France

Characters

Nick

Dave

Deirdre

Kate

(The Internet.)

Nick:  I just posted online that I’m thrilled to announce I’m moving to France.  This is very sudden.  I made a decision last night to move to a foreign country.  I have no friends or family there, and I don’t know the language.  I quit my job.  I broke my lease.  I broke off my engagement to a wonderful person.  Then I went on social media and posted about all of this.  Here’s what three of my Facebook friends had to say.

Dave:  Good for you, man.

Deirdre:  I believe in you, Nick.

Kate:  Follow your dreams.

Nick:  As soon as they posted those comments, they immediately forgot all about me moving to France and went back to focusing on--

Dave:  Inviting people to my band’s show on Thursday.

Deirdre:  Fighting in a thread with some guy who thinks Republicans want what’s best for America.

Kate:  Shopping for banana holders because it’s my sister’s birthday and I want her to know I’m still mad about what she said to me at Thanksgiving.  And no, I do not think my nephew is advanced for his age, and no I will not apologize for feeling that way.  And why are banana holders so expensive?  I just want to make a passive aggressive statement with a poorly chosen gift.  Why is this so complicated?

Nick:  But if they were being honest with me--

Dave:  You’re moving to France?

Nick:  Yes.

Deirdre:  France?

Nick:  Yup.

Kate:  The country?

Nick:  You don’t know that France is a--

Kate:  I know what France is, but you know how sometimes people are like ‘I’m moving to France...Indiana’ and then you’re supposed to laugh, because you thought they were moving somewhere cool, but they’re really just moving to the middle of nowhere?

Nick:  Well, this isn’t like that.  I’m moving to the real France.

Dave:  And you quit your job?

Deirdre:  You got rid of your apartment?

Kate:  You broke off your engagement?  I liked your engagement announcement.  I used a heart AND I left a comment.  Ugh, what a waste.

Nick:  I thought you guys would unconditionally support me.

Dave:  Why would we do that?

Deirdre:  Yeah, you’ve made a really severe life choice.  Randomly supporting it while only having some of the facts would be like enabling some kind of weird risk addiction you’ve probably got.

Nick:  I’m not a risk addict.  I just wanted a change.

Dave:  So get a tattoo.  Learn to enjoy eating cauliflower.  You know you can make it look like rice now?

Nick:  I hate cauliflower.

Dave:  Yeah, but you don’t have to.  Hey, I just posted this link to an article all about how eating healthier improves your Instagram presence.

Nick:  How would it do that?

Dave:  People really like photos of kale.

Deirdre:  Nick, we barely know each other, but this all seems really abrupt.

Dave:  Weren’t you the one who liked all those photos in California last year?

Deirdre:  Yeah, but that was a vacation, wasn’t it?

Nick:  Yeah, but now I can take photos like that all the time.

Deirdre:  Nick, life isn’t about taking photos.  It’s about having other people take photos of you.

Nick:  What does that mean?

Deirdre:  I don’t know.  I read it in a meme.  I would have shared it, but the person who posted it has their profile set to private, so I couldn’t.

Kate:  Don’t you hate that?  Like, the other day I went to share a photo of this girl I hate with my friend Beth and Beth is like ‘It says Attachment Unavailable’ and I was like ‘Ugh, why does this stupid girl make her profile private so I can’t share photos of her with other people so we can laugh about them?’  Then I had to save the photo onto my desktop and then upload it into a Facebook message, and by then, Beth was already talking to me about how her marriage is falling apart, and honestly, the moment was gone.  I mean, it was just gone.

Dave:  Nick, what are you going to do when you get to France?

Nick:  I was thinking of cheese.

Dave:  Like eating it or making it?

Nick:  I don’t know.  I was just going to walk up to people and say ‘Cheese’ over and over again until somebody told me what to do.

Deirde:  You know you’re not in a movie, right?  Like, a movie, people just do things and everything works out.  In real life, you wind up homeless in France and some documentary crew makes a movie about you, but by then you’re dead so you don’t even get to see it.

Nick:  I’m not going to die or wind up homeless.  I’m an intelligent person.  I’ll find work--or something.

Deirdre:  First of all, the homeless are very intelligent.  In the 90’s, everyone at Harvard was homeless.  That’s why we had so many tv movies.  Second of all, France doesn’t even have homelessness, because they’re a kind and gentle nation full of caring souls.  Not like this jerk Porter Davenport who’s arguing me on my cousin Jennifer’s wall.  Ugh, he and I have six friends in common.  I’m messaging all of them right now.  It’s him or me.

