Violet & Claire

by Francesca Lia Block

  Violet & Claire

  Francesca Lia Block

  For Gilda

  Contents

  Violet

  Claire

  Violet & Claire

  About the Author

  Praise

  Other Books by Francesca Lia Block

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Violet

  FADE IN:

  The helicopter circles whirring in a sky the color of laundered-to-the-perfect-fade jeans. Clouds like the wigs of starlets—fluffy platinum spun floss. Below, the hills are covered with houses from every place and time—English Tudor manors, Swiss chalets, Spanish villas, California Craftsman. Flowers threaten to grow over their doors and windows like what happened to Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Pools flash like jewels in backyards where Sleeping Beauties in sunglasses float topless, waking to sip from goblets of exotica decorated with pineapples, cherries and hibiscus blossoms. On the roads that run between the hills are shiny cars, hard-candy-colored and filled with music.

  This is how my movie begins. The credits floating in the pools, written on the license plates, on billboards, lighting up in neon over the bars. I am in the helicopter dressed in Gautier black and shades, pointing out the shots to the cameraman.

  This is how my movie begins but not my life. My life started seventeen years ago in a hospital in West L.A. There were no cameras at the event, no sign above the hospital announcing the opening of THE LIFE OF VIOLET SAMMS. Maybe there should have been. Who knows, if I got famous, I told myself, it could be very valuable to have all that on film.

  I knew even then that I was destined for a life of cinema. It seemed more real to me than real life, sometimes. As soon as I could walk I discovered cable and began to watch the classics. The parents could not get me away from the screen. The first word I learned was “Rosebud.” I imitated Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, waltzing around the living room. I tried walking like Charlie Chaplin. When Marilyn was on I didn’t do anything. I just sat there with my hands stretched out trying to touch her. Why was she just electric static? I thought she’d be as warm and silky as she looked.

  Now you might assume that I wanted to be an actress. But that wasn’t it at all. That would have limited me. I could never have dreamed of just playing one part, saying somebody else’s words, doing what they told me to do like a lovely puppet. No—I wanted to be the one to give the words, and actions, too. I started by directing my dolls, but they did not cooperate. They had none of the vivid but ephemeral essence that emanates from a real star. I could dress them certain ways and twist their bodies around into the right positions, but I was frustrated by the lack of life in their eyes. That was when I began fantasizing about real actors. The boys and girls in the neighborhood never lived up to my expectations. They got bored fast and went off to play games that I never understood. Also, they had an aversion to some of the more strenuous poses that my dolls, with all their lack of emoting ability, always complied with. Speaking of emoting—the neighborhood children weren’t much better than my dolls with that. And then, most humiliating of all, they rejected me! They plotted ways to avoid me after school. I grew up alone but in the best company. Dating Cary Grant and Bogey at the revival house, hanging with Jarmusch at the art house, spending the night with Garbo and Veronica Lake on my VCR. Wondering why I couldn’t find my own little Marilyn and Jimmy Dean to work with. I knew I was worthy of their talents, even then.

  And one day, finally, I saw her.

  EXT. HIGH SCHOOL QUAD: DAY

  She was wearing a Tinker Bell T-shirt and her hair was up on her head in a goofy blond ponytail. You could tell she had no idea she was pretty. But I knew that on film she would glow with that weird light that certain people have. I’ve got an eye for those things.

  I was working on my laptop, still trying to figure out what the script was going to be about. Of course it was going to be about me, but even I couldn’t take one hundred and twenty minutes of pure Violet. We needed something. We needed a story. The proverbial “we,” because so far the only one on the team was me.

  There was no one at school that even had a clue what I was up to. They thought I was from another planet, and maybe I am. At least they usually left me alone. The girls admired my clothes and my hair and the boys checked out my body, but none of them wanted to talk to me. They thought I was some heavily attitude-endowed bitch whose only friend was her PowerBook.

  Well, it was true. I didn’t have many friends. Make that any. And that would have been all right as long as I could have been making movies. But for movies you need to collaborate. It is one of the laws of film, even if you are a dictator. And so, even if I didn’t need any friends, I needed an actress. And there she was, sitting under the big magnolia tree with its fat white flowers, her hair up on her head in a ponytail and her scruffy Tinker Bell T-shirt and her toes poking through the holes in her Vans. It took an expert eye to recognize it in her but I recognized it—she was my star, my Miss Monroe junior, my teen queen extraordinaire, my young diva, my sweet celluloid goddess waiting to be captured on the luminous screen.

  I was getting ready to talk to her when this boy Steve decided to come over. Atrocious sense of timing—he could never do stand-up, let alone be a leading man. Also, he desperately needed a stylist. I tried to ignore him, but he stood there, insistent, trying to see what I was writing.

  “You must have the longest diary of any girl at this school. Is it about all your hot dates?”

  I shouldn’t have indulged him but I said it wasn’t a diary.

  “Oh, excuse me. Zine.”

  He was trying desperately to find some hepcat credentials to whip out. It made me nauseous.

  “No, it’s not a zine,” I said patiently. “It’s a screenplay.”

