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# ACT ONE
## The call
INT. MAYA'S APARTMENT - NIGHT
A studio above a laundromat. The dryers hum through the floor. MAYA (30s) sleeps in her clothes on the couch, a stack of unopened mail on her chest.
Her phone buzzes. She lets it. It buzzes *again*.
MAYA
(into the phone, half asleep)
Whoever this is, it's two in the morning.
LEO (V.O.)
It's Leo. The diner's closing.
Maya sits up. The mail slides to the floor.
[[Idea: the mail is all from the bank. Pay it off in act three.]]
MAYA
Closing when?
LEO (V.O.)
Come and see.
The line goes dead. Maya looks at the phone, then at the envelopes fanned across the floorboards. FINAL NOTICE, in red, on three of them.
She steps over them to find her shoes.
INT. MAYA'S CAR - MOVING - NIGHT
A hatchback held together by bumper stickers. The wipers are losing to the rain. On the radio, a late-night host takes calls from the sleepless.
RADIO HOST (V.O.)
...and if you're still awake out there, you're in good company. Line two, go ahead.
Maya switches it off. Through the streaked glass: the river, black and swollen; the high school, dark; a billboard for a housing development, WATERFRONT LIVING, COMING SOON.
She slows as she passes it. Then speeds up.
EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT
A neon sign with half its letters dead: RIVERS DE D NER. Rain on the asphalt. Maya's car pulls in beside the only other one, a pickup older than she is.
She kills the engine and sits. Her phone lights up: one new voicemail. She plays it on speaker.
CAROL (V.O.)
Ms. Reyes, it's Carol from Lakeshore Savings again. I really do need you to call me back before Friday.
Maya deletes it. Through the diner window, a lone figure wipes down the counter as if the breakfast rush were an hour away.
## The last night
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - NIGHT
Chrome, red vinyl, a jukebox with the plug pulled. LEO (60s) stands behind the counter in an apron he has worn for forty years.
The bell over the door rings. He doesn't look up.
LEO
You came.
MAYA
You said closing. You didn't say tonight.
LEO
Tonight's when it closes.
[[Todo: does Leo know about the offer yet?]]
He pours two coffees. Neither of them drinks.
MAYA
Where is everybody?
LEO
Home. Asleep. Where people are at this hour.
MAYA
Dot?
LEO
Dot was in at six for her pie. Same as every night for thirty years.
MAYA
Does she know?
LEO
(wiping the same spot)
Everybody knows. It was in the paper.
MAYA
I didn't read it in the paper. You called me.
LEO
Then I'm glad I called.
Maya turns her mug a quarter turn on the counter. An old habit.
LEO (CONT'D)
How's the city?
MAYA
Loud. Expensive. Fine.
LEO
And the job?
MAYA
(a beat too quickly)
Also fine.
Leo nods as if he believes her. He doesn't.
LEO
You eat?
MAYA
I'm not hungry.
LEO
That's not what I asked.
He's already at the grill. Butter hisses. Maya watches him work: the same economy of movement, the spatula flipped and caught without looking.
LEO (CONT'D)
(over his shoulder)
Kitchen needs clearing out anyway. Everything back there that isn't nailed down belongs to somebody now.
He slides a grilled cheese across the counter, cut into triangles, a pickle on the side. Maya looks at it for a long moment.
MAYA
Triangles.
LEO
Your mother's rule.
She picks up the plate and follows him through the swinging door.
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
Boxes everywhere, taped and labelled. Leo has already vanished into the walk-in. Maya reads the nearest box: BOOTH SIX, DO NOT SELL.
MAYA
(calling out)
Who would buy a booth?
LEO (O.S.)
Somebody already did.
Maya runs a finger along the tape. Under the new label there is an older one, in her mother's handwriting: MAYA'S HOMEWORK.
[[Setup: her mother's handwriting. Let Maya find it again at the end.]]
She peels the new label back far enough to read the old one whole, then presses it flat again.
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - DAY (1996)
Sunlight through clean windows. Every stool taken, the jukebox playing. YOUNG MAYA (8) does long division in booth six, her tongue between her teeth.
Her mother, ROSA (30s), in a paper hat, sets down a grilled cheese cut into triangles without breaking stride.
ROSA
Homework first, then the pickle.
YOUNG MAYA
The pickle is part of the sandwich.
ROSA
The pickle is a reward.
A younger Leo, all elbows and moustache, leans through the kitchen hatch.
LEO
Rosa! Table four is asking for you by name.
ROSA
Table four can ask.
She slides a cardboard box under the booth for Maya's books, tears off a strip of tape and writes on it in marker: MAYA'S HOMEWORK.
YOUNG MAYA
Nobody's going to take it.
ROSA
Then the label won't hurt.
