Mary Page Marlowe, Page 2

  LORNA: But your energy affects the cards!

  CONNIE: They’re already dealt! Nothing we do is gonna change the cards!

  MARY PAGE: Come on, we’re almost done, then we can do you.

  CONNIE: Goodie.

  LORNA: How others see you: ooooh, the Queen of Cups.

  CONNIE: Queen of the B-Cup.

  LORNA: Connie—

  MARY PAGE: Come on.

  LORNA: Queen of Cups is a great card for you, I can’t believe you got it, ’cause if I had to pick one card out of the deck that says how I see you, this would be it. The Queen of Cups. This is all about hope, and dreams, and possibilities. Everything is possible with the Queen of Cups, it’s like she’s falling in love, and sometimes she can indicate pregnancy. With this card, you just dream, whatever it is that you dream about, she is really just letting yourself do that.

  MARY PAGE: That’s how you see me.

  LORNA: Yes.

  CONNIE: That’s how I see you.

  MARY PAGE: No, you don’t.

  CONNIE: Yeah. I do.

  MARY PAGE: As all that. All that . . . hope and love and dreams.

  CONNIE: Yeah.

  LORNA: Like that day you read that sonnet in Dr. Lundergan’s class. And everybody was just silent. You cast this spell, like you had this light around your head, like a halo. Like you glowed.

  CONNIE: I don’t know if you glowed, but yeah, I think of you like that.

  MARY PAGE: I don’t know what to say. You guys are embarrassing me.

  CONNIE: We love you. You think we’d be best friends with someone we don’t love?

  MARY PAGE: What’s the next card?

  LORNA: Your greatest hope . . . and your greatest fear.

  CONNIE: That doesn’t make any sense.

  LORNA: Sure it does. What’s your greatest hope?

  CONNIE: That I’m a millionaire.

  LORNA: And what’s your greatest fear?

  CONNIE: Korean soldiers stabbing me to death in a deep freezer.

  (Pause.)

  LORNA (To Mary Page): Okay. Your greatest hope . . . and your greatest fear. (Turns card) Two of Wands. I have to look at the book.

  CONNIE: You lose all credibility when you look in that book.

  MARY PAGE: She’s learning.

  LORNA: I want to get it right.

  CONNIE: Yeah, ’cause that would be a drag, if you got the future wrong. (To Mary Page) What happened with you and Robert Bedwell last night?

  MARY PAGE: Robert. He’s Robert. Why do you say his full name like that?

  CONNIE: Give me a break, his last name is Bedwell.

  MARY PAGE: What makes you think anything happened?

  CONNIE: You’ve been acting like a weirdo.

  MARY PAGE: He proposed.

  CONNIE: What?!

  LORNA: He what?!

  CONNIE: He proposed.

  MARY PAGE: He did.

  CONNIE: Where? What did he do? Did he get down on one knee? What did he say? Did he have a ring?

  MARY PAGE: I don’t have a ring.

  CONNIE: Why not? Where’s the ring? Mary Page, where is your ring?!

  MARY PAGE: I said no.

  CONNIE: You did what?

  MARY PAGE: I said no. I turned him down, flat. I don’t want to marry Robert, and I don’t want to get married right now.

  LORNA: You’re so great.

  MARY PAGE: I’ve gotten to know him better, and . . . I don’t think that’s what I want for my life.

  LORNA: Good for you—

  CONNIE: He’s gorgeous! He’s the most handsome boy on campus!

  MARY PAGE: I know. But he’s . . . he’s very immature.

  CONNIE: He’s Catholic.

  MARY PAGE: I don’t care.

  LORNA: He drinks too much.

  MARY PAGE: Look in your book, Lorna.

  LORNA: Okay.

  MARY PAGE: It’s not just him. I don’t know. I don’t want to be married. I just feel too independent for all that, or . . . I just don’t want to be married. I’m interested in other things. It’s not like that’s my only choice in life. Are you going to marry Al?

  CONNIE: That’s different, Al’s half Greek. I can’t marry a Greek.

  MARY PAGE: Why not? He’s Catholic.

  CONNIE: No, that’s a whole different kind of Catholic, very hairy, a lot more incense.

  MARY PAGE: Then don’t give me a hard time.

  CONNIE: Then what do you want to do instead?

  MARY PAGE: I don’t know. Travel? Get out of Ohio, I hate it here. Wouldn’t you like to see what else is out there?

