A Short Play About a Man I Used to Love
Shayne Benowitz
CHARACTERS
WOMAN
MAN
In 2018, Woman is thirty-six, Man is thirty-nine.
2018
SCENE ONE
Miami. 2018. Winter.
Night.
A living room in a one-bedroom apartment, dimly lit. A small kitchen with counter, stage right. A round dining table, center stage.
A knock at the door, off stage right.
Silence.
Another knock, rat-a-tat-tat.
MAN enters stage left from offstage bedroom wearing a cotton bathrobe. He takes his time, wipes down the kitchen counter, arranges a stack of papers. Finally, he opens the door and…
WOMAN: (Bursting in, breezy.) I knew you’d be in a bathrobe.
She wears a silk green shift dress with long sleeves and strappy heels.
I only came for the midnight snack. (Standing at a distance, appraising MAN.)
MAN: It’s late.
WOMAN: I know it’s late… This isn’t exactly what I had in mind when you said dinner.
Pause.
I didn’t mean for it to be so late. I was trying really hard not to come here at this hour.
MAN: I know. I know. Can I make you something?
WOMAN: Yes.
Takes her heels off.
You know, I went to the wrong floor.
MAN: (Distractedly.) You what?
WOMAN: I went to the wrong floor.
Pause.
I was in the elevator coming up to 19 and then I panicked and hit 9. I couldn’t remember your floor. I haven’t been here in so long… It wasn’t until I’d already knocked on the door that I realized it was all wrong. And then this little old woman answered!
MAN: (Chuckles.) Did you scare her? Did she want to know why a drunk lady was banging on her door?WOMAN: (Laughs.) Oh, I was perfectly polite.
Pause.
And I’m not drunk… (Smiles.) I mean, maybe I’ve had a little wine, but…
MAN: What do you want? I can make you avocado toast.
WOMAN: That sounds good.
MAN: Or I have these Trader Joe’s Indian meals—
WOMAN: No.
MAN: That was decisive.
WOMAN: Well—
MAN: Are you okay?
WOMAN: Yes.
Moves to the other side of the kitchen counter where a pile of books are stacked. She casually thumbs through them.
Do you realize how long it’s been since I was inside your apartment?
MAN: How long has it been?
WOMAN: A year.
MAN: No.
WOMAN: Yes—maybe not quite a year, but nearly. Does it not feel that long to you?
Pause.
MAN: How was your party?
WOMAN: Oh, it was fine. Same boring people eating the same free food and drinking the same free wine, pretending to be excited about some new restaurant that probably won’t even exist in another six months. Nothing ever lasts in that space; I don’t know why.
Pause.
No—it was fun. The food was actually good, but I didn’t get enough.
MAN: Your fabulous life…
WOMAN: (Smiles demurely.) How was your dinner?
MAN: Good.
Pause.
WOMAN: Yes…?
MAN: My uncle and cousins are in town from Colombia. So it was just family time.
WOMAN: Your mom cooked?
MAN: Yeah.
Pause.
WOMAN: (Picks up a book.) ‘Streetcar.’
Sits at table. Flips through the pages.
Should I do a Blanche monologue while you prepare my meal? I just happened to open to a page with a Blanche monologue. I love that you have ‘Streetcar.’ I love Tennessee Williams.
MAN: Me too.
Pause.
I was in ‘The Glass Menagerie’ in high school.
WOMAN: Were you? (Smiles.)
Pause.
Who were you? Let me guess. You could definitely play either part. You could have been the Gentleman Caller, but I would have cast you as the brother. What was his name?
MAN: I want to be Stanley.
WOMAN: (Laughs.) So you can scream, Stella!!!!!!????
MAN: Yeah. Do you like your avocado smashed up?
WOMAN: Yes. That works.
Pause.
What other way is there? Unless… (Teasing.) Can you slice the avocado precisely into thin, neat slivers and then drizzle it carefully with olive oil and sea salt?
MAN: I can do that.
WOMAN: Okay. I like it that way, too.
MAN: I think Tennessee was living in Miami when he wrote Streetcar.
WOMAN: That’s highly possible. He was a South Florida guy, you know. He lived in Key West for years. I read somewhere that he’d go for a swim at the beach at the end of Duval Street every morning—said the saltwater refreshed him—and then he’d spend the rest of the morning writing. Isn’t that dreamy?
