The Plays
The Talking Chairs
by C H A R L E S L . M E E
Three pairs of chairs are scattered around.
One pair has a man and a woman talking about their love for one another.
Another pair of chairs has two men talking about their love for one another.
Another pair of chairs has two women talking about their love for one another.
ADAM
Hello.
EVIE
Hello.
ADAM
What’s your name?
EVIE
What’s your name?
ADAM
My name is Adam.
EVIE
I’m Evie.
ADAM
Do you come here often?
EVIE
Oh, yes
all the time
and my mother doesn’t even know I’ve left home
ADAM
well, she sees you’re not there
EVIE
no, because I’m still at home in bed
ADAM
home in bed?
EVIE
because my spirit has split in two…
ADAM
so you mean, as a metaphor, your mother doesn’t know you’ve left
EVIE
she sees me still every morning when I wake up in my bed at home
ADAM
she sees you….
so your mother….
EVIE
you think she’s crazy
ADAM
I think someone may be a little bit living in a dream
EVIE
this is how it is to love someone
ADAM
indeed
EVIE
yes
ADAM
I wonder:
would you marry me
or
would you have a coffee with me
and think of having a conversation
that would lead to marriage?
EVIE
Oh.
Oh.
Well,
a coffee with you
I would have a coffee with you.
ADAM
You are free now?
EVIE
Free now? No, well, no
right now
I am busy.
ADAM
OK then maybe later this evening?
EVIE
Well, later this evening also I am busy.
ADAM
Or late supper.
Or breakfast tomorrow
or lunch or tea in the afternoon
or a movie
or dinner the day after
Thursday for lunch
or Friday dinner
or perhaps you would go for the weekend with me
to my parents’ home in Provence
or we could stop along the way
and find a little place for ourselves
to be alone.
EVIE
I don’t think I can be alone.
ADAM
With me?
Or by yourself?
You don’t like to be alone by yourself?
EVIE
No, I mean with you this weekend.
ADAM
Oh.
Or then just we could
have coffee over and over again
every day
until we get to know one another
and we have the passage of the seasons
in the cafe
we could celebrate our anniversary
and then perhaps you would forget
that you are not married to me
and we can have a child.
EVIE
A child?
ADAM
Because
don’t you think
after we have been together for a year
it will be time to start to think of these things?
EVIE
We haven’t been together for a day.
ADAM
You know, I have known many women.
I mean, I don’t mean to say....
EVIE
No.
ADAM
I mean just
you know
my mother, my grandmother
my sisters
and also women I have known romantically
and then, too, friends,
and even merely acquaintances
but you know
in life
one meets many people
and it seems to me
we know so much of another person
in the first few moments we meet
not from what a person says alone
but from the way they hold their head
how they listen
what they do with their hand as they speak
or when they are silent
and years later
when these two people break up
they say
I should have known from the beginning
in truth
I did know from the beginning
I saw it in her, or in him
the moment we met
but I tried to repress the knowledge
because it wasn’t useful at the time
because,
for whatever reason
I just wanted to go to bed with her as fast as I could
or I was lonely
and so I pretended I didn’t notice
even though I did
exactly the person she was from the first moment
I knew
and so it is with you
and I think probably it is the same for you with me
we know one another
right now from the first moment
we know so much about one another in just this brief time
and we have known many people
and for myself
I can tell
you are one in a million
and I want to marry you
I want to marry you
and have children with you
and grow old together
so I am begging you
just have a coffee with me.
EVIE
OK.
ADAM
When will you do this?
EVIE
Right now.
ADAM
Oh.
Oh, good.
Good.
DEBARGO
Do you believe in love at first sight?
TESSA
No. Oh, no.
Certainly not.
DEBARGO
It's the truth.
TESSA
So?
DEBARGO
So what?
TESSA
So why do you tell me this?
DEBARGO
Because perhaps this is how it is for us.
TESSA
How can this be after all these years we've known one another?
DEBARGO
Because sometimes you don't see the other person at first.
And then suddenly you do.
You sense something in one another.
You might not even know what it is.
In fact, probably you never know,
the connection is so deep,
beneath the place where language even starts.
And then, if you let the moment pass, it is past forever.
And what you never know is:
was this a great love or not?
Was this your one great love
that you've just missed.
Because each of us is given only one great love in life.
That's what all the poets have known.
We've forgotten it in our times.
I think we get too caught up in our daily lives.