CUT TO:
## Closing time
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - LATER
Leo stacks chairs on the tables, legs in the air. Maya takes the other side of the room without being asked. They meet in the middle.
LEO
You still do the corners first.
MAYA
You taught me.
LEO
Your mother taught you. I just yelled.
The bell rings. DOT (70s), in a rain hat and a coat over her nightgown, stands dripping in the doorway.
DOT
Don't you dare tell me you're closed.
LEO
Dot, it's three in the morning.
DOT
And I couldn't sleep, and neither could you, or the lights would be off.
She takes her stool at the counter, third from the end. Nobody else has sat on it in thirty years.
DOT (CONT'D)
(to Maya)
Look at you. You got tall.
MAYA
I was tall when I left.
DOT
Then you got taller.
Leo lifts a glass dome off the last slice of cherry pie and sets it in front of her. Maya catches his eye. He looks away.
DOT
(between bites)
They say the new place will have forty flavors of coffee.
LEO
There's one flavor of coffee. It's coffee.
DOT
That's what I told them.
She finishes, folds a twenty under the plate, and pats Leo's hand on her way to the door.
DOT
Six o'clock tomorrow.
LEO
Dot. There's no tomorrow.
DOT
(without turning)
Then I'll be early.
The bell rings behind her. Leo lifts the plate. The twenty is wrapped around a key.
# ACT TWO
## The offer
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - OFFICE - NIGHT
A closet with a desk in it. Invoices on a spike, a calendar stuck on a month from years ago, and a wall of photographs: the diner in every decade.
Maya squeezes in with a flashlight, sent to find packing tape. On the desk, under a coffee can of pens, a letter on heavy paper from HALVERSON DEVELOPMENT GROUP. A number with a lot of zeros. At the bottom, Leo's signature, dated three weeks ago.
[[Question: did Maya know about the letter before tonight?]]
She sets it down exactly where it was. Her eyes go to the wall. One photograph: a girl of eight asleep in booth six, a textbook for a pillow, a waitress in a paper hat standing guard.
MAYA
(quietly)
Three weeks.
LEO (O.S.)
Maya? You find the tape?
She switches off the flashlight and stands in the dark a moment longer.
MAYA
(calling back)
Not yet.
EXT. RIVERSIDE DINER - BACK DOOR - NIGHT
Rain drums on a tin awning. Leo drags a trash bag to the dumpster. Maya waits in the doorway with the letter.
MAYA
You signed it three weeks ago.
LEO
I signed it when they asked me to.
MAYA
And you called me tonight.
LEO
I called you when I could.
He heaves the bag in. The lid bangs down. For a moment, only the rain.
MAYA
They're going to knock it down, Leo. All of it. The counter, the booths.
LEO
It's a building.
MAYA
It's *the* building.
LEO
(finally turning)
It's a building with a roof that leaks over table four, a freezer that dies every August and a man who's sixty-eight years old. That's what it is.
MAYA
You could have told me. Three weeks ago, you could have picked up the phone.
LEO
And said what? Come home and watch?
MAYA
Yes.
Leo has no answer for that. Water runs off the awning between them in a sheet.
Maya looks at the key in his fist. He sees her see it, and pockets it.
MAYA
What's that?
LEO
Dot's.
MAYA
Dot's what?
LEO
Come inside. You're getting wet.
## The booth
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - NIGHT
Rain against the window. Maya slides into the booth across from Leo, who has not touched his coffee.
For a while neither of them speaks. Outside, the neon buzzes, and the dead letters stay dead.
LEO
You used to fall asleep right there. Your mother would carry you out to the car.
MAYA
I remember.
LEO
You don't. You were asleep.
Maya smiles in spite of herself. Her thumb finds the edge of the table, where a child once scratched four letters into the Formica.
MAYA
When do they come?
LEO
Seven. With a truck, and a man with a clipboard.
MAYA
And the booth?
LEO
The booth goes on a different truck.
[[Rewrite: too on the nose, let the booth say it]]
MAYA
You kept the table.
LEO
I kept the whole diner.
# ACT ONE
## The call
INT. MAYA'S APARTMENT - NIGHT
A studio above a laundromat. The dryers hum through the floor. MAYA (30s) sleeps in her clothes on the couch, a stack of unopened mail on her chest.
Her phone buzzes. She lets it. It buzzes *again*.
MAYA
(into the phone, half asleep)
Whoever this is, it's two in the morning.
LEO (V.O.)
It's Leo. The diner's closing.
Maya sits up. The mail slides to the floor.
[[Idea: the mail is all from the bank. Pay it off in act three.]]
MAYA
Closing when?
LEO (V.O.)
Come and see.
