a play in one act
BY Judy Klass
CAST OF CHARACTERS
JANET: Fifties. Good humored.
MOLLY: Fifties. A little sadder and more subdued than JANET.
STANLEY: Sixties. A science nerd — a bit remote, and formal in his manner.
SETTING
The living room of JANET and STANLEY’s house.
TIME
The present.
AT RISE: MOLLY sips a cup of coffee in JANET’s living room. JANET stands over a terrarium.
JANET
So, do you want to take a look? Or would it gross you out?
MOLLY
I’m not big on bugs…
JANET
I remember.
MOLLY
But if it’s just butterflies… butterflies don’t gross me out.
JANET
Well, they’re not butterflies yet. When they turn into butterflies, when they hatch, we let them hang out in here for a while, till they pump all the fluid from their abdomens into the wings, and the wings harden up. Then, we say goodbye and let them fly away.
MOLLY
So, you’ve got a lot of… cocoons in there?
JANET
Chrysalises.
MOLLY
Isn’t that just a fancy name for cocoons?
JANET
No. Cocoons are for moths. They spin a cocoon around themselves and change inside of it. But these Monarch butterflies are amazing! The caterpillars get really big and fat, and they hang from the top of the terrarium in, like, a J shape. And eventually they split their skin open, and they whisk it away—
MOLLY
What’s inside, when they take their skin off?
JANET
A green blob thing. When the skin splits, it shrivels and bunches up near the top, around the black stem that’s stuck to the roof. The green blob keeps squirming and twisting around, until the skin falls off. And then the blob firms up as a beautiful chrysalis. It’s like a jade green temple, with flecks of gold and black trim. See? Hanging from the roof?
(SHE carries the terrarium over, and MOLLY glances in and then away.)
MOLLY
I guess.
JANET
(Taking the terrarium away)
I think they’re gorgeous, anyhow.
MOLLY
But all that stuff down below…
JANET
That’s milkweed. All they eat is milkweed. And then you might have seen the caterpillars down there, munching on it.
MOLLY
They’re… big.
JANET
Yeah, some of ‘em are getting really big. I think they’re gorgeous also. The caterpillars. Yellow and black and white, all tiger-striped, with those Kabuki mask faces. I think every phase in the metamorphosis of a Monarch butterfly is absolutely gorgeous.
MOLLY
Well, everybody needs a hobby, I guess.
JANET
And they’re nice to raise because they’re tough, they’re hardy. They’re gonna have to fly to Mexico, some of them, and back. They don’t die on you, like most bugs in captivity would. As long as you keep the food coming. We’re lucky that we have a lot of land here, and milkweed grows along the perimeter—you know, it grows best at the edges of eco-zones.
MOLLY
If you say so. How many do you have in there?
JANET
Five chrysalises on the roof. The one that’s turning brown—that one should hatch tomorrow. It should look black, with some Navajo brown, by tonight. And then there are four caterpillars down in the leaves, munching away or hanging out and molting. And there are seven more little baby caterpillars in a container in the kitchen—two of the eggs hatched today. You know, I just put them in a plastic container with some leaves and a moist cotton ball, I put Saran Wrap over the top, and poke holes in it with a toothpick. With a rubber band around it, to hold it in place.
MOLLY
Wow. That’s a lot of bugs. Why do you keep them separate?
JANET
Well, all they do is eat milkweed. And they’re kind of made of milkweed. And so, if I put the little ones in with the big ones, they might wind up getting eaten along with the milkweed.
MOLLY
Yuk.
JANET
The caterpillars are on a mission to eat, that’s all they do. They were in trouble, the Monarchs. They still are, with Round Up killing milkweed, and people killing it for other stupid reasons, and the places they winter in Mexico being threatened… I like to do what I can—when I find the eggs, or the baby caterpillars, they have a much better chance of surviving when I raise them indoors, and I feel like I’m contributing to keeping the Monarchs going. But of course—I really just like to raise them.
