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Original posting of Episode 22:

Date: 12 Feb 97 03:56:02 GMT
From: kmp@harlequin.com (Kent Pitman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv.soaps.cbs
Subject: Y&R: AWO#22: "All Dressed Up With No Place To Go"
Message-ID: <KMP.97Feb12035602@romulus.harlequin.com>

INSIDE...  * Nikki Seeks to Expand Her Horizons
         * Nicholas Plans His Escape from Victor
       * Dru Dresses Up for Her Man

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ANOTHER WAY OUT, Episode 22, 12-Feb-97  by Kent Pitman (kmp@harlequin.com)

                 "All Dressed Up With No Place To Go"
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The doorbell rings at the Newman ranch and Nikki yells, "I'll get it,
Miguel!"  She bounds to the door and opens it to find Paul.  "I appreciate
your coming over so promptly," she says.  "Well, you sounded like it was
something important," Paul explains.  "It is," she says shyly.  "I want you
to help solve a mystery for me."  Paul, who's missed doing mysteries for
many months, looks suddenly excited.  "A mystery?" he inquires eagerly.  She
nods.  "To me, at least.  I live on this huge estate on these huge grounds,
and yet I spend all my time in this one room.  I've explored the upstairs
enough to know there's a bedroom waiting for me there, but I feel as if I'm
missing out on something.  Wouldn't an expensive estate like this have more
rooms than this?  I was wondering if you could do your super-sleuth thing
and find out where the other rooms have gone..."  Paul thinks for a moment.
"Well, I've never done anything like that before, but-- there's a first time
for everything, right?  Sure.  Why not?"  Once again the doorbell rings, and
once again the near-Pavlovian response, "I'll get it, Miguel!" Nikki yells.
Then she says to Paul: "Well, I'll leave you to it--that's probably my hair
stylist."

Dru is in the ballet studio working up a sweat.  The musical piece she is
dancing to comes to an end and Madame Chauvin claps briefly.  "Drucilla, you
are doing wonderfully.  I am so glad you have taken these afternoons between
your shoots to return to ballet.  You have such undeniable talent that even
your irresponsible lapses in practice have failed to kill it."  "Thank you,
Madame.  I'm really excited.  And thank you for not telling Neil about it
because his Birthday is tomorrow and I'm looking forward to surprising him."

Outside the Newman estate, Paul is measuring the length of the house.
"Wow," he says to himself, "this place really is enormous from the outside.
There MUST be more rooms inside somewhere."  He whips out his magnifying
glass and holds it up at waist level, following along the side of the house,
skipping over bushes that get in his way.  Finally, through the magnifying
glass, he sees a huge keyhole.  "Somebody pretty big must live here," he
mutters.  Then suddenly he whips away the magnifying glass and says, "Oh, I
see.  Now it's small again.  Phew."  He presses on the doorbell and moments
later a child of perhaps 6 years answers the door.  "Is your mommy or daddy
home?"  Paul asks.  A blank stare.  "Su mama' o papa'? uh, en casa?" Paul
says in his best, halting Spanish.  "Papa'!" the kid yells as he runs off.
Miguel answers.  "Sr. Williams," he says, somewhat embarrassed.  "I had not
expected anyone to come to this door.  Won't you come in?"

It's the next day.  Neil has a blindfold wrapped around his eyes and is
being led into the dance studio by Dru.  She wears a short dress with ballet
tights beneath.  A small table has been arranged to one side, with a red and
white checkered tablecloth.  Olivia, Malcolm, and Madame Chauvin are seated
at the table.  Gina and a waiter from her restaurant stand to one side, like
the parsley on their food, just to complete the look of the event.  "Can I
take off the blindfold yet?"  Neil asks.  "OK, go ahead." Dru says.  He
does, and all shout "Happy Birthday!"  Neil looks around but there are no
presents. "I told them their presense would be presents enough," Dru
explains.  "Ain't that cute?  And my presents -- well, I've got a surprise
for you.  But first, let's eat."

The Rodriguez household.  In the background, Sra. Rodriguez is serving a
meal to several children of varying ages.  In the foreground, apparently
just finishing a walk through the spacious accomodations, Miguel sits with
Paul in the living room.  "Quite the place you have here, Miguel!"  "Thank
you, Sen~or," Miguel says proudly.  "Now that you've had the tour around,
what brings you by?"  Paul is unsure how to begin.  "Well, to tell the
truth, Nikki was wondering if maybe there wasn't some other part of the
Newman Estate that was going unused--you know how she's always holed up in
the living room."  "I knew this day might come," Miguel says with an air of
resignation.  "For years, I was asked to maintain this mansion and yet no
one ever used many of the rooms.  Finally, one weekend while they were out
of town, I decided to just wall off the part that was never used and enlarge
my own quarters."  "And the family?" Paul asks.  "Well, they never really
ask about my private life, but surely you didn't think that I have none.  I
would have died of boredom years ago--it used to be I got to answer the door
once in a while, but now no sooner does it ring and it's ``I'll get it,
Miguel.''  So I don't really even have that to cling to any more.  About the
only thing that they need me for is to prepare large quantities of food on
short notice, and then to dispose of that food when they decide not to eat
it... And having a large family helps with both of those!"

