Almost Famous (on hold)

Prolouge

A lone palm tree rises up into a yellow afternoon sky. Behind it, the sparkling blue of the Pacific Ocean and the city of San Diego. A dry, hot Southern California day. Even the wind is lazy, and a little bored.

Santa Claus wears shorts and sandals, ringing a bell as he collects for the Salvation Army.  This is Christmas in the Southland.  No snow, no winter wonderland.  Just a pleasantly thick heat and an unchanging season.

A rundown, light blue car pulls up to a mini-condo community that holds rows of Spanish-styled three-bedroom houses with common walls. The car stops in front of a single house, the one without Christmas lights. 

A furtive, 16 year-old girl thanks the young boy driving and she checks her cheek, straightens her hair, hides something under her coat, and gathers the proper nonchalance to enter.

We now hear the dialogue between this a lively mother and her younger daughter, as she cooks a pan full of soy-based health-food cutlets. The meal simmers unappetizingly in the pan.

Across the kitchen we see Jem. She's a great listener, with a calm and curious face that takes everything in.

Jem's Mother continues answering her never-ending list of questions as she prepares dinner.

Jem continues to nod along, always intrigued.  She has a good disposition.  The world of knowledge engages her, and she loves what it brings out in her Mom.  There is a small clatter at the front door, as 16 year-old girl enters, barely brushing some chimes. She silently curses herself.

"Anita, is that you?" Jem's mother, Elaine, calls out, toward to front door.

"Hey mom! I already ate". Anita calls back to her mother, hurriedly trying to reach her room before her mother reaches her.

She's almost to her bedroom down the hall when mom catches her.  We now discover Anita, Jem's older sister, a young girl with a suspicious and sunny smile.

"You sure?  I'm making soy cutlets." Elaine asks, innocently.

The words "soy cutlets" sends a small shiver through Anita.

"I'm fine.  Already ate". She repeats, trying to walk past her mother.

Jem stands in the doorway of the living room now, watching, monitoring, as Elaine moves closer to her sister.  She sees something curious about her daughter.

"Wait.  You've been kissing" Elaine depicts.

"No I haven't" Anita responds defensively, yet too quickly.

"Yes... yes, you have..." Elaine states, peering at her lips.

"No I haven't" Anita cheeks slightly flush as she breaks eye contact with her intimidating mother.

"Yes you have. I can tell."

"You can't tell" Anita accuses, boldly.

Elaine steps closer and examines her lips even more carefully. To her, everything is a quest for knowledge.

"Not only can I tell, I know who it is. It's Darryl".

Anita is stunned silent.  She turns slightly to look at herself in a hall mirror, searching for clues, implicating herself immediately.

"And what have you got under your coat?" Elaine adds.

This is the treasure Anita didn't want to give up.  Elaine picks at the corner of an album cover now visible under her jacket. She withdraws the album. It's Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends.

"It's unfair that we can't listen to our music!" Anita argues, tired of her mother's strict rules, as her mother confiscates the record.

"Honey, it's all about drugs and promiscuous sex" Elaine sighs, tired with the issue.

"Simon and Garfunkel is poetry!" Anita exclaims.

"Yes it's poetry.  It's the poetry of drugs and promiscuous sex.  Look at the picture on the cover..." Elaine turns back around, holding the album up for her daughter.

"... honey, they're on pot". Elaine begins walking back to the kitchen, with the album tucked under her arm.

"First it was butter, then sugar and white flour. Bacon. Eggs, bologna, rock and roll, motorcycles..." Anita continues listing things her mother has banned from Jem and her.

Jem squirms as she watches the gently escalating conversation.  Anita glances at her sister. Jem silently urges her to downshift, sick of the fights between her sister and mother. Anita doesn't.

"...Then it was celebrating Christmas on a day in September When you knew it wouldn't be commercialized."

"That was an experiment." Elaine states defensively, holding up a single finger toward Anita, "But I understand-"

"What else are you going to ban?" Anita's voice has risen slightly.

"Honey, you want to rebel against knowledge. I'm trying to give you the Cliff's Notes on how to live in this world." Elaine states, verifying herself.

"We're like nobody else I know." Anita says simply get direct.

These are the words that sting Elaine most.

"I'm a teacher.  Why can't I teach my own kids?" Elaine sighs, defeated.

"Darryl says you use knowledge to keep me down. He says I'm a "yes" person and you're trying to raise us in a "no" environment!" Anita continues, although she knows she's already upset her mother.

"Well, clearly, "no" is a word Darry doesn't hear much." Elaine snaps.

Anita gasps.  Ever the peacemaker, Jem, attempts to weigh in. 

"Mom..."

"Everything I say is wrong." Elaine ignores Jem.

"I can't live here!  I hate you!  Even Jem hates you!" Anita says roughly, tears forming in her eyes.

"I don't hate her." Jem says, almost too quiet to pick up.

"You don't even know the truth!" Anita yells toward Jem, who looks vaguely confused.

"Sweetheart, don't be a drama queen" Elaine attempts to calm her daughter.

Anita takes a breath and then out of her mouth comes the strangled-sounding words of a kid swearing at her parent for the first time.

"Feck you!  All of you!"

"Hey!"

Anita runs down the hall to her room.  Elaine turns to Jem, relating to her more as a fellow parent than a child.

"Well, there it is.  Your sister used the "f" word."

"I think she said feck"

"What's the difference"

"Well.  The letter "u"..." Jem says, encouragingly.