Chapter 1: What Dreams May Come

When I first got the E-mail about a Pretender convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, I hurriedly messaged Jacs quickly, this was going to be the opportunity of a lifetime and I just knew that she would jumping off the edge of her seat to know that her hero Michael T. Weiss was going to be there in person signing autographs and meeting fans. “Jacs” I type into the messenger screen “You are going to flip when I tell you about this. Hold on let’s voice chat over AOL Buddy.”

“Arls, what is going on?” I answered when she finally got on line on Buddy. I know it was only a short wait, but it seemed longer. The time difference really sucks when you are trying to communicate with people on the wrong side of the world.

“Check this out Jacs” I begin “There is going to be a Pretender convention in Vegas in a couple weeks, And Michael T. Weiss is going to be there...and because I entered a drawing at the last convention I went too...shit...well I won two free tickets to any convention they put on.. So buddy are you up for a flight to Las Vegas?”

“Arls!!!” I practically screamed. “You are kidding me right. Oh my god!” I was so excited I could barely believe it. “When?” I am typing furiously, not really making very much sense at all, getting all of my letters mixed up in my eagerness. The connection is not good because I went over my hated download limit yet again.

”Two freaking weeks” I almost yell with excitement “Can you believe this shit, it’s awesome.”

“Two weeks?” I had to get the money from somewhere, and fast. I had some saved up, but not enough. “Arls, I can’t get that kind of money in two weeks” I moaned. It was just my luck to miss this kind of opportunity. It had to be at least two grand for the airfare and I would need a visa and spending money of course. I quickly did some sums in my head and knew that I was way to short and my poor credit card had been abused very badly on eBay this month so I couldn’t even use that.

”There has to be a way, there’s just got to be” I say frustrated until my younger brother Wyat walked through the door, he had just turned 18 years old and received his inheritance and it totaled up to be about 35 thousand easy, I talk for a bit with my little brother, who Jacs recently nicknamed Lil’ Roo due to his unhealthy obsession with kangaroos. He had even gone so far to search for a map with the ratio of people to Roos in Australia. I come back on and say “Ohh Jacs, tell you what Lil’ Roo here just said he can loan us the money to go, hell I can wire you the money right now and you can hop a plane to Reno Nevada, we have some planning to do. Can you get the time off work?” I add sounding hopeful.

“Screw work, but Arls, I can’t take Wyat’s money. I have some Tim-money still owed; I will just have to swallow my pride and go ask him for it. I just have to get there. This is going to be so good.”

”Hell yeah, it’s going to be good” I add “But until you get the Tim-money, let me at least send you a plane ticket, we have ...”Then I laugh “Lots to plan out in the next two weeks.”

I felt really bad taking money from her brother, but I knew I would pay it back. “Okay, but I am going to pay you back, I swear it, even if I have to work every dodgy job I can find. Ohh Arls, this is going to just be unreal.”

”Hell yeah, okay expect the ticket coming soon, hell I will order it now” I say tapping on the keyboard and bringing up the convention web page, I send her the link and say “Check this out, here’s the itinerary for the convention.”

I waited impatiently for the link to open, my stomach all a flutter. I could hear her banging away on the keyboard and it all seemed so unreal. Of course I knew about the convention, there wasn’t a Pretender fan on the net that didn’t. I was always insanely jealous of the Americans, never thinking I would manage to get over there. Last year when Arls had told me all about it, I was green with envy, but happy that she had got to go. The link took forever to open but it finally did. I scrolled through it very quickly “Oh Arls, this is going to be so good. I can’t wait. It says here you can get a photo taken with him and get autographs and then there is a Q & A.” I could barely contain my excitement. I skimmed through it quickly; not really reading it at all, my main concern was Jarod.

”And...” I begin slowly I was saving the best part for last “Guess what else these tickets are good for?”

“What?” I say very slowly, I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was about to drop some kind of bombshell. Our damn connection was not very good and she was fading in and out. Damn the pond, I thought to myself. “Come on Arls, what is it?” I couldn’t even begin to imagine what more the tickets could contain.

”If you scroll down the page a bit....well, just check out the last part, remember last year when I said I got to go to a special dinner with the stars...drinks, food all that jazz....” I go quiet for a moment and just let her read. “You and I are going to get to go to one of those events with the stars…with your Michael.”

“Arls!!!! You are kidding me right?!” I practically squeal into the headset and in my excitement, pulling the broken Ethernet cable out of the comp, losing my connection. “Shit shit shit” I curse, fumbling for the lead to plug back in. “Come on connect.” I tell the screen as I wait for the connection to re-establish. I’ve been telling myself for weeks to buy a new cable.

”Shit damn Grozit!” I growl to myself when I lose her voice “Fuck it, I have long distance I am gonna ring you up Jacs hold on” I call her on the telephone and after a moment she picks up still squealing with excitement “Now then, when can you be packed and ready to go?”

