Honey Moon (21 page)

Air Time

1983

12

Liz Castleberry's Fourth of July beach party was in full swing when Honey arrived. She wedged the silver Mercedes Benz 380 SL she had purchased after the show's third season onto the side of the road between a Jag and an Alfa Romeo. As she stepped down onto the sandy soil, she heard the bang of a firecracker exploding from the beach on the other side of the house. This was the first of Liz's party invitations Honey had accepted, and then only because it was informal and because Dash was going to be here.

Slinging the faded denim slouch bag that contained her bathing suit over her shoulder, she locked the car. Three years ago last month she had arrived in Los Angeles, but she felt decades older than that sixteen-year-old girl. Thinking back, she decided the horrible day toward the end of the second season when Eric Dillon had humiliated her in that phony fantasy love scene was what had finally forced her to grow up. At least the experience had put an end to the childish crush she'd had on him. No one, not even Dash, knew how much the memory of that day still made her cringe.

As she approached the beach house, she found herself wondering what the new season held in store for her. They would begin shooting at the end of the month for the show's fourth year, and the producers were finally going to permit Janie to turn fifteen. It was about time, since she would be twenty in December.

After the painful adjustments of the first two seasons, last season had been relatively uneventful. She

had gotten along well with the crew, stayed away from Eric, and deepened her friendship with Liz Castleberry. But her relationship with Dash had been the most important change in her life.

She spent a lot of her spare time on the set with him, as well as nearly every Saturday at the ranch, doing chores and helping out with the horses. Not only did she love being with him, but the work gave her a convenient excuse to get away from the new house in Pasadena that Chantal had nagged her into buying because she insisted it would help Gordon get back to his painting. It hadn't helped, a fact that didn't surprise Honey at all. She liked the house much better than that awful place in Topanga Canyon, but it certainly didn't feel like home.

For one thing, Buck Ochs was still in residence, and for another, her relationship with Sophie hadn't improved at all.

Shaking off depressing thoughts of her family, she approached the front entrance of Liz's beach house. The house was deeper than it was wide, with salt-weathered gray siding and salmon shutters. A small garden lay off to one side, along a low stone retaining wall that marked the boundary of the neighboring house, where Guy Isabella's daughter Lilly lived. The walk was tiled in a fish-scale pattern and edged

with clusters of crimson and white impatiens.

As she approached the front door, she hesitated. After three years in L.A., she still hadn't been to that many parties. She wasn't comfortable at social functions because she was always afraid she'd use the wrong fork and because everyone seemed so sophisticated. Besides, Ross's lie about how old she was had taken hold, and the few times she had tried to convince people of her real age, they hadn't believed her.

She rang the bell, and a sunburned middle-aged man in bathing trunks let her in. The hairy patch on his chest looked like a map of Indiana.

He threw up his hands. "Honey! Hi, I'm Crandall. I love, love, love your show.

It's absolutely the only thing I watch on television. You should have won last year."

"Thanks." She wished people would stop bringing up her Emmy nomination.

She hadn't won—a fact her agent attributed to her continuing refusal to take any of the other acting parts that were offered her. Eric had won two years in a row. The movies he had filmed during the last few hiatuses were turning him into a major box-office star, and it was no secret that he was going to break his contract so he could make movies full time.

"Lizzie's out on the deck," Crandall said, leading her through a white-tiled entryway decorated with misty impressionistic paintings.

The living room was filled with people in various forms of casual wear, from bathing suits to slacks, everything stylish and expensive compared to her khaki shorts and Nike T-shirt. Liz had been nagging her to dress better, but Honey didn't have the talent for it. She moved past overstuffed sofas and chairs upholstered in baby blue and pale salmon toward a wall of windows that provided a panoramic view of the sea. The room smelled of barbecue, suntan lotion, and Chloe.

Liz came through a set of French doors that opened onto the deck and made her way toward Honey. Puckering her lips, she blew a kiss into the air somewhere near her costar's ear.

"You actually showed up. Happy Fourth of July, darling. Dash told me he'd ordered you to appear, but

I didn't believe you'd really do it."

