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MOST TENDER PART

PREMISE: "'Tis the most tender part of love, each other to forgive."
John Sheffield

SETTING: Interior and ramp of a moving van, packed with furniture and personal belongings.

CHARACTERS:

Noah Bunch -- 55 years old, striking, fit, classy, current and expensive clothes, air of self-confidence with a dis-arming smile and a charming way about him, a salesman and he is what he's selling. When you spend a minute with him you know he's that guy from high school whom all the teachers loved and all the girls let slip off their panties while all their parents asked if they were "still seeing that sweet boy?" The problem is that he wasn't that sweet boy then and he's even less so, now. Everything is a little too slanted to land in his plate and he is starting to show the slightest bit of flab from his overindulgent habits.

Monica Crews -- Early twenties, short with long, dark hair. One of those people everybody says "could be so pretty", meaning she is overweight. She is young, clever and just slightly edgy; her laughter a second away from sullen. Something sexual about here, like she is constantly seeing herself in the middle of lovemaking, no matter what she's doing. People around her respond to that, too.

SETTING: -- June, 1988. Late afternoon to early evening. The back of a moving van upstage center, doors open and locked against the sides, out of sight. There will be a section open with everything beyond wrapped in moving pads and packed tight, leading to complete blackness. A ramp extends to downstage.

STORY: -- Noah Bunch, a middle-aged man with graying temples and a tendency to wear too much cologne, has left his third wife and is in the process of moving with into the apartment of his 22 year old girlfriend, Monica Crews. They met at the bar where she works as a cocktail waitress and their affair began in the front seat of his Explorer. Noah knows that all of his friends are right, he could do better than her. He's had plenty of luck with the ladies, if you know what I mean. This girl just gets to him though. He's crazy about her; can't keep his hands off of her. For her part, she is a little reserved and odd. Nobody ever seems to find things funny quite like she does. She is also a bit fragile and turns from reserved to enraged instantly.

We find them on moving day, working together to bring his life together with hers. A big step for him but she doesn't seem at all concerned. We will learn a few things about him and the things he's moving, and her in the way she shows no concern for some like his football trophies and golf clubs but covets his high school yearbooks. As the day goes on we'll discover something that Monica has known all along. She is the daughter he knew he had because he paid child support but he never met. She called once when she was 14 and he never called back.

Everything stops while he settles into the shock of this news. With time they'll realize they both have to forgive one another if they're ever going to be able to move on. She goes to bed. He locks up the truck and goes to crawl in with her.