Episode 1

"The Next Mrs. Blackthorne"

Brooke Taylor tinkered around her apartment in the San Fernando Valley, anxiously waiting for her friends to pick her up. She hoped they hadn't gone to too much trouble for her, as she hated being the object of a big fuss. Granted, a girl only got married once and she deserved to be pampered.  On second thought, that wasn't even true anymore considering all the marriages that ended in divorce nowadays.  Her first, for example.  But this one would be different. She planned on staying married to James for the rest of her life. She glanced out the window of her second story apartment and sighed, wishing they would show up already.  In a way she thought that if she could get the bachelorette party over with, it would mean the wedding was that much closer.   She’d never been more excited about anything in her life.

Brooke was a twenty-seven year old beauty with long, silky blond hair and ocean blue eyes that mesmerized everyone who saw them.  She’d been a makeup girl at a local department store for a couple of years until she got a job as assistant make-up designer for a big movie in Hollywood.   That was when she met James Blackthorne.   He was the kindest, most exciting man she’d ever met and she fell in love with him immediately. 

The first few months of their relationship had been difficult, mostly because at the time James was still married to his first wife, mega movie star Alex Reynolds.   James and Alex’s marriage had been on the rocks for years, and after meeting Brooke he finally got up to the nerve to ask her for a divorce.   It hadn’t been an easy transition, but finally when his divorce became final she agreed to marry him.    Now it was just two days before their wedding and she couldn’t be happier.    She was marrying the most wonderful man in all of California, or the world for that matter.

She paced around the small three-room apartment, stopping to fluff a cushion on her worn wicker sofa.  Looking around the living room, she suddenly realized that she was going to be moving soon and living in a giant old mansion in Hollywood.  Her quaint, sparse apartment in the Valley would be a distant memory.   The prospect was enough to cause her to jump with excitement.

A car horn outside the window caught her attention and, thinking it was her friends finally showing up, she tore across the room to peer outside.   The corners of her mouth turned upward into a bright smile when she saw James standing next to his Rolls Royce Limousine by the curb.

“I missed you!” he called up to her.

"James, the girls will be here any minute!” Brooke replied, leaning out the window and gazing down at him.   “It’s my bachelorette tonight, remember?”

“I know, I know,” James sighed.  “But can you blame me for wanting to see you even for a minute?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow at the rehearsal dinner,” Brooke said, tossing her long mane of hair teasingly over her shoulder.

“Okay, I guess if I have to wait…” James said with a sly grin.  He was a dashing, sexy man of forty-four with dark hair and eyes, dressed in an expensive black Gucci suit.   “I just wanted to tell you that I love you.”

Brooke smiled, blushing a little as several people jogged by her apartment and did a double take at the fancy car parked by the building.  “I love you too!” she called back, deciding to ignore the gawking passers by.  After all, she was getting married to a rich, successful movie producer and none of those people in the Valley mattered to her anymore.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” James said with a wink before he got into the back of the car.

Brooke waved ecstatically at him as she watched the limo pull away and drive down the street.   With a smile, she retreated back into the apartment from the window and joyously danced around the living room.   She was on top of the world.   Who wouldn’t be jazzed to be marrying a man like James Blackthorne?

When James got back to his historic mansion in the Hollywood hills, his maid, a heavy-set Hawaiian woman named Leilani greeted him at the door.  He smiled and proceeded into the mahogany-paneled foyer where his daughter came at him like a tidal wave. 

“Daddy, this place is like a circus!” Miranda Blackthorne screeched.  “There are people all over this house!  I feel like I have no privacy!”

James gave her a patronizing smile and put his hands on her shoulders.  “Sweetheart, we’re having a wedding here the day after tomorrow,” he began.  “Do you have any idea how much preparation is going into this?  Leilani has her hands full with caterers, decorators, florists, you name it."

Miranda rolled her eyes and folded her arms with a pout.   She was a twenty-year-old daddy’s girl who was not at all happy that her father was remarrying.  Her hair was long and black and her eyes were a piercing shade of blue.  Always up on the latest fashions, she was the envy of every girl her age, especially those she went to school with at UCLA.

“You’re not smiling,” James teased, pulling his daughter close and kissed her cheek.   “Sweetheart, this wedding is taking its toll on everybody.  I know it’s an inconvenience, but it'll be over soon.”

Again Miranda rolled her eyes.  “It doesn’t seem to be such an inconvenience for Brooke,” she spat hatefully.  “She gets to just show up in her wedding dress and not have to lift a finger.  Meanwhile, everyone else is-"

“Miranda, you want your dad to be happy don’t you?” James asked, stroking her hair with his hand.   “Can’t you just cooperate for a few more days until this wedding is over?   After that things will go back to normal. I promise.”

