Sirena's Scenes: The Migrant Achievers Call
Act I, Scene 4 + Your inner boss talks to you through your money beliefs
These dispatches are part of a special BQE section, “Sirena’s Pages”: an installment of our slacker film script accompanied by an unrelated but interesting piece of antiwork- adjacent content.
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The Scene
INT. Zoe’s Dining Room. Night.
A dining room in a tastefully yet minimally decorated single-family home.
The family sits around the table. Zoe proudly serves a mole dish to Jaime and Matilde. Matilde wears a soccer jersey.
ZOE It is an honor to initiate you into mole night.
She scoops some on Sirena’s plate.
ZOE With ingredients from my garden.
Sirena has a bite while Grizzie serves herself.
SIRENA I think I get it now.
GRIZZIE Get what?
SIRENA Why people work so hard here. (beat) It’s to distract themselves from how bad the food is.
Grizzie snorts and coughs.
MATILDE (Spanish) Sirena! Behave!
Zoe freezes, her smile tightening into a grimace. She starts laughing, as if in on the joke, painfully forced.
Everyone looks at each other, uncomfortable.
ZOE Could you do better?
SIRENA (stands dramatically) Easy!
INT. Zoe’s Kitchen. Night.
Next to a glistening, stainless steel stove, Sirena’s faded and filthy plastic crockpot bubbles with rice and beans. Sirena hustles over it like a TV chef.
Grizzie watches her, eating chips straight from a bag.
SIRENA This is how my grandmother does it. Simple. When you love rice and beans, you don’t have to cater to the man!
Matilde sticks her head in the kitchen.
MATILDE That’s her philosophical way of saying she can’t cook anything else.
GRIZZIE It smells...aggressive.
SIRENA That’s flavor, which apparently you’ve never experienced.
She dramatically sprinkles more seasoning, then clangs against the pot, letting steam rise like she’s conjuring magic.
INT. Zoe’s Dining Room. Night.
Sirena slams the pot in the middle of the table, triumphant. Zoe serves herself cautiously, while tastes a small scoop.
MATILDE Exactly like your grandma’s. (beat) Which is to say...not great.
Zoe takes a bite and freezes. Sirena watches, ready for an insult.
ZOE This...is not bad!
Grizzie nods, her mouth full. Matilde looks stunned.
Even Sirena is a little puzzled.
MATILDE (Spanish, muttering) Maybe they really don’t have any taste in this country.
INT. Zoe’s Dining Room. Night.
The family placidly eats some churros for dessert. Zoe steeps a kettle of tea for herself.
ZOE So Sirena, you don’t want to hear my plan to put your talent to work?
SIRENA My what?
Zoe pours her tea into a mug.
ZOE Your way with words. Your wit. Your modern, effortless cool under pressure.
Sirena and Matilde both raise eyebrows as Zoe slides a pamphlet across the table to Sirena.
Sirena looks at the pamphlet--it has a cartoon rocket ship blasting into the sky. She reads the heading.
SIRENA “Migrant Achievers: Lifting Migrants to New Heights.” What is this? Are they launching me to Mars?
Sirena puts the pamphlet aside, tipping back in her chair self-satisfied. It wobbles and she has to save herself from falling.
Matilde looks at the pamphlet, intrigued.
MATILDE (English) Is there an age limit?
Zoe hesitates.
ZOE (Spanish) Legally, no...but...
She scans Matilde’s soccer jersey.
ZOE They aren’t really fans of that team.
Matilde looks down at her soccer jersey and awkwardly covers it with her hand.
Zoe slowly takes the pamphlet back from her.
ZOE (to Sirena, conciliatory, coaxing) You know, when I was your age, my mentor told me living your best life is just having the courage to say ‘yes.’ I’ve built my best life on that alone.
Sirena casually picks food from her teeth.
ZOE And under the right mentoring and leadership, you can blossom into an amazing asset for our community.
SIRENA Our community?
ZOE Latinos. We have to stick together in this country.
SIRENA And who’s the right mentor and leader for me? You, I’m guessing?
ZOE Well, yea. (upbeat, nervous) All you gotta do is say “yes.”
SIRENA Nah. I’m perfectly happy with my level of blossoming.
She wipes her fingers on a napkin.
SIRENA And, no offense, I know you all technically count as “Latinas,” but you really have no idea about it.
Zoe tenses, but her smile is unshaken.
ZOE Sirena, if you want to stay in this country, you’ll need to contribute.
SIRENA Send me back. Even better. (Points at Matilde) She’s living her dream here. That’s what matters.
Matilde pulls her chair out and stands.
MATILDE (Spanish) Sirena, a minute.
Ext. ZOE’S HOUSE BACK YARD. Dusk.
