Authors: Susan Elizabeth Phillips
The final choices from the seven-city talent search will be flown to Los Angeles for a personal screen test with Mr. Coogan. Moviegoers will remember Dash Coogan for his many roles as the
star of over 20 westerns including
Lariat
and
Alamo Sunset,
his most famous. This will be his first television show. All of us are hoping that our own Miss Paxawatchie County will be portraying his daughter.
Chantal interrupted her thoughts. "See, the thing of it is—I want to
marry
a movie star. Not
be
one."
Honey ignored her. "Right now what you want doesn't mean spit. We're pretty close to being desperate, and that means we have to make our own opportunities. Idleness is the beginning of a long slide into the welfare system, and that's where we're going to end up if we don't force things to happen." She hugged her knees, and her voice dropped nearly to a whisper. "I got this feeling way down deep in my stomach, Chantal. I can hardly explain it, but I just got this strong feeling that those TV people are going to take one look at you and they're going to make you a star."
Chantal's sigh was so prolonged it seemed to come from her toes. "Sometimes you make my head spin, Honey. You must take after that college boy who was your daddy because you sure don't take after any of us."
"We have to keep our family together," Honey said fiercely. "Sophie's useless, and I'm too young to get
a decent job. You're our only hope, Chantal. Ever since you started modeling at Dundee's Department Store, it's been evident that you're the best chance this family's got. If the Disney people won't buy this park, we have to have another plan to fall back on. The three of us are a family. We can't let anything happen to our family."
But Chantal had gotten distracted by the night sky and dreams of marrying a movie star, and she wasn't listening.
2
"And our new Miss Paxawatchie County, 1980, is ... Chantal Booker!"
Honey leapt to her feet with a bloodcurdling yell that rose above the applause of the audience. The loudspeaker blared out "Give My Regards to Broadway"
and Laura Liskey, last year's Miss Paxawatchie County, placed the crown on Chantal's head. Chantal gave her vague smile. The crown slipped to the side, but she didn't notice.
Honey jumped up and down, clapping and hollering. This miserable week was having a happy ending after all. Chantal had won the title, despite the fact that her baton twirling was the worst talent routine anyone had seen since three years ago when Mary Ellen Ballinger had tap-danced to "Jesus Christ Superstar." Chantal had dropped the baton on every double reverse and left out half of her grand finale, but she had looked so pretty that nobody cared. And she had done better than Honey had expected during the question and answer part. When she had been asked about her plans for the future, she had dutifully announced that she wanted to be either a speech and hearing therapist or a missionary, just as Honey had told her to. Honey didn't suffer a single pang of conscience over insisting on the lie. It was a lot better than having Chantal announce to the world that what she really wanted out of life was to marry Burt Reynolds.
As Honey applauded, she breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving that she had been smart enough to abandon the fire baton. Chantal would have done more damage to Paxawatchie County with those flames than William Tecumseh Sherman's entire army.
Ten minutes later, as she made her way through the crowd to the backstage area of the high school auditorium, she determinedly ignored the clusters of families gathered everywhere beaming at the girls in their filmy dresses: plump mothers and balding fathers, aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers. She never looked at families if she could avoid it.
Never
. Some things hurt too much to be borne.
She spotted Shep Watley, the county sheriff, with his daughter Amelia. Just the sight of him crimped the edges of her excitement over ChantaPs victory.
Yesterday Shep had nailed a foreclosure sign on the front gates, closing the park down forever and making her so scared about today that she hadn't been able to sleep. Now that Chantal had won the contest, Honey told herself it didn't matter about the foreclosure or the fact that the Disney people hadn't answered any of her letters. When those television casting agents saw Chantal, they were going to fall in love with her just as the judges had. Chantal would start making lots of money, and they'd be able to buy back the park.
Here her imagination faltered. If Chantal was going to be a movie star in California, how could they all be together again at the park?
