to make ends meet.”

  “Mistress Baum’s Christian name?”

  “Maud.”

  “Well, we did have a young lady here by that name at around that time. Maud’s mother was a strong-minded woman, she told us, and objected to her marrying the young man she was in love with because he was just such a dreamer as you describe. Apparently, her mother was overruled, and Maud married him anyway. Is it a very famous story, Dolly?” Elizabeth inquired.

  “The story is very famous—and very well-loved, especially by the young at heart.”

  “Well, then, I’m sure I would have liked it. The poets all said I was ageless, that I defied time. Do you not think so, too, Dolly?”

  The mature Queen Elizabeth I, impressive as her outfit was, displayed the ravages of time in face, hair, figure, voice—all the places that time usually takes its toll on a woman. Not wanting to tell an outright lie, I avoided a direct answer.

  “Speaking of time makes me think of past, present, and the future yet to come. And that makes me think that perhaps you had a Mrs. Dickens here as a guest once, too,” I said.

  “Why is that?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Because another popular story just came to mind, about someone who visited with specters and learned from them how to make better choices and lead a more fulfilling life.”

  “Another very popular story?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Yes, very popular. It’s been told every Christmas since the middle of the nineteenth century.”

  “Mrs. Dickens’s Christian name?”

  “Catherine. Her maiden name was Hogarth. Her father was a journalist. That’s how she met her author husband, Charles Dickens.”

  “We had a few Catherines here around that time, but there is one I remember quite distinctly. After her interview with the wives, she suggested they join hands and pray together. ‘God bless us,’ she said. ‘Every one!’ The wives so appreciated the sweet and simple thought. Do you suppose she was the one who married Mr. Dickens?”

  I told Elizabeth that I was quite sure that she was.

  “Well, since my companions and I are still here decades later, marrying him evidently was not the best of decisions on her part,” said Elizabeth.

  “Well, she was the wife of quite a famous man, and that has its compensations,” I said. “Unfortunately, once she’d gone so far as to give him ten children, she received the mistaken delivery of a bracelet meant for his eighteen-year-old mistress. What do you say to that, Elizabeth?”

  “I say, ‘Bah, humbug!’ to that, Dolly!”

  “Well, with that being said, I can only conclude that Mrs. Dickens also broke rule number one and spilled the beans about you upon her return to earth,” I said, breaking the news as gently as I could.

  Elizabeth took this in stride. “Well, at this juncture, we’ve no time to cry over spilt beans or spilt milk. The only important thing now is to get you back home.”

  “Wait—there is one other important thing!” I said to Elizabeth. “Suppose it turns out that I am the guest you have all been waiting for; the one who makes the right marital decision and sets you free? If you all find your way to your heavenly reward because of me, will I be permitted to know it?”

  “Yes, you will, Dolly, and it’s sweet of you to be thinking of us. Mary, Queen of Scots is in charge of that detail and will get word to you somehow if we get our happy ending. No more delay now! On your way! Goodbye, Dolly, and Godspeed. You know what to do now.”

  I took a deep breath. “There is,” I said, as I clicked my heels three times,“no place like home!”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

 
“Déjà Vu All Over Again” or “Something

  Old, Something New”

  “Hello, Dolly.”

  “What?”

  “Well, hello, Dolly. It’s so nice to have you back!”

  The fellow I was conversing with had such a nice, strong voice. I wished I could see his face clearly, but everything was hazy.

  “Dolly, promise you’ll never go away again. You quite frightened us all to death,” said the nice, strong voice.

  “Away? Yes, I did go away, didn’t I? And I was gone for quite awhile.”

  “It only seemed like a long time, Dolly. It’s been just a few minutes, really.”

  “What do you mean ‘a few minutes’? I’ve been away all night!”

  “It only seems that way, you silly girl.”

  “I can see the sun starting to come up through the window. It must be dawn,” I insisted.

  “It is dawn, Dolly. You’ve forgotten that it was pretty damned late already when you passed out.”

