Okay, full disclosure: all these stories are consciously, deliberately modeled on my own experiences in some way. This particular tale relates to the time I spent as a grad student in the Savannah College of Art and Design, living off-campus in property of questionable value. Much like Kaye, I was the kind of host who ruined everyone’s good time by constantly being “at their service” and insisting they enjoy themselves. (A good host plans ahead so that everything their guests need is just already there and then you and they can just sit and relax, I advise myself many years too late.)

I don’t know if I would’ve formed a clique with my apartment-mates in any case: my general impression of life in that school was that most of us were busy chasing our own dreams, and those dreams rarely intersected. That applies to me as much as to anyone else: after a week or so, I almost never spoke to those guys, focused increasingly on schoolwork, part-time jobs, and publishing the independent comic-book series I was sure would go for 120 issues (before it bombed out after five or six and found greater success as a webcomic). There was one exception, an indie musician I won’t embarrass by naming, who’s enjoyed some success in the years since. We weren’t that close, and we lost touch after I left, but I attended her concerts and was grateful for her friendship in that friend-starved time in my life.

Anyway. To me, this also says things about Kaye and why she might play Scipio. She runs hot and cold, with periods where she’s chattering up a storm followed by intervals where she’s like “oh, shit, I talked too much again, I sucked all the oxygen out of the room, why can’t I just be quiet?” It’s not within her power to change herself into a Scipio, who’s so reticent that he draws people to him just out of curiosity, but it’s an ideal she likes to fantasize about.

Perhaps all of these four have some trouble with the concept of others just enjoying their company, and perhaps that’s part of why they understand each other and work as a unit.