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By Misti Date: 2002 Jan 15 Comment on this Work [[2002.01.15.23.14.17571]] |
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SCENE 9 INT.-Isle of Capri restaurant-Night. Marie and Luke are sitting across from each other in a booth. Luke is eating spaghetti. Marie is eating devilled eggs. Luke: You seem strange tonight. Marie: I feel strange. Luke: Have you been takin' your medication? Marie: I stopped takin' it a couple of days ago. Luke: No wonder. Marie: Fuck you, okay? I'm through relying on a pill to make me feel half-way happy. It's my head. Luke: But I have to live with it. I have to be around you. Marie: No, you don't. There's a handy little thing called divorce. Luke: There's nothin' handy about it, babe. That's what you always say. You don't really want a divorce. Marie: I don't know what I want. I'm just tired, man. Tired of my boring fucking life. I'm living vicariously through Madonna and Britney Spears. Doesn't that scare you? That terrifies me. Luke: Your life isn't so bad. You've got a decent job. And you're married to me. That should count for something. Marie: You're right, it should. But it doesn't. I don't want to be married to you anymore. Luke: You don't mean that. I know you don't mean that. If you're so goddamn bored why don't we have a baby, already? Your sister already has two kids. Marie: I know that a lot of women think that having babies is the solution to leading a boring life. But I'm not one of them. Having babies would not save our marriage. I know this intuitively. And leave Melanie out of it. Melanie is my polar opposite. We're two different women. We might as well be two different species. Luke: Melanie's happy with her life. Marie: Melanie's Melanie. She's always been sanguine. I'm melancholy. Luke: You choose to be melancholy. Marie: No, Luke. I don't choose it. It has chosen me. Luke: Stop bein' so dramatic. Marie: I'm makin' some changes. Startin' tonight. I'm hitchhikin' home. Bye. Marie gets out of the booth and walks away. Luke scratches his head. SCENE 10 INT.-Pickup truck-Night. The driver is an attractive man with dark hair, brown eyes and a beard and mustache. He's thirtyish. Marie is sitting beside him in the passenger seat. "Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind?" by George Strait is playing on the stereo. Driver/Harry: So you really write poems for a livin'? Marie: Yeah. I work in a poem factory. Harry: A poem factory? You're shittin' me. Marie: No, it's true. I sit at a computer from nine to five and type up poems. I enter them all in this gigantic database. Harry: What happens to 'em? Marie: They get turned into greeting cards and plaques. The really good ones get turned into Madonna songs. Harry: Now I know you're shittin' me. SCENE 11 EXT.-Convenience store parking lot-Night. Marie is talking to Melanie on a payphone. Marie: I'm fine. Yeah, I know it sounds crazy. He didn't beat me up or anything like that. I just got bored with him. He irritates me. He won $150 but that's beside the point. I'm filin' for a divorce on Monday. So anyway, this Harry character just dropped me off here. Can you come pick me up or not? SCENE 12 INT.-SUV-Night. Melanie is driving her SUV and Marie is sitting beside her in the passenger seat. Melanie is 24. Has shoulder length brown hair and blue eyes. She's wearing a navy blue silk blouse and khaki pants. Melanie: You're really gonna file for divorce? Marie: Yep. Melanie: Just because you're...bored? I mean...gosh, Marie. I get bored. Everyone gets bored. That's just part of marriage. Marie: It's a level of boredom and existential angst that I'm not comfortable with. I want more out of life. More fat grams, more strangeness, more glamour. I've been married to the same man for ten years now. I never went to college. I never found myself. Melanie: I never understand what people really mean when they say that. It's such an empty phrase. Marie: I don't think you can really know yourself until you've spent some time alone. I've never been alone. I went from Mom and Jack and curfew to Luke and marriage and a full-time job. I haven't read enough books or had enough adventures. It's all startin' to catch up with me. I need to be alone so that I can figure things out. Melanie: Life is short. We're here to love people. We're here to learn love. Marie: I want to learn me. I want to fall in love with myself suddenly. I want to just surprise the hell outta myself. Look in the mirror and say...wow. And I'm not talkin' about a new haircut, you know? Melanie: I think you should start goin' to church. Marie: Not tonight, Melanie. The last thing I want to hear tonight is a sermon on the saving graces of Christianity. Melanie: If you and Luke went to church and prayed together without ceasing, you wouldn't be talking about divorce. Why do you think my marriage is so strong? I've been with Patrick for two years and we've never even thought about getting a divorce. Marie: I know, I know. Jesus is the crazy glue that holds it all together. Melanie: I resent that. Marie: I'm sorry. I'm just not in the mood to hear about your love affair with Jesus. SCENE 13 INT.-Bedroom-Night. Marie is packing boxes. Luke is sitting on the bed watching her pack. Luke: Are you sure you don't want to get pregnant? Marie: Pretty sure. Luke: I can't believe you're actually goin' through with this. Marie: I'll be right across the way. We'll still be neighbors. Luke: Yeah, but we can't have sex. Marie: Not with each other, no. SCENE 14 INT.-Laundromat-Day. Marie is tacking a sign up on the bulletin board. It's written in red and it reads,"Astrology and poetry readings and spontaneity every Wednesday night at seven. Call Marie at 722-0641 for details. BYOB." SCENE 15 INT.-Call center-Day. Marie is seated at her cubicle, wearing her headset and facing the computer screen. Marie: This is Marie. How can I help you? VO: Yeah, um, this is Charlie. But you already knew that, right? I was just wondering if my ex-girlfriend ever...you know...thinks about me. I mean...do I still have a chance with her? Marie: You're young. I'm sensing that you're around nineteen or twenty. VO: Oh my god, that is so uncanny. Yeah, I'm twenty-two. What else are you picking up? Marie: You love your ex-girlfriend. A lot. You still think about her constantly. You hear songs that remind you of her and when you smell her perfume on other girls or in magazines you feel all soft inside. VO: Wow. You're blowing my mind. Marie: But I'm sensing that your ex-girlfriend has some things to sort out. She's chosen a different path. She needs to find things out the hard way, on her own. She's not returning your phone calls. She keeps telling you that she needs her space. VO: Spooky. Yeah, she keeps telling me to fuck off. Does she really mean it? Marie: She thinks she does. But she's been dreaming of you lately. In her dreams, you're a bull. And she's wearing red. VO: That's really weird, 'cause I'm a Taurus. Taurus the Bull. And Tiffany wears this red dress sometimes. Marie: Yes. I know. Tiffany cares about you. She really does. But Tiffany cares about a lot of people. Tiffany is a very...caring person. VO: She's a slut. I caught her in bed with one of my buddies. But to be fair, they'd both had a lot to drink. But she really loves me, deep down inside? Marie: Very deep down inside. Yes, she does. |