SCENE: :LARRY's office. As he dials the phone, the screen splits to show Helena.

LARRY: Hey.

HELENA: I was hoping I wouldn't hear from you tonight.

LARRY: That was optimistic.

HELENA: Larry, I was just hoping Ally would get through to you.

LARRY: She tried to, but you can't convince someone out of his fears.

HELENA: What about when your child is scared of monsters under the bed?

LARRY: You're not trying to reason your child out of his fear. You show him there's nothing there. But there is something there, what I'm afraid of is real. I could hurt her.

HELENA: Ally doesn't think you'll hurt her.
LARRY: No, she says I will, and she'll hurt me too. She was so smart; she didn't lie to me.

HELENA: So why didn't it work?

LARRY: She couldn't convince me I won't fail her, like I failed you.

HELENA: Larry, is that what you think? That you failed me? God, Larry I can't believe you
never said that to me before. We weren't friends for what, ten days after the divorce?

LARRY: Maybe less.

HELENA: Larry, listen to me, you didn't fail me, you didn't fail me. I didn't fail you. We made a mistake. We were such good friends, we loved each other, and we thought we loved each other enough. You love me, but I'm guessing it's nothing compared to what you feel for her. That's not failing me, we just weren't
right. I mean how many exes are best friends?


LARRY: That's what she said.

HELENA: Larry, I swear--

LARRY: What?

HELENA: Look at what you're letting go. I'd love to really meet her, I mean when she's not
dumping ice cream on your head.

LARRY: You'd like her, but I'm in Detroit.

HELENA: You don't have to be.

LARRY: Yes, I do.

HELENA: Why do you think you'll hurt her?

LARRY: I was thinking of asking her to marry me while at the same time pulling away.

HELENA: Because you were scared of getting married again, of being a father again, of loving someone that much.

LARRY: Of loving someone that much?

HELENA: Loving her, hurting her, losing her. It's easier to control how you lose her.

LARRY: That's not it. She said I'm afraid of changing.

HELENA: How?

LARRY: I say I can't be a good husband. She said I can be, said that maybe I wasn't a good father to Sam, but I became one, and I could become a good husband. I'm
afraid of what changing would mean.
HELENA: Ally was really hurt by a man, right?

LARRY: Billy, he was her childhood sweetheart.

HELENA: And she was afraid of loving someone again?

LARRY: Yes.

HELENA: And yet she came to Detroit to convince you to be with her. You broke her heart, but she didn't close her herself up again. She came to fight for you. She
believes in you Larry.

LARRY: I know.

HELENA: What happens if you let go of your fear, or let her help you work through them?

LARRY: I don't know.

HELENA: Either you get married and spend your lives together, or you don't work, and you're broken-hearted, but you know you couldn't make it work.

LARRY: And I hurt her.

HELENA: And you hurt yourself.

LARRY: I don't matter.

HELENA: Now that's bullshit. You're thinking about how much it will hurt you to hurt her like that.
LARRY: I don't think I could feel any worse. The look on her face when she gave up...

HELENA: You're being such an idiot.

LARRY: I am not.

HELENA: The most happiness we can find is loving someone and being loved back, you
know that.

LARRY: Make Someone Happy?

HELENA: What?

LARRY: (sings) Love is the answer, Someone to love is the answer, Once you've found
her, build your world around her! Make someone happy, Make just one someone happy, and you will be happy too!

HELENA: Oh, yeah, like that song. Do you really want to be this unhappy the rest of your
life? All of us are afraid, Larry. It's what you do with it. When we make the decision to live, we step out on a tightrope with no net, and we try to keep from
from looking down. You're looking down.

LARRY: Everyone's afraid?
HELENA: Oh, come on. There are so many things to be afraid of, the list of named phobias is probably the size of a short story. We learn how to deal with our fears, or we give into them. You can't stand still on a tightrope. The longer you
stand still, the more you're sure you're going to fall, and so you start losing your
balance. Eventually, you're going to fall. You can forward or go back, but going
back is just as terrifying as going foward, cause you're still walking on a tightrope.

