TESS (Sotto voce): We ran out last week. Julie said it was not good.

MARJORIE (To no one in particular): There’s a figure in my mind. I’m trying to figure out who it is.

TESS: Micah is coming to visit next week.

MARJORIE: Micah.

TESS: Your grandson.

MARJORIE: No.

TESS: No?

MARJORIE: Mitchell.

TESS: Micah is Mitchell’s younger brother.

JON (From off): She has nine left.

TESS: He just became chef de cuisine at the Pine Door.

MARJORIE: —

JON (From off): And six Cortadol.

TESS (To Marjorie, clarifying): It’s a lot of responsibility. They have a Michelin star.

(Jon returns.)

I hope it doesn’t mean he starts acting like Mitchell and Raina.

MARJORIE: How do they act?

TESS: Prodigal. Never call unless it’s money.

JON: They’re in their twenties, it’s their job to be prodigal. There’ll be plenty of time for them to, you know, to count our pills.

TESS: Well they better.

(Beat.)

MARJORIE (To no one in particular): I remember waking up on a bridge with a lot of people around.

TESS: Why were you sleeping on a bridge?

MARJORIE: Maybe Walter would remember. We could ask Walter.

TESS: Dad is dead, Mom.

MARJORIE: I know that.

TESS: He’s been dead for ten years.

JON: Tess.

MARJORIE: I mean the other Walter. Walter Prime.

(Pause. Then sharply, to Tess:)

I’m not that far gone.

Scene 3

3

Jon standing, Marjorie in her recliner.

JON: How are you feeling?

MARJORIE: Should I be feeling poorly?

The way you say it.

JON: Well, you had quite a night.

MARJORIE: Oh?

JON (Feeling somehow betrayed): You don’t remember?

MARJORIE: I’m sorry.

JON: We found you on the floor by the bathroom. You had a fall. Tess rode with you in the ambulance—this was four in the morning.

MARJORIE: Oh my.

JON: You were pretty alert by the time I got there. Already flirting with the doctor.

MARJORIE: I wasn’t.

JON: You always put on your best face for doctors.

MARJORIE: What’s wrong with that?

JON: Nothing, except they don’t know you’re in pain—they don’t know how bad.

(Pause.)

MARJORIE: Was he flirting back?

JON: He was. So I told him he better watch out in case Jean-Paul showed up. You remember Jean-Paul.

MARJORIE (With a fake-romantic sigh): The tennis pro.

JON: World number eight, if I remember. I do remember—we looked it up. He dedicated matches to you but you just strung him along.

MARJORIE: Maybe that’s why he only got to number eight.

JON: Maybe.

MARJORIE: Well, you should have talked some sense into me.

JON: This was a long long time ago. And you chose right, all by yourself. You chose Walter.

MARJORIE: He does sort of grow on you. You’re like that too. A face to grow old with.

JON: But it had to be more than that.