Infinitely Polar Bear Page #3

12.

Maggie is in the kitchen cooking dinner.

The girls sit at the dining room table. Amelia is doing her

math homework. Faith wears an all-lavender outfit and she is

carving a flower design into the antique mahogany table with

the pointy handle of a fork.

They pepper Maggie with questions and complaints.

AMELIA:

The roof lights come in our window

at night and it’s too bright. I

can’t sleep. It’s bright as day.

MAGGIE (O.S.)

Maybe I can make a curtain for your

room.

AMELIA:

Mommy, they’re huge security

lights. Like you would see at a

prison.

MAGGIE (O.S.)

Amelia, I also wish we could’ve

stayed out in the country, but

there were no good jobs in Sudbury.

FAITH:

Your job here isn’t good.

MAGGIE (O.S.)

I’m going to find a better one.

AMELIA:

Why can’t Daddy live here with us?

FAITH:

I don’t like visiting him at the

halfway house.

MAGGIE (O.S.)

Your father is still recovering

from his breakdown.

FAITH:

He’s a way better cook than you.

IN THE KITCHEN:

Maggie sighs heavily.

13.

MAGGIE:

Girls, let’s have a little quiet.

A few moments of quiet.

IN THE DINING ROOM

Amelia watches as Faith digs in to the table harder and with

more determination.

AMELIA:

Daddy told me they injected him

with Thorazine at the hospital and

it made him bite the insides of his

cheeks until his mouth was filled

with blood.

Beat.

MAGGIE (O.S.)

It’s still quiet time.

AMELIA:

What’s Thorazine?

Maggie comes out with two bowls of pasta and sees what Faith

has been doing. She drops the bowls down on the table and

grabs Faith by the shoulders.

MAGGIE:

Faith! What are you doing? Why

would you do that? Why would you

do that?

FAITH:

It’s a flower. It’s pretty.

Maggie sinks into a dining room chair, lays her head on the

table and sobs. After a moment, the girls take their pasta

bowls and start eating in silence.

AMELIA:

Now we’re being quiet, Mommy.

FAITH:

Yeah, Mommy, now we’re being quiet.

EXT. STREET. DAY

It is raining. Faith and Amelia, both wearing backpacks,

walk down an urban sidewalk. They are five feet apart, not

speaking. They come to a corner. Amelia goes straight and

Faith goes right.

14.

EXT. ALLEY. DAY

Amelia trudges alone down an alley.

EXT. DESOLATE PARK. DAY

Amelia cuts through a public park.

EXT. VINYL-SIDED HOUSE. DAY

Amelia approaches a three-story house. She rings the

doorbell. She is dripping wet. One of Cam’s HOUSEMATES

answers the door. He has an unfriendly, suspicious manner

and bad skin.

AMELIA:

My father... lives here?

INT. SECOND-FLOOR HALLWAY. DAY

Amelia passes a fidgety woman with a bowl haircut. She stops

and stares at the closed door to her father’s room. There is

a home-made poster taped to the door which reads:

You say INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY,

I say WE ARE NOT ALONE.

Also taped to the door is a National Geographic picture of a

gorilla. She knocks.

CAM (O.S.)

Yes?

She opens the door. Cam sits over the various parts of a

camera, unshaven with a cigarette in his mouth. He wears

jeans and a green sweatshirt that says “Vermont”. His room

is filled with moving boxes stacked floor to ceiling. He

stands, surprised to see his bedraggled daughter.

CAM:

Darling! Poor little draggletail.

He tosses the cigarette into a Styrofoam coffee cup and puts

it on a table with many other old half-filled cups with

cigarette butts in them. He kneels down to hug her.

CAM:

I’m going to make you some soup.

He picks her up in his arms and carries her down the stairs.

15.

INT. HALFWAY HOUSE KITCHEN. DAY

Amelia’s clothes hang over the hissing radiator, drying off.

Cam stirs soup on the stove. Amelia sits at the table

wrapped in a big towel. Cam opens a tin of biscuits and

arranges them on a plate.

CAM:

What’s my plan? My plan is... get

a job. That’s number one.

Amelia nods her approval.

CAM:

I’ll get out of this halfway house

and get my own apartment. Then you

girls can come for sleepovers and

I’ll make crepes for breakfast and

dinner.

Amelia nods her approval.

CAM:

And then I’ll move back in with you

and Faith and Mommy. That is, if

Mommy will have me.

He holds the plate of biscuits out to her. She takes one.

AMELIA:

I feel like Lucy visiting Mr.

Tumnus.

Cam smiles, pleased.

CAM:

That’s the nicest thing anyone’s

ever said to me.

AMELIA:

Mommy says you have a drinking

problem.

Cam bristles, offended.

CAM:

Most people I know drink far more

than I do.

AMELIA:

I think if you could stop drinking

and take your lithium then Mommy

would let you come home.

16.

CAM:

(sighing deeply)

I don’t think Mommy loves me

anymore.

AMELIA:

But she says she loves you!

CAM:

Really? Does she say it a lot?

AMELIA:

She always says she loves you. But

that it’s hard to live with you

when you refuse to face up to your

adult responsibilities.

CAM:

(frowns)

Do you think Mommy should be

confiding in you like this?

AMELIA:

I don’t know.

CAM:

The thing is I can see all this

from Mommy’s point of view. I

certainly understand why she slept

with Jake Beal after the Walden

Pond incident. Sleeping with Will

Bronson was pushing it, but I still

forgive her.

AMELIA:

But Mommy says you slept with

somebody in the hall closet during

a party when I was eight months

old. She says you started it.

CAM:

(defensive)

I was manic. I was high as a kite

when I did that. I never had a

prolonged affair like everybody

else seems to do!

Amelia looks down and reaches for another biscuit. Cam

sighs, sorry and sad.

CAM:

Do you still feel like Lucy

visiting Mr. Tumnus?

17.

AMELIA:

Not really.

INT. MAGGIE’S DREARY OFFICE. DAY

Maggie stands at a large metal filing cabinet, organizing

color-coded files. A square-shaped woman in her 50s deposits

a tall stack of files next to Maggie’s head: CAROL.

CAROL:

These too.

The phone rings. Maggie tenses.

CAROL:

Tell your kids to stop calling.

This is a job.

Carol trundles away. Maggie answers, professionally.

MAGGIE:

Hello, Keller Brothers --

(quietly)

Faith, is it important, sweetie?

You can’t call so much. They don’t

like it. No TV... Okay, one show --

two shows and a movie, but please

don’t call again unless you have

to. I love you.

INT. APARTMENT. EVENING

Cam makes dinner: crepes filled with creamed chicken and

spinach. Faith sets the table. Amelia plays the piano.

The front door key turns in the lock.

FAITH:

Mommy’s home!

Maggie opens the door and walks in with a bag of groceries.

Faith gestures to the table with a flourish. Maggie nods,

impressed, and then she sees Cam in the kitchen and reacts,

surprised, but not unpleasantly.

INT. KITCHEN. CONTINUOUS

Maggie joins Cam in the kitchen.

MAGGIE:

Hello.

18.

CAM:

Hello. Guess who showed up on my

doorstep today?

He nods toward Amelia. Maggie puts her groceries down.

MAGGIE:

How did she get there?

CAM:

Walked.

MAGGIE:

All the way from school?

He nods. They share a look of parental concern. Then:

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