NTERIOR. RANCH HOUSE LIVING ROOM—DAY.

Dash and Eleanor stand in the middle of the floor, their expressions combative.

ELEANOR

I have no respect for you. You know that, don't you?

DASH

I believe I've heard you mention it before.

ELEANOR

I admire men of education and refinement. True gentlemen.

DASH

Don't forget the necktie part.

ELEANOR

What are you talking about?

DASH

The last time we had this conversation, you said you couldn't respect a man who wasn't wearing

a suit and tie at the exact moment he died.

ELEANOR

I most certainly did not say that. I simply pointed out that I could never respect a man who doesn't even own a necktie, much less wear one.

DASH

I do so own one.

ELEANOR

It has a hula girl painted on it.

DASH

Only when you look at it straight on. From the side, it's more of a flamingo.

ELEANOR

I rest my case.

DASH

So what you're saying is that we've got a doomed relationship, is that it?

ELEANOR

Absolutely.

DASH

No hope.

ELEANOR

Not a bit.

DASH

Because we're too different.

ELEANOR

Polar opposites.

DASH

(taking a step closer)

So how's come I'm getting ready to kiss you?

ELEANOR

Because you're a crude, unprincipled cowboy.

DASH

Is that so? Then how's come you're going to kiss me right back.

ELEANOR

Because—Because I'm crazy about you.

They move into each other's arms and exchange a long, satisfying kiss. The door bangs open and Janie rushes in.

JANIE

I knew it! You're doing it again. Stop it! Stop that!

DASH

(still holding Eleanor in his arms)

I fhought you were off polishing your fingernails for that Bobby character.

JANIE

His name is Robert and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

DASH

I don't see why.

JANIE

She's just using you. Ever since Blake went off to join the air force, she's been hanging onto you like a burr. She's afraid of getting old and ending up alone. She's afraid—

DASH

(moving away from Eleanor to confront Janie)

That's enough, Jane Marie.

JANIE

The minute your back is turned, she laughs at you. I've heard her. Pop. She makes fun of you on the telephone to all her New York City friends.

ELEANOR

(together)

Janie, that's not true.

DASH

(together)

You go back to the house.

Janie regards them mutinously and then runs from the house.

Dash and Eleanor stare at the door.

ELEANOR

(quietly)

And there goes the biggest reason of all why this relationship doesn't stand a chance.

When the scene ended, Honey walked behind the cameras to retrieve her script, tugging at the rubber band that held back her ponytail and rubbing her scalp with her fingers. She had refused to let them cut her hair, and the producers had finally agreed to let Janie wear a ponytail, but they made Evelyn scrape her hair back so tightly that Honey sometimes got a headache. Even so, it was worth it. In the five months that had passed since Liz's beach party, her hair had grown long enough that it brushed the tops of her shoulders.

As she fluffed it with her fingertips, she watched Liz and Dash, who were still on the set talking quietly with each other. Jealousy gnawed at her. They were the same age, and they had once been lovers. What if the two people to whom she was the closest were slipping back into their old relationship?

One of the assistants broke up their tete-a-tete by telling Dash he had a phone call. Liz walked over to her, and Honey noticed that her lipstick was smeared slightly at one corner. She looked away.

"Have you seen that boutique catalogue I put in your dressing room this morning?" Liz asked as she picked up a bottle of mineral water. "They have the most marvelous belts."

Liz was the best female friend she had, and Honey determinedly repressed her jealousy. "I wish you'd stop tempting me. You're turning me into a shopoholic."

"Nonsense. You're just making up for lost time." Liz took a drink, holding the neck of the bottle so gracefully she might have been sipping from Baccarat.

"Clothes are starting to be an obsession," Honey sighed. "For months I've been reading every fashion magazine I can get my hands on. Last night I fell asleep dreaming about that new coral silk I bought."

She grinned ruefully. "I read Ms. magazine, and I know that femininity is a trap, but I can't seem to help myself."

"You're just trying to find some balance."

"Balance! This is the most unbalanced thing I've ever done. For the first time in my life, I can't respect myself."

"Honey, regardless of the body parts you were born with, you grew up more as a boy than a girl. Now you're simply trying to discover yourself as a woman. Sooner or later you'll be able to bring all the different parts of yourself together. You're just not ready yet. And until you are..." She lifted the mineral water bottle in a toast. "Shop till you drop." With a grin, she set off for her dressing room.

Honey picked up her script and stuffed it in a tote bag silk-screened with splashy red poppies. She knew her obsession with her physical appearance was because of Dash, but her attempts to make him look at her as a woman were failing dismally. If anything, he had become more paternal, huffing and puffing and frowning at everything she did. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't seem to please him. And playing Janie Jones five days a week didn't help. The role that had once fit so comfortably had begun to chafe.

She turned to leave the soundstage just as a pair of fingers jabbed her ribs from behind. "Damn it, Todd!"

"Hey, gorgeous. You want to run some lines with me?"

