Waitresses

a play in two acts

by Charles Deemer

 

First performed at the Cubiculo Theatre in Portland, Oregon, on October 11, 1985. Directed by Peter Fornara.

 

THE CAST:

Ruby, late 30s, a waitress and closet country songwriter

Jill, 21, her daughter

Duncan, 40s, a wannabe country singer

 

THE SET:

Ruby's trailer. Kitchen. Living area.

 

THE TIME:

The 1980s. Central Oregon.


 

ACT ONE

 

1/ day

 

(AT RISE: RUBY is in the kitchen drinking coffee. DUNCAN'S SONG, "Stale Beer In The Morning, Stale Lovin' At Night," plays on a tape deck. Packed boxes are stacked everywhere. DUNCAN enters, exchanges a silent glance with Ruby, then exits to bedroom. Ruby turns off the tape deck.)

 

JILL (off-stage): Duncan, hon? I'm listening to that!

RUBY: You know the trouble with being a daughter? You make the same mistakes your mother did!

 

(RUBY laughs.)

 

RUBY (louder, to get a reaction): Every daughter makes the same mistakes her mother did!

 

(JILÌ enters, carrying á box, setting it down near the others at the door.)

 

JILL: What?

RUBY: Cheers.

 

(She sips her coffee.)

 

JILL: Mother, I'm not going to feel guilty, so you can just quit trying to make me feel like I'm doing something wrong.

RUBY: Every daughter makes the same mistakes her mother made — that's a law of nature.

JILL: If you'd gone to Nashville twenty years ago, instead of feeling sorry for yourself—

RUBY: I couldn't go anywhere — I was taking care of you.

JILL: When I was old enough for someone else to look after me, if you'd taken your songs to Nashville—

RUBY: I never wrote a decent song in my life til I was 25.

JILL: You wrote "The Ballad of a Teenage Mother" while you were carrying me.

RUBY: That wasn't a song — it's the story of my life.

JILL: It's a good song, and if you'd taken it to Nashville—

RUBY: My life story isn't for sale.

JILL: If you'd taken any of your songs to Nashville, maybe you wouldn't still be waiting tables in Rimrock.

RUBY: Right. I'd be waiting tables in Nashville.

 

(JILL starts out for another box.)

 

RUBY (after her): I don't want to live in Nashville. I hate tourists. It's bad enough here, during hunting season.

 

(DUNCAN enters for another load.)

 

DUNCAN (to JILL): I'm gonna get a coke. You want one?

RUBY: No thank you.

DUNCAN: Jill?

JILL: No thanks, hon.

RUBY: How sweet of you to ask.

DUNCAN (to JILL): You getting close?

JILL: Just the kitchen and my clothes.

 

 (DUNCAN exits.)

 

RUBY (after him): What's your hurry? If you're so goddamned talented, what's the big rush?

 

(JILL exits upstage and RUBY follows behind, to the doorway.)

 

RUBY: Reno. Couldn't you at least make it Winnemucca? Nobody in the family ever got married in Winnemucca. I don't know anybody got married in Winnemucca.

 

(JILL is back with another box.)

 

RUBY: Or Las Vegas? He shoulda checked out Las Vegas — he probably expects to be singing there some day. You might as well start at the top — big Las Vegas wedding — they'll probably give you free drinks and the honeymoon suite and a stack of quarters to gamble with.

 

(RUBY moves to fill her coffee cup.)

 

RUBY (as she's walking): But if you got your heart set on Reno — then by God nobody's gonna change it. Nobody coulda changed mine. I thought a Reno wedding was romantic, that's how goddamn stupid I was. I hope to Christ you don't think it's gonna be romantic.

JILL: I told you, Reno's on the way to Nashville.

RUBY: So's Boise — and you hit the Interstate quicker. Nobody in my family ever got married in Boise. You can become a Mormon while you're at it.

JILL: Mother — there's no reason why this should be so hard on you. I'm an adult.

RUBY: You're right. It's not like last time.

JILL: Is that what this is about? Jesus . . .

RUBY: Reno's better than Tiajuana and twenty-one's better than seventeen. I've been a hell of a mother, haven't I? Daughter learns the facts of life just like that.

JILL: I don't believe you. He's trying to make something of himself. You'd think you'd support that — for my sake.

RUBY: Who's buying the gas? Who's paying for the ticket at the wedding factory?

JILL: Duncan is, as a matter of fact.

RUBY: You taking your savings?

 

 (JILL doesn't reply.)

 

RUBY: You left the receipt on the table yesterday. He hasn't been working, so who's footing the bills when his last unemployment check runs out? You think it's cheap to cut a demo in Nashville?

JILL: What would you know about Nashville? Nothing!

RUBY: I read about Nashville every month.

JILL: In a magazine.

RUBY: Articles written behind the scenes by people in the business. They'll eat that poor boy alive.

JILL: So what? At least he's trying. At least he doesn't sit around and bitch and cry in his beer. At least he's gonna try.

 

(Now it's RUBY's turn to be quiet. Pause.)

 

JILL: I was hoping I could get your best wishes.

 

 (No reply.)

 

JILL: Is that too much to ask?

 

(No reply. Jill pours herself a coffee.)

 

RUBY: You're too goddamn much like me, is the problem.

JILL: There's lots of differences, too.

RUBY: Not in what matters. You're too gullible, just like me. A man can sweet-talk you into anything.

JILL: Nobody's sweet-talked me into a baby yet.

 

(This has stung a little.)

 

JILL: That didn't come out like I meant it.

RUBY: No, you're right. I was sweet-talked into having you.

JILL: And I've ruined your life . . .?

 

(This is the signal. Ruby gets up and they embrace. And for the next few moments, they are genuinely close.)

 

RUBY: Oh, baby . . .

JILL: I'm gonna be okay, mama . . .

RUBY: I just don't want you to get hurt.

JILL: I got to live my own life. I'm too young to hibernate.

RUBY: Is that what I do?

JILL: You don't date anyone any more.

RUBY: Hell, I know the dirt on every asshole in the county . . .

JILL: Duncan's different. He really is. He knows staying here is death.

RUBY: A would-be country singer...just like somebody I'd fall for at your age.

JILL: Then you should give him a chance.

RUBY: I wanted life to be easier for you.

JILL: It's never easy, mama. Everybody's got to do it their own way, according to their own desires.

RUBY: This is your desire, taking your savings and going to Nashville to get eaten alive by—

JILL: Now hush. I won't have talk like that.

RUBY: I just don't want him using you.

JILL: Nashville's my idea anyway. I swear to God, Duncan's just like you — he thinks there's nobody in Nashville but crooked promoters and song thieves. Well, I read those magazines every month, too, and every now and then a dream comes true.

RUBY: But the odds — he shoulda started slow, maybe send them a tape first and see if anybody likes it.

JILL: Nobody can sell you like you yourself can. That's exactly what I told him.

RUBY: Nashville's your idea?

JILL: Duncan's scared. I don't think he'd even try without me. So I gotta stand beside him because I think he's really got it.

RUBY: But what have you got?

JILL: Faith in him.

RUBY: But what have you got inside yourself that's yours no matter what, that you can lean back on no matter what, that nobody can take away from you?

JILL: I've got you.

RUBY: Oh, sugar...

 

(They embrace again.)

 

JILL (breaking it): Help me pack?

RUBY: Sure.

 

(Together they'll pack a box of dishes and glasses from cupboards.)

 

JILL: Mother, I do know what I'm doing.

 

(RUBY doesn't reply. A beat, as they pack.)

 

JILL: What do you hear from Wayne?

RUBY: You know how Wayne is, always talking through his hat.

JILL: You said he was going to record your new song.

RUBY: This weekend, he wants to—

JILL: Mama, that's wonderful!

RUBY: You know nothing's gonna come of it.

JILL: At least you'll hear it. Have a copy of it for yourself.

RUBY: I heard it at the tavern Saturday night.

JILL: Well, then — don't you want a copy for yourself?

RUBY: What am I supposed to do, listen to my own song all day?

JILL: If it's good, why not?

RUBY: That'd make me feel funny. Like I got a swelled head.

JILL: You write good songs.

RUBY: It takes more than talent. I hope Duncan knows that.

JILL: It takes taking a chance — which is just what we're doing.

RUBY: In more ways than one.

JILL: Will you stop worrying about me for one minute?

RUBY: Promise you'll come right home if something happens?

JILL: I'm too old to run home to mama.

RUBY: You're never too old. That's what I'm here for. If something happens and you need help, you call me collect. Promise me.

JILL: Nothing's gonna happen.

RUBY: You just know you can, in case of emergency.

JILL: I know I can.

RUBY: Good. You keep that in the back of your mind and I'll sleep better.

JILL: Aren't you never gonna let go, mama?

RUBY: You're all I've got . . .

 

(JILL hugs her.)

 

JILL: You need to get out more. You need more friends.

RUBY: I'm doing fine.

JILL: Wayne's been wanting to take you out, you know he has.

RUBY: Wayne drinks too much.

JILL: Maybe he needs a good woman.

RUBY: A man that needs a woman to keep from drinking is no man to waste time worrying about.

JILL: I've seen the way Rod McNeill looks at you.

RUBY: Will you let me be? The day I want a man, I'm perfectly capable of finding my own.

JILL: Are you ever gonna want a man again? That's what I'm asking.

RUBY: Why should I need a man anyway? I'm doing perfectly fine.

JILL: Don't you get lonely at night, in that big bed all alone?

RUBY: Not that lonely.

JILL: Don't you miss cuddling?

RUBY: Not with someone keeping me awake with his snoring. You got enough worries ahead of you, girl, without fretting about my lovelife. I'll get me one of those vibrators before I hook up with—

JILL: What are you doing thinking about vibrators? They give me the creeps, all plastic and cold...

RUBY: Betty Hale swears by hers.

JILL: Betty Hale has a vibrator? She doesn't!

RUBY: Swears by it. It's pink and has three speeds.

JILL: Three speeds! Speeds — how?

RUBY: What do you mean, how?

JILL: You mean speeds like in and out?

RUBY: Heavens, no! I mean vibrating speeds. She says it beats any man and then some. Always there when you need it and lasts forever, with three speeds for variety.

JILL: That's unnatural.

RUBY: You get my age, having experienced what I have, and you wonder how natural the male half of the race is.

JILL: You know your problem? You never found a man after daddy.

RUBY: They don't come down the pike like him too often.

JILL: I wish I'd known him.

RUBY: He worshipped you, little he got to see you before going to the hospital. His last days, he lived for me bringing you in so he could hold you.

JILL: It's not fair, him dying so young.

RUBY: Nobody ever said life is fair.

JILL: But twenty years, and you're still not over it.

