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Summer's Fall
(Sunlight is streaming through high windows in an artists’ studio. Pieces of wood, iron and scrap materials lay strewn about the studio floor. There are two easels set up side-by-side on stage right and a roll top writing desk on stage left. Two human figures lay beneath a sheet on a futon in the midst of the clutter.)
MAN: (lifting the sheet from their heads). He’s going to deny everything.
WOMAN: What? Who's denying everything? What are you talking about?
MAN: Brad, of course, the dude from my story. I mean I'm trying to have him come up with a believable lie, but really, he doesn't have to say a thing.
WOMAN: Have you been thinking about this all night?
MAN: No, just now when I woke up. It was the last thing I thought about before I fell asleep last night.
WOMAN: The last thing you thought about was me. Say it was me, you jerk.
MAN: It wasn't you. Why should I say it was you when it wasn't you? We made love, and then I thought about my story. You were great last night, by the way. You were really great.
WOMAN: Better than her?
MAN: Than my wife? That's exactly the kind of question she would ask. Why would you even want to know?
WOMAN: Tell me I'm better. That's why you're with me. I'm better than your wife.
MAN: I'm here with you in San Miguel, because you followed me. I'm here with you in this studio, because you rented it and you asked me to move in.
WOMAN: And you sleep with me...
MAN: Are you complaining now because I sleep with you?
WOMAN: I just want you to tell me how good I am. I want you to tell me how good we are together.
MAN: It always has to turn to bullshit, doesn't it? It's not about my feelings. It's not about what's real. It's about what you want me to tell you.
WOMAN: Why do you have to be so mean?
MAN: (dresses) That's it! That's just about it! And now I'm supposed to say, "I'm sorry, baby, for being so mean to you. Stop crying, baby. There, there now. We're good for each other." I thought you were different. I thought we promised to be real.
WOMAN: You know how I feel.
MAN: I didn't ask you to feel that way.
WOMAN: Am I better than your wife?
MAN: I've been with her seven years and with you just seven weeks. With my wife, we know how to move together. We know each other's bodies. And then there are the feelings of commitment...
WOMAN: Ha!
MAN: We made vows to always be together. We've built a life together, and we have the girls. She's the mother of my children.
WOMAN: But does she give you this kind of life? Does she let you write? Does she hang on every word you put on paper? Has she rented you a studio? Does she fill your day with painting, and sculpture, and music, and smoking bowls with performance artists at four AM after hours in a bar?
MAN: What a great night that was!
WOMAN: So shut up about your wife.
MAN: You're the one who mentioned her.
WOMAN: Because you called her yesterday.
MAN: It's not your business who I call.
WOMAN: Did she ask you to come back?
MAN: It's not your business if I go back.
WOMAN: Then, what exactly am I to you? Just someone you hooked up with on vacation?
MAN: You said it.
WOMAN: I've got feelings for you. This is supposed to be our start. We moved in here together and painted the walls. We bought the furniture together; I mean the writing desk, the easels and the futon. Our fiends here all know us as a couple. I've got pieces in Paco’s gallery.
MAN: I'm leaving to go home tomorrow.
WOMAN: But why? What did she say to you? You were on the phone for more than an hour. How could you be with me last night if you were going back to her?
MAN: Don’t interfere with my decision.
WOMAN: Will you really leave me all alone?
MAN: We're all alone, every one of us, utterly and desperately alone. You may wish you weren't alone, but in truth there is no one you can count on. No one. Just think of how your husband must feel since you left him completely unexpected. There is no love that can ever cancel out the Loneliness, because no one shares your body and your soul. No one lives what you live. If you count on someone, they'll always let you down, and if someone counts on you, you can't help but disappoint them.
WOMAN: You let your wife down.
MAN: ...and she let me down, but I'm not going back for her. I broke the heart of one of the people I most love. I hurt one of the people I would gladly sacrifice myself to save.
WOMAN: You mean...?
MAN: Yesterday, I wasn't there with my daughter and it was her fifth birthday.
by
Garrett Quentin Smith |