“No they won’t!” Miranda replied angrily.  “Things will never go back to normal.  Not with her in this house.”

With that, she turned and stormed down the hall and burst into the billiard room.  She picked up a pool ball and threw it across the room in a rage.

“Whoa, what’s that all about?” asked a voice from behind.

She spun around to find her brother, Stormy Blackthorne enter the room, polishing an apple on the sleeve of his hard rock tee shirt.  “What are you doing here?” she asked in annoyance.   “Don’t you have a house of your own?”

Ryan, or “Stormy” as everyone had come to call him for most of his life, was a twenty-three year old bad boy with tousled dark hair and blue eyes.  He was tall with a sculpted body, loads of sex appeal and a handsome boyish face much like his father’s.  He had several tattoos covering his arms and he often wore his hair spiked up on end.  Stormy shrugged and took a bite of his apple as he leaned against the sofa.   “Dad wanted me to come by and get fitted for my tux for the wedding,” he explained.  “What’s eating you?”

Miranda walked over to the pool table and sat down on the edge, letting her feet dangle over the side so that her wooden clogs slipped off onto the plush shag carpet.   “All anybody ever talks about anymore is this damn wedding.”

“It’s not just any wedding, Miranda,” Stormy replied.  “It’s our dad who’s getting married.” 

“Yeah, to that blond witch,” Miranda murmured quietly under her breath.  “Why can’t he marry someone his own age?  Or why doesn’t he stay single for a while?  I mean he and mom only separated nine months ago.   Their divorce has only been final for like a week.”

Stormy jumped up and took another bite of his apple.  “Why don't you mellow out?” he began.  “You’re just jealous because you’re not going to be getting all of Dad’s attention anymore.  That’s why you’re having a problem with this wedding.”

"Shut up," Miranda ordered as she jumped off of the pool table and picked up her shoes.  "I just think Daddy's going about things the wrong way, that's all.  You can't jump from one marriage into the next without making a mess of things."

Stormy laughed, nearly choking on the apple.  "Since when are you such an authority on marriage?" he asked with some irritation evident in his voice.

"I probably know more than you do, and you're married."

"My marriage is rock solid."

"Oh please," Miranda grumbled and sauntered out of the office, the bottoms of her bell bottom jeans scraping the floor as she walked down the dimly lit hallway of the old gothic mansion.

Stormy shrugged off his sister's spoiled rich girl attitude and picked up the phone in the game room.  He quickly dialed the number of his house in Burbank and waited for Heather to answer.

"Hi sexy," he said in a low, macho voice.  "I'll be home in a few.  Want me to pick anything up?"

Heather Blackthorne shook her head.  "Did you stop by the studio and pick up that sheet music?" she asked.   She was a pretty girl of twenty-two with hazel eyes and brown hair to her waist.   She and Stormy had been married for eight months, much to the disliking of her father, famed movie producer Jordan Rydell.  Jordan and James were rival producers and the integration of their offspring was a constant source of havoc.

"Uh, no not yet," Stormy replied.  "I'll see if I can stop by on my way home.  Traffic's awful tonight though.  Not sure if I want to make a detour like that."

"I can't believe this!" Heather shouted in a shrill voice.  "I've been asking you for two days to bring that sheet music home!  Why's it so hard for you to remember?"

Stormy held the phone away from his ear, wincing as if in pain from his wife's high-pitched shrieking.   "Jesus Heather, take it down a few notches," he complained.  "I told you I'd bring it home and I will.   Just calm down."

"Forget it," Heather lamented.  "I'll just see you when you get here."  She hung the phone up with a loud slam, leaving Stormy with a dial tone on the other end.

"Bitch," he murmured under his breath, hanging the phone up and walking back to the sofa and flopping down onto the plush cushions.

He loved his wife and was happy to be married to her, most of the time.  But lately it seemed like all she did was nag him about her career.    She wanted more than anything to be a singer, and tried and tired to get Stormy's record label to produce her.   As much as Stormy loved her, he didn't think she had what it took to be a singer.   But how could he tell his own wife that she wasn't good enough?

On top of that, Heather also had aspirations of becoming a movie star.   She had been in a few commercials when she was a kid but nothing concrete came up for her since then.   To make matters worse, her own father was a movie producer and refused to put her in any of his movies.   This infuriated Heather to tears almost on a daily basis.

With a sigh, Stormy picked up the remote control and flipped on the television.   He was horny and wanted so badly to go home and have sex, but as of that minute he didn't think he could handle Heather's ranting.

The basement of the Blackthorne mansion contained an expansive screening room where James entertained peers and certain media figures on a weekly basis.  He would often show his latest film, or a different cut of a previously released film.   Other nights he showed films requested by his guests, and tonight they were treated to a special advanced screening of Eric Autumn's Property Lines.

