Miserable Love Stories

by Alex Bernstein

Did she lose her luggage?

  Is she just obsessed?

  Is her Mom a psycho,

  who burned her clothes?

  ’Cause she only ever wears

  the Bridesmaid’s Dress!

  Some SNOTTY GIRLS walk by and sneer at Cynthia.

  GIRL 1: Nice dress!

  CYNTHIA: Jealous!

  They laugh and walk away.

  TIP: Cynthia, before Dexter and Janet show up—can we discuss something?

  CYNTHIA: Tip? What is it?

  TIP: Gosh, the past few weeks have been so fast—we’ve hardly been apart—

  CYNTHIA: It’s been special for me, too, Tip.

  TIP: Cynthia—I don’t know how to say this, but I think it would be better if we took a break for a while.

  CYNTHIA: (shocked) But I thought everything was going so well!

  TIP: Oh sure! I just—

  An ELDERLY WOMAN walks by the table, and pauses, noticing Cynthia’s dress. She lifts the hem.

  WOMAN: I have these curtains.

  The woman walks off. Tip grips Cynthia’s hand, getting her attention.

  CYNTHIA: It’s my family!? They’re too constricting!?

  TIP: No—I love your family!

  CYNTHIA: It’s my hair—?!

  TIP: I’m a big fan of your hair! All of it!

  CYNTHIA: It’s—it’s—MY DRESS!!??!

  TIP: NO! No, no! It’s not the dress! It’s—it’s me! It’s a personal thing, Cyn. I think we should just cool it down for a while.

  Cynthia starts crying, loudly.

  TIP: Hey, I’m just gonna go Jiffy-Lube my hair for a minute. Be right back!

  Tip leaves. DEXTER, a jock, and JANET, a tough but nice chick, show up. They see Tip leaving and look confused. They sit with Cynthia.

  JANET: Cyn! What’s wrong?! Where’s Tip going?

  CYNTHIA: It’s over, Janet. We broke up!

  JANET: But why?

  CYNTHIA: I don’t know, Janet! I don’t know!

  JANET: Are you pregnant again?

  CYNTHIA: No! It’s not that! No one ever likes me after a couple dates! I just don’t know why!

  DEXTER: Maybe I better go have a little talk with the Tipper!

  Dexter exits.

  JANET: Now, listen, missy! You are not letting this get you grumpy! Come with me, Saturday—we’ll go shopping.

  CYNTHIA: For what?

  JANET: You know—for—for—for—books!

  CYNTHIA: I don’t need books.

  JANET: Fine chinaware!

  CYNTHIA: I don’t need chinaware.

  JANET: New kinds of gum!

  CYNTHIA: I don’t need—

  Cynthia stares at her. Janet is caught.

  CYNTHIA: WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY DRESS?! (beat) Are the sleeves coming off?!

  She wrenches herself around trying to look at her back.

  JANET: The sleeves are fine!

  Cynthia is on the verge of bursting out crying again. FRANKIE, the coolest cat in town, comes over.

  FRANKIE: Cynthia! Janet!

  JANET/CYNTHIA: Frankie!!

  Frankie sits, coolly.

  FRANKIE: I see Tip broke up with you, Cyn! But that’s okay!

  CYNTHIA: It is?

  FRANKIE: You bet! Hey! How’d you like to come to my pool party, Saturday? The gang’ll be there! And I got a new tan that I’m itchin’ to try out!

  CYNTHIA: (to herself) Swimming—swim suits—flesh—revealed—(to Frankie) Gee, I’d like to, Frankie—but I just can’t—

  FRANKIE: No prob, slob! So then, after that, we’re all going mountain climbing! (withdrawing a large pick) I got a new pick and I’m crazy to stick it in a big ’ol hill! Come with?!

  JANET: Eegah, Cyn! That sounds kooky!

  CYNTHIA: (to herself) Mountain climbing—mountain gear—boots—parkas—(to Frankie) I’m sorry, Frankie—I—I can’t—I—

  FRANKIE: Hey ho hey! Not a problemio! But then after—we’re all going to go strip down and dress like babies! Goo goo, gah gah gah! Hey! How’s that sound?!

  Cynthia convulses a bit.

  CYNTHIA: NO! NO! I CAN’T DO IT! I CAN’T DO IT! DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?!

  FRANKIE: (stunned) Wow. I mean—like—Wow! Uncool.

