GOTHIC DOO-WOP
The Gist:
The Pinkerton family share only the same last name, music, and secrets. A painful past haunts Donna, the divorced mother, a probate attorney, and a compulsive shopper. Donna's reserved twenty-two-year-old daughter, Lacee, a talented cellist, sleeps with her music professor and models lingerie on the side. She despises her beauty, believing no one takes her seriously because of it. Emily, the sixteen year old, plays the guitar in a bad rock band and suffers severe stage fright. When she falls for the kind Doo-Wop fan, Wink, her rebellion decreases until she discovers a disturbing fact about him. Circumstances force the Pinkertons to reveal their secrets and to cope with their consequences. Only desperate acts can save this disintegrating family.
Meet Donna:
"Who knows, I might even get laid."
My hand flies against her pale cheek. I've had it with her backtalk. I've had it with her, with everything. My body shakes when I realize that if she says another word to me, I'd slap her again.
"You hit me," she whispers, touching the red mark on the side of her face. "You hit me."
"I'm sorry." My voice chokes, and my fingers sting from the force of the slap. I've never struck either of my girls until now.
Meet Lacee:
What a relief to arrive on campus, away from Mother and Emily. I only spent the night to pacify Mother's anxiety. I rush through the dim corridor of the Music Building to find Dr. Shaw's office; I must ask her a few questions about the reading before counterpoint class. Everything stands still in the building at this early hour, including that musty odor which has lingered through this hall for what seems to be forever. It comforts, never changes.
"Lacee, I thought that was you."
I freeze without turning around; my body tenses. Professor North strides toward me.
"I must find Dr. Shaw before class." I glance at my watch.
"She's not here. About yesterday--"
Meet Emily:
My grandma Ellen says that you can't build your life around worst case scenarios. but when I think about it, my family has never known anything else. Momster always assumes she has some terminal disease whenever she goes to the doctor. she hasn't dated since the divorce three years ago, and calls herself "too old and too busy" to find a new dude. Lacee always thinks that she'll lose her chair in the symphony, that she'll never join a decent orchestra when she graduates. And me--I hope for good things, like to play at Pearl and not screw up. But it always happens. A part of me wants to find the good, only the good. Yet the good always turns to black. Hope isn't worth the disappointment.
