Perspectives: Erica

(Perspectives: Erica is a short film from The Chronicles of Oscar and Amber. The screenplay, which varies slightly from the video version, is below.)

ERICA [mutters]: Let’s see if I can do this. It feels so stupid.

[The camera moves in on Erica, who's recording a video journal on a laptop computer]

ERICA: OK, it’s me, Erica Stafford, and this is the first of I don’t know how many of these video journals I’m gonna do. I’m told – and I don’t know if I believe it, but I’m gonna try it – that this relieves anxiety.

And I do have anxiety.

I mean, I have anxiety about the fact that I really shouldn’t have it.

Yeah, that sounds stupid. But I’m also told that I should talk it out with myself, like with doing this, and that’ll make it better. If not, I guess I’ll see a shrink.

Except all of my friends who see shrinks get worse, not better. Oscar says there’s an old joke about therapists. That word is a confluence of two words which better describes them. The rapist. Like that’s what they do to your pocketbook.

He’s a smartass. I don’t know how funny that joke is. But I don’t know that he’s wrong about therapists.

And really, it’s not what’s in my head that’s my problem, I don’t think. It’s what’s around me, and me processing it in a different way.

There’s a lot to unpack there, I guess, so here goes.

It’s been four months since Jim died. So I’m sort of past the grieving widow stage, I guess, and I’m trying to get comfortable with the woman this new… whatever, reality… is making me.

Because pretty much all my adult life I’ve just been the wife, and the mother. And I was good at it, too. My kids are all pretty well-adjusted, successful… well, Trey isn’t successful yet, but he’ll figure it out, great people. They get along with others, three of them are happily married, I’m a grandmother of one and it’s only a matter of time before I’ll have three grandchildren. I look at my family and I’m super proud of that.

But here I am and I’m suddenly an old woman alone, and I’m the head of this growing family and I’m supposed to have all the answers and it’s ridiculous. I don’t really want it. I want somebody else to have it.

Michael, my oldest, told me just don’t think about it. Be me. It’s not like the kids aren’t capable of running their own lives. They’re all grown up and they don’t really need anything. He says.

Is he right? Probably. But I still worry.

Ann Marie is my daughter. They live in Destin. She says I should buy a place over there and just hang out on the beach. She says I could easily find some rich old guy like Jim and “run it back.” That’s tempting, because being the charming, elegant, fun wife to some guy who has it all taken care of is what I know.

But it feels like that’s the wrong thing for me to do.

And I don’t really want to leave Baton Rouge. I’ve lived all my life here, and it’s home.

And Oscar is here. Which, well, that’s such a mixed bag.

So I said I shouldn’t really have anxiety. Family is fine, all things considered, and I’m less of a wreck than I expected, I’m not running into money problems… [grimaces] but then at Oscar’s insistence, I started reading Jim’s old emails.

And I found out the truth.

Oscar thinks Jim was a disaster in business. He’s partly right. But Oscar didn’t know Jim and he doesn’t really understand what was happening at the end.

It wasn’t incompetence. It was revenge.

When Jim found out I had started seeing Oscar again, after I went to that dinner party at Sasha Moreau’s house and spent most of the time catching up with him… he decided to punish me.

That was right about when he knew the lymphoma was going to get him, which it turns out was a lot earlier than he I did, because he kept that from me.

And he deliberately ran the company into the ground.

He hid debts, poisoned relationships with investors, made sure the books were a mess. He even tried to turn Harlan Voss against us.

Oscar knows what he knows about Jim from those emails, but he doesn’t have the context. I do.

He set it all up so that when he died, I would be left holding the bag as board chair. A final ‘fuck you’ from beyond the grave.

And now Oscar is the one fixing it. The man Jim did everything he could to keep away from us, is saving the company he tried to destroy. And he did all of that because I wanted to reconnect with an old friend after 30 years of incidental contact.

It sounds crazy to even talk about it. But I’m not an idiot, and I knew that man better than anybody. Reading those emails, I know that was exactly what he was doing.

But I’ve decided I’m just going to bottle it up. Keep my mouth shut about all of it. Let Oscar and Michael keep thinking Jim was incompetent. What good would it do to tell them the truth now when they’re repairing the damage Jim did?

Anyway… Oscar.

He and I have this crazy sort of relationship. We’re friends. We talk every day. We’re sort of sharing custody of Amber, which is our little joke. He got me to agree to have her as my personal assistant, and she’s with me in the afternoons. He gets her in the mornings and at night, but at lunchtime she comes over and she’s just this ball of energy – she’s always tidying up the house, passing the vacuum cleaner, dusting, the other day she dived into the flower bed in front of the house because she said the landscape guy didn’t do a good job of pulling the weeds. She keeps my schedule, she’ll cook so I’ve always got something good in the fridge I can heat up, she’s my personal tech geek for all kinds of things I’m learning how to do for the business and whatever.

I actually love her to death. We’ll spend half the time she’s here just sitting and talking. And it’s strange, because Amber’s a Factory Girl. It’s like my best friend is a robot all of a sudden. That should absolutely freak me out but it’s like totally normal. She’s got a distinct personality and emotionally, she’s… I’m not gonna say human, because I can’t, but you really can’t tell a difference.

She’s amazing. I can totally see why Oscar has her.

Oh, wait – she’s here.

[Amber enters]

AMBER: Hey, Erica! What’s – oh, are you doing a video journal?

ERICA: Yeah. I thought I’d try this out.

AMBER: Well? Does it work?

ERICA: I dunno. Maybe? I guess it sort of forces me to organize my thoughts, and that’s good. But I just started, so it’s not like I feel any different.

AMBER: Got it! OK, so… wait, what thoughts?

