Overview
- Female: 1
- Male: 1
Context
Leo is feeling disoriented, having just seen his references to material in his manifesto have a positive effect on family relationships, though not as he envisioned since the effect was based on their (mis)interpretation of what he was saying. He is about to get further disoriented by Gloria. She is concealing considerable excitement and anxiety – sensing an opportunity seize upon this particular moment to reveal feelings for Leo that, throughout their years of friendship from childhood on,
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LEO: I'm a little scared, Gloria. I think I might have really touched off something.
GLORIA: Looks like it.
LEO: Except it's not from what I wrote. That dog-and-pony show I carted out for Mom? That was just generalizations. And that stuff Sheila was quoting? She had it all garbled.
GLORIA: Still, indirectly.
LEO: What do you mean?
GLORIA: Maybe that's the way history works, Leo. Very sloppily. First there's an idea. And people grope for it, and knock it over, piece it together, pass it around... And eventually, maybe, hopefully, they start to get it.
LEO: (considers this, then:) That's even scarier than I thought.
GLORIA: Because it is scary, Leo.
LEO: I mean, if what I'm onto is even partially... These are people's lives.
GLORIA: Leo? I'm not happy either.
(A moment)
LEO: What?
GLORIA: I too am looking for something. Yes, I go to the office. Yes, I have a circle of friends. I've known men. My life is lacking.
LEO: Oh, wow.
GLORIA: One of the lawyers in our office? – a wonderful lawyer, a litigator, one of the reasons I came to this firm – this man approached me, very openly, about his attraction to me. He's married, but unhappily, but told me very truthfully he didn't know what the outcome of that would be. I told him, very truthfully, there wasn't enough in it for me. All of a sudden I'm using phrases like that. I'm changing, Leo.
LEO: This is really a little spooky. What's happening here tonight, it's... I mean the mere fact that you're telling me all this.
GLORIA: Because you're different.
LEO: Am I really?
GLORIA: (her intensity building as she goes) It's you I love, Leo. I have loved you since the sixth grade. All this business about our being buddies? Baloney. There. I said it. Oh God.
LEO: This is incredible.
GLORIA: Would you like to go to my apartment?
LEO: Right now?
GLORIA: Or later on. It's just I'm on a roll right now and I can't let myself stop. I promise I'll have you home before morning so your parents won't know. God, can you believe what an idiot I'm being? So would you?
LEO: Sure.
GLORIA: Oh my God. That's great. That is just great. I am so glad we've finally got that taken care of. (Sits.) Now, if you want to talk about your manifesto, I'm all ears.
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