Leaving Rhode Island: It's a Twister

                (A farmhouse.  WYLENE and KLAIRE standing outside.  A storm approaches.)

KLAIRE:  Sounds like a train, doesn’t it?

WYLENE:  Sounds like we’re already on one.

KLAIRE:  It’s exciting.

WYLENE:  Klaire, I want to take this opportunity to remind you that you are not invincible.

KLAIRE:  You don’t know that, Wylene.  You won’t know that unless I die.

WYLENE:  Well, when you die, I’ll know.

KLAIRE:  You have no faith in me.

WYLENE:  I have enough faith to know that a tornado will kill you.

KLAIRE:  A tornado brought me here, and a tornado’s going to bring me home.

WYLENE:  A tornado didn’t bring you here.  I brought you here.  You rode the whole way in the back of my Buick Century.  Drunk as hell, vomiting out the window every five miles, crying, screaming—

KLAIRE:  That car was my tornado away from Rhode Island.  This time I want to ride back on the real thing.

WYLENE:  This is going to end in tears.

KLAIRE:  We were chosen for a reason, Wylene.

WYLENE:  You keep saying that, Klaire, but I don’t think so.  I think a shitty thing happened to us.  That doesn’t make us special.

KLAIRE:  I told Tara I’d meet her back in Rhode Island.

WYLENE:  Tara’s gone, Klaire.

KLAIRE:  I know she’s gone.  She left days ago.

WYLENE:  She didn’t leave days ago.  She left a long time before that.

KLAIRE:  And I’m going to go meet her.

WYLENE:  I’m not sure that’s what she’d want, Klaire.

KLAIRE:  You understand so little about people, Wylene.  People, space, time—how they work.  How they work together.

WYLENE:  I think I understand everything just fine.  And I think you—

KLAIRE:  You know, I could look like you.  If I wanted to.  Just like you.  Pretty and blonde and…

WYLENE:  Tall?  You were going to say ‘tall,’ right?

KLAIRE:  You don’t know how to harness the power within yourself.

WYLENE:  You sound like a traveling medicine man, Klaire.

KLAIRE:  Tara left me something, you know.

WYLENE:  Drugs?

KLAIRE:  No!

                (She takes WYLENE’s hand and puts it on her stomach.)

You feel it?

WYLENE:  Klaire, Tara—

KLAIRE:  (Pushing her hand away.)  I’m not what you think I am, you know.

WYLENE:  What do you think I think you are?

KLAIRE:  Scared.

WYLENE:  Well…you’re right.

KLAIRE:  I wasn’t scared to love, Tara.  You were though.

WYLENE:  I didn’t know what to make of her.

KLAIRE:  I saw her out in the field one night.  I woke up—I was having one of those dreams where I’m back in Newport, riding my bike over the bridge, and I see a man standing there, like he’s about to jump off.  And I go to grab him, but when I do I reach up and my eyes open and I’m in bed here and the night’s quiet except for the fan ka-chuh ka-chuh ka-chuh but one night I looked out the window and I saw Tara but the most beautiful boy.  Long hair falling in front of his eyes, and they were making love.

WYLENE:  Klaire, stop it.

KLAIRE:  And when they were done, something was created.  Something was formed.  And they took that thing and they put it in me.

WYLENE:  And then they up and left it, huh?  That’s a story I know.

KLAIRE:  What are you talking about?

WYLENE:  It’s basic dream interpretation, Klaire.  We’re both throwaways.  You got tossed to the state by your parents, and then I got tossed by mine, and then the state tossed us away too.  So you came up with this idea of Tara as a Mom--

KLAIRE:  She appeared, Wylene.

WYLENE:  As some kind of mom—

KLAIRE:  How do you explain it?

WYLENE:  People appear.  That’s not unusual.

KLAIRE:  Why would she appear?  Why would she appear here and then tell us she was like us?

WYLENE:  Because she was a scam artist.  She wanted something from us.

KLAIRE:  She didn’t get anything though, did she?

WYLENE:  She got a place to stay.  And some food.  And who knows what else?  I haven’t had a chance to look around and see if she took anything, but I’m sure she did.

KLAIRE:  You’re mad because she didn’t like you.

WYLENE:  I’m mad, because she took advantage of you.

KLAIRE:  But I’m okay, aren’t I?  For someone who got taken advantage of?  I’m okay.  I have a baby coming, and I’m going for a ride in a tornado.  And I’m going home.  I’m doing just fine.

WYLENE:  I need you to come with me.  Inside the house.  Into the storm cellar.  Okay?

KLAIRE:  No.

WYLENE:  Klaire, I’m not joking.

KLAIRE:  Neither am I.

WYLENE:  I’ll drag you in there by your hair if I have to.

KLAIRE:  You’d harm a pregnant woman?

WYLENE:  Oh c’mon—

KLAIRE:  A woman with child?

WYLENE:  All I’d be doing is saving you again.  And it’s always by the hair.

KLAIRE:  You don’t need to save me.  This baby’s going to save me.  The children of the exiles are special, don’t you know that?  They’re unique.

WYLENE:  They’re not special.  You’re not special.  And you’re not pregnant.

KLAIRE:  You don’t know!

WYLENE:  Look, I love you.  You’re like my sister, you know that.  But I am not going to stand out here and die with you.  I have a chance—we both do—to go back and start over.  And get it right this time.  Not shack up in some old farmhouse we got after some poor old lady dropped dead on us.  No more scraping by.  No more waking up to you nailing the windows shut because you heard footsteps outside and you think the End’s coming—it’s not.  It’s just a tornado, but it can be the end of you—now you need to get inside with me.  And when this thing carries that farmhouse away with it, we’re going back to Rhode Island—in my car—you in the backseat, me in the front—same way we got here.

                (A beat.)

KLAIRE:  No.  Not this time.

                (A moment.)

WYLENE:  You’re going to leave me too, huh?

KLAIRE:  I’ll see you back there.

WYLENE:  No, you won’t.

KLAIRE:  You gotta know you have what it takes to ride out the storm.  If you don’t have that, hiding out in some cellar isn’t going to do much for you.

WYLENE:  I hope you know what you’re doing.

KLAIRE:  When has that ever helped anybody?

WYLENE:  I’ll be in the cellar if you change your mind.

KLAIRE:  I’ll be out here if you change yours.

WYLENE:  I won’t.  Too many years of self-preservation.  I don’t think I could force myself to give up now.

KLAIRE:  Then I guess this might be good-bye.

WYLENE:  So you admit this thing might kill you?

KLAIRE:  No, I’m afraid that the cellar’s built shitty just like the rest of the house and it might not do you any good.

WYLENE:  I’ll take my chances.

KLAIRE:  Same here, Wylene.  Same here.

                (They look out.  The storm descends.)