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7 February, 2020

James McKean

James McKean earned a master of fine arts from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. He has published three books of poems – “Headlong,” “Tree of Heaven,” and “We Are the Bus” – and two books of essays, “Home Stand: Growing Up in Sports” and “Bound.”

McKean’s poems have appeared in journals such as Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, and Poetry Northwest, among others, and have been featured in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry. His nonfiction has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Gray’s Sporting Journal, The Gettysburg Review, and The Iowa Review, and his essays have been reprinted in The Best American Sports Writing 2003 and the 2006 Pushcart Prize anthology.

McKean teaches poetry and creative nonfiction in our low-residency master of fine arts in creative writing program.

7 February, 2020

Loving Our Work and Letting it Go

One morning many years ago, I phoned a writer friend and asked if she would take a look at a manuscript I’d recently completed, one that I was particularly fond of. I guess you could call it a crush. Yes, I had a crush on my manuscript. (If you’re a writer, you probably know how this feels—the initial surge of passion, however incestuous, for your own work.) It’s a great feeling, but it passes. Especially after, say, three revisions, which is what the manuscript had survived. My friend is a tough but fair critic, and I knew she would give me an honest assessment. “Sure,” she said. “But I’ll be gone most of the day. Just drop it through the mail slot.”

Within an hour, I’d arrived at her front porch. As I lifted the lid on the mail slot and started to slide the envelope through, I heard a deep growl, then another, and felt something grab the other end of the envelope. Instinctively I grabbed back, setting into motion a back-and-forth, territorial tussle that lasted for several seconds, until a bark from the other side of the door brought me back to what was left of my senses. Of course—my friend’s dog! I let go, the manuscript was yanked through the slot, and suddenly everything was quiet except for the faint click-click of the dog’s nails as he retreated down the hall.

Nearly three decades later, that response remains the swiftest—and definitely most passionate—response to a manuscript that I’ve ever received. Never had a reader or editor been more eager for my work! And though the manuscript was destined never to see the literary light of day (it was too deeply flawed) I still hold great affection for the unpublished work and continue to believe that the teeth marks and the muddy pawprints were signs of unabashed acceptance. I like to imagine the dog carrying the manuscript, in his expectant, drooling mouth, to his plaid bed, where he curls up beside it, paws it adoringly, and proceeds to lose himself in a doggy version of John Gardner’s “fictional dream.”

Such are the kinds of fantasies I conjure to keep up my writer’s spirits on days when (let’s just say) another manuscript is returned from yet another editor. For we writers must keep our spirits up—it is our responsibility to ourselves and to our work. We are, after all, our own first responders. If we don’t continue to believe in our work and to accept it, who will?

Truth be told, I have enjoyed my share of acceptances. Perhaps more than my share. But, like most writers who are in it for the long haul, I’ve also had plenty of experience with what we typically name “rejection.” (More on that word later.) Rejection hurts. It can make you do strange things, things that under normal situations you would never do. Scream. Slam doors. Sob. Shake your fist at the ceiling. Gather all the profanities you’ve been saving and aim them at the editor, the journal, the agent, the publisher. (And these are the more healthy reactions.) On really bad days, you may curse your work, compare it to the work of others, swear to never write again—I mean, who needs this kind of pain, right?

That is what rejection can do to you. Which is why, several years ago, I decided to reject “rejection.” The word felt too personal, smacking of love affairs gone wrong, Dear Jane letters, the perennial cold shoulder. Why not rename it? (We are writers, after all. Naming is our thing.) So I pulled out my folder marked “Rejections” and marked through the word. Then, in bright green marker, I wrote “Free to send out again.” I can’t tell you how good this change felt, and continues to feel, each time a manuscript is declined. The work is free! The editor has released it from bondage. “Thank God you’re home,” I think. “I’ve missed you.”

The feeling doesn’t last long. Just long enough to send me back to the desk, either to re-see, re-feel, and re-think the piece or to decide to send it back out into the world. Here is where I always hesitate, imagining the worst possible scenario. Who knows what force awaits (growling) behind the mail slot or the internet portal, or into whose rough paws my offering will fall? As Eudora Welty noted, once a piece of writing leaves our hands it becomes, like a mailed letter, closer in distance to its recipient than to its sender.

Eudora was right, of course. As long as we hold our work close and refuse to let it go, it remains safely in our control. But once we release it, it no longer belongs solely to us. Our beloved object is now, literally, out of our hands; I guess that’s why we call it “submitting.” We yield whatever power we have to someone or something else. Like writing, submitting is a form of surrender. We hit the “send” button and the reply comes back: “We have received your submission.” If that doesn’t make you cower in humility, you are a stronger person than I am.

“Parting from a work of art is a skill,” wrote Anne Truitt in Prospect: The Journal of an Artist. A skill? Perhaps. But maybe it is more than that. Maybe parting from our work is an art in itself, as necessary to our creative process as the drafting, imagining, revising, and reimagining. At some point, we must separate ourselves from the work and let it go its own way. If we don’t, if we hang on too tightly, we won’t be free to write the next piece, and the next, and the next. And isn’t that what we all want?

7 February, 2020

Rebecca McClanahan

Rebecca McClanahan is the author of ten books, most recently The Tribal Knot: A Memoir of Family, Community, and a Century of Change and a revised edition of Word Painting: The Fine Art of Writing Descriptively, which has sold over 40,000 copies and is used as a text in many writing programs. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays, Best American Poetry, Kenyon Review, Georgia Review, Boulevard, The Sun, and in anthologies published by Doubleday, Norton, Putnam, Penguin, Beacon, St. Martin’s, and numerous other publishers. Her new book, In the Key of New York City: A Memoir in Essays, is forthcoming in 2020.

Recipient of the Wood Prize from Poetry, a Pushcart Prize, and the Glasgow Award in nonfiction for The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings, she has also been awarded a N.C. Governor’s Award for Excellence in Education, a MacDowell Colony fellowship, and four literary fellowships from New York Foundation for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council, among other honors and awards.

McClanahan lives in Charlotte, N.C. with her husband, video producer Donald Devet. She teaches poetry and creative nonfiction in our low-residency master of fine arts in creative writing program.

7 February, 2020

Stubbornness and Luck

At age 14, I wrote my first poem—an awful sequence of rhyming couplets that I originally began in a half-baked attempt to convince a schoolmate to leave the guy she was sleeping with and resume dating my bleak, virginal self. Aside from yielding a horrible poem, and aside from drawing no response at all from the former girlfriend whom I cherished, the writing and revision process, during the few days I labored over the ridiculous drafts, changed me permanently.

Even though the actual lines and sentences ended up being hogwash in each iteration, my commitment to sitting down with paper and pen for multiple sessions was a crucial contradiction to the types of behaviors in which society expected me to partake. The future plans most of my friends and I had—plans we had inherited from our factory city’s terse mantras/parameters—were to keep developing our jump-shots and our sprinting speed, to earn athletic scholarships to any college willing to sniff us, or to try and stay felony-free until we could slide from high school into pension-crowned jobs at the Jeep and Chrysler plants where many of our kin and community members toiled.

I composed and revised that paltry first poem in the Burger King two blocks from where I lived. Those days, half of the dining area bore signage proclaiming “SMOKING”. I ordered fries, took my tray to a window table, lit one of my Newport 100s, and commenced to poem making. The importance of the experience resided mainly in the surrounding, intricate details. The restaurant was not busy, and the people working a shift moved about their stations and assignments with an earned ease. It was winter; the evening’s final angles of sunlight came through the glass and gave a forthright grace to my menthol smoke. The long dispenser of fountain sodas whirred, sometimes rumbling while generating or resettling interior stocks of ice.  A couple of times, I noticed other patrons looking at me with a slight disorientation that broke quickly into glancing elsewhere and giving me back my relative privacy. These strangers affirmed the new space, peace, and purpose into which I had wandered.

Right now, 24 years removed from that first poem, I’m typing all this into a laptop while I sit—again before a window—at a coffee shop in the core of a sizeable, mid-American city. This time around, there are three strangers nearest me. Two of them are handsome, well-cologned men no older than 35. Overhearing everything, I ascertain that they have met to hash out (with the aid of matching iPads I assume their workplace has provided) some intricate protocol of sales-driven communique they must soon unfold into emails and calls aimed at a sector of their clientele whom they designate as, “high risk, high reward.”

Conversely, the other person seated close is alone, likely in her 30s, and she’s reading a thick, hardcover book of prose that looks to be borrowed from the university library about 10 blocks from here. In my periphery, one of her hands slowly sweeps across the new page just after she turns it—a gesture that can conjure a brief wind shifting an elm bough among the edge of a public park.

The coworking men are now talking in raised tones, which carry competitiveness and perhaps a fearful bitterness. The woman reading has finished her iced coffee, and she has begun chewing each partially melted cube.

The writing life is stubbornness and luck, enough of each to make ourselves available for receiving the essential vibrations the world and its people tirelessly generate. For me, the production rate of good drafts is less engulfing than presenting myself consistently as a patient witness to whatever and whoever are in proximity. Even if the folks at this café begin to bore or sour me, I’m going to glance out onto the sidewalk—pedestrians in the midst of a modest, April day. Even if none of the passersby gives me a bit of transferable emotion, my attention will find a puddle near the curb that quivers every time another vehicle hurries toward someplace that must be worthy of perceiving.

7 February, 2020

Marcus Jackson

Marcus Jackson’s debut full-length collection of poems, entitled Neighborhood Register, was released in 2011, and his second book-length collection, Pardon My Heart, was published by TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press in 2018. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Harvard Review, The New York Times and The Cincinnati Review, among many other publications.

Marcus lives with his wife and daughter in Columbus, Ohio and teaches poetry in our low-residency master of fine arts in creative writing program.

5 February, 2020

Patricia Powell

Patricia Powell is the author of Me Dying Trial, A Small Gathering of Bones, The Pagoda and The Fullness of Everything. She is the recipient of a PEN New England Discovery Award and a Lila-Wallace Readers Digest Writer’s Award. Powell has taught creative writing at Harvard University, U-Mass, MIT and Mills College. 

Powell teaches Fiction in our low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program. 

5 February, 2020

On Listening

I’ve been thinking about the community we create in workshop every week, coming together as strangers meeting for the first time, and undertaking the tasks of listening, of turning a critical eye to the work, of sharing ideas, inspiring each other and creating an environment that is nurturing and intellectually stimulating.  I’ve also been thinking about what it would mean to intentionally bring some of these skills back to the places where we live and work and how they might effectively transform our relationships.

I would like to focus on listening, as listening seems to me an integral part of everything we do in workshop: our writing, our reading, our editing, our ability to give and receive feedback and all the ways we communicate and learn.

Unlike hearing which is passive, listening is purposeful; it is focused. It requires effort, conscious awareness, stillness, mindfulness, and concentration.  When we listen our friends feel as if we care about them. When we listen we are curious and interested and empathic and loving. Listening is a way of being in the world that is sensitive to all aspects of our experience, external, internal and contextual.

When we write we are listening. We often choose a quiet place free from noise and interruptions and close the door. We still the thinking, chattering mind and slowly tune inward. We sit, our bodies like giant ears, waiting for the sound under all things to burp into consciousness.  This kind of full-bodied listening provides spaciousness for the work to show up without pressure, for the work to be.