RUBY: Oh, I can barely remember him myself. I look at his picture in the bedroom and it's like something I clipped from a magazine. Like he's a movie star, and I'm some dopey-eyed teenager, fantasizing about what life shoulda been. He wasn't perfect, to tell the truth. He'd get moody and wouldn't talk to me for days at a time.

JILL: Don't, mama. Just remember the good things.

 

(The dishes are packed now. Jill carries the box to the doorway, Ruby following behind.)

 

RUBY: More coffee?

JILL: Just half a cup.

 

(RUBY pours coffee.)

 

RUBY: You get your last check from Frank?

JILL: Yesterday.

RUBY: You should've given him more notice than you did.

JILL: I don't owe that man nothing.

RUBY: He didn't have to give you a job.

JILL: You got me the job.

RUBY: He's still the boss, he had to go along with it. You don't give people notice, he won't be so obliging next time.

JILL: Won't be a next time.

RUBY: When you talk like that, that's when there's a next time.

JILL: I have faith in Duncan, I really do. I think he's gonna get himself a recording contract.

RUBY: Oh my word.

JILL: He's good enough.

RUBY: Talent has nothing to do with it.

JILL: He has more than talent, he's taking the trouble to get there, to fight for what he believes in.

RUBY: Listen to her!

JILL: You should listen to me. When he gets his contract, he'll be looking for new songs besides his own. If you'd write something a man could sing—

RUBY: I can't write about what I don't understand.

JILL: Men are people, too.

RUBY: Then they should act like people.

JILL: Honestly, you get worse every time we have this conversation.

RUBY: I can't help how I feel.

JILL: Well, I'm sure we'll meet some female singers. You can send your songs to them.

 

(DUNCAN enters, carrying a coke.)

 

DUNCAN: So you about ready?

JILL: Just my suitcase to finish.

DUNCAN: Let's hit it.

JILL: It won't take but a minute . . .

 

(JILL exits upstage, to her bedroom.)

 

(A pause.)

 

DUNCAN: Let's get it over with, Rube.

RUBY: You son-of-a-bitch.

DUNCAN: I know how you must feel. I don't know what to tell you.

RUBY: That girl's happiness has been my life.

DUNCAN: She's happy.

RUBY: She can't see a thing but all your sweet-talking and dreams of Nashville.

DUNCAN: Look, I gotta go for it, okay? I'm not getting any younger.

RUBY: You don't have to trample her in the process.

DUNCAN: As hard as it may be for you to believe, I love her.

RUBY: I been watching you a long time over the years, Duncan. You even tried sweet-talking me once.

DUNCAN: I love her. I don't know what else to tell you.

RUBY: You don't go trampling over someone you love.

DUNCAN: Nashville's her idea, anyway.

RUBY: And closing her savings account, whose idea is that?

DUNCAN: We're getting married. We're in this together.

RUBY: What happens in Nashville when you can't find work? Hell, you can't even hold a steady job in Rimrock. You expect to nickel and dime playing music in some tavern in Nashville — well, good luck. There's a hundred fools just like you, and all of them ahead of you in line.

DUNCAN: You do what you got to do.

RUBY: There's nothing that says you got to put that girl through this — except your own fear. You're too chickenshit to go to Nashville alone.

DUNCAN: I don't know what to tell you, Rube. I love her and I'm going for it. It's something I should've done years ago.

RUBY: Years ago they would've called it child molesting.

 

(JILL enters, carrying her suitcase.)

 

JILL: Well. I guess I'm ready.

 

(A pause.)

 

DUNCAN: I'll wait in the car.

 

(He exits, taking her suitcase.)

 

RUBY: He's not right for you, honey — he just can't be.

JILL: That's my decision, not yours.

RUBY: Don't you let him use you.

JILL: I love him, mama. Tomorrow at this time, I'll be his wife.

RUBY: Maybe if you just went to Nashville first. You don't have to rush into marrying him.

JILL: I love him. I'm sorry, mama — but that's the way it is. I'm a big girl now. You're gonna have to let go.

RUBY: I don't want to let go.

JILL: You're gonna have to. Bye, mama.

RUBY: You come right home if there's trouble. Call me collect anytime.

 

(JILL hugs RUBY.)

 

JILL: Bye, mama.

RUBY: Call me as soon as you get to Nashville.

JILL: I was gonna call you from Reno. After the wedding.

RUBY: I don't want you to make the mistakes I did.

JILL: Marrying daddy wasn't a mistake.

RUBY: Only thing I ever did that wasn't a mistake.

JILL: This is my turn, mama. I'll call you tomorrow.

 

(They embrace again.)

 

JILL: Bye.

 

(And she is gone.)

 

(RUBY pours another coffee. She stares into space. Then she goes to the phone, dials and waits.)

 

RUBY (on phone): Sandy? This is Ruby. Listen, hon, I woke up with the beginning of that virus that's been going around and my temperature is one-oh-one. I'm just gonna spend the day and night in bed, so would you tell Frank I won't be in tonight?...He can call Trudy, she told me she needs the extra hours....Thanks, hon, I will. Bye.

 

(She hangs up. She goes to the cupboard, fetches a bottle of brandy, and pours some into her coffee. She drinks. LIGHTS FADE TO BLACKOUT.)

 

 

2/ evening, a month later

 

(AT RISE: Ruby is putting flowers in a vase for the dinner table. She's been sipping champagne. The table is set for two.)

 

(There's a knock on the kitchen door. Ruby goes to the door — and it's Jill.)

 

RUBY: Since when do you have to knock?

JILL: I don't have my key.

RUBY: Where's your key?

JILL: I threw it away.

RUBY: What?

JILL: It's a long story.

RUBY: Don't I even get a hug?

JILL: I'm sorry, I'm beat.

 

(They embrace.)

 

JILL: I hate Greyhounds. I just hate them. Welfare mothers and their brats, and alcoholics.

RUBY: Look, I fixed dinner special.

JILL: You didn't have to do that.

RUBY: Of course I didn't. I did it cause I wanted to.

JILL: You don't work tonight?

RUBY: Trudy's taking my shift.

JILL: What's that, champagne?

RUBY: Of course it's champagne. I'll get you one.

 

(She'll pour one for Jill and top her own glass.)

 

JILL: The last week's been hell.

RUBY: Don't think about it. You're home now.

JILL: You wouldn't believe what I've been putting up with.

RUBY: I've been there myself.

JILL: How can a man change like that? It was like I was living with this total stranger.

RUBY: Tell me about it.

JILL: And this producer woman — I'd like to get her alone in a dark alley.

RUBY: It's a cut-throat business.

JILL: I thought he was scared of Nashville. He ate it up. He's perfectly capable of playing all their little games. He's probably in bed with her right this minute.

RUBY: I talked to a friend of Wayne's brother, a lawyer, and considering how little time you've been married, he thinks an annulment should be possible.

JILL: I have to think about it.

RUBY: You caught him red-handed, you said.

JILL: Not that way.

RUBY: You said—

JILL: I have to think about what I'm gonna do, is all.

RUBY: The sooner you act—

JILL: Let me do it my way, please!

 

(Pause.)

 

JILL: I'm sorry. I'm exhausted. You have more of this?

RUBY: Two bottles.

JILL: You knew it was that bad?

RUBY: Like mother, like daughter. I remember what I went through.

JILL: Please don't condescend.

RUBY: Condescend?

JILL: You act like you have a patent on anything that can happen.

RUBY: I thought I was being sympathetic.

JILL: I don't want sympathy.

RUBY: I know what you're going through, I mean. Cause I've been there myself.

JILL: You have not been there!

RUBY: Honey, I—

JILL: You cannot compare your life to mine! I'm an individual!

RUBY: Of course you are, hon. I didn't mean you weren't an individual.

JILL: Well, I am.

RUBY: You had a miserable trip. I can't stand buses myself.

JILL: I love buses.

RUBY: What?

JILL: I love Greyhound! It's the only way to travel.

 

(Pause.)

 

RUBY: Lasagna’s in the oven.

JILL: I'm not hungry.

RUBY: It gets better with age. So when you're hungry, it'll be even better.

JILL: You said you had more of this?

RUBY: Two bottles. I bought Scotch, too.

JILL: You have Scotch?

RUBY: Tonight's special. I bought champagne and Scotch. Name your poison.

JILL: You can't afford Scotch.

RUBY: I bought it, didn't I? You want to switch?

JILL: I feel like something strong.

RUBY: How do you want it?

JILL: Neat.

RUBY: Neat — listen to her. Where'd you pick that up, neat?

JILL: I can't believe I said that. It's what Duncan says. That son-of-a-bitch, he'd kiss anybody's ass, do anything, to get on the right side of a record producer.

RUBY: It's a world all its own, Nashville.

JILL: It's not like you think, mama. It's not like you read about. It's worse. It's the people that are worse — they're callous, is what they are — they've been away from real people so long they don't know how to behave around them.

RUBY: Well, you're home now. What about your things?

JILL: The suitcase is all I brought.

RUBY: All your dishes and—

JILL: I'll get them later, if it comes to that.

RUBY: If? I thought you made up your mind. You said on the phone—

JILL: I was thinking on the bus ride. Nothing else to do, unless you get a thrill listening to welfare mothers screaming at their little brats.

RUBY: Did you leave him or not?

JILL: I'm here, aren't I?

RUBY: Are you?

JILL: For now.

RUBY: I hope you're not thinking of going back.

JILL: I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. Depends on what Duncan does, I guess.

RUBY: I should think that man already influenced you enough, without depending on what he's gonna do.

JILL: I haven't made any decisions, is all. I just had to get away and have time to think.

RUBY: On the phone, your mind sounded made up.

JILL: It isn't made up. Can you accept that? Does that meet with your approval or should I find someplace else to stay?

RUBY: Your bed's here. You know that.

JILL: I just want time to think.

RUBY: Of course you have time to think. I go on days next week — you can have all day to think.

JILL: Good. That's all I want.

 

(RUBY pours two scotches, neat.)

 

JILL: He's gonna cut a record. That's one thing that came out of it. I thought he would and he is. That woman producer is falling all over herself to bring out his record.

RUBY: What you said about him going to bed with her...

JILL: I caught them kissing. I don't know what else they've done.

RUBY: You deserve better. I thought that from the beginning.

JILL: I didn't come here to listen to you bad mouthing my husband, okay? I mean it. I'll go somewhere else before I listen to this.

RUBY: You're hard to follow. You call me like the world's coming to an end and now that you're here you sound like you want to be back in Nashville. Did you catch him kissing another woman or not?

