Perceptions

Six closed-off kids stuck in detention, each with stories of their own.

Lilly DeSantos- Sixteen, from Chicago, recently moved to Chatsdale, defensive, closed off

Eli Danner- Seventeen, moved to Chatsdale at a young age, cocky, confident, used to be friends with Frankie

Penny Bradshaw- Sixteen, from Chatsdale, sassy, inwardly insecure

Alison Stevens- Seventeen, from Chatsdale, quiet

Frankie Calhoun- Seventeen, from Chatsdale, loner, quiet, used to be friends with Eli

Joel Estigoy- Sixteen, transfer student from London, snarky, observer of the story

___________________________________________________________________________________

Lights come up on six teenagers sitting at desks, all in various slouching positions.

ELI

Well, this blows.

PENNY

How long have we been here again?

ALISON

(pulls phone out of pocket, checks it) By my count, two-and-a-half hours now. We should be getting out of here in another half-an-hour.

ELI

Thank God.

LILLY

(Sarcastically, flipping through a book) Maybe if you had left Penny alone, we wouldn’t be here for three hours on a Saturday.

JOEL

(Sarcastic as well) Maybe if you hadn’t punched Eli in the mouth and left the two of them well enough alone, Lilly, we wouldn’t be here for three hours on a Saturday.

FRANKIE

Guys, stop fighting. It’s all of our faults that we’re here-

JOEL

Not mine! I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for Lilly and all her hotheaded stupidity!

PENNY

Frankie’s point is that we need to not fight if we’re going to be stuck here.

FRANKIE

(sits up) What if that wasn’t my point?

PENNY

Wasn’t it, though?

FRANKIE

(sits back, crosses arms) Yeah…

PENNY

Well then.

LILLY

You guys say you don’t want to fight, and yet you bicker over Frankie’s point.

ALISON

Will you all just shut up?

Silence

ELI

(leans over to LILLY) So, Lil, how’s school goin’? How’re you adjusting? (smirks)

LILLY

(Doesn’t look up from book) How’s that bruise I gave you working out for you, Eli? And how many times have I asked you not to call me Lil? It’s Lilly.

ELI sits back, rubs his jaw. JOEL snickers.

JOEL

I think what you prefer to be called is the least of our worries, Ms. DeSantos. I think the main question here is why did you punch our beloved Mr. Danner in the face, and therefore drag us all in to this horror known as Saturday detention?

LILLY

(still flipping through book) He was picking on Penny, I felt the need to stick up for her. End of story.

PENNY

I was doing fine on my own, Lilly. I didn’t need your help.

LILLY

(shuts book) Really? You looked like you needed a rescuer from where I was sitting, and trust me, I know what a damsel in distress looks like.

PENNY

And how would you know what one looks like?

JOEL

Yes, Lilly. Explain how you are so familiar with damsels in distress. I mean, Chicago is filled with them.

LILLY

That’s personal. None of your business.

ELI

No, no, no, no, no, Lil. You brought it up. What did you mean?

LILLY

Like I said, it’s none of your business. It’s mine.

JOEL

Would you be interested in sharing your personal business with the group, Lilly?

FRANKIE

Lilly, I can speak from experience when I say that they won’t leave you alone until you give them the information they want.

LILLY

(sighs angrily) Do you really want to know why mom and I moved to this hellhole you guys call a town?

PENNY

(indignantly) Chatsdale is NOT a hellhole! It’s the most wonderful place on earth!

LILLY

Does the most wonderful place on have a movie theatre or more than one gas station?

PENNY sits back, fuming. LILLY sighs.

LILLY

Chatsdale is my mom’s hometown. All my mom ever wanted was to do was get out of here. Which is exactly what happened when my mom went on a road trip to Chicago the summer before she was supposed to go off to college. She and her friends were wandering this arts festival downtown about a week into the trip. When my mom’s in one of her more sentimental moods, she tells me how she grabbed a hot dog, and when she turned around, there was the most handsome man she had ever seen.

FRANKIE

I’m assuming this is your dad?

LILLY

Do you want to hear the story or not? Because if you’re going to interrupt, I’ll gladly stop.

FRANKIE sits back.