Worrying was getting to be a bad habit with her lately, and she did her best to shake it off. Her heart swelled with pride as she saw Chantal talking with Miss Monica Waring, the pageant director. Chantal looked so beautiful standing there in the white gown she'd worn to her senior prom, with the rhinestone crown perched in her inky black curls, nodding and smiling at whatever Miss Waring was telling her. The television people wouldn't be able to resist her.
"That's fine, Miss Waring," Chantal was saying as Honey approached. "I don't mind the change at all."
"You're a darling girl for being so understanding." Monica Waring, the thin, stylish woman who was both the pageant director and the executive in charge of public relations for Dundee's Department Store, looked so relieved by Chantal's response that Honey immediately grew suspicious.
"What's this?" Honey stepped forward, her instincts twitching like a rabbit's nose at the hint of danger.
Chantal's eyes shifted nervously between the two women as she reluctantly introduced them. "Miss Waring, this is my cousin, Honey Moon."
Monica Waring looked startled, as people generally did when they heard her name for the first time. "What an unusual name."
According to Sophie, when Honey was born, the nurse had told Carolann that she had a little baby girl sweet as honey, and Carolann had decided right then that she liked the name. It wasn't until the birth certificate had arrived and Honey's mother saw the whole thing in print for the first time that she realized she might have made a mistake.
Since Honey didn't want anybody to think that her mother was stupid, she gave her usual response. "It's
a family name. Oldest daughter to oldest daughter. One Honey Moon after another all the way back to
the Revolutionary War."
"I see." If Monica Waring thought it was unusual that so many generations of childbearing women had never changed their last name, she gave no indication.
Turning to Chantal, she patted her arm. "Congratulations again, dear. And I'll take care of the changes on Monday."
"What changes would those be?" Honey asked before Miss Waring could walk away.
"Uh—Jimmy McCully and his friends are waving at me," Chantal said nervously. "I'd better go say hi to them." Before Honey could stop her, she slipped away.
Miss Waring glanced past Honey. "I've explained our little mix-up to Chantal, but I did want to speak with Mrs. Booker personally."
"My Aunt Sophie isn't here. She's suffering from—uh— gall bladder, and what with the pain and everything, she has to stay at home. I'm sort of
in
loco
parentis
, if you know what I mean."
Miss Waring's skillfully penciled eyebrows shot up. "Aren't you a little young to be
in
loco parentis?
"
"Nineteen on my last birthday," Honey replied.
Miss Waring looked skeptical but didn't press the issue. "I was explaining to Chantal that we've had to make a slight change in the prize for the winner.
We're still offering the overnight trip to Charleston, but instead of the television show audition we're hiring a limousine to take the winner and a guest of her choice on a city tour followed by a marvelous dinner at a four-star restaurant.
And of course Chantal will have the customary make-over at Dundee's Department Store."
The backstage area was hot from the press of people, but Honey felt cold chills racing through her bloodstream. "No! The first prize is an audition for
The
Dash Coogan Show!
"
"I'm afraid that's no longer possible. Through no fault of Dundee's, I might add.
Apparently the casting people have had to move up their schedule—although I do think they could have notified me earlier than yesterday afternoon. Instead of coming to Charleston next Wednesday as scheduled, they're going to be in Los Angeles holding final auditions for the girls they've already picked."
"They're not coming to Charleston? They can't do that! How are they going to see Chantal?"
"I'm sorry, but they're not going to see Chantal. They found enough girls in Texas to call off the search."
"But you don't understand, Miss Waring. I know they would choose Chantal for the part if they just had
a chance to see her."
"I'm afraid I'm not as confident as you. Chantal is quite beautiful, but the competition for the part has been enormous."
Honey immediately leapt to her cousin's defense. "Are you blaming her just because she dropped the baton? That was all my idea. She's a natural actress. I should have let her do that Quality of Mercy speech from
The Merchant of
Venice
like she wanted, but, no, I had to make her twirl that stupid baton.
Chantal's extremely talented. Katharine and Audrey Hepburn are her idols."
She knew she was sounding frantic, but she couldn't help herself. Her fear was growing by the second. This contest was the last hope they had for a decent future, and she wouldn't let them snatch it away.
