[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]
FRASIER: Hello, Steven, I'm listening.
STEVEN [ON PHONE]: My wife, Tracy, and I are having a baby,
and I know we're getting a little ahead of ourselves,
but there seems to be different advice
about whether it's okay to let your kid climb into bed with you in the morning.
Ah. Stop right there, Steven. It's okay.
All relationships require that kind of close and undivided attention.
-Isn't that so, Roz? -Uh-huh.
But what if you and your wife enjoy making love in the mornings?
Oh. Trust me, after the baby comes, that won't be an issue anymore.
This is Dr. Frasier Crane on KACL. We'll be back after these messages.
Roz, how can you be reading now?
It's something I picked up in elementary school, and it stuck.
-What is so captivating? -Slow Tango in South Seattle.
Oh, God, not you too. Every woman I see is carrying that book.
Because it's impossible to put down. Read the first paragraph.
I guarantee you'll be hooked.
"There are tangos
"that come flowing from the wine-colored sea…"
[ROZ SIGHS]
"…from the rust of a hundred sunken ships."
This is one of those dances."
Well?
There are books…
That make your stomach rumble
and lurch and thrust your lunch ever upward.
This is one of those books.
-You men are all alike. You have no soul. -Oh, please.
Except for this one, the future Mr. Roz Doyle, Thomas Jay Fallow.
-Oh, my God, it's him. -Do you know him?
Yes. He used to drop into a neighborhood bar
I frequented back in Boston.
He's a bit pretentious, though. He stuck out like a sore thumb.
You used to drink with Thomas Jay Fallow?
Well, actually, I spent most of my time
helping him get through his writer's block.
In the future, I'll remember to use my powers for good, not evil.
I don't care what you think.
He's coming here to the station tomorrow to be on Amber Edwards' Book Chat,
and you're going to introduce us.
No, I'll have to tell him how much I liked his book.
You know how hard it is to lie to someone's face.
No, it's easy for someone as bright and charming and articulate as you.
Well, perhaps you're right.
See how easy it is?
[EDDIE GROWLING]
DAPHNE: Eight…
Nine…
-Stop it, Eddie. -Oh, he just wants to play, huh, boy?
Yeah, well, therapy is not a game. Stop it! Stop it, I said!
[DOORBELL RINGS]
If he keeps this up, there's no point in us going on with these exercises.
Attaboy.
-Hello, Dr. Crane. -Hello, Daphne.
-Hey, Niles. -Ah, doing your exercises.
Yes, and if someone doesn't let us get on with them,
he's gonna get a spank on his fanny.
Don't let me…
Unless you want to.
What's up?
Ah, well. When I brought you a beer in your room the other day,
I couldn't help but notice you had pictures of Frasier and Frederick
and an autographed one from someone named Ken Griffey Jr., but…
None of Maris and me, so I brought you this.
Oh, gee, thanks.
What's Maris doing wearing jodhpurs? She hasn't taken up horse riding, has she?
No, she wanted to, but her little quadriceps are so tight
she's incapable of straddling anything larger than a Border collie.
There you go.
-I can't believe this. -What are you yapping about?
This… This book. It's written by a man I knew.
He's taken an incident from my own life,
something I shared with him in confidence, and he's turned it into this trash.
Slow Tango? I've just started reading that.
You mean to tell me that young man is based on you, Dr. Crane?
Yes, he is. But did Thomas Jay Fallow have the grace to thank me? No!
-Not even in the acknowledgments! -What's it about?
-That is not important. -It's about his first time.
-Thank you, Daphne. -Your first time doing what?
Changing a flat tire.
Oh.
So this whole book's about the night you conceived Frederick.
Very amusing, Dad. You'll be happy to know that was not my first time.
I'm happy to know it wasn't your only time.
-Who was this charitable lass? -That is not important.
-His piano teacher. -His piano teacher?
Thank you again, Daphne!
It's not like it's a secret. It's all there in black and white.
About your awkward teenage lunging
and how you used to call your chest hair your "rug of love."
Not all of it's true. He did take some literary license.
Then you're not really able to bring a woman to hidden realms of ecstasy
with your panther-like prowess?
Well, that part he got right.
Boy, this really fries me, that woman taking advantage of my kid.
I was putting out 10 bucks a week for piano lessons
so you could get your hedge trimmed.
Wait a minute. We're not talking about Ms. Warner?
This wasn't going on during your lessons too?
No, while Frasier was getting his Rachmaninoffs,
I was studying music.
FRASIER: Now, look!
This was not some tawdry older woman lusting after young flesh.
Clarice and I cared for each other.
She showed me a world I'd never known.
Wouldn't know again for six and a half years.
