by David Smith
Walking through the saloon styled doors that led directly into the main dining room, Blain wove through the empty tables and chairs. He caught himself looking around the place, seeing the many collectables that had been previously owned by Walt Disney himself. Blain thought about the many antiques, the elegant chandelier, the pictures of the Disney family, the heirloom furniture pieces. What stories each item could tell if only they could communicate.
Blain turned left and went through a smaller dining room, and then through an arched opening which led to a small loft-like landing where stairs traversed down in a square spiral around an elegant glass elevator. The elevator was not on the top floor, meaning it must be down in the foyer where the reception desk and waiting area was.
Taking the stairs, Blain made it down to the foyer and was happy to see an older lady sitting at an antique desk, lit by an ornate Tiffany lamp.
Blain didn’t want to startle the woman sitting there looking over a reservation sheet, transferring a list of times and names from another sheet so, Blain softly cleared his throat.
“Oh, hello there, young man,” the woman said, looking up.
“Good morning. My name is Blain Walters and I work on the canoes in Critter Country,” Blain began a little awkwardly. When the woman sat there expecting something more, he continued. “First of all, by looking at your nametag, your name is Rita. I was told to come see you as I had a question about someone you may have worked with a long time ago.”
“Oh, you must have spoken to Willie Riggio in landscaping,” Rita said with a pleasant ring in her voice. “He mentioned that a nice young man might be coming to ask me some questions. I was so glad he had called. We hadn’t talked to each other for a while!” Rita said with a contagious smile. “What can I answer for you, Mr. Walters?” Blain could see why she was working in Club 33; Rita had an elegant air about her. Her hair was styled in what Blain could only describe as ‘matronly,’ and her smile was warm and inviting. Even though she was obviously in her late sixties or older, she had very soft-looking skin and bright, blue-grey eyes. Rita looked at Blain expectantly over a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose; a gold chain dangled from the glasses and hooked around her neck.
“Yes, thank you,” Blain said. “I was hoping you might remember someone you worked with around the mid-1960’s, working on the Tiki Room attraction.”
“Oh my, that was a very long time ago, Mr. Walters but, oh, what a fun time!” Rita said, her eyes sparkling. “Mr. Disney himself would come in, very regularly, I might add,” she said proudly. “He would always call me, ‘Sweeta Rita.’” Rita set her pencil down as she reminisced. “We had such a great crew working that show. I still remember waking up José to start each show. You know, Mr. Walters, José was the first audio-animatronic creature that Mr. Disney created,” Rita said, obviously taking pleasure in being one of the first to be involved with the original Tiki Room show. Taking off her glasses, Rita let them hang by the chain around her neck. “Who were you asking about, Mr. Walters?”
“You can call me Blain, Rita,” Blain said. Rita was certainly old school, he thought to himself. “I’m afraid I only have a first name. A ‘Lynette.’ Does that ring any bells?”
Rita placed an elbow on her desk and rested her chin in her hand. “Lynette…Yes, I remember a Lynette. Let me think for a moment, Blain.”
“She might have had a boyfriend in the landscaping department who would come around and see her for a short period of time. This would have been around 1966,” Blain offered, hoping the added information would be helpful.
“Collins. Lynette Collins. I remember now. Oh, yes,” Rita said as if remembering something more. “She did like her boys…and her makeup. I remember I had to write her up several times for too much makeup or jewelry…or both, sometimes. Back then, Mr. Disney wouldn’t let us wear anything that changed our appearance. He wanted wholesome,” Rita paused. “Not like today where I don’t believe the word ‘wholesome’ is even in a young person’s vocabulary.” She looked up at Blain from her thoughts. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sure there are many exceptions,” Rita said, smiling.
“Thank you. Yes there are still a few people who don’t prescribe to the ‘Hollywood’ version of behavior or appearance,” Blain said, defending his own youth. “Do you remember a boy, uh, a man, coming around, probably wearing a white costume? Like I mentioned, he would have come from Landscaping.”
