Brides

(City hall.  ABBY and HANNAH are both sitting.)

ABBY:  You got sent to get the certificate too, huh?

HANNAH:  The line is—geez.

ABBY:  I know.

HANNAH:  I mean, I get it.  There’s a whole—rush to things.  Usually they’re not even open this late on Saturdays—

ABBY:  I heard they’re going to be open all night.  Just doing ceremonies.

HANNAH:  It’s crazy.

ABBY:  So crazy.

(A moment.)

HANNAH:  Is your husband getting the—

ABBY:  He’s getting the rings.

HANNAH:  Ah, right.  Same with mine.

ABBY:  Then he gets here, and…I wasn’t expecting this.

(A moment.)

Were you?

HANNAH:  What?  Marriage?  I’m in grad school.  I was even going to consider the idea until I graduated, but now—

ABBY:  Time’s running out.

HANNAH:  Yes, it is.

ABBY:  I’m very excited.  I mean, I’d love to have had a…real wedding, you know, but…I just want to be married to David before we…

HANNAH:  How long have you been together?

ABBY:  Two years.

HANNAH:  Rich and I have been together for six.  We were high school sweethearts.  Then college sweethearts, and now—we’re going to be married.

ABBY:  That’s so wonderful.

HANNAH:  It is.

(A moment.)

Yeah, it is.

(A moment.  She laughs a little.  Then--)

This is a mistake.

ABBY:  What?

HANNAH:  I’m making a mistake.

ABBY:  Uh—

HANNAH:  I don’t want to do this.

ABBY:  But—

HANNAH:  It seemed—I mean, six years, but—No, no.  This is wrong.

ABBY:  Well, calm down.  You don’t want to make any—

HANNAH:  What?  Rash decisions?  I already have.  Look where I am.  How did this happen?

ABBY:  Should you call your fiancé before he buys that, you know, ring?

HANNAH:  Oh, who cares about him?  I mean, not to sound uncaring or cruel but seriously WHO CARES ABOUT HIM?  I’M FREAKING OUT HERE!

ABBY:  It’s natural to have pre-wedding jitters.

HANNAH:  These are jitters.  Jitters are what you get when you put too much sugar in your coffee.  This is TERROR!

ABBY:  Listen to me, uh, what’s your name?

HANNAH:  Hannah.

ABBY:  Hannah, I’m Abby.

HANNAH:  Hi Abby.  Do you have a car?

ABBY:  A car?

HANNAH:  I need to get out of here.  I need to get away from here.  Far, far away.

ABBY:  I can’t—Look, Abby, do you love, uh—

HANNAH:  Rich.

ABBY:  Rich.  Right.  Do you love him?

HANNAH:  Of course I love him!  Six years!  But marriage?

ABBY:  It’s not like you’re going to be married for that long!

HANNAH:  That’s it?  That’s what you got for me?  I won’t be married that long?  Are you kidding me?  I believe in Heaven.  I believe in the Afterlife.  I believe that if you marry someone you spend eternity with them.  Six years is not enough time to know if you can spend forever with somebody and you won’t eventually change your mind.

ABBY:  Well, a lifetime isn’t going to change your mind either.

HANNAH:  So maybe marriage isn’t for me.

ABBY:  I can’t convince you to marry someone if you don’t want to marry them, and yes, a lot of people are doing a lot of things they shouldn’t be doing right now, but you wound up here—somehow, you wound up here—and I believe, if we’re talking about things we believe—I believe that you have to look around you sometimes and say ‘I’m here to do something or I wouldn’t be here.’  So, here you are.  Maybe there’s a reason for that.  Maybe you’re supposed to be getting married today.

HANNAH:  You’re not scared at all?  You’re just—totally sure about this?

ABBY:  Of course I’m not totally sure, but I’m more sure than I’m not sure.  And I’m sure the man I’m going to marry is a good man, and I’m sure I want to be his wife, and I want to wear a ring on my finger that says I’m his wife, and if we all die this weekend, I want to die saying I took something as far as it could go, including our relationship.  That’s why I’m getting married.  I know it sounds simple and stupid—

HANNAH:  It doesn’t.  It sounds very sweet.

ABBY:  Some of that is our vows.  I was sort of practicing on you just then.

HANNAH:  I could sort of tell.

ABBY:  How did I do?

HANNAH:  It was lovely.  The part about going as far as you can go—

ABBY:  Right.  I got that from a poem.  I Googled marriage poems and found it.  I don’t know who wrote it.

HANNAH:  So you’re going to do this?  After two years?

ABBY:  I would have done it after two minutes.

(She gets emotional.)

Oh God, not now.

HANNAH:  It’s okay.  You can cry.

ABBY:  You don’t understand.  I don’t just cry.  It’s like I’m overtaken by a moisture demon.  It’s awful.

HANNAH:  You should be overtaken on your wedding.  It’s your wedding.  It’s a huge thing.  Even if it does end up being just a City Hall thing.

ABBY:  You should be too.  You should be happy.  Maybe if you’re not, I mean if you’re really not—

HANNAH:  No, I am.  I’m happy.  And I’m happy for you.  You seem like a really nice person.  I hope everything works out for you.

ABBY:  Well, I mean, nothing’s going to work out anyway.  Once the comet hits—

HANNAH:  I hope it doesn’t.  I hope it misses us like they say it might, or that it hits us and then just goes so deep into the earth it hits the core and evaporates.

ABBY:  Can that happen?

HANNAH:  Probably not.  I’m in grad school for Creative Writing, not Science.

ABBY:  If it doesn’t hit—

HANNAH:  Then you get to stay married.  For a lifetime.  On Earth.  And then beyond that—

ABBY:  I didn’t really think of that.

(A moment.)

HANNAH:  What do you mean?

ABBY:  I didn’t think about the whole—if it doesn’t hit thing.

HANNAH:  You mean the fact that then you’d be really married?

(A moment.  ABBY laughs.  Then HANNAH laughs.  They both laugh then stop.)

ABBY:  How much time do you think we have before the boys—

HANNAH:  The jewelry stores have got to be as crowded as—

ABBY:  So a drink?

HANNAH:  A drink couldn’t hurt.

ABBY:  Not at all.

HANNAH:  Let’s go.

(They exit.)