SCENE TWO
The next day, late morning.
VERA enters through the front door with a laundry cart. She has some trouble maneuvering it through the door and into the apartment. She is taking care to be quiet. Once she has gotten the cart in and closed the door, she goes offstage to LEO’s bedroom. A pause. She comes back, satisfied that he is still asleep.
She takes the laundry from the cart, piece by piece, and folds it. Bike jerseys and shorts. Those wicking pieces of athletic clothing. Tiny cycling socks. She regards them all with some suspicion.
The phone rings. At the first ring, she tenses, listens to see if she heard right. At the second ring, she looks anxiously toward the bedroom where LEO is sleeping and moves as quickly as she can to the old rotary phone.
VERA: Hello.
Hold on.
She takes her whining hearing aid out.
Hello.
(Mild irritation verging on imperiousness.) Yes, darling, what?
I’m not done with it.
I’m not done with it yet.
I know what time it is, but as a matter of fact my grandson is here so I’ve been busy.
Yes, well, it was a surprise, he came and surprised me, so.
Well that’s—listen—
Hello?
(She looks at the phone.) Hello?
She shakes her head and hangs up.
Pain in the ass.
She goes back to the laundry and continues to fold, still periodically shaking her head. After a few moments, LEO enters, disheveled but clean.
LEO: Hey.
She continues to fold.
Vera.
She looks up with the startled look of half-deaf people who aren’t sure whether they heard something, and want to cover if they did, and sees LEO.
VERA: Oh!
She fumbles in her pockets for her hearing aid and puts it back in.
The phone woke you?
LEO: No.
VERA: It was Ginny across the hall. I give her the arts section when I’m done with it and I’m late today. Never mind she’s never given me a nickel for it, that’s what I get for being nice. She says she’s just checking in to see if I’m all right but you know she’s really sitting there, stewing, resenting me, she’s…well, no good deed goes unpunished, right? Did you sleep all right?
LEO: Mm-hm.
VERA: And then she just hung up! I told her you were here and she said, “Oh I’m terribly sorry” in this—like she was interrupting a big meeting or something and she just hung up without even saying—why it gets to me so much I don’t know. She’s just… (She looks for the word, doesn’t find it.)
She’s really a character.
LEO: Huh.
VERA: But we have an arrangement where she calls me one night and I call her the next, and that way if one of us turns up our toes it won’t take until we start smelling to figure it out. Which isn’t really a problem for me, because I have the family, but she doesn’t have anyone, so I guess I have guilt feelings about that is what it is. And we have a lot in common in terms of the political—we both, in terms of Cuba, and the pro-peace whaddayacallit, and being progressives, we see eye to eye, but in everything else she just drives me nuts.
LEO: You’re giving her too much power.
VERA: What?
LEO: That power. You gotta take it back.
She considers this.
VERA: Well.
If you stay longer, and I’m not saying you will, I’ll show you how to, whaddayacallit.
Disconnect the phone in that room, because I do get a lot of calls sometimes.
You look better. (Off his look.) What?
LEO: Good morning, Vera.
VERA: Actually it’s after twe—
He interrupts her with a big bear hug. Surprised, she gives in to the totally unexpected physical affection. The embrace goes on for a little while. She closes her eyes and tries to remember it. They separate. She smiles widely at him.
You smell better, too. What did you think of that bed?
LEO: It was great, great bed.
VERA: That’s what I think! You know your uncle Ben and Mel, they want me to get a new mattress. Which they do not offer to pay for. Every time they stay here they complain, and complain.
LEO: I slept like a rock.
VERA: I may quote you on that. I’ll end up doing it, though, anyway, or else they’ll have an excuse not to visit. You drink coffee?
LEO: Yeah, I’d love some.
She exits. He surveys the neat little piles she’s made of his stuff. He stoops and picks up a box of condoms that’s seen wear and tear in his bag. He had forgotten he brought it. She reenters with coffee and a plate with a few breakfast pastries on it, maybe a couple hard boiled eggs.
VERA: I was glad to see you carry those and surprised they weren’t opened. I thought you probably take it black.
LEO: I do.
VERA: Me too, that’s how I like it. (He bites into a pastry.) Tell me if that’s completely thawed. (He gives her the thumbs up.) I got a few of those free a month or two ago at the Senior Center, some event, they had a buffet table and at the end they were going to throw it all away, which I did not approve of. It was lucky I thought to freeze them because otherwise I would have had to go out and get you something and I wasn’t feeling completely up to it. Some days I’m myself, and some days my head really isn’t right, and my balance. It’s really disgusting.
LEO: Have you had it checked out?
VERA: What? Oh sure, they’re all useless, they just tell me I’m old and I knew that already.
I knew you were sleeping well because you didn’t wake up when I brought your whadayacallit out of your room. Moaning and groaning—that thing must weigh a hundred pounds!
LEO: Nah. About twenty.
VERA: Is that all?
LEO: Well that’s one of four bags. Total weight’s about fifty.
VERA: Rebecca—well, all right, if you’re built like that, but I mean a smaller / woman.
LEO: I find if you approach people with love and trust you can count on getting the same things back from them.
Brief pause.
VERA: What is that, Confucius, or…?
LEO: It’s Leo Joseph-Connell. It’s me.
VERA: I’m teasing you.
LEO: Okay.
VERA: I guess it’s a sensitive subject.
LEO: Nope.
VERA: Well.
Pause.
LEO: You know anything about a climbing wall?
VERA: A what?
LEO: A climbing gym!
VERA: What’s a climbing gym?
LEO: It’s a—a gym. Where you climb. They have these walls / with—
VERA: Oh, with the funny, and you’re in one of those whadayacallit—
LEO: Harnesses.