But people used to know:
you are born,
you have one great love,
you die.
There's nothing else to life.
That's why, in Romeo and Juliet,
after they find their love,
they die.
Because that's the truth of it:
birth, love, and death,
that's all there is.
Your great love may come at the beginning of your life,
or in the middle,
or near the end.
Or not at all.
But there is only one
and if you miss it,
you've missed it forever.
TESSA
Is this what you always say to women?
DEBARGO
No.
DEBARGO
Are you free for dinner?
TESSA
No.
I'm busy.
As you can see.
DEBARGO
Everyone has to eat.
TESSA
I'm not dressed.
DEBARGO
I have something for you.
[he hands her a crimson satin slip]
TESSA
Oh, Debargo.
This is a slip.
DEBARGO
Everyone's wearing slips these days.
TESSA
As a dress?
DEBARGO
Yes.
TESSA
To go out?
DEBARGO
Sure.
TESSA
I don't think so.
DEBARGO
Why not?
TESSA
I like it.
[she steps out of her dress
and into the slip;
she wears, otherwise,
black boots, and socks that are falling down around her ankles;
or else, she takes off the dress and doesn't put the slip on,
wearing nothing else but stockings and red high heels]
DEBARGO
Do you dance?
TESSA
Of course I dance.
EVIE
You know I like to cook
ADAM
Oh
EVIE
And I like to make apricot confiture
ADAM
Wow
EVIE
And I straighten up
but not right away
and usually I live in a mess
but then I straighten up later on
only it’s not always straightened up.
ADAM
Right.
EVIE
I do dishes, and I do laundry,
but I’m not good at really cleaning.
ADAM
Unh-hunh.
EVIE
So that’s how it is if you live with me
that’s how it will be
that’s all.
I just wanted, if we’re going to be together, you know,
for everything to be clear.
ADAM
Right.
EVIE
So you understand about laundry and dishes
and not straightening up
and there are no surprises
like you’re not suddenly going to discover
oh, she doesn’t straighten up
this will never work out
because I can’t stand a mess
I’m sorry I wish I could
I wish I could just rise above it
but chaos makes me crazy
I just fall apart
and I can’t go on living with you.
ADAM
Like that.
EVIE
Right. That’s not how it is for me.
Because, moving in with you,
this is a big deal for me,
and I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings
because this is a big move for me
and I don’t think
after I do this
that there will be any going back
I mean, if a year from now you were to say
oh, you never straighten up
I don’t think I can live with that
the point is
I think I’d shoot you.
ADAM
Right.
EVIE
That’s how it is for me.
ADAM
That’s it?
EVIE
Yes.
ADAM
That’s all.
EVIE
Yes. I don’t think there’s anything else.
I think that’s everything.
ADAM
The truth is
I can do the laundry, too, and I do dishes.
EVIE
Oh.
ADAM
So, I think everything’s going to be OK.
EVIE
Oh. Good. Good. That’s good then.
ADAM
Right.
Plus, I cook, too.
EVIE
You cook, too.
ADAM
Right.
EVIE
Oh.
ADAM
Plus, I love you like crazy.
EVIE
Oh,
you do.
Oh, good.
Good.
That’s good then.
I can accept that.
NIKOS
I thought,
I've always liked you, Lydia
seeing you with your sisters
sometimes in the summers
when our families would get together at the beach.
I thought you were fun, and funny
and really good at volleyball
LYDIA
Volleyball?
NIKOS
which I thought showed you have a
well,
a natural grace
and beauty
and a lot of energy.
LYDIA
Oh.
NIKOS
And it's not that I thought I fell in love with you at the time
or that I've been like a stalker or something in the background
all these years.
LYDIA
No, I never....
NIKOS
But really, over the years,
I've thought back from time to time
how good it felt just to be around you.
LYDIA
Oh.
NIKOS
And so I thought: well, maybe this is an okay way
to have a marriage
LYDIA
A marriage.
NIKOS
to start out
not in a romantic way, but
as a friendship
LYDIA
Oh.
NIKOS
because I admire you
and I thought perhaps this might grow
into something deeper
and longer lasting
LYDIA
Oh.
NIKOS
but maybe this isn't quite the thing you want
and really I don't want to force myself on you
you should be free to choose
I mean: obviously.
LYDIA
Thank you.
NIKOS
Although I think I should say
what began as friendship for me
and a sort of distant, even inattentive regard
has grown into a passion already
LYDIA
A passion.
