Stage is divided in half. Stage-right half is occupied by CECILIA’s house. Above this set is another place-name card that reads—“SANDIMAS”. The interior is very simple, 1940s style with a few plants and a “woman’s touch” about it. Sofa and chair with coffee table between them. Curtained windows, again looking out into black. Stage-left set is in blackness and should “disappear” as much as possible. Lights up stage right on CECILIA in action, serving tea on a tray to CARTER who is seated on sofa facing her. CECILIA is a very attractive yet slightly eccentric dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties. She wears a brightly flowered Japanese silk robe. Her hair up off her neck but unruly strands are dangling free.

CECILIA (serving tea on coffee table): So, you and Vinnie go back a long way, huh?

CARTER: Yeah, that’s right. We do. Clear back to the fifties in fact.

CECILIA: That far?

CARTER: Back to the days of “I LIKE IKE”.

CECILIA: That’s hard to believe.

CARTER: Why’s that?

CECILIA: I don’t know. It’s hard to believe he’s ever known anyone for any length of time. He’s such a loner.

CARTER: Well, he wasn’t always like that, you know.

CECILIA: Like what?

CARTER: Separate. I mean—remote, like he is.

CECILIA (offering tea): Milk and honey?

CARTER: Oh, no thanks. Just black or—whatever you call it.

CECILIA: Tea. I call it tea.

CARTER: Yes. I’m used to drinking coffee, I guess. You know—black coffee. Force of habit.

CECILIA: Oh, I’m sorry. I should have asked. I’m strictly a tea drinker myself. Don’t even keep coffee in the house. It gets me rattled.

CARTER: That’s all right. This is fine.

CECILIA: Are you sure? I’ve got hot chocolate if you want. Ovaltine.

CARTER: No. This is great.

CECILIA: I’ve got little miniature marshmallows.

CARTER: No, really.

Pause.

CECILIA: I got into it in London. Back in the seventies.

CARTER: What?

CECILIA: Tea.

CARTER: Oh. I see. But you’re not English, are you?

CECILIA: No, no. Missouri. Independence, Missouri. “Home of Harry Truman”. “Plain-Talkin’ Harry”.

CARTER: Right. Independence. Mark Twain’s from there too, isn’t he?

CECILIA: No, that’s Hannibal. Hannibal, Missouri.

CARTER: Oh, that’s right! Hannibal. I get them confused.

CECILIA: They just had the flood.

CARTER: Right.

CECILIA: Haven’t been back there since I left.

CARTER (glancing at his watch): I’ll be darned.

CECILIA: I’ve got no nostalgia about the place. “Americana” bores the shit out of me. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Who are they kidding? I went straight to London and never looked back.

CARTER: Well—That must’ve been kind of a shock, huh?

CECILIA: It was, but I loved it. London. Sipping tea and reading Byron, you know. I still think of it as home actually.

CARTER: Is that right.