By Misti Velvet Rainwater
Date: 31 January 2000

SCENE 23

SCENE 23-INT.-Becca's bedroom. Night. 
Derek is in bed reading *The Tropic of
Capricorn* by Henry Miller. Becca walks
in. Derek doesn't look up from the book.
Becca leaps onto the bed and grabs the book
out of Derek's hands. Throws it against the
wall.
Becca: Honey, I'm home!Where's my beer?
Derek: You've been a bad girl. No beer for you.
Becca: Where's my kiss?
Derek: You've been drinking. Did Adonis drive you
home?
Becca: Yep. You'll have to meet him sometime. He's
rich and decadent. His parents died in a tornado
when he was eighteen. They left him all their houses
and money. He's an only child.
Derek: Karis tells me you met Mr. Greek God in rehab.
Becca: Did she really? That's interesting. Look, if
you don't want to kiss me you can leave. You can't live
here if you aren't going to adore me.
Derek: You hang out with some other guy all night then
expect me to make wild, passionate love to you the 
minute you walk through the door? You're trippin'.
You must have me confused with one of your exes.
Becca: All I want is a kiss.
Derek: I can't kiss you.
Becca: Then don't let the door hit your ass on your
way out.
Derek: You aren't the same girl I went to Mexico
with. 
Becca: There was a Holocaust inside your head. I'm
the only survivor. Hello! I'm here to disillusion
you and rob you of your preconceived notions and
fantasies. This is the real me. The me you're gonna
fall in love with.
Derek: Whatever.
Becca: So...do you wanna have sex or what?
Derek: Not when you ask like that, no.
Becca: Sorry. Allow me to seduce you. Looking into
your eyes I find that I am lost. I ache for you.
I need some you. Give me some you and I'll be your
sweetest girl ever.
Derek: You're a nut. Still, knowing what I know, I'm
strangely attracted to you. Maybe I'm just horny.
Becca: No, that can't be it. You can't be horny
on a Monday night in San Antonio, Texas.
Derek: I want to get to the bottom of you.
Becca: You do? Really?
Derek: Yes. Otherwise I wouldn't be here right now.
Becca: No one's ever told me that before. Usually
I'm lucky if they skim the surface. You know what 
I want to do? I want to give you all the jigsaw
puzzle pieces of who I am. I trust you to put me
together.
Derek: I think a few pieces are missin', darlin'.
Becca laughs.
Becca: Damn, you're too smart! You'll never fall
for me.
Derek: You never know. Love is a relentless wall-eyed
predator.
Becca: We were playing Skee-Ball at the arcade. Then we
went to his house and drank Jack and Coke and Jose Cuervo
shots with salt and lime. I can't drink tequila without
salt and lime. And we watched "Twin Peaks"...the pilot
episode. And I told him about you. And he was jealous but
happy for me. In all the years I've known Adonis, we've
never had sex.
Derek: Does he live up to his name?
Becca: That's the irony of it. He looks like that pudgy
gay guy in "Boogie Nights."
Derek: Thank God.
Becca: And rehab was a joke. My parents made me go because
I stayed in my room all the time listening to Beatles music.
I had a crush on Ringo Starr. The youth minister at our church
recommended the place. I was there for one month. They put
me on Prozac. I was bouncing off the walls. Have you ever 
seen the inside of a quiet room?
Derek: No.
Becca: You're lucky.
Derek: Come here, angel. I want to hold you.
Derek holds Becca in his arms for a long time. He hopes
for more but she has fallen asleep and he doesn't want
to wake her.