Dear
By Jackie Jennings
Lights up on a room in a house. Center stage is an empty table where JANE sits reading a newspaper alone, obviously bored out of her wits. A bed sits far stage left with a nightstand on either side, one cluttered with makeup, cold cream and jewelry, the other neat with only a clock radio. From offstage left we hear:
FRANK: So, you’ll pick up the dry cleaning?
JANE: Mhm.
FRANK: Oh, and if the cable guy calls, remember neither of us can be here Friday so reschedule okay? But sometimes before next Tuesday, I want to Tivo that Antiques Roadshow marathon, alright dear?
JANE: Mhm.
FRANK enters stage left, crosses to JANE
FRANK: Did you hear me?
JANE, annoyed, puts down paper.
JANE: Yes dear, I heard you. Dry cleaning, cable, marathon. I’ll do it.
FRANK: Of course you will. What else do you have planned for the day?
JANE: (Nervously) Oh, well, nothing really I suppose. Ah, maybe, oh, I don’t know a little of this –
FRANK: Sounds great. I’ll be back around seven.
JANE: Seven, sounds perfect. See you later, sweetie.
FRANK exits stage right. JANE stands and wanders aimlessly. She sits again and sort of thumbs through the paper, only to throw it on the floor. She stands again, wanders more and sits again. NOTE: All of the following is meant to be quite dramatic and exaggerated, punctuated with ridiculous sighs. Finally, JANE sits and begins to think. She sneaks over to the cluttered bed stand and removes a large binder and shoebox. Crossed back to table and sits. She removes a candle, and elaborate, feathered pen, perfume and bright, flowery stationary in a ritual fashion. Lights candle, begins to write.
JANE: (voice-over) Dear Jimmy Smits. It’s me again. How have things been going with you? I’m okay, I guess. Frank just left for work. He was wearing that awful gray shirt I told you about in my letter of --
(Voice over stops as JANE flips through the binder and finds the page she was looking for.)
-- January 14, 2005. Can you believe it’s February already? Just yesterday I was in CVS and bought a box of chocolate for --
The sound of a door opening is heard and JANE frantically removes the candle, paper and pen from the table, leaving the binder.
FRANK: (offstage right: Would you believe I left my gloves? (FRANK enters, JANE sits on binder) I must be loopy!
JANE: Well it is cold out! Can’t forget those! (FRANK crosses to his nightstand, gets gloves, crosses back to JANE).
FRANK: Well, dear, I guess goodbye again! (He leans in and kisses her on the head, but bumps his mouth against her head)
FRANK: Are you…have you? Call me nutty but honey, are you higher up than you were before?
JANE: Higher up? Higher up? How could I be higher up? I haven’t grown since you were here before!
FRANK: You’re…Jane, you’re sitting on something.
JANE: No I’m not.
FRANK: Yes, you are. I can see it. It’s a binder.
JANE: No you can’t. No it’s not.
FRANK: Yes I can! And, yes it is, it’s a binder and it’s labeled (reading the spine of the binder under JANE) “Jimmy Smits Correspondence, June 2004 through June 2006”. Jane, what’s going on?
JANE: Nothing, Frank, it’s nothing! You’re going to be late. Don’t forget your gloves. I’ll call the cable guy! Goodbye!
FRANK: Jane, stand up.
JANE:: No, Frank it’s really –
FRANK: Jane, stand up and give me that binder.
JANE: Fine. Here.
FRANK: (Flipping through binder) These are all…letters. Xeroxed letters. To…Jimmy Smits? You wrote these?
JANE stares defiantly in the opposite direction.
FRANK: Jane! You wrote these letters? All of them? There are hundreds! To Jimmy Smits? Have you even seen NYPD Blue?
JANE: I’ve seen a few episodes.
FRANK: I don’t understand. How long has this been going on? How long have you been writing epic letters to Jimmy Smits?
JANE: About three years now. I have two more binders in the attic.
FRANK: (sits) Good Lord, Jane. So July, when we were in Cancun and you would go read on the beach in the afternoon, you were…
JANE: That’s right, Frank. I was writing. I was writing long letters, long letters to Jimmy Smits.
FRANK: Jesus, Jane. (He reads a letter) May 4th, 2005. “Dear Jimmy Smits. Frank belched at dinner tonight. It was repulsive. When he opens his mouth to belch, I can see every filling in his –“ (Stops reading). You write…you write…about me?
Jane remains silent
FRANK: (Continues reading) “He’s got a root canal and eight fillings.” Jesus Mary and Joseph, Jane!
JANE: What?
