Episode 131, originally published 12-Feb-2001

Knock Three Times

Can Olivia's recent past be summed up by a silly "knock knock" joke?
If that certain someone came knocking, would Phyllis open up for him?
How else will Diane knock Nikki after first knocking her out?

Victoria is with Neil in her office. Neil is pacing back and forth, looking distracted. "Neil," she says, "I have to ask--is something bothering you?" Neil shakes his head as he speaks. "I don't know, Victoria. Olivia's getting a little weird." "Weird? Weird how?" "Knock knock." Victoria stares at him blankly. "Come on, you're supposed to ask who's there." She sighs. "Who's there?" "Nobody," he says. "Nobody who?" she asks. "Just nobody. Except Olivia." "I don't get it." "You see, Victoria," he says, "that's just my point. I don't get it either."

Phyllis is home with nothing to do this evening. (Through the window outside, we can see that Hell is freezing over.) She sits staring at her web browser, tapping her fingers impatiently and waiting for a new episode of Another Way Out to appear. It's taking a long time. Finally she decides to amuse herself with some web surfing. "I know..." she mutters under her breath as she types something cryptic and suddenly a web cam view of Paul Williams bedroom comes up. The bed is empty. "Rats!" she mutters under her breath. Just then, Paul Williams comes in from the shower. He is wrapped in a towel, but it hides very little. Well, not that little. "Hello, what have we here?" Phyllis says to herself as she types something to adjust the zoom on the camera. Just then, the phone rings in the bedroom and Paul leaps for it, his towel falling off as he does. "Hello?" he asks excitedly. There is a pause as someone says something at the other end of the line. "HELLO?" he asks. Another pause. "Damn!" Paul grumbles, "Those overseas phone connections are terrible," he says. The camera pans around to reveal Phyllis' face as she drums a fingertip thoughtfully against her upper lip, her eyes light up, and she nods slightly about something, a smile growing on her face. "Yes, that might work," she says to herself.

"Neil, you're not making any sense," Victoria tells him, still puzzling over his failed knock-knock joke. "Me?" he asks, starting to raise his voice. "I'm the one who's not making any sense?" She is taken aback at his sudden, intense anger. "Neil, calm down. It's me, remember. Victoria? It's Olivia you're supposed to be mad at." "Oh, right," he says, starting to come down from his momentary rage. "It's just--" he stops mid-sentence, frustrated for a moment, then pushes forward. "Things are getting so weird. Like--last night we went to the Collonade room..." "What's so weird about that? I go there all the time." "Yeah, but Mamie was supposed to join us, and then she mysteriously canceled at the last minute." "That doesn't sound weird, it just sounds sad--for her--and romantic for you two. How is Mamie, by the way?" He looks surprised at the question. "Gee, I don't know. I didn't think to check in on her. I was so focused on how her absence affected me..." "Well, that's a really caring attitude," Victoria chides sarcastically. "All right, all right. I'll check in on her. But Victoria, you're not getting this. There have been other times, too." She looks skeptical. "Mamie's been sick a lot?" "No, not Mamie. Everyone." "Everyone?" she asks, stretching it out in a very skeptical tone. "Give me another example. Show me the pattern," she demands. Neil stands transfixed in deep contemplation as the camera backs away into a commercial.

Phyllis is at her console with an operator's headset on her head. She is manipulating a complicated-looking program on the screen. We are duly impressed by the wave forms it shows us every time she speaks. "Testing, one two," she says into the microphone. Then she presses a button to hear the playback. Just static. She slides a knob to the left and tries again. "Testing, one two," she repeats. Pressing the knob this time reveals that her voice is audible amidst the static. "Too low," she says, turning another knob. She presses playback again and it comes less like her and more high-pitched. "Yeah, that sounds whiny enough," she says.

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Back in Victoria's office, Neil is still trying to convince Victoria there's something odd afoot. The jarring effect of coming back from commercial seems to have jogged his memory. "Did you know we went to the Superbowl together a couple of weeks ago?" he asks her. She brightens and nods. "Yeah, I heard about that. How was that, by the way?" "Well, you know, it was the strangest thing. At the last minute, everyone in the stadium came down sick and it was only me and Olivia in that huge stadium watching that game alone." Victoria takes a doubletake. "Weird. I saw that game on TV and the stadium looked packed." "Yeah, it's amazing what you can do with clever camera work. Remember the Glow By Jabot house on the web? Same trick. No one was there at that dumb pool party they had, but you get the right cameraman in there and it looks crowded." "Wow, I had no idea," she says, starting to sound convinced. Then she turns back to him, and says, "So--you thought Olivia had something to do with all those people canceling?" Neil says, "I just don't know. I didn't think so at the time. I assumed it was just coincidence, but you know--now I'm not so sure."

In Paul's bedroom, Paul is laying on the bed staring at the phone, as if willing it to ring. It does. "Chris?" he asks, picking up the phone excitedly. "Hi, Paul!" comes the voice from the other end. "I miss you, Chris," he says sappily. "Me, too," comes the voice at the other end. "Chris, I--" "Wait, no, me first," the staticky voice implores. "Ok," he says. "Paul, it's going to be Valentine's Day and I miss you so. I was thinking maybe I'd come back for a few days to--visit." Paul is elated. "Chris, that sounds great. I was hoping you'd suggest something like that." "What was it you were going to tell me?" the remote voice asks. "Oh, nothing--well, just that I talked to Nina. And I know, Chris." "You know? Know what?" "That you were planning to have my baby before you left." He waits for a reply, but hears mostly static. "What was that?" he asks. The static lessens enough for him to hear, "Actions speak louder than words, Paul. I'll send you e-mail with my itinerary."

