Episode 75, originally published 02-Dec-97

Bowled-Face Lies

Drucilla and Neil are at opposite ends of the couch at their apartment. Dru is hanging her head. "Honey?" she asks slowly, uncertainly. "Yes?" he replies with a cynical hopefulness. Slowly, almost as as if checking each word as she says it, she responds, "I think I figured out what you were upset about." His head shakes up and down slowly like a baseball pitcher considering his next pitch. His eyes never move from her, who he regards with all the deliberation of the pitcher's "strike zone". "Did you? And what exactly is that...?" he asks with certainty of the reply. She looks back at him. "It's about--the--" she stops, as if her first try had too little momentum to take her over the mid-sentence hurdle. She starts anew with more force, hoping inertia will carry her through. "It's about the--" she stops again and in an almost whisper she says, "birth control pills". He knows it but he has to hear it again. He is no longer the baseball pitcher, now he is a druggist with very specific recipe that must be carefully ground up between the porcelain faces of mortar and pestle. The raw material is Dru's spirit, and we see it crumbling into a fine powder before us. "What's that?" Neil asks. "Come on, tell me again--louder," he says to her as he works to achieve a fine, pulverized, dust from that which had formerly resembled, at least in shape, a human being. "Birth... control... pills..." she admits slowly.

"Birth control pills," Neil repeats, almost as if chewing on the pills and tasting their bitterness. He is now a beast. Not anything you or I would recognize at a zoo. Something more raw. A hulk. His shoulders expand. His eyes are cold. Where moments ago we saw his wife reduced to dust, he sees a wriggly critter slithering out of his grasp, taunting him. It embarrasses him. He is a hunter and is not used to such a small, insignificant creature eluding him in this way. His nails are long and sharp like knives. His fists are firm, like rocks, to club his prey. "And what were we doing with birth control pills?" he asks. He doesn't care about the answer. He is distracting his prey with a mental task to dim her awareness that he is moving in to strike. She hears the question and mistakes it for an opportunity to reason with him. Her eyes grow full with tears, her heart trembles with fear, but her urge to move is cancelled by the false belief that this man--whom she somehow, miraculously still recognizes as her husband--will not hurt her. "Well, honey..." she starts to say. He is moving closer now. `He wants to hear,' she tells herself. `He loves me.' She is calmer now. She continues, "I know it wasn't exactly the right thing to do..." Click. A switch goes click within him. Even the beast has a conscience. The conscience must be fed. His ego must be stroked, and told it acts with cause. `She admits her deed,' he echos in his brain. `She knows this is her fault,' come the words that substitute for reason in his almost imperceptibly small reasoning center. Her fault. HER fault. HER FAULT! "You're damned right it wasn't the right thing!" he cries. The rock-like hand swings and makes its mark on her cheek. She grunts and flies across the room. He is oblivious to the small pitter patter of feet from another part of the room as Lily enters to watch. Dru starts to stand but Neil strikes again.

"Mommy, mommy!" Lily says. `What has she seen?' ask the beast and Dru each silently to themselves. The one with a full-sized brain reacts more quickly. "Mommy's just--fallen, honey. I hit my head on the fireplace. Your daddy was just helping me up." Like a suddenly-deflated baloon, Neil's wind has gone and he turns to his daughter, left only with confusion. He is only barely aware of what he's done. "Uh, right, that's right, Lily. Your mother just slipped, and I was helping her." Lily is neither fooled nor stupid. She feigns relief and goes to her mother. "I'll help you, Mommy," she says, tugging on her to get up. Drucilla goes to a nearby table where there is a hand-held mirror. She examines the trickle of blood that comes from the bruise on her face. "Are you ok, Mommy?" Lily asks. "Yes, dear, of course I'm all right. It was a good thing you were both there to pull me up when you did, though," she says thankfully, and half-truthfully. Just then the phone rings. It's Sid. "Sid!" she says with the usual excitement she accords his offers to free her from the Hellish life she's carved for herself of late. "Dru, I have a wonderful bit for you--three days away--easy work and LOTS of money." "Sid, you know, it sounds reallll good, but I'm afraid I have to say 'no'." "But--when I talked to you earlier, you knew I was going to be setting this up--you asked me to go ahead," he replies. "I know, Sid, and like I said, I really appreciate it and all, but--" "What is it, Dru? A problem with your husband again?" "No, I just... slipped... and I bruised my face. I'm afraid it's going to be a few days before I can do this kind of work. It's going to take me time to recover." Sid is uncertain what to make of this. "You've been to a doctor?" "No, it just happened--but I was on my way--honest. I'll take good care of myself, Sid." "Ok, well, I'll be in touch," he says.