LARRY: What happens when you fall? You die?

HELENA: Not always. Sometimes you just break bones; sometimes you end up paralyzed.

LARRY: You can't move at all.

HELENA: You just lie on the ground staring up at all the people on their tightropes.

LARRY: I'm taking part in life. I work. I spend time with Sam. I talk to you.

HELENA: Ok, so my metaphor doesn't completely hold, but still you're not really living.

LARRY: Because you say I'm not?

HELENA: Because you're not connecting. Does talking to me make you feel like you're
connecting? I mean, Larry, you live in Detroit, and your strongest connections are still in Boston: me and Ally.

LARRY: You can't keep ignoring my son.

HELENA: Sam, the one who misrable you are in the first place.

LARRY: So, I'm misrable. We knew that already.

HELENA: You want me to give up too? You want to be just a father and a lawyer?

LARRY: I'm a success there.

HELENA: Right. Stay where you're a success. Don't try anything else. What if you'd just
stayed a lawyer?

LARRY: I did husband and father before. I fell off your tightrope.

HELENA: Yet, you tried again for father.

LARRY: Why not husband, right? Ally asked me that too. She said wasn't enough to
inspire my changing. Like somehow I'd find someone I loved enough to change?
She knows I will never love anyone more than her. Of course, she probably thought that about Billy, and then he went to Michigan and saw Georgia. And she
came to Detroit and fought me to get us back.

HELENA: Didn't I already point that out?

LARRY: But it's just hitting me. She loved two men. They both moved to Michigan, but she only came after me. She believes that much in me.

(Helena is amused.)

How can she believe in me more than I do? Of course I believed in her more than
she did when she was afraid of love. She asked me why I couldn't lean on her, asked me if she wasn't strong enough to lean on?

HELENA: Is she?

LARRY: She showed me she was today, didn't she? She was amazing. She kept coming up with new reason why we could work.

HELENA: She won't come see you again.

LARRY: I know.

HELENA: What are you thinking?

LARRY: So, I really am a fool.

HELENA: Yes. Are you going to do anything about it?

LARRY: I guess I'm going back to Boston.

HELENA: When?

LARRY: I want to see Ally tonight. I'll come back and pack everything up in a day or two.
I'll have to talk to Sam, but he was ok with everything when I was living with Ally.
Thank you.

HELENA: Your welcome. It's what I'm here for. I love you.

LARRY: I love you, too. I'll call you tomorrow. Tell you how it went.

HELENA: Have fun with Ally. Call me when you're back in Detroit.

LARRY: Ok, goodbye.

HELENA:Goodbye.

SCENE: A restuarant. NELLE and LING are sitting at a table.

LING: You do know this isn't the office or the courthouse, and it isn't lunch time.

NELLE: I know that Ling.

LING: So what's so important?

NELLE: Who said important?

LING: I don't have time--

NELLE: You have plenty of time.

LING: Not for this. Just talk.

NELLE: Jon wants us to get back together.

LING: Not again. Wasn't twice enough.

NELLE: Ling.

LING: The funny little man isn't good enough for you.

NELLE: That's what he thinks. I'm the princess, and he's the frog.

LING: You already kissed him; he's still not a prince.

NELLE: (a little melty) Well...

LING: John Cage did an unspeakable thing to you.

NELLE: What?

LING: You know what.

NELLE: Yes.

LING: And you're thinking about it.

NELLE: Yes.

LING: Why?

NELLE: Because when I looked at him I saw all the things I thought I never wanted. And he
said the magic words.

LING: Please don't say they were I love you.

NELLE: He said, I was afraid.

LING: Oh, fear makes everything ok.

NELLE: No.

LING: Am I here to convince you this is the wrong thing or the right one?

NELLE: I don't know. When he said he didn't know home much he could love me, I wanted
to say, Yes, I'll try again, but I keep thinking about how he hurt me not being able
to accept, love me as I am. Does it matter that he was so upset because he thought I couldn't have seen him or loved him without the money? How far does
understanding go? To forgiveness? Can it extend to starting over?

LING: That was rhetorical, right? I think I'm here to listen.

