Back to School

(A classroom.  RICHARD enters, ZOE is sitting at a desk.)

RICHARD:  Zoe?

ZOE:  Richard, hi.

RICHARD:  What are you--?

ZOE:  I, uh, kept having these dreams.  That I was back at school.  That I had—gone back to school.  Ha.  Do you have those?

RICHARD:  Well, yeah, but I teach here, so when I have them, they make sense.

ZOE:  Is it weird for you?  Teaching here?

RICHARD:  A little bit.  But…you get used to it.  It doesn’t feel like the same school, anyway.  There’s the school I went to and the school I teach at.  When I think about the fact that there was a place in between where I was then and where I am now…

ZOE:  College?

RICHARD:  Man, I miss college.

ZOE:  Sometimes I think everybody's just trying to get college back.  And we're never getting it back, are we?

RICHARD:  Why are you here?

ZOE:  Remember when you had a crush on me?

RICHARD:  A crush on you?  I loved you.  It wasn’t a crush.

ZOE:  Puppy love.

RICHARD:  Who can tell the difference?

ZOE:  Richard—

RICHARD:  Why was it puppy love?  Because it was silly?  Because it didn’t make sense?  Because we were kids?  Maybe when you really fall in love you’re supposed to feel like a kid.  Maybe that’s why people say ‘Oh my gosh, I love her.  She makes me feel like a kid.’

ZOE:  Did you stay here because I stayed here?  Because I couldn’t escape?

RICHARD:  Don’t be dramatic.

ZOE:  Is that why you stayed?

RICHARD:  I stayed because I wanted to stay.  I’m not as romantic as you think I am.

ZOE:  Cary and I are getting a divorce.

RICHARD:  No, you’re not.

ZOE:  I’m pretty sure we are.

RICHARD:  When?  After the comet goes crashing into Morocco or Tunisia or wherever the hell they think it’s going to hit?  I think it’s a little late for a divorce, Zoe.  Just roll with it until the Apocalypse.  Fulfill your vows.  Die happily after.

ZOE:  It won't be happy.

RICHARD:  So just die then.

ZOE:  I don’t want to be married to him anymore.

RICHARD:  Why?  Is he that bad?

ZOE:  It’s just not true, you know?  It’s not the truth.

RICHARD:  Was it true when you married him?

ZOE:  Oh my God, Richard, you’re asking me what was true before?  Before?  I was supposed to live forever and become an interior decorator or a cupcake baker or the mother of seven adopted children.  That’s what was true.  Who the hell knows looking back on it what I really believed and what I just…wanted to believe.

RICHARD:  Why are you here?

ZOE:  They say when you have dreams about going back to school it’s because you feel like you took a wrong turn somewhere in your life—

RICHARD:  Who’s ‘they?’

ZOE:  Dream dictionary.

RICHARD:  Bullshit.

            (She gets up from the desk.)

ZOE:  Probably, anyway—it says you’re dreaming about an early point in your life because you think if you could go back to that point, you could turn things around.  And, surprisingly, or, not surprisingly, I—keep dreaming that you—and I—got together.  In high school.  Together.  Like a couple—

RICHARD:  I got it.

ZOE:  So…

RICHARD:  Sooo?

ZOE:  What do you…think of that?

RICHARD:  I think the phrase ‘a day late and a dollar short’ would be a woeful understatement.

ZOE:  Richard—

RICHARD:  Maybe the biggest of all time.

ZOE:  What if I was supposed to choose you?

RICHARD:  There’s no ‘what if’—you were supposed to choose me.  I know that.

ZOE:  How do you know that?

RICHARD:  Because ultimately, I believe, deep in my soul, that life is one big television series.  And if my life were a television series, you are the one I was supposed to wind up with.  You were the Rachel to my Ross, the Kelly to my Zach, the Maddie to whoever the hell Bruce Willis played on Moonlighting.  I know this.  I believe in this.  The way other people have a religion—I have the idea of you and I together BUT, like many people at this hour, my religion has been shaken, because I am going to die without ever having…you.  Without ever having you.  And that sucks, but that’s reality, Zoe.  That’s the truth of the matter.

