We find Violet many years later, at a bus station. She’s 25 now, still disfigured, but the scar can’t hide her blossomed beauty. She still carries deep emotional wounds, and after years of trying to find a cure for her scar, she’s decided to travel from North Carolina to Tulsa, Okla., in hopes of having a televangelist, “make me beautiful again.”
Violet meets two soldiers at the bus stop — the womanizing Monty, and Flick, who is African American. Because the story takes place in 1964, during the Civil Rights Movement, Flick is often discriminated against during the journey.
The three become fast friends, and it isn’t long before both men find themselves attracted to Violet (“Lonely Stranger”).
Violet says her goodbyes the next day and sets up a meeting for later with Monty, “once I get my face fixed.” They arrive in Tulsa and Violet soon finds herself backstage at the televangelist’s show. She meets the preacher, and the two have a showdown as we find out that the televangelist is a fraud: “Once everything became scripted, it seems God just stopped listening to me.”
Violet angrily mocks him and soon thereafter falls into a trance. She holds a conversation with her late father during her trance. She blames him for the accident, “You were afraid I was too pretty. You were afraid I would leave you.” The argument erupts into a touching song, “That’s What I Could Do,” as sung from father to daughter. He explains that it was an accident, and that he would never purposefully hurt her.
She emerges from her trance — changed. She confuses her emotional healing with physical healing, and rushes to meet with Monty once again.
In the end, she realizes that her scar is still there, but her emotional scars are healed. Monty goes to Vietnam, and Violet begins a life with Flick.
?KYLE OSBORNE is a freelance writer, screenwriter and contributor to urbstyles.com. ?KYLE OSBORNE is a freelance writer, screenwriter and contributor to urbstyles.com.