JILL: Maybe he wasn't kissing back. I don't know. I don't know what I think. I walked into the office and he was kissing her. Or she was kissing him. Maybe that's the way they do business in Nashville. Everybody's pretty weird. Not that I met a lot of people. I spent most my time in that goddamn motel room, waiting for the phone to ring.

RUBY: What do you want to happen?

JILL: I don't know what I want. Time to think.

RUBY: You'd better take time to think. You're talking in circles.

JILL: I have a right to talk in circles!

RUBY: Well, you are talking in circles!

JILL: Good! I like talking in circles!

RUBY: Congratulations!

 

(A beat: then they both start laughing.)

 

JILL: Oh shit. What do men want, anyway?

RUBY: If I knew the answer to that, I'd patent it and get rich selling it to every woman in the country.

JILL: I wasn't asking all that much of him.

RUBY: Asking anything is too much.

JILL: I thought I'd be busy, helping him get appointments and stuff. I thought I'd be his business manager. He said it looked bad, having a woman run his affairs. So instead he lets that woman producer start running his life. He was gonna go to her house for dinner — to her house! I wasn't even invited.

RUBY: Did he go?

JILL: I don't know. That's when I left. It was the last straw. I mean, if he's kissing her in her office, I didn't want to think about what they'd be up to at her home.

RUBY: I don't blame you.

JILL: He hasn't phoned here, has he?

RUBY: No.

JILL: Course, you've been working nights. He'd wait til cheap rates.

RUBY: It's Saturday, been cheap rates all day.

JILL: She's forty if she's a day. Probably older. She wears so much makeup, it's hard to tell.

RUBY: She owns a record company or what?

JILL: She works for her father. I think he balls the women and she balls the men.

RUBY: It's the way they do business out there.

JILL: I knew it'd be tough. And different. Hell, any place is different than Rimrock. But I wanted to help. I wanted to participate. I was supposed to sit in the motel room and wait for things to happen. Two days and I was going stir crazy.

RUBY: You think he's gonna do a record?

JILL: Yes. Oh, I don't know. I just know what he told me and he only knows what they, that woman, was telling him. Maybe she was just putting him on, to get what she was after.

RUBY: Do you think she did? Get what she was after?

JILL: I don't want to think about it.

RUBY: You don't have to do anything you don't want to. As far as I'm concerned, you're on vacation.

JILL: At least I still have some savings left. You were right there, I was gonna be waiting tables and he was gonna be rubbing elbows with the stars.

RUBY: No need for you to wait tables in Nashville.

JILL: It would beat waiting in that motel room. God, I hated that. Just waiting for something to happen.

RUBY: That's what they expect — their women to wait. I spent the best years of my life waiting. I sure got the right profession, being a waitress. "Wait" is my middle name.

JILL: I was gonna be his manager, make things happen. He was embarrassed to be seen with me.

 

(The phone starts to ring.)

 

JILL: Oh my God—

RUBY: I don't have to answer it.

JILL: No. I should talk to him. If it's him.

RUBY: It may not be.

JILL: Answer it. He'd call during cheap rates.

RUBY: You sure?

 

(Jill goes quickly to the phone and answers it.)

 

JILL: Hello?...I thought it'd be you....You think—...I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life waiting in that motel room, that's why....Duncan, it wasn't fair, that's why....I don't know....Did you go to dinner?...You know damn well who I'm talking about....I'm not sure. Where are you now?...You do what you have to do. I'm gonna do what I have to do....It's a little late, don't you think?...I don't know what....I don't know, I said....I have a lot of thinking to do....Listen, I'm about to sit down for dinner....(To Ruby) He hung up on me! That goddamn son-of-a-bitch, who does he think he is?

RUBY: Men are all the same.

JILL: The nerve of him! He makes me so goddamn mad.

RUBY: Here, have a drink and be thankful it's over.

 

(She tops their drinks.)

 

JILL: I supported everything he was trying to do. I would've waited tables if it came to that — so he could have time to meet with record producers. All I asked is that I get treated with respect. He was embarrassed to walk into an office with me. He said it looked bad. I was too pushy. He didn't want people to think he was pussy-whipped.

RUBY: God, I haven't heard that expression in years.

JILL: I thought of using it myself — the way that woman producer was tying him around her finger. She was starting with the finger anyway. You know, he went to dinner to her home. It didn't matter if I left or not. I don't exist as far as he's concerned.

RUBY: You hush — he's not worth the worry you're giving him.

JILL: He makes me so mad!

 

(There's a knock on the kitchen door.)

 

(Ruby goes to the door, opens it — and Duncan walks in.)

 

RUBY: No one invited you in.

DUNCAN: I'm here to speak to my wife.

RUBY: This is my house and you're not invited inside.

DUNCAN (to Jill): Where can we go to talk?

JILL: I suppose you think this is funny, calling me like that? Making me think you're in Nashville?

DUNCAN: I didn't say I was in Nashville.

JILL: You didn't say you were at the corner either.

RUBY: You still haven't been invited in.

JILL: It's okay, mama.

DUNCAN: Where can we talk?

JILL: Right here.

DUNCAN: Talk alone.

JILL: I have no secrets.

DUNCAN: You pouring those?

JILL: You've had enough, I'm sure.

DUNCAN: Look, I've been driving all day.

JILL: Driving across the desert without a beer between your legs? Don't make me laugh.

DUNCAN: I didn't come here to listen to you get cute.

JILL: Well, what in hell did you come here for? That's what I'd like to know.

DUNCAN: Because you're my wife.

JILL: Am I now?

DUNCAN: Yes.

JILL: Funny, I don't feel like a wife. Wives participate in lives of their husbands. They're like partners.

DUNCAN: I'm sorry the way things worked out. I really am.

JILL: I'm sorry, too, Duncan, because you lost yourself one hell of a support system. I'd've done anything to help you.

DUNCAN: I had to do things my way.

JILL: Why didn't you just go out there alone?

DUNCAN: I needed you.

JILL: For what? All I did is sit alone in that goddamn motel room.

DUNCAN: I still need you.

JILL: What about Miss Lady Record Producer? Abilene, whatever the hell her name is.

DUNCAN: Abililly.

JILL: Jesus, what the hell kind of a name is that? Abililly.

DUNCAN: It's her name.

JILL: Who could trust a bitch with a name like that?

DUNCAN: I don't trust her. She wasn't interested in my career at all, to tell the truth.

JILL: Then what was she interested in?

DUNCAN: Use your imagination.

JILL: You son-of-a-bitch!

DUNCAN: She played me for a fool, okay? That's all I'm saying.

 

(He starts laughing.)

 

JILL: I fail to see anything humorous . . .

DUNCAN: You should've seen her. Sick. She wanted me to ball her on camera. She

had this video camera in her bedroom and—

JILL: What in hell were you doing in her bedroom?

DUNCAN: It's the center of her goddamn existence. She eats there, works there—

JILL: I'll bet she works there.

DUNCAN: Look, she's a middle-aged lady scared of growing old, who gets her kicks balling in front of a camera. When I found out, I left, okay? Chalk it up to experience.

JILL: You didn't ball her, after making out with her in the office?

DUNCAN: I wasn't making out with her. Give me a break.

JILL: I'd like to know what you call it.

DUNCAN: I told you a hundred times, she just started kissing me. The lady's crazy.

JILL: Right, you didn't enjoy it at all.

DUNCAN: Why settle for pork when I got T-bone at home?

JILL: I am not a piece of meat!

DUNCAN: It's a saying, for Christ's sake!

JILL: You don't even say it right. It's why settle for hamburger if you got steak at home.

DUNCAN: Fine, steak at home. T-bone, pork, steak, what's the difference? The point is, I'm not in the market, if you know what I mean. I'm a happily married man.

 

(A beat, as JILL assesses the situation.)

 

JILL: You want a Scotch?

DUNCAN: I'd love a Scotch.

RUBY: Don't mind me, I just own the bottle.

JILL: I don't want us fighting, okay? We're all mature enough to be civil.

RUBY: I just don't like seeing you hurt.

DUNCAN: I'm sorry I hurt you, hon. I was so damn nervous, meeting those record producers.

JILL: I know, that's why I wanted to do the foot-work for you.

DUNCAN: I had to do it myself, is what I'm saying. Hard as it was, it was something I had to do alone.

RUBY: Men.

DUNCAN: Yeah, that's part of it. We're talking Nashville. The country capital of the world. The macho capital. It's all cowboys and independence, that's the myth of it, and it just wouldn't look right, a dude like me having his wife doing all the dirty work for him.

JILL: There's more powerful women in Nashville than you think.

DUNCAN: I'm sure there are. I don't think poor Abililly is one of them.

JILL: What's this poor Abililly shit? You sure you didn't ball her?

DUNCAN: Give me a break.

JILL: She sure don't need pity, least of all from you.

DUNCAN: How can you not pity a woman like that?

JILL: So you're not cutting a record or what?

DUNCAN: Yeah, I am.

JILL: You did ball her!

DUNCAN: Different company. Mustang Records wants to do “Stale Beer in the Morning, Stale Love in the Night."

JILL: You're serious?

DUNCAN: Course I'm serious. I haven't signed a contract yet but it looks certain. They're trying to decide on the flip side. I'm supposed to check in with them tomorrow.

JILL: Well, you deserve it.

DUNCAN: Thanks, hon. That means a lot.

JILL: Does it?

DUNCAN: You know it does.

JILL: Duncan, I've been so mad at you!

DUNCAN: I know. I deserved it.

JILL: You sure as hell did.

DUNCAN: So let me make it up to you.

JILL: Oh, honey...

 

(They embrace. Ruby is beside herself, seeing that once again she is losing her daughter. She pours another Scotch.)

 

DUNCAN (breaking the embrace): I'm starving. Why don't I take us out to dinner?

JILL: On what?

DUNCAN: Let me borrow twenty — against my advance.

JILL: Well, we can eat right here. Mama made lasagna. Is there enough for three?

RUBY: I guess there has to be.

JILL: You don't mind, do you?

RUBY: Would it make a difference if I did?

JILL: Don't be that way. We're celebrating Duncan's record contract.

DUNCAN: I'll be recording your songs one day.

JILL (quickly): You didn't tell me about Wayne — did he record you?

RUBY: Just on tape.

JILL: Do you have it? I want to hear it.

RUBY: It's really not record quality — we did it in his garage.

DUNCAN: Buddy Holly recorded in his garage, and he wasn't the first.

RUBY: I'd better set another place for dinner.

 

(She moves to do so.)

 

JILL: Did you put on clean sheets?

RRUB: Same clean ones was on the bed when you left.

JILL: It's only a double, honey.

DUNCAN: I plan to spend a lot of time on top of you.

JILL: Oh, you...

 

(DUNCAN embraces her again.)

