KATHIEDaughter of professional couple by whom she was pressed too hard towards “success”. This immaterial ideal held out by her parents as the supreme goal came, perhaps merely by dint of its constant repetition, by the time Kathie reached adolescence, to seem a shallow if not hollow justification for the strictures her parents had placed upon her. Bitterly disappointed at what she perceived to be her parents' failure to properly recognize her point of view, she turned to open rebellion. This led only to harsh reprisals and so accomplished the opposite of her intentions. Acknowledging her failure to in any way alter her parents' attitude towards her she came to the conclusion that the only solution was to take her rebellion underground.
And so, Kathie initiated a double life. One part was a performance, put on for her parents' benefit, in which she acted out the role of what she imagined it was that her parents wanted her to be; time spent at home and elsewhere in her parents presence became, in effect, time spent on-stage. The other part, cut free from any and all restraints connected with conforming to her parents' wishes and, furthermore, impelled by a desire to be compensated for being forced, as she saw it, to live half her life in a made up role, became, over the course of what seemed, even to Kathie, a startlingly brief period, the proverbial sex and drugs and rock ën' roll existence.
Inevitably, her underground existence was eventually forced to the surface, with the predictable result that her parents all but chained her to the desk in her room.
Finally, push came to shove and Kathie flew the coop and hit the road. It was here demonstrated that all the time and energy her parents spent pushing her towards “success” were not wasted-- Kathie was a smart a driven girl. Their efforts on Kathie's behalf were simply hijacked by Kathie's own sensibilities and values and redirected down avenues of her own choosing, away from the arena of her parents' expectations. Right off the bat, Kathie was clued in enough to know that not only would she likely be damaged by attempting to go it alone in the Big City, but that it was quite likely that her parents would have little difficulty locating her there. Instead, realizing that this was probably a once in a lifetime thing, she took off in search of Nowheresville, USA; hoping to find the time and space to cool her jets and figure out who, what and where she wanted to be. Some internal compass has led her to Fairvale, where she is doing just that.
The same magnet that powers that compass has attracted the attentions of Whit, another newcomer who, like herself, just sort of ended up in Fairvale. Although in his case it was less a matter of trying to get away from something; more like trying to get somewhere.
In Fairvale, Kathie is feeling more comfortable in her own skin than ever before, but she remains hostage to the urge to escape. For the time being at least, she is able to sate this urge with frequent visits to Fairvale's one and only movie theatre-- the World Cinema, the aptly named repertoire house run by Betsy and Victoria. After a number of frequent visits, she couldn't help but notice another patron who seemed to be continually present. Although it would be hard to find a girl with a background more different from Kathie's, Beatrice was held captive by the same need for escape, and between the two of them an unusual but promising friendship has begun to bloom.