  CONNIE: We don’t have any rich uncles. We would need jobs.

  MARY PAGE: I want to see Paris.

  CONNIE: You’ve been hung up on Paris ever since we saw Charade. You want to be Audrey Hepburn.

  MARY PAGE: What’s wrong with that?

  CONNIE: It’s a movie. She’s Audrey Hepburn.

  MARY PAGE: So? I’ll be me.

  LORNA: Which brings us back to the Two of Wands. It’s really about destiny. So it’s appropriate that it comes up as your hope-and-fear card. ’Cause what it’s saying is that you are in charge of your own destiny. It’s up to you to decide what you want to do. And see how that could be your greatest hope and your greatest fear? Nothing is going to let you off the hook. You’re responsible.

  CONNIE: There you go. You want out of here so bad? You have to do it yourself.

  MARY PAGE: Okay, so the last card is . . . ?

  LORNA: The outcome.

  MARY PAGE: Lorna, wait. I’m nervous. Isn’t that weird?

  LORNA: I don’t think it’s weird.

  MARY PAGE: What if it’s the Death card?

  LORNA: The Death card isn’t bad.

  CONNIE: Of course the Death card is bad.

  LORNA: It’s not.

  CONNIE: It’s the Death card.

  LORNA: It’s just about transitions.

  CONNIE (To Mary Page): The Death card is bad. But you shouldn’t be scared.

  MARY PAGE: Why not?

  CONNIE: Because the card has already been dealt.

  SCENE 3

  2009.

  Mary Page Marlowe is sixty-three.

  Her husband, Andy, is around the same age.

  Their home. Versailles, Kentucky.

  MARY PAGE: Andy, it’s starting!

  ANDY (From off): Well, pause it!

  MARY PAGE: I don’t know how.

  ANDY (From off): Hit the pause button.

  MARY PAGE: How can you pause it?

  ANDY (From off): Oh my God . . .

  MARY PAGE: I still don’t get it.

  (Andy enters with food, pauses the TV.)

  ANDY: You can pause it now.

  MARY PAGE: But isn’t it live? It’s not recorded.

  ANDY: When you paused it, you started recording.

  MARY PAGE: But isn’t it playing? Somewhere, live?

  ANDY: Yes, which is why you can rewind it, because you’re recording it.

  MARY PAGE: Can you fast-forward it?

  ANDY: Yes.

  MARY PAGE: That does not compute. ’Cause that would mean you could fast-forward the news, and then we would know the future.

  ANDY: You can only fast-forward up to the point when it’s live.

  MARY PAGE: The whole thing is live! The whole thing is happening, right now!

  ANDY (Laughing): You’re recording it!

  MARY PAGE: I don’t get it!

  ANDY: Goddamn it, Mary Page, we are going to solve this, once and for all.

  MARY PAGE: I’m hungry.

  ANDY: Let’s eat. I’m going to explain this to you.

  MARY PAGE: That smells fantastic.

  ANDY: Okay, so they are broadcasting House, M.D. tonight on the FOX television network.

  MARY PAGE: Don’t patronize me.

  ANDY: I’m just putting the ball on the tee. The show begins at eight P.M., and runs for an hour. At 8:10, you hit the pause button—

  MARY PAGE: It’s only 8:04.
>
  ANDY: This is just by way of illustration.

  MARY PAGE: No, say what’s actually happening. Mm, I’m hungry.

  ANDY: Here, eat. Don’t forget the parmesan.

  MARY PAGE: Okay. Is this the fancy stuff?

  ANDY: It’s parmesan. All right. At 8:10 you hit the pause button.

  MARY PAGE: Let’s just watch the show.

  ANDY: You’re an intelligent person. I want you to understand this. So at 8:10 you hit the pause button.

  MARY PAGE: You forgot the part where at 8:05 you say, “You know he’s an Englishman.”

  ANDY: I did not forget it, it’s just not important. So at 8:10 you hit the pause button—

  MARY PAGE: If it’s not important, why do you always say it—?

  ANDY: So at 8:10, you hit the pause button—

  MARY PAGE: You know I’ve stopped listening.

  ANDY: At 8:10, you hit the pause button!

  MARY PAGE: I’ve moved on.

  ANDY: Eat your spaghetti. Goddamn it, you are so goddamned stubborn—

  MARY PAGE: Oh Lord . . .