Pause.
In fact (remembering, excited), I have a poem by him that nobody knows about.
MAN: Oh, do you? He wrote poetry?
WOMAN: He was an artist. He did all sorts of things. He was a painter, too. His work is… abstract… kind of like Chagall, but more… muted.
Pause.
Can I read you the poem? I think you would love it.
MAN: Sure.
WOMAN: So, you know how I go down to Key West every January for that literary festival? Well, there’s this party at this old man’s house. He’s ancient. He’s at least a million years old. It’s a miracle, I think, every year that he’s still alive.
MAN chuckles.
Seriously.
MAN: Do you like your bread lightly toasted?
WOMAN: That’s fine.
MAN: Well, how do you like it?
WOMAN: I don’t really have a toasting preference. Medium toasted?
MAN: I like mine lightly toasted.
WOMAN: My Dad likes his heavily toasted.
Pause.
In fact, you two are the only people I know who have toasting preferences. (Scrolling through her phone, looking for the poem.) Anyway, this man lives in this crazy, eccentric loft. It’s like—you would love it—it’s kind of like your house, but more… (Looks around the room, with a wave of her arm.) on a grander scale. It’s eclectic. It’s like a glass menagerie. You’ve got an original Picasso next to some cardboard poster of Elizabeth Taylor, next to this strange aviary with fake birds inside…
Stands. Walks to MAN in kitchen.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure he and Tennessee were lovers and I found this photocopied poem inside a glass frame on a side table.
Shows him a picture on her phone.
See.
MAN: Oh, it’s handwritten?
WOMAN: Yeah. And see the signature, TW.
MAN: Who’s that?
WOMAN: Tennessee Williams!
MAN: (Chuckles.) I know. I know.
WOMAN: It’s really beautiful. Okay. Can I read it to you?
MAN: Yes, sit down.
WOMAN: (Sits back at table.) Okay. ‘Three.’ (Looking up at MAN). It’s called ‘Three.’ See, this is where I get a little shy.
MAN moves to WOMAN. Bends down and kisses her. WOMAN clutches his arm and pulls him to her. They hold a long embrace.
MAN: Read it.
WOMAN: (Slightly stunned.) Okay. ‘Three.’
Trembling, but expressive, reading.
“One I kept,
Two I lost,
Three is sheltered
Under frost.
One I tired of,
Two still wanted.
Three the starry
Meadows haunted.
One was faithful,
Two was clever.
Three stayed in
My heart forever.”
Looks up at MAN who is watching her.
See, isn’t that pretty? Did you like it?
MAN: Yes.
WOMAN: It’s just so simple and sweet and…
MAN: I like it.
Pause.
I love your dress.
WOMAN: Do you? Thank you. It’s new.
MAN: Yes, it’s very elongating.
WOMAN: You think it makes me look taller?
MAN: I think it makes you look longer.
WOMAN: Elongating. Longer. Yes. Thank you. I thought you would like it.
MAN: Do you want something to drink?
WOMAN: Champagne.
MAN: Do you really want Champagne?
WOMAN: Yes…
MAN: I have Corona.
WOMAN: I’ll take that, too. Will you split it with me?
MAN: Or I have an IPA.
WOMAN: I don’t really care.
MAN: They’re two very different flavors.
WOMAN: I know that. I just don’t care.
MAN pulls the Corona out of the fridge.
Actually, I’ll have the IPA.
MAN: (Irritated.) See what you just did there.
WOMAN: (Defensive.) Whatever. I’m trying to be decisive.
Stands. Walks to kitchen.
I know you hate it when I don’t know what I want.
MAN: No, I don’t.
WOMAN: Yes, you do. You get mad at me.
Peering in the fridge.
Actually, wait, is that white wine in the door?
MAN: Is it?
WOMAN: It looks like it. Is it still good?
MAN: I don’t know.
WOMAN: (Takes a sip directly from the bottle.) Tastes fine to me. I’ll have that. It’s closest to what I’ve been drinking all night. Will you have some with me?
MAN: No.
WOMAN: Are you sure? Please?
MAN: (Serves her the avocado toast and wine and sits at table opposite her.) Do you know who Donald Justice is?
