BOB: What do you want for your birthday?
LUCINDA: I don’t know
BOB: Jewelry?
LUCINDA: You’ve given me so much jewelry, sweetheart.
BOB: A blouse?
LUCINDA: I have enough of those.
BOB: A computer thing?
LUCINDA: TMT, honey, (too much technology!)
BOB: You must want something…?
LUCINDA: Just a card would be fine, sweetheart.
BOB: Humph
Lucinda ponders this conversation over the next few days. There is something she passionately wanted when she was young. But now of course she is too old. Or is she? After all, her mantra is Dylan Thomas’s Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
LUCINDA: Bob, I know what I want for my birthday.
BOB: Great. Tell me.
LUCINDA: A red sports car.
BOB: What?
LUCINDA: One with a convertible top.
BOB: (swallows) A sports car?
LUCINDA: Yes.
BOB: What are you going to do with a sports car? They’re dangerous.
LUCINDA: I want to rev up the motor and go to 75 mph in 7 seconds. I want us to zoom down the farm lane with the wind on our faces and our hair whipping back. I want those moments of complete abandon with you.
BOB: (swallows)
LUCINDA: That’s what I want for my birthday.
BOB: (silence)
LUCINDA: Is that okay?
BOB: (silence)
LUCINDA: ….hmm?
BOB: Okay.