by Jeffrey Sweet
DONNA, early forties, has left her husband for her former teacher LARRY. Now he is driving her back to her husband’s, but she isn’t convinced that the affair is over.
Scene
Larry’s car.
Time
The present.
DONNA
How long did you wait? Before telling me it was over? You only said it the other night. But you must have known you were going to say it—what?—days ago. Maybe a week, maybe more. It must have been awful for you. All that time, knowing what you were going to have to say, what you were waiting for the right moment to say. And meanwhile, there I was, bouncing along. Piling on all this unwanted affection. I didn’t have any idea. Tell you what kind of fool I am, I thought it was going pretty well. I thought we were hitting it off pretty good. And all that time, what was really going on was you were waiting, planning.
[A beat.]
Just how well did you have it planned, Larry? How detailed? Did you outline it like you do with your lectures? Five-by-seven notecards held together by a rubber band?
You mean that little speech of yours was extemporaneous? Then you have my admiration, boy. You really do. Because it came out a model of . . . I mean, tight and logical and well proportioned.
I want to understand. I want to know why we didn’t work out. Because we should have. Or at least we should have lasted longer. I mean, five weeks—Christ! Even a banana republic lasts longer than five weeks.
I left my husband for you.
Do you have any idea how I felt that night? I’ve never done anything like that before. Just left. I told Elliot to go to hell and I slammed out the door. With nothing. I didn’t have anything. And I thought, “Jesus, I wish Larry hadn’t moved to Boston, I want to be with him.” And then I thought, why not? So you were in Boston. It’s not like that was the end of the world. Boston. Why not? It was so clear and so right. I hailed a cab to the airport, leapt on the first plane I could, then another cab straight to your door. It wasn’t until then, when I was ringing your bell, not till then that it occurred to me I hadn’t called you first. I didn’t even know if you were in. But then, when you did open the door . . . You didn’t ask me anything. You just immediately held me and made me welcome. God, I loved you so much for that!
[A beat.]
Is there any feeling left, or is it just a matter of responsibility?
[A beat.]
I mean, it doesn’t touch you at all, does it?