When we create characters we are listening.  We are putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we are embodying them fully, we are attempting to understand what they feel and to say what they know, in this sense, listening involves empathy which involves the heart.

When we are reading a manuscript, we are also listening.  We are leaning into the page and noticing continuity and interruption. We are tracking for content and tone and voice and intent and we are also tuning in to struggle and frustration. We are looking for murmurs and gasps and moans and utterances, and for ahas. We are listening to appreciate and to savor and to bask.  We are listening to laugh, to learn, and to grow even more curious.

When we edit we are reading quietly and out loud and tuning into the things not said, the things hidden, the things silenced. We are noticing chatter and jargon and fluff, and all our darlings, which we must kill.

In workshop though, listening can be more challenging, especially if your manuscript is being critiqued.  Still, we must stay open and curious, we can’t interrupt or shut down the discussion to protect the work, or protect ourselves, even though we feel judged and misunderstood and vulnerable and exposed. How can we listen if we don’t agree, if we are in conflict about the way the material is being handled or with what is being said?  How can we listen without the need to defend? How can we listen when our jaws are tight, our breath is constricted and our heart is breaking? But this is the practice of the workshop.  We must sit in the discomfort if we want to improve and develop as writers. And that is the practice of life when we face difficulty.  Instead of turning away from our differences and our conflicts, what if we turned toward each other instead, and allow ourselves to sit in the hot seat of our discomfort, our uncertainties, our upsetness?

In workshop and in life, when we are in the hot seat, we must first of all, breathe. Yes. Take huge deep relaxing breaths from the bottom of our bellies. We must find ways to calm or regulate the emotions that are roiling inside us.  We must figure out ways to self-sooth as this can melt us back into ourselves. We have to remember our favorite paths for walking and how the grass feels under our toes. Or how it feels when our dogs lick our faces, or the stillness of the afternoon when we are fly-fishing. We have to find ways to calm the flood of anger and humiliation. We have to remember those things our kids say that make us laugh. We may even have to detach a little and remember that even though our classmate is saying this is a bad sentence, she is not saying you are a bad person. She is simply saying the prose is a little flat, you can liven it up by adding more details, changing the rhythm or cutting out the extra adverbs.  In fact we can even ask her to clarify, to be more specific. Even though workshop can feel like the end of the world. It isn’t.  There is always an hour from now. There is always tomorrow.

And so in the real world when we are confronted by our loved ones and co-workers who are saying things that we don’t believe are true, or who hold different political ideas and social values or they are telling us how selfish we are in relationship, how we take and take and give so little back, and each time they open their mouths and say things like – Climate change is fake news, or we need to get rid of abortion rights – you want to give them the finger, walk away, slam the door, hang up the phone.  Because all you can think of are the fires raging through California and the super storms flooding cities all over the country, islands that are disappearing, the million things you do that your girlfriend or boyfriend doesn’t give you credit for. And as they are talking and talking all you want is for them to just disappear right in front of your eyes.

But what if you could practice deep listening in this moment?  What if you took as many breaths as you needed until you were calm enough to bring yourself into your heart? What if you turned to them with curiosity instead of walking away? What if with as much patience and compassion for yourself as you could muster, you could say to them, tell me more, please explain? And what if with an open and relaxed face, and an undefended posture, you could extend to this loved one or this stranger who is making you crazy right now, the same kind of empathy you bring to your characters, a willingness to know all sides of their story. What if you listened in this way that says – though my ideas or my needs are important it’s not necessary to bring them up now? What if you could put aside the urge to fix or judge or disagree, and just tune in instead, in this full-bodied way that attempts to acknowledge the value of what’s been said and trusting that whatever they say, it is coming from someplace deep in their experience?

We don’t have to agree with the other person.  We don’t have to believe them. We don’t have to fix anything. In our attentive listening, we are simply saying – I understand what you are saying and how you feel about it; I’m not judging you.  I am simply here fully present to what you are saying and feeling.

On account of what they are saying, we may encounter the unexpected, which might expand our worldview.  Or maybe not.  But your listening gives the other person an opportunity to feel seen, to feel heard, to feel respected and to feel valued.  And when they feel that way, it is often easier for them to listen to you as you voice your own opposing perspectives.

Deep Listening can often lead to right speech and right action. We must listen before we act. We must not slouch in our efforts to fight for climate and food and housing justice. We must not slouch in our efforts to fight for racial and gender and wage justice.  When worshippers at synagogues and black churches and mosques are killed we must act. When lawmakers turn back progress for women and people of color and workers we must act.  And we must also listen. We must find out why they are killing us in our places of workshop?  Why are they killing us in our schools? Why are they poisoning our food and our water?  Why they are taking away our rights? And we must listen below the sound bites and between the lines and under the surfaces and beyond the fluff.  We must listen to their emotions where the truth often lies. We must find out. We must know.  Otherwise we will not be able to solve or heal the problems that ail us.  It is only by listening that we can take the next right step toward our evolution.

Every conflict invites an opportunity for understanding.  But we must be willing to turn toward the other, invite dialogue, stay and stay in the hot seat, with as much self-compassion as we can muster, until it cools, until we cool, because there is immense victory in listening and there is reverence too.

17 January, 2020

In Character

MEL, 22, is alone a rehearsal space in NYC. She holds her phone in her hand. She is waiting for someone. After a few beats, STEVE, 40s, enters. Whenever possible, Steve should cut off the end of Mel’s sentences. Mel immediately stands to greet Steve.

 

MEL

Hey man, thanks for meeting me. I know you’re busy I really/

STEVE

/Its no problem.

MEL

/appreciate it.

STEVE

Did you want to run the scene before rehearsal?

MEL

No, um, I think the scene is fine. I just wanted to check in with you before everyone else gets here –

STEVE

If we’re not going to run the scene do you mind if I eat? I’m starved. I don’t want to work on an empty stomach.

MEL

Oh uh, no that’s fine. Go ahead.

 

Steve pulls a large container of noodle soup out of his bag. As Mel begins to speak, he eats, concentrating more on the food than on her.

STEVE

So what did you want to talk about

MEL

Um. I mean I guess this is a little awkward but – I think I just need to be up front and say it like, right away.

STEVE

Ok.

MEL

Ok so. Um. I just want to go over what happened last night.

STEVE

Go ahead.

MEL

Well – I thought that it got off to a good start – I mean I thought that it was helpful. To be working on our backstory and our given circumstances and stuff.

STEVE

Mmmhmm.

MEL

And like I said – I just was feeling like, I couldn’t quite get into the character’s skin, and I know I said that I wanted to work on discovering our shared history or whatever. So I know that its what I said I wanted to do and I was really grateful that you offered to help me. But I just – the reason that I stopped answering was that….It was just getting a little intense?

STEVE

Well, its an intense play, don’t you think?

MEL

Well yeah but….I think there might have been a miscommunication.

STEVE

What do you mean.

MEL

Well when you said you were going to be texting me in character, I guess….I guess I just got confused about what I was supposed to do.

STEVE

Confused how.

MEL

Well at first it was like – I know that our characters have this relationship thats uh….sexual? and I was happy to go there with you, but I was just a little surprised at how – I guess, I didn’t expect you to be so explicit?

STEVE

Explicit?

MEL

I guess, graphic? I –

STEVE

Mel you said you wanted to be up front, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

MEL

I just think it was, you know. Inappropriate. For you to ask me to do that with you. I understand that you’re like, Method or, whatever and I respect that. But I think at a certain point it – it crossed a line, and – I just wanted to say something.

STEVE

Well. I’m sorry that you feel that way. But I fail to see what line I crossed.

MEL

….You asked me to…. send you a…..

STEVE

….

MEL

You asked me to send you a nude.

STEVE

No I didn’t.

MEL

….I have the text right here

STEVE

Mel. I thought you understood the exercise.

MEL

…I did understand the exercise, and what I’m saying is the exercise crossed the line.

STEVE

I asked you if you were willing to try an exercise that would allow you to take a deep dive into your character’s psyche. You said yes.

MEL

Yeah, I wanted to go into MY character’s psyche. I don’t see why you needed to see me naked when its my character.

STEVE

I didn’t want to see you naked.

MEL

…do you want me to read you the text?

STEVE

Whatever I may have said in character has nothing to do with me.

MEL

….okay but can you see how it was a little confusing? Like how was I supposed to respond?

STEVE

How would your character have responded?

MEL

….see this is what I mean, because in character she probably would have… sent the nude but like….was I supposed to google search images of naked women? Because I’m never…I wasn’t gonna send you a –

STEVE

Ok Mel. You can stop.

MEL

Stop what?

STEVE

Mel, you’re clearly in over your head here. You’re young, you’re inexperienced.

MEL

Well I guess so but – I just don’t see how anyone could have responded to that –

STEVE

Mel. You asked me for help. You said you were having trouble connecting to the character and that you wanted help, actor to actor. Do you remember that?

MEL

I remember that, yeah

STEVE

So I told you I had an idea of how we could connect. To the characters. Together. And you said you were willing to trust me.

MEL

I did trust you, but I didn’t understand that you were suggesting that we sext in character.

STEVE

I think we’re done here, Mel.

MEL

Do you think I’m stupid? Do people really fall for this?

STEVE

Fall for what, Mel.

MEL

How many other girls have you offered to “help?”

STEVE

I have coached many young people who have crossed paths with me. Some of them are cut out for my coaching. Some are not. Perhaps you belong in the latter category.

MEL

Steve –

STEVE

I think you should consider very carefully whether or not you want to continue this conversation.

MEL

Excuse me?

STEVE

What do you hope to accomplish? What would you like me to admit?

MEL

That you fucking – propositioned me for nudes.

STEVE

Prove it.

 

Mel Stares at him. She opens her phone and begins to read the message she has cued up on the screen.

MEL

“I want you to show me. Show me that you’re wet for me. I want to see you. I want to see your body.”

STEVE

It was part of the exercise, Mel.

MEL

(continues reading) “I am hard for you. Do you want to see how hard I am?

STEVE

I don’t see the problem here. I was clearly in character.

MEL

Clearly in – What was I supposed to say to that? Were you going to send me a picture of your dick?? How was I supposed to answer –

STEVE

“I’m picturing you fucking me”

MEL

…what?

 

Steve pulls out his phone, opens their text conversation, and begins to read aloud

STEVE

Your message. 10:25 PM. “I’m picturing you fucking me, and I want you to fuck me”

MEL

….that’s different

STEVE

Oh, Mel

MEL

That is totally different. You asked me what my objective is at the top of the scene. That is literally my character’s objective.

STEVE

No, you chose that objective.

MEL

Yes – because thats what HAPPENS IN THE PLAY. Our characters have sex IN THE PLAY.

STEVE

Mel, you need to calm down. You’re confused. I did not touch you. I did not hurt you. All you have are some texts that are very clearly based in the given circumstances of the play. I’m sorry that you misunderstood them.

MEL

Are you kidding me? I only said that picturing you fucking me thing because YOU said to be as bold as possible, that my character would be BOLD with her SEXUALITY

STEVE

You’re not listening to your own argument. You just agreed that we were in character.

MEL

I never said we weren’t in character, I just said you crossed a LINE

STEVE

If I crossed a line you crossed it first by using explicitly sexual language

MEL

What???