Honey glared at Todd Myers, the sixteen-year-old actor who was playing Janie's new boyfriend, Robert. He had been chosen for his well-scrubbed, ail-American looks— brown eyes and hair, round cheeks, small build so he didn't overpower her. Beneath all that apple pie, however, he was an egotistical brat. Still, in light of her own past behavior problems, she hadn't quite had the heart to rip into him.

"I wasn't planning on eating lunch today. I've got a psych paper due, and I'm going to my dressing room to finish it."

"I don't see why anybody who's making as much money as you should be wasting your time with college."

"Just a correspondence course. I've been taking them on and off ever since I finished high school. I like to learn things. It wouldn't hurt you to spend a little more time with the books."

"You sound like my old lady," he said with disgust.

"You should listen to her."

"Yeah, sure." He stuck out his arms and wiggled his hips. "So, are you ready for our big love scene this afternoon?"

"It's not a love scene. It's just a kiss. And I swear to God, Todd, if you try to French me again—" She let her threat hang in the air.

"I won't French you if you promise to go out with me this weekend. One of my friends is having a Christmas party. There'll be plenty of grass and maybe even some coke. Have you ever had a coco-puff? You take a cigarette and sprinkle it with—"

"I don't do drugs, and I'm not going out with you."

"You're still stuck on that asshole Eric Dillon, aren't you? I heard all about the way you used to hang around him. I'll bet you cry yourself to sleep every night now that he's married and he knocked up his old lady."

She gave him a silky smile. "Has anybody ever told you that you're a wonderful argument for mercy killing?"

His face grew sulky. "You should be nice to me, Honey. Otherwise I might be tempted to tell everybody the birthday you're going to celebrate tomorrow is your eighteenth instead of your seventeenth like everybody thinks."

"It's my twentieth, Todd."

"Yeah, right," he scoffed.

She gave up. Ross's lie had become so commonly accepted that few people believed the truth, not even when she flashed her driver's license. For the past six months, her face had been plastered on the covers of half the teen magazines in the country celebrating the fact that Janie had turned fifteen. The event was receiving nearly as much press as Michael Jackson's new Thrilleralbum.

Leaving Todd behind, she headed back to her dressing room to work on her psych paper. Two of the women writers broke up a whispered conversation as she came into view and then gave her mischievous grins. At one time she would have suspected that they were plotting against her, but now she knew it was more likely that they were part of the birthday surprise the cast and crew were planning for her. She chatted with them for a few minutes, and as she left, she remembered those early days when the writers had seemed like gods to her. That had ended when she and Dash had become friends.

Unlike her family, the cast and crew wouldn't forget her birthday. Last year they had surprised her with a leather-bound set of all the scripts of The Dash Coogan Show. She had been deeply touched, but she couldn't help wishing her family would remember the occasion just once. Even if they only gave her a card, she would appreciate the gesture.

Dash came stalking around the corner and she saw that he looked upset.

"What's wrong?"

"Wanda just called me. She always manages to get me going."

She had imagined that when people got divorced they would get out of each other's lives, but Dash always seemed to be having conversations with his first ex-wife. Of course, they had children together, and she supposed that made a difference, but since their son was twenty-four and their daughter twenty-two, she couldn't imagine what they had left to talk about. In general, she tried not to think about his kids, especially since both of them were older than she was.

"Didn't you tell me that Wanda had remarried?"

"A long time ago. A man named Edward Ridgeway. Not Ed, mind you. Edward."

"Why does she bother you so much?"

"Revenge, I guess. She still doesn't feel like she's settled old scores. She called to tell me that Josh is getting married the day after Christmas."

"That's only three weeks away."

"Nice of her to let me know my son's getting married, isn't it? Now I have to go to Tulsa for the wedding." He looked grim.

"You don't want him to get married?"

"He's twenty-four. I guess that's up to him, and anything that'll cut him loose from Wanda's apron strings is probably a good thing. I just hate the idea of letting her lead me around by the nose for two days. She was a sweet little thing when I married her, but over the years she's turned into a barracuda. Not that I should blame her. All that tomcattin' of mine hurt her pretty bad."

He began to walk away, and then slowly turned back. She could see that he had something on his mind, and she regarded him quizzically. He shoved his hand in his pocket.

"Honey, you wouldn't want to— Never mind. Bad idea."

"What?"

"Nothing, I was just—" He shifted his weight. "I was thinking about asking if you wanted to go to Tulsa with me for the wedding. Sort of act like a buffer. But I don't expect you'd want to leave your family so close to Christmas."

She thought of Chantal, who was growing plump and lazy on junk food and game shows right along with her idiotic stepfather, Buck. And of Gordon, who still hadn't picked up a paintbrush. She thought of Sophie, who spent more time in bed than out of it and refused to follow any of the doctor's orders. The idea of getting away from all that and being with Dash would be the best Christmas present she could have.

"I'd love to go with you, Dash. It'd do me good to get away for a while."

That evening she pulled down the sloping drive into the garage of their house in Pasadena. It was dark as she let herself in through the mudroom off the garage. She flicked the light switch, but the bulb seemed to be burned out, and she fumbled with the door leading into the kitchen. When she opened it, she was startled to see the glow of candlelight.