You know, it's true. As Mr. Fallow put it, she saw your sensitive, poetic side,
and you couldn't help noticing the way her ripe, heaving bosom
would brushed your cheek when she reached for the metronome.
How can a man who drank so heavily remember so much?
-Yet he forgot who told him the story. -He'll get a little reminder today.
[DOOR CLOSES]
-No, no! -I want it! Give it to me!
"I budded when you kissed me.
"I withered when you left me."
I bloomed a few months while you loved me."
-Would you calm down? -Not until I've exacted my pound of flesh.
Wait till I get my book signed.
-Let me. It's my story. -Stop it!
Roz. You haven't told anyone? They'd have a field day with me.
Frasier, give me credit for a little discretion, will you?
Hey, piano boy.
Way to pound those ivories.
Bulldog. Listen. It's imperative that this not be commonly known.
Hey, Doc, it's no big deal.
Anything for you? I've still got some feeling on the other side of my head.
Look, I had a similar experience when I was 16.
With an older woman who introduced me to the mysteries of love.
Of course, she was a hooker.
Hey. It was a birthday present from my dad, okay?
-Wanna know the ironic thing, Doc? -Hmm?
All I wanted was a bike.
Oh, come on. How could you expect me not to tell anybody?
You can't keep something like that all bottled up.
I only told one person.
-Hello, Frasier, Roz. -Hi.
Oh. I was finishing my restaurant review for my show this afternoon
when I came up with the perfect sandwich named after you at Rosenthal's Deli:
Frasier Crane's Double Decker.
It consists of aged pheasant, spring chicken, and plenty of tongue.
Ah! Listen. "I wept as our bodies made the music of love."
"I'm your rhapsody. Play me."
"Crescendo, my young maestro, crescendo."
"My vessel yearns to dock in the magnificence of your harbor."
[BULLDOG LAUGHS]
BULLDOG: That's not in the book.
One thing I must ask you,
what was your inspiration for this love story?
Ooh, ooh! It's his last chance.
It was actually given to me
by God.
By God?!
Do you believe his grandiosity? I'm God, and he knows it!
We'll be back with the divinely inspired Thomas Jay Fallow
right after this station break.
Excuse me. I want to call my husband and see if he can take a long lunch.
Thomas Jay Fallow.
Frasier!
Frasier Crane! I can't believe it!
I see my name hasn't entirely escaped your sievelike memory.
Why would it?
It didn't make it into your acknowledgments,
you ego maniacal thief!
You read my book.
I didn't have to read it. I lived it.
Not that anybody would know that from your acknowledgments.
You mention everyone from your kindergarten teacher
to the man who designed the typeface,
but no mention of me, no.
I only gave you the story which you have merchandised
into this million-dollar treacle machine!
I'm finished now.
I'm so sorry.
I don't know how I could have been so thoughtless.
[WHIMPERING]
-I owe you everything! -Oh, no, no, no.
-No. -Oh, my God.
Frasier, what did you do to the poor man?
-What happened? -Frasier made him cry.
NILES: Maris is reading Slow Tango in South Seattle.
I think it's put thoughts in her head.
I found her cooing over the college student who skims the koi pond.
-I wouldn't concern myself. -It's just innocent flirting?
No. I just wouldn't concern myself.
[DOOR OPENS]
-Hey, Frasier. -Hi, Dad, Niles.
NILES: Congratulations.
Maris was listening to Book Chat during her seaweed wrap
and heard Thomas Jay Fallow acknowledge his debt to you.
Yes. I had a chat with him this afternoon.
Did he seem properly contrite?
-I made him cry. -That's my boy!
You must be feeling pretty good.
Actually, Dad, the incident has left me strangely unsatisfied.
I still feel sort of empty.
I've been turning it around in my mind all day.
God, you kill me, you know?
You got what you want, and you're still not happy.
Frasier, life is not hard. You make it hard.
You don't let things happen and enjoy it. You analyze everything to death.
You know, you could learn a big lesson from this dog here.
You know what makes him happy? A sock.
Come on, Eddie.
Ignore him. What's troubling you goes deeper than your usual malaise.
-DAPHNE: Shame on you! -What for?
What for? You just ran out on her.
"Leaving her bed as empty as a swallow's nest
after fall's first frost."
And you ask me what for.
Well, I'd just been accepted to Harvard. What was I gonna do?
Oh. So you just leave in the night without so much as a kiss.
-You never said goodbye? -She was sleeping so peacefully.
She had an early lesson.
-I left a rose on her pillow. -[DOOR CLOSES]
-Aha. -"Aha" what?
-"Aha" this: I have a theory. -Why else would you say "aha"?
No, no, no. You were angry at Thomas Fallow for failing to thank you
for your contribution to his life.
Perhaps you're really angry at yourself.
You never thanked Ms. Warner for the contribution to your life.
