August: Osage County (6 page)

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Authors: Tracy Letts

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VIOLET: You’re just the prettiest thing. Thank you for coming to see me.

JEAN: No problem.

BARBARA: Ivy, I didn’t see you up there.

IVY
(Descending the stairs)
: It looked crowded.

BARBARA: God, you look good. Doesn’t she look good, Bill?

BILL: Yes, she does.

BARBARA: I love your hair, that looks great.

VIOLET: She had it straightened.

BARBARA: I know, it looks great.

(Ivy and Jean wave.)

IVY: Hi, Jean.

JEAN: Hi.

(Violet pulls Barbara into the living room. The others follow.)

VIOLET: Barbara, or Bill, it doesn’t matter, I need you to go through Beverly’s things and help me with some of this paperwork.

BARBARA: Well . . . we can do that, Mom, we’re here for a while.

IVY: I was going to help with that—

VIOLET: No, now that desk of his is such a mess and I get confused—

BILL: I’ll take care of it, Violet—

BARBARA
(To Charlie)
: Which room are you in?

MATTIE FAE: We’re headed back tonight.

VIOLET: You’re going back?

MATTIE FAE: We have to, Vi, we left in such a rush we didn’t get anyone to take care of those damn dogs.

VIOLET: You want to drive that hour and a half tonight?

MATTIE FAE: Not the way Charlie drives. Anyway, I know you want to spend some time with these girls.

VIOLET: Can’t you call someone about the dogs? Or how about Little Charles, can’t he take care of them?

CHARLIE: Well, yeah, I guess he could—

MATTIE FAE: No, he can’t, either. We have to get back.

CHARLIE: Maybe we should call him, Mattie Fae—

MATTIE FAE: We talked about this.

CHARLIE: I know, but—

MATTIE FAE
(To Violet)
: You’ve got all these people here and not enough beds—

VIOLET: You can stay at Ivy’s place.

IVY
(Beat)
: Yeah, sure. I’ve got room.

MATTIE FAE
(To Charlie)
: We talked about this.

BARBARA: You all can figure that out on your own. So, Mom? Jean can stay in the attic?

VIOLET: No, that’s where what’s-her-name lives.

IVY: Johnna.

BARBARA: Who’s Johnna?

VIOLET: She’s the Indian who lives in my attic.

BARBARA: She’s the what?

(Johnna enters.)

JOHNNA: Hi, I’m Johnna. Welcome home.

SCENE 2

Barbara, Bill and Violet are in the dining room with coffee and pie. Violet’s pills are starting to kick in.

Elsewhere in the house: Johnna reads a book in her attic bedroom; Jean listens to an iPod on the second-floor landing.

VIOLET: Saturday. Saturday morning. That girl, the Indian girl made us biscuits and gravy. We ate some, we . . . he walked out the door, that door right there. And that was it.

BARBARA: That was the last time you saw him.

VIOLET: I went to bed Saturday night and got up Sunday morning . . . still no Beverly. I didn’t make much of it, thought he’d gone out on a bender.

BARBARA: Why would he do that? Not like he couldn’t drink at home. Unless you were riding his ass.

VIOLET: I never said anything to him about his drinking, never got on him about it.

BARBARA: Really.

VIOLET: Barbara, I swear. He could drink himself into obliv-uh, obliv-en-em . . .

BARBARA: Oblivion.

BILL: So Sunday, still no sign of him . . .

VIOLET: Yes, Sunday, no sign. I started getting worried, don’tcha know, and that’s when I got so worked up about that safety deposit box. We kept an awful lot of cash in that box, some jewelry, expensive jewelry. I had a diamond ring in that box appraised at over seven thousand dollars—

BARBARA: Wait, wait, wait, I’m missing something, why do you care about the safety deposit box?

VIOLET: Well, I know what you’ll say about this, but. Your father and I had a urge-ment—arrangement. If something were to ever happen to one of us, the other one would go empty that safety deposit box.

BARBARA: Be
cause
. . .

BILL: It gets rolled into the estate, then goes to
probate
.

VIOLET: Right, that’s right—

BARBARA: You’re such a fucking cynic.

