THE SET UP
This is the first appearance of these characters in the play. They are all in their late teens/early twenties and have just started college. They have all gone shopping together as a supposedly neutral and safe activity, but Linc and Isobel are at it again. Linc is openly gay. Isobel knows this, but is still carrying a torch for him, though she’d be the first to deny it. Ralph, Linc’s straight fraternal twin brother, is romantically interested in Isobel, but she doesn’t notice him when Linc’s around. Linc and Ralph have both known Isobel since their days in high school together, where all this has its roots. Diana is a closeted lesbian and Isobel’s newest friend. Diana also harbors a crush on Isobel, but would be the first to deny it.
“You wear a cross around your neck.”
“Tucked inside my blouse. I don’t brandish it like I’m warding off vampires.”
Emphasis shifts abruptly to another pool of light as, from opposite corners of the stage area, four people in their late teens/early twenties converge on the light –
– LINC, a radiant young man and
– ISOBEL, an intense young woman
zero in on one another, while
– RALPH, an awkward young man and
– DIANA, an offbeat-looking young woman
find themselves on the outside of the discussion.
LINC
You can’t tell me you didn’t hear that, Isobel.
ISOBEL
I heard it, I just don’t see what was so bad —
LINC
Are you kidding me?
DIANA and RALPH try to interject, attempting to steer the conversation to safer ground.
DIANA
So, shopping.
ISOBEL
He used the right phrase, didn’t he?
LINC
It wasn’t what he said, it was the way he said it.
RALPH
Yup, we are so in a shopping mall right now.
ISOBEL
You don’t think you’re being just a little sensitive?
LINC
How did I know you’d be defending him?
ISOBEL
I’m not defending anybody, Linc. I don’t think he did anything that needs defending, that’s all I’m saying.
DIANA
Stores stretching in every direction.
LINC
He’s a professor.
ISOBEL
Yes.
LINC
So what he says, and the way he says it, particularly when other people can clearly hear it, it’s important.
ISOBEL
I’m not arguing that.
RALPH and DIANA give up on the others and turn their attention to each other to pass the time while they wait.
RALPH
I’m Ralph, by the way.
DIANA
Diana.
RALPH
Linc’s twin brother.
DIANA
Isobel’s friend from church, well, and classes, too, I guess.
RALPH
Nice to meet you.
DIANA
You, too.
LINC makes a gesture for quotation marks in the air for emphasis and adopts a sarcastic tone, imitating the professor.
LINC
“Domestic Partner.” “Significant Other.” “I suppose I need to be ‘Politically Correct’ about these things.”
ISOBEL
He didn’t make quotation marks in the air.
LINC
He might as well have, with that tone. He was clearly mocking the whole concept.
DIANA
You don’t look much alike.
RALPH
Fraternal, not identical.
DIANA
Bet you get that a lot.
RALPH
Yeah.
ISOBEL
He went out of his way to include your —
LINC
“Lifestyle”?
ISOBEL
Sexual orientation into the conversation. He didn’t just assume you’d understand by him saying “girlfriend” that he meant to include everyone’s —
LINC
“Butt Buddy”?
RALPH
You don’t look much like you —
DIANA
— would be going to the same church as Isobel?
RALPH
Bet you get that a lot.
DIANA
Yeah.
ISOBEL
Well, did you ever stop to think that if you weren’t so —
LINC
Out?
ISOBEL
Open about it, aggressively open about it —
LINC
Be a good little faggot —
ISOBEL
You know I hate that word.
LINC
Sodomite?
RALPH
So how long you think, before Isobel tries to set us up?
ISOBEL
Now you’re baiting me just like you did him.
DIANA
What makes you think she hasn’t already started?
LINC
Baiting? I asked a simple question.
RALPH
Good point.
ISOBEL
No question is ever simple with you. You’re constantly lying in wait for the rest of us to make an honest slip so you can blow it completely out of proportion and claim that you and your kind are always the injured parties.
DIANA
Still, it’s hardly inevitable.
LINC
Excuse me, my kind?
RALPH
Why not? Single guy, single girl.
DIANA gives RALPH a look.
ISOBEL
See, there, case in point, you know what I meant.
RALPH
‘Scuse me – single woman.
LINC
Do you stop being a heterosexual woman when you enter a classroom?
