Lead Focused / Comedy
Ordained Online
Rowan got ordained on a website to marry two best friends. The ceremony script is in a binder, and the binder is in a car that just drove off. With the bride's mother watching from the front row, Rowan has to get this couple married on a blank index card.
A garden. Folding chairs. A trellis with slightly too many flowers. ROWAN stands under it holding a single index card. LENA and OSCAR face each other. DIANE sits in the front row, close enough to touch.
ROWAN
Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today.
(beat)
That's the whole card.
OSCAR
(whispering)
Where's the rest?
ROWAN
The rest is in a binder. The binder's in a car. The car belongs to your cousin, who I'm now told went to get ice.
LENA
We don't need ice.
ROWAN
I said that. He was very committed.
DIANE
(from the front row)
Is there a problem?
ROWAN
No problem, Diane. Just a brief moment of spiritual reflection.
DIANE
It's been forty seconds.
ROWAN
Reflection takes time.
ROWAN turns the card over. It is blank. ROWAN looks at the sky as if for help, then at the couple.
ROWAN
Okay. Okay. I know this. I wrote it. It's in here somewhere.
(clearing throat, big voice)
Lena. Oscar. Love is... a journey.
OSCAR
It's not, though. You said you hated that line.
ROWAN
I do hate that line. I'm stalling. Let me stall.
LENA
Rowan.
ROWAN
I got this. Marriage is a... a partnership. Like a business. But with feelings. And no revenue.
DIANE
Oh, for heaven's sake.
ROWAN
Diane, I love you, you've been like a mother to me, in that you've criticized everything I've done since I was nine.
DIANE
Somebody had to.
ROWAN
And you did. You really did.
ROWAN steps closer to the couple, dropping the card.
ROWAN
Forget the binder. Here's what I actually know. Oscar. When you met Lena you called me at two in the morning and said, and I quote, 'I think I'm in trouble.' And I said, 'Good trouble or bad trouble?' And you said, 'I don't know yet, but she laughed at my worst joke and then explained why it was bad.'
OSCAR
That's true.
LENA
It was a very bad joke.
ROWAN
And Lena. You told me you weren't sure. You said he was too tall and too cheerful and he clapped when the plane landed.
OSCAR
Once.
LENA
Twice.
ROWAN
And then six months later you told me you'd started clapping too.
LENA laughs despite herself. OSCAR reaches for her hand. DIANE dabs at an eye and pretends she isn't.
ROWAN
So. Rings.
OSCAR
(patting pockets)
Yes. Rings.
(patting more)
Rings.
ROWAN
Oscar.
OSCAR
They're in the binder.
ROWAN
Why are the rings in the binder?
OSCAR
It has a pocket!
DIANE
I told him to give them to the best man.
OSCAR
The best man is the cousin.
ROWAN
The ice cousin.
OSCAR
The ice cousin.
ROWAN takes a long breath. Then pulls a ring off their own finger and a hair tie off their wrist.
ROWAN
Lena, this is my grandmother's ring, it's a size too big for you, don't lose it. Oscar, this is a hair tie. It's symbolic. Everything today is symbolic.
LENA
Rowan, you don't have to.
ROWAN
I do. I do have to. Because there's one more thing I gotta confess, and I wanna get to it before the ice comes back.
(beat)
The website I got ordained on. It went down. Last week. I checked this morning and it's just a picture of a cat and the words 'domain for sale.'
DIANE
(standing)
I knew it.
ROWAN
Diane, sit down.
DIANE, astonished, sits.
ROWAN
So here's what's gonna happen. You two are gonna look at each other. You're gonna say the thing. And Tuesday morning you're gonna go down to the courthouse and sign the paper, and I'm gonna drive you, and I'm gonna buy the coffee, and nobody at that office will ever know that this was the real one.
(to the couple, gently)
Because this is the real one. Lena. Do you?
LENA
(softly)
I do.
ROWAN
Oscar.
OSCAR
I do. I really do.
ROWAN
Then by the power vested in me by a website that no longer exists, and by the power of every one of these people who gave up a Saturday, I pronounce you married. Kiss her before her mother gets up again.
They kiss. Applause. DIANE stands anyway. From the distance, a car horn. The ice has arrived.
End of script
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