"Is he here yet?" Honey gazed hopefully through the sophisticated crowd, only a few members of which she recognized, but she didn't spot him.

"I imagine he'll be along." Liz stared at Honey's hair. "I can't believe that it's actually starting to curl. Evelyn told me you've been letting her work with it.

You're beginning to look like a woman instead of a grade-school bully."

Honey had too much pride to let Liz see how much she liked her new hair. On the final day of shooting last March, Liz had ordered Evelyn to soften the blunt edges and feather back the bangs. At first, since the hair was so short, Honey hadn't seen much of an improvement, but as it had grown these past four months and Evelyn had continued to touch it up, it now curled softly around her face and brushed the slopes of her jaw.

"But you still look so young," Liz complained. "And you dress like an absolute infant. Look at those shorts. They're too big, and the color is putrid. You don't have any style at all."

Honey had grown used to Liz's blunt judgments, and she was merely annoyed instead of angry. "Why don't you give up, Liz? You'll never make me into a fashion plate. I don't have the talent for it."

"Well, I do, and I can't imagine why you won't let me take you shopping."

"I'm not interested in clothes."

"You should be." Before Honey could protest, Liz was whipping her through the crowd and up a narrow circular staircase into a pink and rose bedroom that reminded Honey of an expensive flower garden. Chintz draperies were tied back from the windows with tasseled cords, and sea-green carpeting covered the floor. One corner held a watered-silk chaise, another an ornate armoire made of bleached oak. A misty pastel fabric that looked as if it had been painted by Cezanne draped the double bed. Honey spotted a pair of masculine cufflinks on the table next to it, but as much as she would have enjoyed hearing the details of Liz's love life, she had always restrained herself from asking.

Liz opened one of the louvered closet doors and began to dig around inside.

"You'd have more confidence in yourself if you dressed your age."

"I have lots of confidence. I'm the most independent person I know. I take care of my family, and I—"

"Confidence in yourself as a woman, darling. It's the most amazing coincidence

—" She pulled out a navy sack with crimson lettering. "I bought this for myself last week in a little boutique just off Rodeo, but when I got home, I realized I'd picked up the wrong size. I'll bet this would fit you perfectly."

"I brought a suit with me," Honey said stubbornly.

"And I can just imagine what it looks like."

Honey's hand clamped over the top of the slouch bag that contained the old red tank suit the maid at the Beverly Hills Hotel had bought for her the week she'd arrived in L.A.

Liz shoved the sack at her and fluttered her hand toward the bathroom. "Try it on. You can always take

it off if you don't like it."

Honey hesitated and then decided if she tried on the suit she could at least postpone going back downstairs for awhile. Maybe by then Dash would have arrived and she wouldn't have to face so many strangers by herself.

The bathroom looked like a tropical grotto complete with lush flowering plants, a sunken pink marble tub, and gold faucets shaped like dolphins. She peeked into the sack. Tucked inside the folds of tissue paper lay a skimpy bikini in a soft peach-and-white Hawaiian print along with a short wrap skirt in the same fabric. She pulled out the separate pieces. They were certainly prettier than her red tank suit, but she didn't like the idea of letting Liz manipulate her. She began to stuff the suit back into the sack, but hesitated. What was the harm in trying it on? Slipping out of her clothes, she donned the separate parts of the bikini and turned to assess herself in the beveled mirror that lined the wall behind the tub.

She hated to admit it, but Liz was right. The suit fit her perfectly. The under-wire top made the most of her small breasts by pushing them together just enough to give her a hint of cleavage. The bottom covered up everything important and was cut high enough on the sides to make her legs look longer.

Still, she wasn't used to having so much of herself exposed. She opened the short, sarong-style skirt, looking for the clasp. When she found it, she wrapped it around her waist and fastened it on the left side. It fell low on her hips, just revealing her navel.

With the curling halo of her hair, her enhanced bust line, and her navel peeking out over the top of the skirt, even she had to admit she looked a little bit sexy.

