A One Act Play

A Late Lunch

By G. L. Horton
copyright © 1998 Geralyn Horton

Lisa, a conservatively dressed woman in her thirties who works in child welfare, enters and sits at a restaurant table set for two. No one is sitting at the table immediately adjacent, but there is an indication that there may be some customers in the unseen part of the small fashionable restaurant in Boston's South End. LISA consults her watch and the menu, tries to decide whether it would be better to order or to wait for her companion: decides to order and is summoning the waitress as the lights fade to black. Lights bump up immediately on LISA, who has obviously been waiting for quite some time.

(If the cast and director can come up with brilliant comic business, they may do the blackout scene which indicates time passing more than once. LISA waits almost two hours for her friend--- that's a LOT of time passing!)

When the lights come up, LISA has an empty coffee cup before her, and there is a full one on the other side. It is nearly 3:00 p.m. on a weekday afternoon.

JENNIFER enters, a frazzled-looking woman of LISA's age who is dressed in battered "counterculture exotic casual" clothes of the sort worn by earnest vegetarians and is lugging a huge canvas bag or backpack. JENNIFER looks vaguely around, sighs helplessly -- she doesn’t really expect that her friend will still be waiting for her -- and turns to leave. LISA, trying to catch JENNIFER’s attention, waves more and more frantically.

LISA
Over here, Jennifer!

JENNIFER
Lisa! Have you just been sitting here?

LISA (nods)
Since one thirty.

JENNIFER
God, I am so sorry. I looked right past and didn’t see you.

LISA
So I made an idiot of myself and waved and shouted. Were you here earlier? Because I did go out once to use the phone. And to the ladies’ room around ten after two. The waitress said nobody came in, though.

JENNIFER
No, I just got here. Lisa... I’m so embarrassed.

LISA
That’s all right. Waiting brings my inner and outer realities together.

JENNIFER
What?

LISA
I mean, it’s OK for me to look like an idiot.

JENNIFER
Lisa, you don’t look like an idiot. You look terrific. Like a woman who has important business, and shouldn’t be left waiting in a coffee shop for some schlump like me to show up hours late and covered with baby barf.

LISA
I'm just very glad to see you. I was afraid something awful had happened when I couldn't get through to you on the phone.

JENNIFER
It was off the hook.

LISA
Hours? Doesn't it make that annoying "beep"?

JENNIFER
The baby dismantled it, actually. Right off the wire thing, and then hid it somewhere. He does it all the time. I've tried moving the phone from the desk to the top shelf, but he got up there, somehow. I'm so sorry...

LISA
It’s OK, Jennifer. Really. I called my afternoon appointment and re-scheduled.

JENNIFER
My God, am I that late? What time is it?

LISA
What time is it?

JENNIFER
The baby’s ripped off my watch again.

LISA
It’s ten minutes of three.

JENNIFER
Oh, my God. I thought “hours late” was exaggerating. Well, time flies when you’re not having fun.

LISA
Do you want to tell me about it, or move onto something cheerful?

JENNIFER
Something cheerful.

LISA
Like food?

JENNIFER
Like food.

LISA
Want to see the menu?

JENNIFER
You’ll have to read it to me, I’m wearing the wrong glasses.

LISA
We want goat cheese salad, don’t we?

JENNIFER
Want is too mild. I’ve been dreaming about it. Little bearded Goaties leaping over a stile, like cartoon sheep in count-the-sheep-to-sleep: and then this huge bowl of salad...

LISA
I ordered for us hours ago. Told the waitress to bring coffee right away, salads as soon as my friend gets here.

JENNIFER (picks up coffee cup on her side of the table.)
Wonderful. Thanks.

LISA (moves to take cup away)
You don’t have to drink that! It’s stone cold.

JENNIFER (avoids LISA’s grasp)
Not quite.

LISA
We’ll get another--

JENNIFER (takes a big gulp)
It’s fine.

LISA
Cold coffee’s not fine.

