STAR

An attractive woman in her late forties sits at a dressing table. She slams down a phone on the table.

Marty must have forgotten who he was talking to. I can’t believe it. He had the nerve to tell me I was too old for the role of Ellen in “Wait For Tomorrow.” The director wants a younger woman? He’s out of his mind. It’s my face that has appeared on the cover of half the magazines in this country. I’m the one People Magazine called “the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Marty has been my agent for thirty years, but if he can’t do a better job of getting me a part I want, he’s out the door. Okay, I may not be that fresh-faced kid I was in the beginning. But I’m still Delilah Wade. I’m big box office.

I’ve always been able to get anything I asked for from men. They’ve bought me things. (She looks at a diamond bracelet on her arm.) And they have done whatever I wanted. (laughs) They thought that would get me into bed with them. Well, I have to admit, sometimes it did. That reminds me of Jake. We did have quite a romp. I wonder if he ever gave up the idea of finding a producer for “High Honors.” He really wanted me to play Patricia in that film. I was too busy at the time, but I see now how perfect the script would be for me. I wonder why Marty never pursued it. Maybe I should call Jake myself.

(Looks in a rolodex and calls.) Jake? Hello darling. (Laughs.) Since when do you answer your own phone? What?  No, it isn’t Marla. It’s Delilah. Yes, Delilah Wade. How many Delilahs do you know? Listen darling, it’s been a long time and I’ve been thinking of you and wishing I could see you again. Yes, I’m sure you’re busy, Jake. But listen, when you asked me to play Portia in “High Honors” a while back I just couldn’t. I was too swamped. But I’ve been thinking about the script and it is so right for me. I think I could make the time now. With my name heading the cast, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding financial backing. And I’d so love to have those long months on location with you. We made a great team, you know.

You found a producer? You’re planning to start filming of “High Honors” next month? That’s wonderful! Why didn’t you call me? Never mind, it isn’t important. You probably thought I’d say no. But I can be ready--- You’ve already cast the picture? You told Marty when he called? Well, uncast it. You offered it to me once and I want that role. I don’t understand. I’m too old? How dare you. You’re just angry because I dumped you for Carl DeGeorge. I don’t need you. My name still means something in this town. (Slams down the receiver.)

(Picks up the phone and dials again.) Marty? Why didn’t you tell me you had called Jake about my playing Patricia in High Honors? Don’t you know he’s just getting back at me because I walked out on him several years ago for another man? He actually told me I was too old for the part. What? Others have said the same thing? Who? Who else? Him too? You never told me. Yes, I know you care about me, and it was sweet of you to want to spare my feelings. But they are all crazy. Of course I know you will always think I’m the most beautiful woman you ever saw, but.---- What? Pick up my mirror and take a long look?

(She slams down the receiver again.)

(She picks up her mirror and studies her reflection)

I’m Delilah Wade.  I have a star on the Walk of Fame. I’ve been nominated for two Academy Awards.  So I have a few lines. Well, I don’t have on any make-up, for God’s sake. Show me the woman over 20 who looks good without a trace of makeup. (She feverishly starts to apply eye shade and foundation and mascara. Then stops and looks again. Slowly, she puts on blush and finally, lipstick. She looks for a long time .Then she puts down the mirror and turns away from the dressing table. She drops her head in her hands. After a few moments, she picks up the phone and dials)

Marty? Darling, I’m sorry I was such a cross witch a few minutes ago. But I’ve been thinking. Maybe it would be a good thing for me to accept the role of a more mature woman. It would stretch me as an actress, give me the chance to develop new dimensions. What do you think? Tell the director I’ll take the part of Ellen’s mother. And listen, tell him that I see her as a major character in the film. I see her as youthful looking, very beautiful. Maybe even more beautiful than her daughter. And I’ll still want top billing, of course.

~~~

THE CHOICE

(Scene is in a hotel room. A young woman paces nervously from bed to window.)

Steve and I never had any doubt that we belonged together. We married six weeks after we met. I was crazy in love, and I didn’t ask any questions.

After we married, I learned he had been in Special Forces and I began to suspect he was still some sort of agent for a government agency. He said he was a charter pilot, but there were too many sudden phone calls and quick trips out of town. He was always vague about where he was going and when he’d be back and how I could reach him. I guessed early on that it was either another woman or some sort of secret government work. Nothing else made any sense.