            (A beat.)

ZOE:  Let’s get married.

RICHARD:  Don’t be insane.

ZOE:  What’s a marriage anyway?

RICHARD:  WHAT’S a marriage?

ZOE:  What’s a divorce?  What’s a separation?  We could all be dead in, like, now.  We could be dead now.  Does any of that shit matter?  I doubt it.  It’s paperwork.  Let’s get married.

RICHARD:  You don’t really know me, Zoe.

ZOE:  You just said—

RICHARD:  What—my fantasy?  Yeah, but, even in my fantasy. It doesn’t just happen.  You get to know me.  You fall for me slowly.  We dance in the rain.

ZOE:  Yeah, well, we don’t really have time for that, so we’re going to have to cut to the chase.

RICHARD:  You really want to marry me?

ZOE:  Call me a convert to your religion, okay, Richard?  I want to marry you.  I want to see what happens.  And, let me tell you something, I did the whole falling slowly in the rain dance in the fountain run towards the moving car biting on the neck because you don’t even care if it leaves a mark thing and let me just say that I’m still in an unhappy marriage so at the end of the day it’s a roll of the dice no matter how you look at it.  Now, we may only be married for like, five seconds, or we could be married forever.  It’s a chance we take.  I’m willing to take the chance if you are.

RICHARD:  You’re not serious.

ZOE:  Richard, I drove here.  I could have driven anywhere and I drove here.  Because somehow I knew you’d be here.  Don’t you think that’s crazy?  Don’t you think it’s crazy that we both just—showed up here on a Saturday?

RICHARD:  I was here grading papers.

ZOE:  But you didn’t have to be.  I doubt anybody’s worrying about their transcript right now.

RICHARD:  How did you even get in?

ZOE:  I broke a window.

RICHARD:  What?!?

ZOE:  I know, it was exhilarating.

RICHARD:  Zoe, we can’t…

            (A beat.)

ZOE:  What?

RICHARD:  Ha.  You know…I can’t say it.  I can’t say we can’t get married because it’s all I’ve wanted sincedI was fourteen, so…I can’t say it but we shouldn’t do it.

ZOE:  Let’s say we are.  Let’s say we already are.

RICHARD:  It doesn’t work that way.

ZOE:  I know it’s not what you wanted or what you pictured, but at least it means the tv show’s going to have the right finale.  Do you want to be my husband?  Not my boyfriend.  Not my guy.  Not my someone, but my husband.  It’s a really powerful word when it means what it’s supposed to mean.

RICHARD:  You think that’ll stop you from having all those bad dreams where you wind up back here trying to pass Algebra II for the second time?

ZOE:  Maybe we spend our whole lives trying to figure out how to stop the bad dreams.  I never had bad dreams about a comet.  Maybe that means something.  Maybe it’s a good sign.

RICHARD:  My God, I have a crazy wife.

            (A beat.)

ZOE:  You mean that?

RICHARD:  Yes, you’re certifiable.

ZOE:  I meant—

RICHARD:  And yes, you’re my wife.  I decided.  Death do us part.

ZOE:  Was it hearing about me breaking a window to get to you that did it?

RICHARD:  Actually, it was seeing you in that desk again.  That’s the desk you were sitting in the first time I ever saw you.  I’ve spent my whole life trying to erase that image from my mind and I’ve never been able to so…I just need to know that you at least somewhat believe that there’s the possibility you might in some distant corner of yourself love me as much as I love you.

ZOE:  The truth is…if a girl can’t love a boy who’s been in love with her for most of his life then…the world’s so cruel maybe it’s better off ending.

           

            (A beat.)

RICHARD:  Sickness and health?

ZOE:  Richer or poorer?

RICHARD:  Yup.

ZOE:  Yup.  But hopefully richer.

RICHARD:  Just kiss me already.

            (They kiss.)

ZOE:  Wow.

RICHARD:  What?

ZOE:  I think I love my husband.

RICHARD:  Well hey—isn’t that something?

            (They slowly, softly let their foreheads fall against each other.  And it’s really quite lovely.)