JENNIFER
It is for me. I’m used to it. I can never drink a whole cup without interruptions, and I always forget and leave it in the microwave if I try to re-heat it. So now I just drink it cold whenever I can find it.

LISA
Yuck.

JENNIFER
Yum. Yum, yum, caffeine. A cheerful adult pleasure.

LISA
Welcome back.

JENNIFER
Thanks. For your saintly patience. I can’t grovel enough. And thanks for ordering.

LISA
That's OK. Our waitress seems to have disappeared, though..

JENNIFER
The customers, too. Where is everybody?

LISA
Three o’clock, lunch is over.

JENNIFER
The last time we ate here it was packed to the walls. We had to wait in line.

LISA
That was over a year ago.

JENNIFER
That long?

LISA
Benjamin wasn’t walking yet.

JENNIFER
You’re right. God. My life is a blur.

LISA
The “in crowd” has found a new place.

JENNIFER
Funny -- they took all the help with them.

LISA
It is strange. Maybe I should knock on the kitchen door?

JENNIFER
I don’t mind waiting. It’s worth waiting for. But I do wonder...?

LISA
What?

JENNIFER
What could the new place have that’s better?

LISA
It doesn’t have to be better, Jennifer. Just new.

JENNIFER
Maybe fifty kinds of tea.

LISA
I went back and forth between ordering you coffee or tea. I know you drink tea, but what kind?

JENNIFER
Any of the 49 but jasmine. I sort of switch from one to another. But tea drinking’s got complicated, now. The baby has decided that he likes tea. He likes it to dip in. Heaven help me, I started him on this, with graham crackers and donuts. But now he wants to dip everything. I make him his own little cup, weak, with plenty of milk; but after he’s dipped his peanut butter sandwich in it he wants to dip it in my cup, too. All cups are his cups. Mine, he says, and pulls my cup away from me, slopping tea all around --which is another reason I’ve learned to drink cold. With a cold cup, neither of us gets burned.

LISA
The baby does this with coffee, too?

JENNIFER
Not coffee. Coffee’s “Yuck”. He doesn’t even want to dip. “No dankoo coffee”, he says, and pushes the cup as far away as he can. Not just far away from himself, yuck. Far from me, too. Like off the edge of the table. Then he cries because he’s made a mess. “Bad mess”, he says. “Bad mess”. We have to get down on the floor with a paper towel and clean it up. He won’t stop crying until we’ve cleaned it up.

LISA
He must be getting so big.

JENNIFER
Right. Big enough to give me a permanent backache.

LISA
And smart. New skills every day.

JENNIFER
Smart enough to win arguments with a 200 word vocabulary.

LISA
He didn’t want you to leave?

JENNIFER
I swear he can sense what I’m planning. (looks around) Still no waitress?

LISA
Those people over there are waiting for their check.

JENNIFER
Very patiently.

LISA
I had a dog that wouldn’t let me leave. Bucky. He’d bite the hem of my coat and try to pull it off me. Wooffing hysterically. Throw himself in front of the door. When I’d get home there’d be a little pile of turds right where I’d be most likely to step in it -- just in case he’d failed to communicate.

JENNIFER
So what did you do?

LISA
Gave him away. (pause) To a shut-in.

JENNIFER
With a kid, that’s not an option.

LISA
I felt truly awful about it. Bucky was devoted to me, but -- I mean, while I was in college, it was one thing. I was homesick, and Bucky’s possessiveness seemed a small price for all that doggy adoration. So I studied in my room instead of going to the library--. But then I got a job. I had to go to work.

JENNIFER
I had a job -- once.

LISA
I realized I had a problem when a guy showed up to take me to the movies and Bucky bit him.

JENNIFER
Benjamin used to bite.

LISA
Puts a real cramp in your social life.

JENNIFER
Biting?

LISA
Jealousy.

JENNIFER
You’re telling me? Benjamin hides my car keys. He hides my glasses. He gets himself into such a clingy state I keep taking his temperature, looking for a rash. How can I hand this poor pitiful baby over to a sitter? He’s tired, he’s cranky, but will he take a nap? Not Benjie Bun-bun. I nurse him till he’s dropped off and snoring, but the minute I pull myself away, he grabs back onto my boob as if he were starving. Waiting for Bun-bun to get to sleep I actually dozed off myself

LISA
You’re still nursing?