One day, I asked him point blank if he was seeing someone else or what was going on. He pulled me close and asked how I could ever wonder if there was anyone else. After a moment, he told me he couldn’t talk about it, but that he was a CIA operative. He said I must never ask any questions and never tell anyone what he really did. I looked into his eyes, and I believed him.

I worried of course, but it never occurred to me that he could actually be killed. I just lived every moment we were together and didn’t think much about the future. A couple of years later, two somber men in black suits arrived at my front door. They said they were from the charter company Steve worked for. Before they said another word, I knew. I fainted.

When I was conscious again, they told me that Steve’s plane had gone down in the ocean off Panama. He was dead. They didn’t find his body, but they said he couldn’t have survived. There was insurance, and I had no financial worries, but life lost all meaning. I just went through the motions. I knew I would never love another man the way I loved Steve.

After a year, my friends convinced me to get busy with something--anything-- again. I had a degree in English literature, so I went back to school to get my masters. That’s where I met Blake. He was one of my professors. We had coffee occasionally, and discovered we had a lot in common. His wife had died in a car wreck three years earlier when their little girl, Amy, was just two years old. He had been raising her with the help of his sister, who lived nearby.

We both felt awkward about it at first, but we began having lunch, then dinner, and finally we took Amy on a picnic. I adored her right from the start. She was such a sweet child, so affectionate and so trusting. Blake and his sister had done a wonderful job.

One day I found myself looking forward to being with Blake. He was funny and bright and I felt comfortable with him. I realized I hadn’t thought of Steve all day. I hadn’t wanted another man since I lost Steve, but I wanted Blake to touch me, make love to me. I was falling in love. It was different than that sweet, crazy all-consuming love I had with Steve. But it was comfortable and warm and rich. We were married soon afterward.

The three of us were a blessing to each other. We had all lost someone and we each filled that empty spot in the others’ lives. The day I adopted Amy she looked at me for a long moment, and then she said, “You won’t ever leave me like my other mommy did, will you?” I told her that her other mommy had loved her and would never have left her if she had a choice. I promised her that I would never go away. Two years passed, without even a hint of what was to come. Then last Wednesday, two men once again came to my door. This time, they said they had great news. Steve was alive.

I was in shock. So many emotions raced through me. Of COURSE I was ecstatic that Steve had survived. I couldn’t believe it. They told me he had been captured by the guerillas who shot down his plane. He had been on a mission to gather information about drug traffic. Over the past four years, the guerillas moved him from one camp to another in the jungle. They kept him alive only because they thought he might be a useful hostage one day. Finally, he managed to escape and make his way to a friendly village. He would soon be on his way home. I asked them to sit down, and I explained about Blake.

Steve alive! That took my breath away. What was I going to do? What could I tell him? And what could I tell Blake and Amy? The awful truth hit me. I would have to choose between the only two men I had ever loved.

Steve is the love of my life. He always will be. But even though it is in a different way, I love Blake, too. And Amy? I could never do anything to hurt her. She is my baby.

I came to this hotel yesterday. I wanted to meet Steve somewhere other than the house where we once lived. The house where I still live with Blake and Amy.

As soon as I heard that Steve is still alive, I told Blake. He was as stunned as I was. And he was the same supportive partner he has always been. We told Amy that Mommy was going away for a few days to see an old friend. I sobbed as I told Blake I was so confused and torn. He said he understood and wasn’t sure what he would feel, if, by some miracle, it were Amy’s mother who came back. He held me and told me that he loved me and he would understand and do what he could to help me, whatever my decision.

Thank heaven Steve knows about Blake and Amy. I spoke to him on the phone yesterday. The sound of his voice made my knees go weak. Before I could stop him, he told me he couldn’t wait to hold me. He said that thought was the only thing that kept him going all of those terrible years when he was a prisoner. I felt sick inside. I interrupted him and said I had to tell him something.

He was silent for a moment after I finished. Then he said, “My God. I’ve got to see you. This can’t be happening.” He flew in from New York, and he’ll be here any minute.

I love Blake, but Steve was the man I was meant to marry, meant to love all my life, meant to grow old with. How can I lose him again? How can I turn him away forever, after all that he’s been through?

Yet, Blake gave me back my life when I thought it was over. He showed me a new kind of love. He has already lost a wife he adored. Can I really put him through the same thing again?

