Love Negotiated

Love Negotiated synopsis

Love Negotiated is a two act comedy about love.  Attorney Richard is so afraid of marriage, and all that goes with it, that he negotiated a non-nuptial agreement with his partner, attorney Veronica.  Veronica chooses the wrong time to bring up a re-negotiation of terms – minutes before an engagement party they’re hosting.  The party features ex-spouses, ex lovers, people moving into and out of relationships for all the right and wrong reasons.

Act one ends with everyone who was in a relationship out of it.  Except Richard and Veronica who must now help their friends come to terms with what everyone calls “The Night.”

Love Negotiated setting and situations

Love Negotiated takes place in modern times and in one location.  It is the home of Richard and Veronica, who seem to have just had sex before most of the scenes begin.  The set, described in the body of the play, can be big or small, expensive or a mere suggestion.  Furniture plays a part in the play but lighting does more to convey locations and draw battle lines. 

Many scenes contain dialogue that others can’t hear, dialogue that plays off many characters at once and a pace that is frenetic, fast and funny.

ACT I

Scene 1 – The Fight

RICHARD enters from the bedroom.

RICHARD

Veronica, why do you always start these things five minutes before the guests arrive?

VERONICA (off stage)

What do you mean?

RICHARD

You know what I mean.  You just said—

VERONICA enters from the bedroom.

VERONICA

I don’t think I love you, Richard.

RICHARD

Here we go again!  And the happy couple will be here any minute.  I just love your timing.

VERONICA

We did just make love.

RICHARD

My point exactly.  Timing!  How you drop a bomb on me like that?

VERONICA

Can you possibly mean that you are connected to your sex organ?  You of the detachable penis theory of love?

RICHARD

How can you say you don’t love me?

VERONICA

I said I don’t think I love you.  There’s a difference.  Now here’s the real question, Richard.  Do you love me?

RICHARD

How can you ask that after what you said?

VERONICA

You don’t think you love me either, Richard.  Don’t be so silly.  You’re the one who goes on ad nauseum about the perils of marriage– 

RICHARD

A-ha!  The real reason for the fight!  The M-Word, Ad nauseum and ad infinitum, “Why won’t you marry me, Richard?”

VERONICA

Argument, dear.  People who love each other don’t fight.  They argue.

RICHARD

Oh, thank God.  We love each other again.

VERONICA

Some day I will get you to say it to my face.  It means a lot to me and that’s why I think I don’t love you.

RICHARD

Love and marriage don’t work, I’ve told you that.  I see it every day.

VERONICA

Yes, I know.  The agreement.

RICHARD

Yes, the agreement.

VERONICA

Whose idea was that anyway?

RICHARD

Yours.

VERONICA (doesn’t hear him)

And who ever heard of a non-nuptial agreement.

RICHARD

It was your idea.  We negotiated it.  It exists.

VERONICA

Because you were scared of getting involved again and I love you, Richard!

RICHARD

But it’s solved more than one disagreement…

VERONICA

An exercise in trust that turned into a 67-page document negotiated by four lawyers.

RICHARD

Trust needed to be exercised.

VERONICA

Some towns have smaller phone books.

RICHARD

I trust you now.

VERONICA

I can’t imagine actually going to court to enforce a non-nuptial agreement.

RICHARD

No, the agreement calls for binding arbitration.

VERONICA

Who would be stupid enough to arbitrate that document?

RICHARD

John, your ex.

VERONICA

Oh, right.  It was a condition of our post-nup.

RICHARD

You mean the divorce agreement.

VERONICA

Yes, for the assets but we have a separate agreement spelling out our relationship after the marriage.

RICHARD

The opposite of a restraining order?  Like a retaining order?

VERONICA

Yes.  We wanted to spell out how to get along.  Everyone says they’ll stay friends…

RICHARD

You have a post-nuptial agreement with your ex-husband!?

VERONICA

Yes, darling and it’s worked out quite well.

RICHARD

I need to get out of law.

VERONICA

Ah, but page 28, subsection 13, paragraph nine clearly states that both parties’ financial participation must be equal and that a change of status—

RICHARD

It’s an exercise in trust!

VERONICA

Then tear it up!

RICHARD

Oh, God no.

VERONICA

You should really get into wills and trusts, like me.

RICHARD

Too much death.

VERONICA

And what of the death of love? 

RICHARD

And what of breach of contract?

VERONICA

Is that what you call lovemaking now a days?

RICHARD

When you do things like that to me…

VERONICA

I just said that it would be nice for you to impregnate me.

RICHARD

How could you say that, at a time like that?

VERONICA

During sex?

RICHARD

Who does something like that?

VERONICA

Um, everyone in the civilized world and many people from California?

RICHARD

Look, sex is not the time to talk about re-negotiating the non-nuptial agreement.

VERONICA

I agree.  Sex is the time to talk about love and spreading that love to children.

RICHARD

Ah!  The C-Word.

VERONICA

Used in conjunction with the L-Word!  You’d better call your attorney and sue me for breach of a ridiculous bullshit document signed under duress by an insane woman. 

RICHARD

Diapers.

VERONICA

The D-Word.

RICHARD

Proms.

VERONICA

The P-word?  New one on me.

RICHARD

Keg-stands!

VERONICA

OK, now you’ve got me scared.  Children are scary, honey, but I want to slowly open up the idea of having them, slowly.

