El Rancho del Corazón
73 High Test
“ARE YOU OKAY with this, Brian?” April asked. While John continued his test shoot of the exercise program, April Lee, the camerawoman Hannah had been working with all last semester, had called me over to the kitchen to talk about my spots. We were going to test a couple this afternoon and I’d just learned that April would be my director for the Young Cooking season.
“Well, getting to know you better last weekend helps. You’ve come a long way in the past six months, April.”
“Yeah. You got to know me better than I ever intended,” she laughed. When she and Hannah had come in from shooting at Doreen’s house, we’d all been naked. Rather than act all embarrassed, April just joined us for dinner. “Have you met Maggie, yet?”
“Hi, I’m Maggie Kwan,” a nice-looking Asian woman said, holding out her hand. We are fed so many stereotypes on television that I was surprised when she spoke with no discernible accent. She noticed. “Korean parents. American daughter. You’ll be okay with me as your producer, I hope. I’ve been working on it for two weeks already.”
“I’m a little unsure what the roles are,” I said. “Hannah has always done everything.”
“Here’s the way it breaks down,” Maggie said. “Hannah is April’s and my boss. She’s making sure we don’t fuck up your show. Believe me, we know what is at risk, not only for us, but for you, as well. I’m handling the production issues. I’m making sure we have a crew and they have their assignments, which, by the way, includes making sure you have assistance backstage to get food ready for the show. I’m responsible for making sure that you have a girlfriend and an audience for each show. You may have noticed that I don’t have a responsibility on either of the other shows. Being your producer is a full-time job.”
“With Maggie making sure we have everything we need to succeed, it’s my job to make you look good on camera,” April picked up the narration. “I’ll be calling the shots, watching the lighting and audio, troubleshooting problems during performance. We’ll be using multiple cameras, unlike the way we shot your show last season. But we won’t be doing fancy camerawork like they’ll do on Chick Chat. Your show already has a feel and we don’t want to suddenly change it to something else. Having multiple cameras means that we’ll be able to have fewer stops and starts, like you worked up in South Bend. When we worked with a single camera, we had to stop the action every time we wanted to change angles or use the mirrors.”
“Everything on camera belongs to April. Everything off camera belongs to me. And Lauren. She has to work as a grip on the exercise show, but she’s my assistant on Young Cooking. If you need a blowjob or something, call her.” I looked at Maggie and raised an eyebrow. “I’m kidding! Oh my God, you don’t do that, do you?” From being light and playful, Maggie was suddenly horrified.
“I don’t know. That’s always been Hannah’s responsibility. You’d better read your job description,” I said. Maggie went pale. “I’m kidding!” I said. “I’m pretty sure Hannah wouldn’t give up that part of her job, no matter how cute you are.” Maggie pointed her finger at me.
“We are definitely going to have fun on this show. Let’s go over the spots we’re going to shoot this afternoon.”
We managed to actually shoot four of the one-minute cooking tips that afternoon. They were all declared usable. Having an established look and feel for the show was definitely a help and the tips were pretty simple. Using spray bottle spritzers for oil, lemon juice, and vinegar; cleaning a glass coffeepot with ice, lemon, and salt; keeping asparagus fresh in the refrigerator overnight; and safely sharpening a carbon steel knife with a honing steel. I only needed to come up with fifty-six more of these to play in one-minute slots on Elaine’s show.
Neither April nor Maggie stayed into the evening with us.
It’s pretty bizarre. I look around the room and see the cameras have at least been stowed in a corner. There are drapes covering the front door—in fact, that whole end of the house. I suppose the window and door are too distracting to film the exercise show in front of. All of our pillows and the big chair have been moved away from the fireplace and there is a desk sitting beside it. We don’t even have room in the middle for our dining table. Is this what it’s going to be like? The only thing that still looks the same is the kitchen, but even that is just another television setting.
And I missed you on set yesterday. You left it all to April and Maggie. I’m not saying they aren’t good. They worked just fine and I met Lauren. But I felt pretty much like a commodity. A talking set prop. We went over the list of show themes and Maggie doesn’t want to do the garden episodes. She wants us to stay strictly on the kitchen set. She said Angela could just bring produce in if I insisted on having her on camera. I get a weird vibe from her. Would a Korean be racially prejudiced against a black woman? How forceful can I be with what I want on the show?
Why aren’t you there with me?
I eventually found Hannah in Stall One Sunday morning. She had a cup of coffee and was focused on a spreadsheet that covered the computer screen.
“Hey, honey,” I said. “Aren’t you taking a break this weekend?”
