What does Audra want? Audra wants her father back in her life. Everything else is guided by her confused adolescent emotions and the trauma of abandonment. I envision her as the two headed llama Pushmi-Pullyu from Dr. Doolittle. She is attracted to and repulsed by Ricky. She loves her friends and is jealous of their relationship with her father. Jane is her nemesis, yet she has feelings of affection and seeks her approval.

How is X related to the other characters, i.e., how are they connected? Audra is Dani and Kit’s best friend and soon to be step sisters; Ricky is her love interest. Jane is her Godmother, possible step mother, and nemesis. Arc is the father who abandoned her. Her place with him since they moved is dependent on how well she fares with Jane. Her place with him is never secure.

Sketch: Audra. alone in the Red Cabin at the table, turns the dial of the transistor radio to find her favorite songs.

Height: 5’4

Weight: 135lbs.

Gender: Female

Age: 14

Birthdate: June 4, 1963

Birthplace: Buffalo, NY

Hair: deep brown, amber highlights cut into a long shag

Clothes: cotton waffle long johns from the Army/Navy store, flannel button down tied around her waist, 501 jeans

Shoes: canvas ripped sneakers

Jewelry:sterling silver with a turquoise stone ring and a nature hemp colored macramé choker GREAT TOUCH

Financial status: Working class

Health: Robust, active, given to chronic motion sickness

Fatal Flaw: Because of her unpredictable and contrary emotional state, she thinks there is something essentially wrong with her. This leaves her feeling desperately insecure.

Mind: Creative, smart, observant, insecure, emotional

Face: Square shape, expressive, light mustache

Eyes : large and round, same color as her hair, dark eyebrows

Poses: When around boys, she can be a little round shouldered and pulled inward; with her friends she is active and animated and outspoken GOOD USE OF CONTRAST

Build: Hourglass shape – curvy and strong

Arms: Strong and defined by hauling water, cutting firewood, and moving boxes

Legs: Muscular from riding her bike

Imperfections: too much body hair and insecure

Home: In the woods with her father for visitions. She lives primarily with her mother in Oregon where they recently moved. They live in a small rented apartment

Favorite Room: Where she is right now in the “Red Cabin” on the inside looking out.

View from the Window: The window is stapled with plastic so she sees a blurry outline as if she needed glasses. She sees the rough, blurred shapes of the boys making a fire and her father Arc cutting shakes for the roof.

Habits: She bites on the inside of her cheek which can make her appear as if she is puckering up in a lopsided fashion. WOW

Vehicle: Her dad’s 1970 baby blue Ford pick-up truck and her mother’s International Scout. GREAT SPECIFICITY

Primary Motivation: She craves love, attention, and belonging. Once she gets that, she pulls inward. She wants to expand and contract.

Fate of Audra: She gets her father. She can come and go from his life as she pleases (rather than vice versa). She gets to have her life relatively free from the trauma of abandonment.

What physical object(s) is symbolic of this character? Wishing Rocker, red American Tourister suitcase, button down flannels, cotton waffle knit long johns, ripped up canvas sneakers, fire, transistor radio, loft bed, firewood, kindling, hatchet, guitar GOOD LIST AND GOOD USE OF A LIST

What does Ricky want? Ricky wants off the bench and into the game. He has been sidelined by his father, the Jehovah Witnesses, and his grief. He wants to have his dead mother returned to him in the Millennial Kingdom. He wants to be in a relationship with Audra

How is X related to the other characters, i.e., how are they connected? Ricky is attracted to Audra. He relies on Dani to tell him what to do. He is affectionate with Kit like an older brother. He begins to treat Jane as a surrogate mother. He relies on Arc to teach him.

Sketch: Ricky sits alone on the “Dead Pecker” HA, GREAT WIT bench outside a convenient store with a bag of chips and a coke. He awaits the bus.

Height: 5’5

Weight: 135

Gender: Male

Age: 15

Birthdate: February 2, 1962

Birthplace: San Jose, California

Hair: black with tight, thick curls

Clothes: baseball t-shirt, jeans, boxers

Shoes: leather hiking boots with yellow tagged soles, greased regularly to make them smooth and waterproof. WONDERFUL DETAILS HERE AND THROUGHOUT

Jewelry: macrame bracelet that Audra made and left on the Red Cabin table

Financial status: His father enjoys generational wealth GREAT TERM that enables him to have an enormous amount of free time. Ricky is completely dependent financially on his father’s whims

Health: strong, lean, fit with defined muscles

Fatal Flaw: Ricky believes that if he is a good enough person and follows the teachings of the Jehovah Witnesses, he can bring his mother back from the dead in the Millennial Kingdom. He is estranged from his mother’s family and his father has left him to his own devices. He needs parenting

Mind: deliberate, kind, thoughtful, literal, quiet

Face: His skin is light brown, strong nose, full lips, high cheekbones

Eyes : Bright green eyes hooded by his naturally shapely eyebrows which give him an ethnically indeterminate look. He is clearly not white. Puerto Rican people know he is Puerto Rican, but until the end of the novel he is never around any Puerto Rican people

Poses: He tends to sit out of the action on a chair or bench with his knees bent and his hands resting on top.

Build: slim, taut, muscular

Arms: lean with defined muscles and shoulders

Legs: Lean, in proportion to the rest of his body. He has the look of an athlete but smaller

Imperfections: sulky and given to tearful grief

Home: He is dependent on his father’s capricious nature. He resides at this school but he does not know for how long.

