With relish, Emmy tells me about coming downstairs blearily after a night out, only for her strait-laced mother to look up with horror from the breakfast table and exclaim, "What's that on your neck!"
Emmy professes dismay at her mother's reaction as if this is yet another example of ridiculous parental over-reaction; as if she wasn't half-hoping that her mother would notice her neck and as if she wasn't secretly glad that they could now have a good fight.
"If he can't be trusted to keep his hands off you, then you won't be able to see him!"
"But Mum, he's my boyfriend! What's so wrong with me seeing him!"
"It's not you seeing him that I'm worried about! It's what you do when you're together!"
"It's not that! The fact is that you've never liked him, right from the beginning. You don't think he's good enough for me!"
"Well, is he?"
"Mum, I can't believe you said that!"
At which point, Emmy walked out of the kitchen. Secretly pleased, I suspect.
Good girls have always dated bad boys (Emmy's boyfriend is just out of prison) and good girls' parents have always been outraged. Emmy's neck proves to her mother that she's no longer innocent but dark, dangerous, sexual. Her choice of boyfriend declares that social class means nothing. Uptown girl, backstreet guy? Sandy and Danny from Grease?
"Mum, you've never given him a chance! You don't know him like I do!"
What she hints at but can't fully explain to her mother is that, under his gruff, manly swagger, her boyfriend is full of hurt, full of sadness. In Emmy's world, only she sees this and - what's more - only she can heal his wounds. For despite everything - his terrible childhood, his terrible parents, the terrible, cheating girls he's been out with in the past - her loyalty and her love will cure him because she understands.
What she doesn't understand is that she's the wounded one. Like lots of girls, she hides the feeling of losing her father now that she's no longer his little girl; she hides the hurt of his disappointment with her, the hurt of his comments about the way she looks. And the unfairness of this. After all, she's getting on with her job of growing older, wiser, more self-reliant and yet all he can do is to punish her with disapproval because she's no longer a child.
Emmy and her father no longer talk. Wounded by this, Emmy finds a similarly wounded soul and sets about trying to heal him, lavishing her love and loyalty on a man who does want her and is happy to be her hero. He becomes the fight she can have with her parents.
She and her boyfriend aren't really like Sandy and Danny from Grease. Sandy is the least interesting character, after all -- the ingénue waking up belatedly to the possibilities of sex. The really interesting character is pugnacious Rizzo, the girl who goes out with ultra-bad boy Kinecke. She's like Emmy. We never hear the story behind Rizzo's chutzpah and sadness. We can only imagine.
