Well, it's getting to be greater than biweekly, isn't it? Good for me. Of course I've got to hand in a draft of my one-act this coming week, so I hardly have the time to wait for biweekly! Anyway, here's another scene from the hospital family drama I'm calling The Waiting Room. It's another flashback with the girl Helen (who's having the baby in the present) picking up her younger sister Margaret after doing something stupid lands her in the hospital. It's intended to illustrate how Margaret resents how perfect Helen is and how she never gets into trouble, which in the present gives her a conflict over feeling vindicated that Helen has finally screwed up but feeling guilty that she thinks that while Helen's in such dire straits.
(MARGARET goes and sits on the counter in the exam room. She puts a cast around her wrist. Lights down on the waiting room. Enter HELEN.)
HELEN: Aw, geez, Margaret, look at you.
MARGARET: Yeah, yeah, I know.
HELEN: What happened?
MARGARET: We cut through the construction site on Bacon Street. We were climbing over the earthmover and when I tried to get off I fell. Sandra called an ambulance and they took me here.
HELEN: Oh, my God, don’t you know how dangerous it is in there?
MARGARET: It’s like twenty minutes faster!
HELEN: Maggie, a girl got killed messing around in there last month! There’s heavy machinery and blasting caps and God knows what else. You could have broken your neck or blown yourself up!
MARGARET: Blow myself up, are you kidding?
HELEN: Did the ambulance call the cops on you? You know you were trespassing.
MARGARET: Yeah, but—
HELEN: Jesus, Margaret!
MARGARET: Nobody’s pressing charges! They let me off with a warning not to do it again.
HELEN: You could have gotten into so much trouble. There’s a reason Mom and Dad forbade you from going through there. They’re going to be so disappointed.
MARGARET: You can’t tell them!
HELEN: They’re going to see you’ve got your arm in a cast! You’re just lucky they aren’t going to see it on you in jail.
MARGARET: Christ, calm down! Nothing’s going to happen now! Mom and Dad don’t have to know how it happened. We can just say that I tripped down some stairs or something!
HELEN: I’m not lying to them, Margaret.
MARGARET: So you’re going to rat me out?
HELEN: Not if you tell them yourself.
MARGARET: Nothing all that bad happened! I’m okay mostly! I won’t do it again!
HELEN: They made that rule for a reason.
MARGARET: Who made you my parole officer? Can’t you just help me out here, just this once?
HELEN: Grow up, Margaret.
MARGARET: Yeah, of course not. ‘Cause you never screwed up once in your life. You’re so damn perfect all the time!
HELEN: I thought you were smarter than this, but I guess you’re not.
MARGARET: No shit, you’re the only smart person in the world, Helen. Thanks so much for this, sis. You’re going to run everything. They’re never going to trust me again!
HELEN: You should have thought of that before your betrayed their trust. Come on. Let me get you home already.
(Lights down on the exam room. HELEN exits while MARGARET removes her cast. Lights up on the waiting room.)
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