Monday, October 2nd, 6:00pm
Jeff and Sandi (and everyone on the bus)
Jeff: So I’ve been thinking.
Sandi: About what?
Jeff: About where our relationship is going.
Sandi:(looks down at their hands clasped together) Do you think that’s a good idea?
Jeff: Are you happy with it the way it is? All this sneaking around?
Sandi: What is the alternative? Unless I quit my job at the dungeon, there’s no way you can go public with the fact that we’re dating.
Jeff: But we’re not doing anything wrong …
Sandi: Your superiors aren’t going to understand that. They’ll see only what’s on the surface.
Jeff: So what if … (gets up and kneels in the aisle beside her, a diamond ring in his hand) What if I asked you to marry me?
Sandi lifts her right hand to her mouth, her left is poised in front of Jeff.
Jeff: Life is much to short to let it pass us by worrying about what other people think. If you’ll say yes, it won’t matter what you do. Sandi, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you do me the great honour of becoming my wife?
Phil:(approaches Candice, who is sitting at the window) Mind if I sit here?
Candice: Go right ahead.
Phil: I’m sorry, I’m not very good at bus etiquette. I don’t take the bus.
Candice: Oh.
Phil: My car broke down.
Candice: That’s too bad.
Phil: I work in an office downtown, and I usually drive.
Candice: I see.
Phil: My car has been in the shop for a week now.
Candice: You must really miss it.
Phil: I do. They think it’s something to do with the alternator, but I think it’s a computer problem.
Candice:(nods) Ahh.
Phil: I work on computers all day so I know a thing or two about computers.
Candice: I see.
Phil: So what do you do for a living?
Candice: I’m a dominatrix.
Phil stares, mouth hanging open.
Candice: I work in a dungeon where I tie up men and occasionally women, and I torture them for money.
Phil, frozen, continues to stare.
Candice: I take it you’ve never tried it?
Phil takes out his cell phone and dials a number. Candice watches him.
Phil:(into the phone) Yeah, Discount Car Rental? Do you have any cars available? … Now. … Where? (holds the phone away from his ear and speaks to Candice, enunciating as though talking to a deaf person) What’s. The. Next. Stop?
Madigan:(looking out the window) So what makes you think Ken’s fooling around on you?
Barb: He’s just acting really weird lately.
Madigan:(regards Barb) Weird like what?
Barb: I don’t know. It’s just one of those things a wife notices. You wouldn’t understand.
Madigan: What does that mean?
Barb: Well, you know. You and Tom were never really happy.
Madigan: That doesn’t mean I wasn’t a wife to him.
Barb: Come on, Maddie. He never even loved you. How can you say you knew him at all and that you’d notice little things that a real wife does, when you couldn’t even comprehend that? And anyway, you weren’t even married.
Madigan:(turns to the window) Marriage is just a piece of paper.
Barb: You wouldn’t know though, would you? You’ve never been married. Ken loved me enough to put a ring on my finger and tell the whole world that he wanted to spend his life with me. Nobody’s ever done that for you.
Madigan:(looks sharply at Barb) And yet you think he’s fooling around on you!
Barb:(checks her fingernails) Eeh, it’s probably just my imagination.
Madigan: (stares out the window and mumbles) Don’t count on it.
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