MOLLY
How does your husband feel about it?
JANET
Stanley’s okay with it. He pokes his head in and has a look, every day. He likes to help launch the butterflies, and let them walk all over his face, and perch on his nose, before they take off. He’s a science guy, but it’s more astronomy and physics for him, not biology.
MOLLY
I never would have figured it.
JANET
What?
MOLLY
That you’d wind up doing science stuff, married to a scientist. You always went for the tortured poets, or the colorful actors…
JANET
Well, I’ve found there are some drawbacks to both. The ones full of angst and self-pity, and the charming guys like Philip who turned out not to be so charming. I don’t know if I’d have been drawn to Stanley, back when I knew you—
MOLLY
I think you said he’s older than you?
JANET
Yes. By about ten years.
MOLLY
And your kids are…?
JANET
Mark is still at college. And Arabella is 23.
MOLLY
That’s great. I’m glad… things worked out for you.
JANET
It seems like… you’re doing better than when we spoke on the phone. I don’t mean today, I mean—
MOLLY
Yes. Thank you for taking that call.
JANET
Come on, Molly. How was I not going to take that call? I was glad to hear from you, and you were obviously in pain.
MOLLY
Well, it had been a while. And I was… not quite right in the head. Thank you for not hanging up right away, and thank you for not hanging up later, when I started attacking you.
JANET
You were… as you say…
MOLLY
Funny in the head.
JANET
Well, yeah. Who wouldn’t be? In that situation? And I knew that I was saying things—you did not want to hear.
MOLLY
You were right, though.
JANET
I was? I took a guess. So, you’re saying, he really does have somebody on the side?
MOLLY
Yup.
JANET
And is she—do you know if she’s younger?
MOLLY
Yup. I thought it was just—empty nest syndrome. You know, Nina is a freshman this term, it was weird for both of us, suddenly alone in the house. He started getting all touchy and defensive about being useless, being a house husband, about needing to go back out into the world and find out who he is—I just thought it was part of the rocky transition. When he was attacking me for “taking away his manhood” by being the breadwinner—
JANET
What garbage!
MOLLY
I thought we could work through it…
JANET
But it was all just a dreary, predictable mid-life crisis, with the middle-aged guy running off with a younger woman, looking for a reason to blame you—
MOLLY
Yes.
JANET
What a fink.
MOLLY
I guess… he waited until Nina was grown up, out of the house… and then he took the household apart. And moved on.
JANET
And how are you doing now?
MOLLY
Better than I was when—I couldn’t breathe. When I’d have done anything to make him come home.
JANET
You know I’ve never liked Oliver, right? I hope I didn’t seem like I was gloating when I said he probably was just running around and having an affair.
MOLLY
You didn’t sound like you were gloating.
JANET
Well, I was gloating, in a sense, but I tried to keep it out of my voice. I just—I resent him for breaking up our friendship. You and I go back. To camp counselor days, my God. To college years, and a circle of friends that I thought… would be my group of friends forever.
MOLLY
I know.
JANET
And when you fell for that guy… you were flirting online. I barely had a computer, I barely had started emailing.
MOLLY
We were all just starting to use computers.
JANET
And he was flirting with you. With—sports jokes. Double entendre sports jokes. And you came to me for help, remember?
MOLLY
I—guess I’d forgotten. But now that you mention it—
JANET
And I was proud to help you figure out what to write back. I felt like Cyrano de Bergerac writing love poetry for someone else. Not that I was secretly in love with you—or him. I hadn’t met him. But I was glad you’d met someone nice. I wanted to help facilitate. So, I’d give you sports terms that sounded dirty—back-hand swing. It’s all in the wrist. Strokes. Point, love, game. Butterfly kick. Playing one on one. Stealing third base. I don’t even like sports. I asked Philip to help me, and come up with ideas. I was still with Philip, then.
MOLLY
Yeah.