STEVE

I take the craft very seriously, Mel. Its my job to take in what you’re saying and let it come out as truthful behavior.

MEL

Don’t fucking –  Stanislavsky me right now.

STEVE

If you have trouble differentiating between reality and the work than I suggest you reconsider your future in this business.

MEL

I can’t believe –

STEVE

I’m glad you brought this to my attention. I should have known better than to offer you my help. I knew it was a mistake for the production to bring you on. You’re too young, you don’t take the craft seriously

MEL

If taking acting seriously means being sexually harassed by gross dudes on power trips than yeah, I guess I DON’T.

STEVE

(very quietly) I think you should think long and hard about what you just said.

MEL

Steve.

STEVE

If you mean to cry sexual harassment I think you should be very careful about how you proceed.

MEL

I literally have the texts right here, Steve.

STEVE

Yes. You have texts. Instigated per your request.

MEL

I never asked for – you’re the one who wanted to be my fucking – mentor, to take me under your fucking WING because you SAW yourself in me

STEVE

I invited you into my process and it was clearly too much for you.

MEL

You’re a fucking pervert.

 

Steve grabs her arm. It is the first time they have made physical contact in the play.

STEVE

You will never. Ever. Be able to prove this. I am a well known actor. People in this town can’t get enough of me. Do you know how respected I am? You are a child who was invited into this production by the good grace of our director, with whom I will surely be speaking about your professionalism. That you are difficult to work with. That you aren’t taking the job seriously. Do you understand me? Is that what you want? Mel, is that what you want?

 

Mel is silent. She pulls her arm away. They stand there for a long moment.

MEL

I’m going to wait outside until everyone gets here.

STEVE

Good Girl.

 

Mel opens her mouth as if to say Fuck You. She thinks better of it. She pulls out her phone and looking directly into Steve’s eyes she takes a screenshot of the text message. The distinct noise that is made when an iPhone makes a screenshot is heard loudly in the room. Mel Exits.

 

END OF PLAY.

 

 

 

 

 

 

17 January, 2020

Ryan and Alice?

Production History:
Ryan and Alice? had its world premiere on June 2, 2016 at the Cincy Fringe Festival, Cincinnati, OH (Andrew Hungerford, Artistic Director). It was directed by Emma Miller; it was produced by Carly Mungovan. The cast was as follows:

ALICE…Julia Greer

RYAN…Aaron Lynn

 

Characters:

ALICE (19, female)

RYAN (22, male)

 

Setting: A bathroom during a shitty apartment party, some distance outside Louisville, KY.

A (/) in the dialogue indicates when the next character should begin their line.

—

A bathroom in an apartment just outside of Louisville. A toilet. A sink with drawers. A mirror covered in Post-It notes. A bathtub.

 

A house party winds down just outside the bathroom.

 

Ryan, 22, sits on the edge of the tub, loathing everything about his current situation except the beer in his hand. He sits for a while.

 

Eventually, Ryan starts snooping – more out of boredom than curiosity. He finds some lotion, puts it on, smells it, decides he hates it. He finds a pill bottle, shakes it, pockets it. He finds a curling iron. He snaps the curling iron a few times – clipping it to things, then starts playing with it as if it were a light saber. He makes the noises.

RYAN

Whomm! Whomm! “Attachment leads to fear, fear leads to hate, and hate leads to the DARK SIDE.” Whomm!

 

Alice, 19, enters and blankly watches. Ryan finally turns to see her.

RYAN

OCCUPIED!!

ALICE

What are you doing?

RYAN

Nothing. Just washing my hands.

ALICE

That’s my curling iron.

RYAN

Sorry. I’ll just uh–

I was– I washed my hands.

ALICE

Really?

RYAN

Yeah.

ALICE

Was it difficult?

RYAN

What? No.

ALICE

I just thought it would be difficult to wash your hands considering the sink’s water line broke yesterday.

RYAN

Oh.

ALICE

It’s why there’s a “Do Not Enter” sign on the door.

RYAN

I thought that was just, uh, decoration.

ALICE

Well it’s not. The bathroom is off-limits to the party, it’s not somewhere for you to like, LARP, or whatever.

RYAN

I wasn’t LARPING, I–

Sorry. Parties aren’t really my thing.

ALICE

But bathrooms are?

RYAN

Ha. Ha.

ALICE

Who do you even know here?

RYAN

Jeremy.

ALICE

…?

RYAN

My cousin. Tall guy, big arms?

Neck tattoo?

ALICE

That guy.

RYAN

We’re not that close. He brought me to be his wingman. His idea. I kinda owe him.

 

ALICE

You wingman by hiding in the bathroom? Effective.

RYAN

Thanks for the advice.

ALICE

Everyone’s basically left now, you can probably…

RYAN

Right. Well. Have a good… Night.

ALICE

And to you.

 

Ryan opens the door and abruptly comes back in.

ALICE

Um. Excuse me!

RYAN

Sex on the couch.

ALICE

Uh, no thanks!

RYAN

Ha. No. Sex on the couch.

 

Alice opens the door to check.

ALICE

Oh my God.

RYAN

Looks like my wingmanning worked after all!

ALICE

Gross.

RYAN

Victory is mine! Or, his. He’s the one actually getting laid.

ALICE

She must think I’m in my room. And obviously no one thought you were just creeping in the bathroom.

RYAN

Hey, I — parties aren’t really my thing.

ALICE

What is your thing?

RYAN

I don’t know. I guess I don’t have a thing.

 

Alice laughs.

RYAN

I have a thing, okay?!

Are we gonna…

ALICE

What?

RYAN

Shouldn’t you, like, go talk to your roommate?

ALICE

Kristina? No.

RYAN

Okay then…

ALICE

I’m just subletting for the summer – I don’t really know her.

RYAN

Ah.

ALICE

Not well enough to walk in on her, like, indisposed anyway.

RYAN

Great.

ALICE

Can’t you–? He’s your cousin.

RYAN

Oh no no. No. He’d kill me for interrupting. And what’s happening out there is basically mission accomplished for me as tonight’s designated wingman.

ALICE

Gross.

RYAN

So.

 

Ryan sits on the toilet.

ALICE

So??

RYAN

We wait it out? If you’re really not going to go talk to your roommate.

ALICE

No.

RYAN

Then…

ALICE

In the bathroom??

RYAN

I guess.

 

Alice starts breathing.

RYAN

You okay?

ALICE

Yes. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.

 

Alice gets a hold of her breathing.

Silence. Neither one knows what to do.

Ryan starts playing with the toilet paper roll. It unravels.

ALICE

Could you not?

RYAN

Sorry.

ALICE

I have to pay for that.

RYAN

Sorry.

ALICE

People don’t tell you you have to buy toilet paper in the real world. You just come home one day really needing to pee and you’re fucked. Though I guess you wouldn’t have that problem, being a guy.

RYAN

Yeah. Sorry.

ALICE

That’s the first roll of toilet paper I ever bought, and it’s like a symbol of me doing this all on my own and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t waste it.

RYAN

Your first ever?

ALICE

Yeah.

RYAN

How momentous.

You should, uh, you should frame a square like people do with the first dollar they earn.

ALICE

I get direct deposit.

RYAN

No, I know, it was a–. Whatever, it doesn’t–. Sorry.

 

Silence. More silence.

RYAN                                                 ALICE

(simultaneously)                                        (simultaneously)

Why can’t you–                                        Where are you–

ALICE

Ha, what / were you

 RYAN

Sorry, I–

ALICE

Go ahead.

RYAN

No, it’s–

 

Silence.

Alice starts breathing. Ryan notices, but doesn’t say anything.

The breathing dies down.

Finally:

RYAN

Really wish I had some weed.

ALICE

Um…?

RYAN

This is just a really weird and tense… I feel uncomfortable and I think weed would help.

ALICE

Oh.

RYAN

You know?

ALICE

Yeah.

Well no. I’ve never done it before.

 

Silence.

ALICE (CONT.)

Though this seems like an excellent time to start.

RYAN

You don’t ‘do drugs’?

ALICE

No.

RYAN

Oh.

ALICE

I’m not like against it, I just haven’t yet.

RYAN

Okay.

ALICE

Why, do I look like I do drugs?

RYAN

…

ALICE

Wow, you are such an asshole.

 

Alice puts her head between her knees.

Breathing.

Breathing.

Breathing.

RYAN

Shit, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to—

ALICE

I’M IN A FIELD!

RYAN

What?

ALICE

I’M IN A WIDE OPEN FIELD!

RYAN

You’re in a bathroom.

Breathing harder.

 

ALICE

Shut up! Idiot!

RYAN

What did I do?

ALICE

I need to be in a field. I need a minute. I need– I need–

 

She crawls over to the sink drawers, looking for something.

Breathing.

 RYAN

What’s happening?

ALICE

I have–. I just need to find–.

Where the fuck?

 

Breathing.

RYAN

What’s wrong?

ALICE

I need–. Medicine. My pills.

 

BREATHING.

RYAN

…

!!!

Shit! These?

 

Ryan produces the pills from his pocket.

ALICE

Yes!! WHY–???

 

Struggling to breathe.

RYAN

Fuck. Here. How many?

 

Alice holds up two fingers. Ryan gives her two of the pills. He goes to the sink to get her water, forgetting it’s broken.

 RYAN

Shit! Broken fucking sink.

 

He settles on his beer.

ALICE

???

RYAN

I know you’re not supposed to…pills with alcohol. But this seems like–. Like really fucking urgent!!

 

Alice downs the pills. Pause.

ALICE

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK??

 

Breathing.

RYAN

Do you feel– Is it better?

ALICE

WHY WOULD YOU TAKE / MY MEDICINE!

 

Coughing.

RYAN

Shh! Stop! Don’t yell.

 

He clasps his hand over her mouth. She squirms. He holds her down.

RYAN

Shhhhh. Breathe. Through your nose.

How’s your heart? Is it beating real fast?

Is your heart beating real fast??

 

Alice stops struggling and nods her head, yes.

RYAN

Do you feel nauseous? Dizzy?

 

Alice shakes her head, no.

RYAN

You’re going to be okay. Keep breathing.

We can just sit here.

 

He takes his hand off her mouth.

Silence. Some time passes.

ALICE

Thanks? But also, what the fuck??

RYAN

I know – I know –

ALICE

That’s really fucked up. To take someone / else’s meds.

RYAN

I know. Really fucked up.

ALICE

Is that something you like, do? Are you like, an addict?

RYAN

No! No. I just thought – this has been a really fucking weird time for me? Like in my life?

ALICE

I know what you mean – some psycho stranger just stole my anxiety medication.

RYAN

It was just…stupid!! Really stupid! I didn’t even look at what they were.

…

I was going to put them back.

ALICE

No you weren’t.

RYAN

Do you get panic attacks a lot?

ALICE

Do you help people through panic attacks a lot?

RYAN

I asked you first.

ALICE

Sorry, Stranger In My Bathroom. We’re not going down that road.

Pause.

RYAN

You know when you’re old enough to look at your parents and objectively know they’re crazy? And all of a sudden they’re the ones that need to be taken care of? Like, if you were them you’d be able to make much better decisions about their lives?

ALICE

No.

RYAN

What?

ALICE

I’ve never felt that way. My parents are amazing.

