Five @ Fifty
Page 5
FERN: Worked out. Big arms.
TRICIA: Oh for—we were her bridesmaids.
FERN: He was her first great love.
OLIVIA: The only Jewish guy she got involved with.
TRICIA: It’s right on the tip of my mind.
FERN: Mannie.
NORMA: Mannie.
OLIVIA: Mannie was great. He went to court and got custody.
TRICIA: And Lorene had that seven year depression.
NORMA: She managed two affairs a marriage and a son during that depression.
LORENE enters.
LORENE: Hola.
OLIVIA: About time.
FERN: Are you alright?
LORENE: Peachy.
TRICIA: You seem.
LORENE: Fine.
NORMA: Hungry?
LORENE: No. Happy birthday.
NORMA: Thank you.
OLIVIA: You look sad.
LORENE: I’m fine.
FERN: Really?
LORENE: Sure. Who’s mixing?
OLIVIA: What’s your poison?
LORENE: Vodka. Lots.
TRICIA: I can pick you up.
FERN: How?
TRICIA produces a small package of cocaine.
TRICIA: Who wants to do some blow?
NORMA: Really?
TRICIA: Sure.
FERN: I do.
OLIVIA: Fern?!
LORENE: I’m in.
OLIVIA: Girls you could at least pretend to be shocked.
FERN: What? I haven’t done cocaine in decades.
TRICIA: It’s really clean.
NORMA: Well if it’s really clean.
OLIVIA: Prominent pediatricians do not do cocaine.
NORMA: What fantasy world do you live in? Line ’em up.
TRICIA cuts coke into lines.
TRICIA: Let’s get crazy ladies.
LORENE: Everyone needs to party once in a while.
OLIVIA: It’s illegal.
OLIVIA refills her glass again.
TRICIA: So is smoking pot.
OLIVIA: But it’s less—what creepy people do.
LORENE: We’re in a private dining room.
OLIVIA: But I have such a delightful dinner planned.
LORENE hands OLIVIA a straw.
LORENE: Shut up and snort.
OLIVIA: No.
NORMA: Well I will.
NORMA grabs the straw from OLIVIA and does a fast line.
TRICIA: Whoa girl!
OLIVIA: Norma.
FERN: Now me.
FERN grabs the straw from NORMA and does a line.
TRICIA: Isn’t this so fifteen years ago?
NORMA: Oh yeah.
OLIVIA: It is.
NORMA: Hmpph.
FERN: Ouch.
TRICIA: Give me the straw.
FERN: Is it supposed to hurt this much?
TRICIA: That’s the garbage they cut it with.
NORMA: I thought it was clean.
TRICIA: It is. Except for the baby laxative and Drano.
FERN: My sinuses.
LORENE: It’ll stop. Relax.
FERN: Hoo boy.
TRICIA does a line.
OLIVIA: I need more wine.
NORMA: Fill me up too.
FERN: Is my face okay?
TRICIA: Hoo haw.
LORENE: It’s very smooth once you get over that initial rush.
TRICIA: Jesus.
NORMA: Where did you get this anyway?
TRICIA: My dealer.
FERN: You have a dealer?
TRICIA: Usually just for pot and painkillers.
OLIVIA: Who needs more wine?
NORMA: Please. Pot and painkillers?
TRICIA: For my heavy days.
FERN: I feel nice now.
NORMA: What an excellent birthday surprise.
TRICIA: Do you feel better now?
LORENE: Yeah for a second I almost forgot—
TRICIA: What’s wrong?
LORENE: Nothing I—
OLIVIA: What?
LORENE: I’m leaving Clifford.
NORMA: What happened?
LORENE: He— (pause) wants kids.
NORMA: Kids?
TRICIA: But he’s—
LORENE: I know but I don’t care. We both drink too much and when I feel like it I go down on him and vice versa. What could be better right? And then we start hanging out with my best friend Brent at the agency and his partner Harold the fireman.
FERN: Oh oh.
LORENE: And Brent and Harold are having a kid with a surrogate and they’re dealing with an adoption agency and someone’s sister is carrying her brother’s fetus—which I find really creepy—and then bingo they have three kids. Honest. Three kids in six months or something. And all of a sudden Clifford’s all I wish we had kids and I’m like WHAT and he says we should have real sex and I say for god’s sake Clifford if I’d wanted someone to really fuck me I wouldn’t have married a bottom!
TRICIA: Oh dear.
LORENE: And now he’s moving in with them and he’s gonna be their live-in nanny and help them raise their future kids with the super brains—and I’m single once again.
FERN: Lorene.
NORMA: I’m so sorry.
LORENE: Got any more coke?
TRICIA: Help yourself.
OLIVIA: Could you even have a baby?
LORENE: Are you kidding? They can plant the little fuckers inside of us any time they want to. If your womb’s too old they’ll replace it with a sheep’s womb. If you can’t lactate they’ll give you the nipples of a fertile sow.