JANET
And then—you get together with this bozo, thanks in part—thanks a little bit—to my help. And what does he do but decide I’m awful, and drive a wedge between us.
MOLLY
I think he felt threatened by all of my old friendships. By my family, even. He didn’t want me to have this whole history and this whole life, before him. He wanted it just to be me and him, starting a new adventure in life—
JANET
But that’s selfish. To separate the woman in your life from the other people she—that she’s close to. That’s what made me dislike him, that first year, when I saw he was selfish that way. And then, when Philip and I broke up…
MOLLY
I’m sorry about that.
JANET
I know we kind of went over this once on the phone, years back. But it’s still a sticking point, for me. You had some email address that was only for work, and you told me to just email Oliver, and he’d pass it along to you. So, I did. I’d send some funny thing I’d seen online—I’d just forward an email, not with an attachment. But along the top, above the article or the joke, I’d write a note to you. And the note often started off light and chatty, talking about whatever I was forwarding to you, but then it would say something like: I really need to see you. I need to talk to you. I feel like I’m all alone in the world. Please, hit reply.
MOLLY
Well, I never saw those notes. Oliver had a theory—someone told him he could get a virus just from opening an email. A forwarded article or whatever. Even without an attachment.
JANET
Well, he couldn’t. He’s stupid.
MOLLY
Well, he had heard he could, so when he saw something forwarded, he hit “delete.”
JANET
So you explained to me, back then, like it was some unimportant, reasonable thing. But to me, when I learned that, it felt like I had been writing you letters, and your husband was throwing them away, and you were okay with that. I don’t think you should have been okay with it.
MOLLY
You’re right.
JANET
It’s amazing when there’s a big, messy break-up—like with me and Philip. And friends feel they have to choose sides. It’s like a custody battle, who gets which friends.
MOLLY
I know. I’m getting to experience the wonders of all that now.
JANET
And other friends… they just let you go. A lot of people saw me as a cast-off woman, and they cast me off, too.
MOLLY
I’m getting some of that. The stigma. From family. Telling me that people in our family don’t divorce, and what’s wrong with me, that I couldn’t keep my marriage together.
JANET
But I wasn’t expecting that from you.
MOLLY
Look, Janet. Oliver… I think it rattled me and Oliver when you broke up with Philip. It was still pretty early in our relationship. Oliver liked Philip—
JANET
More than he liked me.
MOLLY
Yes. And so, maybe, us being around a breakup… seemed like bad luck to him.
JANET
So, he threw away my letters to you, without telling you, and without telling me he was doing that. For half a year. I’m still not okay with that, and it’s hard for me to be okay with how you were okay with that.
MOLLY
I’m sorry.
JANET
I mean—I know your whole world has collapsed now, in a similar way, and it’s not the time for me to be coming at you with these personal issues from the 1990s.
MOLLY
No, it’s fine. It was wrong of me, and it was wrong of me to get accusatory on the phone last month when you suggested he was probably having an affair… I can deal with the fact, now, that he’s… flawed.
JANET
That he’s basically a dick.
MOLLY
He’s the father of my beautiful daughter, and he stayed home and raised her—
JANET
While you killed yourself building a law career, and gave him a beautiful home—
MOLLY
I couldn’t have done it without him. I couldn’t have all the beauty that Nina has brought into my life, obviously, without him. But yes, sure, I can acknowledge now that he’s kind of a dick. And that I made excuses for his dickishness, for many years—and it caused me to be a bad friend. To people like you. And as I try to pick up the pieces of my life, Janet, that’s one of the things…
(STANLEY ENTERS.)
STANLEY
Janet. You have company.
JANET
Yeah, Stanley, I think I mentioned my old friend Molly was coming by.
STANLEY
Oh. How do you do.
MOLLY
Hi.
STANLEY
I wanted to let you know, Janet, I heard from the men.
JANET
The men?
STANLEY
The men who will be coming by to fix Zola. They said they will be coming by next week. Either Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon. They’re not sure.
