By Katy Campbell
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Scott Sherwood and Betty Roberts will always belong to Kevin O'Rourke, Amanda Naughton, and Rupert Holmes. They also belong to AMC, and The Entertainment Group/Howard Meltzer Productions. "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" from which the title of this story comes, also belongs to Rupert Holmes, but how many of us don't know that?
Author's Notes: Thanks once again to my wonderful beta reader ("The Betty Roberts of Profiler fic" )
All comments (please, no flames!) to katy@gate.net
"Hey Sherwood, what can I getcha?"
Joe Hannigan, O'Malley's gruff bartender, shakes me from my reverie with his usual greeting, and I still in a slight daze, answer accordingly.
"The usual please, Joe." He nods and slides a bottle of Steel City Ale down the counter to the corner where I sit hunched over a copy of Radio Times, a million thoughts running through my mind.
It has been another rough day at WENN, but since Pruitt arrived and took my job there have been few unrough days. I suppose it really goes back further than that, to the day that Betty started treating me like garbage. Not that I don't deserve it, because God knows I had it coming. I just didn't except it to hurt like hell, but it does. Oh, does it ever.
When I met Victor Comstock in a London pub, not too unlike O'Malley's, it was pure luck. His story of a cozy little radio station was exactly what I needed. With some luck and a forged paper here and there, I was able to gain easy access to Victor's safe world. A world of eccentric actors, stubborn stars, aggravated and aggravating sponsors, and in the middle of it all a women named Betty Roberts.
When Victor first mentioned Betty, I have to say that I was surprised to feel the interest that I did. I was a long time rogue, who enjoyed peroxide blondes in hazy bars, not sweet faced writers who worked hard and loved well. However, something in the way Victor spoke of Betty Roberts grabbed me. Who was this charming woman who could handle a radio station on her own? And what kind of man, other than those like myself, could leave her behind? I put the thought aside, figuring that I would never know the answer, until I saw Victor a few nights later in the bar. He was eager to get a book back to a friend at WENN. I was shocked. It was as if some one had heard my questions and was prepared to give me an answer. I jumped at the chance to return to Pittsburgh and by the next night I was bound for the states, Victor's book and a forged letter of introduction in my coat pocket.
Three days later, I was staring into the bright brown eyes of a woman I knew to be Betty Roberts and for an instant I felt as if I'd come home, only it was to no home I'd ever known before. I pushed the thought quickly from my mind. It was ridiculous to feel that way. This was to be a short stop on the journey that was my life. I would drop in, help the station out a bit, see what it was like to know a woman like Betty Roberts, and then...then I would just....disappear.
Of course, even the best laid plans fall by the wayside, and this one did more than other plan I've ever had. It was so strange, but by the end of my first week at WENN, I felt something that I never had before. The people at WENN, Betty Roberts, Eugenia Bremer, Mackie Bloom, Gertrude Reece, Mr. Foley, Jeff Singer, and even Hilary Booth, had given me a sense of family. I felt like the soon to be in-law. I wasn't yet accepted, but they weren't writing me off completely, and that...that felt good.
The good feeling didn't last of course, because in a short time word came from England of bombs and death. The death of Victor Comstock. When word came through that Victor had been killed I knew things would not be easy for anyone at WENN, least of all Betty Roberts, the key to WENN. I found myself worrying about her constantly and every night I faithfully shadowed her, wanting to make sure that she was all right. It was for the both of us, Victor and I. Two men who had found an amazing light and haven in Betty Roberts.
The shadowing came to an end though, a little less then a week after Jeff's return from London...after the confrontation I'd had with Betty. I've wondered on more than one occasion if I was too harsh when I called her the "young widow of WENN," but then I remember that no one else was telling her this. No one else was saying you can't honor a dead man by wallowing in grief. I suppose in this way I helped her to get through Victor's death and that left me with a feeling of happiness.
The feeling of happiness however, did not stem from the knowledge that I had a much better chance of a date with Betty Roberts, but because I was getting a chance to see even more of her amazing personality and soul. And it was then, between a hundred scripts, a thousand bills, the egos of the cast, and a movie and ice cream soda, that I fell head over heels in love with an angel. Nothing, I thought could be more right or wrong at the same time.
