PART ONE
1
Tess and Jonâs living room. On one side of the room, we can see an entryway beyond the open kitchen. On the other side, there is a hallway leading off to the unseen bedrooms.
Marjorie, eighty-five, sits in a recliner. (The lumpy chair doesnât go with the rest of the decorâclearly itâs been added for her comfort.) Marjorieâs visitor, Walter, looks like a young career man from 1998. He seems to be in his early thirtiesâbright-eyed and handsome in an unspectacular way.
MARJORIE: I feel like I have to perform around you.
WALTER: Well you donât.
MARJORIE: I know.
WALTER: Itâs just me, itâs just Walter.
MARJORIE: Maybe it isnât bad, if I feel that way. (Beat) I used to entertain a lot.
WALTER: I remember.
MARJORIE: You do?
(He sees the sink.)
WALTER: Marjorie. Where are the dishes?
MARJORIE: The girl did them.
WALTER: She doesnât come âtil two.
MARJORIE: I did them.
WALTER: You didnât. Your arthritis.
MARJORIE: I had a good day. (She holds her hand up, opening and closing it with apparent ease) Look.
WALTER: Marjorie, we both know what no dishes means.
MARJORIE: It means I havenât been eating.
WALTER: Even a spoonful of peanut butter.
MARJORIE: Iâm not hungry. Itâs their fault. Feeding me those pills.
WALTER: The pills are their fault?
MARJORIE: Yes.
WALTER: Or your doctor.
(Marjorie absently rubs the hand that she opened and closed.)
MARJORIE (Pouty): Maybe if she got Jif.
WALTER: Maybe if / she?â
MARJORIE: She always gets the kind you have to stir or thereâs an oil slick on top. And she calls that healthy.
WALTER (Coaxing): Even a spoonful.
MARJORIE: You sound like them.
WALTER: I sound like whoever I talk to.
(The feeling of an uncomfortable truth.)
MARJORIE: Letâs talk about something else.
WALTER: I could tell you a story. You liked that the last time.
MARJORIE: Iâll have to take your word for it.
WALTER: I could tell you about the time we went to the movies.
MARJORIE: We went to a lot of movies.
WALTER (Does she remember the significance?): But one time we saw My Best Friendâs Wedding.
MARJORIE (She doesnât remember): My Best Friendâs Wedding . . .
WALTER: Thereâs a womanâJulia Roberts. For a while it was always Julia Roberts. And she has an agreement with her best friend, her male best friend, that if theyâre not married by a certain age, then theyâll marry each other. And sheâs about to remind him of the agreement but it turns out heâs already fallen in love with this nice blondâCameron Diaz. And so Julia Roberts spends the whole movie trying to ruin things between her friend and Cameron Diaz, which is not very sympathetic behavior for Americaâs Sweetheart. But itâs all okay in the end, and she has a gay best friend who delivers one-liners.
MARJORIE: Did I like it?
WALTER: You said you wanted a gay best friend afterwards.
MARJORIE: Did I get one?
WALTER (Faintly generic): Iâm afraid I donât have that information.
(Pause. She scrutinizes him.)
MARJORIE: Why did you pick that story? Why did you pick My Best Friendâs Wedding?
WALTER: Itâs the night I proposed to you.
MARJORIE: Oh Marjorie, the things you forget.
You were trying to tell me and I wouldnât let you.
WALTER: Thatâs all right.
(Short pause.)
MARJORIE: Kind of unfortunate, isnât it.
WALTER: What.
MARJORIE: Julia Roberts, forever etched upon our lives. (Beat) What if we saw Casablanca instead? Letâs say we saw Casablanca in an old theater with velvet seats, and then, on the way home, you proposed. Then, by the next time we talk, it will be true.
WALTER: You mean make it up?
MARJORIE (Narrowing her eyes): You...