“Lynette Collins had many men coming around. She would even have guests, men in the park with their wives or dates, coming by asking what time she got off work,” Rita laughed and added, “Talk about wholesome! Lynette was the polar opposite of the word, if you know what I mean.” Rita crinkled her nose. “If you looked like you had money or a fast car, she wanted to know you. Didn’t care what you looked like, if you get my drift.” Rita then laughed, “My, word. She didn’t care if you were married, come to think of it!”
Blain thought about Nathan, that he “wasn’t much of a looker” as Riggio had described him. Then he thought about the money that Nathan thought he had coming to him. Certainly someone like a Lynette Collins would sniff out something like that, perhaps. Would Lynette have been enough incentive for him to steal?
“Is, ah, Lynette still alive?” Blain asked tentatively. He knew that Lynette would be probably close to the same age as Rita and didn’t want to offend or infer that Rita might be close to knocking on the door of the afterlife herself.
“As far as I know,” Rita said, obviously not taking offense. “You might look her up on one of the Disney Alumni web sites,” Rita said. Seeing the look on Blain’s face she added, “I might be seventy, but I know all about computers!” Blain smiled, figuring that Rita had such seniority from working at the Park for so many years that she was as much a fixture as she was the perfect hostess for the exclusive Club. He figured she probably wouldn’t ever retire.
“Well, thank you so much for your time and information,” Blain said.
“My pleasure. Have a wonderful day.”
10:10am
Blain made it back home, stopping at the apartment mail boxes on his way in. He had forgotten to get the mail the day before with all the things he and Missy did. He looked at his watch. He had almost an hour before he was to pick Missy up at her hotel at eleven o’clock that morning. He leafed through the mail as he walked to his apartment a short distance from the parking lot and bank of community mail boxes.
His roommate, Sal, almost never got the mail and was already at work again this morning. The nice thing about having a roommate like Sal Richens was that he was almost never there…but he paid his half of the rent on time dependably.
Blain tossed the mail on the table except for a new issue of People Magazine which was Sal’s but Blain would look through it occasionally for kicks or to pass time. He tossed the magazine down on the kitchen table then heated up a cup of coffee that was left in the pot from earlier when he had gone to the Park to talk to Willie Riggio and Rita. When the microwave chimed, Blain took the steaming cup and sat down at the table opening up the magazine. Blain relaxed, glancing at the various celebrities pictured in the opening few pages while carefully sipping his hot coffee. Knowing he had already packed the car with what he needed for his pending ‘beach date’ with Missy, Blain had more than a half-hour to kill before heading over to the Marriott.
Blain looked through the movie section, seeing what reviews came in for what new movies that he hadn’t seen. He flipped a couple more pages and came to the music reviews. The first page covered Lady Gaga and her new album, “The Fame Monster.” Pictures of the popular and over-the-top ‘sex kitten’ as described by one reviewer were along the bottom of the page. Turning over the page, Blain found a slightly smaller article about the “Swiss Miss,” Malaysia Hosner” whose album, Coins in My Fountain was critically acclaimed by several music magazines and People Magazine was giving it their blessing too with four-and-a-half stars. Blain first started reading about the Swiss star, her rise in Europe an
d now embarking on a tour of the U.S. Prior, Blain hadn’t given the singer much thought since her song that his band played was a suggestion by J.T. his lead singer and he had, only recently, heard another song once on the radio by the singer. Blain knew that she was playing at the Honda Center, the large arena where the NHL hockey team, the Mighty Ducks played. So, he figured this Malaysia Hosner was a bigger name in the music world than he had originally thought.
A small picture of her album cover was in a text-box covering the bottom half of the page, separate from the article. The album cover had a picture of Malaysia; her picture was quite the contrast to the pictures on the previous page of Lady Gaga, Blain thought, glancing over the singer’s cover at the bottom of the page. This Malaysia girl had that look that Rita had described: wholesome, Blain thought to himself as he began looking more closely at the picture before thumbing to the next page in the magazine.