(NELLE nods.)

NELLE: We broke up a year ago. I dated other men, but I didn't much like seeing Jon with
Melanie. I'm not saying I'm not over him, but I'm also still in love with him, if that
makes any sense. I finally convinced myself, came to believe that we couldn't
work, that he could never love me as much as I love him. And now he says, I know what was stopping me. Maybe now I can love that much. I think you might be right for me. Part of me hears, he could love me that much, but the other part
hears, Maybe? Can I bet my heart on maybe? And yet there are some people-
some friends, some lovers-you never stop loving. You haven't seen them in years, and yet you love them. For those people where it could have gone
differently, if you get a chance to do it differently, am I crazy if I don't take this chance? And yet, it's my heart. I don't do this, I can be Subzero Nelle again.

LING: Honey, you never were.

NELLE: No, I was until Cage & Fish. My heart was separate. No one could see it. I was
only about work. Jon made me more, I could go back, couldn't I?

LING: I don't think you can stop feeling once you've started. You can't be like you were
before, any more than (don't tell anyone I said this) I can be who I was before Cage&Fish. Must be something about that place.

NELLE: Or those people.

LING: Yes.

NELLE: I can stay the way I am. Jon could be the man I marry, or maybe he's just one
man I loved.

LING: Nelle, honey, how many men have you loved?

NELLE: Ok, point taken. But what about Jon, he thinks it could be me. Something about
giving him what he needs, making him feel less like an odd little man. And he
doesn't love Allly. He never answered me about that before. That must mean
something, that he was finally addressing that.

LING: You're looking for reasons to say yes.

NELLE: So I should just say it. It's what I really want to do.

LING: Are you going to?

NELLE: You know when I was Sub-Zero, I didn't have to feel the fear. Law, no problem,
and there was nothing else. I keep on saying that, there was you, I had acquaintences.

LING: We never went that deep. We were friends, but we never really talked about the
hard stuff.

NELLE: We were too busy avoiding it. Now, I can't. I choose yes, the fear doesn't go
away. I choose no, I get doubts and regret. No ice anywhere in the vicinity.

LING: What do you want?

NELLE: All those things I never thought I wanted, with him. Married, children. I'd probably
be a terrible mother. It's stupid.
LING: You'd be a great mother.

NELLE: You're just saying that.

LING: Do I just say anything?

NELLE: No, but this is extenuating circumstances.

LING: It's your heart. That's why. Don't make me say anymore, please.

NELLE: (smiling, laughs a little, one beat, maybe two) He's the one who made me see
that dream. He's the one I thought about it with. Maybe with that doctor for a
little, but really just Jon. I have to say yes,

LING: Good, so how about we get something to eat? Our waitor has been glaring at us. We haven't touched the menus.

NELLE: Well, I didn't actually get lunch. After I rushed out the restuarant I was so upset...

(NELLE picks up her menu. LING follows suit. )

SCENE: ALLY's appartment. RENEE is sitting on the couch reading. ALLY enters through the front door.

RENEE: You're home kind of early. It didn't go well?

ALLY: No, hey, I got what I wanted. I found out why he left. I didn't get him back, but I just
needed to know why, right? And now I know. He's afraid, and I couldn't convince him that we could get through it. I couldn't convince him

(Ally starts crying.)

I couldn't convince him, that I could help him. I couldn't--
RENEE: (embracing ALLY and leading her over to the couch): Ally, it's ok. You're going to
get through this.
(ALLY continues crying. RENEE continues comforting her as Ooh, ooh Child plays. There's a knock at the door.)

RENEE: It's ok. I'll get rid of whomever it is.

ALLY: Thanks.

(Another knock.)

RENEE: I'm coming.

(RENEE opens the door to LARRY)

LARRY: Hi, Renee. Is she...

(Ally gets up from the coach and walks towards the door.)

ALLY: Renee, do you see him too, or am I hallucinating again?

RENEE: No, he's really here.

ALLY: Oh, then could you?

RENEE: Yeah, I'll be in my bedroom.

ALLY: Thanks.

(RENEE exits.)