About Christine

by Ginger Pierce Davis

setting: the beach time: Saturday night, almost midnight, present day

(Dim lights come up, blue tinted with silver spotlight lightly shining.)

TEVOR (howls at the moon) God! I canÕt even stand thinking about her! Look at that moon! ItÕs so huge I could just reach out and grab it...find out what itÕs trying to tell me. DonÕt you think? Damn, I wish she could have come out here tonight! ÒChristine.Ó Have you ever heard a sound more beautiful? It sounds like something out of an old English novel, a show, a love story, Jekyll and Hyde or something.

SELENA YouÕre thinking of Phantom of the Opera, and it was written in France, not England. Besides, she hates her name.

TEVOR But sheÕs so gorgeous! ItÕs almost too much to look at her. Every time I see her itÕs like beholding an angel. I am but a lowly servant, unfit to gaze upon her beauty. But that hair, those huge, blue eyes!...

SELENA Hazel. Her eyes are hazel. They only turn green when sheÕs angry and theyÕre never blue.

TEVOR That body!

SELENA Tevor!

TEVOR I canÕt help it! She...she drives me crazy. SheÕs all I can think about! At night, I see her walking through my dreams. Every morning I wake up praying IÕll have the strength to talk to her. Damn it! Why couldnÕt she have been here tonight?

SELENA She went out, Tevor. On a date, remember? With one of your friends. She stood us both up. YouÕre not alone here.

TEVOR I have to see her again...soon. I donÕt think I can last the weekend without her. Without those eyes... Selena, I think IÕm in love.

SELENA Lust, maybe.

TEVOR Please, Selena, I need your help. YouÕre her best friend, you know her better than anybody. Put in a good word for me, tell her IÕm charming..witty..intelligent anything! YouÕre my only hope. IÕll love you forever.

SELENA You wonÕt.

TEVOR Well, IÕll be eternally indebted. Please? IÕll pine away from loneliness for her, my heart shattered into a million tiny fragments.

SELENA With me to pick up the pieces. YouÕre not the first.

TEVOR Ah, what light through yonder window breaks?

SELENA Stop, youÕre mutilating Shakespeare!

TEVOR It is the east and my Juliet is the sun.

SELENA YouÕre a disgrace to the theatre!

TEVOR It is my lady, Oh it is my love!

SELENA Stop! Stop!

TEVOR To sleep, perchance to dream...to dream of her...

SELENA At least stay in the same play!

TEVOR Get thee to a nunnery, woman!

SELENA O help him, ye sweet heavens! You barely even know her, you know.

TEVOR Selena!

SELENA ItÕs true! Tell me one good, solid thing you know about her. ThatÕs not physical.

TEVOR But that doesnÕt matter you see? We were born to be together. SheÕs my destiny...my life.

SELENA You didnÕt even know she existed until last year, and only then since I introduced you. And you never even showed any interest in her Ôtil lately. Why now?

TEVOR Selena, youÕre a girl, right? I mean, what do you think? On a scale of one to ten how would you rate me?

SELENA Actually Tevor, IÕve never really found you that attractive. Nothing personal.

TEVOR Seriously, have I got a chance? Am I just fooling myself? Selena, IÕm desperate! I need your help.

SELENA Why me? Why do I have to be the one to help you?

TEVOR You know her! Everybody knows about you two, youÕve been best friends since grade school. Who else would I go to? Selena, please? Help me out here?

SELENA Did it ever occur to you that maybe I donÕt want you two getting together? Did you ever think how it made me feel when she cancelled plans with us tonight, the minute she got a date and left me here to listen to you rant about nothing but her all night? Did she think about it? Maybe I am sick of hearing all of you talk to me about how gorgeous she is, how intelligent she is, how wonderful she is! DonÕt you think I know all that? Do you think I can possibly live every day of my life standing next to her and not realize? You donÕt know her! You donÕt know anything about her! None of you do. IÕm the only one who knows anything!

TEVOR Selena...

SELENA SheÕs mine! IÕm the one who is there for her. IÕm the one who sticks around, I donÕt run away like you do whenever things get rough. IÕve always been there for her! Who do you think held her hand when her father died last year? Or when her kitten got hit by a truck? Who do you think made her a dozen valentines in the fifth grade when she didnÕt get any? Where were you when she was in the hospital with a broken arm? Do you even know how she did that, Tevor? It was falling out of my treehouse when we were twelve years old!

TEVOR Selena, youÕre rambling, calm down.

SELENA When the first one of you broke her heart who do you think she ran to? Who do you think comforted her, and has, ever since? You come to me, telling me you love her. How can you love her? You donÕt know anything about her? But you all come, asking me to help, to let you get close, to let you hurt her all over again. YouÕre all the same. None of you know her, and none of you care.

(she freezes, there is a long pause, Tevor crosses to her and hesitantly puts a hand on her shoulder which she shrugs off)

TEVOR Listen...weÕd better go. (she shakes her head) ...IÕll talk to you later, okay?

(she does not react; he takes a few steps backwards then turns and starts to exit, pauses, turns and howls again; Selena turns back to him but he looks quickly at her and runs off)

-BLACKOUT-