United States, American Literature 

Comedy | One Act
3M/4W
The story begins in a seedy New Orleans bar where John Polk Richards, a college freshman whose fraternity brothers have paid his way into a bordello as an eighteenth birthday present, is bolstering his courage with liquor. He is approached by Ashbe, a fey young creature who invites him to the littered apartment that she shares with her absent father. As high strung and flaky as John Polk is nervous and tentative, Ashbe initiates him into her secret fantasy life as she tries to bridge the loneliness that infuses them both. She strings Cheerios to make a necklace and then nibbles at them; puts blue food coloring in John Polk's rum and Coke; lets him hear the sea in her favorite conch shell; and finally, invites him to make love to her—an offer that he politely declines. Sometimes wildly funny, sometimes gently affecting, the play is a wonderfully resourceful study of two young people, both unsure and apprehensive, whose unexpected encounter becomes, for both of them, a valuable lesson in coping with life—now and in the future.