I was only 17 years old. I'm sure she understood.
Mm, perhaps she didn't.
She was a vulnerable, lonely middle-aged woman.
It is possible that her feelings for you ran deeper than you realized,
feelings you crushed when you disappeared without a thank-you or a goodbye.
Yes, well, thank you and goodbye.
All right.
Fine. I'll just leave you with this thought:
Your encounter with Fallow was unsatisfactory
because it failed to provide you with closure.
For that, you will have to make amends with Ms. Warner. Aha.
Very funny, Dad!
FRASIER: "He had been a teenage Balboa,
"an explorer of the rising pinnacles and gently curving slopes of my body."
"And in one explosive burst of discovery,"
"he had staked claim to the Pacific Ocean that was my soul."
"But now he was leaving,"
"going, vanishing, like a solitary boat on the lonely horizon,"
"departing like a train rolling ceaselessly through the night,"
"exiting swiftly like…"
"And so he was gone."
"And now, in the cool of the evening, I play my piano,"
"and his last words resonate through the notes:"
" 'I'll come back to you, my cherished one.' "
"But he never did."
"And all that remains of him are the withered petals"
of the rose he left upon my pillow."
["THE BLUE DANUBE" PLAYING ON PIANO]
Clarice.
Time,
subtle thief of youth.
[KNOCKING ON DOOR]
Hello. May I help you?
-Ms. Warner? -Yes.
I…
I'm Frasier Crane.
I'm sorry, my memory's not what it used to be.
But please, come in.
Would you like to sit down?
Um, yes, I would.
So… we know each other?
Well…
We were friends.
More than friends, actually.
You really don't remember?
I'm trying.
You must have some recollection
of a fair-haired boy outside your door?
At the piano?
On the piano?
No, I'm sorry.
Before the memories come flooding back to you…
I should tell you we had a romance that, uh,
didn't have the happiest of endings.
Oh.
That's why I'm here.
Our last evening together, we walked through a summer storm,
and I…
Kissed the raindrops off your nose
and promised we'd always be together.
But I broke that promise.
You helped a shy adolescent take his first steps to becoming a man,
and how did I repay that kindness?
By running off and leaving you with nothing but memories.
And not many of those, either.
Can you ever forgive me?
Oh, you're so sweet.
Of course I can forgive you.
Thank you. Thank you.
It's such a relief to get that off my chest.
WOMAN: Mother? I'm going now!
-You run along, Clarice. -Clarice?
Oh, excuse me.
Dear, this is Frasier Crane.
Apparently, we were quite an item once.
Frasier Crane?
What are you doing here?
Obviously, making an enormous mistake.
Mother, would you get us some iced tea, please?
She's getting rid of me, but I'll be back.
CLARICE: My God.
I can't believe you're here.
-It's gotta be 20… -Twenty-five.
Twenty-five years.
And look at you.
Look at you. You look incredible.
Well, sure, compared to my mother.
No.
That's not what I mean.
You look…
-Stunning. -Well, thank you.
And you, you've become a very handsome man.
And successful too.
Thank you.
You're here because of that book, aren't you?
Yes, and I'd like to apologize right off. Uh…
I told that story to Mr. Fallow in confidence.
It was never meant to be in print.
There's no need to apologize.
That was a lovely time in my life.
It was nice to relive it.
So…
Are you married?
Divorced. You?
I never married.
I came to apologize about more than just the book.
I never felt quite right about the way I left things.
I abandoned you. It was selfish and cowardly.
Oh, Frasier, relax.
I always felt guilty for shortchanging you
on your music lessons.
Do you still keep it up?
Oh, the piano? Yeah.
Yes.
I was so nervous about coming here, and now it feels like old times.
-Sit at middle C. -Ah.
Then the metronome.
[METRONOME TICKING]
I… Well… Maybe I should get going.
Uh…
Clarice. Uh…
At the risk of sounding forward, would you have a coffee with me?
Aw, thanks, but I'll have to say no.
-The age difference is no longer an issue. -[KNOCKING ON DOOR]
-Hi, honey. Ready to go? -I'll be right out.
-Are you and he… -Uh-huh.
I wasn't interested in 40-year-old men then,
and I guess I'm still not.
It's great to see you again, though.
Bye, Mom!
Good. Now we're alone.
See what I did? I put a raindrop on my nose.
[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]
♪ Hey, baby, I hear the blues a-callin' ♪
♪ Tossed salads and scrambled eggs ♪
Oh, my.
♪ And maybe I seem a bit confused ♪
♪ Well, maybe, but I got you pegged ♪
Ha, ha, ha, ha!
♪ But I don't know what to do ♪
♪ With those tossed salads and scrambled eggs ♪
♪ They're callin' again ♪
Good night, Seattle, we love you!