The line goes dead. Maya looks at the phone, then at the envelopes fanned across the floorboards. FINAL NOTICE, in red, on three of them.
She steps over them to find her shoes.
INT. MAYA'S CAR - MOVING - NIGHT
A hatchback held together by bumper stickers. The wipers are losing to the rain. On the radio, a late-night host takes calls from the sleepless.
RADIO HOST (V.O.)
...and if you're still awake out there, you're in good company. Line two, go ahead.
Maya switches it off. Through the streaked glass: the river, black and swollen; the high school, dark; a billboard for a housing development, WATERFRONT LIVING, COMING SOON.
She slows as she passes it. Then speeds up.
EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT
A neon sign with half its letters dead: RIVERS DE D NER. Rain on the asphalt. Maya's car pulls in beside the only other one, a pickup older than she is.
She kills the engine and sits. Her phone lights up: one new voicemail. She plays it on speaker.
CAROL (V.O.)
Ms. Reyes, it's Carol from Lakeshore Savings again. I really do need you to call me back before Friday.
Maya deletes it. Through the diner window, a lone figure wipes down the counter as if the breakfast rush were an hour away.
## The last night
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - NIGHT
Chrome, red vinyl, a jukebox with the plug pulled. LEO (60s) stands behind the counter in an apron he has worn for forty years.
The bell over the door rings. He doesn't look up.
LEO
You came.
MAYA
You said closing. You didn't say tonight.
LEO
Tonight's when it closes.
[[Todo: does Leo know about the offer yet?]]
He pours two coffees. Neither of them drinks.
MAYA
Where is everybody?
LEO
Home. Asleep. Where people are at this hour.
MAYA
Dot?
LEO
Dot was in at six for her pie. Same as every night for thirty years.
MAYA
Does she know?
LEO
(wiping the same spot)
Everybody knows. It was in the paper.
MAYA
I didn't read it in the paper. You called me.
LEO
Then I'm glad I called.
Maya turns her mug a quarter turn on the counter. An old habit.
LEO (CONT'D)
How's the city?
MAYA
Loud. Expensive. Fine.
LEO
And the job?
MAYA
(a beat too quickly)
Also fine.
Leo nods as if he believes her. He doesn't.
LEO
You eat?
MAYA
I'm not hungry.
LEO
That's not what I asked.
He's already at the grill. Butter hisses. Maya watches him work: the same economy of movement, the spatula flipped and caught without looking.
LEO (CONT'D)
(over his shoulder)
Kitchen needs clearing out anyway. Everything back there that isn't nailed down belongs to somebody now.
He slides a grilled cheese across the counter, cut into triangles, a pickle on the side. Maya looks at it for a long moment.
MAYA
Triangles.
LEO
Your mother's rule.
She picks up the plate and follows him through the swinging door.
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
Boxes everywhere, taped and labelled. Leo has already vanished into the walk-in. Maya reads the nearest box: BOOTH SIX, DO NOT SELL.
MAYA
(calling out)
Who would buy a booth?
LEO (O.S.)
Somebody already did.
Maya runs a finger along the tape. Under the new label there is an older one, in her mother's handwriting: MAYA'S HOMEWORK.
[[Setup: her mother's handwriting. Let Maya find it again at the end.]]
She peels the new label back far enough to read the old one whole, then presses it flat again.
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - DAY (1996)
Sunlight through clean windows. Every stool taken, the jukebox playing. YOUNG MAYA (8) does long division in booth six, her tongue between her teeth.
Her mother, ROSA (30s), in a paper hat, sets down a grilled cheese cut into triangles without breaking stride.
ROSA
Homework first, then the pickle.
YOUNG MAYA
The pickle is part of the sandwich.
ROSA
The pickle is a reward.
A younger Leo, all elbows and moustache, leans through the kitchen hatch.
LEO
Rosa! Table four is asking for you by name.
ROSA
Table four can ask.
She slides a cardboard box under the booth for Maya's books, tears off a strip of tape and writes on it in marker: MAYA'S HOMEWORK.
YOUNG MAYA
Nobody's going to take it.
ROSA
Then the label won't hurt.
CUT TO:
## Closing time
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - LATER
Leo stacks chairs on the tables, legs in the air. Maya takes the other side of the room without being asked. They meet in the middle.
LEO
You still do the corners first.
MAYA
You taught me.
LEO
Your mother taught you. I just yelled.
The bell rings. DOT (70s), in a rain hat and a coat over her nightgown, stands dripping in the doorway.
DOT
Don't you dare tell me you're closed.
LEO
Dot, it's three in the morning.
DOT
And I couldn't sleep, and neither could you, or the lights would be off.
She takes her stool at the counter, third from the end. Nobody else has sat on it in thirty years.
