by Kevin Schwendeman

Created on: October 24, 2009

(Lights up. A bus stop. There is a bench of the sort at a bus stop. JONATHAN is sitting on the bench, staring forward, deeply intrigued. ANNE enters in a flurry of motion balancing all the things typical morning commuters do i.e. messenger bag, gym bag, the paper, ipod, and of course coffee which she promptly drops.)

ANNE: Ah crap!

JONATHAN: Not the best way to start your day.

ANNE: Huh? Yeah. Sure.

JONATHAN: Hazelnut?

ANNE: I'm sorry?

JONATHAN: The coffee. Smells like Hazelnut.

ANNE: Oh. Yeah. It was.

(Pause)

JONATHAN: The coffee or the cream?

ANNE: Hm?

JONATHAN: The hazelnut. Was it hazelnut coffee or hazelnut cream?

ANNE: Look, I-does it matter?

JONATHAN: Well, yes.

(Pause)

JONATHAN: So?

ANNE: Coffee. Hazelnut coffee.

(JONATHAN nods knowingly and continues to look at ANNE on the brink of staring. Long pause)

ANNE: (turning away) Creep.

JONATHAN: Now that wasn't necessary.

ANNE: Where is this bus?

JONATHAN: It's just that you can tell a lot about a person by what they do to their coffee.

ANNE: They jack up the price of the bus pass and cut the service!

JONATHAN: My grandmother for example. Grew up in the Depression. Hard as nails.

ANNE: Someone should bail out the transit authority.

JONATHAN: Coffee. Black. Touch of whiskey.

(Silence. ANNE rummages in her bags, fidgets and fumes.)

JONATHAN: You're a much different story.

ANNE: (giving in) Is that so?

JONATHAN: Oh yes. Nothing like my grandmother.

ANNE: Well, that's a relief.

JONATHAN: You don't have her grit, well, I mean who does-but hazelnut? Never.

ANNE: And what's so bad about hazelnut?

JONATHAN: Nothing for a young professional woman with too many friends who works hard and plays harder and doesn't stop to breathe but to gasp before bull-rushing back into the fray. That person needs the comfort of the hazelnut. The sweetness, the soft aroma. Needs it. Because she doesn't get it anywhere else.

ANNE: Who do you think you are?

JONATHAN: Nobody.

ANNE: That's right you're nobody. Just a guy with apparently nowhere to go and nothing better to do than be a jackass to complete strangers. Smooth. Jackass.

(Pause)

JONATHAN: You don't know me very well at all.

ANNE: And you know me?

JONATHAN: Better than you think.

ANNE: Because you smelled my coffee. Brilliant! We should just send you off to negotiate with world leaders. You could derive all of their motives for the White House. "Excuse me, Kim Jong-Il. Before we discuss anything nuclear, one lump or two?"

JONATHAN: Don't be ridiculous.

ANNE: It's clear to me

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>