The Housemaids Tale - Valentina Nappi
A wealthy man (Charles Dera) comes down the stairs of his house and turns the corner into the living room. He is distracted by his phone, and without looking, he accidentally bumps into a woman (Valentina Nappi), a housemaid who was cleaning in the room. He apologizes, and remarks that she must be the new maid the cleaning company sent over. She responds yes, with a noticeable accent but her english is otherwise quite good. He welcomes her to the payroll, and she replies 'Thank you, Mr. Bradley' in a polite and respectful tone. He tells her there's no need to be so formal, please call him Trent. He asks her for her name -- he's clearly into her. She introduces herself as Rosa. As he listens he notices her accent more, and asks her where she's from. She replies that she's Italian. 'Ah, Italian!' he exclaims, and boasts that he speaks a little Italian himself. He recites a small phrase in French, and Rosa nervously responds that she doesn't know French. Trent dismisses his blunder, then boasts that he travels a lot for work and he's been all over the world. He asks if she likes to travel and she says that she'd never been out of Italy until she moved here a few months ago, her family didn't have much money growing up and since coming to the States she's been cleaning houses for a living and sending some of her wages back to them when she can afford to. Trent misses the point, and tells her that she's missing out if she's never traveled for fun, getting uncomfortably close to Rosa. It's clear that she's unhappy with his close proximity, but he either doesn't notice or doesn't care. Trent seems emboldened by what he mistakes as Rosa being friendly instead of just polite. He asks her if she's ever been to one of the local Italian restaurants, a fancy-sounding one. Rosa gives a strained smile at his tone-deaf question and says no, she hasn't. Trent was clearly expecting this answer, and says that's perfect, he can take her there sometime! There's no better five-star restaurant in the area, he knows the head chef personally. Rosa interrupts him and tells him she's flattered, but she makes it a policy not to date clients. Trent's smile wavers, and he starts chuckling to himself out of embarrassment. 'Oh what, you thought I was asking you out on a date?' he laughs, and then in a bit of a more petty tone, he says 'You must think I'm some kind of fucking loser to pay my maid to go on a date with me.' Rosa starts to apologize, she thought- 'Yeah, I know what you thought,' Trent interrupts, and his rude tone gradually gets worse as he starts to rant at her. 'Let me tell you, I do just fine. I've dated supermodels, I've dated fucking pop stars, trust me, I don't need to be hitting on my fucking maid, OK?' As her boss gets more and more riled up, Rosa tries to calm him down. Finally she admits he's right, she's so sorry, and to make him feel better about himself she lies and says she must have misunderstood, english isn't her first language after all, she sometimes misunderstands things. The fact she acted like he was right seems to cool Trent down, and he starts to treat her nicely again, patronizing her even. Oh, of course, how silly of him, apology accepted. Sometimes he forgets who he's talking to, but he didn't mean to be so insensitive. He'll try to speak a bit slower from now on so she can understand better. Reluctantly, Rosa says thank you, and he says he'll leave her to her work then. He walks past her and gives her a pat on the shoulder, not noticing that she flinches slightly at his touch. He keeps walking away from the camera and out of focus, as Rosa stands there looking shaken....
