Neuf

In which a lover from the previous piece is seen with a new lover.

Brie met Stephen, up in a palm tree.
They were down by the boardwalk before the tsunami.

Huit

In which a lover from the previous piece is seen with a new lover.

(The bedroom in a nice hotel suite. SHELLY sits up suddenly from under the covers. It is morning. It is the early 90s.)

SHELLY
What.
What.
Oh my God.

(She looks around. Quiet.)

SHELLY
(very shyly) Hello...
(pause)
Time...

(She looks at a clock. She looks around. She gets up and starts getting dressed, but collapses after a moment because she has a hangover.)

SHELLY
I'm in so much trouble.

(Enter JOHNNY DEPP.)

DEPP
...Breakfast?

Sept

In which a lover from the previous piece is seen with a new lover.

Une Histoire des affaires de Phoebe Tobiason
(A History of the Affairs of Phoebe Tobiason)

Presented Out of Order

Play the Home Game! Try and Place the Affairs in Order. For Bonus Points, assign the correct age (or age range) to each affair. Yes, there are right answers.

LA HISTOIRE

Phoebe Tobiason is born, and at some point, all of the following happens.

Six

In which a lover from the previous piece is seen with a new lover.

FADE-IN

A series of shots of college campuses. They are clearly all different college campuses. There is a Floridian campus with inherited Spanish architecture, a Southwestern stucco landscape, a postmodernist steel-and-glass wonderland, a utilitarian brown community college, a Bostonian Ivy League campus, the famous porticos of Jefferson's University of Virginia, a city-bound campus located in downtown skyscrapers.

Follow with shots of multiple dorm rooms. They suggest inhabitants religious, deviant, nerdy, academic, spartan, girlish, macho, foreign, artistic, messy, clean, in surroundings of decaying cinder blocks, expansive carpets and wood paneling, ready-made drywall, with bunk beds, stacked beds, single beds, paired beds.

The various images recycle and speed up until a blur, like on a slot machine, and at a seemingly random moment they stop on a

CLOSE-UP

of Charlotte Perkins, aged nineteen, biting her lip nervously.

Cinq

In which a lover from the previous piece is seen with a new lover.

ANDY
Charlotte you hate your life.

CHARLOTTE
I have things! I have hopes and dreams!

ANDY
Your stepmomma takes your money your older brother pinches you the cute boys at school they send you notes asking you to go out with them to prom but then when you say yes they say ha ha it was a joke we got you again Charlotte and Father Markey falls asleep at your confession.

CHARLOTTE
Well what do you think I hope and dream about?

ANDY
Me!

Quatre

In which a lover from the previous piece is seen with a new lover.

Jared dreams with extreme and inexhaustible frequency. If he stares at something white or off-white or pale white or eggshell colored or cream gray too long his mind will blank out. It is like a button. He has to be careful in the winter. Gray skies of the wrong hue will capture him. They capture him because of their vastness. If he accidentally looks at a white brick wall he’ll void into a dream, but he’ll snap out of it when the dream is over. He’ll look away a couple inches in a sort of jerk reaction. And if the wall ends there he’ll be back to reality. But a vast dead sky, that can go on forever. If a plane flies overhead on a winter day and Jared looks up, he’s doomed until dusk.

Trois

In which a lover from the previous piece is seen with a new lover.

Zsama tells this story whenever asked that age-old question, "What's your biggest secret?":

"...You're sure you want to know? I will tell you. I'm like that. Plus I know about the dead hooker in your closet, so if you go n' try and turn me in or something, I've got something on you, you hear? No I'm kidding. But I WILL tell you, love"

(Zsama says "darlings" instead of "love" if telling this story to a group instead of a single recipient, but otherwise this story, told many a time, remains essentially the same in each telling - having been much-practiced, no doubt.)

"But I WILL tell you, darlings- because of my trust in you. You hear? Good. Then listen.

Deux

In which a lover from the previous piece is seen with a new lover.

ZSAMA
Holy shit.

LIN
Oh no...

ZSAMA
You're beautiful.

LIN
Oh. Oh! Stop.
No.
I look like shit. I wish-

ZSAMA
Well yes.

LIN
Yes?

ZSAMA
Shitty.
You're like a peach that someone shat all over. But see. Underneath you're still a peach.
And what a peach.

LIN
Stop. You don't have to.

ZSAMA
It's true.

LIN
I'm such an embarassment.
...I wish you hadn't come.

Une

In which a lover takes a new lover.

SAM
Top sirloin.

LIN
Top sirloin. How would you like it cooked?

SAM
Blue.

LIN
Blue?

SAM
Blue.

LIN
...Wow.