RYAN

Oh. Cool.

Pause.

RYAN

You sound better. You’ll probably be okay now.

ALICE

Not likely.

RYAN

Why?

ALICE

I’m stuck in a bathroom.

RYAN

Oh, is it like a claustrophic thing?

ALICE

No, literally just…bathrooms. They kinda freak me out like a lot. I know that sounds really weird but it’s very real and I don’t like the prospect of being trapped in one.

RYAN

Is that a common… fear?

ALICE

I don’t know. Probably not. Like you’re so perfect. Klepto.

RYAN

I didn’t mean common like normal…

ALICE

I don’t know why it’s bathrooms, okay? It’s not my fault.

RYAN

No of course.

ALICE

And it’s not like I was molested in a bathroom as a child or anything.

RYAN

Well that’s…good?

ALICE

I read online that trauma can be passed down through genes that are related to the regulation of stress hormones. So like, if my great-grandmother went through something really traumatic, the effects could show up in my genes.

RYAN

That’s kind of a mindfuck.

ALICE

I know!

Maybe I have Holocaust genes.

 

Baby pause.

RYAN

That would be so cool.

ALICE

What?

RYAN

I mean, the Holocaust was terrible and a tragedy and Hitler and like, stuff...!

ALICE

Uh, yeah. It was unconscionable.

RYAN

But it was Important. “Capitol I” Important. It would be so cool to know you were connected, like in blood or genes or whatever, to something “Capitol I” Important.

ALICE

But the Holocaust?

RYAN

The Holocaust. Or the Trail of Tears! Or the Plague?

 

Beat.

ALICE

So… She must think I’m in my room.

RYAN

Who?

ALICE

Kristina. My roommate. On the couch.

RYAN

Right.

ALICE

She wouldn’t just be having sex out there if she knew we were stuck in here. I think. I don’t actually know. She’s a little weird.

RYAN

Yeah, these motivational notes by the mirror are pretty pathetic.

 

Ryan pulls off a Post-It note and reads:

 RYAN (CONT.)

“Confidence is sexy, but a good hair day doesn’t hurt!”

ALICE

Those are mine.

RYAN

Shit.

 

Ryan carefully returns the Post-It to its place.

RYAN (CONT.)

So…how’s she weird?

ALICE

Um… well she wears a lot of body glitter because apparently the ‘90s are back, and when she washes it off it fucks up our sink.

RYAN

Body glitter? What is she, a stripper?

ALICE

No, she’s a waitress.

RYAN

Oh. Where?

ALICE

Some place by the freeway.

 

Ryan starts laughing.

Beat.

ALICE

Oh my GOD. Is she a stripper? Am I living with a stripper??

RYAN

Hahaha, shit. I think you might be.

ALICE

Oh my God. I have to figure this out.

RYAN

How?

ALICE

I don’t know. Clues. Context clues!

RYAN

Seen any tassels lying around?

ALICE

Gross.

RYAN

Does she pay the rent in vertically folded singles?

ALICE

I don’t know, maybe!

RYAN

Does she come home from work covered in a musk of sad, lonely men?

ALICE

Stop!

RYAN

I could go all day!

ALICE

I know, so stop.

RYAN

I thought you wanted to know.

ALICE

Sometimes you’re better off not knowing.

RYAN

Sometimes you are better off not knowing.

ALICE

What were we talking about before this?

RYAN

Your roommate being weird.

ALICE

My roommate being weird. And maybe a stripper. And I was just pissed that she alphabetizes the pantry!

RYAN

That doesn’t seem so weird.

ALICE

No, like the spices aren’t under “s” for spices, they’re categorized individually. Cumin is under “c” by the chocolate chips and paprika is under “p” by the potatoes. That’s not how I like things.

RYAN

Ok, but how often do you actually use paprika?

ALICE

All the time. I’m a chef.

RYAN

How old are you?

ALICE

RYAN

And you’re already a chef?

ALICE

Well, I’m not really a chef, I’m studying to be a chef. But my instructor says at some point you just gotta start taking yourself seriously and say you’re a chef. I’m working in a kitchen this summer – just chopping vegetables and shit but, still it’s a kitchen. So now, I’m a chef!

Kind of. Now that I say it out loud it sounds kind of stupid.

RYAN

Man, for you being a chef, the snacks here really sucked.

ALICE

???????

 

Ryan starts laughing – it was a joke.

ALICE

You’re pretty weird.

RYAN

Yeah.

 

Pause.

ALICE

I was doing really well. No attacks. Then I get sexiled in a bathroom.

RYAN

Maybe if we made a big noise they’d realize we were / here and

ALICE

We could leave! Yeah, okay let’s do it.

RYAN

Cool.

ALICE

O-kay!!

RYAN

Heh – when we come out together they’ll probably think we were doing it in here.

ALICE

In the bathroom?

RYAN

You’ve never had sex in a bathroom?

 

Beat.

ALICE

What kind of noise should we make?

RYAN

Uh… We could jump? On three?

ALICE

Sure.

RYAN

Okay.

One, two, three!

 

They jump. Thud.

Silence.

They wait.

RYAN

(whispering)

What now?

 

They go to the door to listen. They don’t really both fit, but they try.

ALICE

I can’t hear anything.

RYAN

Me neither.

ALICE

I suppose one of us should check to see if they stopped.

…

RYAN

…

ALICE

Could you?

RYAN

Oh. Right. Okay.

 

He cracks the door as little as possible.

RYAN

Question: Does your roommate keep her condoms in here or somewhere out there?

ALICE

I don’t know!

 

Baby pause.

Alice and Ryan search the bathroom drawers.

ALICE

Nothing.

 

Ryan unearths a pair of rhinestone pasties.

RYAN

Why do you keep fancy stickers in the bathroom?

ALICE

Oh my God.

RYAN

What?

ALICE

Oh my GOD. Those aren’t stickers!

RYAN

What then!

ALICE

They’re context clues.

RYAN

What? Oh!! Shit!

ALICE

They’re pasties.

RYAN

Oh.

What’s a pasty?

ALICE

Girls use them to cover their nipples when they’re naked.

RYAN

Aahh! Gross!

 

Ryan tries to throw them down, but they stick to his hands.

ALICE

Perfect. I officially live with a stripper.

RYAN

Bleh! I don’t wanna get some stripper nipple rash!

ALICE

You’ll be fine.

RYAN

Can herpes be transferred through nipples?

ALICE

No! Calm down.

RYAN

Fuck these things!

 

He finally gets them off his hands.

RYAN (CONT.)

Ha! Fuck you, pasties!

ALICE

Did you find her condoms or not?

RYAN

…

ALICE

Fuuuuck.

RYAN

You’ll be okay?

ALICE

Yeah. I’ll just…

I’m conquering my fears!

 

They settle in.

A long silence.

Alice starts breathing.

RYAN

Um…

ALICE

I think talking helped. Earlier.

RYAN

Okay. Uhh…

What…

How…

…

Ask me a question.

ALICE

Isn’t it weird how when two people – a guy and a girl – are in a room together alone there’s just the possibility of sex, like, inherently? Like, that’s all you need?

RYAN

Uhhh- I-

ALICE

Oh no no no this has nothing to do with you, it’s like a larger observation. So the topic, meaning sex, has to be breached in a way / of asserting–

RYAN

I think you mean broached.

ALICE

What?

RYAN

Topics aren’t breached, they’re broached. Contracts are breached. And trust. And premises.

ALICE

Okay. Whatever. So the topic has to be broached in a way of saying that sex is not going to happen? Like, until you say it’s not going to happen it’s silently out there as a possibility, which I think is really fucked up when you think about consent issues and gender issues and like, if another woman were trapped in here with me she would not have to bring up sex as a way of saying we’re not going to do it like you did earlier.

RYAN

Wait, when?

ALICE

Your joke about us coming out of the bathroom and them thinking we were in here having sex.

RYAN

That’s not why I said that. To reinforce or challenge gender stereotypes–. Wait what was the question?

ALICE

Nevermind.

 

Pause

ALICE (CONT.)

What are your hopes and dreams?!

RYAN

What?

ALICE

I’m changing my question: What are your hopes and dreams?

RYAN

That’s a “go big or go home” kind of question.

ALICE

I need the distraction.

RYAN

Can we start with something easier? Not hopes and dreams, or gender politics, or… world peace?

ALICE

Fine. We established I’m 19…

 RYAN

ALICE

Cool. Are you from here?

RYAN

No. I’m just visiting. I don’t live here.

ALICE

Me neither! Well, for the summer but…

RYAN

I live in San Francisco.

ALICE

Ugh, that’s so cool. I’m going to open a restaurant there one day!

RYAN

Really?

ALICE

Mhmm. My hopes and dreams.

RYAN

That’s pretty awesome.

ALICE

Thanks.

So if you live in San Francisco what are you doing here?

RYAN

Oh. Uh. Just hanging out.

ALICE

With your cousin?

RYAN

Right.

ALICE

How long are you staying?

RYAN

Oh. I don’t know. Until…

…

ALICE

Until…?

RYAN

Until I’m done…hanging.

ALICE

Cool.

RYAN

Yeah.

Until.

Yeah.

…

What kind of food do you cook?

ALICE

…?

French.

RYAN

Why French?

ALICE

It’s classic. Coq au vin, confit de canard…

 

RYAN

All those stinky cheeses?

ALICE

Mmm. Camembert!

RYAN

And frog legs?

ALICE

Oh yeah. Frog legs are the best.

RYAN

I think they’re pretty gross.

ALICE

Well you haven’t had them the way I prepare them.

RYAN

That’s true.

ALICE

Maybe they’d broaden your horizons.

RYAN

Maybe.

 

A long silence.

ALICE

Sorry our place is kind of a shit hole.

RYAN

Oh, no. It’s nice.

ALICE

No, it’s a shit hole.

RYAN

Hey, you’ve got…

 

Ryan looks around trying to find something to compliment. It’s hard.

RYAN (CONT.)

A toothbrush holder! People who live in shit holes are definitely edge-of-the-sink types when it comes to their toothbrushes.

ALICE

Thanks. I couldn’t afford a place actually in Louisville.

RYAN

Sure.

ALICE

Hence the shit hole. At least the commute’s not that bad.

 

RYAN

Yeah – you just have the crazy roommate who has sex on a couch you’ll spend the rest of the summer avoiding.

ALICE

I don’t know how long I can avoid someone I live with.

RYAN

I meant the couch.

 

Alice gets it.

ALICE

Oh, ha.

It’ll all be worth it though, for this restaurant. The executive chef is totally insane but he’s supposed to be this like, genius with Asian fusion.

RYAN

Cool. So. Gone out much yet?

ALICE

No. Not yet.

RYAN

You don’t know anyone here?

ALICE

No. Why? Are you gonna murder me in my own bathroom and flush the evidence down the toilet before my roommate comes up for air from your neck tattoo cousin?

RYAN

What?! No!

That’s really fucked up.

ALICE

No I don’t know anyone here. I mean, there’s the people at the restaurant but, I haven’t gotten like, in, with them yet.

 

RYAN

Oh, right.

ALICE

So when Kristina was like, “We’re having a party, buy chips,” I didn’t fight her on it. I bought the chips. Three kinds.

RYAN

But you didn’t meet anyone?