“Don’t have time,” she said. She didn’t turn toward me. “I have to work out the studio schedule now that we know how much scenery and equipment has to be moved from set to set. It would make it easier if we filmed a whole day on a single set and then moved to a different set the next day. But Lonnie wants the class to be in a multi-show production environment and the T and A crew can’t shake their booty all day long. It will take them at least an hour to cool down and redo their hair after each workout. We can’t even do the two back to back. It sucks.”
“You sound pretty stressed. I missed you during my production yesterday,” I said. I started to massage her shoulders and she tensed up to my touch before she allowed herself to relax.
“Was there a problem with Maggie or April?” Hannah stayed focused on the screen.
“There might be. Maggie wants to scrap the week of doing outdoor shots in the garden. I think she might be reacting negatively to Angela.”
“It would simplify equipment use if we didn’t have to move outside. But one of the principles I agreed to with Lonnie was that crews would get handheld camera experience within the confines of the ranch. We’re not sending a crew to the farmers’ market, though,” Hannah said.
“I think those scenes are important to the show. It affects my flow.”
“Brian, I don’t have time to babysit you. Deal with your producer. She’s going to have some ideas, too. Don’t become a problem.” Shit! This was not at all what I wanted to hear. And Hannah had yet to even look at me.
“Hannah, are you okay, baby? Look at me.”
“Brian…” I turned her chair toward me. She held her breath as I looked into her eyes. When she finally exhaled I knew why.
“Honey, when did you start smoking weed? You know that’s strictly off limits on the ranch,” I said. I was fighting down my own panic. Not having drugs on the ranch, underage drinking, and any illegal activity were among our most important prohibitions as a clan. This was serious.
“Dr. McCall said it would help.”
“Help what?”
“Help relieve stress-related depression. She’s been backing me off the MAOs and Tricyclics. It’s safe,” she said angrily.
“It’s not safe. It might be medically sound, but having it on the premises—on your breath—puts the entire ranch at risk. I can’t believe Dr. McCall prescribed it,” I said.
“She didn’t actually prescribe it. You can’t get a prescription unless you’re someplace like California. We just talked about its use. Brian, you aren’t my mother. Or the fucking bishop. I don’t need you or your fucking cooking show. Why don’t you just go back to summer school second term?”
“Hannah! Are you… are you firing me or breaking up with me?”
There was a long pause as she looked at me and tears started running down her cheeks.
“No,” she whimpered. “I don’t want to break up. I just can’t handle it. I can’t do everything. I didn’t want to be a college professor. I’m eighteen years old. Don’t leave me. Please.” I pulled her into my arms.
“I am never going to leave you, honey. No matter what, I still love you. And the whole clan is with you. We aren’t there to cause you problems, we’re there to help you solve them. Remember? That’s what you told me. We’ll work it out.”
“I’ve been staring at this spreadsheet for an hour and don’t even know what I’m doing,” she said.
“Well, as I understand it, even if you are using THC medically, the increase in serotonin might make it a little difficult to focus right after you use it. It might even make you a little sleepy. Like after eating a big turkey dinner,” I said gently.
“How do you know this stuff? Did you talk to Dr. McCall?”
“I’m a chemist. Half my classmates plan to make drugs of one kind or another.”
“I should have told you, Patrón. I’m sorry.”
“Honey, don’t ever call me Patrón. I’m just the guy who loves you. Remember?”
“You know what else THC does?” she sniffled. “It makes me horny.”
“That’s a condition I know how to treat.”
I called a clan meeting Sunday afternoon. We weren’t going to face this alone. I wanted everyone on board, both with the production and with the weed. And I wanted to improve the way it was administered. Smoking it left too much evidence.
Everybody was sympathetic to Hannah’s situation. I was surprised at the number of people in the clan who had tried it—even the people in my own casa. There was the concern, however, that we could all get in trouble over having it on the ranch. If we got in trouble, it could get Anna in trouble.
“Where do you get it?” Brenda asked Hannah.
“Uh…” Hannah looked nervously around the room. Before she could answer, Sandy raised her hand.
“I have contacts. When Hannah told me what she needed, I got it for her. We… uh…”
“We tried some in our casa one night,” Doug said. “We’re not making a habit of it or keeping a stock around, but it was kind of fun.” That concerned me. I didn’t want my child exposed to it all the time. I didn’t think there were any known effects on a fetus like with alcohol, but I hoped they’d keep their use out of the house.
