Mexico

                (KIM is sitting on a bed watching LUCY pack.)

KIM:  So Mexico?

LUCY:  It’s the cheapest ticket.  I got the last seat on the plane.

KIM:  What about Andy?

LUCY:  What about Andy?  Didn’t you hear me?  They had one seat left.  What was I supposed to do?

KIM:  Lucy, he’s your fiancé.

LUCY:  If they’re exaggerating about this whole comet thing, then he came come join me next weekend and we can have a great, unexpected vacation together.

KIM:  And if they’re not wrong and the world ends?

LUCY:  Then we had a good run and we should be proud of that.

                (A beat.)

KIM:  I’m sleeping with him.

                (A beat.  LUCY puts down whatever she was carrying.  Packing is now on hold.)

LUCY:  What?

KIM:  I mean, I’ve slept with him.  We’re not sleeping—I mean, it hasn’t been a regular thing.

LUCY:  When?

KIM:  A few hours ago.

LUCY:  So it JUST happened?

KIM:  Yes.

LUCY:  Why?

KIM:  Because he knows you’re leaving him.

LUCY:  I’m not leaving him.

KIM:  Lucy, you’re packing!

LUCY:  I’M COMING BACK!

KIM:  NOT IF WE ALL DIE!

LUCY:  GOD I WANT TO SLAP YOU!

                (KIM bursts into tears.)

LUCY:  Oh don’t cry.  That’s not fair.  You slept with my fiancé.  I’m entitled to be mad at you.  Why would you do that?  Is it because I don’t love him anymore?

KIM:  Why would I sleep with him because—Wait, you don’t love him anymore?

LUCY:  Why else would I—

KIM:  I thought maybe you were going through a rough patch.

LUCY:  We are.  I don’t love him anymore.  I’d say that’s pretty rough.

KIM:  But you might love him again.

LUCY:  Well, that’s what I was hoping for.  I was hoping I’d start loving him again before the wedding, but it doesn’t seem like it’s in the cards.  The love or the wedding.

KIM:  Jesus.

LUCY:  So why did you sleep with him?  Are you secretly in love with him?

KIM:  With Andy?  He’s a moron!

LUCY:  So—

KIM:  So he comes over.  To fix the sink.  And I was all—‘Oh, this is so cute, my best friend sends her fiancé over to fix my sink.  Me, the poor single woman who can’t fix her own sink.  What a cartoon character I am.  But I’m still young, so really cares, right?’  Of course, I don’t SAY any of this to him.  I just offer to make him a sandwich and he tells me how my landlord is a waste if he’s not getting me plumbers when I need them, and I was like, I know, but it’s utilities included and that’s really good considering the neighborhood, and then he just sort of sits down and—sits.  Like he’s going to cry, but then he doesn’t, because I don’t know, maybe it’s because I would have cried in that moment if I was telling somebody how my fiancé is leaving me to go to Mexico, but maybe I’m just too sensitive—

LUCY:  Maybe?

KIM:  So he tells me you’re leaving, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I knew that, but I assumed she was taking you with her’ and he said ‘No’ and then the ‘No’ became this long ‘Noooooo’ like where he fell down on the kitchen floor, like on his knees, I mean it was—wow, on his knees, you know?  It was something—And so I sort of picked him up and let him kind of fall onto me and that’s when we just…started kissing?  I don’t know.  We were on the floor.  The kitchen floor.  You know me.  I would never—I mean, I haven’t washed that floor in weeks!

LUCY:  So you were caught up in the moment?

                (Pause.)

KIM:  Yeah, let’s go with that.

LUCY:  I can’t even believe this happened.  None of that sounds like Andy.  And it sure as hell doesn’t sound like you.

KIM:  I think we’re all a little on edge.

LUCY:  You know, it figures.  The smallest sign of trouble and everybody in my life falls to pieces but me.