Matilde drags Sirena to a safe distance away from the door.
MATILDE (Spanish, low) Will you stop being impossible?
SIRENA Why are we whispering?
Matilde glares. Both are startled by an automatic sprinkler system and ambient lights that come by themselves.
Matilde can’t help but admire it all for a second.
MATILDE How about some gratitude for being here? We could be in the street selling candy.
Sirena groans.
MATILDE This woman is obsessed with you. I don’t get it, but she is.
SIRENA Good taste.
MATILDE Whatever. Use it.
SIRENA Use it? You make it sound like she’s a coupon.
Matilde pulls her closer.
MATILDE (Softly) Please, just for a while, put in a little effort. Once I get in with her, you can go home and rot if you want. I’ll buy your ticket myself.
Sirena looks away, watching through the patio door as Jaime happily plays with a living room light dimmer, at awe with it.
SIRENA Great, so I’m just here to be your wingman.
MATILDE I thought you want to go home.
SIRENA I do! But...
She kicks a pebble hard across the grass and groans.
MATILDE For your brother’s sake.
SIRENA (snorts) I don’t think he’ll like it here. Maybe I’ll do him a favor and get us all deported.
MATILDE (stern) Time in jail is a favor? You’d do that to him?
SIRENA I’m joking, Jesus Christ.
She turns back toward the house. Matilde follows.
MATILDE You think everything’s a joke.
SIRENA Only the funny stuff.
INT. Zoe’s Kitchen. Night.
Sirena barges in while Zoe loads the dishwasher.
SIRENA (English) Fine, I’ll pull my weight. But not with your corporate nonsense. Find me a job with real humans.
Zoe is amused at the insult. She calls out.
ZOE Grizzie! How’s your job?
GRIZZIE (offscreen) Eh, kinda sucks, but I learn a lot.
ZOE That’s right. And now you have someone to mentor at it.
Grizzie pops her head into the kitchen, seeing Sirena.
SIRENA Isn’t she like three years younger than me?
ZOE Mature beyond her years. Makes me very proud. And she’s eager to help you grow as well, isn’t that right?
GRIZZIE (apprehensive) Yea. Sounds great.
Matilde joins Zoe in loading dishes. Zoe gives her a reassuring look.
Sirena smiles at Grizzie, wearily. Grizzie looks a little embarrassed.
Scene Notes
In many ways, this is where we start cooking, emotionally speaking.
The plot importance of this sequence is that it’s the first time Sirena directly insults Zoe, attacking her very sense of identity–the “inciting incident’” for her adversarial arc with Sirena. Until now, Zoe has never had anyone outright reject the types of opportunities she offers and that she herself took earlier in life. It must be throwing her for a loop, though she’s hiding that fact for now.
It’s also the first time that we see Matilde and Sirena in a sincere confrontation that’s deeper than just passive-aggressive bickering, where gives importance to her mom’s opinion, even if she quickly tries to play it off.
Finally, we’ve cast Grizzie and Sirena in an unwilling “mentor” relationship, almost like the start of an odd couple comedy, setting up possibilities for conflict between them.
That said, this scene also feels a bit labored to me.
The cooking bit is something I find charming, but in every draft I write it’s felt like I forced it in there. Perhaps this will be a darling I have to kill in the end, but I want it in there for now.
Like the pervious steps, I’m consolidating a lot of plot steps that had been scattered across scenes before. And again, I’m wondering if it’s too crammed.
Speaking of labored, I’m been having a hard time writing Zoe.
She has to sound “corporate cringe,” but in the first draft she was way too caricatured. I’m trying to keep her a little ridiculous while humanizing her wherever I can.
For example, in her and her daughter being (unfairly, I think, and also something that I’ve experienced directly) attacked as not Latina enough by Sirena. And more generally, showing how she clings to her own self-narrative, and possibly doubts it herself.
One huge question is if it’s believable that she sees all this potential in Sirena, despite the latter giving her no willing indication of motivation or, really, skill. I think it’s her bias for youth (a condition that our society suffers from), but I don’t know if this reads true.
Finally, If you don’t remember Sirena’s crockpot, it’s not your fault. I forgot to include it in scene 1. The magic of the internet is that I can go back and change scenes after the fact. Which I did! The crockpot is now in scene 1. It will make other appearances.
Antiwork content of the week: Your inner boss talks through your money beliefs
Friend of the blog Percy Sullivan tries to tease out assumptions about money in this insightful, heartfelt essay. If you look at the money beliefs that end up bare, you can see an inner boss which isn’t dissimilar from the one that I’ll dare say most of us carry.
Are your stories about money keeping tied to workaholic behavior, despite your best efforts?
The cooking makes sense to me. Easy to see the emotional connection between it and the simmering tensions.