Tea

Let folly fall from your kettle.

Hastened reproach poured, searing throats.

Boiled water burns and departs forsaken.

For wise words steep in meditation,

Leaving fools to drown in their potency.

The Chrysler New Yorker Society

By: Evan Adent

ALICE- The driver and owner of the car.

BEATRICE-Alice’s Friend

CAROLINE- Beatrice’s Friend

DEBRA-Caroline’s Friend

ELIZA- No one’s Friend

INT. NEW YORKER - AFTERNOON

It’s mid-spring’s day in a quiet suburban neighborhood. No one is outside as all the adults are at work and all the children are in school. The only activity beyond the occasional dog bark is a New Yorker parked across the street from a nice, well taken care of home. In the car are 5 old women, ALICE, BEATRICE, CAROLINE, DEBRA, and ELIZA. They sit in the car staring at the house, with nothing better to do. The closest thing to activity is ELIZA smoking a cigarette deep in thought with the windows barely opened, allowing a small cloud of smoke to collect on the ceiling of the car before escaping outside. The following conversation starts.

BEATRICE: My… Don’t the Thompson’s daisies look lovely this year?

CAROLINE: Osteospermum

BEATRICE: Pardon?

CAROLINE: They aren’t Daisies… they are Osteospermums. They look like daisies, but they aren’t daisies.

ALICE: And this is the Richard’s house. Where are these petunias you speak of?

BEATRICE: Alice, you are looking at the Richard’s house…

ALICE: I know. where are they?

BEATRICE: …I’m talking about the Thompson’s that are to the right of them.

ALICE: Whose right?

BEATRICE: Our right… Who else’s right?

DEBRA: Maybe she meant their right.

ALICE: (turns to DEBRA) oh, have we met? I’m Alice.

DEBRA: Nice to meet you. I’m Mary.

CAROLINE: Debra.

DEBRA: Yes?

CAROLINE: Your name is Debra.

DEBRA: I know it is.

CAROLINE: You told Alice differently.

ALICE: (looks at CAROLINE) I don’t know you.

DEBRA: What did I say?

CAROLINE: You said your name was Mary.

DEBRA: My word… I apologize. Mary is my middle name, I’ve always…

CAROLINE: Jane…

BEATRICE: Who’s Jane?

CAROLINE: …Your mother’s name is Mary, Debra. Your middle name is Jane.

DEBRA: By the way, Caroline... Osteospermum is a type of Daisy.

CAROLINE: How is that “by the way”?

ALICE: I still can’t see these petunias you are talking about, Beatrice…

DEBRA: What do you mean?

CAROLINE: What relevancy is there in that you could accurately say “Your middle name is Jane” is by the way of generic flower types?

BEATRICE: You’re still looking at the Richard’s house…

ALICE: I know!

BEATRICE: Besides, Petunia’s only bloom in the summer.

DEBRA: That’s not true. They bloom from spring until frost.

CAROLINE: Don’t change the subject, Debra…

DEBRA: I didn’t!

CAROLINE: Where do your middle name and Daisies correlate?

DEBRA: (PAUSE) they are both names. We could even say that both topics involve technicalities.

CAROLINE: (PAUSE) Whatever… And how do you know more about flowers than you do your own name?

DEBRA: I know my name!

CAROLINE: Not a moment ago…

DEBRA: And, I got a degree in Horticulture, remember?

CAROLINE: In 1962… from a community college… by correspondence! How am I supposed to believe the legitimacy of that diploma?

DEBRA: You can’t deny knowledge…

BEATRICE: And Alice, we weren’t talking about Petunia’s, we were talking about the Daisies.

ALICE: Didn’t someone say something about Petunia’s?

CAROLINE: You did.

ALICE: I’m serious… I don’t think I know you.

CAROLINE: I’m Caroline.

DEBRA: No you aren’t.

CAROLINE: Yes, I am. You don’t know what you are talking about.

DEBRA: Isn’t your name Dia?

CAROLINE: No! That’s my aunt’s name…

BEATRICE: I knew a Dia once…

CAROLINE: …She passed 17 years ago…

BEATRICE: No, she didn’t…

CAROLINE: …See, Debra, this is what I don’t understand… You learned nearly 60 years ago the scientific name of flowers and what seasons they bloom…

ALICE: That’s actually 50 years…

DEBRA: You said the scientific name.

ALICE: …I can still subtract!

CAROLINE: …but you can’t remember my name or your name for that fact. And we’ve been around each other for the past 5 years! How am I supposed to believe the information you are telling me is true.

