ARGUMENT:

‘Winter Break’ is the story of a woman, whose name we do not know, and who relate the actions on 1^st person.

She has got a boyfriend, Andy, with whom she is living at the moment in Los Angeles. But she does not know if she wants a serious relationship or if she prefers being alone and do want she like without having to give any explanation to anybody. She’s got a friend, Allie, who is even more open-minded than her. Allie is a recovering model who has also worked in some films. She is bisexual: she is starting a relationship with Rodrigo, a film director, but at the same time she feels attracted by her friend -our narrator- and has lesbian sex with her, confusing her friend’s emotions even more and forcing her to split up with Andy, although she would not do it as she is very interested now on getting a role on the next film Rodrigo is producing.

In the end of the story our girl is alone, without Andy, who has left her, and without Allie, who is in a Zen-Buddhist monastery with Rodrigo although she said she could not come with a friend. And now she regrets how things have happened, the way Allie has manipulated her, why she had to have sex with her and why she told it to Andy…

Now, I will make a brief summary of the work chapter by chapter (Notice that those chapters which appear twice-because they in both paths-are only reflected once).

- 1^st PATH:

· GROUNDED:

She arrives at L.A. airport early

Andy was waiting for her at the gate

Then he takes her to their messy apartment, where there were papers scattered on the bathroom floor.

Andy took some of his junks and let her put her books down.

· OUTING:

Allie is a friend of hers, a recovering model who often goes shopping in thrift shops with her.

In this kind of shops there are always men who try to impress Allie with their obscene comments, so both girls start saying everything they would say and do: take her home, have sexual relations with her under the clothes rack…

· REASSURANCE I:

Andy often goes shopping alone and she doesn’t like what he buys. This time, Andy is in the kitchen, arranging what he has bought, but she wants to argue with him.

They also have that argument at the Therapist’s. Here, she makes some space references as one lover she had who had sexual relation with her at his wife’s bed, another one who took her on holidays and a third one who took photos of her to have them in his office.

· WITHOUT A MIRROR:

Allie and she went to a makeup counter to buy a lipstick. There the recovering model showed she was a professional about makeup who knew evenmore than the workers.

· IF THE SUIT FITS:

Allie and she met at Ben&Jerry's. Allie had not shaved and our girl liked it. She wanted to tell her everything she felt, how Allie attracted her, but she was very embarrassed. Finally she did and Allie answered she was beautiful too, which was a relief to her.

· A BLAST:

The couple is at home discussing about not to argue so frequently. Andy suggest not to analyze everything they do and to have more fun, but she does not share his points of view.

They went out for an ice-cream, and when they got in the car, she founded a new CD collection Andy had bought when she was at school.

Then they got to the ice-cream shop, but having it with Andy was not very attractive.

· FULL BLOOM:

Allie and she compare their squares: the amount of blood, the color it has turned, the way they dry…

But Andy’s girlfriend even has hers hanging on the balcony.

The girls are at home, putting the squares on the kitchen floor to organize them in patterns, while Andy is watching them from the sofa, where he is reading the Rolling Stones.

He suggested them to wash all the squares: it smelled bad and maybe blood would come out. Women tried it and he started to clean the kitchen’s floor.

· SETUP:

Allie suggested her going to the Whiskey’s, a club where she used to meet other sixteen- year old girls, Jack Nicholson and the owner, and where she lost her virginity. She wanted to have a sight of her past, but she is a little embarrassed of showing to her friend how she was like when she was a model.

· OOOHHH:

Both women were at Allie’s bedroom; they were going to see her portfolio of photos, which was under her bed.

She turned the pages, and there were lots of ad photos, and even strange or touched up ones. Each photo had a story and those stories hurt Allie, but instead of crying she only went to her balcony and shouted.

· TIED UP:

Both girls were at a movies and books store. They were arguing about her preferring Andy rather than Allie.

Allie affirmed that she needed her and was feeling abandoned but remembered that a film director still was interested on her and that she could have a role whenever she wanted, only by having sex with him.

Then they met to have dinner that night together.

· GAMES:

Allie was with that film director so Andy and she went to pick them up to have a coffee. There, they were playing to a films and actors game, but the main character and Andy were too bad at it. They talked about films, but Allie was paying all her attention to Rodrigo -that was his name-, and even apologized for her friend’s comments.