Betty Roberts is everything that I am not. She's loyal, kind, pure, just, and simply...wonderful. I, on the other hand, am a conniving con man, who would have down anything for a dollar and that marks a difference I once thought would have kept us apart forever. But then for a small period of time, I thought I might wrong.
The thought first occurred to me, in the hallway of WENN, during our unfortunate quarantine. For in a moment of good nights Betty Roberts reached up and lightly kissed my cheek. For a second, I thought my heart had stopped. What was a nice girl like Betty Roberts doing kissing a guy like me? Several minutes later though, deep with the confines of my sleeping bags, I allowed myself a soft sigh and a single thought "She likes me! She really likes me!"
That thought stayed with me for days. Betty Roberts, the one woman I thought would never have me, actually took the incentive to kiss me herself.
I sip my beer slowly, savoring it and the memory of Betty's lips on my check, not once but twice.
The second kiss was not too unlike the first, except for the fact that it was preceded by a movie and an ice cream soda. That kiss I think was a mingling of feeling and thanks. Thanks for a pleasant evening and thanks for something that has since gotten me fired from WENN. The Victor Comstock Memorial Fund.
The idea for the memorial had come to me about a month after Victor's death. I had spent a good part of the weeks following Victor's death listening to sponsors and friends speak quiet highly of the esteemed Mr. Comstock, and it occurred to me then that such a great man deserved a memorial to be remembered by. Brilliant! I thought at the time. Absolutely brilliant!
I still felt the plan to be brilliant, even after I revealed the concept to a disapproving Betty. Because in that disapproval I saw something, something that told me Betty was rather grateful for the thought. Not that the gratefulness lasted...
Just a month or so after I unveiled the plan to Betty, everything changed. Suddenly, the warmth Betty had extend towards me was withdrawn and replaced with a cold, steely...hatred.
For nearly a week, I pondered what could bring on such a change in Betty. After Pruitt's arrival, I got my answer. Betty unearthed the book, my letter of introduction, and the truth.
Well, it was the truth to a degree. I could have still lied to Betty about the whole thing and I did. I made up some cockeyed story about wanting the book to be personable for dear old Mr. Eldridge. Told her that signature was the forgery, chasted her for being unbelieving...
It was funny, I didn't need to go back and tell her the truth. I could have walked out of WENN and never looked back. I'd never had a problem with running out before, but then I'd never been in love before either.
Our words that night in the all just outside the writer's room are burned into my mind forever. And so is the one kiss I will never forget.
Kissing Betty Roberts was more fantastic than I could have ever imagined and the feeling I had then I still carry with me today. It is a feeling that has gotten me through nights like this. Nights when I wonder at the ease in which I could leave Pittsburgh for good, but two things always draw me back. The people of WENN, even Hilary, who have come to mean so much to me, and who I know I can not leave for good. And the kiss, because it gives me pause to stop and wonder if I could ever regain Betty's affection.
It's silly I know to suppose that, for after revealing the truth to her I know I should never try to win Betty again. But the truth is, I have to. Not because it's fun or a challenge, but because I've never loved the way I love Betty and I can't lose that. You see, if I do, I know I'll lose part of myself.
I have spent years perfecting my image and it has helped me out of more than one escapade, but it has hindered me as well. And I have never felt the hindrance to be as strong or poignant as it is now.
I'm afraid, very afraid, that all Betty Roberts sees of me, is the image I so carefully crafted, but images...images don't fall in love, people do. And this person has. Oh, has he ever.
I stand quickly and drop some money on the table to cover the beer and walk outside into the cool night air.
The time for reminiscing, I think, has passed, and now I'm faced with a new challenge. Playing it straight in order to regain at least the trust of Betty Roberts.
There will be no cons, or ploys this time, just the hope of regaining the love I thought I was beginning to win.
I shake my head at the romantic notions I've been mulling over, and look to the station with a smile, three words playing at my lips.
"Piece of cake."
~ Finis ~
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