DOT (CONT'D)
(to Maya)
Look at you. You got tall.
MAYA
I was tall when I left.
DOT
Then you got taller.
Leo lifts a glass dome off the last slice of cherry pie and sets it in front of her. Maya catches his eye. He looks away.
DOT
(between bites)
They say the new place will have forty flavors of coffee.
LEO
There's one flavor of coffee. It's coffee.
DOT
That's what I told them.
She finishes, folds a twenty under the plate, and pats Leo's hand on her way to the door.
DOT
Six o'clock tomorrow.
LEO
Dot. There's no tomorrow.
DOT
(without turning)
Then I'll be early.
The bell rings behind her. Leo lifts the plate. The twenty is wrapped around a key.
# ACT TWO
## The offer
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - OFFICE - NIGHT
A closet with a desk in it. Invoices on a spike, a calendar stuck on a month from years ago, and a wall of photographs: the diner in every decade.
Maya squeezes in with a flashlight, sent to find packing tape. On the desk, under a coffee can of pens, a letter on heavy paper from HALVERSON DEVELOPMENT GROUP. A number with a lot of zeros. At the bottom, Leo's signature, dated three weeks ago.
[[Question: did Maya know about the letter before tonight?]]
She sets it down exactly where it was. Her eyes go to the wall. One photograph: a girl of eight asleep in booth six, a textbook for a pillow, a waitress in a paper hat standing guard.
MAYA
(quietly)
Three weeks.
LEO (O.S.)
Maya? You find the tape?
She switches off the flashlight and stands in the dark a moment longer.
MAYA
(calling back)
Not yet.
EXT. RIVERSIDE DINER - BACK DOOR - NIGHT
Rain drums on a tin awning. Leo drags a trash bag to the dumpster. Maya waits in the doorway with the letter.
MAYA
You signed it three weeks ago.
LEO
I signed it when they asked me to.
MAYA
And you called me tonight.
LEO
I called you when I could.
He heaves the bag in. The lid bangs down. For a moment, only the rain.
MAYA
They're going to knock it down, Leo. All of it. The counter, the booths.
LEO
It's a building.
MAYA
It's *the* building.
LEO
(finally turning)
It's a building with a roof that leaks over table four, a freezer that dies every August and a man who's sixty-eight years old. That's what it is.
MAYA
You could have told me. Three weeks ago, you could have picked up the phone.
LEO
And said what? Come home and watch?
MAYA
Yes.
Leo has no answer for that. Water runs off the awning between them in a sheet.
Maya looks at the key in his fist. He sees her see it, and pockets it.
MAYA
What's that?
LEO
Dot's.
MAYA
Dot's what?
LEO
Come inside. You're getting wet.
## The booth
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - NIGHT
Rain against the window. Maya slides into the booth across from Leo, who has not touched his coffee.
For a while neither of them speaks. Outside, the neon buzzes, and the dead letters stay dead.
LEO
You used to fall asleep right there. Your mother would carry you out to the car.
MAYA
I remember.
LEO
You don't. You were asleep.
Maya smiles in spite of herself. Her thumb finds the edge of the table, where a child once scratched four letters into the Formica.
MAYA
When do they come?
LEO
Seven. With a truck, and a man with a clipboard.
MAYA
And the booth?
LEO
The booth goes on a different truck.
[[Rewrite: too on the nose, let the booth say it]]
MAYA
You kept the table.
LEO
I kept the whole diner.
# ACT ONE
## The call
INT. MAYA'S APARTMENT - NIGHT
A studio above a laundromat. The dryers hum through the floor. MAYA (30s) sleeps in her clothes on the couch, a stack of unopened mail on her chest.
Her phone buzzes. She lets it. It buzzes *again*.
MAYA
(into the phone, half asleep)
Whoever this is, it's two in the morning.
LEO (V.O.)
It's Leo. The diner's closing.
Maya sits up. The mail slides to the floor.
[[Idea: the mail is all from the bank. Pay it off in act three.]]
MAYA
Closing when?
LEO (V.O.)
Come and see.
The line goes dead. Maya looks at the phone, then at the envelopes fanned across the floorboards. FINAL NOTICE, in red, on three of them.
She steps over them to find her shoes.
INT. MAYA'S CAR - MOVING - NIGHT
A hatchback held together by bumper stickers. The wipers are losing to the rain. On the radio, a late-night host takes calls from the sleepless.
RADIO HOST (V.O.)
...and if you're still awake out there, you're in good company. Line two, go ahead.
Maya switches it off. Through the streaked glass: the river, black and swollen; the high school, dark; a billboard for a housing development, WATERFRONT LIVING, COMING SOON.
She slows as she passes it. Then speeds up.
EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT
A neon sign with half its letters dead: RIVERS DE D NER. Rain on the asphalt. Maya's car pulls in beside the only other one, a pickup older than she is.
She kills the engine and sits. Her phone lights up: one new voicemail. She plays it on speaker.
CAROL (V.O.)
Ms. Reyes, it's Carol from Lakeshore Savings again. I really do need you to call me back before Friday.
Maya deletes it. Through the diner window, a lone figure wipes down the counter as if the breakfast rush were an hour away.
## The last night
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - NIGHT
Chrome, red vinyl, a jukebox with the plug pulled. LEO (60s) stands behind the counter in an apron he has worn for forty years.
The bell over the door rings. He doesn't look up.
LEO
You came.
MAYA
You said closing. You didn't say tonight.
LEO
Tonight's when it closes.
[[Todo: does Leo know about the offer yet?]]
He pours two coffees. Neither of them drinks.
MAYA
Where is everybody?
LEO
Home. Asleep. Where people are at this hour.
MAYA
Dot?
LEO
Dot was in at six for her pie. Same as every night for thirty years.
MAYA
Does she know?
LEO
(wiping the same spot)
Everybody knows. It was in the paper.
MAYA
I didn't read it in the paper. You called me.
LEO
Then I'm glad I called.
Maya turns her mug a quarter turn on the counter. An old habit.
LEO (CONT'D)
How's the city?
MAYA
Loud. Expensive. Fine.
LEO
And the job?
MAYA
(a beat too quickly)
Also fine.
Leo nods as if he believes her. He doesn't.
LEO
You eat?
MAYA
I'm not hungry.
LEO
That's not what I asked.
He's already at the grill. Butter hisses. Maya watches him work: the same economy of movement, the spatula flipped and caught without looking.
LEO (CONT'D)
(over his shoulder)
Kitchen needs clearing out anyway. Everything back there that isn't nailed down belongs to somebody now.
He slides a grilled cheese across the counter, cut into triangles, a pickle on the side. Maya looks at it for a long moment.
MAYA
Triangles.
LEO
Your mother's rule.
She picks up the plate and follows him through the swinging door.
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
Boxes everywhere, taped and labelled. Leo has already vanished into the walk-in. Maya reads the nearest box: BOOTH SIX, DO NOT SELL.
MAYA
(calling out)
Who would buy a booth?
LEO (O.S.)
Somebody already did.
Maya runs a finger along the tape. Under the new label there is an older one, in her mother's handwriting: MAYA'S HOMEWORK.
[[Setup: her mother's handwriting. Let Maya find it again at the end.]]
She peels the new label back far enough to read the old one whole, then presses it flat again.
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - DAY (1996)
Sunlight through clean windows. Every stool taken, the jukebox playing. YOUNG MAYA (8) does long division in booth six, her tongue between her teeth.
Her mother, ROSA (30s), in a paper hat, sets down a grilled cheese cut into triangles without breaking stride.
ROSA
Homework first, then the pickle.
YOUNG MAYA
The pickle is part of the sandwich.
ROSA
The pickle is a reward.
A younger Leo, all elbows and moustache, leans through the kitchen hatch.
LEO
Rosa! Table four is asking for you by name.
ROSA
Table four can ask.
She slides a cardboard box under the booth for Maya's books, tears off a strip of tape and writes on it in marker: MAYA'S HOMEWORK.
YOUNG MAYA
Nobody's going to take it.
ROSA
Then the label won't hurt.
CUT TO:
## Closing time
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - LATER
Leo stacks chairs on the tables, legs in the air. Maya takes the other side of the room without being asked. They meet in the middle.
LEO
You still do the corners first.
MAYA
You taught me.
LEO
Your mother taught you. I just yelled.
The bell rings. DOT (70s), in a rain hat and a coat over her nightgown, stands dripping in the doorway.
DOT
Don't you dare tell me you're closed.
LEO
Dot, it's three in the morning.
DOT
And I couldn't sleep, and neither could you, or the lights would be off.
She takes her stool at the counter, third from the end. Nobody else has sat on it in thirty years.
DOT (CONT'D)
(to Maya)
Look at you. You got tall.
MAYA
I was tall when I left.
DOT
Then you got taller.
Leo lifts a glass dome off the last slice of cherry pie and sets it in front of her. Maya catches his eye. He looks away.
DOT
(between bites)
They say the new place will have forty flavors of coffee.
LEO
There's one flavor of coffee. It's coffee.
DOT
That's what I told them.
She finishes, folds a twenty under the plate, and pats Leo's hand on her way to the door.
DOT
Six o'clock tomorrow.
LEO
Dot. There's no tomorrow.
DOT
(without turning)
Then I'll be early.
The bell rings behind her. Leo lifts the plate. The twenty is wrapped around a key.