"I've spoken to the casting director several times. They've seen hundreds of girls just to weed out the final group they're auditioning in Los Angeles, and the chance of Chantal having actually been the one chosen is quite slim."
Honey set her jaw and tilted up on her toes until she was nearly on the same eye level as the pageant director. "You listen to me, Miss Waring, and you listen real good. I got the contest brochure right here in my pocket. It says in black and white that the winner of Miss Paxawatchie County gets to audition for
The Dash Coogan Show
, and I intend to hold you to that. I'm giving you until Monday afternoon to make sure Chantal gets her audition. Otherwise, I'm going to get me a lawyer, and that lawyer's going to sue you. Then he's going to sue Dundee's Department Store. And then he's going to sue every Paxawatchie County official who even came within a mile of this pageant."
"Honey—"
"I'll be at the store at four o'clock on Monday afternoon." She pointed her finger at Monica Waring's chest. "Unless you've got some positive news for me, that'll be the last time you see me without the meanest sonovabitch the courts of South Carolina have ever seen walking right by my side."
Honey's bravado collapsed on the ride home. She didn't have the money to hire a lawyer. How could anyone at the store take her threat seriously?
But there was no place in her life for negative thinking, so she spent all day Sunday and most of Monday trying to convince herself that her bluff would work. Nothing made people more nervous than the threat of a lawsuit, and Dundee's Department Store wasn't going to want bad publicity. But no matter how much she tried to encourage herself, she felt as if her dreams for their future were sinking right along with the
Bobby Lee
.
* * *
Monday afternoon arrived. Despite her mental bravado, Honey was nearly sick with nervousness by the time she located Monica Waring's office on the third floor of Dundee's. As she stood in the doorway and peered in, she saw a small room dominated by a steel desk covered with neat stacks of paper. Promotional posters and store ads were lined up on a cork bulletin board that hung opposite the office's single window.
Honey cleared her throat, and the pageant director glanced up from her desk, which faced the door.
"Well, look who's arrived," she said, slipping off a pair of glasses with large black plastic frames and rising from her chair.
There was a smugness in her voice that Honey didn't like at all. The pageant director came around to the front of her desk. Leaning one hip against the edge, she crossed her arms.
"You're not nineteen, Honey," she said, obviously seeing no need to beat around the bush. "You're a sixteen-year-old high-school dropout with a reputation as a troublemaker. As a minor, you have no legal authority over your cousin."
Honey told herself that facing down Miss Waring shouldn't be any harder than facing down Uncle Earl when he had a few belts of whiskey in him. She walked over to the room's only window and, acting as if she didn't have a care in the world, gazed down at the drive-in lane of the First Carolina Bank across the street.
"You sure have been busy digging into my personal life, Miss Waring," she drawled. "While you were doing that digging did you happen to discover that Chantal's mother, my aunt, Mrs. Sophie Moon Booker, is suffering from extreme craziness brought on by her sorrow over the death of her husband, Earl T. Booker?" Slowly, she turned back to the pageant director. "And did you also happen to find out that I've been running the family ever since he died? And that Mrs. Booker—who hasn't been a minor for a good twenty-five years—
pretty much does whatever I tell her, up to and including slapping this candy-ass department store with the biggest lawsuit it's ever seen?"
To Honey's amazement and delight, that speech pretty much took the wind out of Monica Waring's sails. She hemmed and hawed around for a while longer, but Honey could tell it was mainly bluster. Obviously, she had been instructed by her superiors to protect the good name of Dundee's at any cost. She asked a secretary to bring Honey a Coke, then excused herself and bustled off down the hallway. Half an hour later, she returned with several pieces of paper stapled together.
"The producers of
The Dash Coogan Show
have very graciously agreed to give Chantal a short audition in Los Angeles with the other girls on Thursday," she said stiffly. "I've written down the address of the studio and have also included the information they sent me several months ago about the program. Chantal and her chaperon need to be in Los Angeles by eight o'clock Thursday morning."