ACT TWO

As in Act One, the scenes in Act Two are fragmented, quickly moving from one time and location to another.

Lights up on COLETTE and TOM. He is dressed to leave and is holding a suitcase.

TOM: I’ll call you from Miami.

COLETTE: Is the car coming?

TOM: Five minutes.

Beat.

I don’t want to go.

COLETTE: Could you please not say that? Could you please not tell me you don’t want to go.

TOM: I don’t.

COLETTE: So that I can say, “No, go,” so that it can alleviate this vague feeling of guilt you have about leaving me in the middle of nowhere for two weeks. Tom, it’s your job. Go. There – guilt alleviated. You’re welcome. Use sunscreen.

TOM: Colette, it was your idea to move out to the middle of nowhere, away from your friends, your family. You wanted to be able to write. You wanted to figure out who you were, or who you weren’t; I can’t remember. Did you ever figure that out? I don’t even like it here.

COLETTE: Well, luckily you’re never here.

TOM: You know what I particularly don’t like?

COLETTE: Precambrian granite formations?

TOM: I don’t like who we are here. We took ourselves out of our own lives. We had a nice group of friends –

COLETTE: Your friends.

TOM: Our friends.

COLETTE: But they started as your friends.

TOM: Does it make any difference? We have no social life here.

COLETTE: I’m sorry; what about the community-centre corn roast?

TOM: Oh, gosh. You’re right, of course.

COLETTE: All right, we’ll go back. I don’t like it here, either.

TOM: You’re just saying that.

COLETTE: Well, whether I’m saying it, or I’m just saying it, I’ve said it. We’ll go back.

TOM: And we’ll keep trying?

COLETTE: Tom – I need to –

TOM: We’ll keep trying.

COLETTE: Yes, now go. Leave. Hurry. Get out.

TOM: You know what? I’m not going.

COLETTE: What do you mean?

TOM: I mean, I’m not going.

COLETTE: You have to go.

TOM: No, I’ll call. I’ll say I’m not up to speed yet. I’ll stay. I’m staying.

COLETTE: Don’t be ridiculous.

TOM: You said we needed to talk. Yesterday. But then we didn’t talk.

COLETTE: We can talk when you get back.

TOM: And I have to carry this with me now, for two weeks. I have to wonder what it is that my wife wants to talk about when I get back? I’m not going.

COLETTE: All right, don’t go.

Beat. He sighs.

TOM: What’ll you do tonight? Do you have plans?

COLETTE: Plans?

TOM: Why don’t you have Bill over?

COLETTE: Look, the lake is finally breaking up. There’ll be no ice by the time you get back. Let’s keep the place for the summer; we can sell it in the fall.

TOM: The car is here. I don’t want to go.

COLETTE: Go.

TOM: Have a word with Mrs. God-Help-the-Lot-of-Us for me.

COLETTE: Yes.

TOM: I’ll be back.

COLETTE: You’ll be back.

TOM: And Colette?

COLETTE: Yes?

The mood shifts.

TOM: Find out about my wallet.

COLETTE gasps, suddenly remembering.

JASPER appears, suddenly in the room. TOM is gone, even in her imagination.

JASPER: Hey. Morning.

COLETTE: Morning. Morning.

JASPER: Was there – someone here just now?

COLETTE: No. I was talking to Evelyn.

JASPER: She’s upstairs.

COLETTE: Is she?

JASPER: I guess you must be going crazy.

The joke doesn’t work, so he approaches her.

COLETTE: Did you sleep well?

JASPER: You’re okay about last night, right?

COLETTE: Last night. Yes, I’m … good.

JASPER: Are you? Are you? Hey. I feel like some – yeah, some breakfast. I’m going to make you my special eggs.

He gets close.

COLETTE: What’s special about them?

JASPER: I make them.

He kisses her, then stops.

This is weird.

COLETTE: I thought you never ate in the morning.

JASPER: You seem – I don’t know.

COLETTE: Do I?

JASPER: I’m in Mr. McKenny’s robe. Is this weird?

COLETTE: What’s weird?

EVELYN appears for a moment.

EVELYN: I’ll tell you what’s weird.

Back to COLETTE and JASPER.

COLETTE: It looks good on you. It looks –

JASPER: You are a very – you are a very beautiful person.

COLETTE: And you, young man, are a very – young man.

JASPER: I guess I’m old enough.

EVELYN: (as JASPER exits to the kitchen) He isn’t Tom. Just so you know – with or without the robe.

COLETTE: I’m aware of that.

EVELYN: What’s wrong? Something’s wrong. I know you.

COLETTE: Oh, Evelyn, you think you know me. You don’t know me at all.

EVELYN: You look tired; I’m going to make you some breakfast. You never eat.

COLETTE: He’s already making breakfast.

EVELYN: Oh.

COLETTE: Special eggs.

EVELYN: Sounds creepy.

COLETTE: Doesn’t it.