NIKOS
I don't know how
or where it came from, or when
but somehow the more I felt this admiration
and, well, pleasure in you
LYDIA
Pleasure.
NIKOS
seeing you become the person that you are
I think a thoughtful person and smart
and it seems to me funny and warm
LYDIA
Funny.
NIKOS
and passionate, I mean about the things
I heard you talk about in school
a movie or playing the piano
I saw you one night at a cafe by the harbor
drinking almond nectar
and I saw that happiness made you raucous.
And I myself don't want to have a relationship
that's cool or distant
I want a love really that's all-consuming
that consumes my whole life
LYDIA
Your whole life.
NIKOS
and the longer the sense of you has lived with me
the more it has grown into a longing for you
so I wish you'd consider
maybe not marriage
because it's true you hardly know me
but a kind of courtship
LYDIA
A courtship.
NIKOS
or, maybe you'd just I don't know
go sailing with me or see a movie
LYDIA
Gee, Nikos,
you seem to talk a lot.
NIKOS
I talk too much.
I'm sorry.
LYDIA
Sometimes it seems to me
men get all caught up
in what they're doing
and they forget to take a moment
and look around
and see what effect they're having
on other people.
NIKOS
That's true.
LYDIA
They get on a roll.
NIKOS
I do that sometimes.
I wish I didn't.
But I get started on a sentence,
and that leads to another sentence,
and then, the first thing I know,
I'm just trying to work it through,
the logic of it,
follow it through to the end
because I think,
if I stop,
or if I don't get through to the end
before someone interrupts me
they won't understand what I'm saying
and what I'm saying isn't necessarily wrong-
it might be, but not necessarily,
and if it is, I'll be glad to be corrected,
or change my mind-
but if I get stopped along the way
I get confused
I don't remember where I was
or how to get back to the end of what I was saying.
LYDIA
I understand.
NIKOS
And I think sometimes I scare people
because of it
they think I'm so, like determined
just barging ahead-
not really a sensitive person,
whereas, in truth,
I am.
LYDIA
I know.
I'm getting a cup of coffee, Nikos.
NIKOS
Now?
[she puts a hand reassuringly on his arm—
she's genuinely friendly and warm towards him]
LYDIA
I'll be right back.
ONE GAY COUPLE
EDMUND
I think you are lying to me, Herbert.
You are always lying to me
because you wish something would be true
but it isn’t.
You are a weak spineless person, Herbert,
feckless, feeble and ineffective.
But I love you like a cicada.
HERBERT
A cicada?
EDMUND
Yes.
HERBERT
Like a grasshopper you mean?
EDMUND
Do you know what a cicada is?
HERBERT
I thought I did.
EDMUND
There was a time long ago, in prehistoric times
when cicadas were human beings
back before the Muses were born.
And then when the Muses were born
and song came into being
some of these human creatures were so taken by the pleasure of it
that they sang and sang and sang.
And they forgot to eat or drink
they just sang and sang
and so,
before they knew it,
they died.
And from those human creatures a new species came into being
the cicadas
and they were given this special gift from the Muses:
that from the time they are born
they need no nourishment
they just sing continuously
caught forever in the pleasure of the moment
without eating or drinking
until they die.
This is the story of love.
If you stay there forever in that place
you die of it.
That's why people
can't stay in love.
But that's how I've loved you.
And how I love you now.
And how I always will.
BOB
A person can come into the world
different from all other people
and we don't know where such a person has come from
like fruit flies, like worms in cheese,
they come from nowhere,
like the universe itself
which, in the beginning,
was nothing but chaos
and out of that chaos a mass was formed
just as cheese is made out of milk
and worms appeared in the cheese
and these were the angels
and among the angels was also God
he too having been created out of the cheese at the same time
and all the creatures
of all kinds
as a result of which we have today
the inhabitants of the islands of Nacumera
who have the heads of dogs
and yet are reasonable people with good understanding
and the pigmies
who are beautiful and graceful because of their smallness
and they get married when they are six months old
and have children when they are two or three years old
and do not live more than six or seven years
and they battle against the birds in their country
and often are taken and eaten by the birds.
BILL
Indeed.
BOB
And we don't judge these people
because this is how they are
just like you and me.
BILL
Yes, indeed.
BOB
We don't judge them
just as I am not judging you
and you are not judging me.
