Honey Moon (5 page)

"How's she supposed to get there?"

"I'm afraid that's your problem," she replied coldly as she passed the material she was holding over to Honey. "The pageant isn't responsible for transportation. I think you'll have to agree that we have been more than reasonable about this entire situation. Please wish Chantal good luck from all of us."

Honey took the papers as if she were doing Miss Waring a favor and sauntered out of the office. But once she reached the hallway, her bravado collapsed. She didn't have nearly enough money for plane tickets. How was she going to get Chantal to Los Angeles?

As she stepped onto the escalator, she tried to take courage from the lesson of Black Thunder. There was always hope.

* * *

"I think you have finally lost what's left of your mind, Honey Jane Moon,"

Chantal said. "That truck couldn't make it to the state line, let alone all the way to California."

The battered old pickup that stood near Sophie's trailer was the only vehicle left in the park. The body had once been red, but it had been patched with gray putty so many times that little of its original paint job remained. Because Honey was worried about exactly the same thing, she turned on Chantal.

"You're never gonna get anywhere in life if you keep being such a negative thinker. You've got to have a positive attitude toward the challenges life throws at you. Besides, Buck just put in a new alternator. Now load that suitcase in the back while I try one more time to talk to Sophie."

"But Honey, I don't want to go to California."

Honey ignored the whine in her cousin's voice. "That's just too bad, 'cause you're going. Get in that truck and wait for me."

Sophie was lying on the couch watching her Monday evening television shows.

Honey knelt on the floor and touched her aunt's hand, running a gentle finger over the swollen knuckles. She knew that Sophie didn't like being touched, but sometimes she couldn't help herself.

"Sophie, you've got to change your mind and come with us. I don't want to leave you here by yourself. Besides, when those TV people offer Chantal that part on The Dash Coogan Show, they're gonna want

to talk to her mama."

Sophie's eyes remained focused on the flickering screen. "I'm afraid I'm too tired to go anywhere, Honey. Besides, Cinnamon and Shade are getting married this week."

Honey could barely contain her frustration. "This is real life, Sophie, not a soap opera. We have to make plans for our future. The bank owns the park now, and you're not going to be able to go on living here much longer."

Sophie's lids formed saggy canopies over her small eyes as she looked at Honey for the first time. Honey automatically searched her face for some small sign of affection, but, as usual, she saw nothing there except disinterest and weariness. "The bank didn't say anything about me moving out, so I think I'll just stay right where I am."

She attempted one final plea. "We need you, Sophie. You know how Chantal is. What if some boy tries to get fresh with her?"

"You'll take care of him," Sophie said wearily. "You'll take care of everything.

You always do."

* * *

By early Wednesday afternoon, Honey was sick with fatigue. Her eyes were as dry as the Oklahoma prairie that stretched endlessly on both sides of the road, and her head had begun rolling forward without warning. A horn blared and her eyes snapped open. She jerked the wheel just before she slid over the double yellow line.

They had been on the road since Monday evening, but they hadn't even made it to Oklahoma City. They'd lost the muffler near Birmingham, sprung a leak in a water hose just past Shreveport, and had the same tire patched twice. Honey didn't believe in negative thinking, but her emergency cash supply was dwindling more rapidly than she had imagined it could, and she knew she couldn't drive much longer without sleep.

On the other side of the cab, Chantal slept like a baby, her cheeks flushed from the heat, strands of black hair whipping out the open window.

"Chantal, wake up."

Chantal's mouth puckered like an infant's in search of a nipple. Her breasts flattened under her white tank top as she stretched. "What's wrong?"

"You're going to have to drive for a while. I've got to get some sleep."

"Driving makes me nervous, Honey. Just pull off at one of the roadside stops and take a nap."

"We have to keep going or we'll never make it to Los Angeles by eight o'clock tomorrow morning. We're already way behind schedule."

"I don't want to drive, Honey. It makes me too nervous."

