MEMORIES STEELE PRESERVED IN PICTURES
By: Becky Schie
E-mail:
First printed: More Red Holt Steele #13/14
Summary: Laura remembers her life with Remington.
Disclaimer: This “Remington Steele” story is not-for-profit and is purely for entertainment purposes. The author and this site do not own the characters and are in no way affiliated with “Remington Steele,” the actors, their agents, the producers, MTM Productions, the NBC Television Network or any station or network carrying the show in syndication, or anyone in the industry.
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She woke before her husband as she always did, yawning and blinking in the early-morning
sunshine that peeked through the blinds of the bedroom windows, then finally rising to stick her feet into pink fuzzy slippers and pull on a faded blue robe. She glanced at the clock on her bedside table- an old-fashioned digital one that still worked well- and chuckled quietly to herself as she walked into the hallway, carefully closing the door behind her.Old habits die hard, she mused as she walked downstairs. Here she was retired from the private
detective business for nearly twenty years now- a true woman of leisure- and her body still insisted on waking up between six and seven in the morning. Even now at seventy-five- and thanks to the great advances in geriatric medicine these days- she still felt energetic enough to go jogging along the beach and do mild aerobics. Pausing by a full-length mirror on the way to the kitchen, she noted that her body was still trim despite four pregnancies and her face, though seamed lightly with wrinkles, still retained much of the beauty of her youth. The elderly woman ran her hands through hair that was more white than brown and said to herself, "Not bad for an old broad, Laura Steele. Not bad at all."In the kitchen, she prepared herself a pot of tea, fixed some toast and soy-bacon, and sat down
with her breakfast at the kitchen terminal of the house computer system. The machine automatically downloaded the day's newsfeeds and e-mail, and Laura scanned through the information as she ate. She noted the main news stories, enjoyed looking at and printing up the image files her grandchildren had made in art class and sent to them, and typed a polite but firm refusal to a multimedia publishing firm wanting to produce a documentary of the agency's history. It seemed it was only willing to publish her *husband's* point of view, however; they declined to interview a mere "associate" like herself. *Some things never change,* she thought ruefully. *Over thirty years I've been a detective, and I _still_ never get any credit for my efforts. I should be used to this by now...*Suddenly the computer informed her she had new mail, and an electronic video-letter popped
up on the screen. To her delight it was from her youngest son, Harry. The customary block of source-information appeared on the screen first, before his video image:Subject: Have I got news for you!!
Date: 1 Sept. 2039 22:54:03 -0400 (GMT)
From: HaroldSteele@entertainet.com
To: R&LSteele@lanet.com
"Hi, Mom and Dad," Harry said a little shyly. He absently pushed a lock of wavy auburn hair
away from his deep brown eyes, then abruptly started to laugh. When he regained control, he grinned sheepishly and said, "You'll never guess what happened to me Friday. I told you before how your confirmed-bachelor son had met a wonderful lady named Tatiana Roshenkovsky last April at the annual world conference for multichannel media producers here in New York, and how we found out just how much we have in common, including a love for the ancient black- and-white movies. We've been going out for several months now, and I decided to propose to her during this week's Charlie Chaplin film festival, before the showing of *City Lights*, and she immediately accepted! Unfortunately, yesterday she got official notification from the Global Space Authority that she's been approved as the first multichannel media producer for the *Freedom* orbital colony, and they booked her for the next shuttle, which goes up in a month. This means we've planning to get married within the next couple of weeks, and it's been pretty hectic making all the proper arrangements- everything will be taken care of, so don't worry. All that you two- and anyone else in the family who wants to come see their little brother finally tie the knot- have to do is show up at LAX and you'll be given first-class tickets for the next supersonic flight to the East Coast."Don't worry," he added, "I can afford this, especially since MTM's given me a generous
advance on the crime drama series I'm producing for their new Holovision network. You'll love the show; I'm basing it on your years at the agency, but it'll be a little funnier and derived more from the old movies than directly from your careers. I'll send you specifics on time and place as soon as Tats and I figure them out. Please come, and bring nice presents! Lots of love, Harry."Laura suddenly found her eyes blurring, and blinked to clear them of the unexpected flood of
