“Wait, Thistle is married to the old dude, but sleeping with his son, who just happens to be Marcus?” Landon was baffled. “That sounds about right. Wait … did she say his name was Darko Woods? Like Dark Woods? Who picks soap opera names? I mean … seriously.”
“I don’t know.” I was fascinated by the story playing out on the television, so I couldn’t spare much effort for Landon’s disgust. “Let me watch.”
“Cinder Cramer could be friend or foe – nobody knows – because she’s never one thing on any given day,” the television voice explained. “She’s from a rich family, yet earns her money in a variety of different ways. She’s a naughty nurse by day and a steamy waitress by night, stripping for tips at the local dive bar when she wants extra money.”
“Oh, Clove won’t like this,” I muttered when I recognized the dark-haired woman cavorting on screen.
“Of course, it’s not Cinder’s fault,” the voice continued. “That’s what happens when you have multiple personalities and only one body for them all to share.”
“Multiple personalities?” Landon was flummoxed. “Is that really a thing?”
I shrugged, noncommittal. “It depends on who you ask,” I replied. “Some people think it’s real. Some don’t. It’s a regular fixture on soaps, though.”
“Oh, well, good. I thought things would be boring otherwise.”
I ignored his sarcasm and pointed at the screen. “It’s not done.”
“Cinder isn’t alone in her struggle. She has the love of a good man to help her … that is when he’s not helping Ferrigno with his criminal empire. Cane Wharton is a famous attorney who survives off the proceeds he makes from defending Ferrigno – even though the guilt is almost too much for him to bear – but he follows his true heart’s desire when he has the time. That means long shifts in the hospital where he volunteers his free time as a brain surgeon on weekends.”
This time the laugh Landon let loose with was so loud it caused me to jerk my shoulders. “He’s a criminal attorney during the week and a brain surgeon on weekends? Who comes up with this stuff?”
“If you watch soaps, you know that you have to suspend disbelief,” I explained. “Aunt Tillie used to have us watch with her all the time when we were kids. She’d get really into it.”
“Did you like it?”
I shrugged. “The guys were hot.”
“Now they’re really hot.” Landon pointed to his image on the screen. “I’m like the hottest soap hero ever, huh?”
“You’re not bad.”
“Not bad.” Landon moved closer, poking me in the side to cajole a smile. Apparently he was feeling better. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying himself. Unfortunately for him, I didn’t expect the feeling to last.
I opened my mouth to tease him, fully embrace the light mood, but I didn’t get the chance because the television was talking again.
“Pulling all the strings in the quiet hamlet of Camelot Falls is Alexis Kane,” the voice intoned. “She’s more than the mother of a mobster. She’s more than the smartest woman in town. She’s more than the most powerful being on the planet. She’s … everything.”
“Oh, I bet I know who Alexis is,” Landon growled.
I knew, too, and we were both right. Aunt Tillie’s face swam into view. She wore a bejeweled floor-length gown with blue accents, more makeup than I’d seen her wear during the course of her life, and a gleaming tiara that boasted what looked to be real diamonds.
“This isn’t going to be good,” I said.
“No.” Landon linked his fingers with mine. Perhaps he wanted to make me feel better. Maybe he wanted to make himself feel better. Probably it was a little of both. He anchored himself to me, and we watched the rest with unfettered awe.
“Alexis is a mother first and a megalomaniac second,” the voice said. “While she’s anxious and capable when it comes to her son’s business, she’s more interested in her scientific endeavors.”
“Scientific endeavors?” Landon was beyond amused. “Why do I picture those geeks in Ghostbusters?”
Oddly, that sounded about right.
“Alexis is keeping her big plan to herself, but those in the know are terrified of her power and fury,” the voice said. “What does she have planned? It’s anyone’s guess, but right now her main goal is to finish construction of her freezing ray.”
“Freezing ray?” Landon’s shoulders shook with unconstrained laughter. “Now it’s veering into comic book territory.”
“The freezing ray will be aimed at her enemies – and that list is almost endless – but her ultimate goal is to control the world’s water supply,” the voice continued. “If she can freeze the water before delivering it, she’ll be able to unleash her ultimate weapon … the snow sharks of doom.”
“Oh, that did it.” Landon swung his legs over the side of the bed. “She can’t be serious with this one.”
Sadly, I had a feeling she was completely serious … and that was before Aunt Tillie appeared on the screen. It was a close-up of her face, the blue eyeshadow so garish that it reminded me of a mutant Smurf. She opened her mouth to speak, and that’s when I knew we were in a very special world.
“I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I ever do,” Aunt Tillie cackled, her eyes locking with mine through the screen. “You’re all on my list.”
So he’s a mobster and everyone is afraid of him, yet from all I can tell the only thing he does is throw bar glasses and knock up every woman he sees. Am I missing something? And, by the way, I totally want to be a soap opera mobster. They get all the play.
– Landon watching an episode with Bay during a lazy afternoon
Four
I was still sorting through my flabbergasted feelings when the television blinked off.
“Snow sharks? I just … this is worse than anything she’s ever put us through,” Landon lamented.
“She was watching a movie on the SyFy channel the other day and it had snow sharks,” I explained, my mind busy. “She thought it was a cool idea and was trying to figure out a way to militarize them to terrorize Mrs. Little. She thought she had a legitimate chance of marooning her inside her house for the entire winter.”
“But why would a soap opera care about stuff like that? They’re supposed to be about love in the afternoon, right?”
“Yes and no. Soaps are more than just music montages and hot sex scenes.”
“I always thought they were all about romance and kids dying so the women who play their mothers have an opportunity to cry for daytime Emmys and stuff.”
“That happens. There’s a lot of action, too. Believe it or not, freezing the world was an actual thing on General Hospital in the eighties.”
“How do you know that? You would’ve been a little kid in the late eighties.”
“Yeah, but Aunt Tillie got really excited when Soapnet was a thing back in the day and they ran reruns,” I explained. “We watched them with Aunt Tillie … especially during the winter when there was nothing to do. The freezing the world storyline was a big thing.”
“Okay, I’m going to refrain from telling you what I think about that story, because it has no bearing on our situation, but what does she expect us to do in this world?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, all the other places she’s sent us have had lessons rolled into the stories,” Landon replied. “The fairy tale world was about overcoming obstacles while also keeping us busy so she could illegally sell her wine. The time we got stuck in her memories was an accident, but you still learned a lot about your family – and especially her – in the process.
“The Christmas story, however annoying, was about making sure we appreciated family,” he continued. “What are we going to learn in a soap opera world?”
That was a very good question. “I don’t know. She could simply be punishing us because we made fun of soap operas last night … and cast that little spell that made her itchy all over. She definitely wasn’t happy about that.”
“No, but she always has several reasons for doing the things she does.”
“So … what do you think her plan is?” I challenged. “You’ve known her a long time now. You’ve been put through the wringer thirty different ways. What do you think she wants?”