Film Studies

  Single Voice

  Caroline Adderson

  Film

  Studies

  There once was a girl who lay in bed for a long time every morning. In itself, this was hardly special. Most girls hate getting up. The alarm goes and they doze a bit, watching the light behind the curtains—is it raining or is it sunny?—until they figure out what to wear. But this girl was special. While she was drowsing in bed, she wasn’t thinking about clothes. She was deciding which character to be that day. The Little Match Girl frantically striking matches to keep herself from freezing to death? No, she didn’t feel that pathetic. The Ugly Duckling? That only worked when she had a pimple or something, because she was half-Danish and the Danes are beautiful. The Snow Queen?

  No. She’s been the Snow Queen too much lately.

  Why do I do it? Why do I always need a role to play? My mother is, or was, an actress but I know I haven’t inherited my dramatic tendencies from her. I’m not like Aurora at all. I get them from Erlend, my father, who is a film director. But his being a director is only part of the reason. It’s also because he started reading the tales of Hans Christian Andersen to me when I was a tiny baby in his arms. Later, after he left, Aurora read them to me. And then, when I could, I read them to myself.

  I don’t know who to be today. Maybe the princess in the “Princess and the Pea” because I’ve been sleeping so badly. But being a princess would involve a prince. No thanks. There is no prince in my life. I never consort with the opposite sex except in the case of Erlend, who breezes into town and makes a fuss over me once or twice a year. It’s his fault I can’t decide who I am this morning.

  Because Erlend is here, in town, right now and he hasn’t called me.

  The curtains are burning white from the day behind them. The curtains are about to go up in flames, yet I just lie here feeling sick. Sick and undecided. Get up. Go, Cass. Go. So I do. I get up and get dressed, which is easy because I wear the same thing every day—jeans and a T-shirt with a man’s white dress shirt thrown over it all, the white shirt showing off my blue eyes. Then I head for the kitchen and, despite the clothes I’ve just put on, I feel undressed, I feel completely naked, for not knowing who to be.

  I’m not hungry, but I should eat. Cereal flakes tinkle tinkle in the bowl. I don’t want to wake Aurora, who is still in mourning, though it’s been about a month.

  Why does she do it? Over and over again, she chooses inappropriate men. I think it’s because she’s never really let go of Erlend. Who would—he’s so gorgeous and accomplished. When he speaks, it’s like he’s singing to you. I lean right across the table, trying to hear every musical syllable he utters. In the candlelight, it feels like we’re part of the night sky, like we’re sitting in some flickering constellation instead of a restaurant. Erlend reaches for my hand and I know at that moment I’m the only one who matters to him. I am his personal star. He named me. Cassandra. “Cassandra. Tell me everything. What is happening in your life?”

  That’s what it’s like to be with him, so I can imagine how it was seventeen years ago when he and Aurora first met. He had just come over from Denmark and was starting out with commercials. Aurora, too, was just starting out and had high hopes, but in the meantime she put on a lacy bra and twirled around for Erlend’s camera. It was her fairy tale—to enchant a sophisticated older man. She enchanted him and then she had his child, who was me, and we all lived together for two years before the story soured. They were so poor and Erlend couldn’t make the films he wanted and Aurora had to give up her dreams of being an actress and go to work in an insurance office. They fought all the time, she said, so he left and made a success of himself without us. She tells this story as often as she used to read Hans Christian Andersen to me.

  The look on his face when he saw her for the first time. The lacy lightness as she twirled.

  “Tell me what is happening in your life.” He always asks. He e-mails, of course, but just a few lines now and then, he’s so busy with his work. Birthdays and Christmases, he sends clothes. Aurora hugs them to her body, groans, “Oh, god! That I could fit into this!” Because they are all beautiful. Beautiful and expensive. He even buys me underwear. I put his presents in a drawer and only take them out to look at them. If I wear them at all, it’s when he comes to town. I don’t want to hurt his feelings.