Suddenly, Blain thumbed the previous page back open and brought his eyes down closer to the small picture.
The album cover abruptly drew Blain’s attention more acutely; he now stared at the picture with his eye brows furrowed. He then looked at the article title, “Swiss Miss.” Suddenly Blain was caught in one of those, ‘wait-a-minute’ moments where he was trying to put two and two together but always coming up with the answer three.
Blain looked even closer at the singer’s album cover at the bottom of the page; the singer was exceptionally pretty: slender arms, striking figure, flowing blond hair. On the cover, she wore a simple white, short-sleeved cotton dress with a scooped neckline that complemented her flawless skin. Malaysia was poised along a worn, wooden rail; a spectacular view of snow-capped Alps behind her and a sprawling green meadow that contrasted the blue sky and majestic snow covered mountains. Her hair was teased out around her head, as if being blown by a breeze. What drew his attention were not the majestic mountains or contrasting colors or the feminine dress she wore; it was something about the way the singer was leaning on the rail. Something registered in Blain’s memory. Malaysia’s arms were spread apart, hands wide on the rail, her head was tilted a certain way. Blain looked at the picture and suddenly thought back to the night on the Mark Twain. He thought of fireworks…and the kiss that followed. But then he thought more specifically about the way Missy had been leaning on the rail looking out into the night and suddenly Blain felt the hair on his arms stand up.
It was exactly the same pose that was on the cover of Malaysia Hosner’s new album that he was looking at. It was then he saw other similarities; the singer’s lips, eyes, and face were that of someone else.
“No way,” Blain said out loud. He set the magazine down in a hurry and dashed over to the desk where his computer sat. He opened the bottom drawer where a box with different pens, pencils and markers were. He found a brown marker, opened the cap and tested the pen on the back of his hand to see that it wasn’t dry, and quickly went back to the kitchen table. Opening the People magazine to the page he was on, he found the Malaysia Hosner album cover picture and carefully, but hurriedly, colored the blond hair of the singer with the brown marker.
When he was done, Blain looked at his artwork.
“Oh. My. God,” Blain said, in total disbelief. “There is just no way. It has to be a coincidence,” Blain said, almost babbling in the empty kitchen.
Blain went back over to his computer desk and booted up the machine. “Come on, come on,” he urged the start up program.
Finally, he was able to open his web browser and typed in “Malaysia Hosner” in the Google search bar.
Pulling up her official web site, Blain started reading the Bio about the star.
Malaysia Hosner has quickly become the darling of pop music in her home country of Switzerland and beyond. The twenty-one year-old, who sings with her full band and older sister Laura, has just begun her first U.S. tour, starting in Hollywood with an exclusive engagement at the Hollywood Bowl, followed by shows in Anaheim, San Francisco, and Seattle, Washington.
Agent and manager, Genevieve Schroder, said this about the rising star: “It is indeed rare to see the kind of musical maturity combined with a new kind of sound, style and, yes, innocent sexiness that critics and fans alike have found with Malaysia.”
Growing up in Belp, just outside of Berm, the capital of Switzerland, Malaysia exploded on the music scene by winning Germany’s Got Talent at the age of nineteen…
Blain had read enough: Sister Laura; tour promoter, Genevieve; living in Belp; next stop, San Francisco.
“I can’t believe it,” Blain said, leaning back in his chair hooking his fingers behind his head and looking up at the ceiling fan rotating above him. He started playing back some of the various conversations he had with Missy in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more everything made total sense. The hotel, Genevieve, the elusiveness at times, all the people saying ‘she looked familiar’; it all was coming together for Blain, feeling like he had just figured out the punch line to an elaborate joke.