 

JILL: Stop it! (To RUBY:) Mama, put on your song.

 

(And the LIGHTS FADE TO BLACKOUT.)

 

 

3/ the next morning

 

(AT RISE: Ruby is in her robe, drinking coffee in the kitchen. Jill enters from the bedroom, dressed.)

 

JILL: Morning.

RUBY: Good morning. You ready for coffee?

JILL: I need something . . .

 

(RUBY will pour her a cup.)

 

JILL: I didn't sleep well at all.

RUBY: You weren't none too quiet about it either.

JILL: Did we keep you awake?

RUBY: That bed's too old for a workout like that.

JILL: Mother!

RUBY: Well, it's the truth. You want to carry on like a bitch in heat, next time get a motel.

JILL: Well, pardon me. We happen to be married.

RUBY: So you're gonna follow him back to Nashville, aren't you? That's what all that spring action was about?

JILL: You're disgusting.

RUBY: I've been around men a long time. I know how they think.

JILL: He's my husband. I go where he goes.

RUBY: That's what I mean.

JILL: I don't want to fight this morning.

RUBY: I didn't know we were fighting.

JILL: You sound like you're trying to start an argument.

RUBY: I'm just making an observation. Men use loving to get their own way.

JILL: Oh, you just mistrust men on principle.

RUBY: Principles learned from experience.

 

(DUNCAN enters.)

 

DUNCAN: Morning.

JILL: You ready for coffee, honey?

DUNCAN: First Nashville, then coffee. Got to see what they want for the flip side.

 

(He goes to the phone.)

 

RUBY (after him): Help yourself.

JILL (a reprimand): Mama!

 

(DUNCAN has dialed the number.)

 

DUNCAN (on phone): Mr. Conners, please. This is Duncan Jeffries....Thanks....Mr. Conners?...Duncan here....Duncan Jeffries. Thought I'd check in about that flip side....I'm calling long distance from Oregon....Just personal business. I'll be back in a few days....Anyway, I was wondering if you'd reached a decision yet....I just, I had the impression, you know....Sure. Yeah....Well, I don't understand actually. I had the impression—...I thought you liked the song....Yeah, right....Right....Bye.

 

(He hangs up.)

 

DUNCAN: Goddamn it!

JILL: Duncan?

DUNCAN: They changed their mind. They're not doing the record.

JILL: Oh, honey...

DUNCAN: Goddamn it anyway — if he didn't want to do it, why lead me on?

RUBY: There's an answer to that.

DUNCAN: Look, I don't need any lip from you, okay?

RUBY: In my house, I say anything I want.

DUNCAN: Just don't push your luck—

JILL: Stop it! Both of you.

 

(Duncan heads for the door.)

 

JILL: Where are you going?

DUNCAN: Away from her.

JILL: No, we're gonna act like adults here—

DUNCAN: I'm going out, okay? I'm gonna get breakfast. So how about loaning me five?

JILL: We can all have breakfast here.

DUNCAN: Look, I'm not gonna put up with her lip.

RUBY: Nobody's telling me what I can and can't say in my own house.

JILL: This is insane!

DUNCAN: Give me five.

JILL: I'm not giving you a cent.

DUNCAN: Fine.

 

(He heads for the door.)

 

JILL: Don't you go out that door.

DUNCAN: What?

JILL: You heard me.

DUNCAN: I want to hear it again.

JILL: You walk out that door, there's no use coming back.

DUNCAN: So that's the way it is?

JILL: We can all act like adults here. We can have breakfast and be civil.

DUNCAN: You call her being civil?

JILL: We kept her awake. She's a bitch when she doesn't get her sleep.

RUBY: I'm a bitch? I'm trying to have a quiet cup of coffee—

JILL: I don't want to argue! Not with you, not with Duncan.

DUNCAN: You want to come to breakfast with me?

JILL: Damn it, this is childish. There's eggs in the refrigerator.

DUNCAN: I asked you a question.

JILL: I told you how I feel.

DUNCAN: I'm walking out the door to go to breakfast. You want to come or not?

JILL: If you go, don't come back.

DUNCAN: You sure you know what you're saying?

JILL: No! Nobody knows what they're saying this morning. That's the point. So let's just start over. Get yourself a cup of coffee.

DUNCAN: I'm serious. You coming with me or not?

JILL: You're just being stubborn.

DUNCAN: Her or me, which is it?

JILL: I will not be put on the spot like that!

DUNCAN: Her or me?

RUBY: Men...

DUNCAN: Shut your lip!

RUBY: Men! You're all crazy egomaniacs!

DUNCAN: I'm not asking again — her or me?

JILL: I just want some peace and quiet.

 

(A beat: and DUNCAN walks out.)

 

JILL (after him): Duncan! Goddamn you! You're acting like a child!

RUBY: Let him go.

JILL: He is so stubborn!

RUBY: They all are.

JILL: Stop it. Stop making pronouncements.

RUBY: He's acting like a child, just like you said.

JILL: He's disappointed. So am I.

RUBY: Defend him all you want, he's still acting like a child.

JILL: Of course I'll defend him. He's my husband.

RUBY: For one who doesn't want an argument—

JILL: Stop it! Let's just be calm a minute. I'm sorry I got bitchy. I hate Nashville. All they do is use people.

 

(Duncan comes back into the kitchen.)

 

DUNCAN: This doesn't feel right. I'm pissed at Nashville, not you.

JILL: It doesn't feel right to me either.

 

(She embraces him.)

 

DUNCAN (to RUBY): I'm sorry I snapped at you.

RUBY: What do you two want for breakfast?

DUNCAN: I don't think my stomach could hold anything.

JILL: Nashville's nothing. We know that now.

DUNCAN: Hell, it is. It's the nut you got to crack. I'm going back and you're coming with me.

JILL: I can't go through that again.

DUNCAN: They liked my song. I know they did. I don't know what happened but I know they liked it. There's more than one producer in Nashville. As a matter of fact, there's nothing but producers. I'll find an honest one somewhere.

JILL: Mail them your tapes.

DUNCAN: It's not the same thing.

JILL: I mean it, hon. I hate it there. I didn't know what it was like. I never dreamed it would—

DUNCAN: Hey, listen to me. I'm going back there. You're my wife, I want you beside me on this.

JILL: Don't do this, Duncan.

DUNCAN: You do what you want, hon, but I'm going back. Today.

JILL: You're broke, aren't you?

DUNCAN: I got enough to get back.

JILL: What is the point of going back there? A woman wants you to ball her on private TV., you get lied to—

DUNCAN: My mind's made up. Now are you coming with me or what?

RUBY: Excuse me, this is where I came in.

 

(And she exits to the living room.)

 

JILL: I don't see the point of it when you can mail them your tapes and spare all that shit they dish out.

DUNCAN: Because it's who you know. I learned that much.

JILL: And look who you have to know! What're you gonna do, be a TV star with Abillady wherever her name is. Is that what you're gonna do?

DUNCAN: Give me a break.

JILL: I will not go back to Nashville. I hate it.

DUNCAN: I'm your husband, remember? Nashville was your idea in the first place.

JILL: I was wrong.

DUNCAN: It's the only way to go. I didn't make the rules of the business but that's what they are.

JILL: If you go, you go.

DUNCAN: Are you my wife or not?

JILL: I'm not your slave.

DUNCAN: Answer the question — are you my wife?

JILL: Presently, yes, I am.

DUNCAN: Presently — what's that supposed to mean?

JILL: I'm not going to Nashville, that's all there is to it.

DUNCAN: And if I go?

JILL: If you go, you go.

DUNCAN: What kind of marriage is it, me in Nashville and you here?

JILL: Obviously it's not much of a marriage at all.

DUNCAN: Is that what you want?

JILL: I want to live someplace that's sane. That's all I'm saying. That's all I want. I want to live where I'm treated like a human being and where bitches aren't trying to get my husband to ball them on TV and—

DUNCAN: Is that what's bothering you?

JILL: Everything's bothering me! Nashville is bothering me.

DUNCAN: Well, that's where I'm going, to Nashville. And I'm gonna make it, too, don't think I'm not. I'd like to share that with my wife.

JILL: I don't want to live in Nashville.

DUNCAN: You were there a month.

JILL: That was plenty.

DUNCAN: You didn't see a thing in a month.

JILL: No, you're right, I didn't. Because you kept me in that goddamn motel room.

DUNCAN: You could've gone out any time you wanted.

JILL: And do what?

DUNCAN: See the sights, whatever you wanted.

JILL: I was waiting for the phone to ring.

DUNCAN: So who's fault is it you didn't see Nashville?

JILL: There is no point in this discussion, Duncan. I don't like the kind of people you have to deal with in Nashville and I refuse to have anything to do with them. I know that if you want a musical career, you have to deal with those people but that doesn't mean you have to live there. Lots of country singers live away from Nashville.

DUNCAN: To get started, you got to be in Nashville.

JILL: Then go to Nashville.

DUNCAN: What about you?

JILL: For the millionth time, I made a mistake. I belong here. I'm a Rimrock girl.

DUNCAN: A Rimrock girl?

JILL: I was born here and I like it here. If you can't handle it, shove it.

DUNCAN: A Rimrock girl — you got to be kidding me.

JILL: Yes, a Rimrock girl. (She goes into a pompom routine from high school.) Give me a Rim, give me a Rock! Rimrock! Rimrock! Rimmmmmm! Rockkkkk!

 

(During the above, Ruby has returned to stand in the doorway.)

 

DUNCAN: Well, Rimrock girl, I'll be in Nashville. I love you, despite this little period of insanity you're having, and I'd like you to join me. So I'll give you a call later, okay?

 

(A beat: both RUBY and DUNCAN stare at JILL.)

 

JILL: I will not be stared at!

 

(She quickly exits to the bedroom.)

 

RUBY: I think you should go.

DUNCAN: Yeah, you like that a lot, don't you? Makes you feel like a mother.

RUBY: I'm not asking you again . . .

DUNCAN: You don't have to, Rube. But I'll tell you something. I'm not like you. This town ain't enough for me, playing in a goddamn tavern. You got a talent and you're wasting it. I'm not making that mistake, not no more. I'm not over the hill yet and this dude is going for it.

RUBY: Just go for it without my daughter.

DUNCAN: Not your daughter, Rube. My wife.

RUBY: Get the hell out of here.

DUNCAN: You're small town all the way, aren't you?

 

(A pause: and he exits.)

 

RUBY (quietly): Men...

 

(She fetches the garbage from under the sink and exits to empty it.)

 

(JILL returns from the bedroom.)

 

JILL: Mama?

 

(When there is no reply, Jill goes to the phone, looks up a number in the yellow pages, and dials.)

