Belleville Read online

ABBY: Yeah?

  ZACK: Really standard.

  ABBY: Tell me more about that.

  ZACK: Um, the chances of anything going wrong with either mother or baby in a major hospital in New Jersey are virtually zero.

  ABBY: Thank you.

  You did an OB rotation, right?

  ZACK: Yup.

  ABBY: So you know what you’re talking about.

  ZACK: Homey? They’re gonna be fine. I mean I can’t promise that child will be good looking, given the DNA in / question.

  ABBY (Laughing): God, what does she see in—?

  He loves her. He really loves her. I bet he’s being so great right now.

  (Pause. She smiles bravely.)

  ZACK: Now let’s see that toe.

  (She hops over to him and offers her foot.)

  So which—oh. The swollen one, with the broken toenail?

  ABBY: Oh, is it—?

  ZACK: Homey, this is really impressive.

  ABBY: Thank you. Do you think it’s broken?

  ZACK: I don’t know, how does it feel when I do / that—

  ABBY: Aa-aahhhhhhh! Ow! Ow!

  ZACK: Sorry.

  (He takes her toe in his mouth.)

  ABBY: Ew! Is that—what they taught you in medical school?

  ZACK (With his mouth full): That’s what they taught me in loooove school.

  ABBY: That’s so gross, I have a plantar’s wart on that foot.

  ZACK: Mmmmmmmm.

  ABBY: Zack!

  (He takes her toe out of his mouth and kisses it. He stands.)

  Where are you going?

  ZACK: Ice.

  (He exits into the kitchen. We can hear him opening the freezer, getting ice out of a tray, then assembling some kind of baggie. He reenters and applies the ice to her foot.)

  ABBY: I like it when you doctor me.

  ZACK: I’m gonna give you a very special rate.

  ABBY: Ice is so cold.

  ZACK: Upside? Much harder for you to run away from me now.

  ABBY: Have you noticed that everything is starting to take longer to heal?

  ZACK: Since . . .?

  ABBY: Since we’re getting old. We are in physical decline.

  ZACK: Will it affect your downward-facing dog?

  ABBY: The physical decline? Definitely.

  (She watches affectionately as he continues to doctor her.)

  I’m still sad we had to leave Baltimore before your graduation.

  ZACK: We had to be here.

  ABBY: I know. But I wish I could’ve had that moment, to celebrate you.

  ZACK: You celebrate me all the time.

  ABBY (Laughing): That is so not true. I complain all the time.

  ZACK: In your complaints there is a perceptible undercurrent of celebration.

  ABBY: Really? Good. I mean for there to be.

  What time is it?

  ZACK: Almost eight.

  ABBY: Jesus. How did we sleep so long?

  ZACK: Drugs.

  ABBY: Oh, right.

  (Remembering something else, suddenly) Right.

  ZACK: What?

  ABBY: Nothing.

  (He checks the positioning of the ice pack and reapplies it.)

  Did you read my sister’s last email?

  ZACK: Um . . .

  ABBY: Her “third trimester report,” or whatever?

  ZACK: I have to admit, that might have gotten lost in my inbox.

  ABBY: It’s fine, you know I don’t care, but she actually wrote about, um. Mom’s death, and becoming a mom without having a mom. And it was very Meg, so it was all full of like . . .

  ZACK: Clichés.

  ABBY: Um, okay, that’s actually not what I was going to / say.

  ZACK: Sorry.

  ABBY: No, yeah, I guess clichés, but just that writing style of hers where she’s pretending to be very breezy and casual and unnecessarily abbreviating words and stuff but actually dropping these / huge—

  ZACK (With emphasis): Oh God, totally.

  ABBY: So, I’m allowed to say these things but you’re not, okay?

  ZACK: Yes. Silent.

  ABBY: Anyway. On the one hand I found it kind of embarrassing, especially since she sends it to several hundred people, and on the other it was just very, um, honest. About her fears about parenthood, and how she expected to be done mourning by now, but especially with the hormones and everything she’ll be driving, or doing laundry, or whatever, and she’s suddenly caught out by these, like, waves of grief. She said one of them lasted more than an hour, she had to cancel a meeting and sit at her desk and wait for it to pass.

  I had never heard her talk about it like that before, she was the all-business one, you know?

  ZACK: Yeah.

