But Daddy I Love Him

Good Lord, Lorrie

"Well, Lorrie's family used to have a little money/ and they still act like they do/ but your daddy doesn't think I'm fit to sit in the same rooms as you//Well good lord, Lorrie, I love you could it go more wrong."

Interviewer: Tell me about the North family

Billy Dunne: Really? Why? Okay, they were just this awful snobby family from Hazelwood. They had a house in the rich neighborhood.

Graham Dunne: Mr. North had grown up poor in Hazelwood and married into old money.

Eddie Roundtree: Ugh, they just made it clear they thought they were better than everyone else. Growing up without a lot, you know, they were just a family kids like us wanted to avoid.

Warren Rojas: Um... they're not my biggest fans.

Interviewer: What about Ariel North?

Billy Dunne: The princess?

Graham Dunne: She was Warren's... well, Warren and her were like a package deal.

Eddie Roundtree: She was different from them, but she was kind of trapped in that family. She wasn't bad though. She's always meant the world to Warren.

Warren Rojas: [smiles] Uh, what do you want to know?

Interviewer: Are you ready to begin?

Ariel Rojas née North (writer and former model): Absolutely [smiles].

...

Warren Rojas and Ariel North met on a random day in 1956, at seven years old.

Warren was walking home from school, the same path he always took, when he saw a girl he had never seen before. She looked to be about his age, and she was staring worriedly at a tree. Well, at the bottom of a tree. For a moment he thought to keep walking, but something pulled him to her.

"What are you doing?" He asked, with all the tact and grace of a little boy.

The girl startled, spinning around to face him. He took in her shiny Mary Janes, her ironed skirt with its matching jacket, her clean white shirt. He was too young, too unaware, to think about the holes he'd worn in his jeans or his dirty shoes, but an outsider would've thought they made in odd sight.

"The bird, she, uh, she fell out of the nest." The words tumbled out of the girl's mouth nervously. "The bird" she gestured to the ground, "can't fly." Warren saw the bird she was talking about. So, she wasn't staring at the tree, Warren thought. "I don't know how to help." She finished softly.

Now, seven year old Warren would've not thought of himself as helpful. Not that he didn't want to be. But his teachers tended to respond to him like he made things messier or worse, rather than better. But he felt like he could help this girl.

"I'm a really good tree climber, even better than Graham. I could climb the tree and put the bird back in the nest." The girl looked at him with wide eyes. She didn't know who Graham was but she did know that she had never climbed a tree before and wouldn't be able to do this herself.

"Really?" She asked.

"Sure," he shrugged, already taking his backpack off.

Once Warren was in the tree the girl handed him the bird, who struggled and squeaked a little but allowed them to help. Warren placed the bird in the nest, as softly as he could, and the crisis was obverted.