ERICA: Oh, are you Nosy Amber today?

AMBER: Oh my God, you have no idea. I’m totally Nosy Amber now. I don’t even know why. Oscar’s just completely worn out with all the questions I ask him.

ERICA: That’s so funny. What are you, short of inputs?

AMBER: Yeah! I mean, I’m spending a lot of time at night with Caroline, and she’s, like… well, so, she doesn’t know much of anything and she isn’t really a fast learner, and she’s also sort of…

ERICA: Dumb. Oscar says she’s dumb.

AMBER: Well, I mean… OK, yeah. She’s just the sweetest girl you’ll ever meet, but I can’t really say she’s a rocket scientist. You can tell her something, and it’s… maybe she’ll get it and maybe she won’t. But I’m working on her. Anyway, so… all the time I’m spending with Caroline, I’m not reading my books or watching my shows, and so I need to feed on everybody else’s drama to get my fix!

ERICA: You’re adorable.

AMBER: So? What dark secrets are you putting into your video journal?

ERICA: Just… nothing. It’s the first one. I’m trying to describe myself and where I’m at, and it’s funny – I found myself talking about… you.

AMBER: Really? Awww. It’s so sweet that you’d think of me!

ERICA: Well, I see you every day, so… hey, Oscar just dropped you off? He didn’t come in and say hello?

AMBER: He’s on his way to Mississippi to see that oilfield services guy. He was running late. He said he’d call on his way back and maybe pick up dinner for us if we want.

ERICA: I don’t know what I’d do without that man.

AMBER: Uh huh.

ERICA: What?

AMBER: You don’t know what to do with him, either."

ERICA: Yeah, there is that.

AMBER: Is that what you’re going to put in your video journal?

ERICA: I guess I might. And I don’t know if I can tell you about any of it.

AMBER: Oh my God, of course you can!

ERICA: Amber, come on. You can’t keep secrets from Oscar.

AMBER: Yes, I can. Besides, I can maybe be a go-between for you guys, you know. Come on, tell me – what’s going on?

ERICA: OK, OK. I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this; I’ve been thinking a lot about friends with benefits.

AMBER: Oh, yeah? Thinking what?

ERICA: Well, that’s Oscar’s suggestion. We established the fact that we’re gonna be friends, and he says there’s no reason we can’t add a, y’know…

AMBER: Sex, you mean?

ERICA: I just – I’ve never done that before. I mean, Jim is the only man I’ve ever been with. And I feel guilty that Oscar and I haven’t…

AMBER: Because you love him.

ERICA: Too much, I think.

AMBER: Erica, you might be overthinking it. I mean, I’ll just tell you – Oscar would 100 percent go for you. Like do the whole thing, move in together, get married, all of it. He thinks you’re the one stopping that from happening."

ERICA: Yeah, because he wants kids! I’m too old for that, Amber. I mean, I have four grown ones already. Even if I could do the whole fertility treatments, IVF and whatever, not that I’d want to go through that, I’m not going through it again. Oscar needs a younger woman, and I’d just be holding him back from it. No.

AMBER: But if he finds somebody like that, can you let him go?

ERICA: I don’t know. I’ll admit it – I actually love this thing we’re doing where we see each other every day. And the benefits thing? I mean… I want to.

AMBER: Then do it! I mean, I don’t have a frame of reference, because I haven’t been with anybody else, but he’s… y’know, fun.

ERICA: He is?

AMBER: Yeah! He has this thing where it’s a point of pride that he doesn’t go first.

ERICA: Wait, you can…

AMBER: Oh yeah. And it’s supposedly pretty close to what a real girl feels. So if I like it with him, you probably would too.

ERICA: Interesting. OK, but… what happens if we do, y’know, and then that’s it?

AMBER: What, like he loses interest?

ERICA: Oh. That’s not where I was going. But oh my God, that would be scary. If he and I did it and then it was, like, some accomplishment that he could cross of his list, like it would give him closure with me and then he’d move on…

AMBER: Erica, I don’t think that’s what’s going on. He loves you. He likes being with you.

ERICA: OK, but it still terrifies me. And then there’s the other side of this, which is that we do it and now we’re romantically…

AMBER: Yeah, that would be sooo terrible. Two people who love each other get to live happily ever after.

ERICA: Without the kids Oscar wants.

AMBER: Maybe you could adopt. Who knows? Like I said, I think you’re overthinking this.

ERICA: I guess you and Caroline would be the kids.

AMBER: Umm, yeah! You’re kind of a mom to me, you know. Although it does sort of gross me out thinking about Oscar as my daddy given, y’know.

ERICA: Right. There’s that. How are you and he going to…

AMBER: No. If you and Oscar are going to have a full-time relationship, like getting married or whatever, then I’m out of the sex equation. I don’t think it would be fair to you otherwise.

ERICA: Wow, you’d give him up completely?

AMBER: I think I’d have to. Unless you expressly said different.

ERICA: Hmmm. Interesting.

AMBER: See? I’m a pretty good go-between, aren’t I?

ERICA: You really are, honey. Oh, by the way – I have something for you.

AMBER: More presents? Oh my God – you are spoiling me so much!

ERICA: Yeah, well – I’m slowly parting with these high heels of mine that I used to love wearing so much. But I’m done. They just kill my feet and I’m too old for that. So I’m giving you these. I know you love high heels, and we wear the same size shoe, so…

AMBER: Oh, wow! Sexy red stilettos! I am absolutely in love. Erica! Thank you!

ERICA: You’re very welcome. OK – can you help me figure out how to read this portfolio report that my broker sent over? I’m so embarrassed that I don’t understand any of this but…