"How did you manage to get your hands on this reel, James ol' boy?" asked Jack Fallmont, a powerful corporate shark and big time Hollywood investor.  "Ol' Eric Autumn might have a thing or two to say about you showing his film before it's even released to the theaters."

James laughed and took his usual seat in the fourth row of his mini theater.   "I traded my Angel Assassin for his Property Lines.  He's at his place showing mine right now."

His group of twelve or so peers all laughed heartily in unison.  Leilani entered the room with a serving cart of champagne and caviar and everyone graciously accepted the welcome refreshments.

"Say James, isn't Angel Assassin the one you were working on when you met Brooke?" asked Kenny DeWitt, another wealthy businessman who had invested quite a bit of money into Sunset Studios, the production company that James had spent his life building.

"Indeed it is," James beamed happily.  "Hiring her for makeup was the best thing I ever did."

"Where is Brooke tonight, anyway?" asked another of James's Hollywood pals.  "I thought she was the newest edition to our Thursday night gatherings."

"Brooke is having her last hurrah with her girlfriends tonight," James replied with a fond smile.

"One more night on the town as a single gal, huh?" teased Marilee Wells, a fifty-year old business dynamo and head of the California Land Commission.  "I think she needs it.   She doesn't know what she's in for once she's part of the Blackthorne clan."

Everyone laughed and James blushed a little.  He felt a playful punch to his arm from Kenny DeWitt who sat directly to his right.  He decided to use Kenny as an excuse to shift the attention away from himself.

"Kenny, isn't tomorrow the day you find out if you're taking Marilee's spot on the Land Commission?" he asked.

Kenny nodded.  "Yes, and with any luck I'll be too busy with the post to be here next week," he joked.

"We all wish you luck, Kenny," Marilee said with genuine admiration.

"Thanks.  I hope that means you're not going to reconsider stepping down at the last minute?" Kenny asked with a grin.

"I wouldn't think of it," was Marilee's quick reply.

James cleared his throat and pointed a remote control at the screen.  "On that note, why don't we start the movie," he announced, pushing another button that dimmed the lights in the theater. 

The room grew quiet and within minutes they were well into the first newly restored scene of All That Jazz.

It was well after midnight when Miranda Blackthorne left the Rainbow Room in West Hollywood.  She stumbled out the door with a jock she'd met on the dance floor who proceeded to buy her five shots and three fruity drinks with little umbrellas in them. 

They flopped inside her red Camaro Z-28 and the jock lit up a joint while Miranda peeled out away from the crowded curbside by the club.   The stereo blasted My Sharona so loudly that she could barely hear herself think.

"Here," the jock said, handing her the joint. 

Miranda took the joint and inhaled a small amount before she began coughing and gagging on the smoke.  She'd never really smoked pot before but she figured it was a first time for everything.   She was twenty years old and she was going to start living a little.

"Far out, isn't it?" he asked, taking the joint from her and immediately dropping it onto the seat.  "Oh damn…"

"Pick it up!" Miranda ordered, her words slurring together in her drunken state.   "If I get a hole in my seat my dad will friggin kill me!"

The jock fumbled around for the joint and Miranda turned away from the road so she could help.   "It's here somewhere," the jock said.  "I can smell it burning."

"Well find it!" Miranda screamed, trying to be heard over the blaring music.  She turned back to the road and panicked at the sight of a car coming straight at them.  She quickly veered away, doing a complete 180 onto Laurel Canyon Road.    The car skidded to a stop, smoke and burning rubber assaulting her senses.

"Holy-" the jock began, bursting into laughter as he finally found the joint and took another long drag.

Miranda laid her head on the steering wheel for a minute, trying to regain her composure after the close call.   She looked up at the jock and started laughing at him, soon forgetting all about the near accident.

James led his guests upstairs to the foyer, nursing a bourbon on the rocks as he thanked them for coming.   Leilani brought Marilee, the only woman in the group, her purse and her wrap, then handed Kenny DeWitt his Armani suit jacket. 

"I hope I'll be seeing all of you here Saturday for the wedding," James said, shaking several hands and giving Marilee a kiss on the cheek.

"We wouldn't miss it for the world," Marilee replied.

Just then, Miranda and her jock staggered through the front door and into the foyer, causing a spectacle for all of James's guests to witness.

The room grew quiet and everyone gawked in awe at Miranda and her hunky male friend.   James clenched his jaw in anger as he realized how drunk his daughter was, and with a perfect stranger that she'd brought home with her, no less.

"Ooops," Miranda said, bursting into a fit of laughter.

"I think we're interrupting something," said the jock.

"Miranda, what on earth are you doing?" James asked, glaring at her with dark, penetrating eyes.