  “Awesome!” he exclaimed. “Can I read it?”

  I bet you can guess my answer, even in the short time we’ve been acquainted. Unfortunately, he was not so astute. He seemed surprised and said, “If you don’t ever do anything except write you’ll need Prozac.”

  This was especially not funny since in junior high I had gained notoriety from a serious bout with depression that caused me to cut my arms with razor blades. I asked him point-blank what it was that he wanted.

  Actually, I was kind of surprised when he asked me to the game on Saturday. I never attended high school events. Not that I didn’t like sports. I planned someday to have courtside seats at all Sparks games.

  Honestly, though, I might have said yes to him. Just for the experience, you know. Something to write about. I mean, no one had really asked me out like that before, to tell you the truth. They were too scared by my shoes or scars or something. It was always about the backseats of cars, that type of thing. But I didn’t think I could actually go through with a real date. Where would it lead? And besides, just at that moment I noticed that Miss Tinker Bell was looking really upset. I closed my laptop and said no, thanks.

  “Oh, I forgot,” he jeered (jeered is an odd word but the only one that fit his taunting tone). “You’re way too sophisticated for something as totally high school as a football game.”

  I excused myself and started to get up. He mimicked me, tossing imaginary hair and putting a hand on his hip. Even if he was auditioning for the role of the high school asshole he wouldn’t have gotten the part, believe me. No talent whatsoever. But I had other things to consider. Tinker Bell was really tweaking.

  “You okay, Tink?” I asked.

  The kids who had formed a circle around her scattered at the sight of me. Was I the wicked witch or something? It always amazed me the effect I had on people.

  Tinker Bell, however, did not seem at all distressed by my appearance. She nodded. Up close she seemed even sma
ller and very thin—she had the body of a twelve-year-old, practically.

  I told her I liked her T-shirt and she grinned. Great teeth, too. Teeth can be very important when they are blown up to the size of Michael Jordan on the screen.

  I would have remembered those teeth if I had seen them before. I asked if she was new to our lovely local prison.

  She was.

  “Why were they harassing you?” I asked, still trying to get her to talk. Her voice would be an important consideration, and so far it didn’t seem like she had one.

  In fact, she didn’t answer again, just shrugged. That was when I noticed the iridescent gauze and wire fairy wings glued onto the back of her shirt. She didn’t seem to know (or care) that at this school you couldn’t get away with that. But obviously she was an original.

  “I’m going to make this movie,” I said. “I wonder if you’d be in it.”

  I was taking a risk, not having heard her voice, but I was so impressed with the wings that I really had to just go for it.

  Unfortunately, Tinker Bell got up and started to walk away. I followed her.

  “I’m serious,” I said.

  She stopped and looked down at her feet. The wings were glistening with glitter behind her. “I can’t even answer a question out loud in English, and that’s my best subject.”

  Her voice was almost inaudible. But I didn’t care. She definitely had something. To make her feel better, I said, “It’s a silent movie. Well, mostly. I think.” And I figured maybe it would be. I mean, the real masterpieces didn’t need words to convey story or emotion. It would force me to pursue the perfect potent image at all times. And what else was filmmaking about if not a series of perfect and potent images strung together like the words of a poem?

  Tinker Bell shrugged. Suddenly a sandwich flew past just grazing her ear. It landed with a mayo-soaked slap on the pavement. There was only one thing to do—I picked it up and slammed it back where it came from. I have to admit I was not only defending my future leading lady. Because of my close proximity to her I was suddenly rendered no longer immune. That sandwich could very well have been intended for my own stoned-on-cinema head.

  Tinker Bell and I cut class and walked home together. She seemed somewhat overwhelmed by the ’hood—her eyes widening at each house we passed. I was so used to the decadence, it was pathetic. I appreciated her sense of wonder. The large manors with their stone walls and gabled roofs, their emerald lawns and bursts of flowers had been the backdrop of my life for as long as I could remember. But as impressed as she was with it all, Tinker Bell was not taken aback. She blithely collected blossoms from each garden and stuck them in her hair or her backpack.

  I was trying to explain to her some of the basic principles of film. It was a relief to at last have someone who would listen, although she seemed more interested in the configurations of flower petals than in my theories.

  “The main thing is conflict,” I told her.

  She paused to jam a blue hydrangea into her backpack. “I don’t like conflict,” she said. “I’m a Libra.”

  You know: scales, balancing…

  I was impressed with her strong opinion, at least, even if this was a huge point of contention. I decided to approach the subject in a semi-circuitous fashion like any good teacher.

  “What movies do you like?” I inquired.

  “I liked that one with the pig,” she said.

  “But why did you like it?”

  “He was so cute. It reminded me of Charlotte’s Web.”

  “But the reason you liked him was because he was in danger,” I patiently explained. “I mean, that’s what made you really care.”

  She thought about this for a moment, screwing up her face. I was impressed by her lack of regard for the possibility of wrinkles. I had been raised by a wrinkle-free-fanatic who never smiled or expressed any other emotion as a means to avoid the dreaded lines.

  “I guess,” she said. “I wouldn’t have minded just watching him be a cute pig.”

