Improvisation полностью

“Oh, sure. Same way Sue is a waitress. But our ambition is to act.”

“We’re gonna be stars one day.”

“Our names up in lights on Broadway.”

“The Carter Sisters,” Jessica said.

“Susan and Jessica!” her sister said.

“I’ll drink to that,” Will said.

They all drank again.

“We’re not really from Montgomery, you know,” Jessica said.

“Well, I realize that now. But that certainly was a good accent, Susan.”

“Regional dialect,” she corrected.

“We’re from Seattle.”

“Where it rains all the time,” Will said.

“Oh, that’s not true at all,” Susan said. “Actually it rains less in Seattle than it does in New York, that’s a fact.”

“A statistically proven fact,” Jessica said, nodding in agreement, and draining her glass. “Is there any more bubbly out there?”

“Oh, lots,” Susan said, and shoved herself out of the easy chair, exposing a fair amount of thigh as she got to her feet.

Will handed her his empty glass, too. He sure hoped the ladies wouldn’t be drinking too much here. There was some serious business to take care of here tonight, some serious improvisation to do.

“So how long have you been living here in New York?” he asked. “Was it true what you said in the bar? Is it really only six months?”

“That’s right,” Jessica said. “Since the end of June.”

“We’ve been taking acting classes since then.”

“Were you really in The Glass Menagerie? The Paper Players? Is there such a thing as the Paper Players?”

“Oh yes,” Susan said, coming back with their replenished glasses. “But in Seattle.”

“We’ve never been to Montgomery.”

“That was part of my character,” Susan said. “The character I was assuming in the bar. Little Suzie Sad Ass.”

Both girls laughed.

Will laughed along with them.

“I played Amanda Wingate,” Jessica said.

“In The Glass Menagerie” Susan explained. “When we did it in Seattle. Laura’s mother. Amanda Wingate.”

“Actually I am the older one,” Jessica said. “In real life.”

“She’s thirty,” Susan said. “I’m twenty-eight.”

“Here all alone in the big bad city,” Will said.

“Yep, here all alone,” Jessica said.

“Is that where you girls sleep?” Will asked. “The bed across the room there? The two of you all alone in that big bad bed?”

“Uh-oh,” Jessica said. “He wants to know where we sleep, Sue.”

“Better be careful,” Susan said.

Will figured he ought to back off a little, play it a bit more slowly here.

“So where’s this acting school you go to?” he asked.

“Right on Eighth Avenue.”

“Near the Biltmore,” Susan said. “Do you know the Biltmore Theater?”

“No, I don’t,” Will said. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, near there,” Jessica said. “Madame D’Arbousse, do you know her work?”

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“Well, she’s only famous,” Susan said.

“I’m sorry, I’m just not familiar with…”

“The D’Arbousse School? You’ve never heard of the D’Arbousse School of Acting?”

“I’m sorry, no.”

“It’s only world-famous,” Susan said.

She seemed to be pouting now, almost petulant. Will figured he was losing ground here. Fast.

“So… uh… what was the idea of putting on the costume tonight?” he asked. “Going to that bar as a… well… I hope you’ll forgive me… a frumpy little file clerk, was what I thought you were.”

“It was that good, huh?” Susan said, smiling. Her smile, without the fake overbite, was actually quite lovely. Her mouth didn’t look as thin-lipped anymore, either. Amazing what a little lipstick could do to plump up a girl’s lips. He imagined those lips on his own lips, in the bed across the room there. He imagined her sister’s lips on his, too. Imagined all their lips entangled, intertwined…

“That was part of the exercise,” Susan said.

“The exercise?”

“Finding the place,” Jessica said.

“The character’s place,” Susan said. “For a private moment,” Jessica explained.

“Finding the place for a character’s private moment.”

“We thought it might be the bar.”

“But now we think it might be here.”

“Well, it will be here,” Jessica said. “Once we create it.”

They were losing Will. More important, he felt he was losing them. That bed, maybe fifteen feet away across the room, seemed to be receding into an unreachable distance. He had to get this thing back on track. But he didn’t know how quite yet. Not while they were rattling on about… what were they saying, anyway?

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but what exactly is it you’re trying to create?”

“A character’s private moment,” Jessica said.

“Is this the place we’re going to use?” Susan asked.

“I think so, yes. Don’t you think so? Our own apartment. A real place. It feels very real to me. Doesn’t it feel real to you, Sue?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, it does. It feels very real. But I don’t feel private yet. Do you feel private?”

“No, not yet.”

“Excuse me, ladies…” Will said.

“Ladies, ooo hoo,” Susan said, and rolled her eyes.

“… but we can get a lot more private here, if that’s what you ladies are looking for here.”

“We’re talking about a private moment? Jessica explained. “The way we behave when no one’s watching.”

“No one’s watching us right now,” Will said encouragingly. “We can do whatever we wish to do here, and no one will ever…”