Favorite Room: Jumping off the rocks into the swimming hole

View from the Window: the creek, swimming, and playing in the waterfall

Habits: sitting in silence waiting to be told what to do next

Vehicle: His father drives him around in a red corvette stingray, now he rides in the back of Jane and Arc’s Ford pick up truck

Primary Motivation: He seeks to do the right thing so he can be with Audra and bring his mother back from the dead.

Fate of Ricky: Ricky moves to New York City to live with his grandparents (mother’s parents). This move causes him to be estranged from his dad but Ricky finishes his childhood in the care of his family’s robust Puerto Rican community. This is where Ricky finally retrieves the memory and love of his mother.

What physical object(s) is symbolic of this character? Dead Pecker Bench, sleeping bag, pillow, army duffel bag, bot of water over campfire, army shower head, towel. pick, waterproofing for boots, potato chips, coke-a-cola, toothbrush, white buckets for carrying water

What does Jane want? Jane wants all that was denied to her in Western NY where she grew up as a working class girl in a rural setting and then married too young. She is looking to experience sexual, intellectual and emotional freedom. She has the desperation and fear of a wild animal sprung from a trap coupled with the need to manipulate situations to her own advantage. CONTROLLING? WELL SAID!

How is X related to the other characters, i.e., how are they connected? Jane is the central antagonist of Audra’s story. Jane is Audra’s Godmother and middle namesake. She is in a relationship (possible marriage) to Audra’s father Arc. Jane has been having an affair with Arc for years. She is the only one who knew where exactly he was when he left. She had been plotting and planning for years how exactly to pull off her exodus. Arc’s impulsive visit and then Audra calling the fire department, caused the collapse of her careful planning. She wanted her daughters, Dani and Kit, to live in the woods with her and Arc. As their mother, she assumed they would have to go wherever she was but the legalities of leaving, inextricable family ties, and Dani’s resistance keeps Jane from gaining full custody. She resents that Arc’s ex wife simply moved to Oregon and Audra is so available to her father when it is so complicated with her own girls. She wants her and her daughters to be the primary focus of her and Arc’s new life. She resents how suddenly focused and involved Arc is with Audra whenever she arrives. Audra’s impulsiveness and natural charisma (much like her father) flummoxes Jane’s plans at every turn. EXCELLENT CONFLICT AND COMPLICATIONS OF CONFLICT

Sketch: on a lounge chair reading Our Bodies, Our Selves next to the “big house” that is under construction.

Height: 5’2

Weight: 105

Gender: Female

Age: 28

Birthdate: November 5, 1946

Birthplace: Gowanda, NY

Hair: The jean cut-off short shorts reveal her red underwear like a lip along her bottom. She wears a handkerchief halter with no bra. The outline of her nipples and shape of her bust is outlined.

Clothes: long, thin, fine, lays lank and a little greasy

Shoes: leather sandals with a strap laced around the big toe GREAT DETAIL

Jewelry: She regularly wears (although not when she is working on the vehicles or in the garden) a leather bracelet with a large pink agate made for her by Arc and a small gold cross on a thin gold chain given to her by her ex husband on the day Dani was born.

Financial status: rural working class poor elevated to working class upon marriage (married to a fireman). While she was married, she found a scholarship for women teachers. As Arc was in California, she pursued her degree. She never taught in traditional school setting except for student teaching. Jane is good at navigating the paperwork.

Health: She thinks of herself as frail and fragile – a damsel in distress who is continually disappointed by the princes who rescue her. She is strong and hearty enough to fix the vehicles and garden. She is depressed and sobs a lot in her room.

Fatal Flaw: She is licentious

Mind: intelligent, analytical, careful planner and yet given to impulsiveness with drugs and sex

Face: Round face with thin lips and wide nostrils

Eyes : small brown with hooded eyelids

Poses: She likes to position herself like a pin-up as if someone were just about to take her picture. Her poses are suggestive with one hip and shoulder jutting forward, or she will turn to look behind her.

Build: slight frame with ample and curvy breasts and butt.

Arms: she has little upper body strength but is able to do fine motor skills well – type, sew, mechanical things

Legs: legs are long in proportion to her body and thin

Imperfections: Her face is plain. Her body is not. She is a little too mannered in her speech as if can transform herself into the person she wants to be – sexy, beautiful, alluring, cheerful – by putting that on. She is the stereotypical middle child who wants all the attention but doesn’t get it.

Home: Red cabin, soon to be the “Big House”. She has to leave for longish periods to appease her daughters’ father and get custody of them. She stays with her parents in Gowanda (the place she fled from as a girl). She has to stay for long periods because she and Arc don’t have the money for airline tickets and all the court proceedings are in NY.

Favorite Room: On her lounge chair reading a book.

View from the Window: Arc is cutting shingles in the big house. Her daughters are playing kick the can on the creek bed. She can barely see them in the distance but can hear their laughter echoed against the canyon walls,

Habits: smoking

Vehicle: 1970 baby blue ford pick up truck with an aluminum camper she and Arc retrieved from a junk yard.

Primary Motivation: to escape the life that was assigned to her and her daughters

Fate of Jane: Jane has an affair with Ricky’s father, then leaves Arc to return to Buffalo, NY with her girls where she gets a job sa public school teacher. Eventually with her cleverness with paperwork and school, she becomes a principal and is able to buy property for cheap in the city.

What physical object(s) is symbolic of this character? Paperwork (divorce, custodial, foster care, school charter), typewriter, ink pen, handkerchief halter top, sewing machine, jean fabric, bus tickets, cocaine, guitar, truck engine, grease, ink stains, old worn rag to wipe off grease and ink, ash (for the outhouse), aviation sunglasses, big round Jackie O glasses for her nearsightedness, Marlboro reds, zippo chrome lighter