  ABBY: So I’ve been meaning to write back to her about it but for some reason I haven’t.

  (Pause.)

  ZACK: Yeah, that hormonal stuff, during pregnancy? That shit is no joke.

  ABBY: Homey.

  ZACK: What?

  ABBY: That was not the point of that story.

  (Brief pause.)

  ZACK: I know.

  (An ambulance is heard outside. As it approaches, it becomes very loud and casts red-and-white light inside the apartment. They wait for it to retreat.)

  What would you write?

  ABBY: Just that she’s going to be an amazing mom. And that even though we’re really different, I think she’s made all the right choices. I really do think that.

  ZACK: You wishing you had a corporate job and a husband who enjoys shopping for lawn furniture online?

  ABBY: I’m wishing I felt less disdainful of everyone else and expected a little less from myself. So maybe if I were more like that I would have a corporate job and a husband who shops online, yes.

  ZACK: I guess it doesn’t occur to you that it hurts like hell when you say shit like that.

  ABBY: It does occur to me, and then I say it anyway. I’m sorry.

  (She moves the ice pack and gets up.)

  All right. I’m gonna get ready for our D-A-T-E.

  ZACK: You’re feeling up to it?

  ABBY: Oh, I’m tough. Say what you want about me; I am tough.

  (She limps pathetically into the bedroom. He gets the pipe and attempts to smoke the dregs. It’s no use. He burns himself and sucks on his finger. He goes to a drawer and opens it and sifts through it, but no luck.)

  (Offstage) Fuck.

  (In pain, she draws breath in through her teeth.)

  ZACK: You okay?

  ABBY (Offstage): Yeah, just—getting these tight-ass jeans on. Jeggings. Do they call them jeggings, is that a thing?

  ZACK: Maybe you should wear a skirt.

  ABBY (Offstage): Too late—I’m committed to it now. Ow. Fuck. Ow.

  (After a few moments, she limps back out in tight, flattering jeans and her date shirt, brushing her hair. She looks great. He closes the drawer.)

  What are you looking for?

  ZACK: Uh, Advil. For you.

  ABBY: We’re out. From my epic migraine last week, remember? We can stop at Alioune’s on the way down.

  ZACK: Or we can go to the pharmacy.

  ABBY: True, or we could just stop at Alioune’s on the way—why are you looking at me like that?

  ZACK: You look beautiful. You look really great.

  ABBY: Thanks, but that’s definitely not the face you were making.

  ZACK: What face was I making?

  ABBY: I would describe it as some combination of terror and burning hatred.

  ZACK (Edgy laugh): I have no idea what you’re talking about. I like that shirt.

  ABBY: You’ve seen me wear it before.

  ZACK: Yeah, when, uh . . . when we had dinner with Charlie, right? Last spring?

  ABBY: I’ve worn it a bunch of times.

  ZACK: I think you wore it that night.

  ABBY: I might’ve.

  ZACK: I’m pretty sure.

  ABBY: Okay . . .

  I did ask you, earlier, about wearing this
shirt—

  ZACK: And I’m saying I like it.

  ABBY: I think you’re saying something a little more complicated than that.

  ZACK: What do you think I’m saying?

  ABBY (Smiling): Zack? This is really childish.

  ZACK: Why are you smiling?

  ABBY: You’re making me uncomfortable.

  ZACK: All I’m saying. Is you look hot in that shirt.

  (The subject seems to be uneasily dropped.)

  And I’m very honored that you’d bust out your Charlie shirt for our D-A- / T-E.

  ABBY (Exiting, hobbling out): Okay! I am changing. My shirt.

  ZACK: I’m not asking / you to change your shirt!

  ABBY (Offstage): I’ll wear something that makes you feel more secure in your masculinity.

  ZACK: I guess I hit a nerve, bringing up / Charlie.

  ABBY (Offstage): Fuck you!

  (A long pause. Silence from the other room. Zack approaches the bedroom door and looks in.)

  ZACK: Hey.

  (Abby mumbles offstage.)

  I’m sorry? Was that—human speech, or—?

  (Abby mumbles offstage.)

  I still can’t / understand you.

  ABBY (Offstage): Doesn’t matter.

  (Pause. He lingers, now contrite.)

  ZACK: Oh, now that—that, is fetching.

