ARE YOU ALL RIGHT IN THERE?

ARE YOU ALL RIGHT IN THERE? By David-Matthew Barnes.  Gina,  a high school student musing at a party about her life in small-town America.

GINA.  I’m sorry.  I’m just kind of emotional right now.  I think it’s graduation.  I’m graduating in a month and I can’t wait to get out of here. (pause) My home town. My friends.  My family.  (pause)  I hate these people.  And I feel so . . . guilty for it.  I must me the most horrible person in the entire world.  I hate this party.  I hate my best friend.  I hate my boyfriend. (pause)  But I really hate Brittany Tyler.  She’s evil and and she has a bad haircut.  (pause)  I am so horrible.  Something is seriously wrong with me.  I have lived here for all of my life.  I should be proud of where I come from.  I should look back with fond memories and kind thoughts – but I just can’t wait to leave.  (pause)  I don’t know why.  It’s like this . . . feeling.  I wake up in the morning and just chokes me.  It’s the same house and the same people and the same school – I just can’t take it anymore.  I am only seventeen. I should be happy.  I should be sweet.  I should do a lot of charity work in the community. (Panics)  What if I’m nuts? What if I need serious help – like therapy or something medieval like that?  My aunt went to therapy for six months and she totally gained thirty pounds.  She blew up like a house. (pause) This party is pathetic.  I could be at home right now, curled up in bed and reading Wuthering Heights.  Instead – I was standing in the living room and this foreign-exchange student kept staring with this weird look on his face.  He comes up to me and says, “Oh, you are such a beautiful American girl!”  So I looked at him – and I told him that he smelled.  So he started yelling at me in his native language and he freaked me out.  I thought he was psychotic.  Then he walked away as if it were supposed to shatter my heart into a million tiny pieces. (pause) Pul-leaze, Don Juan – either go home or grow.  So he slithered his way around the room until he found Leslie.  She thinks she’s cool because she went to Paris last summer and made out with some French guy at the Eiffel Tower.  I’ll tell you how I really feel about Leslie.  She has the personality of a cheese grater.  She’s been a cheerleader since she was in diapers and she thinks we should worship her because she knows how to jump in the air and do a cartwheel.  Trust me – I have been to a football gam and I have seen the girl dance.  It’s not pretty.  She should consider buying herself a little bit of rhythm before she goes to college.