  At dinner, Erlend asked me what was happening. “School’s good,” I told him. “I’m taking Film Studies.” I watched sidelong for his reaction, saw his silvery blond eyebrows lift.

  “That’s an interesting choice. What does one do in Film Studies?”

  I laughed and pulled my hand out of his so I could slap it. He teases me all the time like this. “We’re going to make a silent movie. Well, a video. Can I tell you my idea?”

  He leaned in, listening. When he’s this close, I’m always a little surprised by the fact of his brown eyes. (The restaurant was so dark I’d been half-imagining them as blue, like mine.)

  “It’s supposed to be black and white. Two minutes long. So we need something simple. Remember that story ‘The Snow Queen’? I want to make a film of that.”

  “The Snow Queen. The Snow Queen. Good.”

  He didn’t remember. I could tell. “We’re in groups of three and this one guy? Mason? I told him the story and he’s into it. The other girl, not so much. But maybe she’ll get sick or something.”

  The food arrived at our table, stacked in teetering piles, and Erlend smiled at me. “So. Film.”

  “Mason is going to direct. I’m going to act.”

  “Ah! Like your mother.”

  Not like my mother, I thought.

  “You have her voice, too,” Erlend said. “Deep. You sound older than you are.”

  Then we started talking about Aurora. Erlend is so polite. He always asks.

  Last month I got up in the night and found the toilet full of amber pee, the seat up—for the last time, it turned out. Lionel and Aurora were finished, thank god. The contents of the toilet pretty much summed up Lionel as far as I was concerned, but there was no convincing Aurora at first. She went through the usual hell, dragging me along. I called in sick for her, spent hours convincing her she’s still beautiful. I slept with her—sheets unwashed and smelling of Lionel’s awful cologne, his eau de toilette. I ran the bath, undressed her, helped her into the tub. Her breasts hung down like empty socks—the woman who had once starred in a bra commercial! It was pathetic.

  Me: “I never liked Lionel anyway.”

  Aurora said nothing.

  “He left the seat up.”

  Aurora: “All men do. You’d better get used to it.”

  Me: “Untrue. Erlend puts the seat down, I bet. Also, Lionel went around in his underwear in front of me. I think that’s inappropriate.”

  Aurora started to snivel, so I added something to soften my critique. “At least he wasn’t married, like Charles.”

  “Charles wasn’t married.”

  Me: “Right.”

  “He wasn’t.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Why would you think he was married?”

  “Because he only ever took you to lunch, never dinner. Because he wouldn’t stay over.”

  “He didn’t think it was appropriate. Because of you.”

  “Whatever.”

  I never told her about the phone call, about his wife shrieking things at me. She thought I was Aurora. She thought I was the one she was supposed to hate.

  I never told Erlend either. Not about the phone call. Not about Lionel. I just said that Aurora had broken up with someone and was depressed about it. Erlend never mentions the women in his life, but I assume there are many, probably several at once, all of them beautiful actressy-types, which doesn’t bother me, though I know t
hat’s hypocritical when I hated Charles for the very same thing. It’s as though normal moral standards don’t apply to Erlend.

  By then we’d finished our main courses (mine, of course, toppled as soon as I touched it with my fork) and were looking at the dessert menu. Erlend always orders cheese, then makes me take little tastes of his. I prefer sweet things, frozen things. I chose A selection of fresh fruit ices.

  “So this Mason?” he asked out of the blue. “Is he your boyfriend?”

  I almost spat out my mouthful of ice. “No!”

  The director smiled and said, “‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’”

  “Oh, Hamlet!” I said, in case he thought I didn’t get the reference. Another little slap for him.

  “So do you have a boyfriend?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” he said. “Is it a school for the blind that you go to?”

  That’s another thing about him that’s so great. He flatters in unexpected ways. He doesn’t just say you’re pretty.

  “Well, good,” he said, touching the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “Then I don’t have to be jealous.”

