Tim Russell: (ANNC) And now....The Story of Ella, A Woman of the West, and her dog, Buddy. (MUSIC) Tired of Manhattan and the squalid struggle for attention at crowded cocktail parties, short-story writer Ella Fontaine has moved to an abandoned boxcar in tall weeds alongside the Palouse River in Washington where she and her helper dog Buddy live on lentils and on trout that Buddy catches in his jaws.
(MUSIC FADES)
SS: Oh, Buddy. What would I do without you? Every day you bring home a fish and without even very deep teethmarks in it. You're better than any boyfriend I ever had. (BARKS) And smarter too. (WOOF) The west is so perfect for a writer. In New York there were so many distractions. Like the rent. (GROWL) And now I'm finally finished with my first novel. I'm calling it Wheat That Groweth Here. Take this manuscript into town, Buddy. (WOOF, PANTING) Bring it to my agent, Big Red. Tell him to sell it and get a huge advance. (WOOF)
(BARKING, DOG RUNS OFF)
SS: (SIGH) What a beautiful feeling -- my first novel finished -- in a matter of days or weeks, I'll be receiving a check and I can move into a house and buy myself an all-terrain vehicle. (ATV APPROACHES) Speaking of which -- oh no. (ATV PULLS UP AND STOPS)
TR: (GRUFF) Hi Ella. How's it going?
SS: You just ran over my lentils, Frank!
TR: I need to talk to you, Ella.
SS: I told you I never want to see you again, Frank.
TR: It's not that easy to be not seen again, Ella. Pullman is not that big a town.
SS: Move to Spokane.
TR: You move to Spokane.
SS: I'm a writer, I have a right to be here. These rolling wheatfields are where my novel is set, where my heroine Eleanor LaFont finds the true meaning of her life.
TR: I want to see your novel, Ella. I want to make sure I wasn't portrayed in it as some kind of a dillweed.
SS: What an ego, Frank. What makes you think I care?
TR: I know you care. And you know you care. So let me see the novel. I don't want to be held up for public ridicule just because --
SS: Just because what?
TR: Just because I'm from Seattle. I don't want to be portrayed as some narcissistic caffeine-crazed media junkie --
SS: You see this shotgun, Frank? (GUN COCK) Get out of here, Frank. We're over, finished.
TR: That gun isn't loaded, Ella.
SS: It's not?
TR: Nope. That isn't a shell in there. It's an acorn. You've been a writer too long. But this gun has a shell in it. (GUN COCK) And so does this one.(GUN COCK) And this one. (GUN COCK).
SS: Three shotguns, Frank? You've got a real insecurity issue, I'd say.
TR: I just want to make sure there isn't a tall guy in your novel who doesn't dance that well and who doesn't care for lentils--
SS: Get off my property, or you'll get an acorn to the chest.
TR: Don't make me use force, Ella. (ARROW FLIGHT AND HITS TREE AND VIBRATES) What the heck? Who shot that?
GK: Leave her alone.
TR: Who said that?
GK: Up here in the tree.
TR: You coulda killed me, you jerk! What gives?
GK: Take a hike. The lady doesn't want you around.
TR: Why don't you come down here and say that? (ARROW) All right, all right-I'm outta here. I'll be back. (ATV REVS, DRIVES AWAY)
(CLIMBING DOWN FROM TREE)
GK: You all right, ma'am?
SS: Who are you? What are you doing up in that tree? You spying on me?
GK: I'm sorry. I'm writing a novel and there's a character in it I was having trouble with, a woman who lives by herself in the woods. I just had no idea what women do when they're all alone, so I had to find out. .
SS: How long have you been up there?
GK: Since the middle of May.
SS: You've been watching me all summer????
GK: I had to do it.
SS: So that light I thought I saw in the limbs of the tree--
GK: That was my laptop.
SS: That's invasion of privacy.
GK: Sometimes in the interest of one's art, a person has to cross that line.
SS: You could have just asked me. You could have introduced yourself like a regular person.
GK: If I did, I never would've found out about you rubbing yourself with lemon juice--
SS: Hand over your laptop.
GK: Everything I wrote on the laptop I backed up to my e-mail account on the Net.
SS: You-- you also used my wi-fi. Didn't you?
GK: Just when you were asleep. You wouldn't have been using it anyway. Did you know that you laugh in your sleep?
(DOG APPROACHES, BARKING)
SS: Here Buddy. Here boy. Kill, Buddy, Kill. (WHINE) Rip his throat out. I want him to die. (WHINE)
GK: He's not going to do that, Ella.
SS: Buddy--? (GROWL) Buddy, what's wrong?
GK: Remember all those times Buddy asked to be let out at night and he didn't come home for awhile? He was with me, Ella. Buddy and I bonded. Buddy likes my novel, Ella. (DOG PANTS, COLLAR JINGLE, LEG THUMPS) There are bears in mine and fishing and whitewater rafts. It's not just a bunch of women sitting around complaining.
SS: At least mine had dialogue. It wasn't just a guy talking to himself.
GK: So you read my book?
SS: You accidentally sent it to my email address. I thought it was spam.
GK: Eat her book, Buddy.
(DOG SNARFING)
SS: What are you doing to my novel, Buddy? (DOG GROWLS, CHEWING PAPER) Don't! You're ruining it! That's my only copy! (DOG CHEWING) It's gone. All my work. Wasted. (SHE WEEPS)
GK: Here.
SS: Go away.
GK: Here.
SS: What's that?
GK: Two double lentil lattes.
SS: How did you know?
GK: I know you, Ella.
SS: You know me too well.
GK: That's true.
SS: Either I'm going to have to kill you. Or marry you.
GK: Your choice.
SS: I guess you'd better kiss me then. Quick, before I change my mind. (DOG GROWL)
GK: Get lost, Buddy.
(THEME)
TR: Join us next week, when Ella begins a new novel about a cougar who is looking for a mate, on ELLA, A WOMAN OF THE WEST.
(MUSIC UP AND OUT)