LAURA: How much?
CURTIS: Three
million.
LAURA: And it’s in
the will?
CURTIS: Yup.
LAURA: How tight is
it?
CURTIS:
Airtight. You have to come back?
LAURA: Even in death,
he torments me.
CURTIS: Nice way to
talk about your father.
LAURA: He was your
father too.
CURTIS:
Stepfather. People expect me to
hate him. You’re supposed to be sad he’s
dead.
LAURA: Hard to be sad
when I’m three million dollars richer.
CURTIS: Provided you
come back.
LAURA: I’ll come
back. I’ll cash the check. Then I’ll head back here.
(A
beat.)
How do you like Melbourne, Curtis?
CURTIS: You can’t
come back.
LAURA: What?
CURTIS: You can’t
come back.
LAURA: You just said—
CURTIS: Here, I
mean. You can’t come back here. If you come back here, you forfeit the
inheritance.
LAURA: How does that
even work?
CURTIS: The money’s
in an account. The account has an
executor. If you need any money, you put
in a request form, and, provided you’re living in Rhode Island, you get the
money.
LAURA: Until when?
CURTIS: Until you’re
broke or until you die. Whichever comes
first.
LAURA: So I have to
live in Rhode Island?
CURTIS: Well, you don’t
have to. It’s up to you. You can either be a millionaire in Rhode
Island or be broke in Melbourne. So yes,
there’s a choice.
LAURA: That’s insane. I thought he was just guilting me into flying
back there to get the check so I’d have to see that she-beast—
CURTIS: You mean my
mother?
LAURA: And the troll—
CURTIS: Aunt
Constance.
LAURA: And Satan.
CURTIS: Grandmother.
LAURA: I didn’t
realize Daddy actually wanted me to stay there.
Forever? Fat chance.
CURTIS: Fine. In that case, your share of the money goes to
the executor.
LAURA: Who’s the
executor?
CURTIS: Well—me.
LAURA: Oh this is
rich.
CURTIS: No, I’m
rich. You’re broke. It’s been fun, sis.
LAURA: Wait a minute.
CURTIS: I had a
feeling things would go this way. My
plane leaves in an hour. (Motioning to
the mural in front of them.) Thanks for
showing me this—Whatever this is.
LAURA: It’s a mural.
CURTIS: What does it
depict?
LAURA: The suffering
of the Aborigines.
CURTIS: It’s a red
dot with squiggly lines around it.
LAURA: You know
nothing about art.
CURTIS: But I know a
red dot when I see one.
LAURA: You also know
nothing about suffering.
CURTIS: And you do? Oh what am I saying? Of course you do. You love suffering. You majored in it in college.
LAURA: I majored in
Native American poetry.
(A
beat.)
Okay fine, point taken.
CURTIS: Would it
really be so awful living in Rhode Island?
LAURA: Yes. And even if I loved it, I wouldn’t let our
dead father—
CURTIS: Stepfather.
LAURA: --Blackmail me
from the grave like this.
CURTIS: So you’re
going to willingly hand over your half of the estate to me?
LAURA: I guess so.
CURTIS: You know, I
have to admit. I came here expecting an
altercation. Some sort of reckoning,
where we’d settle old scores and battle over who deserves the money. I didn’t expect you to roll over so
easily. It’s a little disappointing.
LAURA: I’ve grown,
Curtis. I’ve evolved. Money is the least important thing in my life
right now.
CURTIS: Spoken like a
true rich person.
LAURA: Not anymore.
(A
beat.)
What?
CURTIS: Why did you
ask me to meet you here?
LAURA: I work right
down the street.
CURTIS: No, you don’t. You’re not working. The detective I hired to find you said you’re
shacked up with some older guy. That he
keeps you on a tight leash, and—based on some photos he took—that it’s not always
a figurative leash.
LAURA: You had
someone take pictures of me.
CURTIS: Your Dad
always said—Never turn down an opportunity to take an incriminating photo.
