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Page 28
"But"
"Are you finished? Good. Then let me show you around." Mariah decided not to confront him further about the ending until they'd developed a better rapport. Maybe she'd leave it to Angela, whose tact far surpassed Mariah's when it needed to.
They walked out of the hotel and across the street. Mariah immediately missed the air conditioning. The morning was humid and already uncomfortably warm, although a moisture-laden breeze was blowing. Her blouse had short sleeves, but she wished she'd worn something cooler than silkcotton, maybe, despite the ease with which it wrinkled. Breathing was uncomfortable as the heavy, moist air blew into her face, smelling faintly of car exhaust.
"This is Point State Park," Pierce said. "It's where four forts used to be, not counting the temporary garrison when Fort Pitt was being built. The earliest, begun by Virginians, was overrun by the French, who turned it into Fort Duquesne. When the English took over, they built Fort Pitt. After it was demolished, a fourth fort, Fort Fayette, was built before the end of the eighteenth century as protection against a final Indian uprising."
Mariah appreciated the history lesson. She wished she'd learned more before coming to town to scout locations for this film so rooted in its past.
But then, she hadn't known of the script's rich historical background.
The park's entrance was festooned with a bed of riotous red and yellow flowering bushes flanked, at both sides, by wide paved paths. At the far side of the river Pierce identified as the Monongahela towered the tall hill known as Mount Washington, capped by houses and apartment buildings.
"I'm not sure how much actual location shooting we'll be able to do here," Mariah commented, trying not to let her disappointment show as she dutifully snapped pictures. This was the park that had so attracted her from the air and her hotel room. But there was too much civilization around to allow an easy shoot of a historical film.
She was talking now as though this movie would be made.

 
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