"Who are these people?" "I mean, they're dancing." "Nobody dances in the kitchen." "Maybe our parents danced in the kitchen." "My parents loved this movie." "This is the definitive movie of the entire baby-boomer generation." "Do your parents dance in the kitchen?" "My parents?" "No, they definitely don't dance in the kitchen." "Here." "l don't know." "I took the movie posters down." "Everything's in question." "Why not something unexpected for movie night?" "Oh, so we're scaling new heights of Mount Lame." "Sorry." "Tonight's activities were meant to calm your nerves, not agitate them." "Well, that's impossible." "This bed- and-breakfast has been open for a day." "A very costly bed-and-breakfast, mind you." "And there are no guests." "Have you checked the reservations?" "There's not a name to be found." "It takes time to establish a reputation." "Dawson, Bessie and I have invested every dime we have." "Along with guests, time is another thing we don't have." "Potter Bed  Breakfast." "Can I help--?" "I'm perfectly content with my long-distance service, thank you." "How about you?" "Thinking about a vacation?" "Come to the Cape." "Take a room at our lovely" "She hung up on me." "A telemarketer hung up on me." "Come on, Jo." "Keep the faith." "ls that all you have to say considering that you were the force that escorted us to economic ruin?" "All I did was figure out a way to kick in free labour." "You single-handedly encouraged this pipe dream." "You should know better than to inspire financially and spiritually bereft people." "People who have no business being inspired." "Feet." "Okay." "Can I help you?" "Hi." "We were wondering" "Yes?" "Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour?" "God loves you." "I'll call you later." "Hey." "Hey." "Stranger, where you been all week?" "Working." "Miss Freckling's keeping you busy." "I last saw you at Capefest." "Actually, I've been working at The Bass." "My favourite restaurant." "Do you work there full-time?" "Oh, no, it's just a weeklong gig." "Miss Freckling heard that they had some roof problems..." "...so I offered my services." "lt's an expensive place." "They better pay you well." "They did." "But instead of cash, I opted for a free dinner." "The implication being?" "That you and I are gonna eat there." "That's funny." "I don't recall being asked." "You weren't." "See, I finally figured you out, Jen." "When given the opportunity to say no, you do." "So I'm not giving you the opportunity." "But then you're also not giving me the opportunity to say yes." "Would you?" "Say yes?" "Probably not." "Well, that's why I'm not asking." "Henry, we've been over this before." "Dating is consensual." "Don't get ahead of yourself." "I never called it a date. I said we'd eat dinner." "Get to know each other." "I've been around enough to spot a date in sheep's clothing." "Do you really think a kid like me would deign to consider himself worthy of dating a woman of your silk?" "" ilk." lt's " ilk."" "See my point?" "What's it gonna be?" "lt's gonna be let me think about it." "Now we're talking." "But I didn't say yes." "But you didn't say no." "l'll see you around. I'm late." "Yeah, but I didn't say yes." "Hey, my sister, the future bureaucrat." "How goes it?" "To start with, I have 42 ads, 1 0 bios and a director's note that I have to turn into a playbill by Monday." "In addition, I have to pick up posters, hang them around town get tickets to the community box office and make sure the local paper's running our ad next week." "And did I mention I'm a student with a little obligation called homework?" "And you're not very familiar with this layout program, are you?" "What gave that away?" "Each of your words are in a different font." "lt's a style choice." "And upside-down." "lt's a bold style choice." "Yeah, right." "What are you doing?" "Helping out a wayward sister." "Where are the bios?" "Over there." "I don't know how you keep it all together. I couldn't handle this." "You would if you had a supportive family to come home to." "Thanks, but I'm happy where l am." "You couldn't be happy at home?" "Not with him there, no." "Dad misses you." "I'm sure he does." "All those father-son heart-to-hearts we used to have." "It'll be different." "He knows that I don't want to move home so he enlists you to speak for him." "That's what this is, isn't it?" "You know what, Jack?" "Thanks for your help, but I can manage on my own." "See you." "Bess, I gotta be honest with you." "I spoke to our manager about you." "I made a personal plea." "But you're a single mother with multiple dependents and an income-to-debt ratio that doesn't qualify for our most liberal profile." "Isn't there something you