  “Well, there’s got to be conflict or it’s not real film,” I preached. I admit I preach in this area. But how can I help it? It is my religion. My only source of faith and fervor.

  Tinker Bell’s religion was obviously of a different nature. “I like to write poetry,” she said. “Poetry doesn’t depend on conflict.”

  We had gotten to my house at this point, and I led her through the spiked fortress of gates and up the path. “You can’t make a living from poetry,” I told her.

  She stared at the white colonial monster in which I had been raised, with its towering, gleaming columns, and she seemed puzzled that I was thinking about making a living.

  “This is your house?” she said.

  I knew what she was getting at. A rich child like me should be able to think freely about my future. I should be a purist, a patron of the finer arts. But she didn’t understand. I could not ride on my parents coattails (or in their Beemer) for much longer. I had to get out of there and make a living on my own. It was a hellish environment in spite of its apparent glamor. And, unfortunately, because of the way I’d been raised, they had made me used to luxury. I was a certified high-maintenance gal, and the starving-artist life would never have sufficed, no matter how good it sounded in theory.

  But it was hard to explain my woes to someone when they were drifting through rooms papered in shiny flowers, decorated in expensive antiques and crystal, under high sky-lit ceilings and over gleaming marble floors.

  I took off my shoes and left them by the door as always. When you grow up on white carpets and with a mother like Judy, it’s just something you get used to. Tinker Bell slipped off her Vans and followed me past the couches covered in plastic.

  She raised her face to the crystal chandelier. Sunlight on the trembling pendants scattered a myriad of rainbows across her face. She blew a bubble with her gum. The thin pink sugar would have looked as good on film as any jewel.

  Then she was in my room, up the winding white staircase, in my room and spinning spinning like a 1960’s sitcom career girl (think marlo, mary, diane) taking in the decor.

  My room seemed like a different planet from the rest of the house. First of all, I am entirely anti-pastel. It comes from growing up amidst daffodil damask couches and sky-blue velvet chairs (plastic-covered, of course), in a room painted Pepto Bismol. So, what was a pastel-saturated young thing to do? My obsession with black had started very young. My hair was dyed jet. My closet contained angora sweaters low-slung hiphuggers micro minis tummy baring midriffs fluffy chubbies platforms stilettos and sandals in black black black. Only black. Obsidian. My prize possession—the 1965 ’Stang—was, of course, pure ebony. Therefore, the theme applied to my environment as well. I had painted over the Abysmal Pink with black paint when I was twelve (all on my own, mind you, I was a rich child but industrious). The only decor was my film noir posters, my film theory books and the 3x5 index cards tacked up alongside my storyboards.

  As was my daily custom after school, I went up to the wall and began to rearrange the cards. I had started to do it randomly to see the surrealist possibilities and break the conventions of plot point and arc. Of course, this was merely theoretical. As rebellious as I was, I knew the importance of classic story structure. Unfortunately, there were still large gaps in my story.

  “Have you always loved movies?” Tinker Bell asked me, staring at my Pulp Fiction poster (the only contemporary non-noir in the room; I was a reluctant Quentin disciple).

  I answered her in the affirmative, deciding to spare her the historical details.

  “Are your parents writers?” she asked.

  It wasn’t a bad guess (from their house you could have guessed they wrote cheesy blockbusters or something) but it was as far from the truth as could be. They were—and I told her this—the major bores. “They don’t even know who Cocteau is.”

  “How lame!” Tink exclaimed. And then—it was endearing somehow, coming from her: “Who?”

  I said t
hat I could see I needed to educate her. She abruptly plopped down on my (black) floor and took a cardboard star out of her backpack. I continued to maneuver the 3x5’s. Currently, the heroine was fighting with her parents in the opening scene.

  “How’d you learn all this stuff?” she asked.

  “I’m entirely self taught. I rent two videos a night and I read everything.”

  Tink took a glitter pen and tape out of her backpack.

  “What’s your movie going to be about?” she asked.

  I paused and turned toward her. I had been waiting for this moment for a long time: when someone who was not a thorough dweebish boll weevil would ask me about my project. Even though I still didn’t really know what it was going to be about, I knew certain things for certain. “It’s going to be terrifically cool. It’s going to be really dark but with this kind of glowing color emanating from it.”

  She began to glitter up the star, then paused, lost in thought.

  “Like when you were a kid and you used to make a design with colored crayons and then cover it with black and then scratch it and the color showed through?”

  That was pretty good. “Yes,” I said. “Like stained glass.”

  We both stopped and stared reverently into space, seeing the glossy glassy colors, the rose window of a church. As much as I loved black on and around my limbs, I always appreciated the wonder of Technicolor, the possibilities of the palette.

  “Cool,” Tinker Bell whispered, as if inside a cathedral.

  Then she broke the spell with her question. “So, what’s the conflict?”

  “What?” I said, annoyed by the interruption of my reverie.

  “You said the most important thing is…”

  “That’s the problem,” I confided to her. “I honestly don’t know yet. I don’t have any exciting conflict in my life. And you’re always supposed to write from experience. It gives authenticity.”