Finally, they dropped them in Rodrigo’s apartment.

· CLOSE:

Andy and she were sleeping on the same side of the bed. Then an earthquake happened, so they sat and hugged each other. At that moment she thought she could die instantly, with him having her on his arms.

When she could wake up they wore and tried to go out of the building, looking at their broken and disorganized possessions. Once they were out, they could see how damaging it had been in that town. They re-entered their apartment and tried to put some order on their junks, but it was impossible, so they went out to the restaurant ‘La Salsa’ to have lunch. They couldn’t eat anything there so they returned to their house, where they tried to sleep: There was no electricity in the whole town.

After that, some weaker earthquakes happened, but they sometimes did not move and sometimes went to the doorway.

· TASTELESS:

Allie told her that Rodrigo had brought a picnic to her work and a cookie- dough tube to her apartment.

She also told her about the bath they shared.

She came back home and told Andy they had never had a bath together.

· FINALLY:

Allie and she arrived at her apartment (‘We move to my bed’) and started kissing each other. She got out of her bed to turn on the bathroom light, then came again and had lesbian sex.

Finally they felt asleep there and she started to think the way to tell it to Andy.

· DISASSOCIATION:

Andy and she were sleeping on their apartment when Andy threw the comforter off and said he was ready to talk with her, but while he was thinking about the best way to explain what he wanted to say to her, she started imagine how would be his brother’s marriage being alone. After that, he asked her what she was thinking about and she recognized she had to run away.

· TOOL:

She told Andy what had happened with Allie and they broke up. But whenever she phoned Allie or left her messages on the answering machine she did not answer. Allie was already living with Rodrigo, so she started leaving her messages on his answering machine, but her friend said she never received them.

She only wanted to talk to her and finally she could, when Allie was being given a shot by Rodrigo to donate eggs. She did not care about the side effects it could have because Rodrigo said he got excited seeing she did all she wanted with her body.

· BACK TO SCHOOL:

Now she was sleeping on her flat, in the middle of the futon and she was very lonely.

She regretted what she had done and thought about what she could have done better.

But now she hated Andy, Allie and even herself.

- 2^nd PATH:

· GROUNDED: -

· THE EDWARD-ALBEE TYPE:

She told us how she met Allie: They were sitting with a group of friends and she said something like that ‘His lover masturbated about five times a week’. By saying the word ‘lover’ she was trying not to be childish nor old-fashioned, but then Allie said that her mother did so too, making a fool of her.

· REASSURANCE II:

She explains us how life with Andy is when they are normally at home (he does not worry about popping his zits nor he tweezes his hairs…he even shows her his ear’s wax) but she regrets they have to split up.

· WHAT MONEY CAN BUY:

Allie phones her because now she is rich, so they went to spend money at ‘The Ivy’, a kind of luxurious mall.

There they had a meal and ever order two extra ones to freeze for when Aliie is poor again.

After that they had their hair cut, but straight across the bottom. The hairdresser told Allie now she was like a model, she was beautiful and she wouldn’t have to pay next time if she passed out his card to other people.

· I USED TO PLAY PROFESSIONAL BEACH VOLLEYBALL:

Allie and she went to the beach and when they passed the volleyball courts, she remembered how it was when she played it and what a good athlete she was.

She told Allie certain things about that sport (that you cannot have any good friend because everybody was waiting for a chance of dumping his partner for a better one, that her muscles were flabbing and atrophying…) They laid side by side on their towels, on the sand and then put sun screen on their backs.

But Allie does not need to realize how good she was, she is happy only for being at the beach with her.

· DRY:

Andy and she were going to have sex but in the end she went back because now she considered her emotions too and not only wanted to have sex. She needed to talk with someone.

Andy went to the bathroom to have a shower, then when he finished, she entered to suggest him about a romantic walk on the beach. He agreed and the couple walked through the streets, down to the beach. They were talking about how close her flat was to the beach. Then both arrived at the sea side and started to walk along the shore, but suddenly she asked Andy to walk just on her other side, in order not to feel taller than him.

· SANDWICHED:

Now Andy, Allie and she are on Andy’s flat. Girls had planned to go to the beach so they were doing some gooey rather than hard cheese sandwiches.

