Babysitting.
Evelyn, the director of operations at Wide Open ("a nonprofit by women, for women, spotlighting the realities of domestic violence," chirp the brochures and website), was not quite so blunt. In fact, she was so delicate that a woman less accustomed to maneuvering, less accustomed to politicking--that is, anyone but Larissa--might not have understood the assignment, so to speak.
Sidney Prescott is a gifted speaker. Obviously, a powerful advocate. It's important that this event in Woodsboro doesn't go off the rails. We value Sidney so highly and want to make sure she has a good experience. She doesn't always interact positively with the press--of course, she's had so many terrible experiences. And she can be prone to... Well, she can be discouraged by negative experiences, and sometimes she'll go off-script. We want this to be nothing but good for her, for the donors, for the board, for the attendees...
Meaning, go chaperone a grown woman nearly your own age, Larissa, because you've left education, you no longer teach, but you'll never be more than a babysitter.
And Sidney Prescott must know why she's there, because the woman's kept cagily apart from her since they got on the plane. Not rudely, not unkindly. But she's made it clear that she's no one's child, or charge, or prisoner, and that if Larissa tries to treat her as such, she'll be soundly rejected.
Well, who can blame her? She's a grown woman, of myriad awful experiences, and Larissa is a stranger--a tool of people who would control her.
Larissa is also, despite all that she's left behind, a teacher to her core: attuned, that is, to the stresses of others, as she's had to be to innumerable classes and students. Sidney doesn't really want to do this. She doesn't want to go up on stage and give a speech about her mother and her friends and her innumerable heartbreaks for a crowd made up of as many spectators as survivors.
They've just checked into their hotel in Woodsboro--just outside it, actually; better for Sidney that they're somewhere she's less likely to be recognized. Larissa has, with her own money, upgraded them both to suites (she sees no reason to live a nonprofit worker's ill-paid life when it isn't necessary). They're waiting for the elevator when Larissa turns, just slightly, to the other woman, and offers an olive branch, delicately, carefully.
"I," she says, "am going to order the most enormous bottle of red wine to my room, and a lot of food. If you'd care to join me." » @andtheylive