ALICE

No, it’s so awkward now, like, when you’re not seven, trying to make friends.

RYAN

Definitely.

ALICE

I miss when two kids could sit drinking juice boxes and as long as one didn’t pull the other’s hair that meant they were friends.

RYAN

Or Dunkaroos. Remember Dunkaroos?

ALICE

Uh, YES. Dunkaroos were THE SHIT. I had them in my lunch every day.

RYAN

Seven year old me would have been jealous.

ALICE

Seven year old me wouldn’t have cared. Dunkaroos are too good to share.

RYAN

Damn!

ALICE

I’m not sorry.

RYAN

Maybe if you guys had had juice boxes here.

ALICE

Ha, maybe.

I thought one guy was being really nice, but then I caught him checking out my boobs like four times!

RYAN

Yikes.

 

Ryan is reminded to check out her boobs.

ALICE

I know! It’s like, how am I just expected to carry on the conversation about your engineering internship while pretending you’re not currently picturing me naked!?

RYAN

Engineering internship? Shit that sounds boring.

ALICE

Yeah. He was probably too nice for me anyway. Or too like, like he’d celebrate the one month anniversary of us being friends by posting some inspirational quote about friendship to my Facebook wall.

RYAN

God that sounds terrible.

ALICE

Yeah.

RYAN

I bet you only date musicians.

ALICE

What?!

RYAN

I bet you do.

ALICE

You’re wrong!

RYAN

You seem the type.

ALICE

I’m not a type, I’m a person! Fuck you!

RYAN

You haven’t dated a slew of musicians?

ALICE

…

No.

RYAN

Mmmkay.

ALICE

I bet you only date beer commercial girls. You seem the type.

RYAN

I don’t even know what that means.

ALICE

You know, those girls that are like gorgeous and can rattle off stats about quarterbacks and linebacks and half…backs? Are they all backs? What are they in back of?

RYAN

You’re forgetting safeties, ends, receivers – and football positions actually come from rugby where players were either forwards or backs – in reference to their relation to the main line – and you’re wrong.

ALICE

Yeah, I get it.

RYAN

No. I don’t date beer commercial girls.

ALICE

Oh.

RYAN

I don’t date anybody.

ALICE

Oh. Why not?

RYAN

It’s hard.

ALICE

Dating is difficult for everyone.

RYAN

It feels more difficult for me.

ALICE

Well. I never would have guessed.

RYAN

Thanks.

ALICE

I mean. You’re a fairly attractive person and you just never guess that attractive people are virgins.

RYAN

Wait wait whoa I’m not a virgin!

ALICE

Oh.

RYAN

Not even close.

ALICE

“Not even close?”

RYAN

I’ve had sex with plenty of — with an appropriate number of women.

ALICE

Oh, well, good for you then?

RYAN

Like good sex. To completion.

ALICE

Stop! Gross!! I do not want to hear about your sex life.

RYAN

You brought it up!

ALICE

No I — I did, didn’t I?

RYAN

You called me a virgin.

ALICE

Right.

RYAN

Not that there’s anything wrong with being a virgin.

ALICE

Right!

RYAN

It’s just that I’m not one because I’ve had sex with women.

ALICE

Right.

RYAN

Are you…?

ALICE

No!

RYAN

Not that that would be–

ALICE

I’m not a virgin.

RYAN

Okay.

ALICE

I’m actually very good!

RYAN

I’m very good!

ALICE

Good!

…

RYAN

…?

 

Silence.

RYAN (CONT.)

I did date one girl, once.

ALICE

Yeah?

RYAN

Yeah. In middle school if that counts.

ALICE

It can count.

RYAN

Cool.

ALICE

What was her name?

RYAN

Jennifer Lawrence.

ALICE

Bahahahahaha!

RYAN

No really Jennifer Lawrence.

ALICE

She had the same name as Jennifer Lawrence?

RYAN

No, I dated Jennifer Lawrence. In middle school. At camp.

ALICE

Haha, no. Fuck that.

RYAN

Yeah. She’s from here. Louisville. For like three summers in a row my parents sent me to live here with my aunt and uncle, and one summer my aunt sent us to Camp Kentuckiana.

ALICE

You’re not kidding.

RYAN

When Jeremy gets out from under your roommate you can ask him. He was there!

ALICE

Oh my God. This is really weird.

RYAN

(bragging)

Not to brag but at the end of the week, we uh, we kissed.

ALICE

You kissed J-Law?!?!

RYAN

She wasn’t J-Law, she was Jenn my camp girlfriend. She was actually kind of mean.

ALICE

This is so weird. Like actually fucking insane.

RYAN

Yeah, I guess.

ALICE

She has an Oscar!

RYAN

Yeah.

ALICE

You’ve dated an Oscar winner!

RYAN

Yeah!

ALICE

Well, not really dated right? It was a week at camp in middle school.

RYAN

Hey! You said it could count! No take backs!

ALICE

Fine, fine, you’re right.

RYAN

Thank you.

ALICE

Do you still like, talk to her?

RYAN

No! It was one week when we were 14. I doubt she even remembers.

ALICE

What if she does? What if you’re like, meant to be and every year she’s hoping that fat kid from camp gets in contact with her?

RYAN

Fat kid?

ALICE

I always picture kids at camp being fat.

RYAN

That’s really fucking weird.

ALICE

Like, with their baby fat!

RYAN

Still really weird.

ALICE

Whatever! What if Jennifer Lawrence is hoping the average-sized kid from camp gets in contact with her!

RYAN

I highly doubt that’s the case.

ALICE

But what if it was?

RYAN

It’s not. Trust me.

ALICE

But you never know!

RYAN

I don’t think she’s pining over some chubby 14 year old she cheated on!!

Beat.

ALICE

Oh.

RYAN

Yeah.

ALICE

So you were fat.

RYAN

That’s not– that’s not the fucking point!!

ALICE

I know! Chill!

RYAN

No. I don’t want to “chill.” It was awful.

ALICE

Are you actually complaining about your middle school relationship with Jennifer Lawrence?

RYAN

Yes!

ALICE

That’s your dark relationship past?

RYAN

The whole camp knew. The whole camp knew and no one told me. They just laughed.

ALICE

They laughed at the fat kid?

RYAN

Whatever. Nevermind.

ALICE

No, hey, I’m sorry. This is all just a lot to take in. I won’t laugh. Go ahead.

RYAN

It was the final bonfire on the last night of camp. We said we’d meet there at 7. I put on my best bucket hat and got there just as they opened the marshmallows.

After being distracted by the prospect of smores, I saw her. Sitting on a log. With fucking TIMMY ANDREWS!

ALICE

No!

RYAN

And she just kissed him! In front of everyone! And I got so mad that I threw the squirrel in the bonfire!

ALICE

You threw a squirrel in the bonfire?!?!

RYAN

Not a squirrel.

I had made her a little squirrel figurine out of pine cones in Arts and Crafts.

ALICE

Oh. Sure.

RYAN

And I threw it in the bonfire and everyone laughed.

ALICE

That really does suck.

RYAN

I don’t get cheating. I mean, if you want to be with someone else, fine. Just tell the person first so you aren’t lying.

ALICE

Right.

RYAN

And fucking Timmy Andrews! He knew she was my camp girlfriend! And he just— betrayed me!

ALICE

Fucking Timmy Andrews.

RYAN

I mean, we were Kentuckiana Forest Buddies together!

ALICE

Oh no!

RYAN

I could never do that, you know? I could never betray a Forest Buddy.

ALICE

Yeah.

RYAN

But really, it was her. She’s responsible. You just gotta be up front about these things, you know?

ALICE

Yes.

 

Beat.

ALICE (CONT.)

Yeah. Like. Just be up front. Like, maybe to avoid cheating and awkwardness and stuff people should have to go around with signs on them that say their relationship status like, “I have a boyfriend!”

RYAN

Exactly!!

 

Alice mimes the sign for herself.

ALICE (CONT.)

I have a boyfriend.

 

Beat.

RYAN

Cool. Didn’t ask. But cool.

 

Alice is temporarily mortified. Ryan gets antsy.

RYAN

Are they still going at it out there?

ALICE

I don’t know. Probably.

RYAN

I guess she’s giving him the full package.

ALICE

Hey, she’s a stripper, not a hooker.

RYAN

Better not be, Jeremy doesn’t have any money.

ALICE

Still. There’s a difference.

RYAN

Yeah, but they’re both people. Hookers are people too.

ALICE

Well yeah, all people are people.

RYAN

Right.

ALICE

Exactly.

RYAN

No, I don’t think you get what I mean.

ALICE

No, I do.

RYAN

I don’t think so.

 

Ryan might head for the door.

ALICE

“I really wish I had some weed.”

RYAN

…

ALICE (CONT.)

Or a juice box?

RYAN

…

I think your Post It notes on the mirror are stupid.

ALICE

Okay.

RYAN

And your party was kind of lame.

ALICE

I know.

RYAN

There were maybe 8 people here.

ALICE

I know.

RYAN

Was your boyfriend here?

ALICE

No.

RYAN

Why not?

ALICE

He’s a boyfriend from school.

RYAN

Oh.

ALICE

He was supposed to come with me this summer but his plans changed. To Maine.

RYAN

He left you?

ALICE

He didn’t like leave me. He went to Maine.

RYAN

And you were okay with that?

ALICE

No, actually.

RYAN

But you’re doing long distance? That sucks.

ALICE

We’re not doing long distance.

RYAN

So, he’s your ex-boyfriend?

ALICE

No. But it’s not long distance. Not really, when you think about it.

He thinks about it.

RYAN

Oh yeah. Now that I’ve thought about it it’s still long distance because words still mean what words mean.

ALICE

You are so simple minded.

RYAN

Oh, are you…is your arrangement open, or…?

ALICE

No.

RYAN

Then it’s closed.

ALICE

Yeah, I suppose. Yeah.

RYAN

And you’re in different places?

ALICE

Yeah.

RYAN

That’s a long distance relationship.

ALICE

No you don’t get it. We’re not long distance, we’re pre-local.

RYAN

Pre-local?

ALICE

Yeah, pre-local.

RYAN

That is the stupidest piece of shit I’ve ever heard.

ALICE

Oookay.

RYAN

No really. Of all the shit I’ve heard that one is just tops.

ALICE

You’re making it sound—

RYAN

Juvenile?

ALICE

Exactly.

RYAN

You are a teenager.

ALICE

Ugh, don’t say teenager like that.

RYAN

Like what?

ALICE

Like I own a One Direction poster.

RYAN

But it’s what you are.

ALICE

Only technically. And not for long.

RYAN

Okay?

ALICE

I mean, I’ve been in bars before.

RYAN

Oh, you’ve been in bars before!

 

Beat.

RYAN

So what is the very mature reason why your relationship isn’t long distance?

ALICE

We talked about it and we plan to be together for a while, so really this is just a tiny bit of time that we’re not in the same place before we are in the same place for an extended period of time. Pre-local.

RYAN

Uh-huh…

ALICE

Whatever, it’s long distance.

RYAN

Ah – ha!

ALICE

Technically. Technically it’s long distance.

RYAN

Technically. Like your teenagerism. Teenagerdom? Teenagerism?

ALICE

Yeah, I guess. Technical, but temporary.

