Nostalgia Isn't What It Used To Be

                                                            Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be
                                                            By Jacob Juntunen

Actors:
1: A woman.
2: A woman older than 1.
3: A woman older than 2.

Setting:
Two chairs are set next to each other. One chair is set behind them, forming a triangle. An empty glass jar, lid on, is on the ground in front of the two chairs.

(1 and 2 sit in the chairs next to each other. 3 sits in the chair behind them. 1 and 2 are mid-conversation. 3 is not present.)

                                                            1
…and then he just left for Berlin! And because you wouldn’t wire me money, I had to come home!

                                                            2
(picking up the jar) You were in Paris for a month and this is all you got me?

                                                            1
Mom! Are you even listening?

                                                            2
What is it? It looks empty.

                                                            1
Don’t open it!

                                                            2
Why not?

                                                            1
He’s going to be in Berlin at film school all year. If you could just loan me some money—

                                                            2
I’ve already taken out loans for you to start college in the fall.

                                                            1
Who cares about college?

                                                            2
You did, before you left.

                                                            1
Mom. He’s perfect. He’s an artist. He’s French. He’s twenty-five and—

                                                            2
Seven years older than you doesn’t sound perfect to me.

                                                            1
—he’s already worked on a film that was in Cannes.

                                                            2
He directed it?

                                                            1
He was a production assistant, but even that’s really impressive—

                                                            2
When did you start caring about movies? I thought you wanted to be a lawyer.

                                                            1
You wouldn’t believe the films he showed me.

                                                            2
I bet I wouldn’t. I got you a month in Paris for your high school graduation and you brought me an 

empty jar?

                                                            1
It’s not empty.

                                                            2
It looks empty.

                                                            1
I said don’t open it. You’ll ruin it. Like you ruin everything.

                                                            2
What have I ruined now?

                                                            1
If you’d just changed the plane ticket and wired a little more money, I’d be in Berlin with him.

                                                            2
Why didn’t you just go?

                                                            1
My plane was leaving the next day!

                                                            2
Who cares? I thought he was perfect?

                                                            1
He is.

                                                            2
So you let a little thing like a plane ticket get in the way? You couldn’t have been that convinced.

                                                            1
How would I have gotten home?

                                                            2
If it was one of his romantic movies, you wouldn’t have come home at all.

                                                            1
I don’t speak German.

                                                            2
You could have learned it. It can’t be that different than French.

                                                            1
You don’t understand.

                                                            2
What don’t I understand?

                                                            1
You’re old and you’ve never been out of the country. Everything’s brighter in Europe. Everything glimmers. That’s why I brought you the jar.

                                                            2
It’s just a glass jar.

                                                            1
That’s all your old eyes can see. But one night, after it stopped raining, he took me up to the Sacred Coeur, this beautiful old church on top of a hill. We climbed these grey stone steps through this old neighborhood, and the iron-black lampposts had halos of light in the misty evening. The cobblestones were slick, and they reflected the lights from the shop windows. And when were on the top of the hill, the lights of Paris stretched out in front of us through the wet sky, like an impressionist painting, like energy, and I was so excited I spun around, and laughed, and he laughed, too, and the light streaked around me, like red and green lightning, and then I slipped and fell, and I was laughing while he lifted me to my feet. And then he kissed me. It was electric.

                                                            2
So you brought me a jar?

                                                            1
There was a little market nearby, and I bought an empty canning jar, opened it, and put the air of Paris in it for you. That’s what’s in the jar, the air from that night.

                                                            2
Thank you, honey.

                                                            1
And if you’d let me go to Berlin—

                                                            2
You’re eighteen. I’m not stopping you, but I’m not going to pay for you to go. I will pay for you to go to college.

                                                            1
But I’m never going to feel like this again—

                                                            2
Maybe not. But there are pros and cons to that.

                                                            1
If I’m ever a dried up husk like you, I’ll kill myself.

(They stop. 2 returns the jar to the floor. The three women move clockwise so that 2 and 3 sit in the chairs next to each other. 1 now sits in the chair behind them. 2 and 3 are mid-conversation. 1 is not present.)

                                                            2
But, Mom, you should use Dad’s insurance money to do something for yourself, pamper yourself somehow. After all that time in the hospice with Dad, there must be something you want to do.

