There are some child stars that we
really want to see do well. I think its because we see them at their sweetest
state, and we get attached. Take Home
Alone, for example. The painfully cute, equally mischievous Macaulay Culkin
wins our hearts when his family leaves him behind over Christmas vacation. But
whatever happened to those big blue eyes? For the beloved Parent Trap star, Lindsay Lohan, we don’t even need to ask the
question. If you pick up any magazine at the grocery checkout counter, you’re
sure to find an article on Lohan’s latest rehab visit or drunk driving stunt.
With so much pressure on these young
celebrities, it is particularly impressive when they are able to reach
adulthood without the long list of DUIs. To be able to grow up in front of the
big screen and still lead a normal life is a feat that should be recognized.
Maybe this is why I have always gravitated to Dakota Fanning films. I Am Sam being one of my favorite movies
of all time (despite Tropic Thunder’s
jabs at it), Dakota Fanning has always been on my radar as one of the great
child stars in Hollywood. Although I wouldn’t argue that our childhoods were
even remotely similar, I always felt that she could be just another girl in my
grade; she never ceases to be genuine and down to earth.
Because I wanted to blog about one
of my favorite actresses in Hollywood, I just watched The Secret Life of Bees. This movie was based off of a book by Sue
Monk Kidd that tells the story of a young girl, Lily, in the 1960s who runs
away from her abusive dad with her African American housekeeper, Rosaleen
(played by the equally wonderful Jennifer Hudson). This story is told by a
collaboration of Hollywood greats, also including Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys,
and Hilarie Burton. Unlike Playing for
Keeps, The Secret Life of Bees
was able to take full advantage of its studded “super cast.” In a film about
finding one’s family, each of these leading women is able to make us as the
audience feel at home on the other side of the screen.
While I would like to give credit to
the screenwriter, Gina Prince-Bythewood, for such an eloquent adaption, the
true hero of this production is the author of such a unique, heartfelt story,
Sue Monk Kidd. This movie proves that a truly great story can be appreciated on
more than one level. Both the setting and characters are completely unique to The Secret Life of Bees. While they say
that all stories come from other stories already told, Kidd does a great job at
making us doubt this. Like a shiny new toy at Christmas, screenwriting has
swept me off my feet these past few weeks. It has fascinated and intrigued me,
and is definitely something that I’d like to explore more. However, The Secret Life of Bees reminded me not
to give up on novel-writing either. There are so many ways for a story to be
told and shared, passed around and told again. In his book Save the Cat!, author Blake Snyder makes an excellent point: think
of the story first, and then figure out which is the best way to tell it. So
here is the first bit of my novel, Pink House. While there is a lot more
than this snippet, I thought I’d share the words that my script sprouted up
from. Also, if you’ve been keeping tabs on the updates at the bottom of each
blog post, you should notice that watching The
Secret Life of Bees really inspired me to work on my novel this morning.
Enjoy!
PINK HOUSE
I’ve
always wanted a house on the cul-de-sac. One with green shutters and a blue
door and a dog named Elvis Presley. A mailman would hobble to our mailbox
shaped like a golf ball and ask me what I thought of the weather. I wouldn’t
know what to say, but I’d smile and nod and let the man with the leathery bag
walk down to the next driveway.
In Parma, Ohio, 1963, it’s
considered normal for the mailman to know your name. It’s considered normal for
the ten Bradley children to fill up the school bus with their hand-me-down
sweaters and brown-bagged lunches, and for the drunk Mr. Keeler’s cat to eat
tar off the pavement. And so it wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary to wait for a
thunderstorm from your screened-in porch in the middle of July.
Today, the trees are bowing to our coarse
brown lawn and I know a summer storm is coming. I panic, but then remember that
my flashlight’s under the bed and the extra batteries are in the top drawer of
my dresser. I remember this because I’m claustrophobic, but only when it’s dark.
However, when I told Mother this an hour ago she rolled her eyes.
Go play outside, she said. So I sat on
this doorstep and haven’t moved since. I pull at the collar of my red
sweatshirt and try not to sweat. Today, the mailman would say it’s never been
this hot before. But I’m wearing a sweatshirt anyways because of the breeze.
Every season’s flu season, Grandmother used to say.
I sit with my back to the house so that I
don’t have to look at the slanted, rusty gutter, or the pink paint flaking away
from the siding. We should get that fixed, Mother says. But by now I know not
to believe her.