KIM:  Oh right, you’re not falling to pieces you’re FLEEING!  And I’m not sure the Apocalypse counts as the ‘smallest sign of trouble.’

LUCY:  Mexico is something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile anyway.  Now I have a reason.

KIM:  You’re still going to go?  Even with all this going on?

LUCY:  What constitutes all this?  You and Andy going at it on your kitchen floor?  How long did it last?  Six minutes?  Five and a half?

KIM:  It could have gone longer but I had stuff on the stove.

LUCY:  And for that I’m supposed to change all my plans?  No way.  You and Andy can keep doing whatever you want to do.  The wedding’s called off.  Our friendship is temporarily on hold.  And I’ll start thinking about how to handle all of it when I come back.

KIM:  No.

LUCY:  What do you mean ‘No?’

KIM:  I mean, No, you’re going to have to stay here and don’t bother coming back.

LUCY:  Kim—

KIM:  Maybe Andy and I slept together because we both feel incredibly vulnerable about the fact that you’re leaving—again.  Like you always do.

LUCY:  What are you talking about?

KIM:  You got that job in sales so you’d never have to be here.  That suitcase is always half-packed, you’re just throwing stuff in it because packing soothes you.  The idea of taking off and going thousands of miles from here is actually therapeutic for you.  Your life is a disaster.  All your relationships are in shambles, and it’s not because Andy and I slept together.  Andy and I slept together because we need you to notice us and DO something about the fact that we need you and you’re never here.

LUCY:  I—

KIM:  I mean, are you even mad right now?  Or are you just relieved because maybe this means he and I will have to take care of ourselves and it’ll mean that you’re off the hook?

LUCY:  You can’t get mad at me for not knowing how to deal with the fact that—we’re all about to lose everything.

KIM:  Lucy, right now, we don’t have anything to lose.

                (LUCY looks at her suitcase.)

LUCY:  I had Mexico planned.

KIM:  Yeah, you just said—

LUCY:  No, I don’t mean like, I’d been meaning to go.  I mean…I had it planned.  For next week.  All I had to do was bump up the tickets, which was hard, but…it’d been planned for months.  That’s what I’m saying.

KIM:  So you—

LUCY:  I hate it here, Kim.  I hate my life.  I mean, I love you, and I don’t even mind Andy, but this—This was not the plan.  And my job—I mean, it’s great to travel but all it does is confirm the fact that here is not where I’m supposed to be.  When every time you touch down in some foreign city you feel more at home than you do in your own house with the man you’re going to marry—

KIM:  How long have you felt this way?

LUCY:  I’ve always felt this way.  My whole life.  So I moved around a lot and it never got any better.  Chances are it’s me.  I mean, when no guy you date ever measures up and no friend you have continues to interest you and every place you live starts to feel suffocating you have to wonder if maybe it’s you.

KIM:  Well, I mean, it definitely is you.  There’s nothing with me aside from the fact that I just slept with my best friend’s fiancé.

LUCY:  You know, truthfully, I wouldn’t mind losing Andy.  He’s not a bad guy, but he’s—

KIM:  It was two and a half minutes.

LUCY:  --There’s that.  And the fact that he needs me too much.

KIM:  I need you too.

LUCY:  Yeah, but the difference is I think with you the feeling’s mutual.

                (Pause.)

You really want me to stay?

KIM:  I want you to want to stay.

LUCY:  But Mexico—

KIM:  You really want to be near the birthplace of the Mayans right now?

LUCY:  That doesn’t freak me out as much as the idea of having to deal with…all this.

KIM:  Maybe you won’t have to.  Maybe tomorrow the tsunamis and tornadoes will overtake the planet and nothing will ever have to be settled again, but you still can’t run.  Some things are too big to run from.

                (A pause.)

LUCY:  Tornadoes?

KIM:  Big ones.

LUCY:  I already feel overwhelmed.

KIM:  That’s how you know you’re doing something right.

                (LUCY takes the suitcase, opens it, and begins taking stuff out.)