Nov. 1972 – San Francisco

The FBI raids the terrorist group’s hideout. They find automatic rifles and ammunition; The Communist Manifesto, by Marx and Engels; The State and Revolution by Lenin; Mini-Manual of the Urban Guerrilla by Carlos Marighela, and books on paramilitary training and bomb-making.

Agent Gorman opens a drawer and finds a translucent pink orthodontia retainer.

Nov. 1975 – Boca Grande

The audience has grown. Word is out that something extraordinary is going on. Grace looks fatigued and maybe has some health issues, but she warms to her subject: “Some women lie easily in whatever beds they make. They marry or do not marry. They divorce or do not…”

Apr. 1974 – Boca Grande

Charlotte hosts a cocktail party at her Boca Grande apartment. Grace, Victor, Bianca, Gerardo, and Elena are there. Grace speaks into camera: “They can leave a bed and forget it. They sleep dreamlessly, get up and scramble eggs. Not Charlotte. Never Charlotte.” Charlotte clearly can’t handle being in a room with Gerardo and Victor.

Later, Grace tells Charlotte about a village on the Orinoco where female children are cut on the inner thigh by their first sexual partner. Charlotte understands. “I mean that’s pretty much what happens everywhere, isn’t it? Somebody cuts you? Where it doesn’t show?”

Nov. 1972 – San Francisco

Charlotte stands next to the bed in sexy lingerie.

GRACE VO: “I am not even certain she was talking figuratively.”

Leonard laughs when he sees Charlotte, saying he knows what’s going on. She is worried about seeing Warren and thinks that having sex with Leonard will protect her. He goes a step further: she thinks having a baby with Leonard will protect her. Charlotte says she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Leonard has also arranged a flight for Warren. Charlotte warns Leonard that she can’t deal with Warren right now. Leonard says there is nothing to deal with. “You were married to him once, now you’re married to me. Do you think you’re the only two people who used to fuck and don’t anymore?” 

Warren arrives hungover, with shopping bags full of dirty laundry. He insults Charlotte and orders her around. Leonard and he verbally spar like old buddies. Warren is coarse and insults everyone; it is Charlotte’s worst nightmare. She finally shouts at him. Warren says: “Listen to that voice. No wonder your daughter left home.” Charlotte is gutted, but the men return to joking.

GRACE VO: “Avoid the backward glance. Until Marin disappeared, Charlotte had arranged her days to do exactly that.”

The FBI arrives and Agent Gorman wants to know if the retainer found in the raid belongs to Marin. Charlotte says she can’t be sure. Then Warren bursts into the kitchen looking for ice for his drink. He disrupts the interview (by being both obnoxious and hilarious), makes disparaging comments about Marin and manages to piss off Charlotte and the FBI equally. Later, Warren manages to invite himself along to a Hollywood fundraiser that Leonard and Charlotte will attend. Naturally Leonard welcomes him and pays for his plane and hotel. 

Nov. 1972 – Beverly Hills

Since Charlotte didn’t plan to attend the fundraiser (she tagged along as a last-minute effort to ditch Warren), she has no suitcase and has to borrow a dress from the wife of a record exec, a dress made entirely of ribbons. In their hotel suite, as Leonard helps her tie the ribbons, Charlotte complains about Warren. Leonard says, “I wish you could just fuck him and get it over with.” Charlotte says she doesn’t want to. Leonard says he knows that. The fundraiser -- in someone’s Beverly Hills backyard -- is classic Joan Didion -- glitz and glamour, and a vapid actress giving her theories on child-rearing in Vietnam. A photographer from Vogue takes a photo of Charlotte. 

Nov. 1975 – Boca Grande

The picture of Charlotte – at the fundraiser, in the ribbon dress, turning to smile TO the photographer (OMIT) is on the screen behind Grace. The auditorium continues to fill up. Grace gestures to the photo. “When this photo was published in Vogue, all anyone could talk about was the dress. I look at it now and see only Charlotte’s face -- that lost, conflicted gaze, that sad Mona Lisa smile.”

Nov. 1972 – Beverly Hills, California

Back at the fundraiser, as the actress natters on, Charlotte suddenly begins to cry. “I think I know why you’re crying,” says the actress without sympathy. “It’s your daughter, Marin, right? I’m sorry, but that’s just the type of personal crap I never saw in Hanoi.” Leonard is flying to Miami the next day to broker a deal for French Mirage fighter jets, so he gets Charlotte a ride back to San Francisco on a private jet.

Dec. 1972 – Hollister, California

Worried that Warren will come and see her while Leonard is out of town, and feeling nostalgic about her childhood, Charlotte goes to visit her brother Dickie at the ranch where they grew up. Dickie and Linda live on the ranch with their two children, but Charlotte owns the property, which makes for a weird dynamic. The awkward dinner party gets even stranger when Warren shows up unannounced. He ridicules Dickie and Linda and begs Charlotte to come to New Orleans with him, so they can visit their friend Porter who – according to Warren – is terminally ill. They have an argument that almost gets violent. Charlotte tells Warren that Marin is still missing and wanted by the FBI, so she can’t just leave. 

Later, in a room at a roadside motel near Hollister, Charlotte calls Leonard to ask him why he told Warren where she was. Leonard, as usual, takes Warren’s side. He did it because Warren is Marin’s father, and because she left him at Idlewild without saying she was leaving him. And because Leonard thinks that Porter isn’t the one who is dying. Charlotte says, “If you’re trying to say you think Warren’s dying you’re wrong. Here’s something else you were wrong about. You once said I’d leave you the same way I left him. I’m not. I’m leaving you. I’m telling you.” She hangs up. Then Warren comes out of the bathroom, naked except for a towel around his waist. “You know, I always think of you as soft and warm. I forget what a cold-blooded bitch you can be.”

“RIGHT PLACE, WRONG TIME” by DR. JOHN PLAYS AS WE…

CUT TO BLACK.

END OF EPISODE.

Photos are intended to represent approximate ages and physical types only.

No actors are involved with, or attached to this project at this time.