RYAN

I was still right!

ALICE

Things change.

RYAN

They certainly do.

ALICE

All the time.

RYAN

They change to Maine, apparently!

ALICE

Yeah.

RYAN

Why?

ALICE

Oh. He decided to Bon Iver himself.

RYAN

Bon Iver?

ALICE

The singer? With the beard and the soft hipster songs?

RYAN

No, I know who Bon Iver is, but, as a verb? To Bon Iver?

ALICE

He shut himself in a cabin in the woods cut off from all civilization.

RYAN

I think that’s Henry David Thoreau-ing.

ALICE

That’s what I told him!!

RYAN

Gotta pay respect to the original!

ALICE

Exactly! But he said, no – when Bon Iver is lacking inspiration he shuts himself in a cabin in the woods and comes out with these amazing songs and that’s what he needed to do now for his music.

Beat.

RYAN

Ha!! – I fucking called it!! He’s a fucking musician!!

ALICE

Shit.

RYAN

He had to do it for his music. Ugh, he sounds like the worst!

ALICE

He’s not the worst.

RYAN

He’s probably one of those guys who when he gets to a party he stages a violent coup of the stereo thinking his musical taste is far superior and he’s like, God’s gift to the party.

ALICE

Please don’t mock him.

RYAN

And he chose Maine.

ALICE

He’s dedicated. So am I. That’s why I chose Louisville and the restaurant.

RYAN

How’s he like Maine?

ALICE

I don’t know.

RYAN

What does he say about it?

ALICE

Nothing.

RYAN

So when he calls you he just says nothing about being in Maine?

ALICE

He doesn’t call – he has to be cut off from all civilization, remember?

RYAN

You guys don’t talk?

ALICE

We’ll talk when he gets back.

RYAN

How can you be in a relationship without talking to the other person?

ALICE

We know what we mean to each other.

RYAN

You’re not in a relationship with him, you’re in a relationship with the memory of him.

ALICE

That’s a terrible thing to say.

RYAN

Not as terrible as up and leaving you.

ALICE

He didn’t like, leave me.

RYAN

He left you. He’s in Maine!

ALICE

Just for the summer!

RYAN

He’s such an asshole. You know, when they leave you – assholes – for any amount of time – they don’t really love you.

ALICE

Whoa. Where the fuck do you get off telling me who does and does not love me?

RYAN

I’m trying to help.

ALICE

Um, HOW? You’ve never been in a relationship, except for with Jennifer Fucking Lawrence when you were fourteen and fat!

 

Alice climbs in the bathtub and aggressively slides the shower curtain closed.

Silence.

RYAN

Boyfriends aren’t the only ones who can leave.

 

Beat.

ALICE

What does that mean?

RYAN

Forget it.

ALICE

If this ends with you telling me some childhood tale about your puppy running away I’m going to be so fucking pissed.

RYAN

My mom.

ALICE

So…not a puppy?

RYAN

We thought she’d show up at her sister’s. My aunt’s.

ALICE

…

Oh! Like, here?

RYAN

Yeah I’m just, I don’t know, waiting? To see if she does? It’s not a big deal. Gives me time to buy beer for my cousin with a fucking neck tattoo.

ALICE

Why’d she leave?

RYAN

I don’t know.

ALICE

Okay.

RYAN

My dad doesn’t like, hit her if that’s what / you’re thinking. He’d never.

ALICE

No, no, no I wasn’t thinking anything.

RYAN

Good.

ALICE

Maybe she has Holocaust genes too. Not that I definitely have them, but.

RYAN

No. She makes her choices. She’s responsible.

ALICE

It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love / you

RYAN

You don’t have to say that. My mom’s just an asshole.

My mom’s an asshole, and your boyfriend’s an asshole. I just wanted you to know that I get what it’s like to have to deal with…assholes.

ALICE

He’s not an asshole.

RYAN

You can do better than an asshole.

 

Pause.

Alice opens the shower curtain.

ALICE

You know what I think it’s time for?

RYAN

What?

ALICE

A  “go big or go home” question.

RYAN

Ha, okay!

ALICE

I don’t want to talk about assholes anymore.

RYAN

Fine by me!

ALICE

So. What’s your number?

RYAN

My phone number?

ALICE

No! Your number. The number of people you’ve had sex with!

RYAN

Do you ever ask people what there favorite color is?

ALICE

Tell me about your conquests!!

RYAN

Mine is blue.

ALICE

Just how appropriate is your number?

RYAN

I don’t want to talk about other girls right now.

ALICE

Too bad. It’s your turn. I wanna hear about you gettin’ that D!

RYAN

What?

ALICE

Or, I guess in your case it would be gettin’ that V? Or P? Or C? Depending on your preferred word for lady bits.

RYAN

Now that I’ve heard you say ‘lady bits’ there’s no way I’m saying anything.

ALICE

Come on!!! How many have there been? Unless you really are a virgin…

RYAN

Eight and a half.

ALICE

Um…?

RYAN

You asked.

ALICE

So like, eight normal women and a midget?

RYAN

No!

ALICE

Eight normal women and a kid??

RYAN

No! No! You’re sick, you know that?

ALICE

Whatever. Explain.

RYAN

Fuck. I only count it as a whole if the woman also… you know?

ALICE

So you’ve had sex with nine women – presumably one night stands as the only girl you’ve dated was a fourteen year old Jennifer Lawrence…

RYAN

Correct.

ALICE

So you’ve had nine one night stands and you think eight of the nine came on the first try?

RYAN

Hey, no one bats a thousand.

ALICE

Statistically your number is about one and a half.

RYAN

I’m not a statistic.

ALICE

That’s what everyone says, but if everyone’s not a statistic then no one’s left to have taken the polls! Science!

RYAN

Well you don’t know.

ALICE

I do know – that’s how statistics work.

RYAN

No – you don’t know that I can only make one and a half girls out of nine come on the first try because you’re not one of the nine girls and you, therefore, are not eligible to partake in the poll. Science!

ALICE

I am at least a girl and I can tell you that there is no way you made eight out of nine girls come on the first try. This shit down here is complicated.

RYAN

It’s not that complicated.

ALICE

Don’t feel bad! It took me all of sophomore year to figure out myself!

RYAN

Tell me more about that.

ALICE

Gross.

RYAN

You can’t definitively say I haven’t figured it out! Because we haven’t had sex. And you’ll probably never know because it’s not like we’re about to have sex in a bathroom.

ALICE

Right. Because…gross.

RYAN

Does your boyfriend who abandoned you think bathroom sex is as gross as you do?

ALICE

Just because your mom legitimately abandoned you / doesn’t give you the right–

RYAN

Wow.

ALICE

–to project your shit on me.

RYAN

You’re right my mom’s an asshole!

ALICE

I would never call your mother an asshole.

RYAN

Why not? I do.

ALICE

What’s wrong with her?

RYAN

It’s fine. Forget about it.

ALICE

You keep bringing it up.

RYAN

You keep bringing up your boyfriend – what’s wrong with him?

ALICE

I only brought him up because you made me!

RYAN

I haven’t made you do anything.

ALICE

No that’s not what I meant.

RYAN

I haven’t made you do anything.

 

Silence.

ALICE

This place is a shit hole.

RYAN

It has its advantages.

ALICE

This tub is so small.

How am I supposed to shave my legs in here?

RYAN

I don’t know. I’ve never shaved my legs, obviously.

ALICE

Lucky. It’s the worst.

RYAN

Um, no. Shaving your chin is so much worse.

ALICE

Do you see the sheer area involved here?

 

Alice holds up a leg.

RYAN

I’m sorry, I have to take a stand. Girls always list how they have it shittier than guys and most of the time that’s true but this, this one’s ours.

ALICE

It’s yours?

RYAN

Try shaving a chin and not nicking yourself.

ALICE

Okay.

RYAN

What?

ALICE

Challenge accepted.

RYAN

You don’t want to shave your face.

ALICE

No, I’ll shave yours.

RYAN

Whoa, that is NOT what I meant.

ALICE

It’s gonna be so easy, you’ll be fine.

RYAN

No we have a lot of like, edges on our faces.

ALICE

I’ve been shaving my knees since I was thirteen and chins are basically the same. Stand up.

RYAN

This is really weird.

ALICE

Well I’m bored and this seems entertaining. Come on.

RYAN

If you cut me I’m gonna / be pissed.

ALICE

Look in my eyes.

 

He does.

ALICE (CONT.)

I’m not going to cut you.

RYAN

Fine.

 

Alice gets the shaving cream and a razor.

RYAN

But be really careful. I’ve found that if you move with the rocking motion of the razor–

 

Alice smears his face and mouth with shaving cream.

ALICE

Shh.

 

She starts shaving his face.

RYAN

Mmm Mmm-MMmmm!!

ALICE

Stop moving your mouth! If you move and I cut you it’s your own damn fault.

 

She shaves his face, gaining confidence until almost all of the shaving cream is gone.

ALICE

Oookay…

Alice grabs a hand towel and wipes off his face.

ALICE (CONT.)

Ta-da! Kind of…

RYAN

What? Is it fucked?

 

Ryan looks in the mirror.

ALICE

No, I think I just missed this neck-beardy part down here. Do you want me to get it?

RYAN

No. Now it’s my turn. To do your legs.

ALICE

What? That’s gross. It’s like, my leg hair.

RYAN

I don’t think it’s gross. You shaved my face, now I get to shave your legs.

ALICE

Legs are different.

RYAN

Yeah, they’re easier.

ALICE

This is weird.

RYAN

I’m bored and this seems entertaining.

 

Beat.

ALICE

Fine. I guess that’s… fair.

RYAN

Take off your shoe.

 

She obeys.

Alice grabs the shaving cream to put on her leg.

RYAN

I’ll do it.

 

Ryan lathers the shaving cream on her leg. He starts to shave really slowly.

ALICE

You’re not–. That’s not shaving anything. You need to do it a little harder.

RYAN

Like this?

ALICE

Yeah.

 

He shaves her leg, pausing to wipe the razor on the hand towel.

No one says anything. Ryan just shaves. He gets more confident.

ALICE

That’s a little too hard.

RYAN

Sorry.

 

It gets really quiet. The razor moves up Alice’s thigh. Ryan hesitates.

He continues.

ALICE

Ow!

RYAN

Shit.

 

Ryan stops shaving.

ALICE

You nicked me.

RYAN

Where? I don’t see it.

ALICE

I felt it.

RYAN

Shit, I’m really sorry.

 

Ryan goes to the toilet paper, the roll unravels.

RYAN

Fuck! You pay for this, I know. Sorry.

ALICE

It’s fine, it’s fine.

RYAN

No, it’s your first, momentous roll and I’ve fucked it up again.

ALICE

I don’t care about the stupid toilet paper.

RYAN

Really?

ALICE

Really.

RYAN

Cause before it was like a thing.

ALICE

Do whatever you want with the toilet paper.

RYAN

Oh yeah?

 

Ryan wraps himself up like a mummy. He acts like a mummy, making scary noises.

RYAN (CONT.)

OooOooOoooo.

ALICE

…

Pause.

RYAN

Okay. I thought it would make you laugh. But you’re not laughing.

And now I feel like an idiot!

ALICE

You kind of look like a piece of shit. I mean, wrapped in toilet paper and all.