tears that had appeared without warning. She reached for a tissue to dab at her eyes, then directed the computer to save the video file and turned off the terminal a few minutes later. To her surprise, she found herself laughing as well as crying at the news; finally, after all these years, her youngest son, her baby boy, was actually going to get married. All of her five children (imagine, *five* children!) were very much grown up now, happy and content with families and careers of their own. It seemed like only yesterday when she first met the man who became Remington Steele- then a smooth-talking thief and con artist, now a trusted pillar of the community and a well-loved husband and father. She remembered the following five years of their partnership (and courtship as well, she had to admit) and the chaos and confusion surrounding their unexpected marriage and honeymoon. And after that...Having finished her breakfast, the elderly woman deposited her dishes by the sink, then walked
into the library. Scanning through the titles on a shelf, she found the book she was looking for and pulled it out. She settled into a confortable overstuffed chair and leafed through the pages of smiling photos that greeted her memories of those happy times in the past. Her hand rested first on one of her early favorites: Remington smiling in his sleep as he cradled a dark-haired baby in each arm...*****
1992:
The mounting pressure in her enlarged abdomen was more than she could bear, and Laura
couldn't help but scream, her singer's lungs giving her voice tremendous volume and intensity. The Rabbit jerked abruptly as Remington instinctively set his foot on the brakes, and the seatbelt tightened painfully around her belly."Good lord, Laura, you startled me quite out of my wits, not to mention my eardrums!" he
exclaimed, then looked at her in concern. "Are you all right?"She grimaced in pain. "Not really, Mr. Steele," she managed to gasp out. "I wonder...if you
could please endeavor...to get to the hospital...as soon as you possibly can?""Believe me, Laura, I'm trying, really I am. But you know as well as I do what Los Angeles at
rush hour is like. It's really too bad Fred has the day off; he always knew the fastest routes to get to any place in Southern California... Oh, damm," he swore softly as he slowed the car to a stop."Problems, Mr. Steele?" Laura said between clenched teeth.
"Looks like traffic's backed up for miles," he replied, craning his neck to get a better view of
the seemingly-endless line of cars stretching between the Rabbit and the hospital exit. "I wonder if there's been an accident.""If we don't hurry, *I* may have an accident of my own," she commented dryly, then sighed in
relief. "The contraction's stopped, thank heavens."Remington looked worredly at her. "Are you *sure* you're really in labor, Laura? It seems a
little early for it, according to Dr.Krasny's timetable."The detective and mother-to-be rolled her eyes. "Isn't a soaking couch at the agency proof
enough for you? I'm in so much pain like you wouldn't believe! In fact..." She started panting heavily as another contraction started. "Here comes another one..."The wail of a police siren made an eerie harmony with Laura's groan. "Oh thank goodness,"
Remington said to himself. "The calvary's here." Since traffic was still not moving, he decided to reach outside the window and flag the police down.A motorcycle bearing the insignia of the State Highway Patrol pulled up beside the Steeles' car
and a uniformed woman peered down at them. "You folks have a problem?""Officer," he began, "my wife's in labor, and our hospital's at the next exit, but I fear we can't
get there in time with all this traffic, and..." he gestured helplessly at the rest of the highway."Well sir, I don't think you'll be able to get there at all now; dispatcher's guess is that traffic
won't even be ready to move yet for an hour, at least, and your wife there looks like she's ready to explode any minute now." The policewoman smiled in sympathy. "Tell you what folks, since you really are so close to the hospital, I'm going to call my partner and we'll see if we can't find a way to get your wife there ourselves..."An hour and a half later Remington practically ran through the emergency room doors, almost
knocking over people and equipment in his haste. He paused at the nurses' desk long enough to ask a few questions, then hurried up to the maternity ward.A petite woman wearing blue-green scrubs left a room just as he arrived. "Oh Mr. Steele, I'm so
glad you're here. I was going to call the police and see if they could get you here any sooner...""Traffic finally cleared up," he managed to say as he caught his breath. "How...How's Laura?"