DEBRA: You can’t deny knowledge… and you said the scientific name.

CAROLINE: What?

DEBRA: You said the scientific name.

BEATRICE: What time is it?

CAROLINE: what does that have to do with anything?

ALICE: It’s a quarter ‘til 1.

DEBRA: are you talking about me or her?

CAROLINE: You mean Beatrice?

DEBRA: Who’s Beatrice?

CAROLINE: (points to BEATRICE) She is.

BEATRICE: (same time as CAROLINE) I am.

ALICE: Why did you want to know the time?

CAROLINE: Are you going to answer my question?

DEBRA: Who?

CAROLINE: (to DEBRA) You. I was talking to you.

BEATRICE: I need to be at the Thompson’s when the kids get home. Rachel asked me to watch over them until she gets home.

DEBRA: I forgot the question.

ALICE: Oh, I love Rachel. She’s a dear…

CAROLINE: I asked what that has anything to do with anything?

DEBRA: What are you talking about?

ALICE: Doesn’t little Derek look like that one actor?

BEATRICE: What actor?

ALICE: I can’t remember… He was in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”…

CAROLINE: I was asking about why me saying “Osteospermum” means anything?

DEBRA: I don’t care… Are you talking about Robert Redford?

ALICE: No, the other one…

DEBRA: Wasn’t Robert Redford in “A River Runs Through It”? He’s so handsome in that movie…

BEATRICE: No, he directed it. You must be thinking of Brad Pitt.

ALICE: What else was Brad Pitt in?

DEBRA: Brad Pitt wasn’t in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”.

BEATRICE: I never said that…

CAROLINE: He was in “Legends of the Fall” and “Meet Joe Black”

ALICE: That’s right…

CAROLINE: …Are you talking about the blue one?

ALICE: From “Butch Cassidy”?

CAROLINE: Yeah.

ALICE: No, he was a white man.

CAROLINE: You mean Paul Newman?

ALICE: That’s it!

DEBRA: What about Paul Newman?

CAROLINE: Rachel’s son, Derek, looks like Paul Newman.

DEBRA: Wasn’t he in that movie about cars?

ALICE: Derek or Paul Newman?

BEATRICE: You mean “Cars”?

DEBRA: Yeah, wasn’t he in that?

ALICE: Brad Pitt?

CAROLINE: No, Paul Newman.

BEATRICE: Yeah, he was Doc Hudson.

ALICE: I didn’t see Paul Newman in that... Isn’t that an animated movie about talking cars?

BEATRICE: Yes.

ALICE: How can Paul Newman be Doc Hudson? Doc Hudson is a car and looks nothing like Paul Newman…

DEBRA: He did the voice of the car.

ALICE: Oh… (PAUSE, then burst of excitement) I found the Petunia’s! They are lovely… that’s not the Richard’s house, that’s the MacDonald’s!

CAROLINE: When do the kids come home?

BEATRICE: Two-thirty.

ELIZA: They look loaded.

CAROLINE: They are…

ALICE: Who’s loaded?

CAROLINE: The Thompsons. (PAUSE, looks at ELIZA, then looks away) Did anyone invite her?

(Everyone looks ELIZA as the rest as she remains smoking her cigarette staring outside, everyone turns away muttering how they don’t know her.)

CAROLINE: She’s on to something though, ladies.

DEBRA: Who?

CAROLINE: The smoking one… The Thompsons have some nice things.

DEBRA: I do like her shampoo. She always smells so good.

ALICE: I like her sign in the backyard garden about “Bee-ing” careful with the flowers.

CAROLINE: That broad has my Billy Graham VHS.

BEATRICE: (PAUSE) I got the key.

ALICE: Can you hand me my purse, Beatrice? (BEATRICE hands her the purse and ALICE begins to rummage through it) Do you think the ski masks are necessary for this one?

BEATRICE: No, that’s just for the Webb’s.

CAROLINE: Oh, we should go there, too. I want their TV remote. I lost mine and they have the same TV as me.

DEBRA: Yeah, can we get the Webb’s afterwards? I heard she made the most amazing roast and they never eat their leftovers…

ALICE: After the Thompson’s, we’ll go there. (Everyone starts to unbuckle except ELIZA who is still in the same position.) Alright… let’s pull this sh…(the car door opens before she finishes, cutting to black with no sound)

THE END

A Peeve with Pants

Oh, jeans.

Oh, jeans.

You are snug on my hips

As I attempt to slip in and zip

you up, curses from my lips.

Lighten up.

Loosen up.

No one

Should ever pant

Putting on

A pair of pants.