RYAN

Cool. I was going for mummy, but.

ALICE

Are you a piece of shit?

RYAN

I don’t think so.

I try not to be.

ALICE

Good.

 

Alice wipes off her leg. Ryan takes off the toilet paper.

Silence.

RYAN

Another question?

ALICE

Okay. Go big or go home?

RYAN

Go big or go home.

ALICE

Where do…

…

Why did your mom leave?

RYAN

Pass.

ALICE

Do you think she’ll show up?

RYAN

Pass.

ALICE

Has she left before?

RYAN

Why are you still with a guy who chose the woods over you?

 

Beat.

ALICE

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

RYAN

Uh…

I don’t know. You go first, you probably have a whole thing prepared.

ALICE

Oh I have absolutely no idea. It’s a dumb question.

RYAN

You asked it!

ALICE

Doesn’t make it less dumb!

RYAN

You’re the strangest person.

ALICE

I’ve trained myself to take comments like that as compliments.

RYAN

You’re not wrong to.

ALICE

Truth is I have no idea where I’ll be in ten years. The plan was always get to college, and then when I got there I realized I had no idea what I was doing anything for anymore. Like, in pursuit of.

RYAN

Oh. Shit.

ALICE

Yeah…

RYAN

Ok – uh – well you’ll be a college graduate.

ALICE

Yes. God willing.

RYAN

So you’ll probably have a steady job and a 401K and a mortgage.

ALICE

Ha – I’ll be lucky to have paid off my student loans.

RYAN

Oh, right. Yikes.

…

I know mine!

ALICE

What?

RYAN

I know mine now! What I’ll be doing in ten years.

ALICE

Great! What is it?

RYAN

Eating at your restaurant! In San Francisco!

ALICE

Whaaat?

RYAN

Yeah, I mean. I literally have no idea what I’m doing next week let alone in 10 years so. Yeah. Eating at your restaurant sounds pretty good to me.

ALICE

You don’t have to say—

RYAN

Hey, man! This is my ten year plan and I can do whatever I want. I want to be eating at your restaurant. There – I’m your first reservation.

ALICE

Okay then!

RYAN

I guess you’ll really have to do it now!

ALICE

Yeah. I guess I will!

RYAN

What would you make me? To eat?

ALICE

I don’t know.

RYAN

Yes you do, it’s your dream.

ALICE

Um… To start, I could make a provençal tarte with tomato and zucchini and aubergine. Kind of like a mini ratatouille.

RYAN

Like the Pixar movie?

ALICE

Yes. Like the Pixar movie. Except like, way better.

RYAN

Hey, I think Ratatouille is one of the more underrated Pixar movies! That ratatouille at the end made the evil critic guy feel something!

ALICE

Whatever, it’s not as good as the real thing sitting in front of you!

RYAN

I agree. What would you make for me next?

ALICE

Um… Oh! It has to be cuisses de grenouille.

RYAN

Cool! What is it?

ALICE

Sautéed frog legs!

RYAN

Ha! Right. To broaden my horizons.

ALICE

I promise they’ll change your life.

RYAN

Life changing frog legs?!

ALICE

Yes. I’m that good.

RYAN

I’m sure you are.

ALICE

I am.

RYAN

But I’m going to have to be drunk to eat frog legs. Wine?

ALICE

Of course there’ll be wine. You can’t eat French food without the wine!

RYAN

But none of those stinky cheeses.

ALICE

Oh, you’ll eat the stinky cheeses!

RYAN

Nooo!

ALICE

Epoisses de Bourgogne, affine au chablis, le pavin d’Auvergne…

RYAN

And for dessert? I like chocolate.

ALICE

How about a chocolate tarte tropézienne?

RYAN

What’s that?

ALICE

Giant cream puff.

RYAN

Say it again.

ALICE

Giant cream puff.

RYAN

No, in French!

ALICE

Tarte tropézienne.

RYAN

Again.

ALICE

Tarte tropézienne.

RYAN

Again.

ALICE

Tropézienne.

…!

RYAN

…!

 

Someone might be about to make a move.

RYAN

You’re really–

ALICE

I have to pee.

RYAN

Oh.

 

Pause.

ALICE

It’s just. I did originally come in here to pee before we were sexiled and it’s been like a while and so now it’s becoming like a more urgent matter.

RYAN

Oh. Yeah of course.

ALICE

Thanks.

RYAN

I’ll just brave myself for battle out there. A guy with a neck tattoo can’t hit too hard, right?

ALICE

I think they were probably done a while ago.

RYAN

Yeah.

ALICE

So.

RYAN

Well uh.

ALICE

Good luck with your mom. Whatever that situation is. Just. Good luck.

RYAN

Thanks.

ALICE

And good luck in other stuff too. Whatever other stuff comes up.

RYAN

Thanks. Good luck with your stripper roommate.

ALICE

Ha, thanks.

RYAN

So…

 

Ryan goes to the door. He pauses.

RYAN

Is this–? So I’ll just leave now.

 

He doesn’t.

ALICE

You can find me here. I don’t know how long you’ll be in town, waiting, you know…

RYAN

Yeah. Um, well she hasn’t shown up yet.

ALICE

Right. So, I don’t know a lot of people here and if you want, like, a friend?

RYAN

Right. A friend.

ALICE

I’d like that.

RYAN

I’ll bring juice boxes. Next time.

ALICE

Okay.

RYAN

I don’t think they still make Dunkaroos.

ALICE

I wouldn’t share them anyway!

RYAN

Right. Ha. Well. I’ll let you–

ALICE

Thanks.

RYAN

I was just going to say– Earlier. I was just going to say you’re really nice.

ALICE

Thanks.

RYAN

So I’ll see you soon.

ALICE

See you soon.

RYAN

Good. Well. Wish me luck!

 

Ryan looks at the door and makes like he’s braving himself for battle.

Alice laughs.

ALICE

Good luck.

 

Ryan’s gone. Alice is left alone.

Suddenly, Ryan is back.

RYAN

We never…

ALICE

Yeah?!

 

Ryan steps forward and holds out his hand.

RYAN

I’m Ryan.

ALICE

Oh. Alice.

 

They exchange awkward laughs and a handshake that lasts a beat too long.

RYAN

Bye.

 

Ryan goes. Alice is left alone.

She doesn’t pee.

 

Blackout.

 

End of Play.

 

 

17 January, 2020

Basil

I BUY A BASIL plant for the summer. The plant had stood alone, perched on a barren shelf at Trader Joe’s—lush, a tempting canopy cloud of green. I do not expect it to last the summer, not weeks of leading hiking and camping trips for middle-schoolers throughout the High Sierras of California. But my heart had leapt so involuntarily when I first spotted it, sparkling from a recent watering, blooming happily below a tray of yellowing mangos, that I couldn’t resist. I didn’t care if the basil eventually died. It was my first time leading children into the wilderness, and I had spent the previous day on the plane to San Francisco, journaling frantically.

What does it mean to be a good leader? What is most important to embody? I want my kids to love the world, to see how beauty and connections thrum in the air, soil, and water—I want my kids to love each other.

I wanted badly to do it right, the leading of the next generation, and seeing the basil with its leaves so large and tight together, made me think of my mother taking a pot of basil from the windowsill above our kitchen sink. Pinch the top leaves gently, she had said to me, her shoulder-length dark hair falling across her cheek as she brought the basil down to my eye-level. Right at the stem. My young fingers fumbling along the tender stalks. There, yes. A curling leaf snapping off between my thumb and forefinger.  It’s good to take the leaves, she said, standing up and carefully placing the pot back on the sill. It promotes healthy growth.

In the grocery aisle, bright visions swarm—gathering around the basil every morning with the kids, watching them pour a gentle stream of water from their Nalgenes, teaching them to pinch the minuscule flowers, helping them pluck a few choice leaves to dazzle our spaghetti night. We care for this plant, I imagine proclaiming to a cluster of entranced 11-year-olds, all who had fought valiantly for the privilege of watering the basil.  And in return, it takes care of us. I imagine connecting the lesson to how our group would care for one other on the trail when we were all we had for miles and to our responsibility to the earth—with its glacial lakes, red-rooted sequoias, billions of squirming microbes dying and birthing and eating each other in thick fertile soil— which gave us life and breath, so freely.

“Sure,” my co-leader Lewis says, blue eyes amused. He has tight brown-gold curls and reminds me vaguely of a bear. “Why not?” I cup the basil with two hands, the warmth of the knotted roots soaking through the thin plastic pot. On the ride back to our hotel, I hold it on my lap for fear it will get crushed.

 

A four-thousand-year-old herb with a golden lineage tracing back to India, Egypt, and China settles on the vibrating dash of our fifteen-passenger white van as we drive shouting children through the California dust. Ociumum basilicum—sweet basil, a member of the great mint family, famed for its extensive culinary uses, and twisted in its own tempestuous, clashing mythology. In a lengthy introduction to the basil literature within different cultures, Basil: An Herb Society of America Guide proclaims: “In terms of legend and symbolism, basil has been both loved and feared. Its associations include love and hate, danger and protection, life and death.”

 

On our first night near the summit of Mt. Diablo, I hold the basil up to the cluster of kids waiting in headlamps around the picnic table for their dessert. This was after an eternal, exhausting evening. After a dimpled Boy-Scout of a kid told me that he was Knife-Certified (by whom? I should have asked) and proceeded to stab his palm five-minutes into cutting red peppers. After a quiet boy with neat blonde hair hid among vines of poison oak. After a swarm of raccoons covered our food cooler and their leader—a scraggly fellow with glinting green eyes—crawled menacingly towards the children and Lewis gave everyone permission to throw rocks to keep him at bay. After a dinner in pitch darkness. After a tiny girl from the Hamptons taught me to star-spin—wheeling in circles upon circles and falling to gaze at careening specks in the sky.

“This is our Power Object,” I say to the kids, extending the basil like an offering. Its leaves flutter darkly, a picture of health. “It’s incredible because whoever’s holding Basil has the floor to speak. The person with Basil has our full respect, our full attention. Everyone here has important things to say.”

The kids murmur, giggle, peering at the strange, shadowy faces of each other. I pass Basil to the girl next to me so that we can start sharing our Highs and Lows of the day. It is difficult for the kids to control their excitement, their nerves—laughter breaks, shouts pointing out new raccoons creeping in the trees.

“Hey,” Lewis says in his gentle voice. “Who has Basil now? Who are we listening to?”

Their eyes turn, searching.

 

Dioscorides, a Greek physician whose classical botanical works were referenced for over sixteen centuries, warned that too much basil can “dulleth the sight…and is of hard digestion,” but John Gerad—who became one of the most prevalent English botanists in the 1500s—applauded basil as a remedy for melancholy.

A kid, sobbing of homesickness, hugs her knees under the pines while the other kids spread mayonnaise on turkey sandwiches. She doesn’t eat for the first day and a half, takes small bites of plain yogurt, throws up in the bathroom while I rub her back. On our afternoon hike to a waterfall, she lags. Another taller girl—known for the stuffed otter she packed inside her sleeping bag—falls in step beside her. “I was sad too, at the airport,” the taller girl says softly. “I didn’t want to let go of my mom.” That night, the homesick kid holds Basil, a borrowed stuffed otter tucked into her lap, and says to the group: “I want to thank my new friend for making me feel at home.”