could suggest, some solution?" "You could do what a lot of small businesses do and that's leverage your assets." "Our Microsoft options have been called and our yacht is in hock." "Have you thought about taking out a mortgage?" "On the house?" "lt is paid for, free and clear." "Do you have an application?" "I'm just thinking about it." "Bessie, it's our house." "The only connection we have to Mom." "How can you even think about it?" "Everything costs more than we expect." "If there's a way to take a little out, maybe we should." "You can't do this without my approval." "I'm not giving it to you." "Actually, I can. I'm an adult." "You're a 1 6-year-old girl." "I am your sister, a part of this family." "If this doesn't work, I lose my house..." "...the only tangible connection" "She left it to me!" "Just like she left me in charge around here until you turn 1 8." "That's a responsibility you can't understand." "I know all about responsibility." "Do you?" "Until you know what it's like to humiliate yourself by asking a snob who looked down on you in high school for money I don't want to talk about it with you anymore." "Dawson?" "Hey." "I figured even if my film career is in no-man's land..." "..." "I could put this to use." "What are you doing?" "Making a virtual tour of Capeside's newest B  B." "We post this on the Web, link it to all Cape Cod visitor sites." "We don't exactly have the money for such frivolous things as advertising." "Which is where this comes in." "l appreciate the offer, but" "No " buts," Jo." "This is actually a really good idea." "Who wouldn't want to stay here if they could see it from every angle and meet the charming proprietors beforehand?" "If you could look welcoming, that would be great." "Anxiety doesn't fit with this whole homey "come stay with us" thing we're going for." "I do toilets and I do windows." "I draw the line at faux perkiness." "Okay." "Let me tell you, kiddies, we are looking good, looking good." "What canary did you swallow?" "Well, after having felt just a teensy-weensy little bit of guilt over having wrongfully inspired this establishment I took it upon myself to expose the Potter B  B to the outside world via the mighty pen of Mr. Frederick Fricke." "Fred who?" "Fricke." "He's...." "I don't know." "He's the Roger Ebert of the B  B world." "Writes for Travel, Travel + Leisure and, most importantly, for The New York Times travel section which will have nothing but glowing things to say about this establishment, because one Mr. Fred Fricke..." "...is frequenting here." "He's coming here?" "Oh, yeah." "He's on his way back to Boston right now." "Fit into his plans. I gave him a call." "Are you insane?" "Have you seen the half-finished room?" "Have you tasted Bessie's pancakes?" "We're not ready for this, not to mention we have no guests." "I beg to differ." "We have guests." "Not only do we have guests, we have the perfect guests for the perfect heart-warming weekend at your local B  B." "Guests, if you would, please." "We have the God-fearing grandmother here to help her grandkids reconnect to the magical creek-side village where she frolicked as a little girl." "l'll need an 8 a.m. wake-up call." "And I take my OJ freshly squeezed." "Black coffee for me, and God help you if you wake me before noon." "Just to make sure our home is filled with happy, boisterous people we have a loving married couple here to spend a romantic weekend getaway." "You could've asked me first." "You could've left my parents out of it." "lt was reckless." "And insensitive." "One at a time, shall we?" "Starting with you." "I only asked Mitch to help." "It was his idea to bring Gale along." "His idea?" "Yes." "If you wanna tear somebody's head off, try him." "As for you how can you be so ungrateful after witnessing an outpouring of love and support that would've made George Bailey proud?" "There is nothing wonderful about my life." "I don't care how, but get Mr. Fricke on the phone." "Tell him there's no room at the inn." "Why?" "Because you don't show a movie reviewer a rough-cut or serve a food critic your first stab at a recipe." "Especially if it's your last chance to keep a roof over your head." "What?" "What do you mean, " last chance"?" "Bessie is thinking about taking out a mortgage." "What?" "You can't let her risk the house." "Does the term " legal guardian" mean anything to you?" "I'm sorry, Jo." "I'll make this right, right now." "Don't tell me, the Fuller Brush man?" "Hardly." "Fred Fricke, Bed-and-Breakfast Quarterly." "ls now a bad time?" "No, not at all." "Hi, honey." "I see you two are staying in the honeymoon suite." "We're just here to help out Joey and Bessie, honey." "Later tonight, after