WOMAN: Do I?
Pause.
I don’t know? Is he a writer?
MAN: A poet. He’s from Miami.
WOMAN: From Miami like today or from Miami a long time ago?
MAN: A long time ago.
WOMAN: Good.
MAN: (Chuckles.) Can I read you one of his poems?
WOMAN: You’re going to read me a poem? Yes. I would love that.
MAN: (Reaches for book.) It starts with an epigraph.
Shows it to her.
WOMAN: (Looking at text.) Paris. (Smiles at MAN.)
It's long.
Reads.
“‘Variations on a Text by Vallejo’
Me moriré en Paris con aguacero...”
I wasn’t sure if that was French or Spanish at first. (Laughs.)
MAN smiles at her.
(Translating.) I… hurt myself in Paris with… no water?
MAN: (Chuckles.) Close. I will die in Paris in a downpour…
WOMAN: Oh.
Pause
Wow. Yes, read it to me.
MAN: (Reads poem.)
“I will die in Miami in the sun,
On a day when the sun is very bright,
A day like the days I remember, a day like other days,
When I took out this paper and began to write,
Never before had anything looked so blank,
My life, these words, the paper, the gray Sunday;
And my dog, quivering under a table because of the storm,
Not understanding, and my wife slept.
Donald Justice is dead. One Sunday the sun came out,
It shone on the bay, it shone on the white buildings,
While one of the diggers, in the still shade of the palms,
Put his blade into the earth
To lift a few clods of dirt, the black marl of Miami,
Speaking in Spanish softly, out of respect.”
Pause.
WOMAN: I love it.
Pause.
Why do you love it?
Pause.
Do you think you’ll die in Miami?
MAN: Probably.
WOMAN: (Laughs.) Tell me more.
MAN: Nothing more to say. It’s just a poem I’ve always loved.
Pause.
WOMAN: I think Donald Justice could have lived in your building… The bay, the white buildings…
Pause.
You just need a little dog… and a wife. (Looks at him pointedly.)MAN smiles at her, making eye contact. Then stands returning to the kitchen, wiping down the counters.
Pause.
Should we do a scene from ‘Streetcar?’
MAN: Yes, but not now.
WOMAN: Okay, but you’d want to do that sometime?
MAN: Yeah, it would be fun.
WOMAN: (Smiling.) I think so, too.
MAN: How are the avocados? Did I slice them to your liking?
WOMAN: I think so. It’s delicious. Thank you. Will you have some?
MAN: No. (Sitting back down at the table next to her.)
WOMAN: It’s such an incredible play. I should really reread it.
MAN: You can take it home with you.
WOMAN: I think I’ll leave it here.
Pause.
I feel like I’m in a play right now.
MAN: Really?
WOMAN: Yeah.
MAN: Why?
WOMAN: I don’t know…
Pause.
Everything is very… stylized.
Pause.
Sitting across the table looking at you all handsome... I feel like we’re on a set. The way you answered the door in your bathrobe…
MAN: (Tenderly.) You look beautiful.
WOMAN: What?
MAN: You look beautiful.
WOMAN: Thank you.
Pause.
I like this wine glass. It’s very unusual.
MAN: You’ve had wine from them before.
WOMAN: Have I?
Pause.
See—that’s great dialogue. (Laughs.) Someone should be writing this down…
Pause.
I don’t know… I remember drinking red wine with you here on our first date, the first date after we met. I was so nervous. Remember? I wore a black sweater dress even though it was way too hot for that…
MAN: I remember.
WOMAN: And you were in all black, head to toe. You were going to take me out to dinner, but you kept pouring red wine and we never left the house. You ordered us a pizza instead… I don’t remember if it was these glasses…
Pause.
Maybe.
Pause.
MAN: (Standing. Reaching for her hand. Gently.) Let’s get ready for bed.
WOMAN: (Standing, facing MAN with her hands in his. Quietly, not making eye contact.) Have you had any significant love affairs in my absence?
MAN: They’ve all been insignificant in the wake of you.
Pause.
WOMAN smiles, looking up at MAN shyly.
Don’t you think that’s a good way to put it?
WOMAN: In the wake of me?
MAN: Yeah.
WOMAN: Yes, I like it.
Pause.