  But the best thing about that dinner was Erlend’s news: he wasn’t just passing through town this time. He was staying at least a month, shooting a film here. I thought of asking if I could come on set and watch him work, actually pictured my own canvas chair with Director’s Daughter printed on the back. Maybe I could get some credit for it at school.

  But what I really hoped was that there might be a part for me. A small part. I could be an extra.

  I didn’t ask, though. He’s very private about his work. Also, I was sort of speechless about him being around for a whole month. When he put me in the cab, he said he would call in a few days. I’d ask him then.

  But he hasn’t called. That dinner was two weeks ago and he hasn’t called me yet.

  The cereal crackles in the blue bowl like stepped-on glass. Like ice. I carry it to the table. Quiet, quiet. Don’t wake Aurora up. She seems a bit better this week. She’s taking care of herself again, putting on her colored scarves and bangles and outlining her sad blue eyes in black. I don’t have to lie now when I say she’s still beautiful. She’s back at work (she has Fridays off, which is why she’s home today catching up on all the sleep she’s missed). This is just like us. We’re never happy at the same time.

  The blue bowl is my favorite, the color of the Danish sky I’ve never seen. I uncap the milk and slosh some in. Poor me. Poor me, waiting for Erlend. I was too young when he left us to remember it. But now I can imagine how Aurora felt. It must have been Lionel times ten. Lionel and Charles put together, squared, then times ten. It must have been like how I feel now.

  Like I’m an extra, not a star at all.

  I’m an extra in my father’s life.

  At school, a lot of boys like me. I know they do. They follow me with their eyes as I walk the halls in my big boots. My oversized white shirt flaps behind me like swan wings. They don’t approach me. They think I’m stuck up, a princess, but what would I ever see in a sixteen-year-old boy? They’re so crude. They think everything is funny—burping, farting, throwing up. Sex. I don’t find those things funny. Not at all. Not one bit.

  I’d never seen Mason before I signed up for Film Studies because he’s new to our school. First I noticed his melting smile, then how smart he seemed. Most kids take Film Studies because they want to watch movies during school or make stupid little videos on their phones. They can’t believe they have to sit through the whole history of film, starting with the oldest ones, which are in black and white and don’t even have sound. All over the darkened room, heads lolled on desks. But Mason’s stayed upright, with his crazy hair flaring around it. The two of us were probably the only ones awake.

  After class he waited. He wasn’t afraid to talk to me. “I hear you’re Danish.”

  “Half,” I corrected. I knew where he’d heard it, from Jerrilyn, or someone in her clique. Once I mentioned it in class and ever since she’s taunted me with it, having nothing to be proud of herself. She’s nothing.

  Mason said, “I’m half something too.”

  “Half what?” I asked, curious.

  “Half the opposite of you. My mother’s from Barbados.” Which was why he looked so tanned and his hair was so crazy and why the sun shines out of his face.

  “It’s my father who’s Danish,” I told him.

  During class, Mason’s hand kept going up as he asked and answered practically every question. He already knew about Eadweard Muybridge and his galloping horse. He’d already seen the film for that day, Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon. (Even though it was made in 1902, he’d seen it!) So I guess I wanted him to know that other people knew things too when I added, “My father’s a director.”

  “A director?” he said. “No way. What kind of films does he make?”

  And I felt so embarrassed. Because I’ve never actually seen Erlend’s films. When I was younger, he told me his work was unsuitable for children. Eventually I stopped asking. “They’re pretty arty,” I told Mason, “and difficult to understand.”

  He shrugged that off. “Are they subtitled or in English?”

  Even that made me pause. “Some are,” I told him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Both.”

  “I’ll look them up,” he said, and I was doubly embarrassed then because it’s something I’ve never bothered to do. I guess I always thought I would watch them with Erlend. When Erlend thought I was ready for them.

  “Wow,” he said as we headed off in different directions. “A director’s daughter. That’s so cool.”