"Happy birthday!"

"Happy birthday, Honey!"

Flabbergasted, she saw all of her family standing in a half circle around the kitchen table. Sophie had dragged herself out of bed, Buck had thrown a sports shirt on over his undershirt, Chantal had poured the extra twenty pounds she'd gained into a pair of crimson slacks, and, reflected in the lenses of Gordon's new wire-rimmed spectacles, were the flames of twenty pastel candles sitting on top of a birthday cake.

They hadn't forgotten. They had finally remembered her birthday. Tears stung her eyes and she felt years of stored resentment melting inside her.

"Oh, my... It's—" Her words grew choked. "It's beautiful."

All of them laughed and even Sophie smiled, because the cake wasn't beautiful at all. Three layers tall, it was lopsided and unevenly coated with the ugliest shade of blue frosting Honey had ever seen. But the fact that they had done this for her, baked the cake themselves, made it the most precious gift she had ever received.

"I can't—I can't believe you did this." She struggled not to cry.

"Well, of course we did it," Chantal said. "It's your birthday, isn't it?"

They were off by one day, but that was meaningless. She was filled with love, joy, and an aching sense of gratitude.

Gordon gestured toward the cake. "I baked it, Honey. Me, myself, and I."

"I helped," Chantal threw in.

"We all helped," Buck said, scratching his belly like a beardless Santa Claus. "Except for Sophie."

"I picked out the icing color," Sophie said, looking hurt.

Their faces glimmered before her, soft, beautiful, and beloved in the golden light of the flickering candles. She forgave them all their foibles and knew that she was right to have stuck by them. They were her family. She was part of them and they were part of her, and every one of them was precious.

Gordon grinned like a schoolboy with a secret. Sophie's fat cheeks dented in a distracted smile, and Chantal's blue eyes glowed in the candlelight. Embarrassed by the depth of her emotions, Honey dabbed self-consciously at her cheeks.

"All of you— I—" She tried to tell them what was in her heart, but the feelings ran too strong and her throat constricted.

"Come on, Honey. Cut the cake!"

"Cut it, Honey. We're all hungry."

"It sure is going to taste good."

She laughed as Buck thrust a large knife into her hand and pushed her toward the cake. "Blow out the candles."

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you..."

She blew out the candles, laughing through her tears. Once again, she tried to find the words that would express what this meant to her.

"I'm so happy... I—"

"Cut straight down through the middle," Gordon said, directing her hand. "I don't want you to ruin my artwork."

A tear dripped off her chin as she pointed the knife into the center. 'This is wonderful. I'm so—"

The cake exploded.

Screams of laughter erupted as chunks of chocolate flew everywhere. Cake shot up into Honey's face, clots of blue icing stuck to her skin and clung to her clothes. Bits and pieces splattered against the wall and dropped to the floor.

They had all drawn back from the table in a single, unified motion just as she had cut into the center, and they were untouched. Only she had been hit.

Buck clutched his stomach. Their laughter grew louder. Even Sophie had joined in.

"Did you see her face?"

"We fooled you," Chantal cried. "It was all Gordon's idea. Gordon, you're so smart!"

"I told you it would work!" Gordon hooted. "I told you! Look at her hair!"

Chantal clapped her hands as she described her husband's cleverness. "Gordon cut a hole in the middle of the cake, and then he stuffed it with this big balloon blown up real full of air. We broke three of them trying to get it just right. Then we iced the whole thing so you couldn't tell, and when your knife poked through the balloon—"

Honey's chest heaved and she stumbled backward, staring at them. They were gathered around the ruined feast like a pack of jackals who had gorged on a banquet of malice. Their spitefulness choked her. She would leave them, pack her suitcase and never see them again.

"Uh-oh, she's mad," Gordon taunted. "She's going to be a bad sport, just like always."

"You're not going to be a bad sport, are you, Honey?" Chantal stuck out her lip. "We've had so much fun. You're not going to spoil it."

"Darn," Buck said. "We should of knowed."

"No," she said, her voice a tight, painful whisper. "I'm not going to be a bad sport. It—it was a great joke. Really. I'd—I'd better get cleaned up."

Turning her back on them, she fled through the hallway into the back wing of the house, clots of cake and icing dropping off her pretty silk blouse and linen slacks. The pain inside her made it hard to breath. She was going to move away. She would leave them and never come back. She would—

A choking sound slipped from her. And then what? Who would take their places? Not Dash. She had been building dream castles where he was concerned. He could have any woman he wanted, so why would he take her? This family was all she had.

The clattering began in her brain. The lonely clickety-clickety clattering of a ghost roller-coaster car creaking up a wooden incline. She squeezed her eyes shut trying to block out a painful, persistent voice that told her all of her success, all of her money, all the pretty clothes in the world wouldn't disguise the fundamental unlovableness that lived at her core.

Black Thunder's coaster car creaked up the lift hill. But no matter how hard she tried to imagine it, she couldn't make it shoot over the top.