Dialogues

IVAN: Look at me, Tiara…what do you truly see? TIARA: I see a warm, gentle face of a man who has enormous love in his heart. IVAN: That is a canvas held up over the face of the man I truly am. I raised you up as my own daughter, therefore you are prejudice against ill opinion of me. TIARA: Yes, I may be prejudice, but what I speak is truth, regardless. IVAN: You are a kind niece. TIARA: Uncle Ivan, you must stop beating yourself up. IVAN: Even if Eleanna comes through in time and her husband saves us, I assure you, he will wish to take ownership. TIARA: Ownership? IVAN: Of course. You can’t expect Mr. Clusterfield to simply hand over money and not take ownership. TIARA: Why not? IVAN: No man of any right mind should. TIARA: Would it be such a bad thing? IVAN: For him to take ownership? TIARA: Everything will still remain within the family’s keep. IVAN: Not in the way it should. I’ve failed my descendants. I am best to place a revolver in no other direction but my own. TIARA: Uncle! How can you utter such harmful words?! IVAN: …It’s true, it’s true! I cannot keep such thoughts inside myself any longer. Perhaps if I exclaim them, I won’t act upon them. Why didn’t I do something more? Why was all of this responsibility placed upon my head? It never should have been me. I wasn’t meant to take things over. Had I only known, I would have raised myself up differently as your father did, this way I would meet the cause head on, without lowly excuses. I am exhausted with this slow fading demise. TIARA: Eleanna will come through for us and when she does, promise me you will never speak in such tongue again…

MARVA: You wanna go out, do you? TOBEY: Just on the porch, so I can still hear you, in case you need me…is that alright? MARVA: It gets awfully lonely in here by my lonesome. It’s nice to know there’s someone in this house, other than me but, on a scale of one to ten, ten being the strongest, how bent are you on going outside? TOBEY: I’d say a twelve. MARVA: A twelve? TOBEY: Maybe even a fifteen. MARVA: My oh my. TOBEY: Can I? MARVA: Open that window there…a bit wider. TOBEY opens up the nearby window. Alight, I’ll give you the porch, but if I need ya, you MUST and I mean MUST, come runnin’ your linguine legs back in here. Understood? TOBEY: Why do I have linguine legs? MARVA: Cause you take after my father that way. He was built like you, or I should say you are built like him. TOBEY: He was small? MARVA: He grew into himself, but I can see how you’re shaping up just like he was. TOBEY: I don’t wanna look like linguine ma. MARVA: You ain’t gonna look like linguine, not permanently. You gonna look just like my daddy, you seen pictures of him, ain’t ya? TOBEY: Yeah. MARVA: Wouldn’t you like to grow up big and strong like him? TOBEY: Uh-huh.

KENDRA: It’s a quiet place to chat. DARLA: And then what? What then? KENDRA: We talk. DARLA: And then? KENDRA: We sometimes go for a walk, there’s a lovely park just across the road… DARLA: You puttin’ me on? KENDRA: Stop it, Mom. DARLA: Change your dress. KENDRA: Stop it, Mom. DARLA: Now you take off that dress before I take it off. KENDRA: Ha, ha, you wouldn’t dare. (DARLA rises from her couch) DARLA: (warning) You don’t take off my dress… KENDRA: …No. (DARLA lunges at Kendra and they struggle. Darla rips the dress) Oh, look what you did! DARLA: There you go. KENDRA: Why did you do this to me, Mom? I’m meeting Sam tonight! DARLA: Sam, who’s Sam? KENDRA: A fella I met that I been talking to! DARLA: How long you been talking? KENDRA: I don’t know! (KENDRA runs upstairs to her bedroom) DARLA: You ain’t going out. KENDRA: YES I AM!