Live and let live
this was God's intention
to love all the creatures of the earth
and try not to kill them or hurt them.
EDITH
The truth is
I'm not a baby.
HAROLD
No.
EDITH
I've had a whole life
I've had other relationships in my lifetime
and other things, not even relationships
and people I've cared about
HAROLD
Yes, indeed.
So you've said.
EDITH
cared about deeply
people, in fact, I thought I loved
but it wasn't as though I looked at them
and felt at once I had to cry
because I felt such closeness
HAROLD
Empathy.
EDITH
Empathy.
Exactly.
Immediate empathy.
I looked at you
I almost fell on the floor.
HAROLD
Things happen so suddenly sometimes.
EDITH
Do you believe in love at first sight?
HAROLD
No.
EDITH
Neither do I.
And yet there it is:
I'd just like to kiss you.
HAROLD
Oh.
EDITH
I think for me it took so long to be able to love another person
such a long time to grow up
get rid of all my self-involvement
all my worrying whether or not I measured up
HAROLD
Yes.
EDITH
or on the other hand
the feeling that perhaps other people were just getting in my way
wondering if they were what I wanted
or what I deserved
didn't I deserve more than this
to be happier
is this all there is
HAROLD
Right.
EDITH
Or I thought
I need to postpone gratification
and so I did
and I got so good at it
I forgot how to seize the moment
HAROLD
breaking hearts along the way if someone else was capable of love
at that earlier age when you weren't
EDITH
exactly
and now I think: what's the point of living a long time
if not to become tolerant of other people's idiosyncrasies
HAROLD
Or imperfections.
EDITH
you know damn well you're not going to find the perfect mate
HAROLD
someone you always agree with or even like
EDITH
and now you know that
you should be able to get along with someone who's in the same ballpark
HAROLD
a human being
EDITH
another human being
HAROLD
because we are lonely people
EDITH
we like a little companionship
HAROLD
just a cup of tea with another person
what's the big deal
EDITH
you don't need a lot
HAROLD
you'd settle for very little
EDITH
very very little when it comes down to it
HAROLD
very little
and that would feel good
EDITH
a little hello, good morning, how are you today
HAROLD
I'm going to the park
OK, have a nice time
I'll see you there for lunch
EDITH
can I bring you anything
HAROLD
a sandwich in a bag?
EDITH
no problem
I'll have lunch with you in the park
HAROLD
we'll have a picnic
and afterwards
I tell you a few lines of poetry
I remember from when I was a kid in school
what I had to memorize
EDITH
and after that a nap or godknows whatall
HAROLD
and to bed
EDITH
you don't even have to touch each other
sure, what
a little touch wouldn't be bad
HAROLD
you don't have to be Don Juan
have some perfect technique
EDITH
just a touch, simple as that
HAROLD
an intimate touch?
EDITH
fine. nice. so much the better.
HAROLD
that's all: just a touch
that feels good
EDITH
OK, goodnight, that's all
HAROLD
I'd go for that.
EDITH
I'd like that.
HAROLD
I'd like that just fine.
EDITH
I'd call that a happy life
HAROLD
as happy as it needs to get for me
EDITH
Sometimes in life
you just get one chance.
Romeo and Juliet
They meet, they fall in love, they die.
That's the truth of life
you have one great love
You're born, you die
in between, if you're lucky
you have one great love
not two, not three,
just one.
It can last for years or for a moment
and then
it can be years later or a moment later
you die
and that's how it is to be human
that's what the great poets and dramatists have known
you see Romeo and Juliet
you think: how young they were
they didn't know
there's more than one pebble on the beach
but no.
There's only one pebble on the beach.
Sometimes not even one.
CHEN CHI [at yet another table]
Whose woods are these?
DEBARGO
I don't know.
CHEN CHI
So.
I guess you could say we're lost in the woods together.
DEBARGO
I guess you could.
[Chen Chi can be a new character,
or she could be The Astronaut
if The Astronaut isn't wanted as a separate character.]
CHEN CHI
I've never been lost in the woods.
DEBARGO
Neither have I.
CHEN CHI
I'm glad I'm not alone.
DEBARGO
So am I.
I like nature,
but I'm a little bit afraid of it.
CHEN CHI
Well, sure.
DEBARGO
Of the dark parts especially.
I'd like nature better if it were better lit.
I think everyone is, you know,
basically afraid of the dark.
Even amoebas.
