Leaving Rhode Island: Memphis

                (GRADY is getting ready to leave his college classroom.  There is a KNOCK on the door.)

GRADY:  C’mon in.

                (GINA enters.)

Well, well.

GINA:  Hello Professor.

GRADY:  Hello Gina.

GINA:  Finally made it to the head of the class?

GRADY:  Are we doing niceties, is that what we’re doing?

GINA:  We don’t have to.

GRADY:  Chit-chat?  ‘How’s your wife?  How’s your husband?  When did you—‘

GINA:  He’s dead.

                (A beat.)

My husband’s dead.

GRADY:  Well, so much for chit chat.

GINA:  I can see you’re still feeling hostile towards me.

GRADY:  Oh, you picked up on that?  Yeah, it’s this cloud of rage I have covering me at all times.  It’s like Pig Pen from the Peanuts, just with deep-seated anger and resentment.

GINA:  You haven’t changed.

GRADY:  I’m sorry about Frank.

GINA:  No, you’re not.

GRADY:  Look, I didn’t like the guy, but I don’t wish death on people.  I’m not your mother.

GINA:  I’ve been here for five seconds and we’re already doing this?

GRADY:  Gina, I have been waiting for five years to do this.

GINA:  Well, if you had let me know where you were—

GRADY:  Like you didn’t know.

GINA:  I didn’t!

GRADY:  But you tried to find out, right?

GINA:  I—I didn’t know if you wanted to see me.

GRADY:  See you?  No, I didn’t want to see you.  I still don’t.  But I would’ve loved a chance to thank you for making me look like an idiot.

GINA:  What are you talking about?

GRADY:  All those people telling me there was something going on with you and Frank, and me telling them they were crazy.

GINA:  I didn’t cheat on you with Frank.  Everything that happened happened after you left.

GRADY:  You mean after I got deported.

GINA:  Don’t be so dramatic.  It’s not like you were the only one.

GRADY:  I was about to make tenure.

GINA:  So what?  You think it was a conspiracy?

GRADY:  Frank had some pull.

GINA:  Yeah, he had a lot of pull.  That’s how he ended up getting fired.

GRADY:  See, nobody explained to Frank that you can’t flunk the girls you’re sleeping with or eventually you wind up in trouble.

GINA:  I guess you believe everything you hear, huh?

GRADY:  Assuming I don’t believe that you two were getting hot and heavy while we were together, then answer me this:  How long was I out of the state before he made his move on you, huh?

GINA:  What makes you think he was the one making the moves?

GRADY:  Ohhhhh now you’re just trying to hurt me.

GINA:  Apparently it’s what I do best.

GRADY:  So are you in Memphis for the barbecue sauce, or are you looking to be the merry widow and kick up your heels with an old flame?  Because just so you know, I’m not interested.

GINA:  I’ll try to keep my devastation in check.

GRADY:  So why are you here?

GINA:  Because Sam’s dead.

                (A beat.)

GRADY:  I…

GINA:  I didn’t think you’d know, and I thought if I called you wouldn’t…I figured why not just come here.  Go for a little drive.  I needed to be by myself in a car for a couple of hours anyway.

GRADY:  Was it—

GINA:  It was natural.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  He was old.  Old people die.

GRADY:  He wasn’t that old.

GINA:  Old enough to die.

GRADY:  Dammit.

GINA:  No jokes?

                (A beat.)

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

GRADY:  One more week I could have made the funeral.  I got my letter.  I can go back now.

GINA:  Trust me, you didn’t miss anything.  Karen was there.  She made a big scene.

GRADY:  Sounds like Karen.  How’s Mr. Stone?

GINA:  He looks tired.

GRADY:  He always looked tired.

GINA:  Everybody looks tired now.

GRADY:  Jesus, Sam.

GINA:  You ever make up with him or was he just another grudge you were holding onto?

GRADY:  Don’t step, Gina.  ‘Cause pretty soon you’re going to step right out of line.

GINA:  You broke that man’s heart.

GRADY:  And you didn’t?  Marrying some old man for his money?

GINA:  I could have married you and had just as much money.  It wasn’t about the money.

GRADY:  So you just loved him more than me?

GINA:  I don’t expect you to understand.

GRADY:  Well, that’s a good assumption.

GINA:  You know you’re entitled to get some money from him.

GRADY:  From who?  Sam.  How do you get money from a dead man?

GINA:  He had a business when he died, Grady.  He went legit.  There’s an office downtown and everything.

GRADY:  I don’t need any of his money.

GINA:  I’m just saying it’s yours if you want it.

GRADY:  You want me to get involved in all that nonsense with his kids?

GINA:  You’re his kid too, Grady.

GRADY:  Yeah, he had kids everywhere.

GINA:  So far the only people getting anything are the one in Rhode Island and the one who got exiled and moved to Australia.  Everybody else—

GRADY:  God, that man led ten different lives, didn’t he?

GINA:  You should fight for some of it.  There’s millions—

GRADY:  Then what?  You and me can get back together and you can go back to having somebody take care of you?

GINA:  Forget it.  Don’t fight.  Why start now?

GRADY:  How much did you get when Frank died, Gina?  Not much, I bet.  You back living with Teresa’s family?

                (A beat.)

GINA:  How did you—

GRADY:  Victor called me.  All the men whose hearts you’ve broken—we keep in touch.  Have meetings.  Once a year we get together for a charity golf tournament.

GINA:  Victor calls you to gossip about me but he doesn’t call you when your father dies.

GRADY:  He wasn’t my father.  I don’t have a father.

GINA:  Grady—

GRADY:  You don’t get it, Gina.  You never did.  Everything you’ve ever done has always been about what makes sense on paper.  It’s all about ‘should’s.’  I should do this, I should do that.  I should marry this guy.  I should let this guy go.  You paint by numbers and when the painting looks like shit, you don’t get why—and it’s because you don’t accept that there are things you do because you feel like doing them.  And people you love because you can’t help yourself from loving them.  I loved Sam, but he wasn’t my father.  He was a guy who got my Mom pregnant and then stopped by every once in awhile to take me out for ice cream or buy me a new bike.  But my Mom taught me how to tie my shoes, and my Mom taught me how to catch a baseball, and my Mom had to explain to me how to be smart so I wouldn’t wind up with some kid I didn’t want like Sam did.  My Mom taught me the value of being present.  And Sam—was not present.  And you—were not present.  And I’ll …I’ll tell you something—it does suck.  It does.  Because you were the two people who I wanted to love me.  You were the two.  And you both let me down.

                (A beat.)

GINA:  People you love because you can’t help yourself from loving them.  You think I don’t know about that?  You think I didn’t want to love you?  You think I didn’t want to love Victor?  You think Frank made the most sense to me?  Frank made no sense, but I loved him anyway.  And then I stopped loving him.  But by then, I’d already made a commitment.  And yeah, you’re right, Grady, I do like things to be one way or another, but I also have a sense of responsibility, otherwise I would have come looking for you when I found out about Frank and that student of his.

GRADY:  You—

GINA:  Who, by the way, was not a girl.

                (A beat.)

Do with that what you will.

                (A moment.)

GRADY:  We both hurt each other too much to pretend like this is going to end some way that isn’t you just walking out of here crying and me sitting at my desk, pounding my head with my hands, wanting to go after you but knowing I’m not going to because I’m too damn proud.

GINA:  So maybe until all that happens, we can just stand here for awhile.

GRADY:  And how long do you want to do that for?

GINA:  I guess…until you sit down…or I walk away.

                (They look at each other wondering who will break first.)