FRANK: Well, I don’t want Jimmy Smits walking around out there, knowing all about my mouth. It’s my mouth, Jane. You have no right to share that information. (Flips through the binder and picks another letter) “September 27th, 2005. Frank sweats horribly. It’s awful. My brother said he was like a whore in church while we were having dinner last Sunday. My whole family laughed – don’t worry, Frank was in the bathroom at the time!” Well that’s fantastic, Jane. “October 1st, 2005. My man-child husband cried today getting his flu shot. October 31st, 2005. Frank thinks I don’t mind his back hair, but I do. November 5th, 2005. Frank is impotent”
JANE: Perhaps that one crossed the line.
FRANK: Perhaps? That one? This is a travesty. What am I supposed to do Jane? Hm? I sweat? I have no taste? I’m impotent?? Which, you know is not true.
JANE: Well, there was that one –
FRANK: I am not impotent! (Stands, paces) What am I supposed to think, Jane? Hm? Our marriage is a lie, a sham! You have been stabbing me in the back all these years, stabbing me in the back with words, Jane. You and Jimmy Smits! Damn, Jimmy Smits…he’s probably out there in Las Angeles telling David E. Kelly that somewhere in New Jersey there’s a sweating, impotent burp-fiend with bad teeth whose whole family hates him!
JANE:: Don’t flatter yourself, Frank. I’m sure Jimmy wouldn’t bore someone who’s basically his boss with something so silly. He probably just tells close friends over dinner.
FRANK: You think this is funny? (JANE remains silent) Why…what…this isn’t funny Jane!
JANE: You haven’t touched me in months, Frank. Months. I don’t feel that Jimmy and I need to answer to you anymore.
FRANK: Jimmy and I? Jimmy and I? Listen to yourself, Jane! You don’t know Jimmy Smits – what’s he to you? A face on a screen! A man on a TV show you don’t even watch! You don’t have any idea who Jimmy Smits is and, more importantly, he was no clue who in the hell you are!
JANE: Francis Edmund Dover, you take it back.
FRANK:: Take what back? The truth? The truth, Jane? Okay, I take back the truth. You and Jimmy Smits are deeply, deeply involved. I’m sure he thinks about you ever night before he goes to bed with whatever beautiful woman he’s going to have sex with that night. I’ll bet he pays the postman 50 dollars a week to get your letters to him extra-safely Jane. Why, I bet Jimmy Smits –
(As FRANK has been speaking, JANE has reached into the pocket in the binder and removed a glossy, signed photo of Jimmy Smits. She hands it to FRANK, ending his diatribe)
JANE: You might want to look at this before you continue making a fool of yourself.
(He looks)
FRANK: This, Jane, is a signed glossy photo that his assistant probably signs and sends to every quack and old woman who asks for one.
JANE: Just the same, I’m going to him.
FRANK: (laughs) Going to him? Going where? Jane, what do you mean?
JANE: Here. (Hands him an envelope as she walks to the bedroom and takes a duffle bag from under the bed)
FRANK: (Reads note) Dear Frank. I am going to California to chase my love. I need to live and to laugh once more. Please understand. There is a frozen pan of baked ziti in the freezer. Love, Jane.
JANE: My flight leaves in two hours.
FRANK: You’re crazy.
JANE: Maybe, Frank, maybe. But I know that somewhere out there is a man that needs me for more than dry cleaning and cable. And I’m going to go to him.
FRANK: Fine. Just don’t be surprised if California law forbids you from getting within 200 yards of him. That’s called a restraining order Jane, something stars file for to protect them from stalkers and –
JANE: I have to go (She shakes his hands and exits stage right)
FRANK: You’ll be back, Jane. Four days, I promise. Four days and you’ll be calling me from a street corner, begging me to let you come home and get my dry cleaning. And I won’t let you! I’ll get my own dry cleaning from now on, Jane. MY OWN DRY CLEANING!
FRANK sits down, enraged, thinking. Several deep breaths. He looks around, bored. *His next actions should almost mimic JANE’S from the beginning of the scene* FRANK picks up the paper only to throw it down. Paces around, muttering.
FRANK: (muttering to himself) Unbelievable. A glossy photo. Stupid woman.
FRANK: continues to paces and after awhile, stalks over to the bedroom. Opens his nightstand. Peers inside, thinking. Reaches in, as though for a religious item. Pulls out a huge binder, exactly like JANE’s. Sit at table, pulls out paper and a pen from his shirt pocket. Begins writing.
FRANK: (Voiceover) Dear Bjork. (Lights being to fade) Good news! (Blackout).