They swim over to the grass and climb out of the water as they are approached by an eccentric but harmless older gentleman- BENEDICTE RODRIGUEZ.

 

BENEDICTE:

Excuse me, waterlogged love birds, 

do you mind if I draw you? My name is 

BENEDICTE Rodriguez. I am an artist.

 

JACE:

You draw in the rain?

 

BENEDICTE:

How else do you draw rain unless it 

is raining? Under my umbrella over there.

 

He points to a MAGENTA UMBRELLA whereunder he has his station with his art supplies.

 

VALENTINA:

(skeptical, yet surprised)

Okay…

 

BENEDICTE:

Let me explain. I come here every day 

for fifty years and paint ten pictures 

a day. I sell nine and give one away to 

the most unique subjects I find. Come. 

Come. Everything I give away, I remember. 

I see life going on and it keeps me alive.

 

 

EXT. UNDER THE MAGENTA UMBRELLA NEAR BOW BRIDGE- DAY-

TIME HAS LAPSED

 

BENEDICTE is painting the couple. The rain is lightening up.

 

BENEDICTE:

I remember it like it was yesterday. 

September 9th, 2001.... There was a cloud 

like an angel wing in the sky and a little 

girl and her mother released an armful 

of balloons of all colors- reds and 

pastels- right across it. They were 

standing right on top of that bridge. 

Every day, I see something new. And I 

keep going.

 

VALENTINA:

If I may… do you remember what you drew- 

that day… Was it-

 

BENEDICTE:

It’s okay… a lot of us still can’t say it…. No. There was a police officer and a firefighter standing in the fountain- trying to- clean off. They were embracing. Their sleeves were rolled up and I could see their skin- everything was the same color- their faces, their arms, their clothes, their shoes, everything- ash gray. I then looked down at my own hands and realized that my entire being was covered in the same color. We were all ashes that day. Everybody looked the same- gray- and everybody wanted the same thing- healing. And I just started sketching them- a microcosm of a greater potential good that could emerge from it all. That we could find the healing we needed by seeing something in each other and in what was going on around us. Life…. Art is seeing creation through a different eye and plumbing down to its greatest potential. You can draw the cloud, or you can draw the silver lining. Or, you can sit back momentarily from your existentialism and just draw the sky. And everything that fills it. And eventually, if you are true to your eye, you will have a beautiful picture. Be a part of that sky.

 

VALENTINA and JACE are both dumbfounded. 

 

BENEDICTE finishes the painting and shows it to them. It is a beautiful likeness.

 

 

BENEDICTE:

Who should I make this out to?

 

VALENTINA:

…To the couple in the sky.

 

BENEDICTE signs the painting, rolls it and seals it in an air-tight and waterproof tube, and then hands it to JACE.

 

VALENTINA:

Thank you… I want our life to be like 

your art…

 

BENEDICTE:

(knowingly)

Who was it for you?

 

VALENTINA:

My dad… Windows. He was one of the 

‘jumpers’ and everyone hated me. And 

you?

 

BENEDICTE:

My son. Cantor Fitzgerald. We were on 

the phone. He kept saying how hot it was, 

and then there was a rumble and then he said 

‘Oh God- God’. And I saw the rest on the 

TV…. …There was a pact some of us made, 

for the tenth anniversary... That we would- 

that we would kill ourselves because we 

couldn’t understand why we lived and they 

didn’t. Some people I knew went through with 

it.

 

VALENTINA:

Why didn’t you?

 

BENEDICTE:

Because I saw the sky... I- I really 

don’t know how to describe it. But I was 

in a moment of madness but then something- 

as quick as a lightning bolt- brought me 

back to my sanity. And I continued to 

draw life.

 

VALENTINA:

I was there… Not on TV… I saw him- 

I saw him… I should have been with him.

 

BENEDICTE:

And yet, you’re here… Young lady, 

think about that every time you and 

your husband look at that picture. 

You are here. And you made an old man 

happy. Don’t you think that’s worth 

some reason?

 

JACE sees that VALENTINA understands what BENEDICTE is saying. JACE is beginning to realize that VALENTINA is on some kind of journey to discovery of her own.

 

BENEDICTE: (cont’d)

There is a fundraiser charity event 

performance for the victims’ families 

at Saint John the Divine this afternoon 

as part of the Twenty Years of Stories. 

You should go. Twenty years is too long 

to beat yourself up.

 

JACE:

Sir… thank you…

 

VALENTINA nods to BENEDICTE. They look around and realize that the rain has stopped.