EVELYN: (suddenly realizing) Colette! No!

COLETTE: What?

EVELYN: Colette, say you didn’t have sex with him.

COLETTE: I didn’t have sex with him.

EVELYN: Colette, he’s a teenager. Look at me.

COLETTE: He’s not a teenager.

EVELYN: I knew it. I knew this would happen. You’re lonely; you’re desperate. He comes here; you feel vulnerable. Something about his age makes you forget how old you really are. Before you know it –

COLETTE: Before I know it –

EVELYN: I’m going to step in here, Colette. Once again, I’m going to have to be the voice of reason.

COLETTE: Be the voice of reason.

EVELYN: You always made fun of me because I was the practical one, but it’s times like this when you say to yourself, “Oh, thank goodness, Evelyn is the practical one.” Yes, I am practical, and I’ll tell you why – because you were always jumping off the deep end. You were always putting yourself in jeopardy. And I protected you. I have always protected you.

COLETTE: You have. Why?

EVELYN: Colette, this boy is half your age. There’s a reason that people don’t have relationships with people half their age. Because – they’re – half – their age.

COLETTE: Is this because I’m not a complete person?

EVELYN: Don’t talk about complete persons. If you want to see a person who was not a complete person, try working the emergency room.

COLETTE: I have always allowed myself to be taken over by other people, invaded, colonized. I’m like that island that nobody seems to own: sitting out there in the middle of the lake, just waiting for occupants.

(to TOM) She’s right, Tom; she always looked out for me. And I let her. She was my conscience. My voice of reason. Then you came along, and you became my voice; without you, I don’t even know who I am. You’re not even here, and I still talk to you. I have no wholeness; I am, I have always been, only part.

EVELYN: Colette – pay attention.

COLETTE: (to TOM) I can’t tell her anything; she’ll go to the police. We’ll scare him off.

EVELYN: We need to get rid of him. Listen to me.

COLETTE: I don’t want to get rid of him. I can’t.

EVELYN: We’ll make up some story about having to get back to the city.

COLETTE: I need him to stay.

EVELYN: This was exactly the kind of thing I was talking about, letting some drifter stay here, dressing him in your husband’s clothes.

JASPER enters from the kitchen.

JASPER: Let’s go for a walk out on the lake today.

Beat.

COLETTE: You go.

EVELYN: We’re busy.

JASPER: What are you doing?

EVELYN: We’re having a discussion about something practical; it wouldn’t interest you.

JASPER: Now I know you’re being funny. See, I didn’t get that about you before.

EVELYN: No?

JASPER: No.

EVELYN: The truth is, we have to go back to the city for a while.

JASPER: You do?

COLETTE: We don’t. We don’t, really.

EVELYN: What she means is, we do, really.

JASPER: Let me know when you make up your mind. Your breakfast is ready.

He goes.

EVELYN: I’m not eating anything he’s cooked.

COLETTE: Oh God.

EVELYN: I’ll do the talking. I’ll explain that we have business in town.

COLETTE: Evelyn, I don’t want to go away. I need to stay here; I need to figure something out.

EVELYN: What? What do you need to figure out? Are you even listening to me?

COLETTE’s mind flashes to TOM for a moment.

COLETTE: (to TOM) You’re pretty resourceful, Tom. You could have been leaving a trail. You drop the wallet; the kid picks it up. Maybe you wanted someone to pick it up. Maybe you wanted someone to find it; lead us to you. But we know what happens if the police get involved. He’ll only lie to them. They’ll have no choice but to let him go. They can’t legally hold him. He’ll run. He’ll freak out, and he’ll run. There’s a reason he came here. Why would he come here? Maybe he’s been told something. Maybe they told him to come here. Why would he come here? He was asking for me. He was asking for me in town. Tom?

EVELYN: I’ll pack everything; just leave it to me. We only have to go back for a couple of days. You need some distance, anyway. You need some perspective.

COLETTE: What sort of perspective?

EVELYN: How about: you had sex with a child. And please don’t tell Bill.

COLETTE: I have no intention of telling anyone anything.

BILL enters.

BILL: You seem so distant these past few days.

COLETTE: More than usual?

BILL: Yes.

COLETTE: I’ve got a lot on my mind.

BILL: More than usual?

COLETTE: Yes.

BILL: Can I do anything? Let me do something.

COLETTE: You can – be the wonderful neighbour that you are.

BILL: Neighbour.

COLETTE’s mind flashes to TOM for a moment.

COLETTE: (to TOM) I need to tell him. I need to tell someone. Where are you, Tom? Why weren’t you down at the tree this morning?

JASPER enters, now dressed.

JASPER: Hey. You know what I read once?

Beat.

COLETTE: No.

JASPER: I read that Jesus walked on water, right, because it was frozen. Get it? That’s how he walked on it. They thought it was a miracle, but it was just that the sea froze over. They were all, like, hey, he’s walking on water.

