Inflating a Dog (The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy) by Eric Kraft (novels to read for beginners .txt) 📗

to be, had inflated it as far as she dared, she would release it, and the air — her breath — would be expelled in a great exhalation, a rushing sough of pleasure, like the hot gas blown out the back of a P-59.

Chapter 15

Afflatus, Part 2

INT. THE LEROY FAMILY DINING ROOM. DAY. ELLA PIPER LEROY, her son, PETER LEROY, and his sexy schoolmate PATTI FIORENZA are seated at the dining table. Ella and Patti have been laughing like schoolgirls. Now they clear their throats, giggle a bit, and try to pull themselves together.

PETER

(repeating himself, indicating some papers on the table)

What’s this?

Ella sweeps the papers from the table onto her lap so that Peter and Patti can’t see them.

ELLA

(coyly)

These are part of my idea, but I don’t want you to see them just yet because I want to tell you all about the rest of it first. The boat can wait.

PETER

(raising an eyebrow)

The boat?

ELLA

The boat, yes. I’ll get to it. Oh, I’ve had such a wonderful idea, and I want to tell you all about it, but I don’t know quite where to start. Let me see . . .

Absently, thinking about where to start her story, she gets up and goes to the kitchen.

ELLA (CONT’D.)

I was sitting in the dining room, just daydreaming . . .

She opens the refrigerator and takes a platter from it. On the platter are sandwiches in many colors -- some made of pink bread with green filling, others of blue bread with orange filling, and so on. The colors are pale, like pastels, not vivid.

ELLA (CONT’D.)

(dreamily)

. . . thinking about how nice it would be to give a party -- a really smart party, with interesting people, a cocktail party -- and somehow I got the idea of making tiny sandwiches on colored bread.

She brings the platter to the dining room table.

ELLA (CONT’D.)

(indicating the platter of sandwiches)

Have one.

Peter and Patti lean over the platter to inspect the sandwiches. They exchange a look. Then each takes a sandwich and takes a bite from it.

ELLA (CONT’D.)

(her eyes widening)

The idea just came to me . . .

DISSOLVE TO:

Magazine advertisement for Tintoretto’s Tasteful Tints food coloring. The headline is “You Can Color More Than Eggs, You Know!” spoken by a comical cartoon chicken. The copy reads “They come in three tasteful colors, but you can’t taste them at all!” The artwork shows a box holding vials of red, yellow, and green food coloring, and, in the foreground, a platter of muffins, cookies, and sliced bread in various colors. To one side, a domestic scene is depicted: a trim housewife, dressed for a cocktail party, holds a platter of pastel treats of some unidentifiable kind, offering them to a smiling man in a suit who may be her husband. On the floor behind them are two children, a boy and a girl, giggling behind their hands at a cat they have tinted pink. The tag line is “There’s a rainbow in every box! Be creative!”

ELLA (CONT’D., V.O.)

. . . wherever ideas come from. Out of the air, I guess.

CUT TO:

THE DINING ROOM. Ella picks up a sandwich and inspects it critically.

ELLA (CONT’D.)

I didn’t have any little bread pans, so I used muffin tins.

PATTI

(impressed)

Very creative.

ELLA

(peeling the sandwich apart)

And the filling . . . do you know what it is?

PATTI

(considering)

Well, they all look different.

PETER

(with his mouth full)

But they all taste like cream cheese.

DISSOLVE TO:

Magazine advertisement for Bland & White Brand Cream Cheese. Headline: “Nature’s Most Flexible Food.” Copy: “You can spread it, squeeze it, mix it, shape it, even tint it!” The artwork shows a rectangular red-and-white box of Bland & White Brand Cream Cheese, and, below it, a row of small drawings of chefs using it. The first is spreading it on toast, the second squeezing it from a pastry tube onto a cracker, the third pouring chopped chives into a bowl of it, the fourth rolling little balls of it in chopped nuts, and the fifth pouring red food coloring into a bowl of it. The tag line is: “It’s bland. It’s white. It’s putty in your hands! Be creative!”

ELLA (V.O.)

They are all cream cheese! I colored it with Tasteful Tints!

PATTI (V.O.)

What a great idea!

CUT TO:

THE DINING ROOM.

ELLA

(shrugging, beaming)

I don’t know where I get these ideas. They just come to me.

PATTI

(awed)

It’s amazing.

ELLA

(puzzled at first)

Isn’t it? But just wait till you hear what happened next! I was sitting here sampling the little sandwiches and daydreaming of myself at that cocktail party --

PATTI

What were you wearing?

ELLA

A white satin dress.

PATTI

Slinky?

ELLA

Mmm.

PATTI

That’s very smart.

ELLA

I was sipping champagne and holding a long cigarette holder and after a while I realized an amazing thing.

PATTI

(all ears)

What?

ELLA

I was on a ship.

DISSOLVE TO:

A series of what look like clips from romantic movies of the 1930s and 1940s, set on ocean liners.

ELLA (CONT’D., V.O.)

(dreamily)

In my daydream, I was on a ship.

A MAN in a dinner jacket pours champagne for a woman in a long, slinky white satin dress who is nibbling daintily at a little sandwich; the woman is Ella, but we don’t see the man’s face.

ELLA (CONT’D., V.O.)

An ocean liner.

DISSOLVE TO:

Ella and the unidentifiable man lean on a railing and watch the rippling moonlight on the waves; now and then they take bites from little sandwiches.

ELLA (CONT’D., V.O.)

There were women in white satin gowns. And men in tuxedos.

DISSOLVE TO:

Ella and the unidentifiable man whirl effortlessly around a dance floor; a waiter approaches them with a silver platter of little sandwiches.

ELLA (CONT’D., V.O.)

And romance.

DISSOLVE TO:

Ella and the unidentifiable man kiss, silhouetted against an impossibly large full moon.

ELLA (CONT’D., V.O.)

And little sandwiches.

DISSOLVE TO:

The unidentifiable man produces a little sandwich and feeds a bite to Ella, who in turn produces a little sandwich and feeds a bite to him.

ELLA (CONT’D., V.O.)

(still dreamily)

And for a while I imagined that I was on a ship like that . . .

(now matter-of-factly)

. . . then you came home, Peter . . .

The film stutters as if something has gone