JACKIE and VERONICA’s apartment. The following evening. JACKIE enters the apartment.
JACKIE: Oh … you’re here.
VERONICA: I was just leaving.
JACKIE: Want me to come back when you’re gone?
VERONICA: No. Dass okay.
JACKIE: I just came to get —
VERONICA: — Your box of shit. I know. It’s over here.
JACKIE: Oh. (JACKIE goes and retrieves the box.) … Okay then.
VERONICA: … Okay then.
JACKIE: … I’ll see you later.
VERONICA: No you won’t.
JACKIE: … Right. I guess I won’t.
VERONICA: What do you mean “you guess?
JACKIE: … Just talking.
VERONICA: Oh … Good luck with your ass then.
JACKIE: Yeah. You too.
VERONICA: … Okay then.
JACKIE: I’ll be at Julio’s if, like, bills an’ shit.
VERONICA: I thought you were staying with Ralph.
JACKIE: Nah. Not no more.
VERONICA: Why? What happened.
JACKIE: … Nothing. I didn’t like the couch.
VERONICA: … Okay.
JACKIE: You look so good I think I’m gonna cry, Veronica.
VERONICA: How’d your court case go?
JACKIE: Oh, the thing with the hat an’ shit — it went okay. I pleaded down. Got forty-five days.
VERONICA: Suspended sentence?
JACKIE: No. I gotta go back upstate next week. They dropped the gun shit, but with the parole violation, I’ll prolly do, like, three months.
VERONICA: Oh. Well. Good luck with that.
JACKIE: I ain’t worried.
VERONICA: Good.
JACKIE: I don’t sleep at night. Like at all. Do you sleep?
VERONICA: … Not so much, but I got pills for that.
JACKIE: Oh … But when you take the pills, do you sleep then?
VERONICA: I don’t care if I ever sleep again, okay?
JACKIE: Me neither.
VERONICA: … I gotta go.
JACKIE: Stay.
VERONICA: For what?
JACKIE: I been listening to The Commodores, like all the time, Veronica.
VERONICA: So?
JACKIE: I brought the cassette. You remember?
VERONICA: I really gotta go.
JACKIE: Remember how your stepfather, he didn’t allow no black music in the house, so your sister Mylene, she would put The Commodores record in the Tony Orlando sleeve, so when he heard it, he thought The Commodores were Puerto Ricans?
VERONICA: I think he knew but was just frontin’.
JACKIE: Oh, ’cuz I thought he really didn’t know.
VERONICA: Anyway. Bye. I gotta go.
JACKIE: … Yeah?
VERONICA: Yeah. Like right now. I gotta go right now.
JACKIE: … Okay.
VERONICA: So, you wanna get out so I can get out?
JACKIE: … Yeah. Yeah sure.
VERONICA: Take care of yourself upstate.
JACKIE: Maybe I’ll see you when I get back.
VERONICA: I’m moving.
JACKIE: To where?
VERONICA: A undisclosed location.
JACKIE: … Oh … Well, maybe I’ll see you anyway.
VERONICA: See me how?
JACKIE: If I wanna see you, I’m gonna see you.
VERONICA: Oh yeah?
JACKIE: Most definitely. Dass right.
VERONICA: … I’m taking my mom to rehab.
JACKIE: You goin’ to rehab?
VERONICA: My mom is. And I’ll, like, stay across the street — do family day. Bring her Bustelo and Twinkies an’ shit. The motel, they got a pool.
JACKIE: That sounds nice. (Beat.)
VERONICA: … Look in the box.
JACKIE: What’s in there?
VERONICA: When you get home. When you get home, look in it. (Pause. She kisses him. They kiss. She moves away. Beat.)
JACKIE: If I had gotten you, say, a fridge that made crushed ice — you think it could have been different?
VERONICA: No.
JACKIE: ’Cuz I could still do that.
VERONICA: I like my shit room tempature.
JACKIE: I knew that.
VERONICA: … Don’t drop the soap, okay?
JACKIE: Yeah. Okay. Veronica —
VERONICA: Not now. Not now, Jackie.
JACKIE: Veronica?
VERONICA: I’m late for work.
JACKIE: I don’t care about it.
VERONICA: About what?
JACKIE: All of it.
VERONICA: All of what?
JACKIE: All of it, Veronica. I don’t care about it. I don’t care about it.
VERONICA: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
JACKIE: I don’t care about any of it. I don’t care.
VERONICA: You’re speaking fortune cookie, Jackie.
JACKIE: I’m speakin’ my heart, Veronica. I’m saying put the blame on me.
VERONICA: Who said the blame’s not on you?
JACKIE: Veronica. I don’t care about it. I did wrong. I did weakness. I did fear. You did too. But I don’t care. None of that shit means anything. It ain’t real. This is. So, I don’t care about that — (Pause.)
VERONICA: … Well, I do.
JACKIE: Veronica —
VERONICA: It broken.
JACKIE: But Veronica.
VERONICA: It’s broke.
JACKIE: We can fix it.
VERONICA: No.
JACKIE: Please, Veronica … Anything … Anything … Anything … Anything …
JACKIE: Veronica —
VERONICA: No! … No!
(VERONICA goes to the bathroom. JACKIE is alone. After a beat, he takes out an old cassette tape from his back pocket, and puts it in the boom box on the kitchen table. A song like The Commodores’ “Still” plays. The tape is worn and scratchy and the sound is maybe a little warped or underwater-sounding. JACKIE crosses to the doorway and then exits, leaving the door ajar. Beat. VERONICA exits the bathroom, teary-eyed.)
… Jackie?
(The song plays … She is alone. The lights fade.)
End of Play.