Caroline, Part the First (a "The Hub" tie-in) 2nd draft

Caroline Adams was born in Duluth Minnesota early in the morning on March 3, 1991.

Her mother, Marrianne, was in labor for 14 hours and was very much relieved to have the whole ordeal over. Her father, Arthur, would often be away on business (as was the case on this cold Sunday morning).

Arthur was a very important public figure (in his own mind) and had better places to be than a hospital waiting room --he was actually in a Burbank Ramada Inn watching the new John Candy movie before his noon "performance" the next day-- he would not lose sleep over missing his daughter's first breath. Besides, he had an extremely no…. importantly busy day… yes very important. Arthur was tired of the way people seemed to stop caring, not about anything in particular just that people stopped caring. He decided when he was in college to bring awareness to this fact. He liked to think of himself as a modern hippy (he even used it as an excuse to “experiment” with new drugs and maybe once or twice to –dabble—in what he liked to thing of as “extra marital activities” with some of the more interesting females that may come his way after a particularly excrutiating lecture.

Oddly in his lectures “Dr” Adams never mentioned his family

The fist time Arthur Adams saw his daughter she was well on her way to finishing up her premiere eight months of existence. Coldly he picked up Caroline. He held her in his hands, arms outstretched (as if it had some kind of disease that could be contracted only if the subject was within a foot of you) and gazed at her.

"Why did we decide to keep it?" he asked

"Honey! Don't say that about our daughter!" Marrianne found the words harder to say than she initially expected.

"All it does is eat and poop! It's gonna cost me a fortune and I don't want it!" The hatred in eyes spoke louder than his voice (which was booming rather impressively on it's own).

Marrianne Adams took her baby back. She wanted to be upset. She wanted to be infuriated at her husband for the things he had said. She wasn't though. She looked at her baby and found herself wondering the same thing: How on Earth did they get stuck with this burden.Now with this bundle in her hands her whole life had changed, she'd have to quit her job at the restaurant, and would probably never get to take that acting class either. Caroline was an inconvineince, and Marrianne decided to make it her job to remind Caroline of her place every day. Marrianne was starting to get sick of her husband's antics too, but she knew that within a few days he'd be gone again. Heading off for who-knows-how-long.


She found her mind wandering. Arthur had met Marrianne in college around 1987 they were both idealistic and ready for love, or the kind of love that two people in college ought to be ready for in their minds. The bar they met in was dank and smelled vaguely of urine, she was stressed out over her midterms and was contemplating dropping the whole college thing. It proved to be too much stress for her.

Marrianne was not an unattractive young woman, she had been about 5’6 with auburn hair that went down the middle of her back, she wasn’t in peak physical condition but she wasn’t overweight either. She sat at the bar drowning her sorrows in a drink that was very bright in color. She never knew if it was because she was pretty or a little drunk or if the drink simply illuminated the area of the bar she was in but she attracted the attention of a slightly older man who wore his slacks and white shirt with black tie poorly. His hair was slightly thinning but he wasn’t terribly unattractive, she took another drink to be sure. She had chuckled to herself thinking that this man might actually look better in old overalls with a piece of straw hanging out of his mouth and halfway expected him to use “y’all” in his first sentence.

They had gone home together that night. He was her first and she was his…. Well certainly not his first but they had something special, she didn’t know what it was but she knew it had to be there somewhere, something special.

Marrianne snapped back from her daydream, or memory, or whatever you wanted to call it, and looked at her husband. The hair piece looked natural enough and after a couple of trips to the dentist his overbite would be almost imperceptible. He looked back at her.

“What! What do you want woman! Can’t you see I’m on the phone!” he said to his wife. She could hear the phone ringing on the other end.

“Joe? Hey! It’s Arty man!... I know!... Good to talk to you too, hey listen I’m doing my whole ‘Compassion ’92 tour’ and I thought that... You did! Awww no way ya’ll were gonna be callin me! No no! I will be on a plane in a couple hours… no just me. Oh yeah? Well call them up and I’ll call YOU when I land!”

He looked at his wife, the smile erased from his face “I’m leaving for a few days”

The baby started crying.

“and shut that thing up!” he cursed as he slammed his door shut. Within an hour he was gone, and the baby was asleep.

Marrianne picked up the phone and dialed. "Hello Donald?"