COLETTE: That – Jesus.

JASPER: Yeah, I read that.

COLETTE: Who knows what to believe anymore?

JASPER: Yeah. Who knows?

He goes.

EVELYN: I’m absolutely terrible at pretending that nothing’s happened.

COLETTE: Nobody’s asking you to pretend anything. Nothing’s happened.

EVELYN: I have too much integrity for this.

COLETTE: Oh, please.

EVELYN: You think I don’t have integrity?

COLETTE: I don’t know what to think.

JASPER passes through.

JASPER: Do I look too much like your husband in this parka?

EVELYN: Yes.

COLETTE: No.

JASPER: You all right?

COLETTE: Weren’t you going out?

JASPER: I want you to come with me.

COLETTE: I’ve – got some things I have to do here.

EVELYN: Excuse me. I have a – have a –

EVELYN exits.

JASPER: What’s with her?

COLETTE: She’s just being odd.

JASPER: Something’s wrong.

COLETTE: Women – our age – sometimes – get odd.

JASPER: She’s related to you; that’s funny.

COLETTE: Why?

JASPER: Related to you, but can’t relate to you.

COLETTE: Oh, a play on words.

JASPER: Come here.

COLETTE: I’m –

JASPER takes COLETTE in his arms and holds her.

JASPER: We can relate.

He smiles; she returns the smile.

COLETTE: We can.

JASPER: Are you really going back into town?

COLETTE: What if I did?

JASPER: I’d wait for you.

They kiss. Beat. He releases her and exits.

COLETTE: (to TOM) Oh, Tom. I trusted him; I even fell a little bit in love with him. You must forgive me. What I did. And now I’m being punished for losing my faith. Where are you? I went down to the tree this morning. You weren’t there. I shouldn’t have slept with him. There is a right and a wrong in this world, and I am being punished. I should have known you were alive. I should never have stopped believing it. I gave up on you. I threw it all away in a moment of –

EVELYN appears.

EVELYN: I’ve had an idea. We book a cruise. We cruise the Caribbean for a couple of weeks.

COLETTE: I’m not going anywhere.

EVELYN: What is it about intercourse?

COLETTE: Must you call it “intercourse”?

EVELYN: Well, what else is it called?

COLETTE: You’ve been watching too many documentaries.

EVELYN: What is it about sexual relations that makes people think it’s some kind of solution? To me it’s the beginning of problems, not the end. It’s incredibly complicated, not to mention the whole procreation thing.

COLETTE: He was wearing a condom.

EVELYN: This is all very graphic; thank you.

COLETTE: You’re a nurse, for God’s sake.

EVELYN: Exactly.

COLETTE: And, anyway, I can’t get pregnant.

EVELYN: What are you talking about?

COLETTE: I can’t get pregnant.

EVELYN: When – did we find this out?

COLETTE: I’ve known for a long time. In Colombia, when I had the appendectomy, there was an infection.

EVELYN: You should have come home.

COLETTE: I couldn’t, and, anyway, it could have happened here.

EVELYN: It would never have happened here.

COLETTE: All right, it would never have happened here, but I couldn’t get home, and so it happened there.

EVELYN: He never said anything to me.

COLETTE: Who?

EVELYN: Tom.

COLETTE: Why would he say anything to you?

EVELYN: It’s true. He didn’t like me.

COLETTE: Doesn’t like you.

EVELYN: Really?

COLETTE: And, anyway, he didn’t know. I didn’t know myself for the longest time.

EVELYN: You didn’t tell him?

COLETTE: He didn’t ask.

EVELYN: He didn’t –

COLETTE: I was – getting there. I was – getting around to it. The morning he left – oh, Evelyn, let’s not talk about this.

EVELYN: I can’t believe you never told anyone.

COLETTE: There are many couples who don’t have children. He would have – eventually, he would have –

(to TOM) I was afraid you would leave me, Tom. I was afraid of my incompleteness. I could see in your eyes, the intent. The hope. Every time we made love, I could feel your hopefulness, and it burned in me, until it burned away all my happiness and reason for being.

EVELYN: You think he wouldn’t have understood?

COLETTE: My imaginary Tom, maybe.

EVELYN: Your what?

COLETTE: (to TOM) Under the tree. Two summers ago. I think it was late June or early July; I’m pretty sure it was, because the lake was still really clear. You could see almost to the bottom – one of those days. I went up to get you a beer. When I came back, you were asleep. I watched you breathing long, easy breaths. I thought about our lives together. By then I knew about the affair, or suspected. But it was like the truth was somewhere else, up at the house – it didn’t matter. Down here, by the water, under the tree, it was all gone; just us. You woke up suddenly, and you looked over at me and squinted. You smiled. That was it. Before anybody spoke. Before anybody thought. Before another second passed and time moved on again, dragging everything with it – love. All-forgiving, all-knowing love. It wasn’t really even a smile.

