"Are you and Ellen really getting a divorce?" Penny asks Mac, while they're out picking blueberries. Everybody else in town is kind of shocked, but she isn't. Lots of Hollywood people do it all the time.

"Mmm," Mac says, wiping juice off his mouth. "Probably."

He doesn't look very happy to be talking about it. "You haven't put any berries in your bucket the whole time. Are you just going to eat every one you find?"

"Might as well. Ellen's on some stupid diet that says she can't eat any fruit. But gets to have steak and all the fresh eggs…I don't know why she's even doing it."

"Because she's in showbiz," Penny says happily. "The Stillman diet, I'm going to go on it too. As soon as blueberry season's over."

Mac snorts. "Newsreader for local broadcast isn't exactly showbiz. I hate that she's having to dig me out of a hole, but...well, I guess the town gossips have mentioned that patent lawsuit I got us stuck in? So much for trying to invent my way into a fortune...I tried coming up with a new kind of boat engine and got nothing but trouble for it. If we lose the coffee shop now, and it's looking like we might if we can't pay off the lawyer fees and court costs and stuff, we're both done for. I guess she feels like she owes me that much, 'fore she leaves."

"That's good. It'd be awful if you went out of business."

"I dream about it sometimes," he says, not looking at her. "That maybe one day I'll just flip the sign to closed and leave the place to rot. Start hiking south. Live off the land, just disappear."

"Without any friends?"

"Penny, tell you the truth I'm feeling kind of burnt out on companionship right now."

"But you're here picking blueberries with me."

"Yeah, well," he says with amusement. "I couldn't let you go out into the woods by yourself, could I? Suppose a bear came and ate you up, that'd be on my conscience."

"What'll you do if we see a bear?"

"Oh, walk away. Slowly. You don't want to rile them up."

Penny shivers. "No, I guess not! But I thought you'd do something wacky. Like invent a contraption. Or a distraction."

"Sometimes, Penny...sometimes simple is best."

He's staring down a deer trail, sort of lost and longing. Like he has it in mind to just start walking right now, and never come back.

Penny takes him by the arm. "Mac? It's getting dark. Maybe we'd better go home."

"Oh! Sorry."

She's almost sorry she's done it. He sounds regretful.

But maybe a little grateful, too.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Ellen's the only professional performer in Mission City, so Penny's been hanging out with her a lot lately. Learning a lot of useful stuff that an actress needs to know, like how to apply makeup (Aunt Betty boasts that she's never worn it in her life). How to smile like you mean it, even when you don't. And also diets.

Of course, listening to her also means hearing a lot of harangues, but Penny knows that's part of showbiz too.

"Driving out at five in the morning, in sub-zero temperatures- is there any vehicle less suited to Minnesota's climate than a jeep, I ask you?" Ellen hisses, as she mixes herself a whiskey-drenched coffee. "Penny, television is a miserable experience. Don't ever do this to yourself. Stick to running your own show."

That's something Ellen keeps saying; that she ought to just stay home, and enjoy the community theatre. Turned out Mission City did have one after all. It just hadn't been used since 1936.

Which is a wonderful opportunity for her! With Aunt Betty's money for financial backing, she's cleaned up the place and has been teaching herself theatricals from the ground up. Starting with acting (naturally), but also casting, script rewrites, box office, even stage carpentry- though with her clumsiness, that one is mostly experience in learning how to delegate. Making a lot of mistakes along the way, but she's learning. Slowly. Last year they did a by-the-book "Romeo and Juliet", and nobody liked it; this year they're doing a performance of "Midsummer Night's Dream" rewritten for midwinter, with local humour and hockey jokes, and that's going down a lot better in dress rehearsals. Improvising quips is a lot of fun.

(One of these days she's going to go to Hollywood; but not until she's tried everything she can here. Running a whole theatre by herself is a pretty unique opportunity for someone still in high school, and probably not one she'll get again.)

Ellen's still complaining, but she's winding down. "...of course I'd rather have just stayed in makeup, but the sooner I can make enough money to get Mac out of this, the better. I'm not staying any longer than I need to, I can promise you that."

"Oh, don't go! I watch you every day," Penny says. (She'd like to say it's because she likes Ellen- and she does- but mostly, it's just instructive seeing how many ways a newscaster can flub her job.)

"Then you're probably the only one."

She's wrong about that, as it happens. Everyone in Mission City watches the news these days, willing her on as she struggles through yet another broadcast. Hoping for the best, of course, but unwilling to miss it should the worst happen.

As they're all doing, that cold February night. When just as Ellen's finishing up, for once with a real and proper smile, someone slips a paper onto her desk.

"We're sorry to report the death of Karen Carpenter, who died at hospital today of cardiac arrest. Aged thirty-two, one half of the popular singing- duo..."

Ellen starts to cry. On air.

The town's very sympathetic after her unceremonious firing. Even Mac's distracted from his malaise, by the task of cheering her up. Penny's as sweet about it as she knows how to be.

But she knows no real performer would slip up like that, however sad she was. The Penny who goes to Hollywood needs to know how to put herself aside, to play whatever the part asks. How to be nice or nasty on demand, whatever she's really feeling.

That might take a while to learn. But then, she's not in any hurry.

(And she finally takes Aunt Betty's advice, and throws out all her diet books.)