# ACT TWO
## The offer
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - OFFICE - NIGHT
A closet with a desk in it. Invoices on a spike, a calendar stuck on a month from years ago, and a wall of photographs: the diner in every decade.
Maya squeezes in with a flashlight, sent to find packing tape. On the desk, under a coffee can of pens, a letter on heavy paper from HALVERSON DEVELOPMENT GROUP. A number with a lot of zeros. At the bottom, Leo's signature, dated three weeks ago.
[[Question: did Maya know about the letter before tonight?]]
She sets it down exactly where it was. Her eyes go to the wall. One photograph: a girl of eight asleep in booth six, a textbook for a pillow, a waitress in a paper hat standing guard.
MAYA
(quietly)
Three weeks.
LEO (O.S.)
Maya? You find the tape?
She switches off the flashlight and stands in the dark a moment longer.
MAYA
(calling back)
Not yet.
EXT. RIVERSIDE DINER - BACK DOOR - NIGHT
Rain drums on a tin awning. Leo drags a trash bag to the dumpster. Maya waits in the doorway with the letter.
MAYA
You signed it three weeks ago.
LEO
I signed it when they asked me to.
MAYA
And you called me tonight.
LEO
I called you when I could.
He heaves the bag in. The lid bangs down. For a moment, only the rain.
MAYA
They're going to knock it down, Leo. All of it. The counter, the booths.
LEO
It's a building.
MAYA
It's *the* building.
LEO
(finally turning)
It's a building with a roof that leaks over table four, a freezer that dies every August and a man who's sixty-eight years old. That's what it is.
MAYA
You could have told me. Three weeks ago, you could have picked up the phone.
LEO
And said what? Come home and watch?
MAYA
Yes.
Leo has no answer for that. Water runs off the awning between them in a sheet.
Maya looks at the key in his fist. He sees her see it, and pockets it.
MAYA
What's that?
LEO
Dot's.
MAYA
Dot's what?
LEO
Come inside. You're getting wet.
## The booth
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - NIGHT
Rain against the window. Maya slides into the booth across from Leo, who has not touched his coffee.
For a while neither of them speaks. Outside, the neon buzzes, and the dead letters stay dead.
LEO
You used to fall asleep right there. Your mother would carry you out to the car.
MAYA
I remember.
LEO
You don't. You were asleep.
Maya smiles in spite of herself. Her thumb finds the edge of the table, where a child once scratched four letters into the Formica.
MAYA
When do they come?
LEO
Seven. With a truck, and a man with a clipboard.
MAYA
And the booth?
LEO
The booth goes on a different truck.
[[Rewrite: too on the nose, let the booth say it]]
MAYA
You kept the table.
LEO
I kept the whole diner.
Enter and Tab know your script.
Type a scene heading and press Enter: you are writing action. Tab turns an empty line into a character, Enter after the name starts the dialogue, and a line typed in brackets becomes a parenthetical. After the speech, Enter has the next character ready. Margins, capitals and spacing follow on their own.
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INT. LIGHTHOUSE - NIGHT
The lamp is dark. NORA climbs the last stair.
NORA
(to herself)
Forty years, and tonight it goes out.
EXT. LIGHTHOUSE - NIGHT
The beam sweeps the sea.
NORA
One last time.
INT. LIGHTHOUSE - NIGHT
The lamp is dark. NORA climbs the last stair.
NORA
(to herself)
Forty years, and tonight it goes out.
EXT. LIGHTHOUSE - NIGHT
The beam sweeps the sea.
NORA
One last time.
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INT. BAKERY - BEFORE DAWN
Flour in the air. SAM (19) shapes loaves the way *her mother* did.
SAM (V.O.)
Every town has one light on at four.
[[Todo: the radio, or silence?]]
The oven door opens. Heat. _Gold._
CUT TO:INT. BAKERY - BEFORE DAWN
Flour in the air. SAM (19) shapes loaves the way *her mother* did.
SAM (V.O.)
Every town has one light on at four.
[[Todo: the radio, or silence?]]
The oven door opens. Heat. _Gold._
CUT TO:
INT. BAKERY - BEFORE DAWN
Flour in the air. SAM (19) shapes loaves the way *her mother* did.
SAM (V.O.)
Every town has one light on at four.
[[Todo: the radio, or silence?]]
The oven door opens. Heat. _Gold._
CUT TO:
INT. BAKERY - BEFORE DAWN
Flour in the air. SAM (19) shapes loaves the way *her mother* did.
SAM (V.O.)
Every town has one light on at four.
[[Todo: the radio, or silence?]]
The oven door opens. Heat. _Gold._
CUT TO:
Pages that look right.
