A CAFE
Two women sit across from each other at a table. LUCY and TINA. Lucy is clearly on about something in her head. Tina plays with her phone.
LUCY: I have a theory.
Tina doesn’t look up.
TINA: Okay.
LUCY: I’m thinking I’m not going to ask Charlie where he’s been anymore.
TINA: What are you talking about?
LUCY: My father was a hunter.
TINA: That’s funny.
LUCY: Why is that funny?
TINA: What do you mean, he was a hunter?
LUCY: He liked to hunt.
TINA: See? That’s better. My father was a hunter sounds different than he liked to hunt.
A beat. Lucy continues with her thought.
LUCY: Anyway, my father liked to hunt.
Tina puts down her phone. She starts looking around.
LUCY: Everyone knew that’s what he liked to do. He’d come home with a deer. A beaver. The occasional fox.
TINA: That’s horrible.
LUCY: It’s not so bad when you get used to it. I used to hate it too, but then after a while I just got used to it.
TINA: A fox?
LUCY: Yeah.
TINA: How do you kill a fox?
LUCY: With a pistol.
Tina makes a face.
LUCY: A rifle. Something. I don’t know.
Tina looks around the room again.
LUCY: Anyway, that’s not the point. What are you looking for?
TINA: A goddamned waiter. I ordered a lemonade. I’m dying for a lemonade.
Lucy waits.
TINA: Sorry. I’m edgy. I’m thirsty and I’m edgy.
She continues to look around.
LUCY: The man enjoyed hunting.
TINA: So barbaric.
LUCY: I agree, but that’s what he liked to do, and like I said, you get used to it.
TINA: You from the woods?
LUCY: The woods?
TINA: I don’t know. Deer and beaver? We went to high school together. We went to the mall. What do we know from hunting?
LUCY: We had a summer home.
TINA: I see.
LUCY: Spent a good amount of time.
TINA: Not for me. I prefer a desert. Or a tall building. I hate bugs.
LUCY: That’s fine.
Tina looks around.
TINA: Where is this guy?
Lucy waits a bit.
LUCY: I’m thinking maybe about not asking Charlie any more questions.
TINA: He like to hunt?
LUCY: He’s from Encino.
TINA: I’m really dying for a lemonade.
LUCY: My mother always wanted to know where he was. Not Charlie, my father. Here he is with a dead fox, and she’s sitting there with her arms crossed asking, “Where have you been?” Now we’re kids. I’m young, but not too young as to not understand the man with the dead fox or whatever was clearly in the woods. It’s not complicated, and for the life of me, I can’t put together how this woman could be standing there asking such a stupid question. But over the years, I’d find myself standing in the kitchen with my arms crossed, my dad walks in and I’m asking where he’s been. He’s got blood on his pants and there’s a deer head strapped to the hood of his Buick. Not six months earlier, I’m sitting there thinking to myself, what a stupid question, next thing I know, I’m curious, too.
TINA: You knew where he was.
LUCY: Of course I did, and so did she. All along. She’s asking because she didn’t have anything better to do, and I’m sitting there, I mean, I had things to do, I could have been playing, but instead I start asking, too.
TINA: Then what happened?
LUCY: Nothing. He never answered and I’m pretty sure I know why. Drove my mother crazy. Even started to drive me crazy.
TINA: So, you’re there. You know all of this, and you’re going forward with the stupid question asking anyway?
LUCY: No. At this point, I have no clue. I started out knowing how silly it was, but somehow got lost. I mean, at first, I’m just a kid watching my mom thinking, “what an idiot”, next thing I know, I’m living with a man asking stupid questions all the time.
TINA: But Charlie doesn’t hunt.
LUCY: That’s not the point.
TINA: Then what is?
LUCY: We don’t fight. We don’t have any problems. The only time we do is when I’m asking him where he’s been.
TINA: But he doesn’t hunt. Didn’t he come home at three in the morning?
LUCY: Yes.
TINA: And what did you say?
LUCY: I asked him where he was.
TINA: And what did he say?
LUCY: He said he was at Tommy’s.
TINA: Doing what? That guy’s a piece of shit, by the way.
LUCY: Tommy?
TINA: Yes, Tommy, he’s a pig.
LUCY: Tommy’s okay.
TINA: He’s an animal. But doing what? What did he say they were doing?
LUCY: Smoking, drinking, I don’t know.
TINA: Well, you should know. What happened?
LUCY: I started to ask some more questions, he seemed to get annoyed, I left it alone.
TINA: Why did you do that? You can’t do that. You left it alone? That’s exactly what he wanted you to do. You gotta get in there. You want the truth, you gotta dig.
LUCY: He said he was telling the truth, that’s why I left it alone.
TINA: No. You left it alone because you started thinking about foxes and dead beavers. This is something else. This is modern. This is city life. There’s no woods. He’s over at Tommy’s doing who knows what, and here you are at home worried sick. Were you worried?
LUCY: Not really.
TINA: Why not?
LUCY: Because I assumed he was at Tommy’s.
TINA: Then why’d you ask?
LUCY: That’s what I’m saying.
TINA: And I’m saying you’re wrong. You think we create problems by asking questions? Bullshit. It’s the other way around. We solve things. That’s what we do. And I’m not so sure about your dad, by the way. You can buy dead animals. I can get you a fox.
Lucy is spinning.
TINA: Don’t get caught up here. Don’t get it confused.
LUCY: I really am, though. Maybe things don’t have to be so complicated.
TINA: Everyone has something to do. You feel something? You ask. It’s that simple. Don’t spend too much time thinking about it, because that’s when you get lost. Trust me.
THE END