88 lines
6.2 KiB
Plaintext
88 lines
6.2 KiB
Plaintext
{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil Helvetica;}}
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\f0\fs24 Scene: Scene 6\par
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Model: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6\par
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Character UUIDs: 6C5E6DB4-1A28-408B-BDF9-B3C09F5F1733,4C148851-817E-40D3-89A9-DBB93CA82C25\par
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Accepted for editing: 2026-08-24T21:48:44-05:00\par
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\par
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### STYLE\par
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The style of the novel is in the style but not substance of Ken Follett. Each scene is in third person from the perspective of one of the characters.\par
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\par
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### LEXICON\par
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(none)\par
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\par
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### STORY\par
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In a weekday kitchen morning anchored by Elikapeka's transplanted plumeria and her private longing for Oahu, Emma formally opens negotiations over her sixteenth birthday pool party\u8212?presenting a prepared guest list and requesting permission to invite boys\u8212?while Elikapeka deflects Emma's pointed accusation of prejudice with a measured non-promise to judge the boys' list on her own terms, overrules Emma's attempt to exclude the Hayes cousins under threat of canceling the party entirely, and closes the scene with a brief reassuring touch that Emma accepts without pulling away, leaving the boys' list unreviewed, Emma's specific concerns about her mother's biases unresolved, and Lizzie a silent witness throughout.\par
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\par
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### CHARACTERS\par
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Emma Hayes\par
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Middle daughter. High school junior. Social butterfly with dozens of friends.\par
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\par
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Mai Lin Wen\par
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Emma\u8217?s best friend and always up for lounging in the pool at Emma\u8217?s house.\par
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\par
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### RECALL\par
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(none)\par
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\par
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### PREVIOUS\par
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A beat passed. Emma picked up her spoon again and then put it back down. "Can we talk about cousins?"\par
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\par
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"We can."\par
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\par
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"Because some of them are just\u8212?" she searched for the word\u8212? "they're not fun, Mom. Specifically the Hayes side. They're going to stand around and be weird and eat all the food and not talk to anybody and it's my birthday and I just\u8212?"\par
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\par
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"Emma."\par
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\par
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"\u8212?want it to be a good party and I feel like\u8212?"\par
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\par
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"Emma." Elikapeka's voice dropped half a register, not louder but denser, which both her daughters had learned years ago was the relevant signal. "All of your cousins will be invited."\par
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\par
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"All of them?"\par
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\par
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"Every single one."\par
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\par
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Emma closed her eyes briefly. "Mom."\par
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\par
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"The Hayes side included."\par
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\par
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"They don't even like parties."\par
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\par
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"They love parties. They just express it differently than you do." Elikapeka lifted her mug. "And before you say anything else on this subject, I want you to think carefully, because we are getting close to the point in this conversation where there isn't a party at all."\par
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\par
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Emma went very still.\par
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\par
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Lizzie appeared to find something interesting to look at on the wall to her left.\par
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\par
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"I'm serious," Elikapeka said, not unkindly. "Your cousins are your family. Your birthday is a family event. You can have your friends there\u8212?thirty, thirty-five, we'll figure out the number\u8212?and the boys you want to invite, you'll give me the list and I'll think about it. But your cousins will be invited and they will be welcomed in this house the same way every guest is welcomed in this house. That is not negotiable."\par
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\par
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The morning light had shifted slightly, spreading further across the floor. From somewhere outside came the sound of a car starting on the street.\par
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\par
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Emma picked up her orange juice and drank. She set the glass down and looked at her list, which sat folded beside her bowl. After a moment she unfolded it and picked up the pen she'd also, apparently, brought to breakfast.\par
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\par
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"Fine," she said again, though this time the word was smaller and had less architecture to it.\par
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\par
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"Good." Elikapeka rose to refill her coffee. "And Emma?"\par
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\par
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"What."\par
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\par
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"It will be a good party." She paused by her daughter's chair and put one hand briefly on her shoulder. "I'll make sure of it."\par
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\par
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Emma didn't say anything, but she didn't shrug the hand away either.\par
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\par
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Lizzie, very quietly, reopened her book.\par
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\par
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### NOTES\par
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Hayes house \u8212? The Hayes family lives in a two story house built in the 1960s on a deep water canal (meaning, the canal can be used for boats going out to the Atlantic ocean). The house has a boat dock, rented out to a friend who has a fifty foot sailboat. The house has a small pool in the backyard which is often used by the family for gatherings.\par
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Before lunch, Saturday, late May, 2000.\par
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\par
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### BRIEF\par
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This scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emma Hayes.\par
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As soon as her mother and sister drove off, Emma was on the phone, sitting on the bed in her parents\u8217? bedroom, as the phone was on the nightstand and she could sit comfortably against the headboard of the bed with a pillow. In her lap was a notepad, and she planned to quiz all of her friends about what boys she should invite to her birthday party. It wouldn\u8217?t do to invite a boy her friends didn\u8217?t like, that would not do at all.\par
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First up was her friend Susanna. She was a cheerleader and had an encyclopedia knowledge of all of the boys, good and bad. If she didn\u8217?t like a boy, the boy would not get on her list, even if Emma liked the guy. By the time they\u8217?d hung up the phone, she had seven boys on her list. She was shockingly, almost halfway done with one call. Next up, her best friend Mai Lin. She was Chinese, a major league cutie, and she and Mai Lin were constantly up for the yearbook \u8220?best looking\u8221? in the class. Mai Lin was also extremely picky and the call ended with two boys scratched off and only one added. The third call was with Hannah, who Emma didn\u8217?t much like, but she had to be invited, as she came from a wealthy family and was popular with the boys. Two boys added. On and on the calls went, and finally, she had fifteen boys on the list, all vetted by her friends. And that\u8217?s when she realized she\u8217?d have to dump three of them for her boy cousins. She screamed in frustration, preparing herself to argue with her mother than her cousins didn\u8217?t count in the total.\par
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Expand to a maximum of 1500 words. Emphasize snarky dialog with her friends.\par
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\par
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### DIRECTIVE\par
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Expand to a maximum of 1500 words. Emphasize snarky dialog with her friends.\par
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\par
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### SCENE\par
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} |