"La Norteamericana"
Episode 2
"La Norteamericana" Episode 2
Dec. 1962 – Copenhagen
Montage: Charlotte and 7-year-old Marin enjoy a child’s fantasy of what Tivoli Gardens at Christmastime might be like: lights, watermills, puppet shows, picnics featuring salami and petits fours. They return to their hotel and drink hot cocoa. Charlotte teaches Marin how to wash her underwear in the sink. They laugh a lot.
Dec. 1973 – Boca Grande
We are back at Grace and Charlotte’s first dinner. Charlotte says the lights above the courtyard remind her of Tivoli Gardens. Grace finds this odd. Charlotte mentions her daughter Marin -- Grace knows it’s a touchy subject. Oddly, Charlotte talks about Marin as if she were a small child. Grace knows that Marin is 18. Charlotte says it was important to take Marin to Tivoli when she was seven (“Before she was too old to like it”).
Dec. 1973 – Boca Grande
Adult Charlotte – in a flannel nightgown – brushes her teeth, kneels, and prays in her room at the Hotel Caribe. GRACE (V.O.): “In these prayers, she would routinely ask that ‘it’ turn out all right, ‘it’ being unspecified and all-inclusive. She had been an adult for some years before the possibility occurred to her that ‘it’ might not turn out all right.” Charlotte begins to cry as she prays.
Apr. 1953 – Berkeley, California
Charlotte at age 20, in the front row of a lecture hall. She and her professor, Warren Bogart, exchange charged glances. GRACE (V.O.): “She was a norteamericana - immaculate of history, innocent of politics. There were startling vacuums in her store of common knowledge…” Warren shows up drunk at Charlotte’s apartment with a bottle of bourbon. They fall into each other’s arms and start tearing off their clothes.
Jun. 1953 – New York,
In VO, Grace says that Charlotte dropped out of Berkeley and moved to New York with Warren. They live in a tiny apartment on his adjunct professor’s salary. It is chaotic and romantic. Warren is volatile. Charlotte does a lot of cooking and serving drinks to Warren and his drunken academic friends in the smoke-filled apartment.
Jan. 1955 – New York
Warren and a very pregnant Charlotte get married at City Hall.
Feb. 1955 – New York
Echoing Grace’s birthing experience, Warren struggles to deliver Marin, while in the waiting room Warren and his buddies drink and smoke. In the cab on the way home from the hospital, Warren is afraid to hold the baby, but he keeps his hands poised above her head to protect it during the bumpy ride.
Apr. 1958 – New York
At the Palm Restaurant, Charlotte has dinner with an old friend of her brother from Stanford. They drink a lot of wine and soon Charlotte is sobbing, telling the man that Warren is inattentive and abusive, and that Marin is three now and totally spoiled.
Later, Warren -- drunk in a bar, a young woman draped on his arm -- calls Charlotte and wakes her up. Still drunk herself, she yells at him, tells him not to come home, and slams the phone down. A sleepy Marin stumbles into the bedroom. Charlotte tells her to go back to bed. The man sits up in bed next to Charlotte and drunkenly says he should probably be going. The next morning, Warren bursts into the bedroom and wakes Charlotte. She is hungover. So is Warren. “Look at the slut on Easter morning,” he yells, hitting her. Marin runs into the room again. Charlotte picks up Marin and Warren hits her again, accidentally hitting Marin as well. Marin and Charlotte scream. Charlotte runs to the bathroom and throws up. Warren comforts Marin then goes to help Charlotte. Then they all go to the Carlyle for Easter lunch. Warren doesn’t have enough money to pay the bill. On the way home, Marin is cold, so Warren gives her his coat.
Nov. 1975 – Boca Grande
Grace says that, coincidentally, Charlotte’s mother died in Hollister, California on the same day in 1959 that President Luis Strasser-Mendana was assassinated on the steps of the Presidential Palace in Boca Grande.
Mar. 1959 – New York
At Idlewild Airport, Charlotte and Marin say goodbye to Warren.They are flying back to California for Charlotte’s mother’s funeral. Charlotte tells Warren that they’ll be back in a week, but -- with her inheritance, she will no longer be financially dependent on him -- she knows that she is leaving him for good.
Mar. 1974 – Boca Grande
Grace and Charlotte discuss the “Letters from Central America” as they stroll through one of Grace’s coconut palm groves. Charlotte believes that Boca Grande is “the economic fulcrum of the Americas.” Grace tells her that the country’s export revenue is probably less than half what Charlotte paid for her giant emerald ring. Charlotte says she didn’t pay for the ring. It was a gift from Leonard, who received it as payment for executing one of his covert “operations.” This gets Grace’s attention.
Finally, they arrive at, a huge outdoor party that Grace throws for her employees and their families – hundreds of people. There is food, drink, games, rides, live music, and the main event: the chicken races. Dozens of chickens are released, and the grove workers chase them with machetes – whatever they kill they can keep. Charlotte casually grabs a chicken and snaps its neck. Then she looks around and says, “All the children have red shoes.” While Grace is processing Charlotte’s ability to expertly kill a chicken, Charlotte says Marin once wanted a pair of red shoes, but she wouldn’t buy them for her. Then she says, “I did have a baby with red shoes once.” And then, “There was no reason not to buy those shoes for Marin.” Grace asks, “Does Marin have something do to with why you’re in Boca Grande?” Charlotte thinks for a moment, then says, “Did you know Boca Grande does not have an extradition treaty with the United States?”
Grace nods thoughtfully, “I did know that, yes.”
Photos are intended to represent approximate ages and physical types only.
No actors are involved with, or attached to this project at this time.
Nov. 1972 – 35,000 feet above Nevada
SLAM IN to a mid-air hijacking in progress. Very hand-held and adrenalized. Marin and her friends wear ski masks, but the same clothes we saw at the bombing, so we recognize them. They threaten passengers and flight crew with semi-automatic handguns. There’s a lot of screaming. A panicky man jumps out of his seat and tries to run for some teason. One of other hijackers pistol-whips him and he falls at Marin’s feet. Without hesitation, Marin begins to kick him mercilessly.