Neil has been listening to Dru's conversation and in voiceover we hear him talking. "Dru's turning down a shoot? Voluntarily? And on account of her face is not quite up to what it could be. Very interesting. Very, VERY interesting...." he says to himself. Lily is eyeing her father. He looks cold and distant. She replays in her mind the scene of Neil hitting her mother. She shivers silently. "Well, I've got to get to work," Neil says. Dru comes up to him as if to say good-bye, mostly testing whether he is still angry. "Thanks," he says. "For not telling Lily? I did that FOR Lily," she says. "No, for admitting you were to blame for this--for the pills. I'm glad you're starting to see how destructive you've been to this family." He walks out, and Dru cries. "Are you ok, Mommy?" Lily asks, hoping she'll speak more now that Neil is gone. "Mommy's ok, baby. My face is just hurting from that bruise, you know. How 'bout getting me some ice from the freezer, ok?" Lily nods, grabs a table chair, and heads for the freezer to get some ice.

Dru is with Olivia at the hospital. "You say you fell?" Olivia asks. "Yeah, that's right," Dru says. "Didn't you put your hands out in front of you? Your hands and arms are unmarked." "I'm sorry--I was falling--I didn't read the instruction book for fallin' on the way down, ok? Look, 'Liv, I could get someone else to do this..." "No, it's ok. It's just that I'm obliged by law to ask certain questions in case of a suspicious--" "Questions? Suspicious? What, is the world threatened by an epidemic of women falling against their fireplace?" Olivia shakes her head sadly. "Sort of..." "I fell." "Was anyone there?" "Yeah, Neil was there. And Lily." Olivia doesn't know what to think. She sighs and decides it must be as Dru says. Surely Neil would never do anything bad... and surely neither of them would involve Lily. She finishes applying some cream and fixes a bandage in place, holding it by additional wraps around her head. "Not very fashionable, I'm afraid," Olivia says. "It's ok. I already had to cancel the work Sid was offering me." "Oh? Well, Neil must have been pleased--your spending a little time at home." "You talk like I'm never around." "Neil sometimes doesn't feel like you are." "Well, I *am*," she says. "And if he didn't spend so much time here in your office cryin' on your shoulder, maybe he'd know that!" Dru says.

Dru is home by herself on the phone with Sid. "You know, Sid, I've been thinking--maybe it would be good if I could get Lily out of the house sometimes..." "Out of the house?" Sid asks, concerned, uncertain where she is going with this. "Well, I was just wondering--she's pretty cute, don't you think?" "Oh, she's a doll," Sid says. Lily enters from the bedroom but says nothing; she stands and listens. "Well, I was just thinking that maybe you had some shoots--you know--for young kids." "Ohhh, I see. Dru, are you sure everything is ok with you and your husband?" Dru puts on her best face (easier to do by phone because Sid can't see the bandages). "Why absolutely, Sid. Really. I just think she's getting to an age where--you know--it might help her to get out and see the world." Lily slinks back out without being noticed.

The next day we see Lily enter the apartment to find Dru. Lily's hair is green. Dru runs to look at her. "Lily! What have you done to your hair?" Dru yells at her. "I just wanted to express my personality," she says boldly. "Well, honey, you're really too young to be doing that. Now I want you to go to the sink and get some shampoo and wash it out realll good before your daddy gets home, ok?" She runs to her room and slams the door. Dru goes to the door. "Honey?" No answer. "Why won't you answer? Did I do something wrong?" The door opens a crack. We hear her say "No, Mommy. I'm sorry." Dru comes in and sits with her on her bed. "What's up, baby?" she asks. "Well, I overheard you talking to your high-powered agent on the phone yesterday," she says. "Yeah...?" Dru says, waiting for more hint of what was heard. "And I heard you say you wanted to send me away..." "Oh, honey, that's just because I love you and I want you to have opportunities..." "The ones Daddy doesn't want you to have," she says. Dru looks surprised. "Sort of, but..." "But I don't want to go away," she says. "So that's why you colored your hair?" "Well, that and--" "And?" "And I was afraid you'd tell Daddy you wanted me to go away..." "Oh, sweetie, your daddy wants what's best for us." "And that's why he hits you?" she asks. Dru is REALLY stunned now. When she says nothing, Lily continues. "I didn't want Daddy to hit me, too, so I colored my hair green. That way he'd think I couldn't be a model and he wouldn't have to hit me to keep me from being one--like he does to you."