  (Abby limps past him, not looking at him, in an oversized hoodie—probably his.)

  ABBY: Ready!

  ZACK: You think I’m gonna, what, be mad? That would be like me, to get upset that you’re not dressed up enough?

  ABBY: I was making an effort to inject a little romance, it was a stupid idea.

  ZACK: Romance? Eeeww.

  ABBY: Sorry, I’ll never do it again.

  ZACK: Hey.

  ABBY: What?

  ZACK: Hey.

  ABBY: Stop saying “hey.”

  ZACK: I love you in that hoodie because I trust that hoodie to keep you warm. In your Charlie shirt / you would’ve—

  ABBY: Stop calling it my Charlie shirt.

  ZACK: You would’ve been cold.

  (Pause.)

  ABBY: I got a little dressed up when we saw Charlie because Charlie humiliated me when I was twenty-one and I will always feel like I have something to prove to him. I shouldn’t have to explain that to you, because I’m entitled to some privacy and it has absolutely no bearing on our marriage.

  (Brief pause.)

  ZACK: Okay.

  ABBY: And you shouldn’t be so insecure. Or at least you shouldn’t let me see it.

  (Brief pause.)

  ZACK: Okay.

  (Long pause.)

  ABBY: So where are we going?

  (Blackout.)

  Scene Three

  The middle of the night. Zack enters with a sleeping Abby slung over his shoulder. He is out of breath. He brings her to the couch and drops her there. This wakes her up.

  ABBY: Where am I?

  ZACK: Home, homey.

  (She laughs drunkenly.)

  ABBY: Home homey home homey home.

  Did you know that— (The rest of this sentence is muffled as she has rolled her mouth into a pillow)

  ZACK (Taking off her shoes): Gonna have to repeat that.

  ABBY: The word uncanny. It means unhomely. I mean, etymo-log-ic-ally. Or in German, or something. It’s Freud. I’m dizzy.

  ZACK: Your toe is turning some very exciting colors.

  ABBY: Pretty ones?

  ZACK: Mmmm. Yes. Very pretty. Not sure the toenail is long for this world, though.

  ABBY: You might have to stay home tomorrow to take care of me.

  ZACK: I might have to.

  ABBY: Should we call Brigitte?

  ZACK: Right now? No.

  ABBY: I thought she might like to hear your voice.

  ZACK: You’re drunk and you’re being silly.

  ABBY: She never calls me back when I leave messages.

  ZACK: I call you back.

  ABBY: Also she doesn’t pick up her phone. I think she screens me. I think she’s threatened by American women.

  ZACK: That’s a good theory.

  (He exits into the kitchen.)

  ABBY: Where are you going?

  (She lifts herself on an elbow but gets dizzy and drops back down.)

  Did you think Amina was rude?

  ZACK (Offstage): What?

  ABBY: Amina! I didn’t want to say before because I thought you’d say I was— (Hiccup) paranoid because I was off my drugs. When we stopped for Advil. She was all weird and cold.

  ZACK (Offstage): I didn’t notice.

  ABBY: Maybe in France it’s considered (Hiccup) rude to ask for Advil. We are strangers in a strange land.

  (Zack reenters with a baguette and a large butcher knife and begins to cut slices of bread.)

  Is that really the appropriate implement? For that little baguette?

  ZACK: Everything else is in the sink.

  (Abby sighs.)

  ABBY: I’m a terrible housekeeper.

  (He has cut a hunk of bread and hands it to her. She eats.)

  You really didn’t notice?

  ZACK: What?

  ABBY: Amina. I wasn’t sure because you guys were speaking French but she seemed, like, icy.

  ZACK: She was a little distracted, I guess. Another bite.

  ABBY: I’m not that drunk.

  ZACK: Okay.

  ABBY: I’m not. And I’m not gonna puke again, I’m done.

  ZACK: Hope so.

  ABBY: Will you check my phone again?

  ZACK: No one’s called.

  ABBY: Will you check?

  (He gets her phone out of her bag.)

  ZACK: Nope.

  ABBY: Give it to me.

  ZACK: You’re not making any calls right now.

  ABBY: I’m just gonna tell him I’m up. In case he’s afraid to call.

  ZACK: I doubt that, it wouldn’t be the first time he called in the middle of the night.