Was I a significant love affair?
MAN: You were.
WOMAN: I know.
Pause.
Lights down.
2018 Later
SCENE TWO
Next morning.
Same apartment. Bathroom is center stage, bedroom stage right.
Spotlight on MAN center stage, a towel around his waist, at his bathroom counter. He’s going through his morning routine, shaving, etc…
WOMAN lies in bed wearing his cotton robe, dimly lit.
MAN: If I had a friend who went fishing all day, came home drunk, got into fights at bars, you wouldn’t be impressed, you wouldn’t want me to hang out with him… but because it’s a story about Hemingway, you think it’s romantic.
WOMAN: I don’t know… I knew plenty of men like that in Key West…
MAN freezes.
Addressing audience.
And I loved them all.
Pause.
(Standing.) But I’m not going to tell him that. I don’t have to. All I have to do is say Key West and men in the same breath and he knows what it means.
(To MAN) Whatever. I love Hemingway. Why can’t you just let me romanticize him?
(Back to audience.) But he had me stumped. I knew he was right. What I wanted to tell him, but couldn’t… (Walking to MAN, still frozen.) You’re right, my love. You’re right. I love you because you always find a way to disagree with me. And you’re not a drunk. You’re a good man. (Wrapping her arms around him from behind.) Come here, let me touch you.
Narrow spotlight shines down on small stainless steel trashcan, catching WOMAN’S attention. Her expression changes to distress and she lets go of MAN, looking at him with hurt.
Lights down.
2017 Six months earlier
SCENE THREE
South Beach. 2017. Spring.
Morning.
Different apartment. Same set as Scene Two: bathroom is center stage, bedroom stage right.
Narrow spotlight on trashcan widens to encompass WOMAN inside the bathroom of her New Lover’s apartment. She wears same cotton robe. The entire scene is her monologue. MAN from the last scene remains onstage throughout, reading a book in bed, dimly lit. The New Lover does not appear.
WOMAN: (Standing at bathroom counter. Her gaze is focused on trashcan as if in a trance, business of stepping on pedal to discard a tissue or makeup remover wipe, then snaps out of it. As if talking to self in mirror, addressing audience out.) These men and their grooming products… Look at this immaculate bathroom on the second floor of my New Lover’s townhouse—a townhouse! In South Beach! (Aside.) I’ve always enjoyed the real estate voyeurism aspect of dating... (Picking up a bottle from the counter. She’s snooping around.) He uses the same Crew pomade as my first love from college…
Pause.
Lots of them have. (Putting it down.)
Pause.
He also uses the same Tom’s natural deodorant as The Last One (Looks at MAN sitting on bed. He’s “The Last One” in this story.), sticky and totally ineffective… (Laughs.) I used to swipe it on in the morning before leaving his apartment. The only reason I didn’t mind how uncomfortable it made my armpits feel all day was because it was a constant, tactile reminder of our morning together, of whose bed I slept in, that it was his hands and his mouth that were on my body before his sticky deodorant… that a full day had not yet passed without physical contact.
Pause.
I wonder where their organic inclinations originated…
MAN: (Reading from bed, as if in voiceover)
“One I kept,
Two I lost,
Three is sheltered
Under frost.”
Pause.
Anyway, they both smell amazing, each in his own intoxicating way… despite that terrible deodorant. (Laughs.) Pheromones, I guess.
Pause.
(Remembering.) They also share an affinity for Voluspa candles. And I wonder if maybe I’m not the first girl they both dated. Maybe some other common girlfriend from their past introduced them both to Voluspa. (Aside, snarky.) Some girl with subpar taste. I wonder if I’ll be around long enough to turn this one on to the superiority of Diptyque.
Pause.
I never had the chance with The Last One.
Pause.
(Looks at MAN.) The Last One, he had those little bottles of Malin + Goetz in his medicine cabinet—you know, the little white bottles with ingredients like… celery root and… tomato seed in bold green or red font, the kind of bottles that hotels like the Mondrian stock.
Pause.
My Love in Key West had them, too. They both took so much pride in in their stupid little Malin + Goetz bottles. Like it was something special. Wanted my opinion about them, my approval. Wanted to impress me, I guess…
Pause.
