CHAPTER 1, SCENE 1

Scene opens to a brunette girl in a black dress in a nice restaurant.  She is compulsively picking and prodding the food on her plate with a fork.

Jeremy (Narration)

Her name is Courtney.  Wavy black hair. Full lips.  Killer body. She’s truly an accomplishment of Darwinian significance.   And with her stunning looks comes an unfortunate, yet appropriate calamity.  A life of unrelated dates and tragedies, I should have been keen enough to see this coming.  The girl draped in sparkling gold wrapping paper and shimmering tinsel ribbons…with the personality of a fucking brick.

Courtney inspects her meal with utter disdain

An icy nod hello is all I received upon our arrival.  I’ve been waiting for an invitation to speak ever since.  When the menus came, I could have sworn she almost smirked.  I’m still unsure what that meant, but from the events that transpired thereafter, I can’t say it was good.  Somehow I still feel like an awkward college freshman bereft of game, asking girls generic questions like what dorms they lived in and what classes they took just so I could keep them from walking away.

In college I used to think I was miserable because girls wouldn’t give me the time of day.  Women in their mid-twenties however, evolve.  They don’t ignore me to make me think I’m miserable.  Now, they stay to make sure I actually know I’m miserable.

And so here sits Courtney.   Not because of me, but in spite of me.  Actually, my attendance was of little to no consequence.  Courtney was far too enamored with an agenda of obsessive compulsiveness that I was seemingly, but not surprisingly left out of.  It’s only now that I find her dress ironically apropos; more fitting a funeral than a date, but to be honest, these days I can barely tell the difference.

She ordered appetizers: an adorable selection of miniature “what-have-yous” …miniature “what-have-yous” that she didn’t eat.  She morosely gawked at the pathetic little aperitifs, impatiently awaiting her main course — an entire lemon basted lobster, spaghetti, and last but certainly not least, a side dish of broccoli.  Naturally this was the most expensive item on the menu.

For the next hour and thirty-seven minutes, I sat in awe of the regrettable end that befell her main course.  With the precision of a Chief Surgeon, she dissected the lobster and spread its meat into a perfect circle around the edge of the plate.  With the spaghetti, she crafted a mighty pyramid, befitting a Pharaoh.  Finally, she took the broccoli and placed a single piece onto her spaghetti alter.  And there she sat, picking, prodding, and interrogating the unsuspecting produce for the rest of the evening — never once taking a single bite.

And so here I am in the waning hours of an evening with my radiant brick, a time when most men would be calculating their odds of scoring some sort of sex.  I say “sort” because any sort would do – even the quick bad “Don’t forget where you left your shoes” kind.  But no, not me.  God no.  I’m far too preoccupied with her preoccupation.  I’m obsessed with her obsession.

Deep contemplation

That poor stalk of broccoli.  For just a moment I imagine I’m the Doctor Doolittle of produce.  I can hear the little green bastard begging for mercy; my sultry acquaintance ignoring his pleas for her to stop stabbing him with her hand trident.   I’d like to help, but I’m totally powerless.  I try to explain the situation to the broccoli.  I tell him how Courtney doesn’t care what I think…how she doesn’t even know that I’m here.

Pause.  Courtney finally stabs the broccoli with her fork.

The broccoli doesn’t want to hear it.  With its last breath, the broccoli tells me to fuck myself.  It has problems of its own.

She finally brings the broccoli to her mouth.  Everything is quiet for a second.  She swallows and puts her fork and knife down, and throws her napkin on the table.

Courtney

So… Jason…

Jeremy

It’s Jeremy…

Jeremy (Narration)

And so it is that Courtney and I are strangers once again.