The obstetrician smiled warmly. "Why don't you see for yourself," she replied as she opened the
door for him. The thief-turned-detective stepped inside and she smiled again as she heard his cry of joy.Mildred arrived later that night, almost overburdened by a large bouquet of flowers, and found
a radiant but exhausted Laura sitting up in bed, smiling at the dark-haired man sleeping in a chair across the room; two babies with equally-dark hair slept quite peacefully as well in his arms.The secretary set the bouquet on a table and came over to stand by Laura. "Looks like the boss
is pretty knocked out," she said in a soft voice. "Guess this was too much excitement even for him. How're you feeling yourself, Mrs. Steele?""I feel like I ran the Boston Marathon a hundred times over; Frances never told me about how
exhausted I'd be after giving birth like that. But oh, Mildred, the pain was truly worth it!" The joy was visibly shining from her face as she spoke. "Let me introduce you to the newest members of the Steele family: Nicholas Daniel and Noreen Abigail. Otherwise known as Nick and Nora," Laura added wryly. "The names came to me as I was watching *The Thin Man* last night."Mildred chuckled softly as she got a camera out of her purse. "You kids sure love those old
movies, don't you? As soon as I heard you were going to have twins, I wondered what you were going to name them; I think they're just perfect for the kids. Do you think the boss would mind if I took a picture of him and the babies like this? It'd make a *priceless* picture, don't you think?"Laura nooded her approval, and Mildred took the picture. "I'll send you a copy when I get the
roll developed," she added as she replaced the camera in the purse. "Don't worry about either of you coming in tomorrow; I know you both need your rest, and I'll just go in to hold down the fort until you're ready to come back.""You're not going now, Mildred? But you just got here. You're part of our family too, you
know; we'd both love to have you stay here with us for a while.""Thanks a lot, Mrs. Steele, but I just wanted to check in with you and the boss; you know, make
sure everything's okay." The secretary looked at Remington and the babies again, then said, "Congratulations, Mrs. Steele. You two are going to make wonderful parents, I just know it. See you later.""Thanks for stopping by, Mildred," Laura replied, "and good night." As the door closed quietly
behind her, the detective and new mother took one last, loving look at her husband and children and settled down to a peaceful sleep, secure in the knowledge that her family was indeed off to a wonderful start.*****
Laura looked up from the photo album, wiping away a few more tears of happiness. Nick and
Nora had grown up to be wonderful, sensitive, smart people with terrific careers and families; Nora had inherited Laura's musical abilities, and was now a fairly successful folk musician as well as a mother of two, and Nick was also doing very well both as a Professor of Criminology at UCLA and a father of three. Her eyes strayed back to the photo album, glancing at their assorted baby and school pictures; over the years they had grown into two very striking people, both tall, with their father's black hair and deep-blue eyes. Then her seeking hands stopped at a photo taken on the beach one bright summer: all five children- along with Bogey, the family dog- posed proudly before a giant sand castle they had made themselves...*****
2006:
"I can't believe you insisted on taking that machine with you, Laura," Remington said to his
wife. "This isn't supposed to be a *working* vacation, you know; we brought the kids here to Catalina so we could spend summer break together. Why must you always have to be working?"She came out of the bathroom as she pulled on a coverup over her swimsuit. "Because
otherwise we wouldn't be making any money at the agency, Mr. Steele," she replied. She bent over the notebook computer and typed a few more lines of text, then nodded to herself. "Since you insist on taking all these vacations with the kids lately, it became necessary to buy this computer just so we could keep up with all the paperwork that's been accumulating at the office. Also, Mildred wanted me to proofread Jackie and Mindy's surveillance reports. They're good apprentices, but she still wanted me to take a look at them. Might I ask what exactly it is you're doing, Mr. Steele?""Merely preventing our family vacation from becoming a disaster, Mrs. Steele. Merely