"Knock, knock. I hope you're decent." The door swung open, and before Honey could respond, Liz had entered and clipped a pair of gold hoops to her earlobes.

"You really need to get your ears pierced."

Honey touched the swaying hoops. "I can't go swimming with these on."

"Why on earth would you want to swim? I haven't been in the ocean in years.

At least you're wearing a decent shade of lipstick, but I think a dab of mascara would be lovely."

Liz pushed her down onto a stool, whisked some pale peach blusher over her cheeks, and then dabbed

at her lashes with light-brown mascara.

"There. Now you look your age. Whatever you do, don't go near the water."

Honey stared at the gold hoops shimmering through the honey-colored tendrils at her ears and studied the soft, flattering makeup. Even her mouth was sexy.

She looked like herself, and yet not like herself. Older, more mature. Much prettier. Her reflection was disconcerting. She liked the way she looked, and yet the young woman in the mirror wasn't altogether a person she could respect.

She was a bit too soft, too feminine, not nearly tough enough to fight life's battles.

Liz must have sensed her indecision because she spoke quietly. "It's time to grow up, Honey. You're nineteen years old. You need to come out of your cocoon and start discovering who you are."

Awareness hit her, and Honey jumped up from the stool. "You set me up, didn't you? You didn't buy that bathing suit for yourself. You bought it for me." She snatched up the tube of light-brown mascara. "And why would someone with lashes as dark as yours happen to have this lying around?"

Liz didn't even look guilty. "I've been bored lately, and I must admit the challenge of transforming you into a reasonable facsimile of a young woman has its appeal. Of course Ross is going to have a coronary when he sees you, but that's his problem. All this secrecy about your age is ridiculous."

Honey shook her head. "You're a complete fraud."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"That bitch-goddess act you put on."

"It's not an act. I'm ruthless and unscrupulous. Ask anyone."

Honey smiled. "Dash tells everybody you're a pussycat."

"Oh, he does, does he?" Liz laughed, but then gradually her amusement faded.

"You've seen a lot of Dash this past year, haven't you?"

"I like the ranch. I go out there on weekends. We ride and talk, and I help out in the stable. That housekeeper of his doesn't know how to fix the kind of food he likes. Sometimes I cook for him."

"Honey, Dash is— He can be hard on people who care about him. I don't think he means to, but he can't seem to help it. Don't make up too many fatherly fantasies about him. He only lets people so close before he pushes them away."

"I know. I think it's because of his childhood."

"His childhood?"

"He spent a lot of time in foster homes. As soon as he got attached to somebody, they'd make him move someplace else. After a while, I guess he decided it was better not to get close to anybody."

Liz stared at her in astonishment. "He told you all that?"

"Not exactly. You know how he is. But he's said a few things here and there, and I've sort of drawn my own conclusions. When you're an orphan yourself, it's not too hard to recognize the symptoms in somebody else. Dash and I have handled our situations differently, though. He doesn't attach himself to anybody, and I attach myself to just about everybody."

She looked down at her hands, embarrassed to have said so much. "My mouth is getting away from me again. It's like a disease."

Liz studied her for a moment before linking her hand through Honey's arm.

"We'd better get back to the party. I have the most wonderful young man I want you to meet. He's the son of an old friend—cute, smart, and only a little bit arrogant. The best part—he's not in the business."

"Oh, I don't think—"

"Don't be a baby. It's time to test your wings. Not to mention the effect of that sexy outfit."

Ignoring Honey's reluctance, Liz led her downstairs. Honey was disappointed to see that Dash hadn't yet arrived. Lately, he'd been getting a little too bossy with her, and she couldn't wait to see how he reacted to her appearance. It was about time she showed him that she wasn't a child anymore.

Liz began introducing her to the other guests, and people greeted her with varying degrees of surprise.

"You look a lot younger on television, Honey."

"I hardly recognized you."

"How old are you, anyway?"

Ross appeared next to her just as this blunt inquiry was being made and quickly whisked her away. He had gained a few pounds over the summer and his stomach, visible beneath an open terry-cloth wrap,