4-Way Crush (Studpuppy)

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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