the critic is asleep your dad's gonna go home and crash." "Don't you think it might be a little confusing, even hurtful to the child of a divorce to see his parents play-acting a happy marriage?" "Well, like your mother said, Dawson, we're just here to help out." "Dad, Pacey asked you to help out." "He didn't say anything about Mom." "Easy." "Dawson, listen, you're seeing something dark and complex here." "There's nothing there." "Know what I'm seeing?" "I'm seeing people who don't know what the hell they want, and I'm sick of it." "ls there anything else I can get for you?" "Heat." "l beg your pardon?" "lt's freezing in here." "Well, that's because we're an environmentally friendly inn." "We like to conserve our natural resources not to mention save on our energy bills." "What?" "No en suite commode?" "Excuse me?" "Where is the bathroom?" "Just down the hall." "It's communal." "I see." "Well, enjoy your stay." "We serve high tea at 5:00 and breakfast tomorrow morning, starting at 7." "Enjoy your stay." "You said that already." "You're right. I did." "My mistake." "Oh, man. ls it just me, or is it cold in here?" "You think we can successfully impersonate brother and sister this weekend?" "Yeah, I don't see why not." "I tell you, I don't know how you do it." "I can never get a good night's sleep if I'm not in my own bed." "Oh, God." "Andie, listen to me." "I get the message." "Dad wants me to move back home, that's fine." "You're not gonna spend the next couple of days..." "...waging a campaign to wear me down." "Who, me?" "I'm serious." "Any mention of home, house any kind of dwelling where people live I'm gonna go stay in Jen's room, you understand?" "Does he look like he's having a good time?" "Does a lemon ever look like it's having a good time?" "Be nice." "He's doing his job." "On which rests our entire future." "Where's Pacey?" "Said he'd help turn down the beds." "In the bathroom counting animals two by two." "What happened?" "What else?" "A flood." "The toilet overflowed." "Note to self." "Career options, delete hotel management." "You're right." "I didn't ask her here for just any reason." "Your mother and I have enough of the same friends for me to know what's going on in her life, and she is hitting a wall." "Every network, large and small, it seems is passing her by for a job." "She never told me that." "She didn't tell me." "No offence, but I'm her son." "You're her divorced husband." "l'm her friend." "I want her to know, whatever our history, that I am there for her." "I'm sorry if that threatens you." "lt doesn't threaten me." "lt does something." "lt pisses me off." "lt pisses you off that your parents have a cordial postdivorce relationship?" "No, it pisses me off-- l don't know what to believe anymore, okay?" "You're married, you're divorced, you're enemies, you're friends, what?" "We're trying very hard to be friends." "lt's a little late, don't you think?" "No, no, that's where you're wrong." "There's no time constraint on how long you care about someone." "No limit on how much especially if they've been so much a part of your life already." "This is our first week of operation." "We're trying to work out the kinks." "Our family-style approach is what sets us apart from our competition." "Bathroom's almost fixed!" "We have great people working for us." "You met our on-site handyman, Pacey Witter?" "No, I haven't had the pleasure." "Rest assured, folks." "I have everything under control now." "Taken care of." "You might want to have handyman Witter check the furnace." "We're in luck." "Fricke went to grab dinner." "Shoot!" "l don't think swearing..." "...at the thing is gonna help." "Flirting with it might?" "What's that supposed to mean?" "Nothing." "I'm just a child, remember?" "I'll just stick with the little things." "Like how we prevent everyone from freezing to death..." "...on the coldest night of the year." "You're behaving like a child." "What is your problem?" "Remember what it's like to be 1 6?" "Or is it, like, some far-off planet?" "I remember." "You have all the responsibilities of an adult, but no authority." "You can't vote, you can't drink." "You can't make any decisions." "You think getting older gives you more say in your life?" "Get real, Joey." "You think I wanted to be stuck here at 26 taking care of two kids?" "I missed the part where you pleaded with Bodie to stay." "I ask him to come home, but he knows we can't afford it." "Trust me." "This is not how I planned my life to turn out." "I'm sorry Alexander and I are putting a crimp in your lifestyle." "With any luck, I won't be here much longer to trouble you." "That's not what I meant." "You know it." "lt's certainly what it sounded