I mean, every life form,
you take them out of the light
and they begin to feel some anxiety.
I do.
CHEN CHI
I do.
DEBARGO
Light, basically, is how you orient yourself
and a person without a sense of orientation
I mean, if you don't know where you are
and where you're going
and about where you are on the line of the place where you are
and the destination where you're going
a person begins to freak out.
I think that's why
in jazz
they always play the melody at the top
and then
once you know the tune
you think: right, let them riff
because I know where I am
and I know that, in the end,
they're going to come back to the melody
You know what I mean?
CHEN CHI
Well.
Sure.
DEBARGO
It's like
a love story
you can just get lost in a love story because
we know
whatever happens along the way
we might get confused or we might get lost
or it's on again off again
and it goes down some blind alley
but that's how real life is
that's how it really is to be in love
sometimes you never know
sometimes it seems like it is just drifting
or it becomes hopeless
but it doesn't matter
because in the end
with a love story
you know
either they are going to get together
or they're not.
CHEN CHI
Right.
[silence]
Do you think
you could ever live in the woods?
DEBARGO
You mean, forever?
CHEN CHI
Well, for a long time.
Say, like five years.
[silence]
DEBARGO
Five years.
[silence]
With you?
[silence]
CHEN CHI
Oh.
Oh.
Okay.
With me.
[silence]
DEBARGO
Yes.
[silence]
CHEN CHI
Oh.
DEBARGO
I've thought about it before
living in the country
because that would be beautiful
and I've always found it frightening
cut off from the world
as it seems to me
all alone
and
with nothing to do
but wait to get to be eighty years old
or ninety
and die.
You know, you might have thought you were going to be a doctor
or go to the moon
or just have a nice civil service job
a career and all the ordinary stuff of life
not throw it away on a great sort of romantic gamble
like you think
oh
I'd like to go to the country for the weekend
but to just fling myself out into the universe
and drift among the stars
and have this be my destiny
take the gamble that this would be a meaningful life
and one you would really like forever
the only life you have.
I mean, not that I'm a morbid person
but, you know, it seems to me,
if you're out there alone
maybe with a farm and fields and trees
and the night sky, the stars
you start to think pretty quickly
how you're all alone
and you just have your life on earth
and then it's over
and it hasn't been much more than a wink
in the life of the stars
and you haven't done anything
that you think is worth an entire life on earth
so I've always felt a lot safer living in the city
where you can't see the stars at night.
CHEN CHI
Unh-hunh.
DEBARGO
There you have your friends and things to do
you get all caught up
and it's fun
I'm not against having fun
what I mean is
going to movies, having dinner, hanging out
you can forget entirely that you're a mortal person
it seems: this could go on forever
until, I suppose, you meet someone, and you think:
[silence]
I could live with you forever in the woods.
And that would be a life.
[silence.
She starts to back away from him.]
Or not, you know. Or not.
I didn't mean to come on so strong.
I just start talking, and I don't know when to stop.
CHEN CHI
Stop.
DEBARGO
Right.
CHEN CHI
Good.
Maybe we could just take a walk in the woods.
DEBARGO
Right. Good.
Good idea.
Let's do that.
CHEN CHI
Like,
right after we have a cup of coffee.
DEBARGO
OK.
Good.
ONE LESBIAN COUPLE
HIROKO
I'm glad to see you again.
CATHERINE
So you say.
And yet
I don't know how it could be true.
HIROKO
How could it not be true?
CATHERINE
Because if you were glad to see me you would never have left me.
HIROKO
Of course I would.
CATHERINE
No, because
if you love someone you don't leave them.
You hold onto them for dear life
you hold onto them forever
unless you are a stupid person
which I don't think you are
so
what else can I think
except you never really loved me
I was just another one of your flings along the way where
as I loved you
I knew
if you love someone
you don't let them go
HIROKO
And yet you did.
CATHERINE
I never did.
HIROKO
You said:
if one day you are going to leave me then go now
don't just keep tormenting me.
CATHERINE
And so?
HIROKO
And so.
It's not that I left you.
CATHERINE
Excuse me.
I didn't leave you.
And yet, you are not with me.
What else happened?
HIROKO
It turned out
we were at different points in our lives we couldn't go on.
CATHERINE
I could have gone on.
HIROKO
Shall we talk about something else?
CATHERINE
I see
in the world
people have wars and they die entire countries come to an end
Etienne has died of cancer
HIROKO
I didn't know.