LILLY

Yeah, she was talking about my dad. He was a junior studying art history at the University of Chicago, and he was hanging out with some friends at this festival, too. He saw her, and they talked a little bit before he invited her to a party back at his apartment. Nothing too crazy, just a bunch of pretentious art types talking about how the arts are dying a slow, painful death at the hands of the government. Thanks to some events at the end of the night, my mom lost her virginity and gained me as a reward. Thanks to some good old Southern values I’m sure you’d extol, Penny, my grandmother forced my mom to marry my dad. My mom didn’t want to hear about how she disgraced the family, so she stayed up in Chicago with him, which is a decision I know she regrets now.

ALISON

Why?

LILLY

(mockingly) I’m surprised you can speak, Alison. And I’m sure she regrets it now because when his family learned about me, they made him drop out of school and basically disowned him. That didn’t make my father very happy. He waited until after I was born, but pretty much the day after they brought me home, he began beating my mom. Ruthlessly. He blamed my mom for the loss of his future, even though he was the one who couldn’t keep it in his pants. We’ve been away from him for about two months now while we’re waiting for the divorce proceedings to go through, but my mom still has to use makeup to cover all her bruises. All my sixteen years before that, though, I had to defend my mother, because she comes from the kind of family where you just sit and take it, because you deserve it. I grew up knowing better. So excuse me for standing up for you, Penny, just because I was watching you get abused and reacted the only way I know how.

ELI

Lilly, Penny and I have known each other since grade school. It’s nothing that I haven’t said to her before.

LILLY

(through gritted teeth) That doesn’t make it right, Elijah.

ELI

Come on, Penny, tell her I was just kidding. (turns to see PENNY curled in on herself in the seat.) Penny?

PENNY

(softly) You were calling me stupid.

ELI

And? I say s**t like that all the time, and you never seem to care.

PENNY

Yes, because hearing stuff like that all the time is easy!

JOEL

All the time? Do I sense another story here?

FRANKIE

Joel! Just. Shut. Up.

JOEL

(shrugs) From my experience, everyone has a story that they would rather hide. I’m guessing this is the case for you, Ms. Bradshaw?

FRANKIE

What do you mean, from your experience?

JOEL

All in due time, Mr. Calhoun. All in due time. Now, Ms. Bradshaw? Is there anything you’d like to share with the group?

PENNY

(uncurls herself) Not particularly. But Lilly told us about her dad, and I’m basically the reason we’re all here in the first place, so I feel like I should.

LILLY

Penny, if you don’t want to, don’t do it.

JOEL

Come now, Lilly. She obviously wants to get something off her chest. Let her do it.

LILLY looks to PENNY. PENNY nods. LILLY sighs and sits back.

PENNY

My family’s pretty brilliant, but my grades have never been stellar. I just don’t enjoy schoolwork the way my siblings do. I mean, my sister Annie’s off at Brown studying chemical engineering, and Jimmy just graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in law. And here I am, barely scraping by in honors classes. Needless to say, my parents are constantly comparing me to them.

FRANKIE

Your parents call you stupid?

PENNY

Not in so many words. But that’s what it feel like they’re saying. “Penny, why can’t you study more like Jimmy?” “Penny, look at how well Annie’s doing in school. Don’t you want to be like that?” No matter how hard I work, how hard I study, it’s never good enough for them.

Silence

ELI

Penny, why didn’t you say anything to me? I would’ve left you alone, even helped you more if you would’ve said something. I would’ve laid off.

PENNY

Please, Eli. Don’t fool yourself. You’re more concerned with having a good time than helping anybody, especially after what happened with Frankie and Amy. You never would’ve helped me.

LILLY

Wait, what? Who’s Amy? (turns to see FRANKIE and ELI tensed in their seats, glaring at each other across the room) Guys, what happened?

ELI

It’s nothing, Lilly. Forget about it.

ALISON

This isn’t nothing, Eli. She deserves to know what happened between you two.

FRANKIE

It happened a long time ago. She doesn’t need to know. All she needs to know is that ever since it happened, Eli and I don’t speak and I prefer to be alone. Nothing I wished on myself, but still.

ELI

Shouts at FRANKIE

Well, maybe none of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t gone behind my back with Amy!

FRANKIE

Dude, I promise that none of that was meant to happen!

LILLY

Wait… Went behind your back how?

PENNY

You mean you don’t know? I mean, I know you’re new, Lilly, but everyone in the school knows, even Joel.

JOEL

Well, I do have the “advantage” of having you in all my classes, Penny. You updated me on all the gossip within the first two days of school.