JENNIFER
Depressing, isn’t it? I lack moral fiber.

LISA
The latest studies say the longer the better.

JENNIFER
That’s what they say.

LISA
Nurse five or six hours a day. Almost a full time job.

JENNIFER
Uhhuh. Do you think it’s a right-wing plot?

LISA
If it is, it’s the only one not bankrolled by a corporation. Archer, Daniels, Midland. is into drugging cows and getting people to buy more milk..

JENNIFER
I do buy more. Bun-bun gets cow milk -- just run through a mobile biofilter. Me.

LISA
The corporations want you in the job market, pushing down wages.

JENNIFER
So desperate to get out of the house I’d work for peanuts. No, not peanuts. Hay. Cows work for hay.

LISA
Cows don’t rate hay any more. Straw, banana peel, ground up newspapers--

JENNIFER
Ground up cow.

LISA and JENNIFER
Yuck!!!

JENNIFER
Have you heard any more about that?

LISA
Mad cow? Not really. I haven’t the time. You’re the one -- mothers, I mean-- who should be into it. Protect our food supply, our children’s future.

JENNIFER
“Should” and “could “ are a long way apart these days.

LISA
Couldn’t you read and nurse? While you’re stuck home, use the phone to organize--

JENNIFER
He hates when I use the phone! Grab it, pull the cord, push the buttons -- when all else fails, just scream. “Mine!!”

LISA
That’s why you never call me?

JENNIFER
His brother was the same way.

LISA
My mother managed.

JENNIFER
Did she? Does she give lessons?

LISA
Doesn’t she wish!

JENNIFER
You must know from your clients--

LISA
Those mothers are junkies, psychotics. Living with batterers. You can’t expect--

JENNIFER
Me, either. Face it, a nursing mother’s an animal. Sleep, eat, feed. No way I’m a citizen. Not when I’m busy looking for my watch, for my keys, for my glasses-- and Benjamin’s busy smearing the wall with his poopy diaper, fighting the cat for her tuna dish---.

LISA
Yuck! Thanks for sharing.

JENNIFER
New subject. (pause) What about lunch?

LISA
I’ve lost my appetite.

JENNIFER
Not me. I’m hungry enough to eat cat tuna, myself.

LISA
That last table there is leaving.

JENNIFER
Did a waiter come out and give them their check?

LISA
Not that I saw.

JENNIFER
Looks like they left money on the table.

LISA
I bet if we went over and picked it up, a waiter would magically appear.

JENNIFER
With the police.

LISA
Want to try?

JENNIFER
I can’t risk jail. My sitter’s till four thirty latest.

LISA
What shall we do, then?

JENNIFER
Gossip?

LISA
All right.

JENNIFER (looking at LISA expectantly)
All right!

LISA
After you.

JENNIFER
What?

LISA
I can’t think of any gossip.

JENNIFER
What’s happening at work?

LISA
The usual.

JENNIFER
What about the little girl with the tumor?

LISA
Her paternal grandparents came and took her to live with them in Atlanta.

JENNIFER
Your supervisor from hell?

LISA
She’s calmed down. I think she’s on Prozak.

JENNIFER
Your love life?

LISA
That’s calmed down too. We’ve re-negotiated.

JENNIFER
You mean the whole way?

LISA
Yeah. If we can. If it’s still possible.

JENNIFER
That’s great. That’s wonderful.

LISA
Yeah.

JENNIFER
I’m really happy for you. You’ll be so much better at it than I am.

LISA
I don’t think so, but thanks.

JENNIFER
So go on. Tell me the details. What did you do that finally persuaded him?

LISA
I’d rather not talk about it now.

JENNIFER
Oh. OK.

LISA
Not in a ---- (indicates the surroundings)

JENNIFER
That’s OK, that’s fine. It’s really nobody’s business.

