Vague, abstracted middle-aged couple, late 40s/early 50s. He: zipped-up leather bomber jacket, pressed dark jeans, loafers; she: beige leather car coat, wool skirt, tights, knee-high boots, lots and lots of loose, limp hair. Both brooding, utterly unsmiling.
They sit without speaking for some time, eyes fixed in different directions. Then:
She: I have a new favorite store. Banana Republic. You know them?
He: (pause) No.
She: You know them. That’s where I got these earrings, remember?
She strokes her long, dangly earrings. He doesn’t look at her.
He: (pause) No.
She: Yeah you do. At my mom’s mall. While you were getting that massage?
He: (pause) Oh that thing.
She: I love them now. I’m getting a denim skirt from them. It’s really tight. It’s a size four. I didn’t know twenty-seven inches could be a size four, I thought that would make it a size six. So that’s coming to me by mail.
Long pause.
He: We’re not going to smoke pot when we get there.
She: No we’re not.
He: I’ve got it right here.
He pats his breast pocket.
She: We’re not going to smoke it. Your parents, and my parents…
He unzips his leather jacket partway, reaches into the inside pocket and produces a small white plastic flip-top container. He flips it open–it’s full of marijuana.
He: It looks pretty good.
He leans down and sniffs it deeply.
She: You should get a pill box.
He: I like this. My dad gave it to me.
She: Your dad gives you everything. ‘Cause you’re the first born.
He: This belt.
He reaches down and pulls up his shirt to reveal the belt, exposing an expanse of pale, hairy belly. They both contemplate the belt.
He: And then sometimes it’s different and he doesn’t give me anything.
He drops his shirt, closes the pot box, slips it back into his inside jacket pocket.
They sit for a long time, brooding, facing different directions. He jiggles his knee, flicks his middle three fingers over and over again with the tip of his thumb. Then:
She: Any ideas for what we should do with the girls?
He: We’ll just have to be limited to what’s in the building. It’s the Sony building, so they have the Sony World of Wonder. We’ll just have to be limited to the World of Wonder.
