The First Shall Be Last

Scene 1.

GIRL ONE: Look at me, my hair is blond. I have pretty blue eyes. I’m a cheerleader. I’m student body president. I hope to be homecoming queen next fall. When I graduate I am going to UCLA. My grandfather went there, and my family still makes very generous contributions. My dad is a lawyer. My mom is the accountant for a very, very important man. I live on the nicest street in the nicest house. I drive the nicest car. I wear the nicest clothes. Too bad I’m a bitch. Oh well, I’m popular!

Girl one climbs steps and stands on pedestal center stage.

GIRL TWO: I’m a lesbian. I was standing behind her in the lunch line the other day. She had a piece of paper stuck to the shoulder of her sweater. I brushed it off. She turned around and gave me a look of disgust and then yelled so that the entire cafeteria could hear:

GIRL ONE: yelling. Ewww! Don’t touch me! I don’t want to be your girl friend, you stupid dyke! That’s sexual harassment! I’ll sue your ass!

Girl two walks down stage left, and stands with her back to the audience.

BOY ONE: I’m in the band. She doesn’t know my name.

Boy One crosses to stage right and stands looking away from her.

GIRL ONE: Does he go to school here? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before.

Enter Girl Three.

Lindsey! Oh, my God. Please tell me you’re not wearing those pants out tonight!

GIRL THREE: Oh…uh…no…I was just getting ready to go change. (to audience) I’m her best friend. I live on the second nicest street, in the second nicest house. I drive the second nicest car. I wear the second nicest clothes. I don’t really like her, but as long as we’re friends, I get to borrow her clothes, ride in her car and hang out at her house.

Girl Three walks up the stairs behind the pedestal and stands on the second step from the top.

Enter Boy Two.

BOY TWO: My mom cleans house for her family. She has for years. We used to play together when we were kids. Once when we were six, we were sitting under the apple tree in her back yard, and she kissed me. She doesn’t remember that.

GIRL ONE: Hey, hey you. What was with you covering up your test today? I though we had a deal? I get an A in trig and your mom keeps her job.
Boy Two cross and sits down left of the pedestal and looks up at her.

Enter Boy Three. He runs up the steps to the top of the pedestal.

BOY THREE: Hey, babe! Leans in to kiss her.

GIRL ONE: Pulls away from him. No, I just put on fresh lip gloss! (Aside) This is my boy friend, Jake. He’s captain of the football team. He’s going to Duke in the fall, full football scholarship. He drives a Volvo. I just love the way his hair curls in the front. He’s perfect!

BOY THREE: I had sex with her best friend last week.

GIRL THREE: Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

BOY THREE: Everyone already knows.

BOY TWO: I know.

GIRL ONE: I know.

BOY ONE: I know.

GIRL THREE: She doesn’t know!

GIRL ONE: I know. But what would people think if we broke up? He’s the captain of the football team. I’m head cheerleader. We’re supposed to be together. If we broke up, this school would fall apart.

Lights fade to black.


Scene 2.

Spot light upstage center. Enter Time into spot.

TIME: I am Time. I am the bringer of life. I am the bringer of death. I heal all wounds. I reveal all truths. I am always with you, whether you want me or not. I am your friend. I am your enemy. I am the winds of change blowing through your hair. I am, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Exit Time. Fade to black.


Scene 3.

Lights up. Pedestal has been turned so that stairs face audience. All but Girl One stand on stairs. Girl Three stands holding a baby. Boy Three stands with his arm around her. Girl Two stands holding a brief case. Boy Two stands wearing a lab coat and a stethoscope. Boy One stands wearing a priest’s collar and holding a bible.
Girl One sits stage left her head on her knees rocking back and forth.
They all look at her.

GIRL ONE: I got knocked up in June of the summer before my senior year. Jake left for Duke in August. He couldn’t give up his scholarship. He couldn’t jeopardize his future like that. By October, I was too big to fit into my homecoming dress. In December I cried because I couldn’t wear nice cloths anymore. I wore jeans with elastic waste bands that formed to my growing belly. I wore flip flops in the snow because they didn’t cut off the circulation to my feet when my ankles swelled. By February I didn’t care about what I was wearing to school anymore. I could hardly stand to sit in class be cause the desks cut into my back and stomach. I left school in March to have the baby. I named her Kayla after this beautiful little girl I’d seen in a Gap kids catalog once. I didn’t come back until the end of May, and even then I had to leave school early and come in late all the time because Kayla had kept me up all night, or gotten sick in the afternoon. I graduated, barely. I had long abandoned any hopes of a scholarship to UCLA. I started taking classes at the local community college. Mean while Dad had retired and he and Mom were traveling a lot. In April of the next year, they informed that they couldn’t keep supporting me and Kayla if they wanted to keep the summer house in Florida. They helped me find a small apartment downtown and mom got me a job as a secretary at the firm where she worked. Soon, school got to be too much for me on top of everything else. I quite after my third semester. I started working full time, nearly sixty hours a week, but I was only making a little over minimum wage. Kayla got tonsillitis right after her third birthday. She was sick for three weeks. I had to be off from work for three weeks, without pay. Finally they removed her tonsils. I didn’t have insurance. The surgery had drained my savings. When I went back to work, they had hired a new secretary to fill in while I was absent. She and I had to share hours. Soon they decided that she was a better secretary, and they had to “let me go.” All I could do the entire way home that day was cry. I didn’t know what I was going to do, I had bills to pay. They had already turned off my phone. What would we do if they turned off the heat to? I picked up Kayla from pre-school. She didn’t understand why I was crying. She didn’t understand that we were poor. She didn’t understand that it was all her fault. If she had never been born I would have been in the mess I was. I was twenty-one years old! I should have been in college, having the time of my life. I shouldn’t have had to worry about electric bills, or how much change I could find in the floor board of the car to use for gas.
I sent Kayla to pre-school the next Monday with bruises. The state came and took her from me on Tuesday. I didn’t know what to say. I just stood there while the woman came in and gathered up all of her cloths and toys and left with her. Afterwards, I didn’t cry. I didn’t feel like crying. I didn’t feel like anything. I just wished that I could go to sleep and never wake up. I went into the bathroom and took every pill I could find.
I got my wish.

Fade to black.