 

JILL (on phone): Hello, Sally? This is Jill. I got back yesterday....It's a long story. Listen, I need an appointment with Dr. Thomas. Do you think you could fit me in later this week?...I'm sure it's nothing but I'm three weeks late and—...(She hears Ruby and hangs up.)

 

(RUBY returns.)

 

JILL (to explain herself): I was going to call Frank and see if I can get my job back.

RUBY: I hope you didn't burn too many bridges.

JILL: I got the wrong number.

RUBY: Want me to call?

JILL: That'd be sweet, mama.

 

(Ruby begins to dial the number and Jill moves away, troubled. And the LIGHTS FADE TO BLACKOUT. End of Act One.)


 

ACT TWO

 

 

1/ Late morning, two months later

 

(AT RISE: Ruby is skimming through a magazine, a cup of coffee at hand, when there's a knock on the kitchen door. She answers it — and it's Duncan. He is dirtier than we've seen him before, tired from two days of hitch-hiking. He enters quickly, carrying an old overnight bag, without waiting to be asked.)

 

DUNCAN: Where's Jill?

RUBY: I sure get tired of you busting in here without an invitation.

 

(Duncan exits upstage, going through the house, calling for Jill.)

 

DUNCAN (off-stage): Jill!...Jill!...Jill!

 

(He returns to the kitchen.)

 

RUBY: She's at work.

DUNCAN: Where's she working?

RUBY: Where do you think? At the cafe.

DUNCAN: Call her.

RUBY: I'm not your slave, much as you think all women are.

DUNCAN: What's the number?

RUBY: You can't leave her be, can you? She finally starts getting you out of her system and you have to come back and cause trouble.

DUNCAN: I have to talk to her.

RUBY: It takes two to have a conversation and—

DUNCAN: Just cut the crap and give me the number. Please. Look, I wouldn’t be here unless I had reasons. Did she tell you she's pregnant?

RUBY: What are you talking about?

DUNCAN: She's pregnant.

RUBY: I don't believe you.

DUNCAN: Call her and ask her yourself.

RUBY: Who told you she's pregnant?

DUNCAN: A buddy, you don't know him. His girl was at the doctor's the same time Jill was. She thought she was gonna get an abortion.

RUBY: If it's true, I should hope so.

DUNCAN: You have nothing to do with that. That's between her and me.

 

(RUBY goes to the phone and will dial.)

 

RUBY: I can't believe she wouldn't tell me.

DUNCAN: Why should she?

RUBY: I'm her mother.

DUNCAN: Yeah — and I'm her husband. I'm the father of the kid and nobody told me. I'd better be the father.

RUBY: Don't you dare talk about her like that... (on phone) Trudy?...This is Ruby. Can I speak to Jill?...What? She left for work this morning....Well, thanks, hon.

 

(She hangs up.)

 

DUNCAN: What's the matter?

RUBY: She didn't go to work this morning.

DUNCAN: Where is she, if she's not at work?

RUBY: I don't know.

DUNCAN: She told you she was going to work?

RUBY: She's on days. She should've been at work. She must've gotten somebody to pull her shift.

DUNCAN: Then where is she?

RUBY: I don't know.

DUNCAN: She mention an abortion to you?

RUBY: No.

DUNCAN: Can she do that here in Rimrock, get an abortion?

RUBY: I don't think so.

DUNCAN: Closest would be Bend, wouldn't it?

RUBY: How's she gonna afford an abortion?

DUNCAN: They got a clinic in Bend?

RUBY: Medical clinic? Sure, they must.

DUNCAN: One of those clinics for poor people. They'd give abortions. Poor people are always getting abortions.

RUBY: She'd talk something like that over with me first.

DUNCAN: What for?

RUBY: Cause that's the way she is. We're close.

DUNCAN: She knows you hate me. She knows what your opinion would be. She don't have to talk to you to know how you feel about it.

RUBY: What'd you do, come here to try and talk her out of it?

DUNCAN: If I'm not too late, yeah.

 

(Pause.)

 

RUBY: You don't have a shower in Nashville?

DUNCAN: I've been on the road — I hitch-hiked.

RUBY: What happened to your car?

DUNCAN: I sold it. Look, if she's not at work, where she's supposed to be, then she's probably in Bend, right?

RUBY: You're still assuming she's pregnant.

DUNCAN: She's pregnant, believe me. My buddy's girl heard it from Jill herself. She was pretty upset.

RUBY: Do you blame her?

DUNCAN: It's my kid, too. I have a say here.

RUBY: What kind of say — to have her keep the kid and then raise it alone while you're God knows where doing God knows what? Is that what you mean by having a say?

DUNCAN: I mean the kid's mine as much as hers.

RUBY: If it's yours.

DUNCAN: What do you mean?

RUBY: You said it yourself.

DUNCAN: She seeing somebody else? Is she?

RUBY: No.

DUNCAN: Then it's got to be mine.

RUBY: If it's a baby we're talking about, then it's hers.

DUNCAN: Both of ours.

RUBY: I still don't think she's pregnant.

DUNCAN: Then why'd she tell my buddy's girl she is? Why ain't she at work where she's supposed to be? Face it, you don't know what the hell's going on with her.

RUBY: She'd tell me if she was pregnant.

DUNCAN: Well, we'll find out soon enough.

 

(He sits down at the kitchen table, putting his feet up on the table.)

 

RUBY: What do you think you're doing?

DUNCAN: Waiting for Jill.

RUBY: Well, don't get comfortable. You're not even invited in yet.

DUNCAN: I came here to see Jill and I'm gonna see Jill. You just better get used to the idea.

RUBY: She'll take one look at you and wonder what the cat drug in.

 

(DUNCAN gets up.)

 

DUNCAN: I'm gonna shower.

RUBY: You can't just come in here and say you're gonna use my shower.

DUNCAN: Be nice. You're my mother-in-law.

RUBY: You have no right.

DUNCAN: I look like hell, you said so yourself.

RUBY: No wonder, you have to resort to hitch-hiking.

DUNCAN: You do what you gotta do.

RUBY: Thought you'd have a limousine by now.

DUNCAN: No, you don't. You've been hoping I'd fall flat on my face so you could say "I told you so" to Jill.

RUBY: You got a record out?

DUNCAN: You listen to the radio. What do you think?

RUBY: I'll tell you what I think. You come walking in here uninvited with some cock-and-bull story about Jill being pregnant and off to some clinic to get an abortion and you have to sell your car and hitch-hike to get here — and for what?, I ask myself — unless it's to cause more trouble for my daughter than you've caused her already, which isn't something I'm about to stand here and let happen. I don't know where Jill is but wherever she is and whatever she's doing, I'm sure she's got her reasons and it's not for me and especially not for you to stand here thinking you're gonna tell that girl what she should and shouldn't do.

 

(A beat: DUNCAN doesn't respond.)

 

RUBY: I think you should go.

DUNCAN: Don't lift a hand, okay? I'll find a towel myself.

 

(He exits to bathroom for his shower.)

 

(Ruby watches him leave. LIGHTS FADE TO BLACKOUT.)

 

 

2/ an hour later

 

(AT RISE: Ruby has been making work for herself in the kitchen. Duncan, freshly showered, enters and sits down at the table. A pause.)

 

RUBY: How long is this going to go on?

DUNCAN: How do I know? I'm here to see my wife.

RUBY: I'll grant you this much — I don't know where she is. Don't know why she didn't go to work. I guess there may be things she wants to keep from me.

 

(Pause.)

 

RUBY: Well?

DUNCAN: Well what?

RUBY: I made a concession.

DUNCAN: Not to me, you didn't. That much was obvious. That and more.

RUBY: More how?

DUNCAN: Do you really want to get into this? Let's just say we can't stand each other and let it go at that.

RUBY: We used to get along.

DUNCAN: That's ancient history.

RUBY: You know what's weird about us? We both want the best for Jill.

DUNCAN: What?

RUBY: We both want the best for Jill.

DUNCAN: I know what you said. I can't believe you're saying it. You think I want the best for her?

RUBY: Sure, because you think what s best for her is being the "woman of the house" — your house.

DUNCAN: I married her for her savings account.

RUBY: You son-of-a-bitch, I knew you were—

DUNCAN: See there? You had me worried for a minute. Thought you were getting senile.

 

(Pause. Then Ruby goes to the phone and dials a number.)

 

RUBY (on phone): Sally? This is Ruby. Is Jill there?...You wouldn't know where she is?

DUNCAN (interrupting loudly): You might try the abortion clinic in Bend!

RUBY (on phone): No, it's nothing. Thanks, hon.

 

(She hangs up.)

 

RUBY: She wouldn't do that without telling me.

DUNCAN: I thought you were making concessions.

RUBY: Not about that. She must be up to something, but not something like that.

DUNCAN: You said you wanted her to have it.

RUBY: If she needs one.

DUNCAN: What's the big deal then?

RUBY: It's a very big deal.

DUNCAN: You got that right.

RUBY: Just don't count your chickens. I'm sure it must be something else that's bothering her.

DUNCAN: I know what I know.

RUBY: You just don't start in on her, not until you know what's going on. She probably needed a day to get off by herself. She probably took a drive. It hasn't been easy for that girl.

DUNCAN: Nashville's no piece of cake.

RUBY: Nobody said you had to go to Nashville.

DUNCAN: It's where the market is. If you want to cut records, you go to Nashville.

RUBY: There's other ways.

DUNCAN: Sitting in Rimrock, for instance? Getting your songs sung in a dump by a band that can barely tune up?

RUBY: Look who used to play in that band.

DUNCAN: It drove me crazy playing with those guys. I'm better than that and so are you.

RUBY: Don't pick on me, I don't have those kinds of pretensions.

DUNCAN: Look, I'm not gonna argue about my career with you, okay? I'm doing the best I can and I'm hanging in and I'm gonna make it. Persistence is half the battle.

 

(The door opens and JILL walks in.)

 

JILL (seeing him): Oh shit.

DUNCAN (quickly): How come you weren't at work?

JILL: That is none of your business.

RUBY: He just barged in and won't leave.

JILL: It's all right, mama. We might as well get this over with.

DUNCAN: You know Annette somebody, who goes with Ted Renner?

JILL: No, am I supposed to?

DUNCAN: You met her in the doctor's office. She knows you.

JILL: Christ.

DUNCAN: Got her in your mind now?

JILL: What are you doing here? How'd you get here, crawl? Your clothes are filthy.

RUBY: He hitch-hiked. He had to sell his car.

DUNCAN: Let's cut the crap. You been to the clinic in Bend, right?

JILL: Wrong.

DUNCAN: Don't lie to me, babe, not about something like this.

JILL: I wasn't in Bend.

DUNCAN: Where were you then?