  The combination of the strong voice with some strong language made for a very erotic wakeup call, and I was able to see the outline of the Mystery Man through the haze. I hated to fawn, and it was not like me to be drawn to brawn, but I thought the man had the nicest chest and shoulders, just right to lean one’s head on. I worried that my trip to limbo had made me a bimbo; I hoped it would be only temporary but figured I may as well enjoy it while it lasted. Eventually, though, all good things must come to an end, and the siren stylings of cousin Kath supplanted the strong, masculine tones.

  “Dolly, we thought we’d lost you! Thank goodness there was a doctor in the house!”

  “Thank goodness I found the doctor in the house and brought him over here when I did,” said Molly Rose.

  “It’s fortunate that he was able to start CPR compressions so quickly and get her heart started again,” added Kay, Harry’s first ex. Little did she realize that he had started my heart going in more ways than one.

  “I’m amazed he could find her heart at all, with the lighting in here being so dim,” added Jane, Harry’s ex number three and the resident expert on ‘dim’.

  “The right man will know where to find your heart without looking!”

  “Who said those words?” I asked. “I feel like I’ve heard them before somewhere.”

  “I just said them, Dolly,” said Kath. “I don’t remember ever saying them before, though. It was just me being impressed with the medic’s Advanced Cardiac Life Support skills.”

  “Yes, that rocking motion from the hips as he was doing the compressions certainly attracted my attention,” added Kitty, Harry’s ex number five.

  “I admire how brave these emergency responders are, doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on just anybody,” said Harry’s neurotic daughter Mary. “The thought of all those germs skeeves me completely!”

  “Well,” the Mystery Man said, “it was a funny way to steal a kiss, but I enjoyed it all the same!”

  Hearing those words gave me that déjà vu feeling again—or maybe it was hearing that strong, masculine voice saying the word “kiss.”

  “I’m glad you found it bliss to kiss an unknown miss, even if she was remiss about returning the kiss,” I said to him. “You know how it is when you lose consciousness unexpectedly.”

  “She’s rhyming again!” said four voices in unison. “That means we’ve got our Dolly back for sure!” The Marias, bless them, could not have been sappier or happier.

  Kay, Harry’s ex number one, was the first to ask a rational question. “Doctor, what brought you to the Rainbow Lounge at such an odd time as this in the first place? You came in the door only a few minutes before Dolly passed out; it was well after four a.m. by then. That was a bit late to be starting your night, wasn’t it?” she asked suspiciously.

  “It was very late for me to be starting my night. I have never been much of a night-lifer. I am out cold by midnight, for the most part. Been that way all my life—early to bed, early to rise, you know.”

  I thought I was having a frisson of déjà vu again, although I could not entirely rule out the “early to bed, early to rise” imagery as the cause of my agitation.

  “Well, Dolly can thank her lucky stars that you were out late tonight, Doctor,” said Anna-Belinda.

  “It’s funny you should say that,” the man said.

  That déjà vu feeling was coming over me every time I heard him speak.

  “It absolutely was ‘the stars’ that brought me here tonight,” he continued. “I have driven at breakneck speed from quite far away, and, midway here, my GPS stopped working. Fortunately, it is a very clear night, and, using the astronomy I learned while I’ve been in the tropics, I was able to orienteer my way here to the Rainbow Lounge—and to Dolly. The stars in the sky blazed the way, but it was the thought of her eyes that really brought me here. You see,” he said, turning his gaze to me, “your eyes are lodestars, Dolly.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “Speculations on the MO of an MD” or

  “What’s Up, Doc?”

  Miss Bess was ill at ease with the fanciful turn the conversation had taken.

  “Did he say Dolly’s eyes are loaded with stars? Is the man delusional? Where is the ambulance that I told Kath to call? It might be just as well if they brought a straitjacket, just in case.”

  “Does he appear foolish to you?” Auntie Reine-Marie asked Miss Bess. “He doesn’t appear that way to me. Determined, perhaps, but certainly not foolish.”

  “I’ll say the man is determined! He said he’d come here looking for Dolly from far, far away. You don’t think he’s a stalker, do you?” I heard my cousin Jean whisper.

  “If he is, he can stalk me any time he wants!” said Maggie.

