FRANCESCA “FRANKIE” WESTMACOTT (JUNO TEMPLE ) is a THIRTY year-old BANK TELLER in PARMA, OHIO. They were brought under Richard’s care when they were only TEN. They are known as THE CHARMER because they are PLAYFUL but also EMOTIONALLY REPRESSED. Let’s see what choice they make regarding the fate of Woodrow House.
BASIC INFORMATION
Full Name: Francesca Mabel Westmacott
Nickname(s): Frankie
Date of Birth: May 6, 1975
Age: 30
Occupation: Bank Teller
Current Residence: Rents a rundown apartment in Parma, Ohio, about fifteen minutes outside of Cleveland. Currently behind on rent if anyone is feeling generous.
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE
Hair: A little longer than shoulder length, a crisp blonde with brown roots after adventures in box dye and haircuts and highlights from the local beauty school
Eyes: Green
Height: 5'4" (5'7" in heels!)
Notable Features: One earlobe piercing is slightly higher than the other after Frankie pierced them herself when she was 13; Hello Kitty tattoo on her right hip following a very drunk night in Thailand at age 19; crooked right big toe after she broke it in a crash while learning to bike at age 10– she pretended it didn't hurt for a week.
PERSONALITY & BEHAVIOR:
Strengths: Kind, patient, generous, funny, sociable.
Weaknesses: Impulsive, anxiously attached, fiscally irresponsible, emotionally repressed, occasionally dishonest (For the greater good! No really!)
Quirks: Relentlessly physically affectionate in conversation– brushing a shoulder, holding a hand, a comforting rub to your back, even pressed shoulder to shoulder. Sleeps with the bedroom door open. Usually missing her right pinky nail after nibbling it off.
Vices: Colorful alcoholic drinks in funky glasses (with a garnish!); celeb magazines at grocery checkout; scratchers; Altoids sours; affection.
INTEREST & HOBBIES:
Interests: America's Next Top Model; Sex and the City; gel manicures; crossword puzzles (with help); word searches (without help); other people; Titanic (has seen it ten times).
Hobbies: Darts and karaoke at the local dive bar; travel (once upon a time); clipping coupons; collecting state quarters; dancing like no one is watching; sending birthday cards.
Special Skills/Talents: Excellent, nonjudgemental listener; never forgets a face; impeccable sense of direction; decent comprehension in six language (but can't speak them).
BECOMING A WARD
There was no shattered glass or bone. No loose needles or empty bottles or stolen pills. No real reason. There was no fire or dirt, in fact most of what Frankie can remember is clean. She can taste the sterility of the place that she supposes was her first home on her tongue if she really thinks about it. Clean and cold. But not too cold, just enough to miss warmth. There was no screaming. No noise, though certainly Frankie must of cried, but then, she must have stopped at some point too. There was no love gone sour (there was no love to begin with). There was a woman who had a baby she didn’t want. Could have kept, but ultimately didn’t. That was the beginning and end of it. There was Richard, whose longtime colleague in the English Department was rumored to have had a baby several years ago, not a sabbatical. There was classic nor'easter, canceled school, and against everyone’s wishes, an impromptu bring your child to work day. There was Richard very gently saying hello to the silent, still little girl sitting in the Department’s conference space. There was a woman who was a mother only by birth asking a fateful question, one that would change everything for the better: “Oh, do you want it?” There was an it, fed and clothed but no longer left alone in a clean quiet room. Turned Francesca. Turned Frankie.
LIFE AS A WARD
Friendship bracelet maker. French braider. The first person to volunteer to kiss a paper-cut to make it better. Had Frankie's birth mother been at all interested in reading her kindergarten report card, she would known Frankie was aces when it came to sharing and playing nice with others, qualities that lent themselves to her cropping up as a organic mediator during Woodrow House disputes. Perhaps motivated by the absence of love in her early life, Frankie has always given affection freely, and under the care of fond engaged guardians, she blossomed. Increasingly playful, affectionate, and unrestrained, as an adolescent Frankie approached all her relationships with the same warmth in the hugs she gladly doled out. A social butterfly just missing her wings, growing up in Woodrow House was something of a dream for Frankie. A big old house full of interesting personalities with a new friend who might arrive at any moment? What could be better! Respectful? Yes. Well-behaved? Well, Frankie's road to fun was often paved with good intentions, it just happened to all go to hell. Equal parts persuasive and sweet, it wasn't unusual for Frankie to convince another award to be her partner in crime (the broken arm debacle of '88 or the Tequila sunrise incident of '93) and the apologies profusely to Mrs. Tristan afterward.