JANET
Well, that’s good to know.
STANLEY
We can hold on till then.
JANET
I’m betting we can.
STANLEY
We can take showers and baths. And now, I must get back to the article I’m reading on nebulae and binaries.
(to MOLLY)
But it was very nice meeting you.
MOLLY
Hey, likewise!
(STANLEY EXITS.)
MOLLY
Wow. Very different from Philip, and other guys I’ve seen you with.
JANET
Well, I’m happy about the difference.
MOLLY
So… Zola? The men are coming by to fix Zola?
JANET
Our jacuzzi. We named it after Émile Zola. You know, he was a writer, in France. When the Dreyfus case was going on, and the French government and army said they had caught the spy, and they sent him to Devil’s Island, but it was the wrong man, the spy was still on the loose, but they covered it up…
MOLLY
I’m sorry, I don’t…
JANET
So, Zola wrote this piece in the newspapers saying: J’accuse! I accuse the army, the government, this person, that person… so… J’accuse, jacuzzi… We named our jacuzzi Zola. It’s kind of a lame joke.
MOLLY
I guess… I never would have thought of you as a jacuzzi person.
JANET
I wasn’t. And then the hot flashes started, when I was 52. And I said: oh no. And I started taking, not just showers, but baths, in the middle of the night. If I was going to be drenched in sweat, it seemed like I might as well have a sauna effect and take control of it. You know? But I felt guilty, to waste so much water and heat. And then, we got solar panels put in. And a big old, expensive Tesla battery, so I can use energy in the middle of the night, and it’s still our energy, the sun’s energy, I don’t have to feel guilty. Sometimes Stanley joins me—and we both hang out in Zola for an hour or so, at, like, two in the morning. It’s a nerd heaven.
MOLLY
Sounds kinky.
JANET
Well, maybe it gets kinky also, sometimes. But it’s very nice to have something sinful and decadent like a jacuzzi, and not even feel guilty about it.
MOLLY
Are you still teaching?
JANET
A course here and there, when I feel like it. Stanley actually has some money socked away. Even after paying for college for the kids—we’re in good shape.
MOLLY
So, after those rough years… you’ve lived happily ever after. And I thought I was living happily ever after… and now, look at me.
JANET
I was never competing with you, Molly.
MOLLY
I know. It’s just funny. Situational irony. The gods up there setting me up, and laughing. Ha ha.
JANET
Are you still handling a lot of work at your firm?
MOLLY
More than ever. With Nina off at school, and Oliver off with his little totsy, I’ve just been pouring myself into work. It’s good, it keeps me from thinking about things.
JANET
I’m really sorry.
MOLLY
No, I was a lousy friend to you, you have every right to gloat over my life crashing and burning.
JANET
That wasn’t it. I was gloating over Oliver being revealed to be a shallow, lying stinker, when he made such a show of being romantic, of being a great guy. But I never wished bad things on you. In fact—I wish this hadn’t happened. It’s nice to have you back in my life as a friend, but I wish you’d never had to look me up. I wish he hadn’t run out on you.
MOLLY
It was hard to trace you. First, I tracked down Ingrid, on Facebook, but she didn’t know where you were. But she said Donny might.
JANET
Yeah. Ingrid was another person I thought I’d be friends with, forever. But she got together with another woman—and that woman assumed there was something between me and Ingrid. She was like Oliver, keeping her away from old friends, only worse, ‘cause she assumed we all thought Ingrid was as hot as she did.
MOLLY
Well, Ingrid is hot.
JANET
Well, of course she is, she’s fabulous and graceful and amazing. But I put her on a pedestal. I wasn’t trying to get her into bed. But the woman she’s with…
MOLLY
Ingrid’s Facebook page says they’re married. Ingrid and Nicole?
JANET
Yeah. Nicole. That was her name. They’re still together?
MOLLY
Yeah. And it looks like they have kids.
