Night Swim

Céleste Parr

A large condo with high ceilings and a wall of windows. Spacious, elegant, minimalist. A sparkling late-night skyline. Upstage is a King-sized bed with the mattress leaning halfway off, touching the hardwood floor. A large piece of white fabric is tangled between the bare mattress and the bare box spring.  Downstage right is a plush, microsuede sofa and ottoman. Near it, a liquor cabinet and a variety of glasses, flutes, tumblers.

A gentle knock at the door.  Zoe, 30 and lean and athletic, enters from offstage-right, in a camisole and cut-off jean shorts. Her hair is sopping wet. Her clothes stick to the wet body underneath. She answers the door, stage left.

In steps Scott, 38, unshaven, muscular, and alert. He’s well dressed. Crisp, fitted black button-up shirt, rolled sleeves, slightly tapered black pants. Very chic apart from a well-worn, beat-up pair of black Converse sneakers.

 

SCOTT. Are you ok?

He steps forward to hug Zoe but she steps back, holding up her hands—

ZOE. Don’t, don’t—

SCOTT. Right, sorry.

He steps back and closes the door behind him.

SCOTT. Are you ok?

ZOE. Yeah.

SCOTT. You’re soaking wet.

ZOE. I went up for a swim.

Pause.

SCOTT. You went up for a swim.

ZOE. I waited all night for that swim.

SCOTT. You love your night swim.

ZOE. Hmm.

Scott slips off his shoes.

SCOTT. Smells good in here, at least.

ZOE. Veal chop.

SCOTT. Is that what you guys ate?

ZOE. We didn’t eat. I made a veal chop after I called you.

SCOTT. You made a… Ok.

Scott peeks past Zoe and sees the mattress half-off the bed.

SCOTT. Did he do that?

Zoe looks back.

ZOE. Oh, no, that was me. We were on the sofa.

She walks over to the bed.

ZOE. I washed the bed skirt today – apparently much harder to get back on. Mattress is fucking heavy.

SCOTT. Want me to…

Zoe scratches her head.

ZOE. Can we?

SCOTT. Yeah, sure.

They move to opposite sides of the mattress.

SCOTT. Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.

ZOE. How was work?

SCOTT. Drunks.

They heave the mattress upright on the floor. Scott holds it up as Zoe steps onto the box spring and grabs the tangled bed skirt.

ZOE. The Greeks next door are probably logging your visit.

She flaps the bed skirt once in the air and it billows out, and floats gently over the box spring before landing somewhat crooked and rippled.

SCOTT. (in a bad Greek accent) “Two men in one night? What whore!”

Zoe suddenly starts crying, standing on top of the box spring, gripping the edge of the bed skirt in one hand. She covers her face with the other.

SCOTT. Shit, I’m sorry, that was fucking dumb.

He wants to go comfort her but he’s holding the huge mattress up.

SCOTT. Dumb, dumb shit, I’m sorry.

ZOE. No.

Zoe stops crying. She sighs, annoyed at herself.

ZOE. No, I’m ok. (A deep breath.) Wow, that was – well I guess that’s the appropriate reaction to this kind of thing?

SCOTT. You hadn’t cried yet?

ZOE. No.

SCOTT. You have to cry.

ZOE. Do I?

She flaps the bed skirt into the air again, and it floats gently into perfect position. She beams proudly at Scott and hops back onto the floor.

ZOE. Your Greek sounded like Dracula.

SCOTT. The accent you’re referring to is Romanian.

They heave the mattress back up into the air and walk it over the bed, placing it down on top of the bed skirt.

SCOTT. Ah.

ZOE. Whiskey?

SCOTT. Umm. Ok, but a real drop.

Zoe heads for the liquor cabinet.

ZOE. A real drop?

SCOTT. Well not a real drop.

She grabs two crystal tumblers. Fills them both with whiskey poured from a crystal whiskey decanter.

SCOTT. Nice bottle, like from those old-timey movies.

ZOE. Ogilvy.

They admire the decanter for a moment. Then Zoe hands Scott a glass of whiskey. They sip. They both wince.

ZOE/SCOTT. Ah.

SCOTT. Like a forest fire in my mouth.

ZOE. I bought it in the depachika at Isetan in Tokyo.

SCOTT. (I have no idea what you just said.) Ok.

They both go and sit on the bare mattress. Scott isn’t shy; settles right at the top of it and sprawls his legs out. Zoe sits on the edge.

SCOTT. Is this weird?

ZOE. (reassuring) We were on the sofa.

Scott looks at the sofa.

SCOTT. Is that new?

ZOE. Yeah. (Afterthought.) Fuck. Do you want it?

A pause.

SCOTT. It’s bigger than my apartment. But you’re ok?

