1. starlet back on the stage,
couldn't help but perform a
monologue she heard last night.
2. KINETIC (mostly.) A door still warm from being closed--
FLUST open (completely: BUMP against steel trailer wall, blips forward,
like a car rear ending on an uphill curb, parking on it--parallel, at least trying.)
"What was that?" the red haired one asked.
Blonde puts ungloved hand on hip. She always used the wrong word when narrators described her actions. She indolably says, "that's art, Henna."
STALE huffs, pause on the cot, arms sore from hours of unpredicted spotlight FOLLOWS.
Thinking on her toes (Blonde took out the third act to SPEW
everything Henna told her over
too many tall pints of capsizing beers.) HURT,
she spoke towards her reassuring gaze,
of the family she once had.
"Mae, what if the family was here?"
"They'd never know I was talking about them. It's heartbreak every one goes through."
"Like how every one has eaten an orange," BITTER.
"Look, you didn't say, 'baby, please don't use this for inspired monologues.'"
"Baby? I'd never--whatever.
I told you everything. Everything. Because I thought it was understood that I was speaking with trust."
Blonde leans against tin wall with the cut-out window that overlooked
a big ole tent COLLAPSE--many half-costumed circus folk GRIMACE.
...
Henna continues, "What if I got on the mic and told every one about Marsh." BELOVED.
"It is the past," SHARP.
"It is the past."
STORM, "Nothing means--"
anything to you.
OUT.
Henna waits in Mae’s car. Her toes spread out the pages of the pamphlets Mae accrued when she was away, whoring herself to productions of plays she has played every ingenue for before.
ReplyDeleteMae comes in, sweating. But the sweat beads are sequins to her cheeks. Her hair clings to her cheeks, reminiscent of the flapper’s curly q’s.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
Of course. Playing dumb.
She looks at me like I asked her why she choose tomato bisque over vegetarian chili.
“It was word-for-word.”
She says nothing. Takes off each piece of jewelry. There must be dozens of pulls and tugs she has to do after every show. Her fingers covered with silver and bronze rings. Her ears. Her head, wrapped in so many ways.
“Mae! What if Daniel was there? Or, Naphtha? Every one knows I am with this troupe! Every one in the audience knows you were talking about me. For me.”
“So?”
“So! I told you in confidence.”
“You should have known by now that you can’t trust me.”
“I didn’t know.”