author's note: and I have yet to write the next part, so this is where we're leaving off for now

Penny falls in love with Jacques Leroux at first sight. Fetching and exotic and so much better than the other candidates for the Phantom- far better than any actor she's ever seen in Mission City, in fact- that he inevitably wins the part. Also her heart.

Then she falls right out of love again, because he doesn't take her direction very well or indeed at all. Even if she's only a provincial with a couple of years of community college to back her up, she's still the producer here. Only he doesn't seem to understand that.

Then she falls in love with him again, because he does know so much about real acting, Hollywood and New York and so forth, and is happy to talk about it, and that's very exciting.

Then she notices how good he is at casual, thoughtless lying, gets the idea that he's just making it all up, and falls right back out of love again.

It keeps going back and forth like that, for several months, and just to confuse things he has to up and leave whenever she's finally got her feelings clear, so eventually she books the nicest table at the Gray Goose for them. The balcony seat, where people get engaged sometimes. Or break up dramatically.

"Only I don't want you to kiss me anymore, unless you like me," Penny says over the fish. "I mean, unless we're on stage. Then it'd be all right."

"Alas, my sweet Miss Parker. I must beg your pardon, for so toying with your heart...but verily I must confess, mine is given over to another. A devastating blonde, of attitude sympathetic and yet so cold towards me-"

"Oh! So Jack was right, and you're really in love with Mac."

Jacques is sort of the opposite of normal people; he stops being dramatic when he's surprised. (He always, always complains about her ad-libs, even the funniest.) So when he suddenly abandons tragic gesticulations, and spends five minutes drinking wine and just waiting for her to say something else, she knows she's right.

"I think that's awfully sweet. Mac's nice, and so are you."

He gives her a curious look from under his long (artificial) eyelashes, and Penny almost falls in love with him again. But manages not to.

"Penny, I'll tell you the truth. If you think you can bring yourself not to blab it, that is."

"Sure I can!" Maybe she's a little forgetful sometimes, but that doesn't mean she's rude.

"I dream of sweeping that man off his feet. I dream-" and now he's getting theatrical again- "I dream of taking him away from this wretched little town- theatre not included, of course- and taking him to live out his life somewhere he'll be properly appreciated. But I admit, I'm having a little difficulty working out how to persuade him. He's stubbornly self-reliant."

"Ooh. You want to court him, only you don't know how?"

He indulges in a long, drawn-out sigh. "Shall we agree I don't? If only to pass the time until dessert."

"The easiest way to get on his good side," Penny explains helpfully, "is to be nice to Becky. Mac always likes people who are nice to Becky."

"That...unfortunately, won't work. She doesn't like me, I've no idea why, but I suspect just buying one of her quilts won't do the trick."

"That's harder." Becky Grahme's sort of a puzzle to the whole town; she can be very friendly sometimes, but then she's always reading. The one time anyone let her captain a game of capture-the-flag, the other players all got squelched, and people said it wasn't really fair even though she'd played by the rules. (Nobody had thought of putting in a rule about kites. Or washing machines. Or borrowing the municipal backhoe.) "The easiest way to make Becky happy is to do nice things for Mac."

"Rather bringing us back to the original problem, I believe."

Penny concentrates. "She likes...complicated things. A really, really complicated way of being nice to Mac. And you know what else, he likes stories. About science and faraway places, he used to love telling her stories like that. I think he still does."

"In sort, I should woo my beloved by telling him implausibly exciting travelogues and inventing a needlessly convoluted plan? Have I muddled this up with my day job?"

"What is your day job, anyway?" She's always been curious.

"Bloodletting," Jacques says. "It's come back into style, you know. With leeches."

That doesn't sound any more sensible than the other explanations she's heard.

But then, actors are supposed to have funny lives.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

December '89

Dear Aunt Betty,

oh, I wish you'd been here to see the fun we're having in Los Angeles! (Though I suppose you'll know about it anyway). The choir coming twelfth in the singing competition isn't so bad really, considering how many there were, and anyway they were allowed to sing a song for the tv broadcast, which was the important part. I've finally been on a real set, and I've had all sorts of conversations with actresses, and agents and things...

...and then there was a mixup about the seats on the flight home, because they'd been overbooked and there was only one left- and the next flight was for after Christmas. Mac wouldn't go without Becky, and she wouldn't go without him, and Jacques said he wasn't even going back to Minnesota just yet. And I was the one with all the money, so I had to stay.

I mean, the two of them were being perfectly ridiculous. Talking about what sort of tent they ought to get, and whether they should spend the week volunteering at a homeless shelter so they'd have somewhere to go for Christmas dinner- how awful is that? I absolutely had to insist, that since it was my fault that their holiday plans had fallen through, I'd pay for the hotel rooms and everything. Though it wasn't, for once! But I'm getting to that.

They still weren't listening, though, until I was practically crying saying that it'd ruin my Christmas if I'd spoilt theirs (I mean, I was crying already, but I mean for real and not just stagey). So eventually I got them to agree, only the hotel was full up, so we had to move. To a much nicer one. (I'd booked top-floor rooms in advance, you see. Only I wish I hadn't, because I'd forgot Mac's afraid of heights- but he said it was all right, as long as he was careful about not looking down from the window. I think Becky likes the view though.)

...and us girls just couldn't keep up with them! Of course, Jacques knows all about Los Angeles, which is just so, so big- I mean, I have a good sort of idea what the Hollywood part of it is like, but there's about ten different cities stacked on top of that, and I think Mac wanted to go to every single one. Considering how hard he works, I'd have thought that some rest would be good for him. But he didn't think so. Neither did Jacques.

So while they were getting up at six in the morning to go exploring and everything, we slept in and I took Becky out for sunbathing and shopping and relaxation sort of things. She works awfully hard, studying and so forth- trying to get a scholarship to Western Tech isn't easy. But Mac and I ganged up on her and took away all her sewing stuff, and everything, so she'd have to have a nice long rest. I think after the first day she started enjoying herself. Though we couldn't exactly stop her reading. She would keep buying all these books.

And she was so silly about missing Christmas with Jack Dalton. I mean, I guess he's funny and eveything, but- well, he always steals some of the bottles whenever he shows up at one of my parties, and after all he's only a taxi driver. And he's been in prison- I do remember what you always told me, that a good criminal should never get caught. He's an awfully bad one.

I mean, why would you want the town drunk when someone as exciting as Jacques is around? Because that was the plan, really; I'd pretend to muddle everything up so that Mac could have a lovely warm Christmas with Jacques. And it worked. And I was going to tell Becky all about how clever we'd been, but she seemed so sad I didn't know how to say it.

But Mac and Jacques are happy. I think it's going to do them both a world of good...