It's late afternoon as Paul pushes the front door open and finds Nikki in
the living room.  Her hair has changed and she's wearing a fresh bouquet of
daisies in her hair.  "Did you find anything?"  she says.  Paul shakes his
head.  "Old, unused rooms?  I'm afraid not.  I did a thorough search and
nothing like that.  Just the servants' quarters--I assume you don't want to
hang out there."  "Oh, good gracious no, that's definitely below me.  Well,
thanks for checking, Paul.  Your check will be in the mail."  "Oh, no
trouble," Paul says.  The doorbell rings.  Nikki turns to Paul, "Oh, I can't
believe how time flies.  Be a dear will you and get that--it's probably my
hairdresser for my evening appointment, and I'm not even in evening attire.
Could you get that on your way out?" As she races up the stairs to change
she calls out "Paul's getting it, Miguel."

"You're not eating," Neil says to Drucilla.  "No, that's one of the
surprises.  I'm going to dance for you and I didn't want to do it on a full
stomach."  She gets up and the music begins.  She throws her dress to one
side and dances away beautifully for them.  Neil is entranced and nods his
approbation to others at the table.  When she finishes, she returns to where
they're sitting.  Neil doesn't waste a beat.  "You see, Drucilla.  If you
weren't always traveling, you could be keeping up on your dancing.  And
you're so beautiful when you dance."  Drucilla gets a big smile on her face.
"That's the other surprise, Neil.  I have been keeping up on my dancing,
even with all the traveling.  And now I've signed on for a big tour!  Even
Sid, you know--my high powered agent--he thinks it's a good thing.  He says
if he can just borrow me for a few hours here and there at some of the stops
we'll already be making on the dance tour, he won't have to send me
anywhere.  So you see?  It's going to work out, Neil.  I'll be doing my
ballet, just like you wanted, and there'll be no more trips just for
modeling.  Finally I can have it all!"

Miguel's living room.  The doorbell rings and he goes to the door.  It's
Nicholas with Sharon.  "Hey, Miguel.  Que pasa?"  Nick says in his best
attempt to sound cool.  "Hello, Sr. Newman.  What a lot of company I have
had today.  Can I perhaps fix you a sandwich before you set out on your
quest to escape your father?"  "Actually, we were hoping we could ask a
slightly bigger favor than that.  Do you think we could hide out here for a
while until things cool down with Dad?"  "But I thought you had such big
plans for getting away from him."  "Well, I do.  But then I bumped into Paul
and asked him for ideas about where to hide out, and he told me about how
well you'd done for yourself right here and no one ever knew."  Miguel
shifts uneasily in the door, trying to block Nick's view of accomodations so
spacious they could only be the work of the same mind that allocated office
space for young executives at Jabot.  "Well, you see, Nicholas," Miguel
lies, "I'm afraid we barely have enough room for ourselves here..."

"But I'll tell you what we could do," Miguel volunteers suddenly.  "Why
don't we modify your house to have a regular part (with just a Living Room)
and a secret part (with everything else) like I've done with your mother's
house?"  Sharon gets suddenly excited, "Oh, could we? And could the nursery
I had built be part of the secret area?" Miguel ponders for a moment and
then says, "Well... since it's only accessible from the Living Room, it will
make the geometry a bit complex.  But who would have guessed there'd be
enough room to build an add-on room in the center of an already-existing
house anyway?  Perhaps there is a local distortion of physical space
somewhere in the house that we can use to our advantage.  I have some
friends in the construction industry--I'm sure they can help you."  "Great!"
says Nick, happy to have offloaded his problems on someone else.  "Now about
that lunch..." Miguel continues to block Nick's view into the door.  "I'll
have it brought down to you at your secret hideout, Nicholas."  Nick and
Sharon nod their thanks and start walking back to the house.  "This is going
to be great, Sharon.  We can run away from home and we don't even have to
leave the ranch to do it!  I used to do this when I was a kid.  Only then it
was just me being silly; of course, this is nothing like that.  Oh, I told
you I'd work things out, Sharon!"

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         Copyright 1997 Kent M. Pitman.  All Rights Reserved.
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"Another Way Out" takes plotline state at time of publication and shows that
there are interesting places right around the corner.  The goal, besides
having some fun with good-natured parody, is to challenge the notion that we
must be mired in certain tired plotlines for months just to have a good time.
There is always another way out...

   Archives of this and older episodes of "Another Way Out"
    as well as the more serious "morals" that underly them,
    can be found at:  http://world.std.com/~pitman/awo/index.html