  ABBY: Hey, I don’t like your tone.

  ZACK: Take one more bite.

  ABBY: He hasn’t called in the middle of the night since the year after my mom died and it’s not nice to bring that up.

  ZACK: I’d like to have you to myself for one night, is that a lot to ask? Will you please take one more bite?

  (She relents.)

  ABBY (Mouth full): You have me to yourself all the time.

  (She bites and chews obediently.)

  ZACK: You want some water?

  (She nods. He exits to get it. She picks up the knife and looks at it with curiosity. He reenters with water.)

  Whatcha doin’ with that?

  ABBY: Nothing.

  ZACK: No playing with knives while you’re drunk.

  (Zach takes the knife from her and puts it down.)

  Here you go. Just sip this, don’t gulp or you’ll get sick again.

  ABBY: ’Kay.

  ZACK: I’ll be back in a couple minutes.

  ABBY: Where are you going?

  ZACK: Downstairs, I couldn’t get the door closed while I was carrying you.

  ABBY: I’m sure it’s fine.

  ZACK: Stay right there. Okay?

  (Abby nods.)

  Promise.

  (Again. He exits. She waits a few moments. She gets up and limps to her phone. She dials. Zack reenters quietly.)

  Hey.

  (Abby gasps.)

  What did I say?

  ABBY: You were spying on me?

  ZACK: I said no phone calls.

  ABBY: But I just want my / dad to know—

  ZACK: Abby? You’re really drunk. You don’t make smart decisions when you’re drunk.

  ABBY: I don’t like it when you talk to me that way.

  ZACK: Give me the phone.

  ABBY: But then I won’t hear it if he / calls.

  ZACK: I’ll hear it, and I’ll answer it.

  And I’ll get you.

  (He waits. She gives him the phone.)

  You’re go
nna stay on the couch this time?

  (She nods glumly and limps back to the couch. He waits until she is seated. He gives her a warning look and then exits again. Grumpy, she crosses her arms and sits back. She puts her feet clumsily up on the coffee table, sending a shock of pain through her toe. Woozily, she takes her foot in her hands and examines the toe. It looks bad. It may inspire a new wave of nausea. She steels herself and goes back to the toe. Part of the broken nail is hanging [of course we can’t see that] and she decides to tear it off. She grabs hold of it and tries, but it’s too painful. She gasps or cries out. She takes a few deep breaths. She remembers the large knife on the coffee table. She considers, picks it up, and returns to the task. With a determined but frightened little yell, she slices off the nail, and with it, some skin. It bleeds. A lot. She looks at the bloodied knife with some wonder.)

  ABBY: Shit. Shit.

  (She tries to stand, woozily falls back on the couch.)

  Oh, no.

  (She manages to stand, still carrying the knife. Her other hand covers her mouth. She limps woozily toward the bathroom. Offstage in the stairwell, we hear male voices in French and footsteps racing up the stairs. Before Abby gets to the bathroom, Zack rushes in, pursued by Alioune in his boxers.)

  ALIOUNE: C’est quoi ce bordel?! Qu’est-ce que tu fais?

  ZACK: Détends-toi, écoute-moi, c’était une méprise!

  (They see Abby with the bloody knife, wavering. She looks at them. She doubles over and vomits.)

  Scene Four

  About half an hour later.

  Zack is on his knees cleaning the floor. Alioune stands nearby. Amina sits on the couch with a baby monitor.

  A long silence.

  ZACK: You guys are very sweet. But you don’t have to stay.

  (Alioune and Amina look at each other. More silence.)

  In college. This is just background for you guys. In college. Abby got so drunk she lost like twelve hours of her life. They say it’s possible to be the kind of alcoholic who only drinks once a year, but that once a year just gets dangerously wasted? Abby’s not a frequent drinker, she’s actually a semi-vegan, not sure if you guys knew that. So: twelve hours. She “came to” or whatever in Bridgeport, which is—um, well doesn’t matter, but take my word for it she had no reason to be there. And she was wearing clothes that she didn’t own as of the day before. Mental hygiene—that’s the creepy name they had in college for, like, the psych part of the health center—they thought she might have had a severe break, like, schizophrenia or whatever. But nope. She was just drunk.

  That was around the time her mom got sick.

  Oh, Amina, je suis desolé, je viens de dire—