It's a few days later. Dru is preparing Thanksgiving dinner. Lily is dressed to go out and Olivia stands there to take her. "You're sure you don't mind taking her for a while while I prepare everything?" Dru says. "No, of course not," Olivia says. "Are you sure you don't need any help?" "No, I don't think so. I never made the whole dinner myself. Just once, I want to see if I can." "Ok, but call us if you need something. We'll be glad to help." "You can help by getting this one out of here--and by helping to eat later," Dru says. Lily hugs her mom. "Bye, Mommy." "Bye, sweetheart--don't fill up on snacks now--there's gonna be lots of food later!" she says. Dru turns to the camera and we see her bandage is off and her bruise is just about gone--certainly nothing a little well-placed makeup wouldn't hide. She goes to the phone in the kitchen and starts to dial as Neil enters.

Seeing Neil, she hangs up before she finishes dialing. "Calling your agent?" he asks. "That's right. I wanted to let him know I was getting better." Neil moves in coolly. No hint of anger. He examines her eye calmly. "I dunno," he says. "What don't you know?" "Might be premature to call it better." "Premature?" "Let's talk about those birth control pills, shall we?" he says, trying to provoke her. "Neil, I said--" she starts to say. But he wants no doubt where the conversation left off. "You said it was your fault." "Yes, but--" "But, what? Are you going to lie in some new way now? Hmm?" He slaps her where the bruise was. Lightly. Testing. She falls against the refrigerator with a glunk. "Neil! That hurts!" she says. "Oh it hurts, does it? Do you want to know what hurts? Having your spouse LIE to you. THAT'S what hurts." "But I--" "But. But. But... MORE excuses? What kind of mother are you, anyway? Do you realize what an effect you're having on our daughter?" He hits her again. Less tentatively. This time on the other cheek. "Our daughter?" she echoes. He nods. "What kind of role model are you for an impressionable young girl? What are you teaching her with your LIES?" With his large hand, he forces her face to face his and tries to decide if the bruise will last. This is all new to him--unexplored--no sense in leaving it to doubt. He reaches back and prepares to strike again. But she has managed to grab the carving knife from the turkey and she drives it deep into his stomach before he can come at her again. He falls to the floor with a look of true surprise. She reaches for the phone and calls 9-1-1. "Come quickly," she says. "A man has been stabbed." She hangs up. (Presumably they have Enhanced 9-1-1 so she needs say nothing more.)

Malcolm, Olivia, Nate, and Lily stand to the side watching as police bag everything in sight. Just as Salena Wiley is about to cuff Dru, Mary Williams enters dragging Carl Williams by the ear. Mary shoves him into the room and says, "Now, Carl, if you so much as HINT that battered wife syndrome is an imaginary ailment, I promise you you'll be SERIOUSLY considering whether battered husband syndrome will help free you from what I've got planned for you... So get over there and treat that defendant with some respect!" She lets go of his ear and he stumbles to where Salena is standing. "I'll take over from here, Detective Wiley." "Yes, sir," Salena says agreeably. "I wasn't really looking forward to this one anyway." Doris Collins, of Collins and Sons, sits in her wheelchair as Dru is handcuffed by Carl. Doris takes Dru's hand and pats it. "It's going to be ok, Dru. Just tell them you can't speak without me present. You did what any woman would--don't worry. Everything will be JUST fine."

There is a tap on his shoulder and Bill Bell awakens. "Mr. Bell, we're waiting for directions on how to play this scene," Kristoff St. John says. "Oh, right," he says. "Sorry I must have been dozing. Wish I could remember what it was--it was really intense. Now where were we?" "We didn't have scripts for today--you were going to tell us how to improvise." Bell consults the Nielson ratings. "You know," he says, "we've been doing this same old stupid story line for months longer than I ever expected it to work. Just keep doing the same kind of thing as you've been--oh, why bother--take the afternoon off. We'll just make up a scene out of scraps from the cutting room floor. I'm sure we've got plenty of old stuff we've not yet used. If the audience isn't going to care when I don't change the plot, why should I bother to write new stuff, right?" Kristoff nods to Mr. Bell. "I really like the way you understand how to attribute fault, Mr. Bell. I think it's the key to your success." They shake hands, and the actors head for their dressing rooms, happy to have the day off... yet again.

That's all for this episode. Hope you learned something. Don't miss Episode 76!
If you missed any older episodes, see the index.

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