View › Preview, or the button in the title bar, puts the script as it will print beside the text: Courier 12, standard margins, page breaks with (MORE) and (CONT'D), about a page a minute, on US Letter or A4. The pages keep up as you write, and they are the same pages the PDF is made of.
Title: The Night Ferry
Credit: written by
Author: A. Writer
INT. FERRY CABIN - NIGHT
A narrow bunk. A porthole black with sea. JONAH (40s) sits on his suitcase, as if someone might take it.
The door opens. MAREN (70s), in a steward's coat two sizes too big, holds out a tray.
MAREN
Tea. You have not slept.
JONAH
(not looking up)
Nobody sleeps on this crossing.
MAREN
I do. Every night, for thirty years.
She sets the tray on the bunk. The cup does not spill, though the whole cabin tilts.
JONAH
Then you know when we arrive.
MAREN
We arrive when you open the suitcase.
Jonah looks at her for the first time.
CUT TO:
EXT. FERRY DECK - CONTINUOUS
Fog so thick the lamps hang in it like moons. Jonah comes out holding the suitcase against his chest.
A DECKHAND (19), all elbows, coils a wet rope that is already coiled.
DECKHAND
(without looking up)
You're not supposed to be out here after the bell.
JONAH
I didn't hear a bell. I haven't heard anything since I came aboard. Not the engines, not the sea, not even you. Only the rain on the roof of the ticket office, over and over. I think it is still raining there, and nobody has thought to close the window.
DECKHAND
Nobody does. That's what she says.
(nods at the wheelhouse)
The old woman. She rings it anyway.
Jonah sets the suitcase on a bench, then picks it up again.
JONAH
How long have you worked this boat?
DECKHAND
Since tonight.
(beat)
Same as everyone.
A foghorn, somewhere below. The lights flicker and hold.
CUT TO:
INT. FERRY BAR - LATER
Six stools bolted to the floor. A radio plays a waltz from a station that went off the air before the war.
Maren polishes a glass that is already clean. Jonah takes the stool nearest the door, the suitcase between his feet.
MAREN
You found the deck, then.
JONAH
I found a boy who says he started tonight.
MAREN
He did. So did you.
She sets the glass in front of him and fills it with something the color of weak tea.
JONAH
I bought a ticket. I remember the ticket office, the woman with the stamp. I remember the rain.
MAREN
Everyone remembers the rain.
JONAH
(pushing the glass away)
Then tell me where this boat goes.
MAREN
To the other side.
JONAH
Of the bay.
MAREN
(gently)
Of whatever you are carrying.
Jonah looks down at the suitcase. The latches are rusted shut.
JONAH
It was my father's. He took it everywhere and never opened it. Not once, in forty years. When he died I found it by the door, packed, as if he was about to leave.
MAREN
And you picked it up.
JONAH
Somebody had to.
MAREN
Did they?
The radio stops between two notes. The silence is very loud.
JONAH
What happens if I don't open it?
MAREN
Then we go round again. The cabin, the tea, the boy on the deck. I have made this crossing with men who carried a suitcase for a hundred years.
JONAH
And the ones who opened it?
MAREN
(a small smile)
They got off.
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. FERRY DECK - DAWN
The fog is thinning. A grey line of shore, and on it a single lit window.
Jonah kneels on the wet planks with the suitcase in front of him. The deckhand watches from the rail. Maren watches from the wheelhouse.
He works a thumb under the first latch. It gives.
JONAH
(to himself)
All right, Dad.
The second latch. The lid lifts an inch in the wind.
Inside: nothing but paper. Hundreds of letters, every one addressed to Jonah, every one stamped and never sent.
The wind takes the top one. Then a dozen. Then all of them, a flock of white over the water, toward the shore.
Jonah does not reach for them.
DECKHAND
You're supposed to keep one.
JONAH
I know what they say.
He closes the empty suitcase and, for the first time, stands up without it.
The ferry's horn sounds. The window on the shore goes out, because it is morning.
FADE OUT.
The Night Ferry
written by
A. Writer
INT. FERRY CABIN - NIGHT
A narrow bunk. A porthole black with sea. JONAH (40s) sits on his suitcase, as if someone might take it.
The door opens. MAREN (70s), in a steward's coat two sizes too big, holds out a tray.
MAREN
Tea. You have not slept.
JONAH
(not looking up)
Nobody sleeps on this crossing.
MAREN
I do. Every night, for thirty years.
She sets the tray on the bunk. The cup does not spill, though the whole cabin tilts.
JONAH
Then you know when we arrive.
MAREN
We arrive when you open the suitcase.
Jonah looks at her for the first time.
CUT TO:
EXT. FERRY DECK - CONTINUOUS
Fog so thick the lamps hang in it like moons. Jonah comes out holding the suitcase against his chest.
