The Plays
Limonade Tous les Jours [sample]
by Charles L. Mee
YA YA
Are you Andrew?
ANDREW
Oh, well, yes, I am.
YA YA
I am Ya Ya,
I am a friend of your friend you were going to meet but
he cannot come
because for some reason.
ANDREW
Ah.
YA YA
You will have a limonade or a coffee with me?
ANDREW
Oh, yes, certainly,
thank you very much.
YA YA
Pascal sends his apologies but
you know?
it can't be done
so
he will hope to be in touch with you tomorrow.
ANDREW
And you are: Ya Ya, did you say?
YA YA
Yes.
ANDREW
Ya Ya, right.
I'm happy to meet you.
[as he sits]
And you and Pascal:
you are a couple?
YA YA
Oh, no, he's much too old for me.
ANDREW
Of course.
YA YA
I think he's forty.
ANDREW
Ah.
YA YA
You can understand.
ANDREW
Of course.
YA YA
I mean, not that I have anything against older men
quite the opposite in a way
only I was married to an older man
and he took such a patriarchal position
and then I
I found I liked it
I invited it
so we had almost a sado masochistic relationship
which I found I just loved
he had other lovers
he treated me like dirt
he wanted always to handcuff me to the bed
and it seems I not only fell into a sort of dependent role
but I had sought it all along
so now
I'm trying to go straight
you know
grow up
have a relationship with another grownup person
as a grownup person
if I have any relationship at all
and at the moment I don't have one at all
and don't want one
because I'm still recovering
and you?
ANDREW
Oh, yes, well, I am recovering, too.
YA YA
From a love?
ANDREW
Right. Of course. What else?
I came to Paris to forget.
YA YA
I don't know.
Maybe this is not the place to forget about love.
ANDREW
Right. Well. But now it's too late. Because, here I am.
[as they talk a Vietnamese waiter
brings a limonade to them and leaves again
without speaking]
YA YA
Or else maybe it's a nice place to remember how it is to be alone
and to be starting out in a new world
where anything could be possible again
where you don't know what might happen next.
ANDREW
Right.
YA YA
Because when you come to the end
you need to get back on the horse.
ANDREW
Right.
YA YA
I have moved into a new place
which I love.
Of course, I am very lonely
because after you live with someone
you are used to not being alone
even if you hate him and he is disgusting
and picks nothing up from the floor
so that even when you get out of bed in the morning
you slide on a pile of magazines and fall to the floor
and hit your head on the edge of the bed.
But my new place,
it is all mine.
Very simple.
I have a fireplace
a shaded lamp
a box of stationery
a lounge with a mess of cushions of all sizes
a very simple bed in a separate room
and of course my coffee table
made from an old pheasant trap.
Do you know what a pheasant trap is?
ANDREW
No.
YA YA
No, neither do I.
It looks like a large
what would you say?
a foot locker
two foot lockers together
but made of wood
with little bars, like a wooden bird cage
where you can keep your pheasants
I don't know why
maybe to keep them there
until you set them loose so you can shoot them
I don't know.
And then that delicious feeling of being alone
when you are alone in your new home
and lonely
that feeling that feels sometimes like soaring freedom
at other times like retribution almost,
do you know?
you are being punished for what you did wrong
or didn't do quite right
and sometimes it is a heavy crushing feeling
that makes you want to hit your head against the wall.
So you are looking for a young woman
half your age?
