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.


ZSAMA
You want the Perfector's Chicken Soup of Healing Plus Ten, peach, you got the Perfector. I have added echnicea for immunity, pomegranate seeds for vitamins and a certain tart je ne sais quoi, nigella sativa for EVERYTHING, and gold flake.

LIN
What's that for?

ZSAMA
So you can fucking swallow some gold, baby!
Actually it just scraped off my bracelet.
Actually it's cannabis.

LIN
What's that for?

ZSAMA
...Cannabis.

LIN
Yeah.
...
Oh!

ZSAMA
Ding, winner, here's your new Mercedes.

LIN
Really?

ZSAMA
Thought that might excite you.

LIN
You're bad. In the soup?

ZSAMA
Ah. Well.

LIN
Really? Wow.

ZSAMA
To the bone.
Punish me.

(ZSAMA holds a hand forward.)

LIN
What? Oh. Hit you.

(LIN smacks ZSAMA's hand.)

ZSAMA
Oh ooh stoooop!

(LIN has a coughing fit.)

ZSAMA
Crap.
My fault.

LIN
Oh.
(cough)
No.
(coughing)
It's o-
(coughing)
It's o-
(coughing)
O-

ZSAMA
-klahoma?

LIN
No!

ZSAMA
-bama?

LIN
No!
Stop you're making me - making me -

ZSAMA
God. I can't control myself can I.
Here. Uh. Here.

(ZSAMA presses LIN's sternum.)

ZSAMA
Hush hush hush peach.

LIN
Ah.
I'm such a mess. It's like I'm a little yappy dog in the yard next door. If you tiptoe past just a little too loud I'll be barking down the entire block. Oh ow. Oww.

ZSAMA
My fault.

LIN
No. I was laughing at you.

ZSAMA
Whip me beat me.
I'll go warm the Miracle Soup.

LIN
You are the sweetest sweetheart.

ZSAMA
You are peach.

LIN
It's so sweet of me spewing germs all over your face.

ZSAMA
Hold on you said you're decontagious.

LIN
...Dead germs?

ZSAMA
You're a germ.

LIN
Am I?

ZSAMA
And I've caught the disease.

LIN
You're a germ.

ZSAMA
No you're the germ.

LIN
Zsama sweetheart.
I'm afraid for.

ZSAMA
...Peach you ain't gonna die from this shit-

LIN
No!
My job.

ZSAMA
Oh well. Feh. They fire you, you can sue.

LIN
But I love my job.

ZSAMA
Which is why you sue. You've got sick leave and vacation.

LIN
They didn't approve the usage.

ZSAMA
Which is why-

LIN
I couldn't. I'd rather beg at the door. But I wouldn't take their money.

ZSAMA
This is why I never understood-.
On your feet all day. Dealing with nasty people.

LIN
I like people.

ZSAMA
People in restaurants are at their worst.
If ever aliens come down and say "y'all are fucked up, we gotta destroy you" it won't be cause of war or global warming or some shit, it'll be cause the ETs saw a Applebee's on a Friday night.

LIN
I don't work at Applebee's.

ZSAMA
Naw you work with the hoity-toitys up at-

LIN
I don't want to.
(coughs)
Again. I know you-

ZSAMA
Jesus.

LIN
(coughing) Your soul couldn't take it. Three months forget three years.
But I'm a simple-
(coughing)
Simple-
(coughing)
Makes me happy. ...Take what I can get.

ZSAMA
Peach.
You can get anything. You got my Soup and that's a Rare Gift. You can-
Seriously. What do you want?

LIN
I want to get back on my feet and get back to work.

ZSAMA
No what you want to do is stay on your back while I work on your feet.

LIN
No I- Ooh.

(ZSAMA rubs LIN's feet.)

ZSAMA
Soup'll be ready in five.
Look at these feet. These are excellent feet. I ain't a fetishit, but hey if...

LIN
Stop.

ZSAMA
K.

LIN
No don't stop.

ZSAMA
Oh, oops, ah.

LIN
I mean stop saying- They're feet!

ZSAMA
You're gonna ruin 'em. You know what happens to old waitstaff. They get sent off to greasy diners on Route 66. It's like elephant graveyards. It's a stressful life you got workin' on and it will ruin your body.

(LIN looks away in embarassment.)

ZSAMA
A clever and funny... peach like you with a big old heart of a seed in the middle should be sitting on your fantastic ass in some cushy-

LIN
Stop.

ZSAMA
What? I mean it.

LIN
Yeah I know.
I know. You always tell me I-
But.
I just.

