10 Minute Play

Vacation
By: Niki Stahlberg


INT. KITCHEN

[A MOM and her DAUGHTER are standing at the counter, shuffling through travel brochures and advertisements. A second DAUGHTER sits at the kitchen table, listening to her iPod and seeming “zoned out”. A MAN stumbles through the door, looking like he has had a bit too much to drink.]

BRIAN
Have you picked a damn place to go yet?


NATALIE
Dad, this kind of stuff takes some planning. You can’t just choose a random place to go on vacation. Especially a family vacation that actually is important to some people!


SUSAN
Brian, please try and have an open mind. This means a lot to the girls.


BRIAN
[rolling his eyes]
Fine, whatever.


ABBY
Lets go to Atlantic City .


NATALIE
Why? You can’t gamble. Or drink.


ABBY
[under her breath]
Legally.


SUSAN
I was thinking some place educational. With some history behind it! Like… Washington D.C!

BRIAN
Oh Jesus.

NATALIE
No offense Mom, but I’d rather go to grandma Paula’s house. And you know how the smell of Aspercreme gets to me.


SUSAN
Alright, alright, just a suggestion.


ABBY
How ‘bout Vegas? Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends are making an appearance next month. We could check that out.


[BRIAN’S face lights up for the first time. SUSAN looks appalled.]


SUSAN[to Brian]
Down boy.

SUSAN (CONT’D)
Absolutely not. How about some place wholesome. Nashville maybe? Come on, its Music City !


ABBY
More like Music Shi-


SUSAN
Alright! Well no one is making any appropriate suggestions maybe we’ll just stay home.


NATALIE
No Mom, I’m sick of this family just moving day to day like this. We need this. Am I the only one who even cares?


ABBY
Let’s go to Canada .


NATALIE
Why there?

[An awkward silence fills the kitchen. Everyone glances at ABBY, who is obviously lost in her music]

ABBY
What?

BRIAN
I’m going out. When you make up your minds, let me know.


SUSAN
I’m not sure there’s a place we could go that would bring that man out of the state he is constantly in. He just mopes around all day, totally in his own world.


ABBY
[snorts]
How ‘bout rehab?


SUSAN
That’s enough. Your father doesn’t have a drinking problem. He just needs something to do besides…

NATALIE
Let’s take a road trip! Go wherever. Go everywhere. I don’t care. Let’s just go.
[Desperation in her voice]
Mom? Can we please just go?

SUSAN
[tucking Natalie’s hair behind her ears]
We’ll figure something out Honey, I promise.

[NATALIE gathers the papers and exits the room. SUSAN and ABBY are left sitting across from each other at the table, ABBY still fully engaged in her iPod]

SUSAN
[sighs]
Do you have any serious suggestions?


ABBY
Those were.

SUSAN
I don’t understand why you’re so…

ABBY
[rips her earbuds out of her ears, as if she has just had a jolt of energy]
Because no matter where we go, or what we do, or how long we’re there for, nothing will ever change. We’ll come back home and everything will be exactly the way it was when we left. Am I the only one in this family who sees that? You can’t just take a trip and expect people to change Mom. You just can’t.

SUSAN
I know that, sweetie. What’dya say us girls take a trip? Just me, you and your sister.


ABBY
Again, it will be all the same when we get…


SUSAN
Who said we had to come back?

ABBY
[a look of shock on her face]
Are you serious?

SUSAN
[smiling]
Yes.

ABBY
No more fighting? No more waking me up in the middle of the night with tears in your eyes cause you’re afraid? No more holes in the walls from his drunken rampages?


SUSAN
We’ll leave tomorrow. I’m sick of it too, baby. I don’t know what I would do without you and your sister.

ABBY
[gets up to go start packing, smiling for the first time]
Can we seriously go to Vegas though? We don’t have to see the Playboy chicks, I just want the $8.99 All-You-Can-Eat buffet and to see those crazy fountains.

END SCENE