                                                            3
I want to make sure your kids have enough for college. So anything I don’t need to live on will go to that.

                                                            2
But that’s just what I’m saying, live a little! What about Paris? You always wanted to go to Paris.

                                                            3
You brought me the air of Paris in this bottle, and that’s been just fine.

                                                            2
I can’t believe you kept that.

                                                            1
It reminds me of you.

                                                            2
I was a horrid teenager.

                                                            3
Tell me about your girls.

                                                            2
You just saw them at Dad’s funeral.

                                                            3
I didn’t really see anybody at the funeral, honey. I was preoccupied. How are they?

                                                            2
Perfect. Little angels. Joan’s just gotten old enough to bake cookies without me watching, and she’s always doing it. Maybe she’ll be a chef. But she also wants to do ballet, soccer, karate—she’s already a brown belt! And such a flirt. Anytime we go out to eat, she turns around in the booth and smiles at whoever’s behind us, and with just the least bit of encouragement from them—especially if it’s a man—we can’t stop her for the rest of the meal. She’s going to cause the boys real trouble in a few years. And Willa. Well, Willa’s always got her nose in a book. Once we got her glasses, there was no stopping her. She’s already reading chapter books. And when she looks at you, she sees you. I mean, really sees you. She’s the opposite of her sister. Shy. Quiet. But sharp as a whip. Tom just dotes on them.

                                                            3
He’s a good man.

                                                            2
Like Dad.

                                                            3
Not that much like your father. I’ve seen your husband do the dishes. Enjoy this time with your kids. It never comes back. Unless you can find a way to put it in a bottle.

                                                            2
God. What if I’d gone to Berlin?

                                                            3
Who knows? You might have loved it.

                                                            2
But I would never have known Tom or the kids.

                                                            3
But I’ve never seen you as excited as you were when you got back.

                                                            2
And I’ve never said such horrible things to you since.

                                                            3
Just wait until your daughters say those sorts of things to you.

                                                            2
If you won’t use Dad’s insurance money to go to Paris, let me take you. You sent me, it’s only fair.

                                                            3
I’d rather you just put whatever you’d spend on me into the girls’ college fund. It’s not going to be easy when they’re both in school at the same time.

                                                            2
But you always wanted to go.

                                                            3
(holding the bottle) I’ve got what I need right here.

(They stop. 3 returns the jar to the floor. The three women move clockwise so that 3 and 1 sit in the chairs next to each other. 2 now sits in the chair behind them. 1 and 3 are mid-conversation. 2 is not present.)

                                                            1
Why did grandma keep all this junk?

                                                            3
She was an archivist. She collected all these things to remember her life.

                                                            1
And now we have to deal with it all. God, she kept an empty jar.

                                                            3
Don’t open that!

                                                            1
Why not?

                                                            3
I got that for her.

                                                            1
You got her this jar?

                                                            3
It was a gift.

                                                            1
Is there something in it?

                                                            3
In a way.

                                                            1
I can’t believe I’m missing a week of school for this.

                                                            3
Willa can’t be away from the lab—

                                                            1
And I’m just a history major, I get it—

                                                            3
That’s not what I said—

                                                            1
It’s what you meant—

                                                            3
Biochemistry, history, it’s all Greek to me—

                                                            1
Well, I’m sorry neither of us are lawyers like you and Dad—

                                                            3
I don’t even know why we’re arguing—

                                                            1
Because missing a week of classes is just as important to me as it is to Willa! But, just like always, I have to be the one to take care of things while she and Dad do the “important work.” I better not lose my 4.0 because of this.

                                                            3
In twenty years you wont even remember your grades.

                                                            1
Right, I’ll just remember picking up all of grandma’s trash because she couldn’t throw anything away and how my whole college career got messed up—

                                                            3
The only reason your Grandma kept all this stuff is because she never traveled, and it’s all the money she saved that’s keeping you in college.

                                                            1
Whatever.

                                                            3

Look at this jar. Do you know I almost didn’t go to college because of this jar?

                                                            1
I don’t have time for you to get all nostalgic about every piece of trash, Mom.

                                                            3
I was right that I’d never feel that way again. I look at you, and I’m almost jealous of how pissed off you are at me.

                                                            1
That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

                                                            3
If I’d let what’s in this jar intoxicate me, I’d have never met your father. You and Willa wouldn’t exist. All those mornings you made cookies on weekends. I must have gained ten pounds. All the moms at soccer and ballet and karate would run away when they saw me coming with tupperware. Do you remember that?

                                                            1
Kinda.

                                                            3
And now Willa spends her days separating DNA, and you’re always off somewhere in Italy trying to understand someone’s interpretation of the Song of Songs, even though he’s been dead for five-hundred years—

                                                            1
The past is important—

                                                            3
I know, I know it is. But the present almost didn’t happen because of this jar.

                                                            1
What’s in it?

                                                            3
Let’s find out.

(3 opens the jar. 3 breathes it in.)

                                                            3 (continued)
Nothing but musty air.

(Blackout.)

Be a Fan