(ZSAMA hesitates, then reaches out and gently takes LIN by the cheek to turn LIN's face toward ZSAMA. But LIN bats ZSAMA's hand away instinctively.)

ZSAMA
You are gorgeous you know.

LIN
Jesus. You're actually making me feel worse.

ZSAMA
I meant it about the underneath.
If anything like this with all the makeup gone. Babe it's like a Christmas tree before the ornaments. No tacky shit. No sprucing up the spruce. Just a tree. And babe it was some poet what said "I don't believe I shall ever see/A thing as lovely as a tree."

LIN
Wasn't that a cartoon.

ZSAMA
What?
Peach the point is-

LIN
Stop. I'm not a peach. I feel like an overcooked steak. And I sound like... an... a... an overcooked steak. And see I don't even make sense.

ZSAMA
You can't take a hint can you.

LIN
I just find it odd being.
(coughing)
Ow. Jesus.
Treated like this.

ZSAMA
What. Footrubs. God invented sickness so grown men and women can get footrubs and chicken soup without feeling guilty about it.

LIN
No.
(coughing)
Like.
Like.
(coughing)
OW! God dammit. Zsama. Zsama.
I wish you hadn't come.

ZSAMA
Peach.

LIN
When I was a kid.
Ow.
A kid. Like. Thirteen. Fourteen.
In physical education we would play indoor soccer with the whole class.
The guys the girls everyone. The kids on the real soccer team.
The fat kids.

ZSAMA
Don't tell me you was a-

LIN
No I was a skinny little-
Anyways.
The good kids they mostly played. Running up and down. The fat kids stood off to one side and snuck games on their scientific calculators. And the... medium kids like me. We sort of wandered around like we were drunk. Like. A little bit this way. Towards the ball. Oops now this way. No one passed to us though.
So one day.
I threw a tantrum. I was like. Fuck. I didn't say fuck. I said Frig. Frig I said, I never get to kick, this isn't fair! blah de blah blah bitch bitch.
So the teacher had a few quiet words with the good kids.
I watched.
They sort of nodded. "Sure." You know. They were. Nice people. They just liked to play soccer.
So they passed. To me and the mediums and sometimes the fat kids but the fat kids were like hey what we have to play now? what about Pong or I don't even know what they played.
But mostly to me. Out of.
(pause)
(cough)
Pity.
Being... nice.
And I was like happy at first.
Which lasted two seconds because I lost our side the ball.
Our side got it back.
Passed it to me again.
Lost it again.
This went on.
Next day, too. And the next.
Every time. It was worse.
I started trying to hide. Getting out of the middle so I'd be less. Attractive to pass to.
But the more I ran. The worse I did. The more I got the ball.
Stupid...
(pause)
That's what I feel like here.
I look the ugliest, shittiest, like a bruised banana not a peach. And suddenly.
(pause; having difficulty saying this)
Suddenly.
(desperate laugh)
Footrubs.
I don't-
(cough)
Don't think-

ZSAMA
Hey.

LIN
Don't think-
(cough)
Don't think-
(cough)

ZSAMA
Relax.

LIN
Stop!
(coughing)
Don't THINK-
(coughing)
DAMMIT!
(coughing)
I
(cough)
CAN TAKE IT!
(coughing a lot)
IT HURTS.

ZSAMA
Soup uh is ready-

LIN
You hurt!

ZSAMA
I.
No.

LIN
Go away.

ZSAMA
Lin.

LIN
Go.

ZSAMA
Peach.

LIN
You're making me sicker.

(ZSAMA comes up to and kisses LIN.)

LIN
What WHAT are you doing?

ZSAMA
Peach.

LIN
No no no-

ZSAMA
Hey I-

LIN
Gross! You- Look at me!

ZSAMA
I am.
I have been.
Differently.

LIN
What?
Na-uh.

ZSAMA
Yeah.
For a while.

(LIN is speechless.)

ZSAMA
Like since summer awhile.

LIN
But- Ah- Why-
You- You-
Why-

ZSAMA
Didn't I say something?

LIN
No. But yeah.

ZSAMA
Embarassed?

LIN
EMBARASSED?!

ZSAMA
I...

LIN
I was the one who asked you-
Who threw-
Who-
Jesus!
No. No no. You can't be saying.

ZSAMA
(taking LIN's hand) I'm saying.

LIN
(pulling away) No.

ZSAMA
Peach I know you feel gross. But I just have bad timing. And a Florence Nightingale thing.

LIN
You can't.
I'm not.

ZSAMA
What.