Then I realized that none of that matters. Whatever choice I would make otherwise, I can’t leave Amy.  I simply can’t do it.

(Knock at the door.)

Oh, Steve. Oh my love. I have to make you understand. I have to be strong enough to make the only choice I can live with. I pray that you will forgive me.

(Knock again.)

Coming!

BLACKOUT

THE MIRACLE MAN

(A woman about fifty sits at a table in a hotel room. A bed and a window are in the room.)

I don’t know why I felt I had to do this. It was a silly gesture. A sentimental whim. But here I am, back in Paris. I thought I’d miss Sam here more than any place in the world.  The odd thing is, coming back to where we met has brought me a kind of peace.

We were so young. He was here studying architecture, and I was an art student.

(SHE walks to the window and looks out.)

You can see Norte Dame from here. You see that bridge down there? 

(SHE points out the window.)

That’s where we met. It was thirty years ago yesterday, on July 14th, Bastille Day. France has a big celebration every Bastille Day. Fireworks were exploding. Wild bursts of color shot toward the sky and were reflected in the river. Sam and I were both watching from the middle of the bridge. After a few moments, we stopped looking at the fireworks and turned to look at one another. We didn’t say a word at first. We just looked at each other. Then he took my hand.

(SHE paces back and forth before the window)

We walked along the Seine and we talked. Oh, how we talked. I never knew I could find so much to say to anyone.

(SHE returns to sit at the table.)

We had coffee in a café and he told me he loved me. It was crazy, but I believed him. The craziest part of all was, I loved him, too. He said it was a miracle.

We discovered Paris together. I taught him about the sculptures of Rodin. Beautiful statues of lovers. He showed me Rene Viviani Square, with it’s fountains and birds and solitude. We danced all night in a smoky café that we could never find again. We rode the carousel in the Tuilleries Gardens and ate picnic lunches of pears and wine and boursin cheese.

And it was in this room that he first made love to me.

(SHE gets up and walks around the room, looking at each part of it, and stops at the bed, where she sits.)

We were together all night long.

It was too beautiful to last. My father was killed in an automobile accident a few days later.. I was in shock, as I packed to go home to America. I needed to be with my Mother. Sam took me to the airport, and he gave me a pink rose. I thought I’d never see him again, but he said we’d be together one day. I told him that would take a miracle. He said that miracles were his specialty.

A few letters came, then nothing. I went back to college. Three years passed, and I graduated.

That July 14th, I was home with Mother. I had just accepted a job with the local newspaper. My dream was to work in a museum in a large city. But I knew how much Mom depended on me, and I hated to leave her.

The doorbell rang,

When I opened the door, all I could see was pink roses. I was speechless. Sam held me until I stopped crying. I could tell from the way he kissed me that he still loved me.

(SHE returns to the table.)

What I couldn’t understand was why he stopped writing. He said he’d written every week.

When I faced Mother, she admitted she’d destroyed each letter as it came, because she didn’t want to lose me. Sam convinced me to forgive her. He said she was just lonely and scared.

I asked why he’d waited so long to come. He told me he wanted to have a job and a future before he asked me to marry him. I said yes before he even got all of the words out. Sam returned to his job in Houston. But he came back in December, and we had a Christmas wedding. My bouquet was pink roses. I promised never to doubt him again when he promised me a miracle.

I found a job with a museum in Houston. It was just an entry-level position, but Sam was almost as thrilled as I was. He sent me pink roses.

The next eighteen years flew by. No one could have been happier than we were. Of course, nothing is perfect. When Mother died of breast cancer, I thanked God that Sam was there for me to lean on. Mom had moved to Houston and rented an apartment near us, so I was able to be with her until the end.

Sam lost his job when the small architectural firm he worked for folded. But that turned into a blessing, because he decided to start a his own firm. His business did well, and our whole life together was a miracle. Sam marked each important event we shared by sending me pink roses.

(SHE gets up, goes to the bed and sits  propped  against its  headboard. She picks up a pillow and hugs it to her.)

We were having dinner with friends one night, when Sam collapsed. His heart attack was so unexpected, so sudden. Sam rarely even had a cold. I couldn’t believe he was gone. I moved like a robot through his funeral and the days that followed. I saw no point to my life. My work and our friends were all that kept me going. That, and my thousands of memories of Sam.

