Chapter 4: The Moon

Tanya and Mitch had a lot of reading to do that day, above and beyond the dress rehearsal. The rehearsal went well, and then came lunch.

Kim and Anita were waiting for them in the staff canteen, another Art-Deco holdover from a gentler time.

Quickly, Mitch and Tanya picked up lunch – sandwich plate for him, Cobb salad for her – and joined their family at a table Sam had carefully reserved for them in the corner, away from everyone else. It didn't help all that much, though. As soon as Tanya reached the point about the choice for her acting career, her little sister screamed in delight: "No way!" and burst out in laughter.

As her mother tried to shush her, Kim whispered to them, "Look, we all knew that if Tanya kept up acting, sooner or later she'd be asked to do a nude scene. Well? Well now, she's got a full season chock full o' nude scenes, right?"

"We haven't decided whether to go along with this cockeyed plan or not," Mitch reminded his daughter.

"Oh, but you have to. If only for Gus."

"Oh, my, all of my family and friends will see it too," moaned Tanya in sudden realization.

Kim giggled.

"Look, I've had a chance to think about this," Mitch offered. "I suggest this. First, we speak with the clan. Second, if we do decide to try to shoot this, it's in front of a very select studio audience: family of the cast and crew only. No outsiders, no fans, just grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. We get four episodes in the can, and the whole family reviews it. If we don't like what we see, then we'll back off and let them replace Candy Canyon, and have all copies of the video destroyed."

Anita nodded thoughtfully. "It looks like it'll have to happen sooner or later that we get an all-nude kids' show, and if we work with Uncle Charlie he'll move heaven and earth to do it right. But really it's up to Tanya if she wants to do it. Honey, how do you feel about wearin' your PJ's on set all day long? And lettin' the world's home audience see you in 'em?"

Kim held her breath. Mitch and Anita waited anxiously. Tanya stared at her salad. Finally she nodded her head.

"Yes, Kim, you're right, I was expecting someday to have a nude scene – just I was expecting that day to be after I turned eighteen." She looked at her parents for support. "They're talking about doing something that kids could watch, I guess I can go for that."

Anita squeezed her hand supportively and Mitch gave her his gentle smile. "It'll be OK." He then looked at his wife. "Now all we have to do is get the grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins to agree."

Over in the far corner of the cafeteria, sitting alone and nursing a long-cold cup of coffee, Sam Twillingham had been trying to divine the tone of the conversation being held quietly and far out of earshot at the Sheill table. Suddenly Mitch waved him over.

Sam dragged a chair from one of the nearby unoccupied tables, sat down and cocked an eye at Mitch. Mitch in turn pointed to Tanya.

"If we assume it's a 'go', what next?" Tanya demanded. "How far can we take this before we can't go back?" She explained quickly, "We need to get a whole lotta relatives to OK this first, when we go home this weekend."

Sam regarded her cautiously. "You'll do it?"

"If they say it's OK."

"Here's what we'd had kicking around for the future of Candy Canyon. With the main character getting, well, older, we needed to introduce a cute younger character, a cousin or something. We'd been booting some ideas around about just how to do that, before this came up. Now those ideas need to be taken out, polished up and gone forward much faster than we originally planned." He regarded Kim with some horror. "Um, we'd thought of using Kim, even asked Mitch if he thought Kim might be interested in acting just like her big sister." He blushed. "There's a great family resemblance between the two, and Mitch already plays her dad on the show," Sam explained.

"So that was where your mysterious questions were leading," Mitch realized.

"Yes, except that was before this mandate for an all-nude show came along." He gulped.

Kim, at first pleased to discover she might be able to act like her beloved big sister, suddenly blushed as she realized the wardrobe for her first starring role might just consist of a row of empty clothes hangers.

The press, already primed, went nuts when the press release came out from Sunshine Studios, announcing that they "had been requested" to consider a "naturist show", to feature their top-earning star Tanya Shiell. It allowed some quarters to think they were talking about nature shows.

It fooled nobody.

Anita spent the afternoon in the Executive Building, talking to the marketing gurus. They in turn hastily arranged a teleconference between the Shiells in California and the rest of the clan in Tennessee, through a local hotel in one of the larger cities. Surprisingly, Sunshine Studios carried the cost of the entire exercise.