FERN: I never felt better in my life than when I was breastfeeding. It was wonderful. It really was.
LORENE: My nipples turned black cracked and bled. Who needs another line?
NORMA: Me.
FERN: I often miss the way I felt when I was lactating.
LORENE: I won’t have another child to resent me.
OLIVIA: Oh I’m sure little Diana and—Simba.
NORMA: Steven?
LORENE: Sammy.
NORMA, OLIVIA & TRICIA: Sammy.
OLIVIA: Are fine with their empty childhoods. More wine?
LORENE: They hate me and they’re teenagers now.
TRICIA: Come on. We’re here to celebrate.
NORMA: My fiftieth.
LORENE: And my impending divorce.
FERN: Will he want palimony?
LORENE: They all want palimony.
NORMA: Celebrating.
OLIVIA: We should eat soon.
LORENE: I couldn’t dream of it.
TRICIA: I’ve lost my appetite too.
NORMA: I need more wine.
OLIVIA: But we have braised—
FERN: Later.
TRICIA: Did we order champagne? It would be great to have some champagne.
OLIVIA: We’re having champagne after dessert.
TRICIA: Dessert?
LORENE: As if.
NORMA: Is there any cocaine left?
OLIVIA: Hey I spent the whole goddamn month putting this stupid fucking thing together—getting the room planning the menu consulting with the chef and making sure everything would be just perfect and you’re ruining it.
TRICIA: Lorene’s marriage is falling apart.
OLIVIA: She married a homo.
FERN: Crisises change things.
LORENE: I don’t mean to be a burden.
NORMA: It might not be a bad idea to—
OLIVIA: I’ll get the maître d’.
TRICIA: Olivia wait.
NORMA: No maître d’.
OLIVIA: Shut up. Sit in your places.
FERN: But I need to—
OLIVIA: Everyone sit down.
TRICIA: Stop it.
OLIVIA slaps TRICIA across the face.
OLIVIA: I SAID SIT DOWN!
Pause.
TRICIA: You fucking bitch.
OLIVIA: It was an accident.
TRICIA: I can’t believe it. You actually.
Pause.
TRICIA exits. Pause.
OLIVIA: More wine?
FERN: I’m good. I should—I have to go.
OLIVIA: But dinner.
FERN: I’m not hungry. Thanx. Happy birthday Norma.
FERN exits quickly.
OLIVIA: Lorene?
LORENE: You hit her.
OLIVIA: It was the coke.
LORENE: You didn’t do any coke.
OLIVIA: Lorene—
LORENE: Happy birthday Norma. Sorry if I tried to make it all about me.
LORENE exits. Pause.
OLIVIA: I’m eating everything. I don’t care.
NORMA: Good for you.
OLIVIA: Don’t.
NORMA: What?
OLIVIA: I can hear that tone in your voice.
NORMA: No.
OLIVIA: Who else would put up with your love of bad movies?
NORMA: I’ll bite. Who?
OLIVIA: You’re high.
NORMA: Let’s eat.
A light rises on TRICIA alone.
TRICIA: Annabelle Stanko. She was this greasy dark-eyed fleabag in my grade two class. She caught me peeing outside during recess once and threatened to tell the nuns unless I gave her one of my Lemon Cheez sandwiches every day. I hated her. Her father was a drunk and her mother was a fat ugly bitch everyone laughed at. No one ever played with her. I think extorting that sandwich out of me every day kinda made me her friend. Then one day everyone was talking about how Annabelle’s mother was found dead with her head in the oven while her husband and children slept. She came to the school later that day to get her stuff and even though she looked vacant and tired I still said I’m glad your crazy mother killed herself. She barely looked at me. It was like she was sleepwalking. She said but now she can’t protect me from him and kind of half stumbled out of the room. She never came back to school again.
FERN and LORENE join her.
LORENE: And that’s why you never let anything go?
TRICIA: I’d see her occasionally. Always at that shitty shack they lived in. Taking care of her brothers and sisters like she was the mother now. The whole town knew.
FERN: So what do we do about Olivia?
TRICIA: Are either of you interested in continuing the friendship like this?
Pause.
FERN: I can’t deal with another one of those scenes.
LORENE: Shouldn’t Norma do something?
TRICIA: I think she thinks she is.
LORENE: Jeez.
Pause.
TRICIA: Either we care enough to do this or we don’t.
LORENE: When you put it that way.
FERN: What other choice have we got?
A light rises on OLIVIA as she gets ready for work. By the end of her speech she’s gotten dressed and taken a number of drinks.
OLIVIA: If I could sleep. It’d be better if I could sleep. I mean I fall asleep alright but three hours later I’m swimming toward waking up and thinking no no no not yet—and then it’s just—lying there—sleeping—not sleeping—suspended—listening to Norma snore—and I know a drink will help. So I take one or four. And they buy me a few more hours and kill any dreams—I hate my dreams—and then I go to work. But if I could sleep all night I think it would be alright then. If I could just have a full night’s sleep.