LILLY

Can someone please explain what’s going on here?

ELI

It happened a long time ago, Lil. It doesn’t matter anymore.

ALISON

Really, Eli? If we’re going to be stuck in this room together for the next… (checks phone) fifteen minutes, she deserves to know where all the animosity came from. She told us about her dad. You should tell her about you and Frankie.

ELI turns in the desk, his back to LILLY.

JOEL

Good God, man, just tell her. She’ll find our sooner or later, whether you want her to or not.

ELI remains stubborn.

FRANKIE

(to LILLY) Long story short, we were best friends since he moved here, back in kindergarten, but in sophomore year, his girlfriend Amy came on to me, and he caught us. End of story.

LILLY

No! Not end of story. What happened?

JOEL

Come on now, guys. Don’t leave the poor girl in the dark.

ELI

You were always in to her. Whenever you two were alone, you were always flirting with her. It’s not like that was the first time I caught you.

FRANKIE

Eli, I swear on my grandmother’s grave that that’s not what happened. She came onto me. She was your girlfriend, and I knew that.

Silence

ELI

You don’t deny being into her.

FRANKIE

…No. I don’t.

ELI

(turns back to LILLY) Well, there you go. That’s the root of our problem. I had her, he wanted her, so he stabbed me in the back to get her.

LILLY

That. Explains. Nothing. What happened?

FRANKIE

(sighs) Eli and I were best friends when he moved here in kindergarten. I gave him my second Twinkie from my lunch box at lunch that day. We never really had an argument all those years. And then we met Amy. Granted, saying we “met” her isn’t entirely true; we had known her since elementary school, but we hadn’t noticed her until eighth grade. Eli’s always been more vocal about how he feels about things, so it was no secret to anybody that he liked Amy. So I kept my feelings for her inside, because being with her would make Eli happy. Besides, Amy would have never gone for me.

ALISON

(softly) Don’t say that.

FRANKIE

Why not? It’s true. She always loved loud, gregarious guys like Eli, so it wasn’t a wonder that she said yes to Eli when he asked her to homecoming freshman year. They were pretty much the school’s power couple. But about halfway through sophomore year, Amy started taking a more avid interest in other guys, something I tried to point out to Eli.

ELI

(angrily) The only guy she was interested in was you.

FRANKIE

(shakes his head) You were blind, Eli. You didn’t see her flirting with other guys like I did. So, one day, we were all hanging out at Eli’s house, and Eli got up to get us some snacks. As soon as the door shut behind him, Amy’s hand started snaking up my leg. I kept trying to tell her no, but she kept pushing on. By the time Eli got back, she had pushed herself on top of me, and that was how Eli found us. Needless to say, I got my a*s kicked out of the house, and we haven’t spoken since. I wish we still did, though.

LILLY

(to ELI) Are you still with her?

ELI

No, we broke up shortly thereafter. She… told me she just wasn’t interested in me anymore.

LILLY

And yet you still think that Frankie came on to her?

ELI

(hesitantly) Well, now that you say it like that, it sounds pretty stupid.

ALISON

That’s because it is!

FRANKIE

(turns to her) Why do you care, Alison?

ALISON

(shakes her head) Oh my God, Frankie Calhoun, how can you be so stupid?

FRANKIE

What?

JOEL

(shakes his head) Really, Mr. Calhoun, can you be so stupid? You don’t see how Ms. Stevens looks at you?

FRANKIE

(looks at ALISON, who has her head down) What is he saying, Ali?

JOEL

I’m saying she’s in love with you, you idiot. You haven’t even noticed the way she’s been watching you this whole time, not to mention the way she’s been looking at you this whole school year.

FRANKIE

(still looking at ALISON) Ali?

ALISON

(angrily) We’ve lived next door to each other since before we were born, Franklin. We were friends for most of our lives. Don’t ask me when it happened, but sometime in middle school, I realized I’ve been madly in love with you for a good chunk of that time. I never wanted to say anything because I didn’t want to be rejected and ruin our friendship that we had. Besides, you seemed happy just to be friends, and who was I to ruin that? So, I kept quiet. And then, after what happened with Eli and Amy, you looked like you needed your space, so I gave it to you. (sadly) I’m still giving you space.

FRANKIE

Ali… (crosses room to her)

Silence

JOEL

Well, today has certainly been enlightening.