Dave:  Nick, I’m willing to support you unconditionally, but I need you to tell me that it’s cool for me to leave my family and go on the road with my band.

Nick:  Don’t you have kids?

Dave:  Do you want my Like or not?

Nick:  Dave, I didn’t even know you were in a band.

Dave:  It’s a Third Eye Blind cover band.  We’re called Semi-Charmed.

Nick:  And you’re going on tour?

Dave:  We’re going to get in our cars and see what happens.

Nick:  That’s not a tour.

Dave:  God, you sound like my wife.

Nick:  I don’t get it.  Can we do fun crazy stuff or not?  If I move to France, everyone congratulates me, but they don’t really mean it.  If they’re being honest, they think I should just stick with my boring life forever.

Kate:  Why should you get to have an exciting life?  You’re not Italian.

Nick:  So you’re saying I should move to Italy?

Dave, Deirdre, and Kate:  No!

Kate:  You know what you should do?  Have a baby.

Nick:  What?

Kate:  With your fiance.  I mean, obviously, get married first.  Or don’t.  I’m not judging.  But definitely have a baby.  It’ll be a Like bonanza on your wall.

Deirdre:  She’s right.  Plus, you get all the follow-up pics for, like, eighteen years after the baby is born.

Dave:  And then hopefully at some point after that you get grandkids and the whole thing starts all over again.

Nick:  But I don’t love the person I’m engaged to.

Kate:  It’s a baby, Nick, not a bedroom set.  Only one of you needs to love it.

Nick:  Kate!

Kate:  I mean, both of you need to love it, but both of you don’t need to love the idea of it.  And you both get to post the photos, so it’s a win-win--I think.  I don’t know.  Win-win’s always confuse me.  Like, does everybody win?  That seems impossible.

Nick:  Look, I appreciate all your input, but I’ve made my decision.  I’m moving to France.  It’s too late to change my mind now.

Dave:  Because you already announced it on social media and you’ll feel like an idiot if anything changes?

Nick:  Yup.  I guess I could just delete the status--

Deirdre:  I already took a screenshot of it and sent it to--

Dave:  Got it.

Kate:  Just got it.

Nick:  Well then, I’m moving to France.

Dave:  Nick, I can’t endorse this decision, but I also can’t really encourage you to change your mind since, if you do, I’m going to make fun of you for it.

Deirdre:  Yeah, you chasing your dream is really making me feel bad about abandoning my dreams, so even if I did think you moving was a great idea, I would never say so.

Nick:  What’s your dream, Deirdre?

Deirdre:  I want to live on Saturn.

Nick:  Deirdre, it’s made of entirely out of gas.

Deirdre:  And America is made of religion and capitalism, but I still live here, don’t I?

Nick:  What about you Kate?  What’s your dream?

Dave:  Mine is to go on tour with--

Nick/Deirdre/Kate:  We know, we know./On tour with your band.  Got it./We know, Dave.

Kate:  I just want to be happy.  And I want other people to be happy for me when I’m happy.  That’s all.

Nick:  Wow.  That’s...totally impossible, Kate.

Dave:  I can’t even fathom how that would happen.

Deirdre:  Suddenly my Saturn dream seems kind of doable.

Kate:  Okay, I have to hop offline.  I gotta go see if Target sells English Muffin toasters.

Nick:  Your sister likes English Muffins?

Kate:  No, she hates them.  Logging off.

Dave:  I have to go to band practice.  We found an abandoned Discovery Zone and we’re rehearsing in the old ball pit.

Nick:  That doesn’t sound safe.

Dave:  It’s not.  A lot of kids peed in there and never said anything.  Logging off.

Kate:  You really moving, Nick?

Nick:  I just...want to do something instead of just announcing I’m going to do something, you know?

Kate:  I get it.  That’s how I wound up with a five-year Blue Apron subscription.  Do you want a free month?

Nick:  No, I don’t.  And I never will.

Kate:  Fair enough.  Logging off.

Nick:  They didn’t say any of that, but you know what?  It’s probably for the best.  I moved to France and while I was there, I ended up saying ‘Cheese’ to this girl who thought I was a model for Verizon, because I have glasses, I look like I do my own taxes, and everything I say sounds only half-true.  Anyway, we started going out, she let me sleep on her couch, and now we’re renovating a farmhouse outside this town in France whose name I still can’t pronounce.  It’s not exactly how I thought things would work out, but it did work out.  And for that, I’m hashtag grateful.  Logging off.

    (End of Play.)