The Last One loved asking me questions about my beauty products. ‘What does moisturizer do? What do serums do?’ He was never satisfied with my answers. They… moisturize. (Laughs.) I felt like he wanted me to compose some flowery ad copy that I didn’t have the vocabulary for when all I ever wanted to sell him was… me. (Selling.) Yes, I am a uniquely bottled woman, a rare blend of down-to-earth sweetness with notes of intelligence and natural savvy, bathed and perfumed in the finest products. I will moisturize you and make you feel young again. I’m the only product you’ll ever need.
Pause.
(Reminiscing, mournful.) I loved my morning routine with him… more than any man I’ve ever known. Our bathing ritual was holy, a wordless ceremony. We’d take turns under the water, soaping each other up. Sometimes he’d comb the tangles out of my hair. He’d get out first and I’d turn up the temperature. I liked it hotter than he did. When I got out, he always had one of his big, fluffy towels waiting for me. His hair was thick and wavy like mine, so I could use his hair products—the oils and creams and gels that the woman who cut his hair sold him.
Pause.
I wonder how she described them to him…
Pause.
He’d get mad at me for never putting things back in their place, his little bottles, his deodorant. My excuse: It’s not my house. I don’t know where things go. His rebuttal: But you know where you got them from… (Laughs.)
Pause.
I loved arguing with him about nothing, walking around his apartment naked in the mornings, standing by his closet door while he deliberated on what to wear that day…
Pause.
I think part of me was always scared to dig too deep. Afraid of what I might find if I lingered too long inside his drawers and medicine cabinet. I didn’t want to examine their contents too closely.
Pause.
You know, I introduced My Love in Key West to the Mondrian—back when the Mondrian was still a place where people went, back when Asia de Cuba was in the lobby and even if you had a reservation they’d make you wait an hour for your table like it was nothing, like they were doing you a favor. (Laughs.) They had this great lamb dish with sticky rice steamed in a banana leaf. He loved it, My Love in Key West. He was a giant man, but he acted like a little boy. So excited every time we were together. You know, the Mondrian was supposed to be my fresh start, the hotel I stayed at to look for apartments in South Beach. But he followed me up from Key West. Showed up at my door a month after I’d moved in, said he missed me, said he couldn’t stop thinking about me. So I took him to dinner at the Mondrian—well, I made the reservation, anyway. And he was wowed. When I left Key West, he and I were just great friends. But all of that changed after he came looking for me in South Beach. I thought he was The One, that he’d always been The One. Of course, this was how it was always meant to be.
Pause.
Later… he’d check into the Mondrian with the woman he was with before me… the woman he was supposed to be leaving the entire time we were together… the woman he is still with today. She’s a vegetarian, so their indulgence was chocolate cake back in the room. I don’t remember why I know that, a fight, some love note I found tucked away in his nightstand, that time she secretly flew back to the island to catch us red-handed…?
Pause.
(Growing angry.) And then I had to pretend like I didn’t know where those little bottles of Malin + Goetz came from. I tried leaving my mark in his bathroom, too, a box of tampons, hoping she’d get the hint. That I wasn’t going to give up without a fight either.
Pause.
Two years we were together and I didn’t understand it was an affair until long after it was over.
Pause.
Whenever I saw those little bottles of Malin + Goetz in The Last One’s medicine cabinet, I’d get so mad. It burned me up inside. I wanted to know: where did he get them from, what hotel, how long ago and who was he with—
MAN’S: (Reading from bed, as if in voiceover.)
“One I tired of,
Two still wanted.
Three the starry
Meadows haunted.”
Pause.
(Worked up, becoming unhinged.) This one, this New Lover, this handsome architect with his immaculate bathroom in this beautiful two-story townhouse in South Beach, he has Living Proof hair products. And I know they’re from the same salon in Wynwood where we both get our haircut. But I wonder… who turned him onto that salon in the first place? His ex-fiance? Did she forget to take her shampoo and conditioner with her when she left? Just like the books she left downstairs with her handwriting in the margins? He certainly doesn’t need such nice products for his short, thin blonde hair. And anyway, he goes to some Cuban barbershop in South Beach now where, (aside) funnily enough, they also shape his eyebrows… So how long have those bottles been sitting in his shower?
Pause.