JANET
Well, I’m glad. I’m glad Ingrid found happiness, and has kids—and I still think Nicole is a stinker, the way I think Oliver is a stinker. Donny’s boyfriend also.
MOLLY
Donny’s shacked up?
JANET
Yes, and high time, too. With a guy who’s quite a bit younger. But this guy is from a traditional Chinese household with lots of gay-bashing, he’s estranged from his own mother and sister, and he doesn’t want Donny to have women friends… and it’s all so tiresome. I think I expected… when we all knew each other, I thought: we’ll raise our kids together! We’ll be godparents for each other’s kids! We’ll form a big hippie commune and have potluck dinners, and we’ll be enchanted by each other’s spouses! We’ll be friends for life! And it—did not work out that way.
MOLLY
Does it ever?
JANET
For some people, I think it really does. They like their friends’ significant others, and they’re all kind of married to each other, and hanging out together. But not for me. It’s not my karma. I’ve been thinking a lot about what we—cast off. What falls away. What we get for life, and what we get for just a little while, and whether it’s good or bad for things to disappear. Friends. Pets.
MOLLY
Well, obviously, I’ve been thinking about that kind of stuff. I mean. Losing Oliver, and poking around in the shards of my life, and trying to remember who I was before I met him, and before I became such a high-powered lawyer, and what defines me… You’re not the only friend I lost… and some of them don’t want me back in their lives. Do you?
JANET
I’m—glad to see you, Molly. And I understand you being loyal to your husband, and distancing yourself from friends for the sake of your marriage. I do get that. A person’s first loyalty is to the other person in the couple. And at the same time… I have never been as low as I was when I broke up with Philip. And when I was sending you those messages, into the ether. And your prick of a husband was deleting them.
MOLLY
I know. And I’m sorry.
(beat)
We lost a pet recently, too. We had a big old sheepdog that had cancer, and we had to have it put down. We chose to do it before Nina went off to school, so she could say goodbye. That was part of the… rough transition…
JANET
See, Monarch butterflies make ideal pets. You raise them, you give them lots of milkweed to chomp on for a few weeks, then they hang around on the roof as a chrysalis for a week or so, and then they fly away off to Mexico. And come back and pollinate your garden next spring. You can love them, and cast them off, and feel good.
MOLLY
And kids.
JANET
Kids fly away, off to college. But the period of feeding them lasts longer.
MOLLY
And they never turn into a chrysalis.
JANET
They don’t become a pupa, but they become pubescent. They pull into themselves and get anti-social for a few years. Mine did.
MOLLY
Nina and I are close.
JANET
How’s she handling all of this? You’ve told her, right?
MOLLY
Sure, we’ve told her. Oliver moved out. We’re talking divorce.
JANET
Is he going to try to fleece you? Take all the money you’ve earned?
MOLLY
Wow. You really don’t like him.
JANET
I really don’t. It’s great to be able to tell you that directly.
MOLLY
Oliver deserves some of the money I’ve made, just like a woman who stayed home and raised the kids and cooked would deserve a decent settlement in a divorce. But no, I don’t think he’s going to try to clean me out. I’m a lawyer, but we both know how ugly court cases can be, and we want to avoid that, for our family. That’s one thing we’re trying to coordinate—making it less rough for Nina.
(Beat)
Except that—she came home for a break, and went to dinner at his house, and found him living with… the new woman. And I think she found that shocking. He could have prepared her for it, but he didn’t, he just took it in stride, acted like—so what, this is the new normal.
JANET
‘Cause he’s a dick.
MOLLY
I’m angry at him about that. Nina is… trying to be very gentle with me.
JANET
That’s nice of her. I bet she’s a nice kid.
MOLLY
I hope it doesn’t mess up her first year of college.
(STANLEY ENTERS with a magazine.)
STANLEY
Sorry to interrupt once again, but may I share with you some of what I’ve been reading?
JANET
Sure, Stanley. Hit us with it.
