Daniel Heath
415.871.6813
daniel.heath@gmail.com

CRASHPAD

DIANE A woman in her 20s.
CECILY A woman in her 20s. Diane’s fraternal twin.

DIANE and CECILY are drinking coffee at DIANE’s loft apartment.

CECILY
…and I was listening to this guy in front of me talking to this girl about his phone, about what kind it was, about how many pixels, or whatever, and about the ones he didn’t get–he’s standing outside on a beautiful day talking to a woman about a phone he did not buy! And she’s just nodding along and making little noises of encouragement, like, “Mmm-hm,” and “Hmmmm,” and, “Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure,” and I feel so… unequipped? Like, is it possible that I am the freak here? I mean, my phone is held together with tape.

DIANE
Cecily–

CECILY
You look really tired.

DIANE
I have to go to work.

CECILY
Are you tired? Or is that, like, a thing you’re doing with eyeshadow?

DIANE
Why did you come over?

CECILY
I was in the neighborhood.

DIANE
You were not.

CECILY
I wanted to ask you something.

DIANE
What?

CECILY
Can I stay with you?

DIANE
No!

CECILY
But you’re my sister.

DIANE
That doesn’t make my apartment any bigger.

CECILY
My roommate has weird sex.

DIANE
All roommates have weird sex.

CECILY
No, like, really weird. And not just at night, either, it’s like, it’s four in the afternoon and I’m trying to enjoy some cold noodles and… The walls are really thin. Her boyfriend makes these really wrong noises, like one of those little snorty pug dogs.

DIANE
You can’t move in with me. I only have one room.

CECILY
It’s a big room! I’ll be really quiet.

DIANE
What if I want to have weird sex?

CECILY
I’ll go out in the hall.

DIANE
No.

CECILY
She shaves his back in the bathroom. And the bathroom door doesn’t quite fit, so I can hear, like, scrape, scrape scraaaape, scrape, scrape, scraaaaape, and they’re talking about their gross friends who like to get tied up in public, and he has a corset thing that he wears sometimes, and–

DIANE
I can’t.

CECILY
I bet you’d enjoy the company.

DIANE
I would not.

CECILY
But I feel kind-of repelled from that apartment. Like the Universe is saying, “child, you need to be in another place.”

DIANE
Or maybe you can just deal with it. The illusion that we are born with some natural right to happiness is one of civilization’s great fictions.

CECILY
But that is why we’ve got twin sisters! Who love us and makes us mac and cheese. Right?

DIANE
I have to go.

CECILY
Did you get a boyfriend? Is that why you don’t want me to come over?

DIANE
No.

CECILY
You are lying.

DIANE
I am not.

CECILY
Yes you are! I can always tell.

DIANE
I don’t have a boyfriend.

CECILY
What then?

DIANE
Nothing.

CECILY
What? Don’t pack up your bag. Don’t! Who is he?

DIANE
He’s married.

CECILY
Oh.

DIANE
He has a kid.

CECILY
Oh boy.

DIANE
It’s really bad. It’s ruining his life, too. Like, the whole thing. Like this is the kind of thing his kid will never forgive him for.

CECILY
Yeah, I thought something was up in a major way with you.

DIANE
Well congratulations. It is.

CECILY
Maybe you want to try getting a different boyfriend?

DIANE
I feel so… guilty? All the time. But I feel like this was something I was born to do. And how do you regret that?

CECILY
I don’t think you were born to do that. I don’t think your brain was built by God or whatever to be a little engine of misery.

DIANE
On the basis of what do you not think that?

CECILY
On the basis of I just don’t think so.

DIANE
I can’t have another person here.

CECILY
Does he come over all the time?

DIANE
Only once. And now I can barely stand it here. I see his face in everything.

CECILY
You can come stay with me.

DIANE
(Pause.) I can’t. Your roommates have weird sex.

CECILY
I wish we could just… combine. Like, backwards amoebas-splitting.

DIANE
We would just end up the worst of both.

CECILY
I hate your movies. But other than that, we can just glop back together.

DIANE
We’re fraternal. We were never the same glop.

CECILY
Let’s glop together anyway.

DIANE
I have to go to work.

CECILY
Hey. Diane. You can’t just…

DIANE takes her briefcase and goes to a door. She stops in front of it.

CECILY (continued)
That’s not the way out. That’s your closet.

DIANE
Right. I haven’t really been sleeping.

CECILY
It’s the door over there.

DIANE
I know.

CECILY
Okay. ‘Cause listen. I don’t know a lot of things about my life, like what my job is for, or what boys think about during sex. But if you’re gonna talk about what we were born to do, the one thing in this world I know I know is you. So can I stay?

DIANE
For one night.

CECILY
For a week?

DIANE
A night.

CECILY
I’ll pack for a week in case you change your mind.

DIANE exits.

END OF PLAY.

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