like." "For a girl who supposedly wants to leave Capeside as soon as she can you sure are putting a hell of a lot of effort into this place." "You're right." "Maybe it's just time I stopped." "Whose head was that?" "Not to worry. lf anybody's head belongs on the chopping block it's mine." "What makes you say that?" "Let me count the ways, shall we?" "For one, it was my idea to refurbish the old furnace..." "...instead of just buying a new one." "Guilty as charged." "This is the one you're really gonna love." "It was my idea to bring Herr Fricke to our little weekend in the country." "You did?" "Yes. I did." "And let me tell you, it was no easy feat either, okay?" "I had to pull out all the stops for him, use my people skills, and for what?" "A comedy of errors that's gonna put the sisters Potter in the poorhouse." "You know what I think?" "I think that if I were Joey and Bessie I would consider myself very lucky to have you in my life." "Why?" "Everything and everybody that I touch I screw up, all right?" "You're aware of the Midas touch?" "Okay, well, the Midas touch, whatever that is, I got the opposite." "Don't be so sure." "I mean, look at you, you're still at it." "You haven't given up." "Pace, instead of dwelling on everything that's gone wrong this weekend so far think about what you've contributed." "You've put a lot of selfless work into this place, right?" "Now, that's the real question." "Listen, that goes to the heart of who Pacey Witter is." "What?" "What makes you care so much?" "The heavy wool blankets are on the top shelf, honey." "I got it." "Hey, Mom, I'm sorry." "For what, honey?" "For blowing up at you before." "I should have been a little more sympathetic. lt's just the rules of engagement keep changing on me." "Tell me about it." "The postdivorce landscape is like an emotional battlefield." "What I don't understand is that you and Dad seem to really still like each other, care about each other." "Oh, we do, honey which makes the knowledge that we're better off apart even more difficult to bear." "l mean, think about your own life." "What about it?" "You and Joey." "The decision to break up, it isn't made in one sitting." "It's cumulative." "You have to re-decide, over and over each day." "Okay, I know there's a space heater in here somewhere." "Hey, what's "Jack milk"?" "What?" "lt says, "Get more Jack milk."" "That's whole milk." "You know, Grams is skim, Jen's one percent." "Wow, everybody gets their own kind of milk." "Yeah." "Grams is accommodating, but she runs a very tight ship." "Coffee much?" "What's this about?" "That's an inside joke." "lt's kind of hard to explain." "lt's okay." "You don't have to." "I get it. I mean, you're part of a family now." "Families have three types of milk and inside jokes." "Why would you move back into that big, cold house with a man who has no idea what kind of milk you drink or what kind of play you're directing?" "You're really lucky." "It's you, isn't it?" "It's not Dad that's asking me back home. lt's you." "I miss my brother, Jack especially when life gets crazy and I want somebody to share it with." "That's not to make you feel guilty and it's not meant as a sympathetic plea." "It's just the truth." "Gorgeous." "lt's the pollution." "Certain industrial pollutants make the moon appear more vivid." "About now some factory in Boston probably just released something highly toxic into the air." "There was a time when you'd just see the magic in a sight like this." "I still do." "It's just, you know now I have a better sense of the reality behind the magic." "Can I ask you something?" "Just for the record?" "Yeah, sure." "Fire away." "When we were dating and I told you about me, my past what was it that you were scared of?" "I think anything that we don't know or understand can scare us." "And I had certainly never known anyone with your degree of life experience." "Add to that that I was infatuated with you and" "And you have one very intimidated Dawson Leery." "Yeah." "Do you think that most other boys would react the same way?" "I'd love to say no." "But, honestly, I don't know." "You can't know how anyone's gonna react." "But I can tell you, just for the record how I reacted was wrong and that now I can see that the only thing more beautiful than Jen Lindley is the reality behind her magic." "And I feel sorry for any guy who's too insecure to see that." "Okay." "Let's get that right up there." "No, no." "Stack them like that." "You gotta get the tepee." "You gotta get air space underneath." "The air vents" "Okay, guys, blow, blow!" "We're so gonna freeze." "You'll never get it started with the hickory on the bottom." "May I?" "Hickory is a glorious wood, but