Allie asked Andy what he was doing that day. He answered he would probably go to the office, but then his partner asked him for going with them. He accepted and she made him a hard sandwich. When they got down to the beach the cheese was so hard that girls gave her sandwiches to the boy and bought some ice creams. At the Popsicle stand both women talked about those people who bring her partner everywhere, but she excused herself because it had been Allie who had asked him what he was doing. Allie said she considered him as a part of her friend who cannot count as a third person because he never says any interesting thing.

Andy was waiting for them in the sand.

· IT’S WHAT’S INSIDE:

She goes with Allie to the egg donor place: Allie wanted to give one because it was well paid and she needed the money to buy a computer.

But after filling out a form they rejected her: she had a problematic life – drugs, mental illnesses, alcoholism, felony…- so that she was not a good applicant.

She got angry, but they had to leave.

They had lunch at Century City, eating two omelets, and Allie started to look for a rich illegal immigrant to marry.

· EXPOSED:

Girls were on the basement of her block of flats, doing Andy’s laundry and reading Sylvia Plath, sitting on the floor of the small room. They were talking about their breasts. She thought she was starting to have sagging breasts, but then Allie corrected her by saying that her own breast was totally sagged. She laughed at her friend: it was impossible that a twenty-six-year old girl had them as sagged as Allie was assuring. Finally, the young girl pulled up her tee shirt and her bra and showed them to her friend. Our main character stared at them for a while, and got lost in thought, engrossed, but when Allie asked her what she thought of them she was still absent-minded and blamed her for doing such a ‘flashing’ thing.

Allie complained her friend was worrying so much, overreacting to such a simply action.

· TIED UP: -

· GESTURES:

Rodrigo and Allie are going to their apartment to have dinner. Andy is preparing some vegetables, although his girlfriend thought they would only order some pizzas. As he wanted to cook, he asked Allie to bring some vegetables too when she phoned asking what should she bring.

But our girl could not stand Rodrigo; she hated even his name, with that horrible initial ‘r’.

The film director and his girlfriend arrived and when she saw Andy was cooking she lead him to believe that he has to do the same, only by a sight.

While they were having dinner, our main character asked Rodrigo what his films dealt with, and he answered now he was interested on romantic comedies. She thought he was laughing at her and said something a bit rude that made Allie spill water across the table, water which Andy cleaned up. Rodrigo didn’t bat an eyelash and answered he was working on a comedy about an Italian family and he himself was half Italian. Now, it was she who listened without turning a hair.

· ESCAPE STORIES:

Our narrator and Andy are on a car driving to Andy’s mom, which is a ten hours long way, with Mike, Andy’s brother, and Karen, the woman he lives with. Andy is driving while the other three are eating chocolate. She is very interested on Karen last husband’s story: He shot himself in front of her.

They had to stop because our girl had to go to the bathroom. Then they changed their places and now it was she who was driving while Andy was having a rest.

Mike and Karen used words like Honey and Sweetie to call each other.

In the end, she manages to get Karen explaining that story once again. But this time she asked even for the bloody details.

· THE UNIVERSE:

Our narrator and Allie are talking about their orgasms: She needs a penis while Allie what really needs is a tongue.

Allie told her what the film director and she were talking about when they were having sex for the first time: He wanted to had an orgasm at the same time as her, but she thought his penis was not a wonder and he would have to do anything else if he wanted her to come.

She would tried it with Andy that night, but Andy was different.

· FINALLY: -

· THE END OF THE BED:

It was the last time Andy and She were having sex. And they knew it. They made it all slowly, well done, leaving their clothes on their side of the bed.

Andy asked her to put some music on, and she only wanted the Soul Asylum CD, because they have been listening to it the whole weekend and those songs would remind them of that night their whole life, so it was not worth to damage another CD.

· SILENCE:

Now Allie is at a Zen-Buddhist monastery. This girl wanted to go with her but she refused: She couldn’t relax if she was accompanied by a friend, but then she came with Rodrigo

· BACK TO SCHOOL: -

- 3^rd PATH:

· TOGETHERNESS:

Andy is full of spots and scabs so they tried to do something together: She rented a movie but it results very boring to them.

She pointed out they had to do something together so they tried talking to people on the Internet. In the end that was boring too so they went to bed.

Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Laura Pons Fernández
laupons2@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press