BEATRICEDaughter of Angelo and Maria. Angelo has a reputation as the Fairvale oddball. As a young adult, he professed not to believe in the concept of a job, instead pledging allegiance to free enterprise. The thing was, Angelo’s concept of free enterprise was a pre-capitalist one. It was, in fact, nearly feudal in its focus on deriving income from favors and errands, barter, and hand-made crafts. In addition, Angelo never bothered to learn to drive a car, saying he had no use for them. He could often be seen around town pushing an old shopping cart or wheelbarrow, and, later, even pulling Beatrice's wagon, filled with whatever it was that constituted his project for the day. Maria, on the other hand, had seemed, to those who knew her, to be, initially, a very sensible, normal girl; perhaps a bit on the shy side. To this latter quality observers attributed her relatively late-in-life engagement; to Giorgio, a strong and somewhat domineering construction worker. It was, however, an engagement Maria made more to please her parents than herself. As the clock ticked towards the fateful day, Maria felt her anxiety mount rather than diminish. When she confided her fears to Angelo, whom she had known all her life, and whom was, if anything, even more shy than herself, Angelo surprised her, and shocked himself, by offering his own proposal of marriage. Literally everyone, even Angelo himself, was bowled over when Maria broke off her engagement to Giorgio and declared her intention to marry Angelo instead. From that moment, Maria became, to all but Angelo, an enigma, and was viewed with both suspicion and skepticism for years afterwards.
Beatrice was born almost exactly nine months after Angelo and Maria wed. Gradually, as the years passed and Beatrice grew, a consensus formed within the community that Beatrice was a different sort of child, perhaps even special. It seemed to all that she was always calm, never a tantrum; always a sunny disposition, never gloomy; always polite, never sassy; always helpful, never bratty. Some said it was unnatural the way she acted, that something must be wrong with her. Others simply enjoyed her company. Most importantly, she was popular with other children and it was through her that, finally and despite their oddball and enigmatic qualities, Angelo and Maria were integrated into the community.
At present, Beatrice is a senior in high-school. She is Angelo and Maria's only child. Angelo, getting on in years, is finding it increasingly difficult to scrape together a living from his patchwork lifestyle. Maria, having converted to Angelo's retrograde ways, has long supplemented his earnings with monies she has taken from dress-making and pastry-baking. At this point, her earnings from the former have dropped to almost nothing, but she has managed to develop and maintain a loyal group of customers for her baked goods. Furthermore, Maria has passed her baking skills onto Beatrice who, in doing her part to keep the family financially sound, is currently employing them at the local bakery, working from 4:00am to 8:00am each morning before school. The first three hours are spent in the back, working on creating the goods themselves, while the final hour is spent at the front counter serving the early morning crowd. Beatrice enjoys this arrangement, and was, in fact, the one who asked for it. While she derives great satisfaction from the act of baking, she especially looks forward each day to meeting, greeting, and chatting with the regulars each morning. For all her evident reserve and self-discipline, Beatrice is very much a people-person who believes most profoundly in maintaining a community in both the material and spiritual worlds; within each, discretely, and, whenever possible, between them as well.
Surprising everyone, and herself perhaps most of all, Beatrice has become close with Kathie, a newcomer to Fairvale, a young woman who, though not much older than herself, has left her home in a distant city and moved on her own to Fairvale, and is presently employed as the town's lone crossing guard. And while it may not yet have dawned on her, it has escaped the notice of neither her peers nor her employers that she has become the object of Isaac's affections.