Vote for Andrew A Ten-Minute Play By Chandler Pennington
Megan? Oh, hey! Hi! Oh my God! Yeah! Hi! How are you? ( walks into a pretty dead bar, where is sitting also. He sees her and recognizes her.) (He goes to hug her. She is hesitant.) It s, uh it s Andrew. I m Andrew. Yeah! Andrew! Of course! I felt like maybe you didn t remember. No, I did! I did n t. I didn t. Yeah. Sorry. It s okay. It s been, God, like, ten years? Uh, yeah. Ten years it is the ten year reunion. Ha. Right. Um So do you remember me now? Or Yeah. I totally do. I m sorry. We had a couple classes, you took, uh, Rachel to prom? Yes! That s right. Yeah. We took pictures together. I just totally blanked. No worries. No worries. I should ve, I don t know, studied a book of everyone s faces or something before I came here. - 1 -
Ha, yeah! Hah. But where on Earth would you find something like that? I m what? Huh? You sound like you re being sarcastic. I am So were you? No, I was just. I don t know. I assumed you were there are multiple books of faces you could ve studied if you really wanted to. Oh, I m not on Facebook. That s one. The other would be the year book. Oh, right. I mean, whatever. Right, right um so, where is everybody? Oh, right! This is totally the wrong bar. What? Yeah. I made the same mistake. It s the right franchise just, wrong part of town. Oh. Yeah. So, why are you still here? Oh. Well, a few other people have come in here making the - 2 -
same mistake. And I thought, this place seems fine enough, and I didn t really want to go to this thing anyways, so I figured I d just set myself up as the guy who sends everyone to the right place. Oh. Okay. Cool. You d think they d make things a little more clear in the invitation. Give us an address or something. Surprisingly, these are still the people we graduated with. Right. God, why did I even decide to come to this thing? I was wondering the same thing, pal. Did you forget my name again? Yes, but I remembered. Andrew? Right. I uh, I went by Andy sometimes too. Some people called me that. That sounds familiar. Well, you know, I was Prom King after all. Wait, really? Yeah, remember? They did it by random drawing instead of voting? Oh right that was the dumbest shit ever. No one s feelings were hurt, right? God forbid someone s feelings get hurt in high school. Not to mention I had to slow dance with Debbie Walburt. Oh she was just in here. - 3 -
Oh yeah? How s she? Hot as fuck, dude. Really? Yeah. Lost all the weight, acne cleared up, boob job. Total bombshell! Damn, girl! Yeah. Bet you d love to slow dance with her tonight. Wonder if there ll be anymore random drawings. Well, uh. Have fun then, I guess. Ah. I don t know You uh, you want a drinking buddy here? Hm? Yeah. I mean, yeah. I didn t want to go to that thing anyways. I ll uh, hole up with you here. Okay. I mean, if you want. Yeah. Sure. Cool. Okay. (They sit at the bar. orders a drink.) Uh, rum and Coke?... So, uh. What have you done since graduation? Well I uh, went to college, you know. Marketing. - 4 -
Oh cool, cool. Yeah. Got out in four years. Then my uh, my grandpa has this company. Dog food, actually. And he said he d hire me as a copywriter. But he wanted me to, I don t know, experience the world first. So he actually, I traveled. He paid for me to travel for a whole year. And uh, I don t know. I did that. Then I went to work for him. And, I still do. Nice. Cool. What about you? Oh, not a whole lot. Started college, dropped out, went back, dropped out, had a kid, got married, got divorced, kid died, got married again, had another kid, had another kid, got divorced, came to a ten-year high school reunion. Whoa. Hey, don t judge. I m not, just like, ah! Yeah. I know, all right? Hence why, this thing. Yeah. I get it. Why? You ve had the ideal ten years post graduation. College, travel, steady job. You should be the keynote speaker. Be better than Cary. You write one Oscar winning screenplay I mean. I don t know. I work for my grandpa, you know? It s not exactly impressive. I mean, someday I might run the company, which I guess is cool. But, it s dog food. So, I don t know. I know we have some like, millionaire silicon valley tech guys over there. Do we? - 5 -
I m sure that s what Nick ended up doing. Oh. No way, dude. Nick s on heroin. What? Yeah. Completely. How do you know? Oh, I mean, I totally don t. I could just tell. He came in here too. He looks like he makes mistakes like that all the time. Pretty snap judgement. I don t know. He sure didn t look like a startup millionaire. I m sure someone is. Yeah. Probably. Whatever. I don t know. I just didn t want to see everyone again, really. Cheers to that. High school wasn t exactly the highlight of my life. Well shit man, all you re doing is complaining. What was the highlight of your life? Oh, um I don t know. Maybe when you were travelling the world on someone else s dime? No I mean, yes. Yeah. Of course, but I don t know. There was - 6 -
something empty about it. How so? I was uh, I was drunk. In Amsterdam. My feet were hanging over the canal, and I was alone. Surrounded by people. And, I kept making friends at hostels. But there was still something so, I don t know. Something artificial about it. Still is. There s something...something ordained about it for me. Like it was still part of the track I was on. Like, yep, high school, college, travel, work. And now it s work, work work, die, eventually. Damn. Sorry. No, I mean. I thought my stuff was a bummer. It is. Fair enough. What about you? Highlight? Birth of my second kid. After the first one died I thought, I can never love like that again. It hurts too deeply. Bu then I held that second little fucker in my arms I don t know. It s something you can t really understand without kids. You don t have kids, right? No. Never bothered. Not married? No. Good move. Yeah. It s like, maybe the only way I ve sort of broken off that path. - 7 -
No arranged marriages from Grandpa? Oh, plenty of attempts were made. Of course. Coworkers. All way too old or too young. Clients daughters, even. That s just good business. Heh. Sure. Did you stay in town? Yep. Keep up with anyone. No. I uh, only had a couple friends back then anyways. They all moved on. I had a shit ton of friends back then. I moved on. Same result. At the wrong bar on the ten-year anniversary. Or, reunion, or whatever. Yep. You think we would ve liked each other in high school? I would ve liked you. Why? I mean, you were cute. If you had talked to me, I would ve - 8 -
liked it. I was cute? Yeah. You were. And you are now. I mean, not like, cute. I feel like that s demeaning. We re like, thirty. I am twenty-eight years old and a mother of three. I d kill to be thought of as cute. Well, then, there you go. You are. I think so. Well, if you d talked like that in high school, I probably would ve liked you. I talked. No one listened. All right, no more bummers. Hey, I even ran for class president. Really? Yeah. I hang up so many posters. Oh Oh shit, I remember that! Yeah. I fucking covered the hallways. You couldn t look anywhere without seeing my smug acne-covered face. (Laughing) Yep, Andrew for President! That s literally all it said! No joke, no gimmick, nothing. And you re a marketing guy! Chance Teller, hangs up one poster. One. Just, him at a game. No message. Wins in a land slide. - 9 -
I remember. Yeah. I stole that for a marketing campaign. Doesn t work as well for dog food. Sure. (laughing) So, I m sure no one voted for me. Except me. No. I did. Really? Yeah. Chance always grabbed my ass in the hallway. I would ve voted for anyone but him. And well, you re fucking marketing worked. On me, at least. When I saw the ballot I recognized the groper, and you. So, congrats, you got at least two votes. Wow huh, thanks. Yeah, I mean, not like it matters. No, it I don t know. I always assumed I didn t get any. For ten years. And now I know I did. That s almost worth coming out for this thing. Well shit, what do I get out of it? I ll buy your drink. Deal! (She motions to the bartender for another. BLACKOUT.) - 10 -