LIN
That's not fair. I'm the suffering! And YOU'RE embarassed?

ZSAMA
What was I gonna say. "I know I said I wasn't interested before, but now I've changed my mind, and I'll take you."

LIN
Yes but wittier, because you're Zsama!

ZSAMA
I.
Tried.
Heck I've been flirting so hard people sitting behind you have been getting turned on.

LIN
Throwing me a bone!

ZSAMA
Don't look a gift horse.

LIN
You're.
You're just being sweet.

ZSAMA
No I swear.

LIN
I must really look like death warmed over. Death's leftovers. The fruitcake from Death's last Christmas.

ZSAMA
You shine through.

LIN
If I didn't know better I'd say I was dying and had somehow contacted the Make-A-Wish foundation.

ZSAMA
Kiss me.

LIN
Stop! I can't take this. Oh God. I think I'm going to throw up.
Go. Go before I- GO!

ZSAMA
Baby-

LIN
GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY DISEASE!

ZSAMA
I've never seen you like this.

LIN
Pleeease-

ZSAMA
No peach. No Lin.

LIN
Pleeease-
Please get me a bucket.

(ZSAMA gets a receptacle. LIN vomits into it.)

LIN
Look at this. Unrequited lovesick.

ZSAMA
Dumbass I'm requiting.

LIN
That's impossible.
This is bad soccer.
This is math! Ugly Lin. Plus Sudden Zsama Love. Equals Not For Real.

ZSAMA
Usually love in the face of vomit is pretty trustworthy.

LIN
This is torture.
(knocking heels together) There's no place like the Bistro. There's no place like the Bistro. There's no place like the Bistro.

ZSAMA
Surrender, Dorothy.
The Good Lin of the East, I know you're in there. Defeat the Bad Lin of the West. The Self-Pitying Whiny Lin. That's not the Lin that... The Lin that can maintain a smile and French accent when serving some rube who says "What's an EssKarGott?"

(LIN laughs a little, then coughs.)

ZSAMA
The Lin I adore.

LIN
Stoop. It's not.
(coughing, almost crying)
Fair.

(LIN coughs a couple times, then starts crying.)

LIN
Oh God I'm a mess.

ZSAMA
Yep.

LIN
It's not fair. To the Healthy Me. That Sick Me is who gets you.
I don't like this.

ZSAMA
(indicating the vomit) I'd be scared if you did.

LIN
But you do!

ZSAMA
Well.
(looking at the vomit, then shoving it away)
The important parts. I do.

(ZSAMA strokes LIN's face.)

ZSAMA
I'm going to kiss you, sick baby.

LIN
Oh. Kay.

ZSAMA
You're going to love it.

LIN
Oh kay.

ZSAMA
Yes?

LIN
Oh.

ZSAMA
Hm?

LIN
-klahoma.

ZSAMA
Right answer.

(ZSAMA kisses LIN. LIN coughs a little. They kiss more. ZSAMA starts kissing other parts of LIN's body. LIN coughs a lot. ZSAMA and LIN start getting hot and heavy, and simultaneously LIN descends into an utter fit of coughing and spasming.)

ZSAMA
Oh hell.

LIN
Can we... still do this... later?

ZSAMA
Yes, thank God.

LIN
R-r-r-really?

ZSAMA
Yes.
Cause frankly you taste horrible right now.

(LIN laughs, then coughs more. ZSAMA presses LIN's sternum to stop the coughing. ZSAMA gets the soup and feeds LIN a spoonful.)

LIN
Oh my God.

ZSAMA
Yes dear?

LIN
Pefect.

ZSAMA
More pomegranate?

LIN
No.

ZSAMA                  LIN
More cannabis?        Yes.

ZSAMA
This is not FDA-approved nursing. But don't tell me sex isn't good incentive to convalesce.

LIN
Oh God yes.
But.
(pause)
Promise me. If this is all a dream. Or just pity for a sick person.

ZSAMA
It isn't, but what?

LIN
You'll kill me.

ZSAMA
Oh peach.

LIN
Promise.

ZSAMA
Sure. I'll poison the soup.

LIN
Good.
(pause)
So.

ZSAMA
So?

LIN
This is... probably a bad time to tell you I'm a bad person.

ZSAMA
What? Peach. How?

LIN
Well I'm really selfish and I wanted you to come over.
Didn't think it would get me anything, like the past thousand times...
But...
Um...

ZSAMA
...Liiiin?

LIN
I'm still contagious.

(Pause.)

ZSAMA
Well shit.

(ZSAMA kisses LIN. End of play.)