COMMISSION: A Girl Called Daydream

This is my second commission. As you can see, it's a different tone from the first.

The prompt I was given was:

Nerdy girl in high school who gets bullied. She idolises Audrey Hepburn but feels like she is nothing like her.

Here is what I did with that:

***

Kathy lay in the grass and imagined herself saying that to Audrey Hepburn, and Audrey Hepburn laughing with that wide grin that helped make her famous, and she said, “Me, too.” And then when the actress went off to make Sabrina, she told Billy Wilder about this thing her friend had said and they made it a part of the movie. Sabrina would speak to the ages on Kathy’s behalf.

The girl was on her back in the park next to her school. She stared at the sky and watched the spotty clouds drift past, and even saw an occasional bird or two jetting on their way to somewhere better. It was the lunch period and she could hear her schoolmates behind her on the other side of the fence chattering about things she knew she did not care about any more than they cared about what she was thinking all alone out here. Kathy could hear the girls giggling over jokes she would never find funny herself.

Her real name was Kathleen, which she never liked, until she found out that Kathleen was Audrey’s middle name. It made the sartorial love affair between them feel like kismet all the more. That immediate kinship she felt the first time she stumbled into Roman Holiday on cable, it made even more sense now.  In all of her movies, no matter how glamorous she really was, Audrey always played an underdog. In Sabrina and Funny Face and even Breakfast at Tiffany’s, she was the misunderstood misfit trying to make her way. She was Cinderella, but with only herself to act as fairy godmother.

Kathy could identify with this. That was why on days when high school was particularly unbearable--which was most of them--she’d sneak off by herself and relive her favorite scenes in her head. She closed her eyes. “My dear Kathy,” Gregory Peck asked her, “what is the opinion of Your Highness on the outlook of friendship with your classmates?”

“Zero,” Kathy replied. “And who would want it anyway?” She smiled to herself thinking about it.

“Look at you. You’re positively beaming. And here I thought you didn’t know how to smile.”

Opening her eyes, Kathy was surprised to find a boy from her history class standing over her. He was dark complexioned with a long fringe of hair that hung in his eyes, and he wore T-shirts for bands she had mostly never heard of. She always thought he was cute but never could think of an excuse to talk to him. But there he was, right there, talking to her, grinning.

“I-I was thinking about a scene from Roman Holiday,” she told him.

“Yeah? You like old movies? Me, too. We’ll have to get together and talk cinema sometime.”

“Sure.” She was surprised by her own answer, almost as much as she was by the suggestion.

“I mean it,” he said, as he headed back to the school. “You’d better watch out. It’s always open season on Princesses.”

Did he just...? Surprising herself for the second time that day, Kathy giggled. 

***

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Current Soundtrack: The Hollies, The Air That I Breathe - The Very Best of the Hollies

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