Play: One

(JOHN and EVE, impeccably dressed, are in a bar, John at a table in the background, Eve at another in the foreground, her back to John. In her 30s, Eve has a fragile beauty, while John is distinguished in his 40s. As we watch, Eve rolls a bottle of pills on the table calmly, then opens it and downs one, all unseen by John. After a few moments of deliberation, John gets up and comes to Eve. As he approaches, Eve keeps the bottle of pills, and John stops, standing, beside Eve.)

JOHN
You don’t want to be alone, do you?

EVE
I’m not anymore, am I?

(John sits beside Eve. A moment passes.)

JOHN
(abruptly) Let me bring you home.

(Eve turns from her drink to look at John.)

EVE
(deliberately) Excuse me?

JOHN
All right. Let me sleep with you.

(Eve pauses, then laughs.)

EVE
Why?

JOHN
Because you need me to.

EVE
Because you want me to.

JOHN
A woman doesn’t sit alone in a bar for four nights in a row if she’s not looking for something.

EVE
This woman might have been looking for solitude. Or even just a drink.

JOHN
And yet you let me sit, and yet every night you’ve been here you’ve barely touched your drink.

(John gestures to her still full cocktail.)

EVE
(with a lazy sort of interest and smile) Have you been stalking me?

JOHN
Some people might call it harmless interest.

EVE
Some people might disagree.

JOHN
Most people don’t.

EVE
But I’m not most people, unless you’re in the habit of doing this.

JOHN
No, I’m not, and you’re not either. (pauses) So, how about it? Will you let me fuck you? It might… take your mind off things.

(Eve pauses, considering, and then looks at her watch.)

EVE
It’s eleven fifty-three now. I have until midnight, so you’ve got until then to change my mind.

JOHN
Is that a deal?

EVE
It’s a deal.

JOHN
(as with an opening salvo) I’ve got money.

EVE
What makes you think my price is in dollars?

JOHN
It might be if I offered you fifty thousand of them.

EVE
If you had fifty thousand of them you wouldn’t be here.

JOHN
(mimicking the Mastercard commercial) There are some things money can’t buy.

EVE
If sex is one of them then there’s no point in you offering it to me.

JOHN
Maybe I don’t want to buy sex. Maybe I’m looking for a certain quality and sex just happens to come as a free gift with it.

EVE
And what would be that quality? Desperation?

JOHN
Are you desperate?

EVE
Do you see yourself writing a check out for me now?

JOHN
Desperation’s not always financial.

EVE
You can be desperate even with fifty thousand dollars.

(John nods, and he lapses into a moment of silence. Then he rouses himself.)

JOHN
What about the desperation of loneliness then? Don’t you want to spend a night with someone, even if it’s just me?

EVE
Don’t you think it’s a little presumptuous of you to assume that I don’t already have someone waiting for me at home now?

JOHN
You’re in a bar.

EVE
(ironically) I might be married.

JOHN
I don’t see a ring.

EVE
So that makes it all right?

JOHN
Do you believe in the vows of marriage?

EVE
I might believe in general morality.

JOHN
Morality is for the happy, and the happy don’t sit alone in bars.

EVE
What if I’m looking to get married? Or I could even be looking for love.

JOHN
But you’re not, are you? You’re not looking for either of those things. They’re too easy.

EVE
If I were, you wouldn’t be a good candidate for either, would you?

JOHN
Probably not. But you’re not, in any case.

EVE
Convince me. Convince me that those aren’t the things I’m actually looking for.

JOHN
Why? Conviction doesn’t make something true if it isn’t already.

EVE
Well… (looks at him, then, conceding the point) I stopped feeling guilty about sex in twelfth grade.

JOHN
Eleventh. So why aren’t we getting a cab now?

EVE
Have you ever considered the possibility that, right now, I simply might not want to fuck you?

JOHN
Simply might not, or might not simply?

EVE
Because desperation and narcissism make such an irresistible combination.

JOHN
Two negatives make a positive sometimes. Besides, you’re still talking to me, aren’t you?

EVE
I could stop.

JOHN
But you won’t. You and I, we have something in common.

(Eve stops talking for several moments, but it’s more to prove a point than for anything else. Then she looks at her watch.)

EVE
(semi-reluctantly) I’m not married, but I will be. Soon. (As John is about to speak) He loves me.

JOHN
Of course he does. (sympathetically) You wouldn’t be here otherwise.