EVELYN: If you love a person –

COLETTE: It doesn’t always work like that, Evelyn. Sometimes all that keeps us going is the potential for something more.

EVELYN: Who needs children?

COLETTE: Well, the species, but aside from that –

EVELYN: Species?

Beat.

Oh. The species.

COLETTE: We see the future through them. Without the future, the present has no meaning.

EVELYN: Don’t talk to me about the future; at least you have someone missing in your life; I don’t even have that. I’m sorry; what a weird thing to say.

BILL: I believe the present has meaning.

EVELYN: It’s about the only thing that does.

BILL: Where did they go?

EVELYN: For another walk around the lake.

BILL: Another walk around the lake.

EVELYN: I wouldn’t suspect anything.

BILL: No?

EVELYN: Sometimes I think you and I are the only two people around here – who – have – any sense of – who have any sense.

BILL: I don’t have any sense at all. Can I tell you a secret, Evelyn?

EVELYN: You can tell me anything.

BILL: I haven’t told anyone.

EVELYN: That’s pretty much the definition of a secret.

BILL: I’m in love with Colette.

EVELYN: That’s – not a secret.

BILL: I feel as if I’ve done something wrong.

EVELYN: How?

BILL: I don’t want him to come back. It’s horrible, but it’s what I feel. You think what’s in your heart is good, but then –

EVELYN: We can’t be blamed for the bad that happens in this world. Sometimes we even take advantage of it.

BILL: Isn’t that awfully cold?

EVELYN: There’s cold all around us.

As BILL considers this.

JASPER and COLETTE are out on the lake; COLETTE’s focus is again split.

COLETTE: (to JASPER) I don’t think spring will ever come.

JASPER: I believe it already has.

COLETTE: (to TOM) What does he want, Tom? Why won’t he just tell me?

JASPER: Why don’t you look at me?

COLETTE: (to TOM) I have to not act differently. I have to pretend nothing’s wrong.

JASPER: Is something wrong?

COLETTE: (to TOM) It’s like he’s inside my head.

JASPER: You’re wondering about me. You’re wondering why I came here. You’re always wondering why I came here.

COLETTE: You came for the golf clubs, which, by the way, you haven’t even looked at.

JASPER: I didn’t come for the golf clubs.

COLETTE: No?

JASPER: You know that.

COLETTE: Do I?

JASPER: I came to see who you were.

COLETTE: Who am I?

JASPER: I see a sign posted outside a grocery store. I ask myself, “Why is this person named Colette selling a set of men’s golf clubs in the dead of winter?”

COLETTE: Is that true?

JASPER: Why not?

COLETTE: What else is true?

JASPER: For instance?

COLETTE: Why are you here?

JASPER: Can’t I just be here? Does there have to be a reason?

COLETTE: Sure, we can all be here. There doesn’t have to be a reason. It could all just be random – all of it – but there’s always some crazy logic.

JASPER: You think I’m crazy?

COLETTE: I think we’re all crazy. Tell me about Cartagena.

JASPER: What about it?

COLETTE: What was it like?

JASPER: You’ve been there.

COLETTE: That was a while ago. Places change. I was very sick.

JASPER: I think I told you; I was with a girl.

COLETTE: A Dutch girl. She ran off with some Americans.

JASPER: Was she Dutch?

COLETTE: You said she was Dutch, with a tattoo on the back of her hand.

JASPER: How come you remember things like that? They’re not important.

COLETTE: Aren’t they?

JASPER: Let’s go make love.

COLETTE: Jasper, I think maybe I made a mistake. I think I might have rushed things.

JASPER: How?

COLETTE: Well, I don’t – know you. A person should know a person.

JASPER: You know me.

COLETTE: I don’t. There’s so much about you I don’t know. For instance, is Jasper your real name?

Beat.

JASPER: Why? Did somebody tell you something?

COLETTE: It’s just that, as names go –

JASPER: Maybe it’s where I’m headed. Who knows, right? You know what a name is; it’s an identity. If you have the same name your whole life, it means you’re always the same person.

COLETTE: That’s – sort of the idea.

JASPER: My identity is about where I’m headed.

EVELYN: Maybe he should call himself “Nowhere.”

BILL: Or “Prison.”

COLETTE: (to JASPER) I thought you were headed for Thunder Bay?

JASPER: Why all this information? What’s it got to do with anything? It’s just you and me. Just you, and just me.

COLETTE: Is it?

JASPER: You’ve gone all different. You’ve gone all cold. I knew this would happen.

COLETTE: (to TOM) It’s not working. He senses how close I am. He’s going to run.

JASPER: Maybe I need to get lost for a while.

COLETTE: (to JASPER) You are lost. Maybe you need to stay.

JASPER: For how long before you change your mind?

COLETTE: About what?

EVELYN: How was your walk?

JASPER: Cold.