Honey considered pressing the issue and then decided against it. The last time she had made Chantal drive, her cousin had complained so much that Honey couldn't sleep anyway. Once again the truck wove toward the yellow line. She shook her head, trying to clear it, and then slammed on the brakes as she spotted the hitchhiker.

"Honey, what are you doing?"

"Never you mind."

She pulled over to the side and climbed out of the truck, leaving the motor running so she wouldn't have to go through all the work of starting it up again.

She stepped over a torn rubber boot as she made her way down the shoulder of the interstate. The hitchhiker walked toward her carrying an old gray duffel bag.

She had no intention of endangering Chantal by picking up a pervert, so she studied him carefully. He was in his early twenties, a pleasant-faced boy with shaggy brown hair, a scraggly mustache, and sleepy eyes. His chin was a little weak, but she decided that she couldn't fault him for something that might be more of a reflection of his ancestors than his character.

She noted the fatigue pants he was wearing with his T-shirt and asked hopefully, "Are you military?"

"Naw. Not me."

Her eyes narrowed. "A college boy?"

"I spent a semester at Iowa State, but I flunked out."

She gave a small, approving nod. "Where are you on your way to?"

"Albuquerque, I guess."

He looked harmless, but so did all those serial killers she read about in Chantal's National
Enquirer.
"Did you ever drive a pickup?"

"Sure. Tractors, too. My folks are farmers. They got a place not far from Dubuque."

"My name's Honey Jane Moon."

He blinked his eyes. "Kind of a funny name."

"Yeah? Well, I didn't happen to choose it, so I'd appreciate it if you kept your opinions to yourself."

"Okay by me. I'm Gordon Delaweese."

She knew she had to make up her mind, and she couldn't afford a mistake.

"You go to church, Gordon?"

"Naw. Not any more. I used to be Methodist, though."

Methodist wasn't as good as Baptist, but it would have to do. She shoved her thumb in the pocket of her jeans and glared at him, letting him see right off who was boss. "Me and my cousin Chantal are on our way to California so Chantal can get a part in a TV show. We're driving straight through and we've got to be there by eight o'clock tomorrow morning or we're going to miss what's looking like our last chance at self-respect. You try anything funny and I'll kick your ass right out of that track. You understand me?"

Gordon nodded in a vague way that made her think he might not be any brighter than Chantal. She led him to the truck and when they got there told him he was driving.

He looked down at her and scratched his chest. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Almost twenty. And I just got out of prison last week for shooting a man in the head, so if you know what's good for you, you won't give me any trouble."

He didn't say anything after that, just tossed his duffel bag behind the seat and blinked a few times when he saw Chantal. Honey climbed in on the passenger side, putting Chantal in the middle. He worked the truck into gear and chugged out onto the highway. Honey was asleep within seconds.

* * *

Several hours later something woke her up, and when she saw the way Gordon Delaweese and Chantal Booker were making eyes at each other, she realized that she had made a big mistake.

"You sure are pretty," Gordon said, his skin taking on a rosy flush beneath his tan as he gazed over at Chantal.

Her elbow was propped up on the back of the seat and she was leaning toward him like a cottonwood in the wind. "I admire a man with a mustache."

"You do? I was thinking about shaving it off."

"Oh, no, don't. It makes you look just like Mr. Burt Reynolds."

Honey's eyelids sprang the rest of the way open.

Chantal's voice was breathless with admiration. "I think it's exciting how you're hitchhiking all over the country just so you can experience life."

"I figure you've got to see everything if you're going to be an artist," Gordon replied. He pulled into the left lane to pass an old clunker that was making nearly as much noise as their pickup.

"I never met a painter before."

Honey didn't like the soft, mushy quality in Chantal's voice. They didn't need any more complications. Why did her cousin have to fall for every boy she met? She decided the time had come to interrupt.

"That's not true, Chantal. What about that man who came to the park to paint the mural over the House of Horror?"

"That's not real art," Chantal scoffed. "Gordon's a real artist."

Honey liked the mural over the House of Horror, but her tastes in art tended to be more catholic than most people's. Gordon sent another prurient glance in Chantal's direction, and Honey made up her mind to bring him down to size.

