Sweepstakes


 
PRUE
What's the matter with you? Why do you keep covering up the vents? Like you do it just to rile me.
 
MILLIE
Prue, what's got into you?
 
PRUE
It'll all be backed up and we won't be able to breathe!
 
MILLIE
I'll fix it.
 
PRUE
But do you care? No, shove the gramophone wherever it suits you, never mind that I've had it ever since 1936 and never a scratch on it, no, you've got to get at your scarf in case it's cold in New York.
  Frantic to placate PRUE, MILLIE begins shoving at the gramophone.
where you're never going to go in any case because you have some cockamamy idea of who your friends are, oh, yes, President of the Icon Company, doesn't he write you a fine personal letter...
 
MILLIE
You never said...
  The piece of furniture is too heavy for her in this agitated state. SHE begins gasping for breath as she shoves. Prue, raving, flings boxes from a stack onto the floor.

 
PRUE
Not to mention Johnny Whatever that never spoke to you once after you missed an Epworth hayride where I had to hold your hand and listen to you moan and never say a word about my own feelings, oh no, plucky little Prue the math gal! And what's left over for me here day in day out?--such a tiny little left-over bit of you. And now! (This is what it's really about.) Crawl in bed with your mama and daddy, is that it?
  The gramophone slams into the wall with MILLIE's last effort. SHE staggers and holds onto it. SHE is having a heart attack. PRUE is so far into her own grievance that she does not notice.
I thought at least we'd be together afterward, at least we'd be scattered in the world. An atom at a time, we'd be part of the wind and you couldn't separate us then because we'd be a part of everything, you and me!
 

 
© Janet Burroway. All Rights Reserved.