LISA
It’s not that. Just----

JENNIFER
It’s OK! New subject.

LISA (pause)
I can’t think of another thing. Maybe once you start--

JENNIFER
Me? What can I tell you? I have no life.

LISA
You have no life? What’s that mean? Your life sounds hectic, packed with crises.

JENNIFER
Trivia. Tempests in a teapot. I’m at home all day with the baby. Then I’m at home all night with my husband and son and the baby. I cope with the kids, he watches television.

LISA
Michael doesn’t help?

JENNIFER
He thinks he does. He says --Yes! That’s what let’s do! Dish our husbands.

LISA
Alan’s been very-- generous --lately.

JENNIFER
Right. It’s really the same subject. No dishing. (pushes her chair back) If I go much longer without eating I may black out. I guess I’d better see if I can either find a waiter or steal some food out of the kitchen.

LISA (rises, motions for JENNIFER to sit down)
I’ll go. I know what our waitress looks like.

JENNIFER
That’s assuming she exists?

LISA (gestures)
Biggish, with hair like --.

JENNIFER
Never mind -- I can’t see with these glasses.. But I don’t care. I’ll follow my nose, grab anybody. Anything. Goat, sheep, tuna, cat-- I’m ravenous. Takes a lot of calories to be a cow. Mooo--

LISA
Really, let me--

JENNIFER
Sit down. I have to pee, anyway. Stay here and guard our stuff. My bag -- (swings the stuffed bag onto the table, the contents spill out) -- Weight of a field pack, for baby maneuvers. Can you believe this bag? Hold the fort.

(LISA begins packing the spilled items away, but becomes engrossed in examining each of the adorable little baby things. By the time JENNIFER returns, LISA sits holding the baby item that "gets to" her, weeping helplessly.)

JENNIFER (returns carrying salads and breadbasket)
Look what I found! Not a soul out there, but our salads were on the counter. (As JENNIFER slides one salad to LISA, she notices that her friend is crying.) Lisa? Lisa, what’s wrong?

LISA
It’s probably too late.

JENNIFER
Too late for --.? (LISA nods) But you’re not old. Movie stars give birth in their forties, maybe even fifties.

LISA
Movie stars.

JENNIFER
I’m not saying there’s plenty of time. But once Alan cooperates--

LISA
It’s not Alan, it’s me.

JENNIFER
Lisa--

LISA
He agreed almost a year ago.

JENNIFER
But you never told me. I thought--

LISA
You’ve been so busy.

JENNIFER
Not that busy, Lisa. Lisa! All this time I’ve been thinking--

LISA
I’d hoped to get pregnant right away, and tell you to celebrate. Then when I didn’t, I couldn’t talk. It’s so ironic, the years of strain I put on Alan and my relationship.

JENNIFER
Oh, but I think it’s wonderful. That Alan agreed.

LISA
Even if it turns out I can’t?

JENNIFER
It means Alan really loves you. Even if you can’t, you’re on the same side.

LISA
But he had reasons, good reasons. And I put him through hell. When it wasn’t even possible.

JENNIFER
What’s wrong with you?

LISA
Different things. Blockages. Low hormones.

JENNIFER
They can’t be fixed? You read about women in their sixties.

LISA
Individually these things can be fixed. Together, they add up to about one chance in a thousand.

JENNIFER (embracing LISA, whose restrained sniffling turns into noisy heartbroken sobs)
Oh, Lisa. Oh my dear--- (LISA pulls away, grabs her purse and jacket. She runs out sobbing, wiping her nose with the restaurant’s cloth napkin. She turns for one last look at JENNIFER)

LISA
It's too late.

JENNIFER
Lisa!
(JENNIFER gathers her things, gets out money and puts it on the table. She looks longingly at her salad, dumps it into her bulging bag--- and then dumps Lisa’s salad in her bag, too. JENNIFER runs after Lisa, tearing ravenously at a chunk of bread she has grabbed from the table as she goes.)
Lisa! Wait up!

LIGHTS FADE TO BLACK

THE END

Made on an by .