  He gets up.

  CYNTHIA: Frankie—Frankie—I’m sorry—I—

  FRANKIE: (coldly) Well, you know what they say: “Always a Bridesmaid!”

  Frankie leaves. Janet stares awkwardly at Cynthia.

  CYNTHIA: (shocked, stunned, etc.) AAAAAAH!

  JANET: Oh, Cyn! He didn’t mean it!

  CYNTHIA: Oh god! Oh god! I’m just gonna lock myself in a dark, damp, hidden bunker and no one will ever—

  Dexter returns with Tip. Tip’s head hangs low and he has a black eye.

  DEXTER: I believe Mr. Tip has something he wants to say to Cyn, hon.

  Janet and Dexter leave. Tip sits. Cynthia hurt, looks away from him.

  TIP: Maybe—maybe I was jumping the gun, Cyn—?

  CYNTHIA: No—you’re right, Tip. I’ve been thinking and—I guess what I really want is someone who accepts me—for me. For everything I am. And for everything I wear. And I’m just not sure you’re that guy!

  TIP: Gosh. Now who am I going to take to my Aunt’s wedding, Saturday?

  He starts to get up. Cynthia perks up a bit.

  CYNTHIA: W-W-W-W-W-W-W-Wedding?!

  TIP: It’s not a . . . big wedding.

  CYNTHIA: I’m free Saturday, Tipper.

  Tip sits back down, excited. He takes Cynthia’s hand. They stare into each other’s eyes again, gushing.

  TIP: Aw—who says you’re inflexible, Cyn?!

  CYNTHIA: I don’t know! Who?!

  They laugh and turn to the audience and freeze with gleeful smiles. The THEME SONG plays.

  THEME SONG (Reprise)

  Won’t throw it out!

  Won’t take it off!

  Maybe she just likes the Bridesmaid’s Dress!

  Props

  Vera’s Journal

  Friday, December 23, 1983

  Newark Airport

  9 pm

  HELLO. HELLO. HELLO.

  I’m at the airport. I hate the airport. But you know that.

  It’s the most miserable time of the year.

  My flight’s not for another hour and forty-five minutes. It’s unbelievably crowded—mostly with students flying standby, paying to get the cheap fares on People Express. The planes fly all night long and they’re dirt cheap—you actually pay cash on the plane for your ticket—which is insane. What if you’re on the plane and don’t have enough cash? Do they send you back? Do they make you stow other people’s luggage for four hours? Do they put you in the brig? Do they have a brig? These are the questions.

  I can’t stand the crowds. It looks and smells like a Grateful Dead concert. College students and teenagers attending prep schools (like me), trying to get home for the holidays. A sea of flannel and jeans. Kids have backpacks and sleeping bags. Some of them have unrolled their sleeping bags and are actually sleeping in them. I’m obviously avoiding the MOH girls. Six of them, in pajamas, are actually playing the Mystery Date board game on the floor at one of the gates. It’s like a surreal summer camp inside the airport.

  I decided to hole up at a gate with no outgoing flights just to get some extra space to myself. And I got bored quickly, so I unpacked my props and set them all up on the seats around me. And now it looks much more pleasant, if not a little fantastic. And why shouldn’t it? If I’m going to be stuck here for hours, I might as well entertain myself. Besides, I’m so loaded down, I kind of like unpacking it all. A couple of Mystery Date girls already called me “Mrs. Claus” because the bag I was lugging was so huge. Yes, okay, it was probably stupid to bring all this stuff home. But if I had left them at school, they would have just gotten stolen like last year. And besides, I wanted to show Beth and my family some of this stuff. Not that they’ll care. I had this great idea that some of my props might make great Christmas gifts. (Not to men
tion, they’ll be collector’s items after I’m rich and famous.) So, why not bring them home? I’m not 100 percent attached to all of them. I even thought I might leave a couple at the airport, so that they’d become “found art.” My only worry was that some philistine would think they were garbage and throw them away.

  For the record—since I know you’re keeping a record—here’s what I set out on the seats: a baby doll that’s reversible and becomes a super creepy baby pig doll and a flag with bright red flamingos all over it (both from Alice); a huge, incredibly cool Coat of Many Colors (from Joseph, but it’s really much more Dr. Who, 4th Doctor); a Rat Warrior, Nutcracker soldier, and a mini, plush, tie-dyed Santa (all from Nutcracker); Bondage Paddington Bear, covered in leather and metal studs (not from any specific show yet); a couple papier-mâché boulders (Lost in Space!); a pith helmet (no specific show); a couple other odds and ends; and of course, Buster.