ZOE. Yeah, I went swimming.

SCOTT. And the veal chop.

ZOE. I overcooked it a little. New stove. Gas.

SCOTT. Tricky.

Zoe gets up and approaches the sofa – doesn’t sit on it. Sits facing it on the ottoman instead. Scrutinizes the sofa.

ZOE. I punched him.

Silence.

SCOTT. That’s weird.

Zoe looks back at Scott.

SCOTT. I mean it’s good. You had to. It’s just weird. I can’t see you. Doing that. I just mean you’re gentle. Am I saying the wrong thing?

Zoe gets up and walks over to the bed. Holds out her knuckles for him to see.

SCOTT. Shit. So.

ZOE. Don’t ask me.

SCOTT. Ok.

ZOE. I’ll tell you eventually. But for now don’t ask. I know you won’t see it this way but I’ll hear myself saying it and I know how it’ll sound. I don’t want to hear myself say it. Words like “almost.”

She sips her whiskey. Scott sips his.

SCOTT. How did it feel?

Zoe walks offstage right. Scott sits, bewildered and alone. He runs his finger around the rim of his tumbler and listens to it closely. No music. Zoe comes back onstage with her arms full of white linens. She drops them on the floor. Grabs a fitted sheet. Scott gets up and together they pull the fitted sheet over the bed.

ZOE. As though… if he succeeded at doing what he was trying to do… there was no coming back for me. Not now.

SCOTT. As opposed to?

ZOE. When I was sixteen. Jason. I think if he managed to do it… I was young enough that I would have been able to… accommodate it somehow. That’s not what I mean. There was less of me for him to blast through. Less wreckage. But now.

Zoe puts the flat sheet on the bed —

 SCOTT. Earthquake.

 — and they pull it out across and tuck it under the mattress —

 ZOE. Tsunami.

 — then fold over the top of the flat sheet. They do so easily and in sync; they’ve made many a bed together.

SCOTT. Nuclear meltdown.

ZOE. I know I would have been ok. Somehow. But in the moment…God these sheets are soft.

SCOTT. They are.

ZOE. Calvin Klein. I’ve been having these dreams lately.

She picks up two pillow cases from the floor. Tosses him one. They proceed to stuff them with large pillows.

ZOE. In the first one there was a storm. A hurricane and hail and thunder. I was at my parents’ house. We were all there, my brother and sister. And we were hiding out in the hallways and doorways for this tornado that was coming our way. And everyone was really scared. And I just had this nagging feeling that somehow I was responsible for the storm. I felt so ashamed.

They put the pillows down on the bed. The bed is made. Scott sits back down on it.

SCOTT. Since when do you sleep with a pillow?

Zoe shakes her head.

ZOE. I usually keep them in the guest room.

SCOTT. But you were expecting company.

Zoe shoots him a worried look—

SCOTT. (Reassuring her) It doesn’t make a difference. What was the other dream?

Zoe sits down on the floor, back against the bed.

ZOE. I was a werewolf. Like that CocoRosie song.

SCOTT. What?

ZOE. CocoRosie. Remember? We saw them in Paris. “In a dream I was a werewolf, my soul was filled with crystal light.”

Scott shakes his head.

ZOE. You’re the one I went to Paris with, right?

SCOTT. Yeah, I’m that guy.

ZOE. Right, the Italian woman who desperately needed to piss in the metro and you suddenly started spouting Italian and I was like, “who are you?”

SCOTT. (Prompting.) You were a werewolf…

ZOE. Right so I’m at my parents’ house again. In hiding with my family. But in this dream the town is being searched by police teams. And these dogs. Large, lean, grey dogs with wild blue eyes and thick strings of saliva dangling from their fangs. And they’re looking for this werewolf. And everyone’s speculating about the werewolf, where it is, how many people it’s gonna rip to pieces. And all the while, I know that I’m the werewolf. The werewolf is me. And I can feel myself changing… my heart’s beating really fast and my cheeks are getting hot and my muscles are getting warm and limber… but I’m trying like, really really hard not to change. Because I know that if I do, the transformation will scare the fuck out of everyone. And they’ll kill me. Which would suck because I know that, despite being a werewolf and all, I’m not dangerous.

Zoe gets up from the floor and sits on the edge of the bed.

ZOE. My head hurts, put your hand on my forehead?

Scott edges down toward the foot of the bed and puts his hand to her forehead.

ZOE. Lower. Like over my eyes.

Scott lowers his hand over her eyes.

 She pushes her head against it.

SCOTT. Do you want me to—

ZOE. I push, you resist.

SCOTT. Ok.

Zoe pushes her forehead into his hand. He resists.

ZOE. That feels good.

Silence.

SCOTT. I can feel your eyeballs moving.

