PETER: Amazing! So unexpectedly. He was striking, brilliant, so able…
Pause.
What now…
ANNA: Peter, you’ve come to agree about our divorce. Let’s start.
PETER: Anna, wait, wait… let me see…
ANNA: Just a second. I will get the agreement you sent me.
PETER: Anna, I don’t know…
ANNA: Since you’ve come, let’s do it. We need to dot all the “i”s…
PETER: I need time…I have to understand… Maybe, I’ve changed my mind…
THE END
BOB: 14-year-old boy
MA: Peter’s mother
A living room. Curtains drawn over a window. At rise BOB’S hand is poised and eyes are staring at the phone he expects to answer any second. Ma enters in a rush and grabs for the phone. Peter deftly deflects her hand and grabs the receiver him self.
MA: Why did you do that? I have to call Aunt Gail.
BOB: Call her later.
MA: I want to call her now.
BOB: Can’t you see? I’m expecting a call.
MA: Who?
BOB: Emma will call. We agreed to go to the movies.
MA: Why don’t you call her?
BOB: It’s the Sabbath. Her family can’t use the phone until “first star”, like around sunset time.
MA: Give me the phone. Gail and I can certainly finish talking before sunset!
BOB: No! Emma will call any minute from a pay phone.
(
Call later after Emma and I go… or call her on your cell phone…
MA: I have to pay to use the cell phone before nine o’clock.
BOB: Call after nine… What’s the hurry?
MA: Aunt Gail owed me $100. She gave it back to me yesterday, but when I counted it, $10 was missing. Maybe this was her installment idea, or a mistake.
BOB: Why doesn’t Emma call? I asked her a week ago and I reminded her again yesterday. She promised to call. I hope… I hope…
MA: Try calling her yourself.
BOB: I did. No one answered. Maybe she’s sick.
MA: If she’s sick she certainly should have called you.
BOB: Look at me Ma. What’s different?
(
MA: You shaved! Why?
BOB: Girls were teasing me “Fuzz Face”. What do you think?
MA: That was such nice soft fuzz on your cheeks. I loved to stroke it. Where did you get the razor?
BOB: Uncle Ted, Aunt Gale’s boyfriend. He has an electric shaver.
MA: So soon…
BOB: I told you I wanted to shave.
MA: I know you wanted to shave for your date… Did you use an after-shave lotion?
BOB: No. Should have?
MA: All your pimples are bright red… Next time we’ll at least put some rubbing alcohol on your face after shaving…
BOB: I saw… I’m so embarrassed… Ma why doesn’t Emma call? She should…
MA: I don’t know… Instead of doing your homework you are wasting time shaving too soon and mooning over a girl. Silliness…
BOB: It’s not silly. I just want to go to the movies with Emma… Practically all the boys in my class have girl friends… I have nothing to boast about and, they don’t talk to me…
MA: And they won’t until you do better in school… Good marks get respect…
BOB: Girls don’t care about boys’ marks! They like boys who risk and clown and have to stay after school.
MA: Emma?
BOB: She’s smart…
MA: Then why don’t you work harder? Talk to her about hard homework…
BOB: There’s nothing I’m interested in…
MA: Now the school psychiatrist wants me to go and talk with him. Are you arguing with your teachers again?
BOB: They tell stories and stupid lies.
MA: What lies? Tell the truth now!
BOB: Mr. Small my biology teacher said that he’s reading Solzhenizin’s book “Archipelago Gulag” and that if a man peed outside in the winter cold the hospital could operate on his frozen penis without anesthesia!
I raised my hand and said this was stupid.
MA: How do you know that it was not true?
BOB: I didn’t, but I asked Uncle Ted and he agreed that it didn’t sound right.
MA: I really don’t care whether it can happen… tell me better about your session yesterday with the psychiatrist.
BOB (
MA: So?
BOB: I don’t know the last part of the alphabet, so I built a pyramid out of the blocks…
MA: I’ve got a son who doesn’t want to learn and I have to go to school!
… Have you started that report you have to hand in Tuesday?
BOB: No, but…
MA: Emma won’t call you!
BOB: Why?
MA: When I was a little girl I studied hard and liked boys who were good in school. And you are just a… You just have to learn…
BOB: All you say is study, study… you forget that now it’s spring…
(
MA: That was a long time ago… in Russia… I don’t remember.
BOB: But I want to know something about my father…You loved him?
MA: Yes, I loved him…
BOB: Was he your first love?
MA: First, no! When I was in school there was the boy that I liked, all the girls liked him too…
BOB: Did he like you?
MA: No.
BOB: So nothing happened?
