31 Plays in 31 Days, #8 - “Flawless”

[breakinglight11]

Bah. I’m at home in Pennsylvania visiting my dad for the weekend, and not getting any work done. Due to inability to buckle down on a project that really needs doing, I’m snatching at a scene that’s relatively easy. Eventually I want to do a bottle episode of Dream Machine, where Leah and Ryan hang out late at night after a really demoralizing night at like the Emmys or something. And they talk about some real stuff, but every time one of them gets too real, the other one panics and has to divert the conversation away.

This scene only sort of gestures at that, but it’s the best I can pull out without time to focus.



Day #8 - “Flawless”
From Dream Machine
By Phoebe Roberts
~~~

LEAH LUCCHESI, showrunner of Offcomer at Dream Machine, mid thirties
RYAN DRESDEN, head of programming for Dream Machine, early fifties

Los Angeles, 2021
~~~

Ryan and Leah unpack the delivered snack box in their partially disassembled finery.

LEAH: Aw, they threw in a complementary naloxone kit. They do know you.

RYAN: Good to know somebody’s looking out for me.

LEAH: Better take that cincher off now. I think all this is going to be too much for it.

RYAN: What about you, you going to be able to wiggle out of that dress afterward? Or just hoping it’s going to explode off of you?

LEAH: Pal— you think this is my first late-night snack rodeo?

RYAN: Heh, fair enough. I guess we’ll see how you come out in the morning.

LEAH: Hey! Point of order— I look incredible first thing in the morning.

RYAN: If you don’t say so yourself.

LEAH: No, I do. Everybody I ever woke up with has said so.

RYAN: All of them?

LEAH: Call me Beyonce, ‘cause I woke up like this.

RYAN: Well, that must be statistically significant. Given the sample size.

LEAH: Oh, come on. Like you didn’t plow through ‘em.

RYAN: (grinning) Funny you should put it like that.

LEAH: I’d be more impressed if you hadn’t been married.

RYAN: Not the whole time. I worked efficiently; I fit in a lot. And, incidentally, so did they.

LEAH: Jesus Christ.

RYAN: Oh, you’re not the only one who’s got to cling to what they got.

LEAH: Hey, I worked hard for this. I came of age in the aughts; I spent ten years whittling myself into those impossible expectations. And now I’m suppose to just throw away all that hard work and try to grow an ass?

RYAN: I don’t know. I was there in the ‘90s. I still got the scars from Kate Moss’s hipbones.

LEAH: UGH, that’s so hot.

RYAN: You’re insane, you know that?

LEAH: No, I’m flawless. Now— pass me that tube of cookie dough. We got a lot of self-pity ahead of us.