LAURA: Of your
sister?
CURTIS:
Stepsister. Please. I used to watch you shower when we were
teenagers. We didn’t even meet until I was
twelve. It’s hardly Flowers in the
Attic.
LAURA: You’re
despicable.
CURTIS: Says the girl
who’d rather dress up like Catwoman than get a day job.
LAURA: Oh, you’re one
to talk. Daddy put you at a desk as soon
as you were out of college, gave you a six-figure annual salary, and didn’t
expect one damn thing from you after that.
So the next time you call me a whore, be sure and wipe your cheap lipstick
off first.
CURTIS: Why am I
here?
LAURA: I thought you’d
appreciate a little art.
CURTIS: You read the
will.
LAURA: What?
CURTIS: You did, didn’t
you? You got your hands on it somehow.
LAURA: Got my hands
on it? Please, Curtis, it’s 2014. The will was posted online before Daddy’s
body was cold.
CURTIS: So you know?
LAURA: That you have
your own little set of instructions?
Yes, I do.
CURTIS: I plan on
fighting it.
LAURA: Why, Curtis?
CURTIS: Because I
enjoy my life, and I see no need to toss it out the window just because your
father was a sadistic maniac.
LAURA: All he wants
is for you to leave the state.
CURTIS: So you can
run the business.
LAURA: Oh please, you
know full well I wouldn’t go near that office for twice the money he’s leaving
us.
CURTIS: It’s exactly
what he’s always wanted. To send me a
million miles away.
LAURA: Is that what
he specified? A million miles?
CURTIS: Five hundred—minimum.
LAURA: You know, you
could just stay here. We could
swap. Like Freaky Friday. Trade lives.
CURTIS: Now why would
I want to do that? I have better legs
than you.
LAURA: I’m being
serious.
CURTIS: So am I.
LAURA: Curtis—
CURTIS: If you’re not
going home, why should I leave? We’re
both meant to take a lesson from this.
LAURA: So if I went
home, you’d move here?
CURTIS: I’d move…somewhere.
LAURA: Really?
CURTIS: I don’t
know. This is ridiculous.
LAURA: What happens
if you forfeit your share?
CURTIS: Then both
your share and my share goes to the she-beast.
LAURA: Your mother?
CURTIS: Yes.
LAURA: This is a
nightmare.
CURTIS: He knew this would
happen. He knew you’d never want to move
home and he knew I wouldn’t want to leave.
LAURA: Imagine if he
knew we traded places.
(A
beat.)
CURTIS: Did you ever
tell—
LAURA: No.
(A
beat.)
Remember how scared you were the day you got the
letter? And I had wanted one so
badly. It was like you got into the
school I wanted to go to. You and me, up
in my bedroom, you crying in my lap—and then just like that—it was all
decided. I’d leave, you’d stay. It was so easy. All we had to do was pay off that guy at the
state house. Everybody was happy. Except Daddy.
Maybe this is him acting as an instrument of Fate. Correcting the error.
CURTIS: We should do
it.
(A
beat.)
To hell with it, right?
We should just do it. I don’t
know what I was so afraid of back then.
I still don’t know what I’m afraid of.
I tell myself I’ve built this great life and that it would be reckless
to just throw it away, but what is it really?
An apartment? A car that isn’t
even paid off? A job where I spend all
day looking at pictures of places I’m never going to visit?
LAURA: For so many
years, home to me was Daddy. That’s why
all I wanted to do was run away. Now he’s
gone and I still get sick at the idea of going back. Maybe even after the reasons you have for not
doing something go away, something deeply ingrained in you still stops you from
doing it.
CURTIS: Unless you
have no choice.
LAURA: Right.
(A
beat.)
CURTIS: It just looks
like a red dot.
LAURA: That’s the
thing about suffering, Curtis. It looks
like all kinds of things.
(They
stare off—at the painting, and past it.)
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