JILL: That's none of your business.

DUNCAN: Now you listen to me — that baby you're carrying inside you is very much my business, you understand? It's my genes and my toes and my brain cells, so you just stop thinking this has nothing to do with me!

RUBY: I'm not afraid to call the police.

JILL: It's okay. Maybe Duncan and I should discuss this alone.

DUNCAN: Let's go somewhere.

RUBY: No, if it's privacy you want, you can get it right here. (To Jill:) I'll just be in the living room, hon.

 

(She exits upstage.)

 

JILL: What'd you say her name was? Your friend's girl?

DUNCAN: Annette.

JILL: She was pregnant herself.

DUNCAN: We're talking about you.

JILL: Yes, I'm pregnant.

DUNCAN: And what else?

JILL: There's nothing else.

DUNCAN: Where were you when you should've been at work?

JILL: None of your business.

DUNCAN: I'm not gonna tell you again — this is my business.

JILL: Today has nothing to do with you.

DUNCAN: You're carrying my kid, everything you do has to do with me.

 

(Jill moves away from him, in retreat.)

 

DUNCAN: Don't you avoid me. Where were you?

 

(Jill moves around the room, Duncan in pursuit.)

 

DUNCAN: You were in Bend, weren't you? Getting an abortion? Killing my kid? If you did that, lady, you're gonna be losing one hell of a lot of sleep in the nights ahead—

JILL: Stop it! I wasn't in Bend. I haven't had an abortion.

DUNCAN: That's the truth?

JILL: It's the truth.

 

(Pause.)

 

DUNCAN: So why weren't you at work?

JILL: Duncan, that doesn't concern you.

DUNCAN: Everything concerns me.

JILL: Okay, it does concern you. I was seeing a lawyer. I wrote you I was going to.

DUNCAN: I thought you'd already seen him. You wrote you'd already seen him.

JILL: I was seeing him again.

DUNCAN: For what? I told you I agreed to the terms. What do you mean you saw him again? You changing the terms without consulting me, is that it?

JILL: No.

DUNCAN: You see this lawyer again, after I already agreed to the terms.

JILL: I saw him — socially.

DUNCAN: What?

JILL: It wasn't a professional visit. It was a date.

DUNCAN: You skipped work to have a date with your lawyer?

 

(JILL doesn't respond.)

 

DUNCAN: I asked you a question. Are you dating your lawyer?

JILL: I'm seeing him socially, yes.

DUNCAN: And you skip work for this? And here you write what a tough time you're having . . .

JILL: What I do or don't do in my personal life is none of your business.

DUNCAN: I don't want to have to say this again — from here out, everything you do is my business. Okay? What you eat, how much sleep you get, whether you're depressed or feeling good about yourself, how late you stay out, whether you take care of yourself — this is my business because it's gonna affect the health of my child you're carrying — you understand me?

JILL: I find it hard to believe you came here, hitch-hiked here, to make sure I'm feeling good.

DUNCAN: To see about my kid.

JILL: Our kid. I have something to do with this.

DUNCAN: Just don't go doing something without consulting me.

JJIL: I'm consulting you now . . . I'm going to get an abortion.

DUNCAN: Over my dead body.

JILL: You can't stop me.

DUNCAN: I can make life miserable for you, you know I can do that.

JILL: Our marriage is over, Duncan.

DUNCAN: We're talking about a kid, not the marriage.

JILL: I'm in no position to raise a kid right now.

DUNCAN: We can work something out.

JILL: Okay, you tell me how you want it to be. I have the kid. Then what?

DUNCAN: What do you mean, then what? You nurse it, you raise it, like a mother's supposed to.

JILL: Okay . . .

 

(She pretends to be cradling a baby.)

 

JILL: I'm nursing the baby. Where are you?

DUNCAN: What do you mean, where am I?

JILL: Where the fuck are you while I'm nursing the baby!?

DUNCAN: I don't know that. It depends.

JILL: Let's say you're in Nashville.

 

(Jill starts "coughing," patting the "baby" on the back.)

 

JILL: Poor baby, poor baby. She's got the croup. But how am I gonna afford a visit to the doctor? Ding a ling a ling. Hello, Duncan? Your kid has the croup and I can't afford a doctor on waitress tips, can you send me a couple hundred right away?

 

(DUNCAN is staring at her.)

 

JILL: What about that? You gonna send me a couple hundred just like that, with no notice? You ready to be a father to your kid like that?

DUNCAN: If people thought that way, no kid would ever get born. You take care of emergencies when they happen.

JILL: How?

DUNCAN: You just deal with it. Something comes up.

JILL: That's not the way I want to raise a kid. When I have a kid, she's gonna be brought into a loving, secure family.

DUNCAN: What do you mean "she"?

JILL: It was a figure of speech.

DUNCAN: You can't just say "she" and not mean nothing by it. You don't want a son?

JILL: It's a figure of speech! Men are saying, everyone says, "he" all the time, no matter what sex is indicated. I'm trying to teach myself to say "she" instead.

DUNCAN: What for?

JILL: For the hell of it!

 

(Pause.)

 

DUNCAN: This lawyer, what's his name?

JILL: That's none of your business.

DUNCAN: I still got the letter.

JILL: Then you can look it up, can't you?

DUNCAN: You talk to him about the abortion?

 

(She doesn't respond.)

 

DUNCAN: You two planning this little murder together, are you?

JILL: Stop it! Don't think this has been an easy decision for me.

DUNCAN: Yeah, you've been worrying over it since I got here.

JILL: Why'd you really come here?

DUNCAN: To protect my kid. You could've written me about that, you know.

JILL: Why'd you go to the trouble of hitch-hiking? Why didn't you just call?

DUNCAN: Because I didn't want to give you the opportunity to hang up on me. You had a moral obligation to tell me about this. You had no right to keep it from me. It's my kid, too.

JILL: I didn't think you'd feel so strongly about it.

DUNCAN: My kid . . .!

JILL: Most men would want me to have an abortion.

DUNCAN: I'm not most men.

 

(Pause.)

 

DUNCAN: He wants you to have the abortion, right? This lawyer?

JILL: Don't get down on him, Duncan. He's been very supportive.

DUNCAN: I'll bet he has. Who wants a girlfriend with somebody else's kid?

JILL: Tim is—

DUNCAN: Tim, yeah, I remember now.

JILL: He's a very considerate man. He's not selfish.

DUNCAN: Then he gives you advice?

JILL: He listens while I work things out for myself.

DUNCAN: And you worked out killing my kid. How come you never asked how I felt about it?

JILL: Because it's my body.

DUNCAN: You don't think I had anything to do with the baby inside your body now?

 

(Ruby returns to the kitchen.)

 

RUBY: Jill, are you all right?

JILL: I'm fine.

DUNCAN: We're not done.

JILL: I think we are.

DUNCAN: If you have that abortion, you're gonna regret it.

JILL: You're just bastard enough, aren't you?

DUNCAN: It ain't me. It's just the way it is. It's your conscience. I know you, Jill. You're not a murderer. You don't have a violent bone in your body — except for getting mad at me. You do this and you're gonna regret it because your conscience ain't gonna let you rest, hon. A part of you knows better.

RUBY: Get out of my house.

DUNCAN: You think about it a little harder. How can that fetus not be alive and wiggling and growing every day in there? It's part of the biggest miracle you'll ever—

RUBY: Get out!

DUNCAN: I'm gonna call you later and we're gonna talk some more about this. You think about it.

 

(He exits.)

 

(Pause.)

 

RUBY: Then it's true? You're pregnant?

JILL: Yes.

RUBY: I can't believe you didn't tell me.

JILL: I've been trying to sort it out myself.

RUBY: That's hard, alone, with no one to talk to.

JILL: I've had someone. Tim, the lawyer I saw for the divorce, has been a pillar of strength.

RUBY: You have a new boyfriend?

JILL: I guess you could say that.

RUBY: My God, do we ever learn?

JILL: I know — you're hurt because I didn't come to you, mama, but I had to sort some things out first.

RUBY: Depending on a man — is that sorting things out?

JILL: I'm not depending on him. I think I've fallen in love with him.

RUBY: We live in a zoo, don't we? Except none of the animals ever learn any new tricks.

JILL: I'm sorry you've had your feelings hurt.

RUBY: It's not my feelings on the line, believe me.

JILL: Mama, please understand that this is something I just had to deal with myself.

RUBY: I thought you said your new boyfriend helped you.

JILL: He just listened.

RUBY: I couldn't've done that?

JILL: Frankly, no. I don't mean that harshly — you know it's true. We're too much alike. You know we are. You'd be comparing my situation with what you went through.

RUBY: If we can't share experiences, how can we ever improve how things are?

JILL: Well, we're sharing now, how's that? I'm pregnant and I'm gonna get an abortion.

RUBY: You've thought it over carefully?

JILL: You don't think I should?

RUBY: I'm just asking if you've done a lot of thinking about it.

JILL: You can't imagine how many sleepless nights I've thought about it.

RUBY: Who's the father?

JILL: Duncan is. You don't think . . .?

RUBY: I was just asking.

JILL: Tim and I aren't that close yet. I'm still a little gun shy.

RUBY: Good, you should be.

JILL: Anyway, they have a clinic in Bend.

RUBY: You can afford it?

JILL: Tim's gonna help me. I can pay him back a little every month.

RUBY: What's it cost?

JILL: I don't want you helping, mama, you have a hard enough time as it is.

RUBY: You're gonna get yourself in debt to that man. You know what that means.

JILL: It's just a loan. You'll like Tim. He's completely different from Duncan. He's very well educated. He says he's a feminist.

RUBY: Oh my God. You sure he isn't queer as well?

JILL: It's gay. And he isn't. Honestly, mama—

RUBY: I mean, if he hasn't even tried to get you in bed yet—

JILL: He has tried.

RUBY: Well, then. And now you're gonna be in debt to him.

JILL: It's a small loan, that's all it is. I'll have it paid off in four or five months. I wouldn't even need it if the clinic would've given me credit.

RUBY: When do you go in?

JILL: Next week.

RUBY: What are you gonna do about Duncan?

JILL: What do you mean?

RUBY: He's gonna cause all the trouble he can.

JILL: It's not his decision.

RUBY: That won't stop him.

JILL: Well, he can't cause too much trouble from Nashville.

RUBY: Don't look to me like he's long for Nashville.

JILL: He say how his career's doing?

RUBY: You saw how he looked. Had to sell his car. Looking like a bum.

JILL: Prospects, I mean. He still trying to get a recording contract?

RUBY: He didn't say. If I was him, I'd be concentrating on the next meal.

JILL: He didn't look very good, did he?