“I’ve got two major concerns. Make that three. Or four. Shit. First, getting in trouble. I don’t want Sheriff Donaldson coming in and getting suspicious that we aren’t clean,” I said.
“My dad and I have an understanding,” Sandy said. “I was a pretty bad case after Mom died and he opted to go to counseling with me instead of turning me in. I’m pretty sure that if I talk to him, he’ll ignore the fact that one of us needs a hit now and then.”
“Point two, smoking it leaves a recognizable smell in the air, on clothes, on the breath. I’d like to find a safe way for Hannah to get what she needs without everyone knowing,” I said.
“Brownies,” Angela said. “Mom told me all about how they used to make butter out of it and put it in the flour and chocolate. I bet you could come up with a couple good recipes and no one would ever know.” I nodded. That thought had crossed my mind. I wasn’t sure how many of the stories from our parents’ generation were true and how many were just urban legends. But it was worth a try.
“I wouldn’t mind eating brownies,” Hannah said. “The smoke hurts my throat.”
“I’ll come up with a recipe for you, honey,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean anyone else gets to eat the brownies.” Everyone laughed.
“Next is the issue of visitors to the ranch this summer. We’ve got the college crew who will be here every day. We’ve got the younger kids coming up as soon as school is out next week. We’ve got guests coming in for filming all three shows. And we’ll have parents stopping in to visit. We made that invitation to all of them and believe me, every one of them wants to see how we’re living. We do not want them suspicious about our behavior. There are still several parents that haven’t seen our sleeping arrangements. We don’t need to give them something else to focus on as well. At least running around naked and sleeping with each other isn’t illegal,” I said.
“I think that means we need to keep it on a need to know basis,” Rose said. “There’s no reason to have everyone in on it. Especially those who are still in high school. I’m sure we need to tell Mary when she gets here because she’s in our casa and has a right to know. I don’t think anyone else will need to be told.” There were head nods.
“Finally, there’s security. Where do we keep things so that no one stumbles on them? I can just see the kids spotting a plate of brownies and helping themselves.”
“It happens that we need a fireproof, locking file cabinet,” Louise said. “We already have over two hundred releases, fifty distribution contracts, and agreements with the various sponsors. Not to mention the books and payroll information. We’re really past due for that.”
“I think we should make a major investment in fireproof file cabinets,” Whitney said. “I don’t know if any of you have noticed or not—especially with Sora and Tim sleeping in there—but Brian’s Heaven files are overflowing. I believe that collection is not only personally and sentimentally important, but has an intrinsic value as well. It should be insured.” I had never thought about that. That Whitney even knew the condition of my files was a surprise to me.
“That makes a lot of sense,” Samantha said. “If we put in four or five cabinets, no one would even notice if one of them was only accessible to Brian and Hannah. They should have the only keys to that one.”
“And Rose,” Hannah said softly. “I’m sorry I created this problem and thank you for all your support. But both our Patrón and Matrón should have complete access to everything in the clan. Including me. I feel like I let you all down by not talking to you first. I know that I’ve let my bitch persona as producer influence the way I react to all of you. Please help me remember how much I love you each and all.” I reached for Hannah but Samantha and Rose had already bracketed her in a big hug.
“Now,” I said. “We need to cover other clan business and updates. The shoot isn’t the only thing going on. We’re all working on new construction and trying to get it finished before we start camp. Carl, what’s the status of the addition upstairs?”
From there on we updated what was happening all over the ranch. Finishing the dormitories looked like almost everything but painting would be done by the end of next week when we expected twelve more kids to arrive. We talked about scheduled parent visits, the construction of the new duplex, the horses, and the garden. I was surprised to find that people were all engaged in different projects, and that sale of our vegetables at the first farmers’ market day in town had netted $250 after paying for our booth space and food license. Everyone who had met them adored Larry and Theresa. There was already a move afoot to find a way to have them move to the ranch as wranglers and property managers. I wasn’t sure where we’d put them and if that meant we’d have to build something else. I was going to have to talk to Anna again this weekend when I went up for Mary’s graduation.
We voted to add another schedule board to the wall so that individual projects could be tracked. Three construction projects were slated for Hearthstone Entertainment. We needed to formalize the set for the talk show in front of the fireplace. We needed risers to put Sora, Rose, and Brenda on for the exercise show. And we needed audience seating for both the talk show and the cooking show. Geoff was the first to mention that we needed to formalize parking for all our guests and suggested extending the drive so it was a full one-way circle. Rose wanted the new gates to be put up at the entrance with the large ranch sign emblazoned with our name at the entrance.
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