Back in his office, Neil sits brooding. Alex enters and says something pointless. Neil looks up annoyed and says something equally pointless back. Alex ups the ante with another unmotivated jab. Neil, forgetting his line, opens up a nearby fortune cookie and substitutes what's on the fortune for what the script had said he should say. No one can tell the difference. Before we know it, the scene is over and we are awakened by a commercial.

In the Jabot board room, Diane has entered to find Nikki alone. Diane pulls a knife and moves toward her. "What is that?" Nikki asks worriedly. "It's a scalpel," Diane replies, "and it's time to--". "Oh no you don't," Nikki says, lunging at her. The two go at it head to head, but Diane is stronger. Soon, Diane is banging Nikki's head into the table several times. "Why are you doing this to me?" Nikki asks groggily. Diane hits Nikki's head one more time against the table and she slumps unconscious. Diane pulls out her two volume Encyclopedia of Sperm. She sets aside volume 1, "Keeping Sperm in Your Closet", and goes immediately to volume 2, "Impregnating Friends for Fun and Profit", which she leafs quickly through. She first uses the knife to cut a rift in Nikki's dress. Then she spits on it and wipes it against her dress to prepare it for reuse as a surgical instrument.

Paul is at his console when we hear a cheerful male voice say "You've got mail." He clicks something and the mail comes up. We can't quite read it so we watch as he does. "From stinkbug@sremmus.com? Hmm. Must be some account they gave her to use while she was in Hong Kong." He reads on. "Candles?" he says aloud. "Yeah I can do that," he says to the console. "I wonder why she's so particular about the brand and size, though..." He continues to read, looking up when he's done. Then he clicks the mouse and starts to type, reading aloud as he does. "I'll be here waiting..."

Ashley enters to find Diane sewing something up. "What are you doing?" Ash asks, alarmed. "I'm just sewing up Nikki's dress. It got ripped when she fell," Diane lies. Ashley inspects the situation more closely. "You're not sewing her dress--that needle went through her skin. Diane looks down. "Oops," she says blushing. "I never was very good at sewing. Here, I'll try again." She takes the cloth and quickly sews it up over the stitches. "There," says Diane. Ashley look skeptical. "You're sure you're not up to something evil? Why is Nikki unconscious anyway?" "I told you, she fell." Ashley ponders this but finally accepts it, just like Diane accepted that Nikki had been innocently in her house near the sperm storage closet so many months before. "So did you call 9-1-1?" Ashley asks. "For this little tear?" Diane says, pointing to the dress where she has just sewn it up. "It's not really that much of a fashion emergency," Diane says, "it hardly shows."

At Paul's, it's very late and the candles have burned way down. Paul sits in the bed expectantly all alone. He glances at the clock. 4:30am. "Damn it, Chris," he says to the clock. "If you weren't going to be here, why did you get my---" He pauses for a second looking down. "hopes," he finally continues, "all up?" The candles are starting to burn out. As the last one dies, we see only the thin eerie light of his digital clock. Just then, a door clicks open and we see a shadow move toward the bed. "Chris?" Paul asks. "Mmmmm hmmmm," comes the reply as the figure slides into bed with him. "Oh, Chris, it's so good to--well, you know. Chris, do you suppose we could get started on a baby?" "Mmmmm hmmmm," the reply again. "Oh, I remember," Paul says excitedly. "Actions speak louder than words." The scene fades for a moment as if time is passing and we return to hear Paul grunt, "Wow, Chris, if I'd known this little time away was going to improve our sex this much, I'd have suggested you go away long ago..." There is a familiar giggle, and it's not the Bug's, but ace private detective Paul Williams remains clueless as the scene fades.

In the Jabot board room, Nikki is starting to stir. "Where am I?" she says, not putting it all together. "You fell down," Diane says. "Ooh, I feel woozy," Nikki says. "That's natural in your condition," Diane says. "My condition?" Nikki asks. "Wait," she continues, "can I have a drink?" Ash, remembering Nikki's problems with alcohol, starts to protest but before she can, Diane says, "Sorry, no can do. Not in your condition." "My condition?" Nikki asks. Sudden insight. "I'm pregnant?" she asks excitedly. "You're not mad?" Diane asks, puzzled. "Mad? A baby is always a blessing," Nikki explains. Then suddenly she gets nervous again. "But--who--? Is it Victor's?" she asks hopefully. Diane smiles slyly. "Uh, no..." "Jack?" Nikki asks, again with an air of hope. Diane grins but shakes her head. "Sorry." "Who then?" "I'm not completely sure," Diane admits. "Just some guy I met at a rave. I think he said his name was Larry--yeah, that's it. Larry Wartman. We bumped into each other kind of by accident, but we found we had a lot in common," Diane explained. "To make a long story short," she continues, "he said he wanted to stick it to you--and I offered to do just that."

That's all for this episode. Hope you learned something. Don't miss Episode 132!
If you missed any older episodes, see the index.

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