LILLY

(suspicious) What about you, Joel? Don’t you have something to share with the class?

JOEL

Excuse me?

PENNY

Yeah! We’ve spilled all our secrets for you. Now you have to tell us one of yours.

JOEL

I have no secrets.

LILLY

Really? You were the one who said that we all have a story that we would rather hide. What’s yours?

JOEL

I have no story.

FRANKIE

Spill it, Asian-Anglo.

JOEL

(angrily) Oh, here comes the pejoratives.

LILLY

What?

JOEL

(hesitates) Nothing.

ELI

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, Estigoy. There’s a story here. Spill it.

ALISON

Then again, what would you have to complain about? You’re attractive, smart, and you’re English. All the girls here are throwing themselves at you.

JOEL

Yes, because it’s so easy to be wanted for something in one country when you were vilified in another for being the same thing. And on top of that, you also have to deal with the knowledge that nobody wants you for you; they want you for some image they made of you.

LILLY

Joel, what are you talking about? I thought you said there was no story.

JOEL

(sighs) If I tell you my story, will you leave me alone?

ELI

We told you our stories. Why don’t you extend us the same courtesy?

ALISON

(checks her phone) You have ten minutes. Then we never have to talk about today ever again.

FRANKIE

(looks at ALISON) I think we do.

LILLY

Not right now, lovebirds. Let Joel talk first.

Everyone levels their gaze at JOEL.

JOEL

(begrudgingly) Asian-Anglo is something they used to call me back in England. I went to a Catholic school in my primary school years. That school was predominantly white, and I got teased for being the only Filipino there. That wasn’t something that stopped as I got older, went to secondary school. I developed sarcasm as a defense mechanism, dreamed of getting out.

PENNY

Didn’t you tell your parents what was happening to you?

JOEL

(glares at PENNY) I did. They told me to push through it, that it would make me stronger in the end. So, last year, when I saw that they were offering a foreign exchange program with Chatsdale, I jumped at the chance to leave. Little did I know that all my hopes would lead to this shithole you guys call a town. However, here I’m not bullied; I’m loved, if only because I’m foreign. And I hate that. Back in London, I wanted to be liked because I was Joel, and I thought I would get that here in America. Instead, people only like me because I’m the foreigner with the sexy accent. They don’t want to know me as a person; they hear my voice and leave it there. (glares at the rest of the group) You guys are not the only ones with problems. Suffering is universal; it happens everywhere. I hope that after you walk out of this room that you do good to remember that. Now, do we want to recap today’s events, and the ones that led us to this point?

LILLY

Do we even remember?

PENNY

(softly) You punched Eli in the jaw during chemistry class because he was picking on me because he didn’t realize calling me stupid hurt me, and you didn’t know any other way to react. Frankie jumped up, I’m guessing to protect him, because he still wants to be friends with Eli. Alison is in love with Frankie, so she tried to pull him back so that he wouldn’t be hurt.

FRANKIE

Eli punched me in the stomach, probably because he was still mad about Amy, and was glad to finally take it out on me.

LILLY

And Joel was Penny’s lab partner, so he got caught in the middle.

JOEL

And that’s how we all ended up here, on a Saturday. The way we perceived each other and the events surrounding us affected us, and brought us all here, to clear the air, fix our wrongs, and maybe start again.

LILLY

(smiles) You’re just a pretentious son of a b***h, aren’t you? (JOEL smiles back)

Silence

ALISON’s phone buzzes, a key unlocks the detention room door.

ALISON

(checks her phone) It’s time to go, guys. (gathers up her stuff, rushes off stage left. FRANKIE follows her. Everyone watches them go.)

LILLY

(to PENNY) Hey, Penny. I’ve been doing pretty well in chemistry lately. Want to come to my grandmother’s house, and I’ll help you study? If you need help, I mean.

PENNY

(smiles) I’d like that. (LILLY and PENNY stand, gather stuff, exit stage left)

ELI

(stands, turns to JOEL) See you Monday, man? Maybe you can shoot some hoops with Frankie and me? I’ve seen you on the courts behind the school. You’re pretty good.

JOEL

(in shock) Yeah… Sure. See you Monday.

ELI

Awesome. (ELI gathers stuff, exits stage left)

JOEL looks around the empty room, shrugs.

JOEL

Cheers, everyone. (JOEL gathers stuff, exits stage left)

FIN