Honey Moon

Honey Moon by Susan Elizabeth Phillips Page A

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Authors: Susan Elizabeth Phillips
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trails, and you'll get lost yourself.
    Where is that vet? How could he do something like this? If your father weren't already dead, I'd kill him for leaving me this awful ranch in his will. I swear, I'll sell it to the first person who makes me a decent offer. If it weren't for this horrid place, I could be lunching at the Russian Tea Room right now with Cissy
    and Pat and Caroline!
    Pushing up the sleeves of her expensive suit, Eleanor sets off purposefully toward the barn, her head
    high, her spiked heels sinking deeply into the dirt.
    Dash stares after her. Janie, still upside down over her father's shoulder, stares at Blake. Blake notices them and walks toward Dash, his hand extended.
    BLAKE
    Hi, there. I'm Blake Chadwick. Welcome to the PDQ.
    DASH
    Dash Jones.
    BLAKE
    The new ranch manager! Am i ever glad to see you.
    DASH
    Ex-ranch manager. I'm afraid your ma and me didn't hit it off too well.
    JANIE
    (still upside down)
    Could I say something?
    DASH
    No.
    Dash stares thoughtfully toward the barn.
    Your ma doesn't look like she knows too much about horses.
    BLAKE
    (fondly)
    She's not too crazy about any animal that can't be made into a coat. She tries, but this has been
    hard on her.
    A beautiful buxom female appears in the background near the barn. She is dressed in jeans and a tight gingham blouse and calls out Blake's name.
    BLAKE
    I'll be there in a minute, Dusty.
    BLAKE turns back to Dash, who has picked up the saddle with his other arm.
    Are you sure you won't change your mind, Mr. Jones? We could really use some help.
    DASH
    I'm afraid not, son.
    BLAKE
    (with resignation)
    Yeah, you look like a man with good sense.
    Blake heads toward the barn without having acknowledged Janie's presence.
    Dash stares after Blake and slowly lowers Janie to the ground. Reluctantly, he puts down the saddle.
    DASH
    Janie?
    JANIE
    Yeah, Pop?
    DASH
    Remind me to tan your hide.
    Grimly, he sets off toward the barn.
    "And cut," the director called out. "Print it. Good work, everybody. Let's break for lunch."
    It was the last week of July and their final day of shooting the pilot episode.
    They hadn't been filming
    the show in order, and they were just now doing the opening scenes. It was a confusing way to go about things as far as Honey was concerned, but then no one had asked her opinion. They didn't ask her about anything, in fact. They just told her what to do.
    She gazed around her at the set for the PDQ ranch. They were filming all the exteriors at a former chicken ranch near the Tajunga Wash, an area in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Pasadena. The rugged slopes of the San Gabriels were covered by chaparral at the lower elevations, giving way to pine and fir as the peaks rose. Just that morning she had glimpsed desert bighorn sheep as well as a golden eagle soaring on the thermal updrafts. Most half-hour television shows were videotaped, she had learned, but since so much of The Dash Coogan Show took place outside, it was being filmed, instead, like a movie.
    "Good job, Honey." Jack Swackhammer, the director, patted her on top of her head just as if she were some damn poodle dog. He was young and skinny, and he hopped around a lot. All week he had looked as if he was getting ready to have a nervous breakdown.
    As he walked over to talk to his assistant, Honey looked after him with disgust.
    Everybody was treating her as if she were really thirteen. She shouldn't have been surprised, she supposed, considering the fact that those stupid writers kept taking her into their conference room and raping her mind.
    The first time the writers had called her in, they'd been so nice, explaining the new concept for the show and asking her opinion about everything under the sun. Since there was nothing she enjoyed more than talking, she'd been pulled in like a fool. She had sat there sucking on the can of Orange Crush they'd offered her and talked, talked, talked—too stupid to figure out that all of her opinions would become Janie's

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