  I’m trying not to look at him directly, but there’s an Indian kid sitting an aisle over who’s been staring at me for like the past five minutes. He looks about my age—maybe a year or two younger. He’s not even pretending not to stare. He’s creeping me out, but I just unpacked all this crap, so I really don’t want to move. He’s wearing a bright blue prep school blazer. So, I assume he’s from one of the academies. I’ve seen a lot of these kids wandering about. They’re much more formal and don’t go in for pajamas or sleeping bags like the Mary Olive-Harris (MOH) girls or the Deadheads. He looks pretty polished actually—except for the big hair. Wonder why they didn’t make him cut it. He doesn’t appear to have any bags. Just a cup of coffee he’s been nursing and a paper that he’s not even trying to pretend to read. Creep.

  Or maybe he’s an exciting, mysterious stranger?! But he’s probably just a creep. I’m also creeped out by the homeless guy sleeping across two seats behind me who’s snoring incredibly loudly. But I hate to move. I’ve got almost this whole gate area to myself.

  9:30 pm

  So, guess what? I actually started talking to the Indian kid!

  First of all, his name is Bala. Bala Vijayan. (No idea if I’m spelling that correctly.) And he’s only half-Indian. His father’s from Bombay, but his mother’s from Marin County. And he was doing the exact same thing I was doing—hiding from his classmates at an abandoned gate. I was right about the blazer, too. He’s a ninth grader at McCarter Academy in Westchester He hates crowds. The crowds here have made him extremely claustrophobic—and he saw me with all my stuff and thought I was doing performance art or a Christmas display or something—which would totally make sense if you didn’t know me, right?

  So, now I feel great that I pulled everything out of my bag. Even if it is a little freaky.

  Which is what he first said to me, by the way:

  “So, that’s a little freaky.”

  “What is?” I said, pretending like I didn’t know what he was talking about, but then admitting I did. Ha ha.

  So then I explained how I’m the Prop Manager for the MOH theatre department and made these props for the shows this past semester. And that, of course, these aren’t all the props I made. These were just the most significant and/or the easiest to bring home.

  “You did a lot of shows in one semester,” he said.

  I really did!

  10 pm

  I found out more about Bala. (He’s in the men’s room right now.) He’s been coming here, to Newark airport, as long as he’s been at McCarter. Almost three years. I figured we must have been here at the same time at least a couple years, right?

  His parents are divorced, and he hates them both, particularly his dad, who he spends Christmas with. But they don’t get along at all. He said he spends so much time at the airport that he actually knows a lot of the people who work here on a first name basis. He knows Jesus, the guy at the Chock Full O’ Nuts kiosk. (Bala drinks a lot of coffee.) He knows Millie at the Hudson Newsstand, and Paula the heavy Polish woman at Sbarro’s. He doesn’t like their food, but he likes Paula a lot. In fact, he actually prefers the airport to spending time with either of his parents.

  He seems to have a lot of money. And, from what I can tell, his life kind of sucks. His father—who’s a partner at a law firm in Boston—left Bala’s mom for another woman. And now they already have an entirely new family together. Bala’s dad had kids with this woman before he and Bala’s mom even broke up. After that Bala got into so much trouble with drugs and stealing that his dad sent him to McCarter just to get him the hell away from the new family. Isn’t that sad? You’d think he’d be more traumatized by all of that. But he seems pretty normal. (This, of course, coming from a girl who carts around a reversible baby pig and a talking plant.)

  Oh. I freaked him out, by the way. I saw some woman throw out a perfectly good airplane sleep pillow. The big fluffy U-shaped kind that wraps around your neck that you can buy at the newsstand. I’ve always wanted one. Not just for the pillow, but because it’s just so weirdly shaped and has so much personality, and it’s gotta have like a million uses onstage. It could be like a tribble hotel, or a plush boomerang, or just a weird thing sitting on a dinner table. Pulling it out of the garbage almost made Bala throw up. But it was only in there a second and nothing touched it. I mean I’m not that gross. Oh! AND! The woman also threw out a sleep mask! I’ve always wanted a sleep mask! You can do anything with that, and it packs easily.

