WHILE WAITING FOR OVERRATED PIZZA...

Picture our heroine, along with her partner and their friend, Ravi, who is leaving New York for Washington DC where he will be starting a new job. Picture the three, the rain coming down in torrents as they wait outside a pizzeria, hoping that the forty-five minute wait time estimated by the proprietor is closer to accurate than it seems like it might be from the sizable mob of would-be patrons huddling alongside them, under the awning, trying to stay dry. Picture Ravi, impish, with the Brit-like accent of his native Sri Lanka, making conversation about his future life in our nation's capital.

RAVI: I like Adam's Morgan. Or Dupont Circle. They're nice.

Gregory nods.

ILANA (Naming the only place she's heard of in DC): Georgetown?

GREGORY: Georgetown!

RAVI: Oh, yes. I would like to live there. It is so beautiful.

GREGORY: But there's no subway stop there.

RAVI (looking forlorn): That's true.

ILANA (straining for a cheerful solution): You could always get a bicycle!

RAVI (brightening): I suppose...

ILANA (feeling quite pleased with herself): You could bike to work!

RAVI: But the weather is so hot there. It's so humid. It was a swamp you know.

ILANA: Ravi...

RAVI: Yes, the weather in DC is just terrible. Too damn hot.

ILANA: Ravi, you're from Sri Lanka!

RAVI: Yes?

ILANA: Isn't that country basically jungle?

RAVI: Well, why do you think I left? Twenty-five years was enough for me!

GREGORY: It wasn't the war?

RAVI: War? No! It was the humidity!