It’s been three years since he died. I’ve picked up the pieces and started living again.

The museum gave me another promotion last year, and I travel some, and I enjoy my days. I’ve even let my friends persuade me to date a few times. But I never wanted to see any of the men they picked more than a time or two. They simply weren’t Sam.

Then about a month ago, for the first time since he died, I dreamed of Sam. He came to me as I slept, and spoke to me as clearly as I’m speaking to you now. He told me I must come to Paris on Bastille Day.

(SHE gets up and goes tot look out the window)

He insisted I must stay in this hotel and visit the bridge again as night fell and the fireworks began. He said if I did, I’d find a miracle.

Once in a while, we’d talked about coming back to revisit the places we loved here.. But our lives were full, and we just never did.  Now I thought I couldn’t bear to be in Paris without him. I was as skeptical as ever about his promises of miracles. But I  thought of how he always said, “Hey, miracles are my specialty, remember?” and how I promised to believe him when he promised one. So here I am.

I came a few days early. I walked down the Rue de la Huchette, where we’d often gone to sample Greek food. I lit a candle at Notre Dame and sat for a while in the quiet of its sanctuary.

I strolled along the River and through the Luxembourg Gardens. I felt Sam’s presence with me every moment. It was as if we had come full circle, and I could finally let him go. I wondered if that was the miracle he promised me.

Last night, as dusk began to fall, I walked down to the bridge. I stood for a while in its center, where I met Sam. The fireworks began. Red and blue and white showers of light shot high into the sky. I felt someone standing beside me, and looked up. A tall, attractive man with silver hair  smiled at me. “Beautiful isn’t it? “ he said.

He told me his name was Adam. We talked for a little, and I learned he’d lost his wife a couple of years earlier. He’d never been to Paris, but was here to visit his daughter, who was a student. She had plans for the evening with her friends. That’s why he was standing on a bridge, talking to a stranger. I asked where he lived, and even before he said, “Houston,” I think I knew. It was almost as if I heard Sam chuckling.

Adam asked if he could buy me coffee, and we walked and talked for a long time. He was easy to be with, and he had a wonderful, warm laugh. I told him about Sam, everything except my dream and why I came to Paris.  Finally, he walked me back to the hotel. He asked me to dinner tonight, and I’m waiting for him now. And you know what? I’m excited. I feel young again.

(Knock at the door.)

Just a moment.

(She opens the door.)

Hello, Adam.  I-- Roses? You brought me pink roses!

BLACKOUT

THE STATUE OF SOCRATES

Mark and I went to Greece on our honeymoon ten years ago. This is the statue of Socrates he bought for me there. I know it’s just a cheap little tourist souvenir, but I’ve always loved it. I remember the day he gave it to me. We were so happy and so much in love back then.

We’d gone shopping, and I bought him some gold coins for his collection. He said I shouldn’t spend so much on him, but I told him I loved buying him things, and what was the use of having all that money if I couldn’t use it however I wanted. He laughed and said he wanted to buy me something, too. He pointed to this little statue on a counter with dozens of others, and said, “That’s what I’ll get for you. Socrates was pretty wise, but I’m even smarter, because I married you.” I think it cost about $5, but it has always been a treasure to me.

Some people whispered behind my back that Mark just married me for my money. After all, I was not a pretty woman, and not particularly talented at anything. But they were wrong. He loved me, and he knew that I would do anything for him. Things weren’t always perfect, of course. He was so handsome that women were always after him. When he slipped once in a while, it hurt, but I understood that he had more temptations than most men. He always came back to me. Even when the woman he was with before me tried to break up our marriage.

I hated it, but he was spending so much on cars and clothes and boats and lord knows what else, that I finally had to put him on an allowance. He didn’t say a thing, but I could tell he didn’t like it. He was cool toward me after that, and he never touched me. I felt especially bad because of what happened a week later.

It’s been two years, but it’s as painful as if it had happened yesterday.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, and Mark was actually cheerful. He called me darlin’, just like he used to do. He said we should fix a lunch and take the boat out. I was excited, because he seemed like himself again.

I made a picnic of champagne and caviar and seafood salad, with all of the extras. It was a wonderful day.