VIOLET: I knew you would
disapprove
—

BARBARA
(Impatient)
: Okay, fine, so what about the safety deposit box?—

VIOLET: I had to wait for the bank to open on Monday. And after I emptied that box, I called the police and reported him missing. Monday morning.

BARBARA: And you’re just now calling me, today, on
Thursday
.

VIOLET:
I
didn’t call you.

BARBARA: You had Ivy call me.
Five days later.

VIOLET: I didn’t want to worry you, honey—

BARBARA:
Jesus Christ.

BILL: Vi, you sure there wasn’t some event that triggered his leaving, some incident?

VIOLET: You mean like a fight.

BILL: Yes.

VIOLET: No. And we fought enough . . .
you
know . . . but no, he just left.

BARBARA: Maybe he just needed some time away from you.

VIOLET: That’s nice of you to say.

BARBARA: Hey, that’s no crime. Being married is hard.

BILL: Under the best of circumstances.

BARBARA: But nothing. Not, “See you later,” or “I’m taking a walk.”

(Violet shakes her head.)

Good old unfathomable Dad.

VIOLET: Oh. That man. What I first fell of with—fell in love with, you know, was his mystery. I thought it was sexy as hell. You knew he was the smartest one in the room, knew if he’d just say something . . . knock you out. But he’d just stand there, little smile on his face . . . not say a word. Sexy. BARBARA: Yeah, that “mystery” can cut both ways.

BILL: And you can’t think of anything different or unusual, or—

VIOLET: He hired this woman. He didn’t ask me, just hired this woman to come here and live in our house. Few days before he left.

BARBARA: You don’t want her here.

VIOLET: I don’t know what she’s doing here. She’s stranger in my house. There’s an
Indian
in my house.

BILL
(Laughing)
: You have some problem with Indians, Violet? VIOLET: I don’t know what to say to an Indian.

BARBARA: They’re called Native Americans now, Mom.

VIOLET:
Who
calls them that? Who
makes
that decision?

BARBARA: It’s what they like to be called.

VIOLET: They aren’t any more native than me.

BARBARA: In fact, they are.

VIOLET: What’s wrong with “Indian”?

BARBARA: Why is it so hard to just call people what they want?—

VIOLET: Let’s just call the dinosaurs “Native Americans” while we’re at it.

BARBARA: She may be an Indian, but she makes the best goddamn apple pie I ever ate in my life.

BILL: It is good, isn’t it?

BARBARA: Oh, man—

VIOLET: A cook? So he hired a cook? It doesn’t make any sense. We don’t eat.

BARBARA: That sounds healthy.

VIOLET: We eat, cheese and saltines, or a ham sandwich. But I can’t tell you the last time that stove, oh . . . turned on. Years.

BARBARA: And now you get biscuits and gravy. Kind of nice, huh?

VIOLET: Nice for you, now. But you’ll be gone soon enough, never to return.

BARBARA
(A warning)
: Mom.

VIOLET: When was the last time you were here?

BARBARA: Don’t get started on that—

VIOLET: Really, I don’t even remember.

BARBARA: I’m very dutiful, Mom, I call, I write, I send presents—

VIOLET: You do not
write
—

BARBARA: I send presents on birthdays and Mother’s Day—

VIOLET: Because you’re “dutiful.”

BARBARA: Don’t you quote me.

BILL: All right, now—

VIOLET: You’re grown-up people, growed-ups. You go where you want—

BARBARA: I have a lot of obligations, I have a daughter starting high school in a couple of—

VIOLET: That right? Last time I saw her she’s grade school—

BARBARA: I won’t talk about this—

VIOLET: I don’t care about you two, really. I’d just like to see my granddaughter every now and again.

BARBARA: Well, you’re seeing her now.

VIOLET: But your father. You broke his heart when you moved away.

BARBARA: That is wildly unfair.

BILL: Am I going to have to separate you two?

VIOLET: You know you were Beverly’s favorite; don’t pretend you don’t know that.

BARBARA: I don’t
want
to know that. I’d prefer to think my parents loved all their children equally.

VIOLET: I’m sure you’d prefer to think that Santy Claus brought you presents at Christmas, too, but it just isn’t so. If you’d had more than one child, you’d realize a parent always has favorites. Mattie Fae was my mother’s favorite. Big deal. I got used to it. You were your daddy’s favorite.

BARBARA: Great. Thanks.