The character of Cay Rivvers is based on Ann Childs, who lives in the attic of her stepmother's guesthouse in Jane Rule's fictional novel, Desert of the Heart. Ann is complex, with a history that includes some disturbing elements. She has every reason to be angry, reckless, and confused. But the depth of her compassion, the strength of her intellect, and the reach of her creativity come together in such a way as to make possible the preservation of her love of life. She's not just young, but youthful and unjaded. At the same time, she's not a fool. With eyes open, she meets people where they are and accepts them as they are. Where she could be cynical, she is instead philosophical. She cares deeply for others, though she'll let no one hold her down or back with their caring for her. She maintains her independence as fiercely as her ideals; trust and commitment being among the few things she won't give too freely. So loved is she by those close to her, however, that this doesn't stop them from trying to protect her wherever and whenever they think she needs it, if they think they can.
Francis Packer, Ann's stepmother, sees nothing she does not want to see. She only wants Ann to be happy, so she simply doesn't learn of anything that might put a dent in that desire. It's not that she's unrealistically blind about Ann's whole existence; rather she has a point she won't go beyond, which serves to prevent her from viewing Ann in a light that might make Frances move from being somewhat mystified by Ann to being shocked or dismayed by her. It seems it would be easy for Frances to put two and two together about certain things, but it never occurs to her to do so. This makes it easy for Ann to keep the issue of her dalliances with women out of the way. Francis is sweet, gentle, and practical, allowing Ann her space, but always worrying over her wellbeing. Rather than judging Ann's friends, she fears that the depraved atmosphere of the casino will ruin her. She cannot understand why Ann insists on working there, given that Ann's inheritance from her father and the money she makes from selling her cartoons make it unnecessary for her to do so. Frances would much rather see Ann flourishing in the academic world, surrounded by people of intelligence and talent comparable to Ann's.
Walter, Ann's stepbrother, does his best to keep things sorted out. Like Ann, he's also something of the "take it as it comes" type, and it seems both he and Ann have benefited from Frances' influence in that regard. But Walter is also Ann's defender, in a very honest, decent, brotherly way. He knows more about what's going on in Ann's life than Frances does, and he can stand up for her without closing his eyes to what he knows. He's just a good, solid human being, which Ann appreciates. Their relationship is affectionate and filled with such jests as one finds between siblings who really get along and share a true understanding by way of their common history.
Ann's friend from the casino, Silver Kay, is a retired madam, not an aspiring singer, as she is in the film. The two sleep together, off and on, even in the midst of Silver's relationship with Joe, whom Silver eventually decides to marry. Silver sees no reason for her periodic evenings with Ann whenever Joe is away to come to an end, even after the wedding. She looks out for Ann in her own worldly way, applying her prostitution gained brand of wisdom to her understanding of Ann and others around them. She inhabits her place in Ann's life as a kind of buddy advisor and mentor, in a nonpossessive manner, fully accepting of Ann's need for freedom. Silver's personality makes her blatant and humorous. It's her nature, intentional or not; but she's no less deliberate about it for that.
Bill is Ann and Silver's immediate boss, as well as Ann's former lover. In the film, Cay's split with Daryl is the result of her realization that she doesn't want to be with a man at all. In the novel, Ann appears to be bisexual, though she seems more lesbian leaning than straight leaning. She breaks up with Bill not because she doesn't want him at all but because he comes to demand something she can't give: a marriage commitment. He becomes insistent about it, and, in the end, long after their breakup, as he struggles to deal with her desire for a woman instead of him, he even states that he should have made her pregnant so that she would have had to marry him. In his mind, that would have forced the issue, the matter would have been settled with a ceremony, and he'd have ended up winning. Although he loves her and doesn't really want to do her harm, he does consider, once he becomes aware of his new rival, making trouble for the woman Ann is coming to love. Fortunately, he changes his mind. But he can never be happy not having his way. In the end, fires Ann from the casino. And then he tells her it was for her own good.
Arthur Williams, a lawyer who was once partners with Ann's father, is as deeply concerned as Frances about the corruption of the gambling scene and its potential effect on Ann. He's watched her grow up, and it angers him outright to think of these people, whom he understands from the point of view of a lawyer who's seen it all, surrounding and influencing her. Don't get him started about it.
Complicated and sometimes painful, Ann's past has very much shaped who she has become and how she deals with life. When she was six years old, her mother abandoned her and her father at the beach one day, walking off without explanation, never to be seen again. Her father, a successful lawyer, was so deeply enmeshed in his own problems and so unable to see clearly enough to deal with them appropriately that, sometime prior to his involvement with Frances, he made an attempt to kill Ann by slitting her wrists. In fact, this is the reason Ann knows the difference between an effective, knowledgeable attempt at this, such as was made by her father when she was very young, and the either ignorant or halfhearted type of attempt made by a woman awaiting divorce at the guesthouse, which the adult Ann handles with swiftness, efficiency, and maturity.
Among those who seek to help Ann is the special assistant to the Dean at Mills College. During the short time Ann attends, which she does at the early age of sixteen, the assistant gets an impression of Ann as being troubled in some way. Hoping to reach her, and providing a private setting in which to do so, she is very much surprised, to say the least, to find her attempt at getting Ann to open up met with Ann's misunderstanding that this was an attempt at providing a make out opportunity. It is Ann's refusal to see a psychiatrist about this "indecent proposal" that gets her expelled from Mills. The assistant is appalled by Ann's behavior. But Ann refuses to see herself as having something wrong with her. She chalks up the whole mess to her inexperience with the customs of academic people and culture, quite able to laugh about it all later on.
Rich and filled with many examples of variations on the theme of being human, Ann's life provides her with plentiful material for her artistic passion. A cartoonist, she keenly observes behaviors, postures, gestures, turns of phrase. She pulls a great deal from what she sees at the casino, her work in the one environment feeding the other well enough that she has successfully sold her cartoons to publications across the country. And then there is her private stock, which she shows to no one, filling it with expressions of her deepest thoughts and emotions. Elsewhere, she studies others and offers up her findings to the world in a form she knows it will find acceptably entertaining. In her private collection, however, she reveals herself to herself, with full blown honesty, holding back nothing. These sketches not another living soul has seen... until the day she shows them to Evelyn Hall.
Evelyn, a university professor from California, arrives at the guesthouse a woman in search of an uncontested divorce. Nothing unique in that for Ann. She is fifteen years older than Ann, who is only 25. But Ann finds her increasingly captivating, and the feeling gradually becomes mutual. Well before Evelyn comes to the end of fulfilling her residency requirement in order to complete the divorce process, the two become close enough and open enough about their desire for each other to make love. But they are both on unfamiliar ground here, and so they both question themselves, grapple with their doubts and uncertainties, wrestle (and quite literately) with the meanings of things. In time, though, of all the women Ann has known, it is Evelyn who has not only the intellect to match and challenge her but the right combination of other qualities to keep her interest and meet her needs; and it is she whose needs can be met by Ann. It is Evelyn who at last gains the honor of Ann's trust; Evelyn who makes Ann finally consider a significant change: to a life of permanency. This she offers in time to try to persuade Evelyn to stay with her instead of returning to California. She even finds a house she considers buying so that they will have a place of their own in which to live. But there are no easy answers, given Evelyn's job commitment and Ann's unwillingness to leave the desert she has always called home. Evelyn is also concerned about Ann's drive to break away from anything confining, prompting her to suggest that any arrangement they make to be together be taken as a trial period. Still, the two of them clearly are for each other lock and key. And they both know it by then.
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