 

For a few blissful days, we leave Basil outside on sunny stumps while we go hiking. But in the Yosemite, we return to tragedy—Basil torn and bitten, clawed to pieces, a handful of straggling leaves remaining of his once full canopy. After that, we put Basil in the bear box whenever we leave camp—long times of darkness, squeezed in stale metal-air between our cooler and the trash bag from breakfast. I take him out as soon as we return and place him in the sunniest patch I can find, but the evening light is never enough. I glare at every fat squirrel who dares to sniff around our picnic table.

 

An herbalist named Chrysippus wrote of basil’s heady, intoxicating scent in pre-206 B.C.E.: “Ocimum exists only to drive men insane.”

In the moments when Lewis and I are looking away, when we are unloading bags from the trailer, boiling water, setting up tents, our wildest kid leaps on the quiet boy infected with poison oak and punches him in the jaw. Lights the hand-sanitizer that he squirted into his cupped palm on fire. Catches Knife-Certified dimpled kid in a chokehold. “Tap out,” wild kid says through gritted teeth. “Tap out!” His arm bulges around Knife-Certified kid’s neck. Knife-Certified’s face is turning red.

“Never! I’ll never surrender!” he sputters. He sees us running toward them.

 

‘You’re in charge of Basil,’ I say to the girl sitting behind the passenger seat. Basil is on the floor by her feet. She nods without looking at Basil and ten minutes through the drive, swings her legs enthusiastically—Basil flies and flops all over the van floor. Soil spilling, Basil limp and pathetic as a runover animal, a green goldfish out of his bowl.

“No worries, no worries,” I say to the unconcerned girl, scooping up the soil as if every second is frantic and precious. “No worries, we’ll fix him.” She nods, looks back to the friendship bracelet tied to her water bottle.

 

It was strongly believed in Ancient Greece and Rome that basil would only grow well under conditions of verbal abuse. During planting season, sowers would swear at the seeds.

In the Victorian Language of Flowers, giving sweet basil conveyed your best wishes. In Crete, people placed basil plants where they needed protection from the devil.

 

‘I don’t think you understand,’ I say, treading the clear water of Lake Tahoe, craning my neck to gaze up at the twelve kids frowning down at me from a tall rock jutting out over the lake. They want to jump from the rock into hip-deep water, and I can hear the ankles snapping, shins jutting. ‘It is my job to keep you safe.’

 

A boy, tall and gangly, falls off his bike and breaks his front tooth in half, scrapes running down his legs. Blood on his chin. “Don’t send me home,” he begs. First words out of his mouth. “I want to finish.” Finish biking hundreds of miles along the winding wildflower coast, steep hills rolling up to mountains, golden grass tumbling near tight drops, the ocean always roaring wetly below. I don’t want to leave either, ever. I want to curl up in the long grass until I feel like a rabbit or a mountain lion, until I cannot remember who I love. We put the shattered tooth in a Ziploc bag, and when the grey-haired dentist with the German accent tells us that the fragments aren’t needed and that the boy is fine to keep riding, I offer to throw the bag away. The skinny boy grabs my arm, grins skeletally in relief. “No, I want to keep it.”

 

“Basil has bugs in him.” Lewis shows me the tiny critters, grey and crawling around the thinning stalks. Tiny holes in the remaining leaves. “And a mold problem.” Baby-blue mold, pale and fine and furry, tenderly covering the damp soil. It’s almost cute—Basil hosting other life.

 

I wish I would have known that a French doctor named Hilarius in the 1500s claimed that basil caused the “spontaneous generation of scorpions” and could prompt scorpions to grow in the brain. After I had made an urgent announcement that Basil was too weak to give any more of his leaves, a punk kid looked me dead in the eye, plucked the biggest curled leaf, and put it in his mouth. I wish I could have told him that his brain would soon fester with nests of scorpions.

 

When did it become more than basil?

 

It triggers a vulnerability, some hope deep inside of me, memories of past basil plants I cannot hold back. The basil that I had bought in Dublin to spice up the loneliness of my single room while I was studying abroad. I woke each morning to the basil outlined in the faint sun from the tiny window that faced the bricks of the Guinness Factory. It was the first time that I was cooking for myself—I bought exotic, real-adult foods like avocados with pride— and I used the basil sparingly in my consistent meals of chewy angel hair pasta.

The basil that I bought the August of my senior year at a farmer’s market, the North Carolina air hot and humid, oaks and dogwoods sweltering. I put the pot on the windowsill of my first-floor room in between a row of books. My first love of four years, a boy with dark hair and long eyelashes, adored the basil. Before he would leave my room in the morning, he would often walk over to the windowsill and bring the plant close to his face, as if he was kissing it.

“Basil reminds me of my mother,” he would say. “She made the best pizza when we were little.” When I broke up with him after graduation, I couldn’t look at basil without thinking of him, of his mother’s hands kneading dough to feed a young son.

Then the basil of Italy, only a few months back, growing in a thick bush in the terrace garden. I did not have to care for it because it grew so well. When rain swept through in curtains, bright red poppies sprouted around it like hearts, like lips. In the evenings, I would go down to the garden with a beautiful girl whose black curls sprung like ringing bells in the wind, and we would pick basil leaves to crush for pesto. We kissed for the first time in an old stone room where the fattoria stored their lemon trees in winter. We painted a poem in rainbow colors on the white wall—there are enough ballrooms in you to dance with anyone you’ll ever love.

 

“They say nothing lasts forever,” Ocean Vuong writes in his novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. “But they’re just scared it will last longer than they can love it.” I’m reading Ocean’s novel on the shore, and Lewis stretches out above me on a bone-white tree trunk, tanning his already golden skin. His curls shine when drenched in salt-water.

 

In parts of Italy, sweet basil is thought to influence attraction, and some call it “bacia-nicola”—or “kiss me Nicholas.” A basil pot on a windowsill is meant to signal a lover.

 

Sometimes, it seems that Lewis’ body is mine, and mine is his. When I move to take down tents, he moves to clean dishes. I don’t have to look to know he is crouching with the kids around a map, showing them the blue lines of the rivers, the steepness of the slopes. He shaves the side of my head, fingers slow and careful, while I sit in the bright sun on the edge of a cliff, watching pale moths flutter to flowers.

The thoughtless way we share. He hands me his sandwich; I give him my coffee. We pass toothpaste and deodorant back and forth. He buys two different flavors of ice teas and stands in front of me, pouring tea from bottle to bottle, until the swirl of black and lemon is smooth and perfect. When the kids ask questions that we can’t answer, we repeat: “Lewis and I are going to talk about it” or “Jackie and I are going to talk about it,” until they roll their eyes. After the kids are asleep, we sit together on the ground, exhausted, and look up at the stars over the dark pines.

I forget what it is like to feel alone.

 

I wish that he had a girlfriend or someone he was hooking up with, so that our possibilities could continue to be nothing more than they are at this moment—I am his friend, his partner, his co-leader. I want to always stand by him, to have this easy, unquestionable loyalty remain unquestionable. If I remain his friend, I will never have to leave him.

 

Do you want to go grocery shopping, he says softly, our cheeks touching. We’re in between trips and without kids, huddled behind a stack of driftwood. We had walked miles down the beach in the wind, eyelashes crusted with salt. We had been thinking of buying bananas for dinner, chips and salsa, anything we didn’t have to cook. Not really, I say. Me either, he says. In the kiss, I feel grains of sand. Our lips don’t match quite right at first, and I don’t mind at all, I want his skin so badly.

 

The Herb Society Guide: “In his seventeenth-century herbal, Parkinson claimed basil could be used to ‘procure a cheerful and merry heart.’”

Frosty, fog-drenched beaches. Lewis and I eat fresh strawberries and chase seagulls. We build a boat out of sand and sit inside it together, looking out at the waves, squealing when the water splashes over the prow—it seems as if we are deep out at sea. We arm-wrestle on the floor of our hostel, play cards, sleep huddled under a dark bridge, under an orange moon.

 

He laughs once, while we’re in the tent. Whenever we’re kissing, he says, you get this look on your face. So contemplative. Like you’re torn, you’re thinking so much.

I cover my face with my hands, instinctively.

How to tell him— a boy who can lay on the shore and naturally think of nothing, like an ancient monk who has spent years perfecting the art of giving into oblivion, of losing the self to the feel of warm pebbles pressing into the back—that my thoughts haven’t been this still in years? That in this summer brimming with Band-Aids, snow-capped peaks, and massive unfolding paper maps, I haven’t had the energy to tear into my doubts about the future and life-purpose and so I have been entirely happy?

Until there aren’t any children around and I realize—I want him. And the wanting brings my shivering, hibernating self to life—it stumbles out of its cave and into the sun, blinking, turning, confused, questions whirling around it like a swarm of crows. How far do I go? What do I give? Am I allowed to need him? Will this hurt?

 

The thing I most want to tell him and don’t: Lewis, if you’re happy, I’m happy.

 

Basil, linked to sprouting at the foot of Christ’s cross and determining chastity, is said to “wither in the hands of the impure.”

Stay alive, I think, picking off yellow, fragile leaves. Lewis’ hands in my hair, my hands pulling up his shirt. We are in each other’s arms, sun setting over white swirling water, seals diving in frothy surf. Stay alive.

 

The real thing I most want to tell him, that I am most afraid to tell him: I like you so much that the like slips into deep tenderness, slips into an aching desire to have your cheek against mine, slips into love like a seal swimming through underwater crevices.

 

Where is the narrative? Where is the thread? An invisible needle driving through us all, the first ten kids, the last twelve, Lewis and I. Basil trembling on the van dashboard, down to a scattering of ragged leaves, passed around our dessert circle every night from small hand to small hand.  Sandy coast paths lined with crimson columbines, fountain-like harebells, clusters of smoky mariposas. The Knife-Certified kid muttering, “The bus doesn’t stop in your neighborhood,” as a pigtailed girl talks about how much she adores her butler. We climb jagged ridges, up and up, kids following like ducklings until we can go no further. A baby bear trundling off the trail, kids oohing. Snowdrifts up to our waist. Days of burning blue water under a rising moon, strings of seaweed dripping off rock walls as I press myself against the bottom of a cliff, waves lapping my numb toes, huddled in a concave that the ocean tides and I managed to find. Lewis wades around the corner after a few minutes, a flowery faded pink towel draped around his neck. We stand close, flattening ourselves against the seaweed hanging like tinsel, as the tides rise higher.

 

Somehow, through everything, Basil survives the summer, straggly leaves thrusting, the blue mold and grey bugs vanished.

But in the chaos of packing and cleaning, it isn’t till we’re flying back to Massachusetts that I realize we left Basil alone in the Holiday Inn parking lot, tucked under a small tree.  Part of me thinks—better that we forgot him. Better that we didn’t deliberately choose to leave him behind. Better that the decision of abandonment was made for us, that we didn’t have to watch him while he died.

And then the other part of me hopes—Basil is free. He is wild. Unlocked from bear boxes, he grows unstoppable in the fresh air, in shifting sunlight and shadows, untamable by human hands. He is bursting into bloom, sending green tendrils and baby scorpions racing through the parking lot, wrecking love among the hotel staff, unbeholden to the end of summer.