preventing a disaster..." He gently pushed her aside and proceeded to save the file, then turned the computer off. He placed it into the desk drawer, securely locked it, and pocked the key. "And now, my dear," Remington said as he escorted her out of their bedroom and through the rented beach cottage, "we shall venture outside to enjoy the salt air and the company of our children. I've been told by a reliable source they're working on something quite extraordinary.""Who's your 'reliable source' ?" Laura asked as they paused to collect a canvas bag filled with
necessities."Mommy! Daddy! Where are you?" a young girl's voice rang out. "Aren't you gonna come out
and play with me?""We'll be right there, sweetheart," Remington replied. "Don't come inside for us; we don't want
to turn the cottage into a desert with all the sand you'll bring in, okay?""Okay, Daddy," the girl replied. The Steeles could hear her laughing and a dog barking directly
outside the cottage. As they passed through the screen door and stepped off the back deck, they saw a brown-haired, freckle-faced girl in a bright swimsuit playing with the Steeles' beloved Australian Shepherd, Bogey. The girl and the dog were both ten years old."Here we are, Greta," Laura told her youngest daughter."We're all ready to play with you.
What're the others doing now?""They're building a sand castle, Mommy, a really really big one," Greta replied. "Nick told me
to get you out here 'cause they wanted to show it to you. But you gotta hurry, okay? The water's starting to come in again.""All right, honey, we're coming. Do you want me to carry you?" her father asked her. She
nodded happily, and Remington picked her up and set her on his shoulders. The little girl squealed in delight at being up so high. Together they made their way down to the beach. As they neared the shoreline, their four other children crowded around them, each begging their parents to come see their creation before the tide wiped it out; the Steeles laughingly complied, and they marveled at the size and detail of the children's castle.Laura pulled her camera out of the canvas bag. "Everybody get by the castle so I can take a
picture of it before it disappears!" In a few minutes the Steele progeny were arranged before their masterpiece: Nick and Nora- still willing to play with the young ones despite their advanced mutual age of fourteen- standing to either side, and twelve-year-old Katharine Ingrid, Greta, and their eight-year-old son Harold Benjamin- who was holding on tightly to Bogey- sitting on the sand before it. The water advanced steadily towards them as they posed for their mother, and as soon as the picture was taken, it crashed upon both children and castle with full force.To her parents' surprise, Katharine was rather angry about this; she kept marching back and
forth along the shoreline, occasionally shaking her fist at the ocean as if it were responsible. When Laura asked her later what she was doing, she replied, "I'm protesting Mother Nature. It's not fair that something I built has to be destroyed like that so soon. It's not fair!""No, honey, it's not fair," Laura told her serious-minded daughter, "but it is what happens in
nature. Even the tallest mountains will be worn down to sand like this someday, although it won't happen for a really long time yet. Anything we humans make will eventually be destroyed too. It's a natural part of living on this planet."But we humans do have a way of preserving the memory of what we've built and done,
through photography and video cameras. We take these pictures to preserve the memory of our deeds. Because once we have the memory up here," as she gently tapped her daughter's forehead, "then nothing is ever really and truly destroyed, and it's all protected and cherished forever. It works the same for people, too; it's why I take pictures of you, Daddy, and our friends and family. So long as we remember them through the pictures, they'll be with us always. Do you understand, sweetheart?"The young girl thought a while, then answered, "I think I do, Mommy. I understand why you
took a picture of the sand castle for us. But I think when I grow up, I'm going to become someone who designs and builds stuff that'll last a really long time. My art teachers say I'm very good at drawing pictures of rooms and buildings, both on computer and with pen and paper. Is there a name for person who draws like that, Mommy?"Laura smiled down at her middle daughter. "A person who draws like that is called an architect,
Katharine. And yes, I think you'd make a terrific architect..."*****
And so she did, Laura remembered. As soon as she had graduated from a highly-regarded
