Leaving Rhode Island: Rome

            (A pool in Rome.  ALICIA and CHARLES are sitting poolside in bathing suits.)

ALICIA:  I wish we had learned the language.  All this time and I can’t speak a word of Italian.  I was on the phone with my mom the other day and she was complaining about the Mexican gardener—how he’s been working for her for three years and he still can’t speak English.  I said, ‘Mom, I’ve been in Italy for five years and all I can say is “Hello.”’  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘It’s different for you, dear, you’re an American.’  I wanted to hang up.  Then I did hang up.  It was incredibly satisfying.

CHARLES:  Ah, those East Greenwich mothers.  Gotta love ‘em.

ALICIA:  Are we going to Chris and George’s wedding?  You know, now that we can go.  Now that exile has been lifted.

CHARLES:  I can’t go.

ALICIA:  Why not?

CHARLES:  Well, I slept with Chris.  And then I slept with George.  And then I slept with Chris and George at the same time.  So, me going to the wedding?  Probably not the best idea.

ALICIA:  That was in college.  College doesn’t count.

CHARLES:  So if you murder someone—

ALICIA:  In college?  Doesn’t count.  Nothing counts.  It was five years ago, Charles.

CHARLES:  I’d rather go to my own funeral than go to that wedding.

ALICIA:  Charlie’s Funeral.  What a show that would be.

CHARLES:  I’m not going back to Rhode Island to see two guys I don’t like get married to each other.

ALICIA:  You just said you slept with both of them.

CHARLES:  I didn’t say I liked them.

ALICIA:  You know, you are really perpetuating gay stereotypes, Charles.  You need to be careful.

CHARLES:  I love perpetuating stereotypes.  It feels so right doing exactly what the people who hate you think you’re going to do.

ALICIA:  Rub lotion on me.

CHARLES:  Can’t you have a cabana boy do it?

ALICIA:  Why bother?  They never seem to get the wrong idea.

            (He starts to rub the lotion on her back.)

We’ve had fun these past few years, haven’t we?

CHARLES:  A ball.

ALICIA:  Almost feels like…one long vacation.

CHARLES:  Living in Italy without jobs will make you feel that way.

ALICIA:  My mother still feels so badly about me being exiled, she never thinks twice about replenishing my bank account.

            (A beat.)

Although she has been asking questions about grandchildren…

            (A moment.)

CHARLES:  It’s a good thing we’re going back then.  You can tell her your boyfriend has finally figured out that he’s—

ALICIA:  I don’t know.

            (A beat.)

CHARLES:  You don’t know what?

ALICIA:  I…don’t know if I want to go back.

            (Pause.)

CHARLES:  Alicia, nobody loves Rome more than I do, but—and correct me if I’m wrong here—your mother isn’t going to continue to pay for you and I to live here if we can go back to Rhode Island, is she?

ALICIA:  We could tell her it’s been too long.  That we’re used to life here.

CHARLES:  She’ll tell us to get jobs.

ALICIA:  So maybe we can get jobs.

CHARLES:  I’m from Barrington, Alicia.  I can’t just get a job.

ALICIA:  Well I can’t just uproot my life, Charles.

CHARLES:  What is there to uproot?  We live in a hotel.  We own three outfits between us.  Neither one of us has any friends.

ALICIA:  I’m a Cancer, Charles.  I don’t do well with change.  Even minor change.

CHARLES:  Look, we had a few good years, but the fun is over.  It’s time to go back to the real world.

ALICIA:  But I love this.  It’s like we’re on a honeymoon or—

            (A beat.)

CHARLES:  Oh boy.

ALICIA:  I didn’t mean to use the word ‘honeymoon.’

CHARLES:  Alicia, don’t be that girl.  Don’t be that girl in love with her gay friend.

ALICIA:  God, I’m not in love with you.  I just feel like I’m married to you, that’s all.

CHARLES:  Well, we’re not.  I have dated a number of Italian men since we’ve been here, and you have…the pool.

ALICIA:  So you’re saying I might as well go home because even though there’s nothing for me there, there’s nothing for me here either?

CHARLES:  I mean…

ALICIA:  You’re a really terrible, friend.

CHARLES:  I feel like that’s not entirely fair.

ALICIA:  You have been living off me and my mother’s money for five years, and now I’m asking you to stick with me through a transitional period—

CHARLES:  Alicia—

ALICIA:  --And you just want to run home so you can become another typical openly gay American.  You’ll probably love it.  You won’t have to keep shaving your chest and you can finally wear a bathing suit that covers your--

CHARLES:  What?

ALICIA:  I—Nothing.

CHARLES:  My…ass, Alicia?  Covers my ass?  Is that what you’re saying?  A bathing suit that covers my giant ass?

ALICIA:  Oh, stop it.  You’re proud of your ass.

CHARLES:  Yes.  Yes, I am.  Because I have to be, because otherwise I will be self-conscious about it and want to die.  I cannot BELIEVE you would even—UGH.

ALICIA:  Hey hey hey hey hey I’m sorry.  Okay?

CHARLES:  I mean, if I was a girl--?

ALICIA:  I know.

CHARLES:  If I was a GIRL?

ALICIA:  I know!  I’m just sacred!  Okay?  We both know what’s going to happen when we get back to Rhode Island.  This—all of this—is going to change.  We’re not best friends, not really, we’re situational friends.  We’re friends based solely on this situation we’re in.  That’s our friendship.

CHARLES:  Alicia, that’s every friendship!  It’s—this is how things are now.  The minute something becomes difficult between two people—a friendship, a relationship, a roommate—ship—thing—I don’t know—it ends.  People end it.  Because nobody just—goes along with hardship anymore.  This isn’t the Old West.  We’re not Amish.  If it’s not easy, find something else that is.

ALICIA:  So you are going to dump me when we get home?

CHARLES:  I can’t dump you because we’re not dating.

ALICIA:  But you’re not going to stop seeing me?

CHARLES:  No.

ALICIA:  So we can basically get married?

CHARLES:  Absolutely not.  And I’m not sure how those two things just—

ALICIA:  I’m realizing that I’ve thrown away five years of my life.  I haven’t done anything.  I haven’t achieved anything.  I have nothing to show for half a decade of living, Charles.

CHARLES:  Alicia, we have done nothing BUT live for the past five years.  We have had amazing food and danced to wonderful music from sundown to sun-up and there have been so many beautiful people I have made love to who you have then awkwardly tried to stay friends with, and that—all of that—is living.  You’re not supposed to have something to show for it.  It’s for you.  It’s for you to remember and cherish and—keep with you.  It’s not something that you account for or write down on a chalkboard.  It’s not tangible.  It’s gorgeous and fleeting and the fact that it’s fleeting is what makes it so gorgeous.  Alicia, after five years, you are what every person on this planet wants to be—You. Are. Italian.

            (A beat.)

ALICIA:  I’m sorry if I made you feel like you have a giant ass.

CHARLES:  I’m sorry that I probably made you fall in love with me just by being myself.

ALICIA:  We have to go back, don’t we?

CHARLES:  Yes, we do.

ALICIA:  You’re right, you know.  I am an Italian.  I may not know the language and I may not read up on the politics or the history of the country, and I may leave here only having traveled an hour out of Rome in any direction, but I am—an Italian.  I can feel it in my blood.

CHARLES:  Mine too.

ALICIA:  It’s going to take a long time before I remember how to be an American again.

CHARLES:  Oh, I don’t know.  It might not take that long.

            (They both smile at each other, thinking of totally different things.)