Excerpt of Jitterbug

(from near the beginning)

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               YOUNG DALIA

You like to dance.

 

            MICHAEL

(Stopping and suddenly turning.) I, uh, didn't know anyone was around. (Nervous, turns the dial in the wrong direction; the music gets louder until he turns it the right way and it turns off. ) I was—

 

            YOUNG DALIA

I like to dance too.

 

            MICHAEL

There aren't a lot of places ter, ter, um, practice. It's daft anyway, I guess. Wanting to dance.

 

            YOUNG DALIA

I don't think so. Most girls don't think so. Me, anyway. I don't think so. Are you really going to dance up those stairs?

 

            MICHAEL

Maybe. You don't think its rubbish? Me da thinks so. I mean my dad, Pop…well… and he's a musician so you'd think he'd… But anyway, he does. Think it’s daft.

 

            YOUNG DALIA

Wants you to be a doctor.

 

            MICHAEL

(Laughing.) Well not anything that highfalutin, as if I had the brains, or could. But something, something respectable. (Suddenly struck.) You have beautiful eyes.

 

            DALIA

They were blue. Are blue, I mean. And I've always liked them. Not to be proud. But I was, I guess. They set me apart. Not set me apart from my schoolmates, set me apart from my relatives. Except Bubbe Rose. She had my blue eyes. Bubbe Rose and me. We shared that. Those blue eyes. But no one had ever called them beautiful before—not until Michael that day in the alleyway.

 

 

(…continued…)