AESTHETIC
Juicy Couture rhinestoned sweatsuits. A pink Motorola Razr. Flouncy sheer camisoles. A slouchy over-sized, faux leather tote with lipgloss, several old receipts, a jangly keychain, and a declined credit card. A denim mini with a chunky belt. Frosted eyeshadow. A silver bracelet heavy with charms and guilt, a high school graduation gift from Richard.
EDUCATION
Frankie was a very enthusiastic, if frequently dress-coded, student at Saint Anthony of Padua Day College for Girls, sister school to Saint Anthony the Great Day College for Boys. Frankie's attendance was secured on means, not merit; she didn't have the scores necessary to test into a more competitive private school. She was happy at St. Anthony's, but then she would have been just as content at the local public school. To Frankie, school was less about class and more about the bits in-between– rolling up your skirt in the bathroom before homeroom, gossiping with friends over lunch, pomping floats for homecoming. Her desire to do well academically was solely motivated by Richard's lofty expectations for her and all of his wards. Unfortunately, her will didn't match skill, her secondary school grades were average at best, and despite applying to a short list of colleges, there were no thick, college-branded acceptance envelopes in her name sent to Woodrow house. Instead, the latter of half Frankie's senior year featured Richard’s concerned frown and a growing shadow of prospective disappointment. A brief period of respite arrived along with Frankie's fleeting stroke of genius: she didn't fail to get into college, she was taking a gap year. A gap year! This had been the plan all along– no really! A gap year was cosmopolitan and educational and actually, sincerely interesting! What was use was wandering around undergrad without a clear sense of purpose? Traveling abroad would help Frankie find her life's trajectory. Richard bought into her pitch.
EXTRACURRICULARS
More physical than intellectual with energy Mrs. Tristan was eager to channel into an exhausting outlet, as an adolescent, Frankie dropped into a variety of purely recreational team sports at the local community center. At St. Anthony's she hit her stride with field hockey in the fall and softball in the spring.
THEIR LIFE NOW
The problem with the gap year was when it became a gap two years, then three, and so on until a gap year had suddenly grown up into a lost decade. Yet Frankie never did, and distance only strained the heart and her relationship with Richard, rather than helping it grow fonder.
It was around year four, when Frankie was no closer to purpose, no closer to possessing the qualities she was certain were necessary to become the person Richard hoped she would be, that the Big Lie (the Big White Lie) was first born. She said it first in passing as a half-truth during one of her then-regular phone calls: well, I'm looking at school abroad. And she had, the same way she had briefly contemplated blue hair and a nose piercing and Thailand over Vietnam. But the half-truth quickly ballooned to I am going to school abroad, and then to being a sophomore, to picking a major, until suddenly a small almost-lie had become a big fat fiction, the kind Richard liked to analyze in old, dusty novels. 2003. Sixty-two countries, ten years, an impending fake graduation, and several unreturned phone calls later, Frankie found two pennies from her very empty bank account to rub together and caught a flight from Amsterdam to upstate New York. The money, Richard’s money, had gone from dwindling to nonexistent. But that would change, she was sure, after spending some time with him in Bolton. She had always been more compelling in person– you couldn’t see a winning smile over the phone. Loving quality time between ward and guardian might have helped repair things if it hadn’t been for the fact that unwitting to Frankie, Richard had caught on to her farce. Frankie’s reunion with Richard was, in a word, explosive. It was the first, only, and last time Richard had shouted at her, so loudly it could still be heard over the calamity of the false life she had constructed imploding. Frankie might not have been the smartest of the wards, but she didn’t need a thesaurus or dictionary to decipher the ten different words Richard used for betrayal. It was the karmic cherry on top that after burning down one of the most valuable relationships in her life and her connection to the only home she had every known, her flight to Mallorca was rerouted, then outright canceled due to poor weather. She crashed into Cleveland, Ohio. With no degree, no financial support to pay for a ticket out of Nowheresville, and still sustaining the lie to everyone but Richard and Mrs. Tristan that she had made something of herself, Frankie was forced to settle in Parma, Ohio (Or, as she would say to any wards she was still in touch with at the time, just Parma. It wasn't quite lying if they filled in the gap themselves and assumed it was Italy.) It's temporary, she tells herself. The way she's barely getting by. The too frequent negatives in her checking account. Richard's radio silence. The heavy, gnawing feeling in her gut that keep her up at night. Frankie was a smiler, a good-time girl, a lover and certainly not a fighter. What was a person to do when they had catastrophically disappointed the person they loved? How do you ask for help when you can't even form the words to talk about your problems? So it's fine. After all, what would Francesca have to complain about, living her charmed life in Parma, Italy?