OLIVIA exits the house to find TRICIA, LORENE and FERN waiting for her.
TRICIA: Good morning.
OLIVIA: Hey.
LORENE: Got a minute?
OLIVIA: At seven fifteen? In my driveway?
FERN: You haven’t had anything to drink have you?
OLIVIA: Of course not.
LORENE: Liv?
OLIVIA: It’s none of your fucking business.
LORENE: We treasure and support you.
FERN: You know that.
TRICIA: But you’re an alcoholic and you need to get help.
OLIVIA: Oh please—one night when you all get high on coke and things get a little out of control and all of a sudden everyone’s interventing Olivia.
LORENE: This has nothing to do with the cocaine.
FERN: It has to do with the way you drink.
TRICIA: And the things you do and say when you’re drunk.
OLIVIA: Get out of my way.
TRICIA: Not until you’ve heard us out.
OLIVIA: Fern Lorene why do you guys let her talk you into these things? You know she only does it to prove she has control.
FERN: It’s not about Tricia.
LORENE: Or control.
OLIVIA: Yes it is. Everything’s about Tricia. And control. Now if you don’t mind I have to—
TRICIA: Puke on me? Hit me?
OLIVIA: Fuck off okay. Just fuck off and stay the fuck away from me. I don’t need this shit.
TRICIA: If you get in your car I’ll call the cops and tell them you’ve been drinking.
OLIVIA: But I haven’t—
TRICIA: Then you’ve got nothing to worry about if they give you a breathalyzer test.
OLIVIA: You all drink with me.
FERN: We don’t slap you.
TRICIA: What’s so hideous in your life that you have to drink like this?
OLIVIA: Nothing.
LORENE: Tell us what you need.
OLIVIA: Look why don’t we talk about this after I get off work. I’m going to be late.
TRICIA: No.
OLIVIA: I’ll get Norma.
FERN: Leave Norma out of this.
OLIVIA: I’m not an alcoholic.
FERN: I can smell the booze from here.
OLIVIA: At least I never married a fag or let five guys fuck me in one night or was—was boring.
TRICIA: Stop it.
OLIVIA: We all have addictions why are mine suddenly so important?
FERN: Because you’re unhappy and you’re hurting yourself and it hurts us to watch you do it.
OLIVIA: I’m NOT unhappy! You’re the unhappy ones. You’re all way unhappier than me. We—we should get Norma.
TRICIA: Norma’s your enabler.
OLIVIA: Leave me alone!
FERN: Why are you so angry?
OLIVIA: I don’t know okay. I don’t fucking know. It just—I never really cared—a shot here and there—I don’t know—it makes me feel better—alcohol likes me. It likes me a lot. And I just. Stop okay. Just stop. I need to—go away okay. Just go away now.
TRICIA: No.
OLIVIA: Lorene you know me. It’s just a phase—a thing—
LORENE: Olivia you’ve been doing this for years.
FERN: There are people.
LORENE: Who can help.
OLIVIA: Help what?
TRICIA: Help you quit drinking.
OLIVIA: I don’t want to quit drinking.
TRICIA: You have to.
OLIVIA: But you’re my friends.
FERN: You don’t treat us like friends.
OLIVIA: I do. I love—
TRICIA slaps OLIVIA across the face.
TRICIA: You’re not just a drunk you’re a boring drunk.
Long pause.
LORENE: You have to stop.
OLIVIA: I’ll die.
FERN: You won’t.
LORENE: I know how strong you are.
OLIVIA: But Norma.
LORENE: Norma wants you to be healthy too.
OLIVIA: I don’t think I—
FERN: You can.
LORENE: Just give it a try.
TRICIA: There’s a place we can take you where people will help you. If you want to go. You have to want to go.
OLIVIA: A place?
TRICIA: For rehabilitation.
FERN: There are professionals there.
LORENE: They’ll help you.
OLIVIA: Stop?
TRICIA: Yes.
Pause.
OLIVIA: You’d take me there?
FERN: And we’ll come and see you every day.
OLIVIA: Seriously?
TRICIA: If we can.
LORENE: If it�
��ll help.
OLIVIA: I could stop?
TRICIA: Yes.
NORMA enters.
NORMA: What’s going on?
OLIVIA: They’re interventing me.
NORMA: Get out of here.
TRICIA: No.
OLIVIA: They say there’s a place that’ll help.
FERN: Norma you know she needs help.
NORMA: I can’t believe you’d do this.
TRICIA: I can’t believe you wouldn’t.
Pause.
OLIVIA: Norma please?
NORMA: What?
FERN: Don’t you want her to quit?
NORMA: Of course.
LORENE: Take the step.