ISOBEL
No, of course not, but —
DIANA indicates LINC and ISOBEL.
DIANA
They’re “single woman, single guy.”
LINC
No difference.
RALPH
Yeah, but one of them’s gay.
DIANA
(brief hesitation)
Right.
ISOBEL
Ah, but everyone assumes, looking at me that I am a woman, and nine times out of ten, percentages being what they are, heterosexual. You have to go out of your way to let people know what you are —
LINC
Ah ah.
ISOBEL
— who you are, excuse me. And you always do.
RALPH
She talks about you all the time.
DIANA visibly brightens at learning this.
DIANA
Really?
RALPH
Yup. Diana this, Diana that.
DIANA
She’s been talking about you a lot, too.
Now it’s RALPH’s turn to perk up.
RALPH
Yeah?
DIANA
Yeah.
RALPH
Oh. So maybe she’s just —
DIANA
— laying the groundwork.
RALPH
Yeah.
DIANA
Oh.
They both deflate a little.
LINC
You wear a cross around your neck.
ISOBEL
Tucked inside my blouse. I don’t brandish it like I’m warding off vampires.
RALPH
She talks about Linc more than she talks about either of us, doesn’t she?
ISOBEL
And I don’t verbally correct someone’s misconceptions or misstatements every thirty seconds.
DIANA
She talks about Linc almost as much as she talks about God.
ISOBEL
You can come off seeming very combative and people respond to that differently.
DIANA
Maybe she wouldn’t if —
RALPH
— if he didn’t push her buttons quite so effectively.
DIANA
Yeah.
LINC
So he was perfectly within his rights to make fun of something that’s important to me.
DIANA
And then there’s the crush.
RALPH is suddenly on the defensive.
RALPH
What crush?
DIANA
Her on him, I meant.
RALPH
Oh.
ISOBEL
No. But one, I don’t think that’s what he was doing, and two, even if he was, it’s understandable.
RALPH
Well, his boyfriend put a stop to that.
DIANA
Him being gay —
RALPH
Her being straight.
DIANA
Right. If only.
LINC
So just cut him some slack, even if he’s wrong.
ISOBEL
There are ways to confront prejudice without bludgeoning people, yes.
RALPH
If only what?
DIANA
If only crushes just ended when they didn’t make sense.
RALPH
You mean she — ?
DIANA
A little.
RALPH
Still?
DIANA
Yup.
RALPH
Damn. Wish I could inspire —
DIANA
What?
RALPH
You know, something like that. Someone — falling for me.
DIANA
Oh.
RALPH
Yeah.
LINC
What if I went around saying “wife” and “girlfriend” like that all the time?
ISOBEL
You’d be pretty much as annoying as you are now, and you wouldn’t gain any allies. The point is to make allies, right, not just alienate anyone who doesn’t tow the party line?
Now DIANA is on the defensive.
DIANA
Why, what did you think I meant?
RALPH
About?
DIANA
Crushes. A crush. That crush, I mean.
RALPH
Dunno — just, you know, people have crushes on her, too, so — I mean, you know, no one at the moment, that I’m aware of.
DIANA
Oh.
RALPH
Why, do you know about anyone who — ?
DIANA
No. Just curious. None of my business.
RALPH
Mine either, I guess.
LINC
He doesn’t make light of your beliefs.
ISOBEL
No, I have my friends for that.
LINC
Now who’s being sensitive?
Both RALPH and DIANA look at ISOBEL, not catching the depth of each other’s attachment.
DIANA
Still.
RALPH
Yeah.
DIANA
Easy to see why someone might —
RALPH
Yeah.
ISOBEL and LINC turn on RALPH and DIANA.
ISOBEL
What are you two talking about over there?
RALPH and DIANA
Nothing.
LINC guides RALPH off in one direction, at the same time ISOBEL guides DIANA off in the opposite direction.
LINC
Shirts.
ISOBEL
Shoes.
RALPH
Bye.
RALPH shrugs to DIANA as LINC pulls him off into the dark.
(photo: 2004 production by Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (Edinboro, PA); l-r, Seth A. Porterfield as Ralph, Alicia Rutkowski as Diana, Jessica Surdyk as Isobel, and John Mitchell as Linc)
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