We went out about 12 miles and the ocean was quiet. It was the deepest blue that I can remember. That evening, before dusk, we were ready to start back, when he asked me to get his jacket from below. I went down to hunt for it, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I called up to ask if he remembered where he had left it, and there was no answer.  I went up top and he was gone.

I couldn’t believe it at first. I searched every inch of the boat. I was frantic. Then I tried to remember how to use the radio to call the coast guard. I finally got it to work. They started the search and a couple of them came to the boat to ask me questions. But I couldn’t tell them anything. He was just gone. I was nearly hysterical, and they brought the boat and me back to the marina.

After a few days, they called off the search. They never found a trace of him. At first, the police actually seemed to suspect that I had done something to him. They couldn’t find the jacket Mark had sent me down to get for him. And someone told them about Elise, the woman he had been with before me, and how she had been seen with him a few weeks before he disappeared. And they couldn’t understand how he could have fallen overboard in such a calm sea, and if he had, why I hadn’t heard him call for help. All I could tell them was that I would never have hurt him and that I had no idea what happened to him. The District Attorney didn’t charge me with a crime. There was no evidence. But many people still thought I had killed my husband.

That’s why I moved to this lonely quiet island in the Caribbean. No one knows me here. I can be alone

in this little cottage on the beach with my memories. But something strange happened. I remember clearly that I packed the statue of Socrates myself before the move. I wouldn’t trust it to the movers. But when the boxes arrived and I opened the one in which I’d placed it, it was gone. I was heartbroken, and I couldn’t imagine how it had been lost.

That was a month ago. Last Monday, when I woke and walked through the living room toward the kitchen, it was sitting on the mantle above the fireplace, in the exact position where I’d kept it on the mantle in our old house.  My knees went weak and I almost fell.

Maria is the maid who comes once a week to clean the cottage, and I thought perhaps she had found it somewhere. I couldn’t think of any other explanation. I don’t know anybody here, and she is the only one who comes into the house. She denied ever seeing it before. I insisted that she tell me what was going on. I couldn’t believe that she had nothing to do with the incident. Finally, when I kept on asking questions, she quit, so I’m looking for another maid now.

Two days ago, I woke up, and the statue was gone. I tore the house apart, looking for it.  Finally that night, I was so tired that I couldn’t stay awake any longer. This morning, the statue was back in it’s usual place.

I started to call the police, but what would I say? That an inexpensive little statue keeps appearing and then it’s gone? What crime has been committed? They’d think I’m crazy. That’s one of the things the police said when Mark disappeared. That maybe I killed him, but just couldn’t face the truth.

I’ll go to bed now and try to sleep. I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. But tonight I’ll put the statue beneath my pillow. Along with Mark’s gun, if I can find it. It’s been missing a long time, too.

TRAPPED RABBITS

     I offered many prayers as I grew up.   

     "Please God, let me get the lead in the play." 

     "Please God, don't let Mom find out I smoked a cigarette."

     Most often I prayed, "Please God, don't let me die until I've had sex." I thought it must be life's most sublime experience.

     Southern girls were shielded from the details of such matters when I was growing up. My best friend Judy and I decided sex had something to do with our breasts and were careful never to let a boy touch us THERE. Besides, nice girls didn't let a boy do anything more than kiss them on the lips, and no French kissing, of course.

     When I was eighteen, a week before my wedding to a man I barely knew, I cornered my mother.

     "Mom, what's it like? Is it fun?"

     Mother's face went blank.

     "You know. Sex. What happens exactly?"

     Mother turned pink and mumbled, "He puts his thing in you."

     I insisted, "What thing? Where?"

     Mother pointed, "There."

     I couldn’t believe she was serious and I told her it would never work.

     "It works," she assured me "It stretches."

     Mother walked away, putting an end to the conversation.

     On my wedding night, I lifted from my suitcase the frilly gown and negligee mother had made and retreated to the tiny bathroom at the Paradise Motel. Keeping a wary eye on the door, I slipped into clouds of white. It was a beautiful negligee, and mother had worked for days to make it. I felt pretty wearing it.

     I delayed as long as I could, until my new husband yelled,

     "What are you doing in there, honey? Come on out."

     My hands were icy, but I was curious, too. I was sure sex must be one of life’s greatest experiences. and here I was, about to find out at last. I couldn’t look at him, as I stepped from the bathroom.