Zoe pulls away and smiles fleetingly.

ZOE. When I woke up I was crying. Cause I felt like… there’s something bad in me. And it’s being hunted. Except I don’t think I’m bad. I think I’m good.

SCOTT. You are good. There’s no one good-er.

ZOE. But then… why do things like this happen, if I’m not bad?

SCOTT. Maybe you badly want to trust someone.

Zoe suddenly leans forward and lets her head dangle between her knees, loudly letting out a strange sound.

SCOTT. That was unexpected.

Zoe sits up again. She edges further back on the bed, her back approaching the wall.

ZOE. You know those women who are in love with men who don’t want them?

Scott nods.

SCOTT. I’m a bartender.

ZOE. Right, and you tell them and their friends tell them, “just move on, just let go, he’s never going to love you?” But they don’t really want to, even if they could. Even if they know they’ll never get the guy, they sincerely want to hold on anyway, just to the idea.

Scott nods.

ZOE. Well I’m like that. But with like, the world. I just have this faith. Despite all the evidence to the contrary. I really believe people and the world will take care of me.

Zoe holds her hands up as if to say, “What the fuck?”

SCOTT. The world is your disappointing lover.

ZOE. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t want to change. I want to keep believing in… everything.

SCOTT. Maybe you’re coming of age.

ZOE. Jesus, am I that far behind the curve?

SCOTT. When I was 30 I’d been single for a long time and I still had all these ideals, too. And then I met you. And they crashed. And burned. In a hellish fire.

They crack a grin at each other.

SCOTT.  It had to happen. I’m glad it happened. I sleep very well at night. I mean I sleep like shit but you know what I mean.

ZOE. I was in that fire too, remember.

SCOTT. Mm hmm. And how do you sleep?

ZOE. Like this:

Zoe lies down on her stomach, left cheek down. She slips her two hands under each hip bone, and bends her right knee slightly outward.

SCOTT. Ah yes, the hands under the hips, the right knee-bend.

Zoe suddenly stands up triumphantly on the bed, looking out the large windows at the skyline.

ZOE. I can just live up here. And shop online. And order À la Carte Express. Get one of those Bo-Flex machines of course.

SCOTT. Of course. And a big flat screen TV.

ZOE. I just got one, it’s in the office.

SCOTT. Oh.

ZOE. But I’ll never dare turn it on. Except to Netflix.

SCOTT. I can write fake newspapers full of good news and deliver them every morning.

Zoe sits back down on the bed.

ZOE. You would.

SCOTT. I would.

They look at each other silently.

SCOTT. “Jack Layton’s death case of mistaken identity.”

ZOE. “Opposition leader actually on bike tour of Tuscany.”

They smile at this thought.

SCOTT.  “Veronica Mars movie finally underway.”

ZOE. Ok I know you’re making fun of me but that movie needs to happen.

Scott nods and rubs his eyes, tired. Zoe sees it.

ZOE. Do you have something tomorrow morning?

Scott looks out the window at the first glow of sunlight reflected in the windows of the skyscrapers.

SCOTT. I think it is tomorrow morning.

Zoe grabs a remote control from her nightstand and presses a button. The heavy, white curtains on each side of the window glide quietly closed, leaving just a dim spotlight overhead.

SCOTT. Want me to take the guest bed?

ZOE. Why do you think I bought the California King?

SCOTT. I hope this isn’t why.

ZOE. Well no. But. Just. Is it ok if you don’t touch me?

SCOTT. ‘Course.

ZOE. I want you close.

SCOTT. But not too close.

ZOE. (exactly) California King.

They lie down. Zoe uses the remote control to turn off the light overhead. We can still see them in a dim, blue glow. They lie in silence.

ZOE. I was assaulted in Mexico.

Silence.

SCOTT. When?

ZOE. Eight years ago. Just before I met you. I defiantly went alone on a sunset dinner cruise for couples.  After supper on Las Caletas one of the tour guides led me astray and assaulted me in the woods.

SCOTT. What did you do?

Silence.

ZOE. I went swimming. (Silence.) I never told anyone. It’s like I forgot. (Silence.) “Swoon over new young hot flame. Mourn the memories later, laugh now alligator.”

SCOTT. What’s that?

ZOE. CocoRosie. Come on. (Silence. She thinks.) His blood sprayed out like a ribbon. (Pause.) A banner. (Silence.) Can you touch my foot with your foot?

A pause, and then Scott slides his foot over to touch Zoe’s foot. They lie quietly for a long time. Then she sits up and looks down at him.

ZOE. Wanna see my programmable kettle? (Silence. She leans slightly over him.) Wanna see my programmable kettle? (Silence. He’s asleep. Zoe lies back down) Perfect tea every time.