Column 4 -
Paul and Danielle
In
A Dream Across Time
We tried.. Honestly we really tried to come up with some baddies but found we were incapable of creating truly dreadful people. Paul and Danielle were the "best" we could do. We aren’t counting Ian who was pretty awful but a really minor character.
True enough, a philandering alcoholic and a spoiled rich girl who toys with other women’s husbands don’t qualify as wonderful people. But let’s take a closer look at them.
Poor Paul. He opened the door to life just enough to admit Jamie with all of her potential and then he ran back to the frat house to drink beer. He wasn’t evil. He was immature.
We call what happened to Paul, a "Caribbean Meltdown". People like Paul arrive in "Paradise" but fail to understand that it is more like the Garden of Eden and there is definitely a snake around. If not a whole bunch of snakes. The Pauls of the Caribbean populate the local bars at night. Generally not the tourist establishments but where the ex-pats hang out. They get caught up in booze, women and drugs. The Leave Before the Fight Breaks Out Bar should probably be the universal name for them. Actually both sexes are found in these bars and the stories can be quite pathetic. For the women, they may end up being soft hookers who cadge rides on boats down at the marina.
Have you seen a good heist flick recently? They are great and they have changed over the years. Crime often DOES pay now. And, at the end, these loveable rogues are sitting on their yacht toasting each other at sunset. Fun ending. But what do they do the next day? Start it with the hair of the dog? Nurse their hangover? And the day after? There are just a few traps here. A life plan is needed.
Paul not only did not have a goal or a life plan, he was also lacking a stable sense of himself and an inner compass. Whatever you want to call it. We call it a stable center. Many people come to Paradise and completely lose their way because there is little in them to help guide them. Remove the familiar structure and they are lost. Jamie had a good, stable center. Paul did not. And he wouldn’t turn to her to help him through it. What happened to Paul is more the rule than the exception. He had choices. He might have seen warning signs in himself through his experience with his alcoholic mother. Turning to a good woman who loved him would have been an excellent choice. Maybe if he’d just stayed home, he might have been safe. In time he might have matured.
Then there is Danielle. Poor little rich girl. Too much money. Too much time. Nowhere to go. Years ago there was a study of therapy with the children of the super rich. Very interesting. When they got into trouble, the trouble was deep. Some of them had no sense of worth of anything including themselves. It is difficult to feel something is worth anything if you can have virtually anything. Astonishingly, women like Danielle can often have no feeling of self worth at all. They prop themselves up playing acquisition games with other women’s husbands. Once the acquisition is made, it has no worth and they cast it aside.
Jean-Pierre must have seen something in her that she did not see in herself. He wasn’t developed much in the story but he could have a self esteem problem himself which permitted him to accept her abuse. Or maybe he thought he might see things through to a successful conclusion someday.
So, Danielle drifts on with no future and no fulfillment. Such people are to be pitied AND kept at distance. We feel sorry for people like Paul and Danielle who cannot dream but we cheer the Jamies and the Andres who do dare to dream and then pursue their dreams.

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