RUBY: If he doesn't get his head on straight, he's gonna find himself on a doorstep with nothing but a wine bottle and his dead dreams.

JILL: Duncan's too serious about his music to end up like that.

RUBY: That's what Nashville does. You only read about the stars. For every star, there's a whole city full of men sitting on doorsteps.

JILL: And the women with dead dreams? Where do they sit?

RUBY: Women never sit, you ought to know that. They wait tables. Nashville is full of would-be country singers, song writers, you name it, slinging hash and pouring coffee. Just waiting for their star to come in. Oh God, it's a repeatable world, ain't it? Men on doorsteps and women waiting tables. You ready for a brandy in that?

JILL: Don't you have to work tonight?

RUBY: Lots of daylight yet. I can take a nap later.

JILL: Sure, mama . . .

 

(And Ruby brings out the brandy bottle as the LIGHTS FADE TO BLACKOUT.)

 

 

3/ six months later, morning

 

(AT RISE: a soft country song is playing on the radio. Ruby, in her robe, sits at the kitchen table, listening to the music and sometimes humming along. She's filing her nails.)

 

(JILL enters, also in her robe.)

 

RUBY: How you feeling, hon?

JILL: Terrible.

RUBY: It was a big bottle of Scotch you were pouring from.

JILL: Never again.

RUBY: Well, it was good for you, given the circumstances.

JILL: I got really drunk, didn't I?

RUBY: You sure did.

JILL: Did I talk a lot?

RUBY: Sure did.

JILL: I can't remember what I said.

RUBY: Not a lot that made sense. Except some feelings. Some of your feelings made sense.

JILL: I talk about Tim?

RUBY: Sure did.

JILL: You want some coffee?

RUBY: Brandy might help your head. Hair of the dog . . .

JILL: The thought makes me want to puke . . .

RUBY: I can vouch that it works. Once you get over the first couple sips, you're home free. A raw egg in a shot of brandy — sounds putrid, doesn't it? — but I swear to God it works.

JILL: Mama, my stomach isn't going to put up with talk like that.

RUBY: Well, if your head hangs on, you give it a try.

JILL: What did I say about Tim?

RUBY: Pretty much what any woman's gonna say. That he's selfish, thoughtless, he was using you, he's only after one thing, he took unfair advantage of your situation, he's devious, he was seeing another woman all along—

JILL: He's still married!

RUBY: That, too.

JILL: I feel like such an idiot.

RUBY: You don't have to feel bad about it with me.

JILL: I said all those things? Then it’s not true, what they say about booze, that it makes you say the truth.

RUBY: You weren't telling the truth?

JILL: No. He's not any of those things. He's a very sweet man.

RUBY: What are you talking about? He dumps you at the ski resort, you have to take a bus back—

JILL: I dumped myself, because I felt so humiliated.

RUBY: You said he dumped you, he used you, he—

JILL: Hush up a minute and I'll tell you.

RUBY: I'm dying to hear.

JILL: It's so embarrassing . . .

RUBY: What happened?

JILL: Well, originally we were gonna just spend the day and drive back Saturday night. But when it got snowing so bad, I suggested we get a room in the lodge.

RUBY: You made the first move?

JILL: Well, I thought he was so shy. How long've we been dating — and he doesn't even make a move? I thought he wasn't making any moves on me because he was shy.

RUBY: I thought you said he tried to get you in bed once.

JILL: Months ago. He'd had too much to drink. He never tried after that, so I thought maybe he was shy and couldn't stand being rejected again. Ends up he wasn't even interested.

RUBY: He must be gay. A man who calls himself a feminist—

JILL: Just hush and let me tell the story. So I practically have to convince him that it's okay to get a room together. I mean, he thought we should get separate rooms, at sixty a throw. It was ridiculous to pay that much. Anyway we get the room and we ski some more and have the most marvelous dinner by candlelight in front of a roaring fire. It was just the most romantic evening you can imagine.

RUBY: And he didn't respond? He's gay.

JILL: So afterwards, when we're back in the room, which has twin beds, he says do I want the bathroom first or second, so I decide, Let's go for it, and take it first and go in and take off my clothes and walk back out naked as a jaybird and give him a big hug and start rubbing all over him — and that's when he tells me he's married. Separated. They have two kids, he still loves her, you name it. I couldn't even get him interested in a one-night stand. The desk said a bus was coming through late if it could make it, so I just took my chances and here I am, humiliated and feeling like the biggest fool in Juniper County.

RUBY: Well, it's lucky you didn't get no one-night stand, if you ask me. You might find yourself pregnant again.

JILL: I didn't know there were any men that moral.

RUBY: I never did think that man was right for you.

JILL: Standing there naked as a jaybird, well, I sure wasn't looking for Mr. Right. I was looking for Mr. Right Now.

RUBY: Why'd you tell me all that other last night?

JILL: Cause I felt humiliated, I guess. I didn't know you could lie like that when you were drunk.

 

(The doorbell rings. It's from the front door this time.)

 

RUBY: This lawyer somebody to hound you, like Duncan was?

JILL: No.

 

(Ruby goes to answer the door, exiting upstage. A beat.)

 

DUNCAN (off-stage): Well, do I get invited in?

 

(Duncan and Ruby return. We see a different man now. He is dressed to the teeth in the most fashionable western superstar style. Cowboy hat, boots, bright fancy shirt.)

 

DUNCAN : Seeing is believing, right? I got a little time to kill, so I thought I'd drop by. My pilot thought he heard something funny in the engine. It's being checked out at the Bend airport. I borrowed a car and drove on over.

JILL: You came here in an airplane?

DUNCAN: Well, we're headed for L.A. actually. I couldn't resist getting him to go out of his way so I could show off a little bit of God's country.

JILL: Maybe I'd better get dressed . . .

DUNCAN: I don't mind. I mean, I ain't got much time. Engine checked out, so they're just servicing it.

JILL: Well — how've you been?

DUNCAN: Good, good. How about yourself?

JILL: Just fine. Real good, actually. Real good.

DUNCAN: That's good to hear.

 

(Pause.)

 

DUNCAN: Well, can I use your phone a minute?

RUBY: Help yourself.

 

(Duncan goes to the phone and dials. A beat.)

 

DUNCAN (on phone): Let her rip.

 

(He hangs up.)

 

DUNCAN: Mind if I turn on the radio?

 

(Without waiting for a reply, he turns it on and we hear the end of a country classic.)

 

DUNCAN: I'll tell you, it's a funny world. Til a couple months ago, I was beginning to believe I was ready for skid row. You wouldn't believe some of the dives I was living in. Washing dishes in a goddamn truck stop.

 

(And now the radio plays "Stale Beer in the Morning, Stale Love in the Night". The song will continue as background below.)

 

DUNCAN: I dropped a record off at the station. Sneak preview. We don't get the official release til next week.

JILL: Jesus, Duncan, you did it, didn't you?

DUNCAN: So far, so good. Looks real good. I couldn't afford all this image-making if it didn't. "Stale Beer in the Morning, Stale Love in the Night." It's gonna be the title of the first album, too. Nashtone picked it up. I had to change it around a little bit but it's basically the same song.

JILL: I'm really glad for you, Duncan.

DUNCAN: I worked for it. Paid my dues and all that. You wouldn't believe some of the holes I was living in toward the end.

JILL: I can imagine. Well, you want anything? A cup of coffee, a beer, or anything?

DUNCAN: I quit drinking, and I'm coffeed out. On a diet, to tell the truth. Want that photo on the album cover to look good. Always was a little vain.

JILL: Yeah, you were.

DUNCAN: So how're you and the lawyer doing?

JILL: Fine. I mean, we're good friends. That's all it's ever been, just being good friends. He's fine. A good friend.

DUNCAN: Well, I teamed up with someone myself. You remember the name Carey Winchester — she's gonna be a bigger star than me, or I don't know talent. I'll probably end up carrying her guitar case and maybe writing her a song or two. Patsy Cline, reborn. You're gonna hear about Carey Winchester.

JILL: She's got a record out, too?

DUNCAN: She's gonna debut with an album. They got a whole campaign worked out. It's gonna be a big splash, even for Nashville.

JILL: She must be something.

DUNCAN: One talented lady.

JILL: And you're good friends with her?

DUNCAN: Well, I hope so. We're engaged.

JILL: That's really great, Duncan. You deserve all the happiness there is.

DUNCAN: Actually Carey's part of the reason I dropped by. She's looking for album material and I was wondering if Rube still had her songs on tape.

JILL: Mama . . .?

 

(Ruby, very quite until now, doesn't respond at first. Finally she shuts the radio off.)

 

RUBY: You love every goddamn minute of this, don't you? You son-of-a-bitch, who do you think you are, busting in here looking like a drugstore cowboy and throwing all this bullshit around? I wasn't born yesterday.

DUNCAN: Don't you get tired of hating men?

JILL: He's making a genuine offer, mama. I know he is. He didn't have to come here.

RUBY: Course he did, to show off his new clown suit and play that demo on the radio.

DUNCAN: This outfit's something, isn't it? When my agent picked it out, I told him, I can't wear shit like that. Do you want to be a star or not, he asked me. So here I am. It's something, Nashville. I think the music is the least important part of it…the musicians, the people that make the music in the first place. Nashville is run by accountants and agents and producers. It's really something.

RUBY: You're not telling me anything I don't know.

DUNCAN: Well, I guess I'll be on my way then. Good to see you, Jill. Glad things are working out for you.

JILL: Wait. This girlfriend of yours, what's her name—

DUNCAN: Carey Winchester. A few months, nobody's gonna have to ask.

JILL: Tell me straight — is she really looking for material?

DUNCAN: I wouldn't say so if she wasn't. I can't promise anything, of course, but she's looking hard, especially for, you know, songs with special meaning to women.

JILL: Give him the tape, mama.

RUBY: Nope.

JILL: It's an opportunity.

RUBY: I don't think so.

DUNCAN: All I can promise you is that Carey will listen to it. I've already told her about you.

JILL: You've told her about mama's songs, really?

DUNCAN: You're a damn good song writer, Rube. I always thought so.

RUBY: Somebody give me a shovel . . .

JILL: Just give him the tape.

RUBY: It's my only copy and I'm not letting it out of the house.

JILL: Mama, be reasonable.

DUNCAN: I can understand that. Listen, let me give you my card. You make a copy and send it to me. Directly to me, so I can make sure it doesn't get lost in the shuffle. A lot of songwriters' tapes out there — you wouldn't believe how many people write songs. I bet if you picked out five random people in Nashville, four of them write country songs.

 

(Duncan offers his card to Ruby, who doesn't make a move to take it. So Jill takes it.)

 

JILL: Thanks. I'll get her to send you a tape.