EVELYN: Did she explain to you that we have to go back to the city for a bit? She’s reluctant to talk about it because, well, she knows it means you’ll have to head on out of here, and she has a great fondness for you; although it’s a mixture, I would have to say, of fondness, confusion, and grief.

JASPER: Or I’ll stay.

EVELYN: Where?

JASPER: Maybe I’ll look after the place while you’re gone.

EVELYN: Bill does that.

JASPER: I heard you talking yesterday, to Colette.

EVELYN: We talk all the time.

JASPER: About me.

EVELYN: We talk all the time about you.

JASPER: And what do you say?

EVELYN: Say? We say that you’re – interesting. An interesting person.

JASPER: Interesting in what way?

EVELYN: In – no way.

JASPER: You think I’ve done something wrong.

EVELYN: I wouldn’t know.

JASPER: I haven’t done anything wrong.

EVELYN: Well, I’m relieved. It’s good to know when somebody hasn’t done anything wrong.

JASPER: Maybe it’s you that’s done something wrong.

EVELYN: Such as?

JASPER: I am who I am.

EVELYN: That’s reassuring.

JASPER: Is it so wrong to care about somebody?

EVELYN: You care about somebody?

JASPER: Colette.

EVELYN: Oh, Colette.

JASPER: Why don’t you like me?

EVELYN: I never said that. Did I say that?

JASPER: Ever since yesterday, you’ve been acting kind of unfriendly towards me.

EVELYN: Only since yesterday?

JASPER moves in.

You’re standing awfully close.

JASPER: Am I?

EVELYN: What are you doing here?

JASPER: What am I doing here? I belong here. Do you belong here? I don’t like people questioning my motives.

EVELYN: You have motives?

COLETTE appears.

COLETTE: (to EVELYN) Why did you say anything?

EVELYN: I didn’t say anything.

JASPER: I think I have to leave tomorrow.

COLETTE: No. No, you don’t.

JASPER: People don’t like me here. There’s not a lot of trust around here.

COLETTE: I like you.

JASPER: She doesn’t know what’s going on.

COLETTE: No? What’s going on?

BILL: Why don’t you come right out and ask him?

COLETTE: He’ll run. We can’t let him go.

BILL: Then call the police.

COLETTE: (to TOM) I told Bill. I had to tell someone.

BILL: I’m glad you did.

COLETTE: (to TOM) But I didn’t tell him everything. I told him about the wallet, but I didn’t tell him everything.

BILL: You’re not a detective, Colette. He could be dangerous. You’re not the police.

COLETTE: If there’s a connection, I need to make it. I need answers. I promised Tom.

BILL: Tom?

JASPER: Huh?

COLETTE: Just – talk to me.

JASPER: I want somebody to have some faith in me for a change.

COLETTE: All right, tell me about Tumaco.

JASPER: Hey?

COLETTE: Tumaco, it’s a town in southern Colombia. Weren’t you in Tumaco?

JASPER: Did I say that?

COLETTE: I don’t know. I thought you said that.

JASPER: Yeah, the surf is really great there.

COLETTE: You surf?

JASPER: Are you getting sexy with me?

COLETTE: You never told me you surfed.

JASPER: It’s all part of the mystery.

COLETTE: The mystery of Jasper.

JASPER: That’s right.

COLETTE: Come to think of it, you hadn’t actually told me you’d been to Tumaco. But now, it seems, you have.

Beat.

It’s where my husband disappeared.

Beat.

JASPER: Right.

COLETTE: I’ve never met anyone who’s been there.

JASPER: Now you have.

COLETTE: Now I have.

JASPER: You want this all to make sense.

COLETTE: It will make sense.

JASPER: What if it doesn’t, Colette? What if nothing makes any sense?

COLETTE: Nobody’s even heard of the place, that I know of.

BILL: The kid keeps changing his story.

COLETTE: He just keeps telling more of it.

BILL: I think you should call the police.

COLETTE: Let me do this my way.

EVELYN enters for a moment.

EVELYN: You look so stressed.

COLETTE: (to TOM) They want me to be stressed. They want me to be exhausted from my grief, so that I can live in the same world they do, a world of giving up hope and sitting out weather. But this, this, Tom, is giving me new life. He knows something, and it’s giving me my life again; a direction I can go.

BILL: You want a direction you can go? Go to the police.

COLETTE: (to TOM) The ice is breaking off from the eaves and crashing in great chunks onto the ground in front of the window. The ice fisherman is packing up to go.

BILL: Well, you better act soon, then, because it looks to me like he’s leaving.

COLETTE: Who?

BILL: Jasper.

COLETTE: He’s not going anywhere.

BILL: Then why did he ask me for a ride up the highway?

COLETTE: Was it something I said?

JASPER: Yeah, it was something you said. All this talk – this talk, about Tumaco and whatever. Forget it. It’s just time to move on, that’s all.

COLETTE: You don’t want to talk about it?

JASPER: No, I don’t want to talk. All we ever do is talk.