RICHARD

OK, in 50 years, let’s talk about it.

VERONICA

What are you afraid of, Richard?

RICHARD

Haven’t you been listening!?  Everything!  I fear love and marriage—

VERONICA

Ha!  I knew it!

RICHARD

I know you know it because it’s all I’ve preached since my own.

VERONICA

What’s so bad about divorce?  We both lived.  Our exes lived –flourished– after the divorces.

RICHARD

And we get to bring it all up again in about five minutes! 

VERONICA

They’re both coming? 

RICHARD

Yes.  Don’t you remember?  Kate—

VERONICA

Your ex.

RICHARD

—is with Luke who is close to the groom Mark. 

VERONICA

Maybe too close–

RICHARD

Silly theory.  And John—

VERONICA

My ex.

RICHARD

His wife, Ann, is friends with betrothed Maria.

VERONICA

You don’t think Mark is a little.—?

RICHARD

Poofey?  He writes music.  They’re all over-sensitive, but he is a cop.

VERONICA

All the better a husband for over-loving Maria.  But Luke and Mark have a relationship that is more than just two guys being friends.

RICHARD

Mark doesn’t impress me as gay.  Let’s see… He’s engaged—to a woman, he’s a cop.  Well, I guess all that leather…

VERONICA

And you’re homophobic!

RICHARD

I love gay people.  My practice has doubled since gay marriage and, God bless it, gay divorce.  They’re so… transitory.  They move in and out of relationships more than, well, anyone else.  Shit, we could make a fortune on post-nups.

VERONICA

Please stop being an asshole before the guests arrive. 

RICHARD

If anyone’s gay it’s Ann.

VERONICA

You have five more minutes, asshole!

RICHARD

Busybody!

VERONICA

You can’t call me that, it’s in the agreement.

RICHARD

We’re re-negotiating the agreement.

VERONICA

Really?  Oh, Richard, you say the most romantic things.  Silly, stupid, legalistic, bordering on the insane, but romantic.

RICHARD

Let’s get this night of a thousand crazies over with and we can talk about it.  In bed…

VERONICA

Let’s not pass judgment on our friends—

RICHARD

And exes.

VERONICA

And how can you think the cello is a man’s instrument? 

RICHARD

What?

VERONICA

Ann plays the cello and that’s how John fell in love with her.

RICHARD

And you let him.

VERONICA

It was a different time.  We had a different agreement.  Twenty pages, max.  We tried everything to make it work, the three of us.

RICHARD

Do you have any video?

VERONICA

God, that’s cheap.  Sex is a sacred trust.  I don’t think I know you anymore, Richard.  You’re becoming a homophobic, sexist, asshole who is incapable of love! 

RICHARD

And you’re a damned Pollyanna.  Denying that ugly things happen and ugly people do them.  You tie up everything in a pretty pink ribbon and make everything out to be so nice but you can’t control me and my feelings, your ex, my ex, your world and it kill’s you—

VERONICA (hitting Richard)

You’re cruel.

 

The doorbell rings.

RICHARD (grabs and embraces VERONICA)

I, a sexist, homophobic asshole cruel?  How about you punish me after the party?  Look… I’m…

VERONICA

…sorry.

RICHARD

Yes.  That.  I say things because they’re funny.  Stupid, but funny.  And, I’ll…

VERONICA

…be nice.

RICHARD

Yes that too.  And, Ronnie?  I do…

VERONICA

Yes.  I know.

The doorbell rings again.

Scene 2 – The Truth?

VERONICA gets the door. MARK and MARIA enter obviously engaged to be married. RICHARD gives them drinks.

MARIA

Are we early?

VERONICA

Someone has to be first.

RICHARD

Maybe the other guests are all hiding so you’ll be first.  Did you see anyone on stakeout?

MARK

Maria’s the better investigator, aren’t you honey?

MARIA

Mark has a sixth sense about people.  If there were people lurking in the shadows he’d know it.

VERONICA

I hope this party won’t be full of shady characters.

RICHARD

Like musicians, actors and attorneys?  I think we’re in trouble.  Besides you’re not early, Ronnie pla—

VERONICA

I think it’s so romantic how you met.  Richard, do you know how Mark and Maria met? 

MARK

Veronica planned something?

VERONICA shoots a look at RICHARD who nods slightly at MARK.

RICHARD

No.  How did they meet?  I’m always concerned with how couples part.  Who’s fucking who they shouldn’t, whose name the bonds are in.  That kind of stuff.

VERONICA

Richard!  This is an engagement party.  Please!

MARIA

I get a lot of that too, investigating for your firm, Rich.  But, when you find true love, it changes you.  Now work’s just work.  I can hardly wait to get home—

RICHARD

From all the lies, cheating, fraud—

MARIA

--and be with my honey.

VERONICA

It’s all so romantic.  Mark saw Maria singing in a club and wrote a song for her.

MARIA

It’s more romantic than even that.  Mark wrote the song before he even met me.  Talk about fate.  It’s a perfect song for my range and my heart.

MARK

I had this song in my head.  It was obviously about a man.

RICHARD and VERONICA share a look.

MARK (continues)

It was from the woman’s point of view, I guess.  I couldn’t sing it, really.

RICHARD

Not around the police station, certainly.

MARIA

And after he heard me sing, he came right up and said, “I have the perfect song for you.”  It is the perfect song.  We’re going to play it at the wedding.

VERONICA

What’s it called?

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