I think it’s easier to walk away from a
pink house. To sit with you’re back to it. I love going out to the mailbox in
the morning to look out at the other houses and pretend that behind me, mine
looks exactly the same. Grandmother used to love going to church on Sundays
because she hated that thin coat of pink paint. Sometimes, if I listened hard
enough, I could hear her praying for a different colored house. Or at least, I
pretended I could. Because that was much more interesting than counting each of
the linoleum tiles on the chapel floor. Even Mother, although she’d never admit
it, loves going to her weekly Bridge game to walk away from the pink house.
Yes, my mother plays Bridge. And although I can’t explain why, I am intensely
proud of her for it.
And when a yellow taxicab had pulled up
to the house—the romantic cabs you watch pull up in movies—, I strangely
understood why my father stuffed his black suitcase into the trunk.
The week after he left, Mother made me
grilled cheese sandwiches. I guess she thought they were my favorite, and I
guess I didn’t have the nerve to tell her that they weren’t.
The grilled cheese making started one day
when Mother took all the cheese from the fridge—the only food that was still in
there, since Mother refused to go to the grocery store alone— and melted slices
on Wonderbread using her metal iron and the stained ironing board. I never have
friends over for dinner for exactly this reason: my mother can’t cook. Eating
bread soggy and smushed too flat, I nodded and tried to smile with sticky
cheese stretching across my teeth. Any good? Mother would ask. And then, she’d
spin around and make another before I could say no, not good at all.
Late at night, after Mother made her
final wet cheese sandwich and fell asleep on the couch, I’d take a preventive
swig of Pepto-Bismol and brush my teeth twice. Just in case, Grandmother used
to say. And I would brush my teeth again.
Then, I’d lie down on top of my plain
white sheets with the fan spinning above. And just before I would close my
eyes, I pressed on my kidney, or the place where I thought it should be, and
checked for kidney stones.
From my seat on the doorstep, I can see a
legion of boys in t-shirts and baseball caps coming towards me, and at first
I’m scared. I try to stand up, if only to block the view of my pink house.
Stand by the mailbox; it’ll look cooler. I worry about whether or not I put on
sunscreen, but only for a moment, before the boys are calling my name. But
they’re just shouting hey Kid or hey You, and I look up. I lean on the mailbox,
but feel it quiver beneath my elbow. Stand up straight; you’ll get Arthritis,
Grandmother used to say. I scratch at the top of my hands; I don’t want
Arthritis.
Hey, you have a glove? We need one more,
a boy asks. His hair is reddish and freckles look like they were spat on his
round face. But he laughs and the others laugh and I wish I were him, but only
for a second.
I slip my sweaty palm into my
father’s hand-me-down mitt, but quickly take it out again. Mother always tells
me I was horrible at making decisions. You wanna come play? They ask again. But
I hate sports.
I start to make a list in my head,
with a leaky green pen on blue-lined paper. I could trip, sprain my ankle,
break it, the bone poking through my skin. I could chip a tooth on a baseball,
get a knot in my leg, fall. I start muttering about Achilles Tendinitis under
my breath.
Is he retarded? The boy asks, and
the others laugh. I scratch the top of my bony hands again, and they start to
bleed. I rub them pink, and think about my pink house and how badly I wanted to
walk away from it.
He’s weak, my father said just
before he left. I think he knew I was listening, because he saw me on the
staircase and stared at my scarred hands; I tucked them behind my back. I
remember it soggy, like far away and I’m looking at him underwater and he
leaves the pink house and doesn’t look back. And although I hate my father, I
wanted to be him at the same time.
A boy with jet-black hair and
crooked teeth comes up to the mailbox. He’s short like me, but his strides are
long and he’s grabbing my mitt before I can lean against the mailbox again. I
push at the glasses falling down my speckled nose.
Put it on, the boy says, shoving my
glove into my chest, and I cough, almost dropping it. Sweat mats my brown hair
to my forehead and I try to wipe it off with the back of my hand. It stings.
The sun is staring at me and the boys are waiting and I look down at my
un-scuffed converse.
Sorry, I can’t— I start to say. But
someone’s tapping on a glass window, and I turn around.
Go, Mother says, even though I can’t
hear her from outside. She shoos me with her hands, clicking the window with
her long pink fingernails. I turn to face the boy with the crooked teeth.
C’mon, he says, and so I slip on my
baseball glove, the dark leather rubbing against my raw hands, and walk towards
the cul-de-sac.
MOVIES WATCHED: 12
SCREENPLAY PAGES WRITTEN: 44
NOVEL PAGES WRITTEN: 70
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