  “He’s not a stalker. Trust me, I can spot psychosis from miles away.” Bella’s assessment was very reassuring; she was, after all, our go-to person on psychosis.

  “I wonder who this man is and what he wants to see Dolly about. Somebody had better tell him that Dolly is marrying our Harry tomorrow,” said Harry’s mother.

  “This doctor might be just the ticket for our Maggie. I don’t see any ring on his finger!” said Harry’s grandma. It was an impressive application of the “waste not, want not” principle.

  “That’s some tan he’s got! It’s deeper than my Moondoggie’s by a long chalk,” said Cleva, Harry’s ex number four, setting my mind wandering again with her long-chalk talk.

  “He’s better looking than Dad, that’s for sure,” said my prospective stepdaughter Lizzie. The silence that followed that comment lasted long enough to be awkward, but the Mystery Man pretended not to notice. Lizzie’s directness evidently amused him.

  “Well, young lady, you’ve a lovely smile,” he said, “and if you look anything at all like your dad, he must be a very good-looking man altogether. Who is your dad?”

  “My dad is Harry, the man that Dolly is going to marry in a few hours.”

  “So it’s true; Dolly is marrying Harry,” the man said dully. As he uttered the words, the strong voice became suddenly boyish and unsure of itself. The fog around me started to lift, and I watched the man’s tan fade as the color drained from his face. The stalwart shoulders started to droop, and his physique went from sinewy to weedy in a single breath. He looked like a lost boy, and I recognized him instantly. Now I knew who I was looking at; there could be no doubt about it.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  As to Parting Shots and Connecting Dots

  “Wally!”

  “About time you recognized me, you sweet little fool. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten me after all these years.”

  “I’ve never forgotten,” I said. “How could I forget, no matter how long ago it was, Wally?”

  “Wally? You don’t look like a ‘Wally’ to me,” Miss Bess said to him, suspiciously. “Not the kind of name I’d expect a medical man to have at all. A damned silly name, if you ask me.”

  “I don’t blame you for looking after
Dolly’s interests when she’s in such a vulnerable state,” said Wally. “Allow me to introduce myself, Madam. I am Dr. Rolly, MD, PhD, Fellow of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. I am Dr. Waldo Rolly, and I am at your service. Perhaps Waldo—my full name—is more to your liking than my nickname.”

  “It’s even worse, if you ask me,” Miss Bess said.

  “Well, I’m afraid I’m fresh out of names and credentials after that,” Wally said, laughing. “But, speaking of names: Dolly, is it true that you’re going to change, or perhaps hyphenate, your name today? Are you really going to marry Harry?”

  “That is the game plan,” I answered.

  “Dolly! You still have time to get back to the hotel and get coiffed and dressed in time for the ceremony, if you hurry,” said my future mother-in-law, scenting danger. “Grandma Margaret and I will bring the car around for you. Grandma, wake up!”

  “I’ll help you out to the car with Grandma Margaret, Elizabeth,” said Miss Bess, happily in her element.

  Cousin Kath, begging my pardon, whispered something in Wally’s ear, and he reached into his pocket and handed her his keychain, which she slipped into her pocket as she scurried away, her face all lit up with conspiratorial glee.

  “Yes,” she said a little too loudly, “I’ll bring your car around, Dr. Rolly, so you can accompany Dolly back to the hotel—just in case she should take a sudden turn, you know.”

  “Yes, and I’ll take charge of getting the bridesmaids in gear,” said my cousin Jean. “Bella, and all you Marias, come with me. We’ll get things set up for Dolly back at the hotel,” Jean said, taking the lead as the remainder of the bridal party filed out behind her.

  “Mary, Lizzie, come with your Aunt Maggie and me. We’ll find your father and tell him that there may be a slight delay in getting Dolly to the church on time, but that she’s alright and he needn’t cancel the ceremony,” said Molly Rose, ushering the remaining in-law contingent out of the door. “Well, we can let Harry know what has happened, anyway,” continued Maggie, turning backward to tip me the wink. Auntie Reine-Marie said nothing but blew me a kiss on her way out the door.