it's a hard wood." "It'll never burn on its own." "Soft pine goes on the bottom oak in the middle hickory on top." "There we go." "Wow, I'm impressed." "She churns her own butter too." "l bet she does." "I used to build a fire after dinner every night in the winter." "Jennifer's grandfather would sit in his leather chair feet on ottoman and read to me." "Some nights we'd travel with Ahab in search of the great whale." "Some nights we'd float down the perilous river with Huck and Jim." "Nearly every night at some point in our journey he'd fall asleep, chin on chest book on lap, content." "You know you love someone when you can spend the entire night just sitting by the fire watching them sleep." "Sounds like you loved him very much." "Love is the hardest of woods." "It takes a long, long time to heat up but it does." "God, it smells good in here." "Hickory burning in the hearth." "It smells like 46 years of my life." "They say smell is the most powerful sense of recall that we have." "It can bring back all kinds of buried experiences." "Vanilla." "Still?" "Every time I smell it." "Your father worked in a restaurant when we first started dating." "The Franklin Family Fish House." "Every night after work, when he would come pick me up..." "...he always smelled like vanilla." "l used to soak my hands in it to alleviate the smell of the cod." "Phenylenediamine." "It's the main chemical used to process film." "It reminds me of the first time I opened a film canister." "It's an intense smell." "lt smelled like possibility." "Mothballs." "I love the smell of mothballs." "What?" "No." "When class would get out at The Chapin School in New York there was a storage room in the back of the auditorium that the Drama Club used to keep all their costumes and props in." "God, I would spend hours in there." "Hiding under Guinevere's skirt wrapped in Lady Macbeth's cloak." "It seemed like no matter what had happened or how bad the day had been or how much I thought I was falling apart..." "...nothing could get to me in there." "Kickapoo juice." "It was this grape juice." "They used to hand out a cup of it at the end of every day at summer camp." "The owner of the camp, Mr. A, made up that stupid name." "We all knew it was Hi-C." "This might sound a little goofy but do you think it's possible to smell snow?" "Absolutely." "Well, that's my first memory, then." "I don't know, I was maybe 2 or 3 years old." "I just distinctly remember getting up on my tippytoes so I could look through a half-open window with snow falling down on the frozen creek." "Everything blanketed in stillness." "New car." "We'd go on these family trips and Dad would always request a brand-new rental car." "And I guess that smell just reminds me of all of us travelling together down some big, open highway." "Bacon." "Sizzling, crackling wafting into my bedroom while I was still asleep starting in my dreams, and coaxing me into awake." "God, I know that smell." "Mom." "Yeah." "See, every Sunday, when she didn't have to work she would make breakfast. I would find my way down the hallway and stand next to her by the stove and we would talk about school and boys." "And we'd take the pancake batter and pour it into moulds shaped like pine trees and animals." "My mom always loved to cook and take care of everyone and hated working at that bar every night." "She always told me not to worry, because eventually, she was going to make enough money and she was going to open up her very own...." "Her very own bed-and-breakfast." "She obviously didn't get the chance to see that dream happen." "So I thought I would give it a shot." "So thank you, everyone, for coming and helping us." "You're the best fake guests a girl could ask for." "But, really, you can all go home now." "Mr. Fricke I'm really sorry this has been such a horrendous experience." "I realize it's no five-star B  B but I'm pretty sure my mother would've loved it." "That hit me!" "Okay." "Need a plate." "Yeah." "Oh, yeah." "Oh, yeah." "Oh, it's delicious." "Oh, it's delicious." "is someone gonna tell me what's going on?" "Want some coffee?" "Can someone get this lady coffee?" "l thought everyone was going home." "You sleep late, you miss a lot." "All right, you've done the bed thing." "Now it's time for some breakfast." "No problem." "Oh, thanks." "Here you go." "How we doing here?" "This is for you, Mr. Fricke." "All right, thanks." "Good morning, everyone." "Morning!" "Good morning, Mr. Fricke." "Morning." "You know, I know we still have a few kinks to work out." "We'll probably never have the fine linens and gourmet food that you're used to." "The heat didn't work last night but this is one of the warmest places I've ever