     He giggled and said it was sure a fancy get-up I had on. Then he told me to take it off.

     My fingers trembled as I untied the ribbons of the negligee. Tossing back the covers, I scrambled into bed, still wearing my gown. I pulled the covers up around my chin and closed my eyes.

     My husband of a few hours switched off the lights and slid in beside me. He tugged my nightgown up and I went rigid. He touched me and I jumped away. Then he pulled my hand to him and I jerked back. I had figured out where the man had to go. I didn’t see how whatever thing he put into you could be much bigger than a pencil, and if it stretched, it must just get longer.

    "What's wrong with you?" I screamed.

     He yelled back, "Nothing's wrong with me! What's wrong with you?"

     His erection disappeared. In tears, I moved to the farthest corner of the bed and didn't close my eyes all night.

     The following day, we moved to a fishing camp at a nearby lake. We had a bed in a huge, empty dorm-room, with no curtains on the windows. My husband thought he might get in a little fishing. I napped, while he tried to land a bass. He had no better luck with the fish than he had in bed that night. I thought I saw someone popping up at first one window, then another. Next, I heard ominous animal noises, which seemed only a few feet from the cabin. I kept watch from a chair until dawn.

     At nine o'clock, he hauled me off to see a doctor in a small town close by. The kindly-looking gentleman with white hair had me lie on a cold, metal table and spread my legs. He shined a light down on me. I prayed for sudden death.

     "Nope," he said to my husband, "Nothing wrong there."

     Then he spoke to me, "Young lady, why do you think he married you? To fry his bacon?"

     He turned to my husband, "My advice is to tie her down, if she refuses to do her duty." My husband nodded and paid the doctor five dollars.

     When I was little, I saw a rabbit caught in a trap. I remembered the look in its eyes and realized this was how it must have felt.

    That night, I squeezed my eyes shut, gritted my teeth and lay still. I had no idea how much it would hurt. Later, I looked at the blood on the sheet, which my husband seemed to regard as a kind of triumph. I felt it was more like a death of some part of me.

     In the months that followed, my nightly prayer became, "Please God, just let it be over."

     The marriage ended after three years. Later, in what seemed a different lifetime, another man held me with love, caressed me tenderly, and showed me the joy of being a woman.

     Even then, I occasionally awoke shaking, haunted by the old nightmare of a frantic, trapped rabbit, bleeding in the snow.

WAITING FOR JOHNNY

(A young woman looks out the window, then paces back and forth between the window and a chair set beside a dressing table On the table are a phone, a mirror, a lipstick ,a hairbrush and a bottle of wine, chilling in a cooler, with two glasses beside it.)

This is the most exciting night of my life. (She takes a few dance steps with an imaginary partner.) Johnny finally asked me out to dinner! I’ve waited so long. Ten years! But I never stopped believing he was my soul mate. I knew, I always knew, we belong together.

(Sits in the chair, picks up the mirror and checks her make-up.)

Did I tell you when we met? It was in the 6th grade. My desk was right next to his on the third row. Oh, you should have seen him. He had the bluest eyes, and his hair was the color of sunlight. He was even taller than I was. Now that’s saying a lot, because I was taller than everybody else in the class. (Giggles.) Sometimes I had trouble listening to the teacher, it was just so hard to stop sneaking glances at Johnny.

(She crosses to the window and looks out, then, after a moment, returns to the chair.)

It was lucky that I was smart, or I might have flunked out right then. School wasn’t as easy for him, so I helped him sometimes. Oh. I just did a few of his book reports, held my test papers so he could see the answers. Little things like that. It was worth it. Once he hugged me after class and said, “You’re okay, Virginia, Thanks.”

(She picks up the mirror and applies a little lipstick.)

He knew he could count on me. All he had to do was give me that smile and say, “Listen, Virginia, I need a little favor.” Some evenings during high school, he didn’t want his folks to know where he was going. So he’d tell them he was studying with me. I never asked any questions. I always figured he was out having fun with the boys. A couple of times his mom called, and I covered for him. I didn’t mind. If someone who loves you won’t help you out, who will?

(She runs a brush through her hair.)

A few times he asked for a loan. I always scraped together five or ten dollars for him. So what if he didn’t pay me back? He just forgot. He wasn’t ever any good with money

(She walks over to the window and looks out again.)