  ANDY: What? No good?

  MARY PAGE: Garlic . . .

  ANDY: Is there too much garlic? (Laughing) If you can’t talk, that may mean there’s too much garlic.

  MARY PAGE: It’s good . . .

  ANDY: Yeah, I can tell by your gasping.

  MARY PAGE: It really is good, it’s just going to be hard to keep my friends.

  (He laughs, recovers, laughs again.)

  ANDY: You don’t have any friends.

  (They laugh.)

  MARY PAGE: I have you. You’re a pretty good friend.

  ANDY: I’m not your friend, I’m your husband.

  MARY PAGE: You’re a pretty good husband, too.

  (They kiss.)

  ANDY: Are we watching?

  (She nods. They watch while they eat.)

  You know he’s an Englishman.

  MARY PAGE: Yeah . . .

  (They watch.)

  ANDY: He reminds me a lot of my first wife.

  MARY PAGE: You mean the sarcastic know-it-all part.

  ANDY: Uh-huh.

  MARY PAGE: Not the brilliant surgeon part.

  ANDY: No. And not the limpy drug-addict part.

  MARY PAGE: Right.

  ANDY: House is not a surgeon.

  MARY PAGE: He performs surgery.

  ANDY: He’s a diagnostician.

  MARY PAGE: He performs surgery.

  ANDY: Yes.

  MARY PAGE: The defense rests.

  (They eat. They watch.)

  You know why people like this show?

  ANDY: Hm.

  MARY PAGE: It lets them believe in resurrection.

  (Andy pauses the DVR, produces an envelope, hands it to Mary Page.)

  What’s this?

  ANDY: Open it.

  MARY PAGE: Is this mine?

  ANDY: Yes. Open it.

  MARY PAGE: Did you open my mail?

  ANDY: I did.

  MARY PAGE: You read my mail?

  ANDY: I did.

  MARY PAGE: And then you saved it until House was on?

  ANDY: You are correct. Again.

  MARY PAGE: Oh my.

  ANDY: Congratulations.

  MARY PAGE: Why didn’t you . . . ? Oh my.

  ANDY: “Free at last.”

  (She weeps.)

  Oh honey . . .

  (He hugs her.)

  MARY PAGE: I don’t know why I’m crying.

  ANDY: Well, it’s a big deal.

  MARY PAGE: It is a big deal.

  ANDY: It’s been a part of your life for a long time now.

  MARY PAGE: A long time.

  ANDY: You know what this means.

  MARY PAGE: It means . . . it means a lot.

  ANDY: It does.

  MARY PAGE: It means I can leave the state . . .

  ANDY: That’s right, and we can go see Wendy and the kids.

  MARY PAGE: Yeah, and leave when we want to . . .

  ANDY: We can take our vacation, to San Francisco.

  MARY PAGE: We can go anywhere we want.

  ANDY: That’s right, we can go anywhere we want.

  MARY PAGE: It means I don’t have to pee in a cup anymore.

  ANDY: It means you don’t have to see Julie anymore.

  MARY PAGE: Oh, Julie. I should call her.

  ANDY: Really? Why?

  MARY PAGE: Just to say . . . well, I don’t know.

  ANDY: How about just to say, “Fuck you, Julie, I don’t need your permission for anything anymore.”

  MARY PAGE: She’s just doing her job.

  ANDY: You’ve always been more forgiving of her than—

  MARY PAGE: She’s just doing her job, she doesn’t have any stake in it. I know the women she has to deal with and her job is no picnic, believe me. I wouldn’t do it.

  (Pause.)

  It’s not the kind of good news you call people with though, is it? Not that I have a lot to call.

  ANDY: You want to call Wendy?

  MARY PAGE: No.

  ANDY: Well, it’s good news you can share with me.

  MARY PAGE: Yeah . . .

  ANDY: Jailbird. I guess I’ll have to stop calling you that . . .

  (Mary Page weeps. Andy holds her.)

  Shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s over.

  SCENE 4

  1946.

  Mary Page Marlowe is ten months old.

  She is in a crib.

  Her parents’ house, living room. Dayton, Ohio.

  Voices come from off: a muffled, indistinct argument.

  Ed Marlowe, twenties, enters, crosses to a wet bar, gets a glass, pours whiskey.

  Indistinct voice from off.