There’s a framed portrait of her, his ex-fiance, right outside the bathroom door, right there (pointing)! He drew it with an inscription in his sharp-angled architect’s handwriting, the same handwriting that’s scrawled on little love notes for me downstairs whenever I come over and he’s already in bed… It’s propped against the wall right there, stacked with other framed pictures he’s taken off the walls. (Pause.) I still haven’t mustered up the courage to ask him about it. But how could he be so careless? To leave that portrait there in plain sight for me to see? My Love in Key West was just as careless. Clues everywhere.
Pause.
There’s this movie, The Kids Are All Right, where Julianne Moore and Annette Bening are together and Julianne Moore has an affair with Mark Ruffalo, a man they track down because he was the anonymous sperm donor of their now teenage children. Annette Bening finds out because she recognizes her wife’s red hair in Mark Ruffalo’s shower drain.
Pause.
It blew my mind.
Pause.
That detective work… How did she know to look there? How did she know what it meant?
Pause.
I once slept with a Fisherman in Key West during Fantasy Fest—even though I knew he had a girlfriend. I couldn’t resist… We’d dated before, casually. It all started with a wild night during another Fantasy Fest—this ten-day-long party at the end of October where you can get away with wearing little more than body paint and Mardi Gras beads. (Reminiscing.) It was some of the best, most athletic, satisfying, marathon, I-can-still-fantasize-about-it-today sex I’d ever had. We pulled a towel rack off the wall. (Laughs.) The next morning, I floated in his pool in my sheer white leotard, the only piece of my costume that was still intact, glitter swirling off my body, soothing my hangover, looking up at the blue sky through the tangled canopy of trees. And there he sat on the pool’s edge, his beautiful shirtless torso, feet in the water, watching me. He had a great little conch cottage and I lived right around the corner… (Trailing off.) Anyway, I don’t make a habit of sleeping with other women’s boyfriends. In fact, that’s the only time I’ve ever done it, knowingly. But… she was an ex he’d gotten back together with and she wasn’t in town. And I was an ex and I didn’t live there anymore, so it all felt very… what difference does it make? Fidelity was never a highly valued currency on that island. Afterwards, he was meticulous about disposing of the evidence, gathering up the condom wrappers and taking out the trash.
Pause.
I was impressed. He knew what he was doing. It had never once occurred to me to go sniffing around for the condom detritus of other women in my boyfriends’ trashcans… or for suspicious hairs in the sink. But from then on I did …
Pause.
It’s why, one morning, in The Last One’s apartment—(Looks at MAN while spotlight narrows in on trashcan, WOMAN’s eyes follow. She can pantomime the following action or simply tell the story.) a morning when the sun was very bright, a morning when I wanted so badly to make him all mine, a morning like other mornings—my foot lingered on the pedal that lifted the lid of that small, stainless steel trashcan, with its clear liner that he ties in a tidy little knot… and I found exactly what I was looking for, exactly what I was terrified I would find.
MAN: (Standing, walks over to WOMAN, reciting the poem’s final stanza to her. They face each other. She watches him and listens.)
“One was faithful,
Two was clever.
Three stayed in
My heart forever.”
They hold eye contact for a beat.
WOMAN: (To MAN.) He probably will die in Miami. (Back out to audience. MAN slowly retreats back to bed.) And I… I probably will not. That man, that white building by the bay, that was not going to be my final stop. (Pause.) And that morning, everything felt… so…
Long, mournful pause, grappling for the word.
Blank.
(Snaps out of it.) I remember hearing that The Fisherman in Key West and his ex broke up again shortly after that Fantasy Fest and I thought, she must’ve found the evidence. She must’ve figured it out, anyway. Women know. We just do.
Pause.
A few months after The Last One and I broke things off, I was naked again in his bathroom one morning and I found a bottle of my face wash in his medicine cabinet that I had no idea I’d left behind… So who did all of these other little bottles belong to?
Lights down
END
Shayne Benowitz is a features journalist, travel writer, essayist and playwright. Her writing has appeared in Catamaran Literary Reader, Conde Nast Traveler, Afar, Nat Geo Traveler, the Miami Herald, the New York Post, The Telegraph and elsewhere. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College in May 2020 and also holds a BA in Drama and Sociology from the University of Georgia. She lives in Manhattan with her dog Rascal.