STANLEY
It’s that, for years, scientists have wondered about nebulae. What causes them. You know, shrouds of gas around dying stars. The layers that get sloughed off. They can be so beautiful. And now we know that there is often a binary pair of stars at the center of a nebula. And that gives the axis its shape—not a sphere, but more like an hourglass or a butterfly.
JANET
You were reading about this online?
STANLEY
No, in a magazine. And I thought you might like to see the pictures.
(Shows them)
Isn’t that simply the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?
JANET
It’s really beautiful, Stanley.
STANLEY
And this one.
(HE turns a page.)
MOLLY
It’s pretty.
JANET
Thanks for showing us, sweetie.
STANLEY
And now, I must go back, and read the end of the article.
JANET
Yes, you must, absolutely!
(STANLEY EXITS.)
MOLLY
Wow.
JANET
He’s a character. You know, in the last few years, watching The Big Bang Theory… I’ve realized that a lot of guys I dated were, maybe, dancing somewhere along the autism spectrum. I think if I’d realized it earlier, I might have handled the relationships better.
MOLLY
Even the poets and the actors? Even Philip?
JANET
Maybe. Hard to say. And I mean, I’m a nerd also. But it’s especially true with Stanley. He has several nephews that have some real problems. Their parents will have to be caring for those boys… forever. We were lucky with both Mark and Arabella—they seem to have dodged that bullet.
MOLLY
Yes, raising a kid with special needs would be…
JANET
Incredibly hard. But—even just raising a kid who’s “quirky” and then some, who can’t really hold down a job. Who never really leaves the nest.
MOLLY
You prefer the empty nest. Soaking with your man in a hot tub in the middle of the night.
JANET
I prefer the way my life is now to the pain and isolation of so many of the years back when I knew you, when I was young. Pain even when I was in relationships.
MOLLY
Yeah. Up until a few months ago, I would have said I was all set for life.
JANET
You still could be. You could meet a good guy.
MOLLY
I can’t even think about that.
JANET
Think of Oliver as a drone bee. He was useful, you mated with him, you had offspring. And now you can find someone fun, who lets you keep your friends.
MOLLY
I’m just… trying to figure out who I am again. I’m just casting off the old stuff. And letting it fall away.
JANET
And letting it make a beautiful nebula, all around you.
MOLLY
Maybe.
(beat)
Will you be able to forgive me for disappearing for the last 25 years? Will you let me be your friend again?
JANET
I don’t think I could be friends with Ingrid again. Donny and I muddle through, we just don’t involve our significant others.
MOLLY
Donny doesn’t like Stanley…
JANET
Oh… you know. They tolerate each other. Anyhow. Ingrid, no—that woman Nicole is too horrible and rude, and Ingrid let her demonize me, she allowed it to happen. Of course, I say that now… Who knows? Yes, Molly, I’m glad to have you back in my life. I’m glad that my old friend has looked me up. I mean, that’s part of it all. The weird, random things I’ve been trying to sort through. The stuff that leaves you. And the stuff that comes back when you least expect it.
MOLLY
Like butterflies in the spring.
JANET
Maybe. The metamorphosis of a butterfly… I think it’s a useful metaphor for phases of life. Each of them pretty interesting.
MOLLY
Now you’re getting deep.
JANET
Stanley would reach for his nebulae and super-novas… those are his favorite kind of metaphor. But—whatever works, you know? Whatever helps you stay Zen and accept change.
MOLLY
Change sucks.
JANET
A lot of the time, yeah. It can.
MOLLY
You cast off your skin, and you’re just a blob squirming around.
JANET
And then you become a chrysalis. And then you become a butterfly.
MOLLY
Ha.
JANET
And if not, you can always get drunk.
MOLLY
Do you still do that?
JANET
Sometimes. Would you like some Baileys in your coffee?
MOLLY
I think I would. Yeah.
JANET
Coming up!
(As SHE rises to get it, LIGHTS DOWN.)