Caray, Caray!

• Yet again, Carolina gives Lety the day off, because she has to make personal calls. Tonight: the beauty queens will dress in regional costumes. "Lety, do you know where Aldo is?" "He has a meeting with Humberto." Carolina points out this Freudian slip: that's Fern's father's name, not Aldo's...
  
• Fern badgers Alicia, who has said there are phone messages for the president of Conceptos, but none for him. He's very sarcastic. He points out that, by contract, he must work at Conceptos for six more months, and then he'll get back what's his, and the first thing he's going to do is fire "someone." "I'll give you hints so you can guess. Somebody without a moustache. Somebody without glasses. Somebody with dyed hair." Alicia is guessing all the other female employees, he says no no no. "A gossip with an empty head. An oxigenada who says she's studied 6 semesters someplace!" As usual, her affect is nil. Alicia may be voluptuous physically, but she's emotionally flatline. Her retort: "I wish you luck getting "yours" back, but it's going to be very hard, because the business has disappeared. And remember when I got here, you told me not to mess in your affairs, and now you want me to work." "I'm expecting a call from Lety, and from somebody you know very well: TOMAS MORA, you crafty little thing you, you tried to get his money..." He's quite nutty in this scene.
  
  Fern asks if the others have heard from Lety, no they haven't, Simon ostentatiously speaks English to "Don Ferrrni." Fern asks Simon to come into his office.
  
  Simon asks how Fern's doing and goes into an operatic effusion of support. Fern says "I hate this song! Please just go to my bar and get my car. Just go, I don't want to shout." They do a little "go-get-my car" dance.
  
• Teresita tells Marcia: "We two have to take care of business. Fern is useless, who knows what planet Omar is on, Humberto spends 24 hours a day dealing with the creditors, Ariel is with the lawyers trying to find a solution to the Lety problem." Marcia says she's working hard and Conceptos is getting good inquiries, but Teresita is very worried.
  
• Omar greets Fern with approval: "How nice to see you here on time, recently bathed, perfumed, in a clean shirt, true you have no tie, but - to be president, first you have to look like a president. Any news of Lety?" "No, I'm sitting here waiting for a call which might never come, and you're nattering on about my tie, it's stupid and superficial." Omar says "Queen Teresita" specially asked him to keep an eye on Fern, to rescue him from his life of drunkenness and remove Lety from his heart.
  
  "How will you do that?" "On the computer there's a list of wonderful women [sketches curves in air] who'd die for a chance to go out with a couple guys like us (especially me), with divine legs, lips as sensuous as your own ..." "You think that will make me forget? And are you suggesting Lety is not a woman?" There is a review of Omar's ugly nicknames for Lety, and Fern says Omar is a poor emissary because he has misunderstood his mission - he's actually supposed to be getting Fern back into Marcia's arms, but nobody is going to get Lety out of his heart. "Anyway, I'm desperate, because mother suggested Lety might be going out with somebody new." Omar laughs, "Your mother is hallucinating. That's absurd! Lety will never get another miracle... that's an advantage of your falling for a fea." Omar derides Fern for thinking a fairy-tale prince, handsome, faithful, with a horse, will ride up and take Lety away, will share his dreams with her, etc etc, in order to make her his woman -
  
• Omar's sarcastic comments are in fact intercut with shots of Aldo being exactly that kind of prince: he shows up with a calandria (horse-drawn carriage) festooned with balloons and takes Lety off to see a barely-begun building on the beach - "my broken dream" - it was to have been the first of his chain of restaurants, "The Taste of Life." He shows her where the traditional fireplace would have been, the kitchen... She doesn't like that he's using the past tense, as if it were all a dream. Did he give it up because of what happened with his spouse? Is he showing her this now because the upcoming meeting with his father is bringing up old memories? He kisses her hand ardently, she looks upset. He says, "Maybe I can resolve things with my dad, but with Leonora I can't, she's dead." He gets upset and hustles her back in the wagon.
  
• Fern tries to throw Omar out, saying he needs to be alone. Omar's parting words: "When are you going to realize she doesn't want to talk to you? She just wants to destroy us." Fern says she's a good person and he believes in her blindly. Talk to her mother, Omar advises. Fern again tries to throw him out, saying, "We're not married, you're not my guard dog."
  
• Julieta puts a nice chile in front of Tomas. Erasmo complains about this "digestive tube in human form who is here three meals a day, he'll leave us in ruin." The phone rings: it's Fern calling Julieta! "Lety hasn't called me, has she called you or Tomas?" "Yes, she talked to Tomas, do you want to talk to him?" "NO NO NO - but she needs to know, the business has such bad problems, she has to talk to me." "Tomas says she doesn't want to." "Beg her to give me another chance."
  
  She passes the phone along and Tomas tells Fern: Lety now owns the whole shooting gallery. Fern goes wild, blames it all on Tomas (because he believes Lety and her parents are honorable people), and after hanging up starts drinking straight from the whiskey bottle. He forces Omar to do the same. I must say, as the daughter of an alcoholic, that I do not find Fern's drinking funny at all. It's bothering me quite a bit. Omar proposes that, rather than he and Fern conning Lety, perhaps she had been conning the both of them from the very beginning! Fern remembers Psychic Guy saying, "Lety is happy."
  
  Omar and Fern take it into the hallway - Omar complains: "You feel betrayed, you're a victim, you have the face of a wet dog, begging for compassion." Teresita and Marcia are in the background as he continues. "I lost money too, Fern." Fern mocks him - Omar only owned one percent - and says again, he'll get it all back. Escaping, Fern says, "I'm going to church to get an exorcism."
  
• In Acapulco Renata, one of the beauty girls, wants to drop out of the contest because her parents can't be there. Carolina sends Lety to talk to her. The girl bluffs at first but then admits that her parents decided to go on a vacation to Alaska rather than come see her. "I'm not important to them, so what difference does it make if I'm pretty?"
  
• Julieta peeks in Lety's diary. She pretends to be dusting when Erasmo startles her from the doorway, saying he's going out to answer some help-wanted ads and hopefully find work. He leaves, and she opens the book, asking pardon of God and Lety. "I have to know."
  
  She begins to read: "Nobody gives me a chance to show how much I can love - the driving force of my life and sentiments must be my work. It's the only thing that will save me: to be the shadow and the breath (or encouragement) of Don Fernando..."

Labels: fea

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