Then, he suddenly thought about her coming to the Caper’s Club, hearing his band play…Hearing his band play HER song! “Oh man…! What must she have been thinking?” Blain said again out loud. Still, Blain couldn’t figure why a huge star like her would even come to a small night club like the one his band was at, and why she would even consider going to Disneyland with him? It all now seemed totally preposterous.
Blain looked at his watch. In less than an hour, he was going to be spending the day at the beach with her. He shook his head. The magnitude of his discovery was inconceivable if not inexplicable.
“What am I going to say to her?” he said, after taking a sip of his now lukewarm coffee.
Blain picked up the magazine again, gazing at Malaysia’s picture with the drawn-in, Missy-brown hair.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
11:08am
Blain greeted Malaysia with a single red rose.
“How did your dinner go last night?” Blain asked, trying hard to hide a knowing smile. He handed Malaysia the rose.
Malaysia took the flower, smelling its blossom. “This is lovely,” she said.
“Just like you,” Blain said, meaning it.
Blushing, Malaysia answered his question. “The dinner was good food. They had some guy give a motivational speech. We were home pretty early,” Malaysia lied.
Blain smiled. He was amazed how clearly her deception was now to him. But he wasn’t ready to expose her. He didn’t know when—or even IF—he would tell her he knew. By now, after sleeping last night—or lying in bed awake most of the night as was the case for him—he thought he understood why she did it: what probably began as an innocent attempt at being inconspicuous at Disneyland had spiraled out of control as she and Blain became more and more involved.
“I missed you,” Blain said.
“Oh Blain. I missed you. All I could think about during this guy’s lecture was what I would rather be doing with you.”
“Really? Elaborate.”
“Well, you know,” Malaysia was suddenly embarrassed by her slight innuendo.
Blain reached around her narrow waist and gave her a hug. “Yes, I think I have a general idea.”
Malaysia walked to his car wearing a thin, cotton sundress presumably over her new bathing suit that Blain had not yet been privy to see but could barely make out the contrasting bikini under the thin material. As she walked across the parking lot, the sun caught her dress and Blain could see the silhouette of her legs moving under the short hem. Blain felt his breath catch in his chest, seeing her lovely figure. Malaysia carried a large white bag that said, “Marriott” on each side.
“What did you pack, a lounge chair and an umbrella in there?” Blain asked, referring to her overstuffed beach bag.
“No, just the essentials,” Malaysia said, handing the big bag to Blain. Blain took the stuffed bag after popping the trunk open. He laid it down inside so the contents wouldn’t spill out, then shut the lid.
Again, B
lain held his car door open for her. He bent down and kissed her, putting his hand on her leg. “This is becoming a habit, Missy,” Blain said, careful not to over or under pronounce her fake name. He was aware of everything about her in a totally different light. But, at the same time, he was so attracted to her, so much enjoying her company that in a matter of minutes, Blain began to forget that she was indeed Malaysia Hosner, international rock star, and only thought of her as “Missy Johansen.” He smiled thinking about that. Other than Laura, Malaysia’s sister, Blain was perhaps the only person in the world who knew her by this different name.
“We have one stop before heading to the beach if that’s okay,” Blain said.
“Does this have to do with our deceased friend, Nathan?”
“None other,” Blain confirmed.
After Blain had discovered Missy’s true identity that morning, he figured he might as well see if he could discover someone else.
Lynette Collins was indeed on not one but all the Disney alumni web sites he was able to pull up. A couple sites were Disney sponsored, others were unofficial network and social sites for former Disneyland alumni.
He located a Lynette Collins who worked from 1964 to 1968 in Attractions. On one web site, it listed city, state and e-mail address. After he composed a short note and sent it off to the Lynette Collins, he had a reply within minutes. Apparently the woman didn’t venture far from her computer. The response was brief but encouraging:
Dear Mr. Walters. Yes, I worked at Disneyland in the Tiki Room in 1966. I do remember Nathan Duncan very well. I was quite upset the day he was killed. Tragic. I would be more than happy to talk to you about him and Disneyland.