COLETTE: All right, we’ll stop talking.

JASPER: I think you’re going to have my baby.

COLETTE: What?

JASPER: We slept together, and I think you’re going to have my baby.

COLETTE: You wore a condom.

JASPER: Actually, no. I didn’t.

Beat.

COLETTE: You said you did.

JASPER: I said I did. I didn’t.

COLETTE: That’s – not very responsible of you.

JASPER: Oh, and was it very responsible of you to make love to me when you don’t even know my real name and when you didn’t even trust me?

COLETTE: What is your real name?

JASPER: Does it make any difference now?

COLETTE: I can’t have a baby. It’s impossible.

JASPER: I say you can.

COLETTE: I had a terrible illness a few years ago, and it made me – unable to have children.

JASPER: Well, I say that’s wrong.

COLETTE: Well, it’s not wrong. Why do you want me to have a baby?

JASPER: I don’t want you to have one, but I think you’re going to have one. And I don’t want you to get rid of it, either; I want you to keep it. You need a life that goes on, after your husband.

COLETTE: There is no “after.”

She grabs him.

JASPER: Hey, let go.

COLETTE: What is happening?

JASPER: I told you. I’m going.

COLETTE: Jasper. My husband.

JASPER: Your husband, your husband. Yeah. Why did he leave you?

COLETTE: He didn’t leave me. He went away on business.

JASPER: And now he’s gone forever. Why would he do that?

COLETTE: He’s alive. You’ve seen him, and he’s alive.

JASPER: I haven’t seen him. Why would I see him? I don’t know your husband. I don’t know anything about him.

COLETTE: Let me tell you, then. He’s a civil engineer. He works on the petroleum pipelines. In Tumaco, there’s a pipeline terminus. Tumaco is a port, okay, a port. And aside from “really great surfing,” it’s also a place of really great upheaval and turmoil. There are renegades and drug lords and bandits and liars and thieves. Oh, and revolutionary soldiers who say they are fighting in the name of the people – we’ll have to take their word for it. But sometimes they kidnap people there for money.

JASPER: I know all this. You told me.

COLETTE: You knew all this before I told you. You knew all this in April, when you were in Tumaco. You knew all this when you arrived here, looking for me. You’ve known this the whole time.

JASPER: I don’t know anything. I don’t know anything.

COLETTE: Look at me. You know something.

JASPER: What do I know?

COLETTE: The truth.

BILL: At first I wanted him never to return. I actually thought that. I actually – But when I saw what it meant to her, how it destroyed her so completely, I realized: the woman that I was in love with was the woman who was Tom’s wife. The conflicted, flirtatious wife of somebody who both loved and hated her husband. The woman who was alive. But it killed her inside; this killed her.

EVELYN: Could you ever love anybody else as much?

BILL: I think we’re all destined for loneliness.

EVELYN: What about loneliness in the company of others?

BILL: That’s it, isn’t it? Like trees, rooted to the spot, looking at one another. Rooted in the ground, unable to move closer. Trying with all our might to grow closer, our branches reaching. But only able to imagine closeness, never touching and growing older.

EVELYN: That is so beautiful, what you just said.

BILL: What did I say? I wasn’t paying any attention. Even I’m not interested in me.

COLETTE: (to TOM) And what if he tells me you’re alive, Tom? What if he tells me you’re alive? What then? You come back, what then? We look into one another’s eyes. We thank God, or whomever, for your safe return. We go back to living? Back into life? This time of waiting, this time of waiting is so many things. Things unknown. What if I didn’t love you anymore? How long would it take after your return? A week? A year? Two years, before it disintegrated finally, once and for all, childless, miserable, unfaithful. What if I love you only in your absence? What if this longing, this suffering, is all I love? Your return? What if your return brings an end, and your never returning is all that keeps it going? Tom, Tom!

JASPER: What do you want from me?

COLETTE: I need to know the truth.

JASPER: About what?

COLETTE: My husband.

Beat.

JASPER: I don’t know about your husband.

COLETTE: Why do you have his wallet?

JASPER: His wallet?

COLETTE: Yes, his wallet. Why do you have it?

JASPER is taken aback. BILL appears for a moment, elsewhere.

BILL: The kid’s a liar; don’t believe a word he says.

JASPER: I found it.

COLETTE: Where?

JASPER: I found it; that’s all. Is it so important?

COLETTE: Of course it’s important. It’s important to me! My husband is missing. If you have his wallet, you know where he is, Jasper.

JASPER: Where he is, is where he is.

COLETTE: Who are you?

JASPER: You don’t know me. You fell in love with me and you don’t know me.

COLETTE: I didn’t fall in love with you.

JASPER: You said you did.

COLETTE: The girl who serves drinks at O’Grady’s, she has a tattoo of a hummingbird on the back of her hand.

Beat.

JASPER: Is that right?