  Cool. That’s what they always say about me. I’m so cool I’m cold. The cereal crackles, the milk sloshes, then I hear another sound. A low gravelly laugh coming from behind the closed bedroom door just off the kitchen. From Aurora’s room.

  And I set the milk down, unquietly.

  That’s not Aurora’s laugh. She laughs like she cries, loud enough for the whole building to know her sorrows and her joys. In other words, she’s a bad actress.

  There is a man in my mother’s bedroom. Another one. I have no idea where she met him. In some lame singles’ chat room? At work? Sometimes I heard her at night with Lionel, just like I heard her with all the others. Except Charles, who, I guess, took her to his office. It was horrible. I didn’t want to listen.

  I wanted to turn the sound off.

  I remember that phone call last year. Lifting the receiver, offering my innocent “Hello.” A strange rasping breath on the other end. It was so creepy I would have hung up except I realized the person on the other end was crying. “Who is this? Are you okay?”

  “Who do you think it is?” she sobbed.

  “I don’t know.”

  “No? I think you do.”

  “I really don’t.”

  “Well, I know who you are,” she said. I thought it was a wrong number. I didn’t get it until she said, “Actually, I know what you are. A slut! You’re a slut!”

  I hung up, but for a long time, I stood trembling by the phone, in case it rang again and Aurora answered.

  At the start of “The Snow Queen,” an evil troll gets his hands on a strange mirror. In it, everything beautiful shrinks to nothing and everything ugly becomes even more grotesque. A single pimple would spread across your face like fungus. He and the other evil trolls ran all over the world with it until there wasn’t a person who hadn’t been distorted in its glass. They still weren’t finished, though—they decided to fly up to heaven to make more trouble there. On the way, one of them dropped the mirror and it fell back to Earth, where it smashed into a billion pieces. But because each tiny fragment retained its distorting properties, whenever a speck got into someone’s eye, that person would only see what was bad about a thing. Their eyes would turn cold and critical. Some people even got a splinter in their hearts and, when that happened, it was practically incurable
. Their heart became a lump of ice.

  They were quiet last night, but now I deliberately make noise. I play on the bowl with the spoon. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding… How about some orange juice? I get up for the carton, slam the fridge. Slam the carton down on the counter. Slam the cupboard when I take down a glass. Slam the glass. Hey, I’m so musical!

  Ding, ding, SLAM!

  Ding, ding, SLAM!

  Ding, ding, SLAM!

  Maybe Aurora thinks I’m mad, thinks it’s why I’m bashing everything like this. But I’m not. I don’t care if she wants to plunge back into another rotten fairy tale. I just want them to know I’m awake and up. I just want them to stay in bed until I’ve left for school so I don’t have to meet the new guy.

  There. I’ve made enough noise to wake the building, but it’s as if they don’t even hear. Aurora’s laughing, too loudly. Ha ha ha ha!

  Oh, shut up.

  Most people change their outfit every day, but some don’t. I don’t.

  I can be the Snow Queen again.

  Mason hung around after our second Film Studies class, but I walked right past him. I didn’t want him to think I was interested. Now and then I would catch sight of him in the hall between classes. Every time, I looked the other way.

  Later in the week, he came up to me at my locker when I was taking out my books. I couldn’t ignore him because my hands were full, my combination lock dangling open.

  He seemed about to say something, but then he didn’t. He did the strangest thing instead. He pursed his lips and blew a stream of warm air into my face. He blew on me, then turned and walked away while I stood staring after him,wondering what it meant.

  His breath smelled sweet, like fruit.

  It must have been his gum.

  We were supposed to get into groups of three for our first project. I saw Mason had paired up with Jerrilyn. Jerrilyn has blonde hair, too, but it’s bleached. She has a daisy tattooed on the small of her back. She kept dropping her pencil so she could bend over and pick it up off the floor. Every time, the daisy bloomed in the space of skin between her short top and her low-rise jeans. This was for Mason’s benefit, I presumed. I saw him look at it. I saw him look at that flower and I went over and asked, “Can I be in your group?”