VERA: Right, I’ve seen that. Where have I seen that? I saw that and I thought what the hell is that for?
She gets the yellow pages.
You want to go today, is that it?
LEO: I was thinking about it. Get the old upper body back to work.
Now with the yellow pages, she asks this studiously casually, without looking at him.
VERA: So you think you might stay a little longer, is that it?
Would it be under…what would it be under?
He takes the yellow pages from her, gently, and looks.
LEO: Yellow pages. Man.
VERA: What?
LEO: Do you have a computer?
VERA: No, I—well yes, I have one, Ben and Mel got it for me, but I’m not, whaddayacallit. They were very happy with themselves for getting it for me but they didn’t really show me what to do with it.
LEO: Mac or PC?
VERA: What?
LEO: We’ll look at it later.
VERA: You know a lot about computers?
LEO: I don’t like them. But I can use them.
VERA: I thought everyone your age liked them.
LEO: Micah never sent an e-mail. His whole life. Which was stubborn as shit, but you have to admire it.
VERA: Did he use the telephone?
LEO: Yeah, but he didn’t have a cell phone. I don’t have one either.
VERA: I know you don’t, I’ve been hearing about that a lot lately.
Brief pause.
I guess what they say is all this, whatsit, technology is good for…from the standpoint of the people, or the—that you can get the propaganda to the people, the Marxist—I can’t find the words, but in terms of Africa, and South America, and places where—that from the standpoint of being progressive and so on and so forth it can be a good thing.
Brief pause.
You know, there are a lot of bad things about getting old, but the worst one is not being able to find my words. I just hate not being able to find my words, I feel like an idiot half the time.
LEO: That it’s democratizing.
VERA: What?
LEO: That with the internet, information is free to everyone, it um…de-commodifies knowledge. Which is power.
He returns to his yellow page search.
VERA: When you put it that way I think I should learn how to use the computer.
LEO: Marx is cool.
VERA: You think so?
LEO: He’s all right.
VERA: Well I think so too.
LEO: When I did that semester at Evergreen I took a class on Marx. Best class I took.
VERA: What did your mother think of that?
LEO: About me studying Marx?
VERA: Yeah.
LEO: Uh, I think she was like, “How is that going to be useful to you, in the future?”
LEO: And I was like, first of all, who knows, and second, I think it’s important to understand where I come from, which is where you come from, too, so I’m surprised you aren’t more supportive.
VERA: (Delighted.) You said that?
LEO: I did.
VERA: And what did she say?
LEO: You know, as long as I was in college, she was happy, so I think she just shut up.
VERA: She and I don’t talk about politics anymore. I always end up telling her how disappointing she was to her father, I don’t mean to, somehow or other I just wind up saying it, and I only mean in terms of the political—not generally, but then she starts crying and going on about how she always votes Democrat, as if that’s…it’s better we just don’t talk about it.
LEO: I find that to be true about a lot of subjects with Jane.
VERA: Well, between you and me. I guess I do too.
A small moment of enjoying each other.
But she was always my favorite because she was the littlest, you know she was only two when Joe and I started carrying on together. And she’s been very devoted to me, so.
LEO: Is 23rd Street pretty near here?
VERA: Matter of fact you can walk there. I guess I should get you Joe’s keys.
LEO: Um—
She doesn’t hear him and exits. He prepares himself to ask for something. She reenters with keys.
VERA: I better show you which one does what, and you’ll get it wrong the first few times anyway but you’ll eventually learn.
LEO: Okay—I was wondering if you could spot me a few bucks? For climbing?
VERA: Oh. You’re out of money, is that it?
LEO: At the moment the flow is low.
VERA: How much do you need?
LEO: I don’t know what prices are like around here…I have to rent all the stuff, so like, fifty?
VERA: Fifty dollars?
LEO: That’s what it would be in Seattle, so I guess…maybe a little more?
VERA: More than fifty dollars? To climb up a wall?
LEO: I’m expecting an influx in a couple days so I could pay / you back.
VERA: A what?
LEO: An influx! Of cash, into my account!
VERA: From where?
From your mother? She’s still giving you money?
Well…
LEO: Forget it.
VERA: No, / listen—
LEO: Forget it! It’s no big deal!
VERA: I’m going to show you where I keep the money, and then when you need some you can just take it and leave a note, all right? So I know how much you took and I won’t worry about it.
LEO: All right.
VERA: And then maybe you can do some shopping, and get the things around the house you like to have for breakfast and so on and so forth.
LEO: Vera, I want to be really clear that I can’t stay more than a couple days.
VERA: I understand.
LEO: It’s great to rest up, but I need to make it back to Washington before it gets too cold, so.
VERA: You mean, on the bike?
LEO: Yup.
VERA: You’re going to go all the way back west on that bike?
LEO: That’s the plan.
An uncomprehending pause.
VERA: Maybe if you called Rebecca today, she—since it was the middle of the night, she may not / have—
LEO: It’s not / about—
VERA: Seeing as you came all this way to be with her—
LEO: I didn’t.
I didn’t come all this way to be with her.
VERA: Well I know it wasn’t to be with me.
LEO: It was to finish something I started. Micah and I started something. I finished it. That’s it. People want to make it really complicated but it’s not.
He gives her a big smile.
VERA: If you stayed more than a couple days I wouldn’t know what to say to your mother. I don’t know what to say to her as it is. So we’re in agreement.
I keep the money in Joe’s study.
She tries to stand, doesn’t quite make it up, winds up and stands again. She makes her way out slowly. LEO stays seated. He is fending off a wave of nausea or vertigo.
(Off.) You comin’ or what?