COLETTE: Where did you get the wallet? Where did you get it? Tell me, Jasper, so help me God, or I’ll rip your fucking eyes out.

JASPER: Outside Tumaco –

Beat.

– near the beach.

The ground beneath COLETTE begins to shift.

COLETTE: (to TOM) Oh my God, Tom. What is he saying? What beach? Is that where you’ve gone? Is that why you weren’t under the tree this morning?

JASPER: The surfing beach.

COLETTE: (to JASPER) The wallet was there, on the beach? The wallet was just lying there?

JASPER: No. Hidden, in some tall grass, back behind the beach, up a little ways. There’s a bunch of trees and some grass. I spent the night sleeping on the beach; I walked up into the tall grass in the morning to take a piss. There’s a parking lot farther up. I went in there. I saw it.

COLETTE: You saw the wallet?

JASPER: The body. I saw the body.

Beat. She backs away. As the scene continues COLETTE finds herself divided between two realities.

TOM: Don’t be afraid.

COLETTE: (to TOM) There you are. Where did you go?

TOM: I told you. Tumaco.

JASPER: It was lying there. Covered over a little with some cardboard thing. First, I saw a leg. Then I pulled over the cardboard, and I kind of looked underneath, and I saw the whole thing, like, the whole body.

TOM: I told you I’d be back.

COLETTE: No matter what I know of myself, Tom, I couldn’t have known this moment. I’ve stopped hearing what he’s saying. I only hear birds.

JASPER: Bunch of crows, I chased them away from the body.

COLETTE: Where am I? It’s just the way he described it. Near a beach. Off a little way into the grass. I can see you lying there; it’s true.

JASPER: He looked pretty – beaten up.

COLETTE: Your eyes. Are they open?

JASPER: The eyes were wide open.

COLETTE: I reach down to you.

JASPER: I bent down and I looked right in the face.

COLETTE: Oh, Tom.

JASPER: The jaw was all over to one side. Blood, dried, kind of, just a fucked-up scenario. Flies all over.

COLETTE: What have they done to my husband; what have they done to this beautiful man?

JASPER: It looked pretty – you know – messed up. Like a dead animal of some kind.

COLETTE: It’s all that’s left; they’ve taken the rest.

JASPER: I reached in, and I – took his wallet.

COLETTE: Gone. Your smile, your sweet voice in my ear, your breath, your breath on me, on the back of my neck. Your impatience, your lies, your love, all gone.

TOM: So that’s it.

COLETTE: Take my hand, Tom.

JASPER: I grabbed it, and I ran.

COLETTE: Let’s go home.

TOM: It’s good you know now. Spring is coming.

COLETTE: I feel it.

JASPER: I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I was going to give it back to you. I was going to … give it to you. You’ve been so kind to me.

COLETTE’s attention shifts to JASPER.

COLETTE: (to JASPER) Why did you come?

JASPER: I told you. I had to.

COLETTE: You had to?

JASPER: After I had the wallet for a few days, I was going to hand it in, you know, just leave it at the police station, but I just thought – I don’t know. I was thinking about him, and his life with you – I – and I kept looking at your picture – in the wallet.

COLETTE: My picture.

TOM: I never told you, did I? About that picture.

JASPER: I said to myself, “I am holding a picture of this woman; I am holding her picture; I need to give it back.” And the note on the other side.

COLETTE: Note?

JASPER: “Without you I am nothing,” you wrote. Nothing.

COLETTE: (to TOM) I never wrote that.

TOM: I did.

JASPER: We’re something, Colette. We’re not nothing.

COLETTE: (to JASPER) Why did you take so long?

JASPER: The summer, the fall, I just –

COLETTE: (to TOM) He moves about like some sort of wounded animal. I don’t know who he is. He’s crazy, but I don’t think he’s insane.

JASPER: People don’t die.

COLETTE: You came here to tell me all this? Why did you come here?

JASPER: I came here; the rest, I don’t know.

COLETTE: (to TOM) Do you believe in synchronicity, Tom?

TOM: I believe things happen.

COLETTE: For which there are reasons.

JASPER: I should go.

TOM: Reasons inside of no reasons. Constellations gather in heavenly clusters, but why? We assign perfect logic to molecules.

COLETTE: Even molecules have reasons.

TOM: Find my body. Bury me.

COLETTE: (to TOM) Yes.

TOM: Look, the ice is melting on the lake. We can spend the summer and in the fall –

COLETTE: You need to talk to the police, Jasper. You need to tell them everything, so they can notify the Colombian authorities.

JASPER: They’ll arrest me.

COLETTE: I won’t let them.

JASPER: I thought I could stay here. But I was wrong. I thought I could – be with you. And you wouldn’t be sad anymore. And I wouldn’t be sad. And everything would be all right, and nothing would be wrong, ever.

COLETTE: It doesn’t work like that.

JASPER: There should be no sadness; there should be no death.

COLETTE: We need to talk to the police.