stayed and these pancakes may be the best in the county." "All right!" "What am I missing?" "Why, whatever do you mean?" "Well, for one thing, your pancakes are nowhere near this good, Bessie." "Well, perhaps we should pay our compliments to the chef, huh?" "What do you say?" "Chef!" "Chef, chef, chef!" "Now, who here wants seconds?" "Bodie." "What are you doing here?" "What do you mean?" "l wouldn't miss this for the world." "All right." "This is for you, Mr. Fricke." "I was up for hours last night thinking about what you said by the fire." "l went up to the attic" "Look, Bessie" "Dad gave this to Mom for Christmas 1 0 years ago." "We signed it over breakfast." "Her first guests." "How could I have forgotten her dream?" "You've had a few other things to worry about, Bessie like the lives of two kids." "To the Potter B  B. May it live long and prosper." "indeed." "Cheers!" "Could I bother you?" "Yeah." "You remember last night around the fire that whole nostalgia, vanilla thing?" "That brought back another memory." "The fish bistro." "Yeah." "How could I ever forget that pipe dream?" "We thought that up when you were pregnant with Dawson." "Leery's Fresh Fish." "But, you know, when I think back to that time now before the teaching and the coaching that wasn't really my dream at all." "It was yours." "l don't know about that." "l'm not saying you bailed on it or anything." "It's not your fault you were successful doing something else." "Anyway, I know that you're interviewing with a lot of different stations and everything but there is this little empty place by the river." "I came across it the other day and wrote the number down." "Just in case you wanted to take a look at it." "Thank you, Mitch but that dream was so very long ago." "Seems like yesterday to me." "So this is why you brought me here?" "Henry, I just shared with you all the events of my sordid past a veritable laundry list of sexual crimes and misdemeanours." "Yeah?" "So...." "So you're not acting disgusted or self-righteous or intimidated or even agog." "Well, why would I be any of those things?" "Because that's how boys always react." "Whatever you did before is part of what makes you who you are." "I'm thankful for that." "Did you just say what I think you said?" "Whatever it was I think I did, yeah." "Who are you, Henry Parker?" "Pacey, do you have any idea what you're doing?" "Well, I have put a lens cap on before, yeah." "I meant, in general." "I mean, everything's changing so rapidly." "I'm having trouble finding my bearings." "l'll second that emotion." "You know, I mean-- l lay awake at night staring at my walls which are now blank, except for a Lennon poster try to imagine my future and it's as blank as the walls." "I mean, all I can see is a past that's barely recognizable anymore." "A perfect example, you." "Me?" "Yeah." "You've gone through this whole metamorphosis." "You used to be glib and predictable and...." "l don't know." "I thought it was your relationship with Andie, but now you're not with her." "You're still" "What I'm trying to say is, thank you." "For what, man?" "Doing what I asked you to do." "Taking care of Joey." "Come on." "You went above and beyond the call." "You did something really special for her." "I'm glad she has you." "Let me tell you something." "It's no picnic." "That Potter girl, she ain't easy." "She's incapable of keeping her mouth shut for more than two seconds." "She's got an opinion about everything. lt's uncanny." "You want to jump back in, let me know." "I am eager to return to our regularly scheduled programming." "That glib enough for you?" "That'll do fine, Pace." "Did you mix your red pills with your blue ones?" "I like that song." "Just in time to carry our bags." "Listen." "I wanted to talk something through with you guys, if you have a second." "Absolutely." "What is it?" "Okay." "Andie is...." "Andie's giving me the hard sell about moving back home." "But what about your dad?" "My moving back home really doesn't have anything to do with my dad." "He's not there half the time anyway." "It's about Andie." "See, when you guys invited me last summer to stay with you I didn't have anything or anyone." "And it was so generous of both of you." "It's not that you just offered me a home." "It was the act of reminding me that somebody cared about me even when I didn't really feel like I deserved it." "Now Andie needs to be reminded of that." "I'm her brother." "So look, I'm sorry." "I don't want you guys to think that I don't appreciate everything." "You did so much for me, and l" "Go home, Jack." "Go home." "Potter?" "Potter, look, I talked to the furnace guy." "He said he could come by tomorrow if he didn't...."