EVE
I am nervous, but it’s not because I don’t know what marriage will be like.

JOHN
It’s because you do know.

EVE
(as if it explains everything) His daily planner is always filled.

JOHN
He doesn’t sit in bars and… think.

EVE
Unlike you.

(John nods.)

JOHN
Unlike me. (as Eve looks inquiringly) I’m not married. Or getting married. (as though confessing) Well… an ex told me once that I was married to my work, if you’re picky. She was right, but I’ll probably be getting a divorce soon.

EVE
Why?

JOHN
I’m enjoying it too much. So, best to cut my losses.

EVE
And yet here you are offering fifty thousand dollars for an affair.

JOHN
(seriously) A one-night stand.

EVE
Is that all you can afford now?

(John shrugs not quite convincingly.)

JOHN
I have more than enough money. But… yes.

(John’s mind seems to wander off. Eve looks at John, and her expression changes subtly, and she is now the one who reaches to him, tapping his fingers.)

EVE
You’ve still got four minutes left. Are you giving up already?

JOHN
Do you want me to?

(Eve shrugs, but not carelessly. There is a pause, and she speaks to fill it.)

EVE
What job are you quitting?

JOHN
Defense attorney. You’re damned if you like it, and you’re damned if you don’t. Nobody told me that before.

EVE
I know what you mean. It’s the same with teaching English to children.

JOHN
Isn’t it rewarding?

EVE
The onslaught of innocence or the erosion of it? Every name I give them shrinks their world, and they think it becomes more manageable... I want to shake them sometimes.

JOHN
For growing up.

EVE
And for not growing up.

JOHN
The lucky bastards. Some of my clients are like that too. But the smarter ones choose to go to jail.

EVE
And the smartest ones must know that there’s no difference between inside and outside.

(John looks at her, considering. Eve smiles.)

EVE
Don’t they?

JOHN
You and I… how did we get to be like this?

EVE
We didn’t fill up our planners. We sat in bars and we didn’t drink.

JOHN
And so we quit our jobs and get married?

EVE
They’re directions.

(John smiles. Eve does, too.)

JOHN
Or diversions. How much time do I have left?

(Eve checks her watch.)

EVE
Three minutes.

JOHN
(smiles, with a tinge of his former cockiness) Too much time. (pauses, then, almost impulsively) Leave with me.

EVE
It isn’t time yet.

JOHN
No. (intensely) Leave with me.

EVE
(pauses) Where would you take me?

JOHN
He doesn’t understand.

EVE
Do you? Too much time isn’t the same as too little. We might both be stuck, but we’re not stuck together. I might be wrong about him, wrong about everyone. There’s still time for me, isn’t there?

JOHN
I see.

EVE
If we really had something in common you could at least lie and believe that for me.

JOHN
Belief and conviction are the same.

EVE
Equally useful on that one morning when I’m frozen before the mirror with a hairbrush in my hand? That – that won’t happen to me.

JOHN
One afternoon when you’re sitting in the doctor’s office and he insists that you’re perfectly fine. That’s when you’ll know. I’ve been there, I can tell you what to expect. All you have to do is… stay. Stay.

EVE
You tell me these things and you paint me these pictures as though I don’t know them… (shaking her head) Two people looking for the same thing doesn’t make it easier to find.

JOHN
But it might make it easier to forget that they’re searching. Wouldn’t it?

(Their smiles are strained.)

EVE
Offer me something. If you can tell me – if you can just put into words what I can’t, if you can give me those words so I can make it seem smaller –

JOHN
I can only give you a chance to forget how small we are –

EVE
(bitterly) I’ve got enough pills to take care of that, enough pills so it will never be a problem –

JOHN
Sometimes two negatives make a positive. Even if it’s only for a few hours. Sometimes a few hours are enough to save a person.

(Eve appears to give his proposal serious thought. John takes her hand and taps the watch gently.)

JOHN
Two?

(John and Eve look at each other. Time seems suspended, but suddenly Eve’s mobile phone rings. She looks at it, but doesn’t answer it, instead simply cutting off the call. She slowly replaces the mobile phone, and when she is done, she leans over and kisses John, slowly, tenderly, regretfully.)

JOHN
One.

(Eve nods, and gathers her things, and puts on her coat. She leaves the bar, leaving John alone, for one lingering moment. Then the lights on him go out.)