  And Bala said, “if you want them so badly, why don’t you just buy them?”

  And I said, “of course I could buy them, but the hunt is everything. Finding these two things at once is a total jackpot!”

  And he said, “what about diseases?”

  And I said, “I’ve had enough experience haunting thrift stores to know when something’s unhealthy. And these are a-okay.”

  And then he asked me who Buster is.

  And I explained that Buster is my constant companion, my soulmate, and also a beautiful, stuffed, potted frond plant. He’s my oldest and most favorite prop, and the first real one I ever created. Buster’s been in every show I ever worked on. (He fades perfectly into the background.) We travel everywhere together. He’s very lucky. And yes, sometimes I talk to him. What’s it to ya?

  “So, it’s a security blanket?” he said.

  “No,” I said, “he’s a close, non-judgmental piece of art, who knows me, intimately. And—since you didn’t ask—he’s named after Buster Keaton.”

  Bala didn’t know who that was.

  So, anyway, when Bala returns from the men’s room, he said he’s going to teach me how to play mancala. I already know how to play mancala, but I think it’s cute that he wants to teach me, so I’m going to pretend I don’t know how to play.

  I think this is turning out to be much more of a fun airport story than I had expected it was going to be. Even if Bala is a bit snooty.

  10:30 pm

  News Update!

  The planes here suck!

  So, my flight got rescheduled to midnight. And Bala’s flight got completely canceled.

  We played like nine games of mancala—I beat him every time—and then he said why don’t we go to the food court? So, we did. And everyone really does know him. The steak and fries guy, the Chinese food guy, that Sbarro’s woman. They all knew his name and talked to him. It’s surreal. They’re giving him free food and the steak guy gave us free chef’s hats. And we’re still surrounded by all the thousands of students in jeans and pajamas, cause all of their flights are delayed, too. We pass the Mystery Date girls and they see us with our chef’s hats on, and they’re so jealous.

  I got jerk chicken from the jerk chicken place which was pretty good. I thought it’d have bugs crawling around it—at Newark you expect bugs to be crawling on everything—but it was actually pretty good.

  Then they called Bala’s plane. So, we said goodbye and he left, and I was sad. He was actually kind of growing on me, y’know? So, I went back to my abandoned gate and started re-reading Nurse on Terror Island.

  But then, t
en minutes later, Bala was back.

  “They canceled my flight,” he said. “They haven’t got another flight until two in the morning.”

  “That sucks,” I said.

  But I hate to admit that I was actually kind of thrilled. More mancala!

  11:30 pm

  I’m in the Delta Crown Room!

  I made a joke about sneaking into the Crown room and Bala said, “I have a membership. We can go in any time. Want to go in?”

  Duh! Yes!

  He said he finds the Crown Room too snobby and quiet and prefers the main terminal crowd. But I am lovin’ the Crown Room. It’s a big lounge with attractive people and friendly waiters who treat you like royalty. And—and!—Jackie O is in here! Jackie O! She looks great! (For a—what—seventy-year-old?!) I thought she was talking to Eli Wallach for a moment—but I think it was just some other short, angry man. But hey! Jackie O and I are in the same room together! I’m getting the same service as Jackie O!

  I’m suppressing a major urge to show Jackie my props. Jackie would love my props—especially Bondage Paddington Bear or my reversible baby pig. But I don’t want to create a scene. Dammit. Next Time.

  Bala told me he’s never been to India, even though he has family in Bombay. (But his dad goes frequently for work.) Essentially, he’s completely Americanized and has only the slightest Indian accent. And I realize I know nothing about India or Hindu culture. Nothing. And I feel so stupid. But he doesn’t care. Just another stupid American.

  I should get ready for my flight.

  Midnight

  My flight was delayed until 6:30 am tomorrow morning!

  Holy crap.

  So, I left the Crown Room to find a payphone to call my parents to tell them.

  6:30?! What are you doing?! You can’t stay there!

  “I’m fine. I’m fine. It’s perfectly safe. There’s a million kids here whose flights are all delayed. In fact, I just met this one kid who—”

  Why are you even talking to anyone?! Stay away from him! Airport kidnappings happen every day!

  “No one,” I said, “wants to kidnap me. Trust me.”

  But now they’ve got me all creeped out again. I’m not a kid. I’m 15. Assholes.

  Wait. Okay.

  That’s bizarre.