“Arls, I got my connection back right now. As soon as possible, we got planning to do, and we need to do a marathon to get in the mood, is Donovan going to be there too?” I asked, knowing that she loved Kyle. Would never understand how she could think Kyle was better than Jarod, but that was okay by me. Just meant more Jarod for me. I had been too excited to read the itinerary properly.

I just giggle; Jeffrey Donovan was one of my favorite actors of all time. “Oh yeah he’ll be there, don’t think I could pass up meeting him do you?” I sigh with happy contentment at the mere thought of actually meeting him in person “He’s gonna be at the dinner with Weiss as well” I say as I start looking up more crap on the net and then tell her “I just made us reservations at the Las Vegas Hilton, shit Jacs this is gonna rock”

“It is, my god, I can’t wait. Let me hang up and we can Buddy on mic again, this time I won’t pull the cord out” It was costing too much money on the phone. While we waited for the connection again, I was typing furiously. This was going to be incredible.

”Ohh Jacs bring along all your Pretender DVDs” I say when Buddy comes back on line “When we get to my place we can pull an all nighter, If you can catch a flight out tomorrow I’ll pick ya up at the airport in Reno.”

“That is a done deal” I tell her, my mind going at a hundred miles an hour. “I will burn them all for you so that you can toss all those crappy copies of yours. We start with all our fave eps. I got dibs on Red Rock” I tell her, knowing her choice will be Dragon House before she even says it.

I laugh and say “Agreed, damn I love the net, just bought you an airline ticket online, check your e-mail, but your flight leaves at 4 AM tomorrow morning your time, god please tell me you got your passport fixed up?”

“It’s good to go until Feb. Just got a notice saying it was running out, but it’s all good....ho...Email coming through.” I tell her as my comp beeps at me to tell me an email has arrived.” I open my mail to see confirmation of the ticket purchase. “Holy shit Arls!” I exclaim. “We really are going to do this.” I have been talking about going to a convention for years, and now it was finally going to happen.

”Hell yeah, I hate the gay ass msn messenger and the shit site and that wanker Steve, but gotta love it as well cus I got to meet you” I am still giggling “I am gonna borrow my brother’s dodgy truck and I’ll be waiting for you at the airport terminal when you get in”

MSN messenger had been acting up for weeks, ever since the three minute maintenance upgrades that took six hours. We had downloaded every damn IM program we could find to replace the faulty MSN and finally settled on Buddy, which worked intermittently. I had to admit, I did not look at the shit site anymore, my first Internet experience that had started out very good, but turned very sour in the end. But I had met Arls through that group, so it was all worthwhile. It was about 4 in the morning here, but I knew I wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight. I had never pulled so many all-nighters since I had discovered the net, but it was all worth it. I printed out the ticket receipt.

I feel like I am about to burst from all the excitement “You best get to packing Jacs, cus we are finally going to get to meet each other in person yey!!” Now I am squealing again “I’ll let you get ready and I’ll see you soon, nighters from the USA Jacs”

“Byers, you be good, and I will be on the plane in less than 24 hours.” I had been talking to Arls for just under a year, practically everyday, but it was going to be very weird finally meeting her. I was quite nervous really, but that was completely overshadowed by excitement. I finally turned the computer off and started to think about everything I would need to do. I had only a day to prepare, and would probably crash big time this afternoon. I had lessons to cancel and things to pack, DVDs to burn.

I shut down the computer but pace the room nervously, my brothers, endearingly called “The Mob of Roo’s” are wondering why I can’t wipe the grin off my face. I sputter out as best I can that Jacs and I were finally gonna meet and that we were going to be heading to Las Vegas for a Pretender convention. I finally try to get some sleep but all I can think about is the convention and meeting Jacs, the night seems to last forever as I toss and turn restlessly in my bed, but soon the morning sun wakes me up.

I get everything packed in record time and ring the airlines to confirm the ticket. It is winter over there now, I remind myself and it will be great to get away from this infernal heat. Not having slept yet, I duck down to the shopping centre to buy some stupid Aussie things. I have always found it ironic, that the best place to go to for Aussie memorabilia is the dodgy Chinese stores. There is something inherently wrong about buying a boomerang that has ‘Made in China’ printed in tiny letters on the back. But I find myself buying little stuffed koalas and kangaroos for the Americans. Wyat, Arls little brother has recently become obsessed with the Australian outback and kangaroos. I buy everything I can find, hoping that her brothers will enjoy them. I make a mental not to myself that I must disabuse the Americans of the notion that we all have Roo’s and dingoes running wild in our backyards and clarify, once and for all, that Australians DO NOT throw shrimp on the barbi. We call them prawns.