Looks like it might rain. I wonder if I should take a rain coat.

I didn’t see Johnny very often after we graduated. He went to college, and I went right to work at Carson’s Family Restaurant. Mr. Carson was a friend of my Dad’s, and he offered to give me a job as a cashier. Johnny’s school was right here in town. He didn’t ever come into Carson’s, though.

I’d see him around town sometimes. Always with those fancy college girls. It was a different one every time. Always pretty, always dressed like a queen. He could have his pick of them. I knew he just needed to get that out of his system. When he really grew up, I knew he’d figure out who was meant for him. I may be kind of plain looking, and I don’t have a college degree, and my folks don’t have a big house like his folks do. But I knew that wouldn’t matter to him in the end. Because nobody would ever love him like I do. Some day, he’d realize that.

(She goes back to the table and sits.)

Then yesterday, my dream came true. I saw Johnny and some of his friends outside the restaurant. They were laughing and pointing inside. Johnny shook his head, but they kept on. Finally, he shrugged his shoulders and walked through the door. I figured later they must have been encouraging him, telling him to go ahead and ask me out.

He came straight up to me. Then he gave me the smile that always makes my knees go weak.

He said he wanted to show me something in his car, and he took my hand. I couldn’t say no. I called out to Elsie. She’s a friend of mine who works there, too. I asked her to watch the cash register for a few minutes. When we got in his car, Johnny hardly said a word. He just started kissing me. I thought I must be dreaming.

When he pulled away for a minute, I noticed his friends watching us and laughing.

It made me uncomfortable. He noticed them too and said we needed some privacy. He promised he’d call me. It took a lot of courage, but I spoke right up. I told him I was free tonight, and we could go to dinner. He said, “Yeah, okay.” I told him to come around seven.

I shouldn’t tell you what happened next, but I have to talk to someone. Nothing like this ever happened to me before. I know you won’t tell anybody. Don’t look at me while I tell you, though.

Just before he left, he pulled me close. He said he wanted something of mine, something personal, to keep with him until he saw me again. I was trying to think what to give him, when I felt his hand under my skirt. I almost fainted. He lifted me up and slipped off my panties. I just sat there frozen. I should have stopped him, I guess, but with him touching me like that, I couldn’t say a word. And after all, we love each other. He said, “See you tomorrow.,” He stuffed my panties into his pocket, and then he was gone. I watched him walk back to his friends. One of them slapped him on the back, before they walked into the bar down the street.

            (She picks up some perfume and dabs it on her wrists and behind her ear.)

            I walked around in a fog the rest of the day. No one had ever wanted me the way he did. Nothing seemed real. I had a few days vacation time coming, so I asked for today off. Elsie said she’d fill in for me. But she started to say bad things about how Johnny was no good and I should stay away from him. I told her to stop right there, because she just didn’t know him. I wouldn’t listen to any more of it.

There was so much to do. I usually just have Shirley cut my hair, but today I asked her to curl it. I had her comb it the way she’s always wanting to try. She said it would soften my face. I told her I had a date tonight. She looked surprised, because I don’t ever go out with anyone. To tell you the truth, no one ever asks. But I don’t care, because Johnny’s the only one I ever wanted, anyway.

Next I went shopping. Do I look okay? (She gets up and whirls around.) It will take me three months to pay for this dress. But it’s the most special night of my life, and I wanted the nicest dress I could find. The sales lady said this one makes me look slender. What do you think? I felt almost pretty when I put it on.

I got shoes to match and a purse, too. (Giggles.) Can you guess what else I bought? Some new underwear, with lace and everything. You know, just in case. I’ve always heard men like black, so that’s what I got. I feel downright naughty.

I think we should go to dinner first, though. We have so much to talk about, so much catching up to do. Besides, I don’t want him to think I’m too easy.

(Looks at her watch.)

Nine o’clock.

(Crosses to the window and looks out.)

 Is it possible he isn’t coming? Now I’m being silly.

(She breathes deeply, smoothes her dress and sits again.)

I’m going to sit right here and have a glass of that wine I’ve been chilling.

(She opens the wine, pours a glass and sips.)

I’ll just wait for him. (She appears to think for a moment, then fills the other glass.) He’ll be here any minute now.

BLACKOUT