PINK ROSES

by Karen Macklin

 
(MARK is sitting on a bench, looking out at the audience. He is holding a
pink rose. There are 19 dead roses in a pile on the stage, but off to the side. He is dressed for February. KATE enters.)

KATE
Cold winter this year, isn’t it?

MARK
Hi. (KATE smiles back.) Yes, it’s pretty cold. (Fumbling a bit. Handing her the rose.) I brought this for you.

KATE
Thank you.

MARK
(Amazed.) You never change.

KATE
Neither do you.

MARK
Oh, I don’t know. I look in the mirror lately, and I see all of these lines, these gray whiskers, sprouting like little weeds. (Beat.) But, thanks. How are you, Kate? Are you … okay?

KATE
You ask me that every time I see you. I’m fine. It was so long ago. Really. (Pause.) How are you?

MARK
The last few months have been rough. My sister died in a climbing accident. Maybe you already—

KATE
I heard. I’m really sorry. You two were close, I remember. Didn’t she go to Australia on an internship? I remember thinking how adventurous she was.

MARK
She also thought Mel Gibson was hot.

KATE
It sounded so exotic to me: Australia. I hadn’t ever even been out of the country.

MARK
You hadn’t? I didn’t know. (Pause.) I— I still think about you, Kate …it’s weird … I think about what you wore the last time I saw you. Your pink coat. That pin in your hair, with the butterfly on it. The small diamond on your necklace that sat right in the center of your collarbone—

KATE
It wasn’t real, you know.

MARK
What do you mean?

KATE
I mean, the diamond wasn’t real. I paid fifteen dollars for it at the gift shop.

MARK
(Laughs.) Oh. (Beat.) I never told you, but I was terrified of you. For three years, I silently stalked you at your gymnastic meets. You seemed so strong, almost inhuman, like something to be observed, but never touched. Then, Doug, he pushed me to ask you on a date—he said I was going to get arrested if I kept following you around without consent. Just ask her, man, he said. Can’t stop now!

KATE
That’s funny. You could have had any girl. In fact, you did have quite a few, didn’t you?

MARK
I did. I definitely did. (Pause.) So, why did you go out with me?

KATE
Why? I don’t know. You were good looking, I guess. And very persuasive, if I remember correctly.

MARK
You still could have said no.

KATE
I guess I could have.

MARK
Any self-respecting girl would’ve said no. Why did you have to be like the rest of them and say yes?

KATE
(Confused about where he’s going with this.) Because I did.

MARK
(A bit angrily.) It was stupid, you know.

KATE
(Surprised.) You’re calling me stupid?

MARK
I’m just saying you should have had more sense. You can’t just say yes to—

KATE
I should go.

(KATE drops the flower on the floor and starts to exit.)

MARK
Wait.
KATE
It’s hard for me to come here, Mark.

MARK
I know. Don’t leave yet. Please.

KATE
I don’t understand what you want.

MARK
Kate, this year, it’s just been—fuck, everything feels so heavy all the time. I was trying something new, I thought—it was a game, to trick myself … into believing a different story.

KATE
That it was my fault.

MARK
Yes. (Beat.) But wait—please—we were talking about that night—

KATE
You were talking about that night.

MARK
You were wearing that pink coat. (Back in the memory now.) You swept your skirt to the side as you swung your legs into my car and sat down. (Smiles.) Then you looked right into your lap.

KATE
I was nervous.

MARK
I gave you a rose. For Valentine’s Day.

KATE
You did. It was pink. (Looks to the floor.) Like that one. It matched my coat.

MARK
I wanted to kiss you on the cheek but I thought it would be too forward.

KATE
Instead you just started talking. I never saw a guy talk so much and so fast. The words were toppling all over themselves. I don’t think you were breathing.

MARK
I was nervous, too.

KATE
You talked about anything you could think of. About your experiments at the lab. About Pearl Jam, and whether Eddie Veder had sold out. About how your sister had gone to the Australian outback to do an internship in wildlife preservation. You were so proud of her.
MARK
(Remembering his sister.) She had just left that afternoon.

KATE
And then we got on the freeway.

MARK
I was taking you to this little, family-owned Italian restaurant my grandmother took me as a kid.

KATE
And maybe it was something about the speed, but you calmed down. You stopped talking. You took your right hand off the steering wheel to hold my left.

MARK
I shouldn’t have done that.

KATE
No—I liked it. It was February and I didn’t have gloves on and your hand was warm. We drove like that for a long time. And then, there was that jolt. And the next thing I remember, your hand was holding the back of my head up, like a father holding up the head of his newborn child. And you were looking at me like that. With that same sense of wonder and confusion and terror.

MARK
I can still see the trickle of blood coming out of your mouth. You were suddenly so human, so fucking fragile. And you were in pain. I could see it in your face, Kate. You were in so much pain.

KATE
It was an accident.

MARK
I know, but—

KATE
Why do we keep meeting here?

MARK
Because I still think about you, I still care about you.

KATE
It’s been 20 years, Mark. There’s nothing left between us. The truth is, there never really was anything. We just had that one drive. (Pause.) You need to stop coming here. We both do.

MARK
Kate, wait, I—

KATE
(She picks up the rose, hands it to him, kisses him on the cheek.) It was a lovely date. Really. It was short, but it was one of the best. (She exits. MARK kneels down at the 19 dead roses, what we now understand to be her grave, and places the rose there. Lights out. End pla

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