school of architectual engineering located in San Francisco, she immediately turned out several noteworthy designs for earthquake-proof office buildings, two of which were still in use today by contractors in parts of the world ravaged by earthquakes . She noted with pride the picture of a petite woman of twenty-five with curly, reddish-brown hair and sparkling blue eyes accepting an award from the Governor of California.Laura's gaze then rested on a nearby photo of her youngest daughter, Greta- still brown-haired
and freckle-faced, but nevertheless as attractive as the rest of her family- proudly holding up her newly-earned law degree and State Bar Admission notice as proofs of her new career. She had been an excellent trial lawyer for some years now, and her husband of fourteen years (Laura and Remington were both surprised and amused to learn he just happened to be named Michael O'Leary) was recently made a full partner in a prominent downtown law firm; rumor had it Greta would also be tapped for a partnership herself within the year. And of course their children- Madeline and David- were always delightful company for their grandparents.And then there was Harry; the youngest of them all, successful multichannel media producer
and self-labeled "confirmed bachelor," who apparently was about to get married himself to a nice Ukranian woman who had just been accepted to work in the new orbital colony, so far above the Earth...Laura shook her head, amazed by all the changes that had occurred in her life ever since that
day back in the early 1980s when she first met the man who would eventually become her husband. Before him, she had never thought she would ever be married with both a thriving career as a detective and a large family, and now she simply could not imagine her life without either. Her mind went back to the day she first discovered she was pregnant, way back in 1991. She recalled the mixed feelings she had about the news at that time: of course she was happy, but mostly afraid that her family's history would repeat itself, that eventually she and Remington would fight so much that one of them would simply leave and abandon the other with the children. Her fears, as she discovered later that same night, were completely groundless; they pledged to each other not to repeat the mistakes of their pasts, and forty-eight years later that promise still remained unbroken."Woolgathering, my dear?" An all-too-familiar voice finally interrupted her reverie. Laura
looked up and saw her seventy-nine-year-old husband smiling at her from the doorway. Even in a faded bathrobe that was once a rich burgandy and hair that was more white than black, he still resembled the very handsome and very special "mystery man" who had walked into her life so long ago."Just going through old memories, my love," she replied, rising up and approaching him. "Just
going through some wonderful memories..." She hugged him tightly and kissed him with a passion that still existed despite her advanced years. Remington responded almost immediately with that same passion."Might I ask what brought on such a striking display of affection, my dear?" He asked her
teasingly when they finally released each other."Oh, simply saying thanks for trusting me throughout the years. For being with me and the kids.
For being you," Laura replied. They shared a warm smile at the memories the words evoked, of similar words being said by her in a hotel room more than fifty years ago- and of the feelings behind them, still as strong in the present as they were in the past. "Now," she continued, "We received news from our youngest son today. You'll never guess what's going to happen to him..."*****
"Tatiana and I would like to thank everyone for being able to come to our wedding on such
short notice," Harry announced to the gathered crowd. "If it weren't for the speed of e-mail these days, we'd never have been able to get the word out to quite so many of our friends and family. It's wonderful to know that even in our fast-paced world, people can still find the time to get together and celebrate special occasions such as this one." He paused to drink some water, and his beautiful bride pulled him down to whisper in his ear, pointing to his parents. He smiled and added, "I would also like to make a special toast right now to two other very special people in my life, whom I hope will be around for many more years to come. Ladies and gentlemen, to my parents, Laura and Remington Steele- the most wonderful parents anyone could ask for!"The Steeles rose to graciously acknowledge the applause and cheers of the crowd, and as
Laura's gaze swept over the assembled people, she noted especially the faces of her beloved offspring and their families and the photo and video cameras they carried to capture this moment and preserve the precious memory of this day for the rest of their lives.END