"How many pictures have you painted, Gordon?"

"I don't know."

"More than a hundred?"

"Not that many."

"More than fifty?"

"Probably not."

Honey snorted. "I don't see how you can call yourself a painter if you haven't even painted fifty pictures."

"It's quality that counts," Chantal said. "Not how many."

"Since when did you turn into such a big art authority, Chantal Booker? I know for a fact that the only paintings you ever pay any attention to are ones of naked people."

"Don't let Honey hurt your feelings, Gordon. She gets moods sometimes."

Honey wanted to order him to pull over to the shoulder of the road right that minute and get his weak chin out of her truck, but she knew that she needed him if she wanted to arrive in Los Angeles in time for that audition, so she held her tongue.

She wasn't anxious to take over the driving quite yet, but she couldn't stand watching the two of them drooling over each other so she pulled out the papers that Monica Waring had given her. They contained handwritten directions to the studio, as well as a short summary of
The Dash Coogan Show
. She studied it.

Rollicking laugh-a-minute humor results as ex-rodeo rider Dash Jones (Dash Coogan) marries beautiful East Coast socialite Eleanor Chadwick (Liz Castleberry) and they discover that love is funnier the second time around. He has a yen for country life, while she favors fancy cocktail parties. To complicate matters, his beautiful teenage daughter Celeste (to be cast) and Eleanor's almost-grown son Blake (Eric Dillon) form an attraction for each other. All of them discover that love is funnier the second time around.

Honey found herself wondering who wrote stuff like "rollicking laugh-a-minute humor."
The Dash Coogan Show
didn't sound all that funny to her, but since she couldn't afford to be critical, she told herself that Mr. Coogan wouldn't be part of something that was garbage.

She had never been enamored of movie stars, not like Chantal, but she had always cherished a secret admiration for Dash Coogan. Ever since she was a kid, she had watched his movies. Now that she thought about it, however, she realized it had been a long time since he'd made a new one. Cowboy movies didn't seem to be too popular anymore.

A sliver of excitement crept through her. She wasn't one to be impressed by movie stars, but wouldn't it be something if she actually got the chance to meet ol' Dash Coogan when she went to Hollywood? Now wouldn't that be something.

3

Honey shoved Chantal's best sundress through the partially opened door of the Shell station's rest room. "Hurry up, Chantal. It's almost eleven o'clock. The auditions started three hours ago."

Honey's old Myrtle Beach Fun in the Sun T-shirt was stuck to her chest with nervous sweat. She rubbed her damp palms on her shorts and nervously watched the traffic go by.

"Chantal, hurry up!" Her stomach was pumping bile. What if the auditions were already over? The truck had broken down on the San Bernardino Freeway, and then Chantal and Gordon had had a lover's quarrel right there on the shoulder of the road. Honey had begun to feel as if she were stuck in one of those nightmares where she was trying to get someplace but couldn't make it. "If you don't hurry up, Chantal, we're going to miss the audition."

"I feel like I'm getting ready to start my period," Chantal whined from the other side of the door.

"I'm sure they've got rest rooms where we're going."

"What if they don't have one of those Tampax machines? Then what am I going to do?"

"I'll go out and buy you some damned Tampax! Chantal, if you don't come out here right this minute ..."

The door opened and Chantal came through, looking as fresh and pretty in her white sundress as if she'd just stepped out of a magazine ad for Tide laundry detergent. "You don't have to shout."

"I'm sorry. I'm just edgy." Honey grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the truck.

Gordon had followed Honey's orders and kept the pickup running. Honey pushed him out of the way and climbed behind the wheel herself. She peeled out of the parking lot and turned into the traffic, ignoring a light that was more red than yellow. She had never been in a city larger than Charleston, and the noise and bustle of Los Angeles was terrifying, but she didn't have time to give in to her fears. Another thirty minutes passed before she found the studio off one of Burbank's cross streets. She had expected something glamorous, but the high concrete walls made the place look like a prison. More time passed before the guard finally cleared them and they were permitted to drive inside.