BILL: So why didn’t you call them?

COLETTE: I did, but by the time I turned around, he was gone.

EVELYN: You did what you could, Bill.

BILL: I did what I could.

EVELYN: He couldn’t get near. You couldn’t get near. I saw the whole thing. The ice just kept cracking.

BILL: He thought he could run away across the lake.

COLETTE: But spring is here.

BILL: I pushed a ladder along the surface, but he couldn’t grab on to it.

EVELYN: I held on to Bill’s feet, and he tried to grab on to Jasper.

BILL: The water was just too cold. He couldn’t get a good grip. His backpack, everything.

EVELYN: You didn’t want to get pulled in. Poor Bill.

BILL: He would have pulled me in.

COLETTE: The frozen lake has finally given in. Winter can only hold on to us for so long.

EVELYN: Poor, stupid kid.

COLETTE: Not stupid.

EVELYN: I didn’t mean stupid, I meant – I don’t know what I meant.

COLETTE: I thought I knew you, but I didn’t; for one moment, I thought I knew.

JASPER: What’s to know about nothing? I just ended up in the world. For a while, I was looking for my family, but I gave up looking; found some other people. But they left me, too. Whenever I find people, they leave. I hope you don’t mind me telling you all this. I never told anybody this. I never had anybody to tell.

COLETTE: What’s it like, floating under the ice?

JASPER: Fucking cold, man.

EVELYN: Who are you talking to?

COLETTE: Huh?

EVELYN: Didn’t you say –? I thought you said you couldn’t have a child.

COLETTE: I couldn’t.

EVELYN: How depressing. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean depressing. You’re not going to have it, are you? Poor Colette. As if losing a husband isn’t enough. When does the body come home?

COLETTE: He has a stopover in Miami. Isn’t that funny, a stopover. Bill’s going down. Bill wants to do everything. Good old Bill.

BILL: I want to help you. I want to be there for you. You have a child coming. Will you let me look after it with you?

COLETTE: (to TOM) What can I tell him, Tom?

TOM: Tell him yes.

COLETTE: When I really mean no?

TOM: You might come to it, in time. You might come to love him.

COLETTE: The way spring comes? As if it never will; then one day, out of sheer exasperation, just – does.

BILL: I’ll make you happy.

COLETTE smiles at BILL , but her attention is with TOM.

COLETTE: (to TOM) He won’t make me happy, but I’ll tell him that I am. I’ll smile, and I’ll bring flowers in from the garden, and I’ll leave him sleeping in bed at night, to come downstairs and wander into and out of rooms, just to feel how empty they are without you in them.

EVELYN: If only you knew how lucky you were.

COLETTE: (to TOM) That’s a funny thing to say. The day we finally buried you, Tom, she said I was lucky; that I should find love so soon after I lost it. And a child inside me, what an odd sensation. To feel this little life growing inside of my lifeless one.

BILL: Still, I don’t know if I tried hard enough to save that kid.

EVELYN: Whether you did or not.

BILL: Do you think I tried hard enough?

EVELYN: You did what you could.

BILL: I don’t know; I think – sometimes I think – the things we do, without knowing.

EVELYN: All the things.

BILL: I saw in his eyes – the look in his eyes. I don’t think he wanted to be saved.

EVELYN: No.

BILL: But was there something deep inside of me, too. Some wish that he – that he would – that I would –

EVELYN: You could only hold on for so long.

BILL: Not long enough.

EVELYN: It was out of our hands, Bill.

BILL: It was out of our hands, but –

EVELYN: It was always out of our hands.

EVELYN moves close to him.

BILL: I have to – I have to go.

EVELYN almost touches BILL; he walks away, leaving her alone.

COLETTE: Poor Evelyn.

EVELYN: I thought I should pack my things, so I packed them. Poor Colette. I hope you’ll be all right without me.

EVELYN exits.

COLETTE: And now that it’s gone, what can we say of this godless winter, Tom? It’s left us, but not for long.

TOM: That’s a pessimistic view.

COLETTE: True. Is it?

TOM: Don’t you find it reassuring? Things go, but never really go.

COLETTE: You mean Evelyn isn’t really going?

TOM: I mean love exists, when everything else is long gone.

COLETTE: How was your flight home?

TOM: Uneventful.

COLETTE: Cargo isn’t really the best way to fly, is it?

TOM: I’m back. That’s all that matters. Now I can go.

COLETTE: You’re leaving?

TOM: Well, I can’t sit under that tree forever.

COLETTE: Should I come with you?

TOM: Come with me?

COLETTE: Should I?

TOM: Not for now.

TOM touches her. He goes.

COLETTE: (to TOM) Not for now, no. I’ll wait through all these living seasons. When things blossom again, I’ll know. When life returns, I’ll always know. The warmth of the sun is not forever; there’s another cold wind coming. And with it my heart will have to thaw, and grow warm again.

Blackout.