  ED (Offhand, calling into another room): I don’t give a good goddamn.

  (Indistinct voice from off. Ed sits, drinks.)

  (To himself, mainly) I can’t hear you.

  (Roberta, nineteen, enters.)

  ROBERTA: I don’t care how often you see your buddies, or when you see them. You can move in with them for all I care.

  ED: We’re gonna sit here and drink beers. And it’s not just my buddies, he’s bringing the Randall sisters with him.

  ROBERTA: Who in hell are the Randall sisters?

  ED: You know ’em.

  ROBERTA: I don’t know them.

  ED: Louanne’s the older one, works out at Streak’s.

  ROBERTA: That fat bucktooth whore is coming into my house?

  ED: She ain’t fat.

  ROBERTA: You got women coming into our house now? While we got a baby sitting here?

  ED: It’s just a get-together.

  ROBERTA: Is that what they’re calling it now?

  ED: If you don’t like it, take the baby with you and go.

  ROBERTA: You think I’m going to leave my house with our baby so you can get drunk with some roadhouse heifer?

  ED: And her sister.

  ROBERTA: You rotten son-of-a-bitch.

  ED: I didn’t say you had to leave. If you want, put Mary in our bed, and you stay in here and drink with us. All I said was they were coming is all.

  ROBERTA: Arch came last night.

  ED: He’s coming tonight too.

  ROBERTA: You said we were going to have an evening together, just us.

  ED: I said we’d have dinner.

  ROBERTA: You said a quiet evening.

  (He does not respond.)

  You said a quiet evening!

  (He does not respond. She exits. He pours another whiskey. She reenters, wearing a coat.)

  Just sit down with me, have a meal. Just lay down with me, let’s talk. Let’s get Mom to watch Mary Page and you and me can go out. Ed. I like to have a good time, I like to go out, I like to dance, I like to drink with our friends. All I want is for you to talk to me.

  ED: I talk to you.

  ROBERTA: You don’t. Ever since . . . you don’t, you won’t talk. Tell me.

  ED: Tell you what.

  ROBERTA
: Tell me what happened over there so terrible you don’t want to talk to me anymore.

  ED: Nothing happened.

  ROBERTA: I’m going to Mom’s.

  ED: Take Mary with you.

  ROBERTA: Nah. You can look after her tonight.

  ED: Roberta—

  ROBERTA: What? She’s your kid too. You look after her. Maybe Louanne can help. Me, I’m going out.

  ED: Roberta, I’m—

  ROBERTA: Screw you!

  (Roberta exits. Ed crosses to the crib, looks in. Crosses to the bar, finishes his drink.

  He returns to the crib, sings softly to Mary Page:)

  ED:

  Saloon, saloon, saloon.

  Runs through my brain like a tune.

  You can keep your cafés, and I hate cabarets,

  But just mention saloon and my cares fade away.

  (He lifts Mary Page out of the crib, continues singing to her:)

  For it brings back a fond recollection

  Of a little old low-ceiling room

  With a bar and a rail and a dime and a pail,

  Saloon, saloon, saloon.

  Since you’ve left us the world seems in darkness,

  Like a cloud passing over the moon,

  No more joys in my life, no more lies to my wife,

  Saloon, saloon, saloon.

  SCENE 5

  1982.

  Mary Page Marlowe is thirty-six.

  Her shrink is older.

  The shrink’s office. Dayton, Ohio.

  SHRINK: You’ve never mentioned that before.

  MARY PAGE: I don’t think about it. Every now and again, just a fleeting . . . “Oh, right, I did that.” Do the math, figure out the birthday. But I don’t have any regrets about it. It more or less ended my relationship with the church ’cause I just couldn’t . . . not that my relationship with the church was really profound but . . .

  SHRINK: What I find interesting is that we’ve been seeing each other for a while and you’ve never . . . not even in passing have you—

  MARY PAGE: Because it’s not relevant, that’s what I’m telling you, it feels like a different person who was going through that.

  SHRINK: It was a big deal at the time, wasn’t it?

  MARY PAGE: Sure, at the time.

  SHRINK: You were conflicted.

  MARY PAGE: Yes.

  SHRINK: And we’ve discussed a lot of things in here that you might not consider significant, but we—

  MARY PAGE: This isn’t a betrayal. I haven’t kept something from you, intentionally. If I were keeping something from you, believe me, I wouldn’t mention it now.