CATHERINE
How could you?
And yet
there it is.
And one day I will die
and so will you.
And yet
you could leave me.
I don't understand.
I will never understand
how it is if you have only one life to live
and you find your own true love
the person all your life you were meant to find
and your only job then was to cherish that person
and care for that person
and never let go
but it turns out
you can still think
for some reason
because this or that
you end it
you end it forever
you end it for the only life you will ever live on earth.
Maybe if you would be reincarnated
and you could come back to life again and again a dozen times
then this would make sense
to throw away your only chance for love in this life
because you would have another chance in another life
but when this is your only chance
how can this make sense?
Do you think
there will ever be a time
when we could get back together?
HIROKO
No.
CATHERINE
Not ever?
HIROKO
No.
CATHERINE
Not ever at all even ever?
HIROKO
No.
CATHERINE
And yet
this is so hard for me to accept.
More than anything
I love to lie in bed with you at night
and look at your naked back
and stroke your back slowly
from your neck to your coccyx
and let my fingers fan out
and drift over your smooth buttock
and slip slowly down along your thigh
to your sweet knee
only to return again
coming up the back of your thigh
hesitating a moment
to let my fingers rest in the sweet valley
at the very top of your thigh, just below your buttock
and so slowly up along the small of your back
to your shoulder blade
and then to let your hair tickle my face
as I put my lips to your shoulder
and kiss you and kiss you and kiss you forever
this is what I call heaven
and what I hope will last forever
[Hiroko stands to leave]
HIROKO
I love you, Catherine.
I have never loved anyone in my life
as I have loved you and I know I never will.
But we cannot be together.
CATHERINE
I thought
how it was for us
you knew I loved you.
HIROKO
This is what you always said.
CATHERINE
This is what I meant.
HIROKO
And yet
whenever I was sad
you just
withdrew.
CATHERINE
I didn't think I did.
I thought I tried to help
or sometimes I put my arms around you
but sometimes it seemed
you needed space
or you felt if I just consoled you
I was condescending toward you
or if I tried to cajole you out of it
you thought I was dismissive of how you felt
or, so
then I would stand back
to give you the space you needed.
HIROKO
Yes, you would withdraw.
So that I felt
you had no empathy for me.
CATHERINE
But I did.
I did.
HIROKO
When I was with Henry
if I was sad or upset
he would just say
oh, I'm so sorry
and put his arms around me
and kiss me.
CATHERINE
You wish I would be like Henry.
HIROKO
No.
CATHERINE
You wish you were with Henry again.
HIROKO
No.
CATHERINE
I don't understand.
HIROKO
You don't understand anything I say.
CATHERINE
What are you saying?
HIROKO
I am saying
you could just say
Hiroko,
I pity you.
I pity you, Hiroko.
CATHERINE
I pity you, Hiroko.
HIROKO
You see,
it's not so hard.
CATHERINE
That's it?
HIROKO
That's all I need.
I don't need to be taken out to La Coupole
or some other restaurant
or for you to buy me little dresses
or take me to the oceanside
I just need to know
when I am sad
you pity me
CATHERINE
I pity you, Hiroko.
I pity you.
I pity you.
HIROKO
I love you, Catherine.
SHIZUKO
You know
I've been thinking about it
and it turns out
I love you
CATHERINE
You do?
SHIZUKO
Yes.
CATHERINE
I didn't know that.
SHIZUKO
Neither did I
but
I look at you
and I think you're good-natured.
CATHERINE
Oh, good-natured.
SHIZUKO
Yes.
CATHERINE
You do?
SHIZUKO
Yes, I really do.
And I think
if you think a person's agreeable and warmhearted
then I think there's something there you can't explain
that gives you real
delight.
CATHERINE
Oh.
SHIZUKO
I find
you give delight to me.
CATHERINE
Oh. Well.
That's what I'd hope for more than anything.
SHIZUKO
So would I.
CATHERINE
And you're not sorry about it?
SHIZUKO
How do you mean?
CATHERINE
That you find delight in someone
who doesn't seem to you in any other way
desirable
who doesn't perhaps have those qualities
that you can count on
for, you know, the solid, long-term kind of thing.
SHIZUKO
I would just take delight long-term.
CATHERINE
Oh.
So would I.
Charles Mee's work has been made possible by the support of Richard B. Fisher and Jeanne Donovan Fisher.