DUNCAN: Carey'll listen to it, that's all I can promise.

JILL: We appreciate it.

DUNCAN: Well, they're probably wondering what happened to me.

JILL: You look good, Duncan. I'm glad you stopped by.

DUNCAN: You look good, too. You happy?

JILL: Sure.

DUNCAN: That's the important thing.

 

(Pause.)

 

DUNCAN: Well, hell, I might as well say what I came here to say. I'm sorry about being so hard on you. I see now that you'd've ended up with all the hassles, raising a kid while I was out on the road most of the time and the kid never knowing its father really anyway. Carey and me, we expect to have one soon as the timing's right. You were right, it's important a kid grows up with both parents there, you know? I came down pretty hard on you at the time and I'm sorry about that.

JILL: Well, thanks doesn't sound like the right thing to say somehow — but, thanks.

DUNCAN: (to Ruby) I hope you send that tape. Personally I think you got a pretty good shot at it. See you all.

JILL: Bye. You fly careful now.

DUNCAN: I got a pilot flew helicopter in Nam. He don't even call it flying unless someone's shooting at him.

 

(And he's out the upstage door. RUBY starts laughing.)

 

RUBY: My God, that outfit . . .!

JILL: You copy that tape and send it to him. You hear me?

RUBY: There's no point in sending it.

JILL: He's not a liar, mama, it's not in his personality. That lady's looking for material.

RUBY: I'm not gonna send the tape. That's the end of it. I don't want to hear no more about it.

JILL: But why not? What can you lose?

RUBY: Sleep.

JILL: What're you talking about?

RUBY: You asked what I'd lose sending it — I'd lose sleep. I'd be so worried, I wouldn't be able to shut off my mind. Scotch wouldn't even shut it off. I'd keep worrying whether they liked it, whether it was getting played or being stuck in somebody's drawer or maybe they were laughing and thinking how stupid it was for some lady in nowheresville to think she could write a song they'd want to buy in Nashville.

JILL: You are your own worst enemy, that's just what you are. You lack confidence.

RUBY: No. I just accept reality.

JILL: You won't know how good your songs are until you try.

RUBY: I have tried. You keep talking like I never tried before. I just write these songs and keep them hidden in the tavern or something. Well, that's not how it is. I tried sending tapes to Nashville. I tried for a year.

JILL: When did you ever try?

RUBY: You were too little to remember but I tried, believe me. I was going with a guy named Ron then — he sang country himself, of course. Curse of my existence, country singers. Anyway, Ron found this ad in a country magazine, "songs needed immediately," so we put together a tape of my songs and sent it off to Nashville. It was the worst experience of my life.

JILL: You have to keep trying, mama.

RUBY: I wouldn't've minded if they'd just sent the tape back. I wouldn't've minded them saying I had no talent or whatever, but I couldn't deal with what they ended up doing. They stole my songs. Three of them. Oh, they changed them around a bit, but they stole them, free and simple. They never did return the tape. Said they didn't know what happened to it. Said I didn't enclose return postage, but I did. They kept changing their story. I called the studio myself, and they just gave me the run around. A couple months later, maybe longer, maybe six months, seven, and boom — there was my song right on the radio, hardly disguised at all. I phoned the studio again, madder than hell, but their number was disconnected. That's my experience with Nashville.

JILL: I didn't know you went through that. I'm really sorry.

RUBY: School of hard knocks, they call it.

JILL: Hardest school there is.

RUBY: You'd better believe it.

JILL: But this ain't really the same thing, mama.

RUBY: What do I know about his new lady or what kind of studio and recording company she's involved with? They're as likely taking him for a ride as not.

JILL: He paid his dues, you know he has.

RUBY: I'm not sending my songs, that's all there is to it. I'm too old to go through anything like that again.

JILL: You're not old . . .

RUBY: Old enough. And older in experience than in years, believe me.

JILL: I still say you're making a mistake.

RUBY: Well, fine, you just give me that right, okay?

JILL: I don't know why I'm trying to tell you what to do. You never listen to advice.

RUBY: Got a right to make my own mistakes.

JILL: Me, too, mama.

RUBY: Right. It's a free country.

 

(Pause.)

 

JILL: I'm moving out. I'm gonna find me an apartment.

RUBY: What're you talking about, moving out?

JILL: I decided last week.

RUBY: That don't make a bit of sense, paying two rents when we could be paying one.

JILL: I got a right to make my own mistakes, just like you.

RUBY: How you gonna afford your own apartment?

JILL: They got some cheap studios in that new complex near the park. I already looked into it.

RUBY: You mad at me or something?

JILL: Course not. But I think I should live alone, mama. I think it'd be good for both of us.

RUBY: I don't give you enough freedom here?

JILL: That has nothing to do with it.

RUBY: It's men, isn't it? You worry you can't bring a man here. I never said you couldn't.

JILL: It has nothing to do with men.

RUBY: Everything has to do with men. That's the goddamn problem with this world, you can't keep the son-of-a-bitches out of anything. Can't even share a house with your daughter without men botching it up.

JILL: Damn it, mama, it ain't men at all! It's me. I need my own place. And it's you, too. You depend too much on me.

RUBY: What?

JILL: On me being here. On being able to help me.

RUBY: I shouldn't help you?

JILL: I'm twenty-one years old, it's time I lived on my own and got myself out of my own jams and learned from my own mistakes.

RUBY: We work different shifts most of the time. You get lots of time to yourself.

JILL: It ain't the same thing. This is your home. You signed the lease. It's decorated the way you want it, it's—

RUBY: You want to change the drapes or something? Hell, go ahead, hon. I don't care what you want to do around here. Redecorate to your heart's content.

JILL: That's not it. Mama, you're not listening to me.

RUBY: I'm listening to you. I did something wrong.

JILL: No. I just need to be alone. I just need to be alone — can you understand that?

RUBY: It's what happened to you at the ski lodge. You're still feeling bad, humiliated about that.

JILL: Yes, I am, but that's not the topic of conversation now. I'm talking about learning to live alone. You got to learn to live with yourself, too, mama.

RUBY: You think I don't do that?

JILL: Not when you depend on me so much.

RUBY: When do I depend on you?

JILL: On me getting in trouble or making a mistake, so you can play mother and get me out of it, comfort me, tell me how much we're alike.

RUBY: We are alike.

JILL: Yes, in many ways we are. That's why I need my own place, to learn how we're different, to learn how I'm my own person.

RUBY: If you want to leave me, you want to leave me.

JILL: Now don't pout. I hate it when you pout.

RUBY: Well, my feelings are hurt. I don't know what I've done.

JILL: You haven't done a thing, damn it.

RUBY: You just don't move out on your mother for no reason.

JILL: The reason is, you're my mother.

RUBY: I give you lots of room, now you know I do.

JILL: I need to have my own apartment. If you can't understand that, then I'm sorry. You'd better learn to understand it because you need your own space as much as I do.

RUBY: Don't you tell me what I need, young lady. You have no idea what I need.

JILL: You need me.

RUBY: I can't help it. It's hard to let go.

JILL: I know. I can feel how it is.

RUBY: You have no idea how it is.

JILL: I think I do. There was life inside me, mama, and I had to let it go.

RUBY: You did the only thing you could do.

JILL: That didn't make it any easier. I'm not even sure I did the right thing.

RUBY: Of course, you did the right thing.

JILL: Well, it's too late to change my mind.

RUBY: You can change your mind about moving out.

JILL: I'll still be close. It's not like I'm moving away.

RUBY: You will, some day. I can feel it in my bones.

JILL: Rimrock ain't the world. It's a little tiny spot on it.

RUBY: There's nothing to hold you here. Not me. Not the town. Certainly not the café.

JILL: I'm moving out, mama, not away.

RUBY: It's the first step, though.

JILL: We'll have to see.

RUBY: First, it's getting off by yourself. Then you meet some man who's looking for a better job in a bigger city—

JILL: It's gonna be a while before I find a man. It won't be anybody in Rimrock.

RUBY: Which is why you'll move away. One of the reasons.

JILL: There's more to life than Rimrock.

RUBY: See there? You're already gone.

JILL: Maybe you're right. Maybe I am already gone.

RUBY: Barely said goodbye.

JILL: I guess this is what this is all about now, isn't it? I'm saying goodbye.

RUBY: Might as well just move to Portland and be done with it.

JILL: Portland's too big. I don't know where it'll be. That's still in the future.

RUBY: What are you waiting for?

JILL: I'm not waiting, mama. That's the point. I'm trying to learn how to make things happen for myself. Like Duncan did. He suffered a lot, I know he did. It was terrible for him, living like such a failure when he has so much talent and he knows it and still it ain't giving him a goddamn thing, not one tiny reward for being so talented, just sweating and trying to make something happen in this world for yourself, something you want and can be proud of , and so you just have to go for it, mama, you can't sit around and wait for it to come because it's never gonna come, not without you going after it. It's gotta be chased. It's gotta be pursued. It don't beckon to no waiting.

 

(Pause.)

 

RUBY: So what is it you're after, what're you gonna make happen?

JILL: I don't know. I'm just trying to do first things first. That means learning how to live alone.

RUBY: Well, I'm gonna miss you.

JILL: We'll be seeing each other practically every day.

RUBY: It won't seem the same.

JILL: It's not supposed to be the same. You can use a change in your life, too.

RUBY: Sure.

JILL: Sending Duncan that tape, for example. It'd be good for you to do that.

RUBY: I been through that once. Waiting on pins and needles . . .

JILL: At least you're waiting for something. It beats waiting for nothing. Waiting for nothing at all.

 

(Pause.)

 

RUBY: You think his record's really gonna be released? And that stuff about his new girlfriend?

JILL: Yes, I do. And I think you should send him your tape.

RUBY: Maybe I'm just afraid it isn't good enough.

JILL: Play it, mama. You can hear for yourself how good it is. You play it and then I want to show you my studio. I already put down a deposit on it.

RUBY: When did you do that?

JILL: Last week. I've been trying to get the nerve to tell you.

RUBY: You are making things happen for yourself, aren't you?

JILL: I'm trying, mama. I'm sure trying.

RUBY: You think I should send the whole tape, or just a few songs? Make a new tape of the best ones?

JILL: Let's listen and decide.

 

(RUBY will fetch the tape.)

 

RUBY: I still think this is a perfect waste of time, sending it.

JILL: It sure beats waiting around for nothing.

RUBY: You think so?

JILL: Waiting for something is better than waiting for nothing.

RUBY: It's still waiting, though.

 

(And “Ruby's Song” starts to play. Jill goes to her mother. They hold one another, listening to the song. LIGHTS BEGIN SLOW FADE TO BLACKOUT. The play is over.)