Las Vegas Weekly

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My first visit to CityCenter was blessed with a vision. Reader, I saw her, an apparition in a jewelry-store window.

Mesmerized by the diamonds, I saw a tiny figure materialize in the glass reflection. “Marie?” I hesitantly whispered. Because it’s strange to find a childhood TV crush next to you at the mall. And because Marie’s a first-name-basis kind of girl.

After scanning me for stalker-likelihood, she acknowledged she was herself, and I reminded her that we had met before.

In fact she had kissed me—squarely, center forehead—during one of my, um, four viewings of Donny & Marie at the Flamingo. Marie squeezed me and brought me up to speed on her day: waking up in her Green Valley home, feeding the homeless, followed by “retail therapy” with her co-ghost writer, who’s helping her on her third book (spoiler alert: Christmas theme); later, she’d join the newly-crowned Dancing With the Stars winner for that night’s show.

I took the Marie sighting as a good omen for CityCenter. But I had blown her cover—she was quickly surrounded by tourists bearing flip cams. She didn’t seem to mind at all.