Adapted from the erotic version
The sun sets over a quiet campus. Finals season and shorter days are the perfect combination to encourage students to go back to their homes and complete their work. The quad is empty, and the walkways that had been bustling with hurried activity earlier in the day are absent of foot traffic.
In stark contrast with the rest of the campus, light from inside the SUB flows out from the windows onto the surrounding terrain like a thin, glossy coating of honey.
The empty Martlet office. Dimly lit by yellow lamps and obsolete computers, it is a room that apparently hasn’t agreed upon which decade that it is in. The computers suggest that the year is 2010, whereas the printer suggests that the year is 2000. The couches have decided that they have at least been in that office for several decades, but don’t much care about the exact year.
TOMMY, a struggling painter and part-time barista who happens to be totally ripped, enters the office.
Tommy: Hi, is this the Martlet office?
TAMMY, a gorgeous and self-conscious English major with a past, enters from the archives.
Tammy: Sorry, I was just in the archives going over some old volumes. What can I help you with?
Tommy: I wanted to stop by and see if I could get involved.
Tommy pauses.
Tommy: You know, you have some gum in your hair.
Tammy: Really?! Oh no, this is so awkward! What a convenient way to humanize my character and make me seem more approachable to you: the male lead!
Both laugh maniacally.
Tommy: You’re right, that’s very convenient.
Both laugh maniacally.
Tammy: Wow, I don’t want to be forward but it seems like we’re really clicking.
Tommy: You’re right again! Let’s find a way to explain how we fall in love and get married within 90 minutes!
Tammy: Is one of us going to keep something relatively unimportant undisclosed from the other for no apparent reason, and will a series of miscommunications and unlikely social circumstances eventually cause one of us to refuse to continue seeing the other?
Tommy: Absolutely! But then will the one who pushed the other away decide that life isn’t about winning and that love is a series of compromises, and to start a healthy relationship an extremely public display of affection needs to be presented in order to win the other person back?
Tammy: Almost certainly! But Tommy, I’ve been keeping something from you for long enough. You deserve to know.
Tommy: Jesus, Tammy. What did you do? It can’t be that bad.
Tammy: I — I have a past, Tommy.
Tommy: What? Tammy, how could you keep something like this from me?
Tammy: It’s not like I’m the only one who has existed before this production! Are you telling me that you don’t have a past?
Tommy gasps.
Tommy: How dare you! We’re through!
Tommy runs out the Martlet office and down the SUB hallway.
Tammy: No, Tommy, please! I can’t help to have existed before meeting you! Take me back!
Tammy runs after Tommy. She goes through the door into the hallway, turns, and sees a New Orleans marching band crammed into the small basement corridor.
Tommy: Tammy, I wasn’t fair to you for having a past. A lot of people have existed at some point in the past. It wasn’t fair of me to run off like that. So I’m apologizing the only way I know how — a New Orleans marching band.
Band starts playing George Michael’s “Careless Whisper.”
Tammy: Wow! You really do care, Tommy! Even though this is little more than a sheer monetary expenditure, I’m starting to fall for you in a way that I never thought possible.
Tommy: Maybe it’s because — we’re meant to be.
Tommy and Tammy do an amazingly choreographed dance to a fun pop song that Justin Timberlake wrote for this production, and the set grows smaller as we zoom out . Credits roll, the end!