A DECKHAND (19), all elbows, coils a wet rope that is already coiled.
DECKHAND
(without looking up)
You're not supposed to be out here after the bell.
JONAH
I didn't hear a bell. I haven't heard anything since I came aboard. Not the engines, not the sea, not even you. Only the rain on the roof of the ticket office, over and over.
(MORE)
2.
JONAH (CONT'D)
I think it is still raining there, and nobody has thought to close the window.
DECKHAND
Nobody does. That's what she says.
(nods at the wheelhouse)
The old woman. She rings it anyway.
Jonah sets the suitcase on a bench, then picks it up again.
JONAH
How long have you worked this boat?
DECKHAND
Since tonight.
(beat)
Same as everyone.
A foghorn, somewhere below. The lights flicker and hold.
CUT TO:
INT. FERRY BAR - LATER
Six stools bolted to the floor. A radio plays a waltz from a station that went off the air before the war.
Maren polishes a glass that is already clean. Jonah takes the stool nearest the door, the suitcase between his feet.
MAREN
You found the deck, then.
JONAH
I found a boy who says he started tonight.
MAREN
He did. So did you.
She sets the glass in front of him and fills it with something the color of weak tea.
JONAH
I bought a ticket. I remember the ticket office, the woman with the stamp. I remember the rain.
MAREN
Everyone remembers the rain.
3.
JONAH
(pushing the glass away)
Then tell me where this boat goes.
MAREN
To the other side.
JONAH
Of the bay.
MAREN
(gently)
Of whatever you are carrying.
Jonah looks down at the suitcase. The latches are rusted shut.
JONAH
It was my father's. He took it everywhere and never opened it. Not once, in forty years. When he died I found it by the door, packed, as if he was about to leave.
MAREN
And you picked it up.
JONAH
Somebody had to.
MAREN
Did they?
The radio stops between two notes. The silence is very loud.
JONAH
What happens if I don't open it?
MAREN
Then we go round again. The cabin, the tea, the boy on the deck. I have made this crossing with men who carried a suitcase for a hundred years.
JONAH
And the ones who opened it?
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Format › Document type lays the same writing out as a stage play, a multi-camera sitcom or a manuscript. The type travels in the file, and changes the pages, never your words.
INT. REHEARSAL ROOM - DAY
Folding chairs in a circle. IRIS (60s) claps once.
IRIS
From the top. And this time, mean it.
The type of document decides how the pages are printed and previewed; the editor stays the same. It is saved on the title page as a Type: line, so it travels with the file.
INT. REHEARSAL ROOM - DAY
Folding chairs in a circle. IRIS (60s) claps once.
IRIS
From the top. And this time, mean it.
The type of document decides how the pages are printed and previewed; the editor stays the same. It is saved on the title page as a Type: line, so it travels with the file.
INT. REHEARSAL ROOM - DAY
Folding chairs in a circle. IRIS (60s) claps once.
IRIS
From the top. And this time, mean it.
The type of document decides how the pages are printed and previewed; the editor stays the same. It is saved on the title page as a Type: line, so it travels with the file.
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# ACT ONE
## The call
INT. MAYA'S APARTMENT - NIGHT
A studio above a laundromat. The dryers hum through the floor. MAYA (30s) sleeps in her clothes on the couch, a stack of unopened mail on her chest.
Her phone buzzes. She lets it. It buzzes *again*.
MAYA
(into the phone, half asleep)
Whoever this is, it's two in the morning.
LEO (V.O.)
It's Leo. The diner's closing.
Maya sits up. The mail slides to the floor.
[[Idea: the mail is all from the bank. Pay it off in act three.]]
MAYA
Closing when?
LEO (V.O.)
Come and see.
The line goes dead. Maya looks at the phone, then at the envelopes fanned across the floorboards. FINAL NOTICE, in red, on three of them.
She steps over them to find her shoes.
INT. MAYA'S CAR - MOVING - NIGHT
A hatchback held together by bumper stickers. The wipers are losing to the rain. On the radio, a late-night host takes calls from the sleepless.
RADIO HOST (V.O.)
...and if you're still awake out there, you're in good company. Line two, go ahead.
Maya switches it off. Through the streaked glass: the river, black and swollen; the high school, dark; a billboard for a housing development, WATERFRONT LIVING, COMING SOON.
She slows as she passes it. Then speeds up.
EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT
A neon sign with half its letters dead: RIVERS DE D NER. Rain on the asphalt. Maya's car pulls in beside the only other one, a pickup older than she is.
She kills the engine and sits. Her phone lights up: one new voicemail. She plays it on speaker.
CAROL (V.O.)
Ms. Reyes, it's Carol from Lakeshore Savings again. I really do need you to call me back before Friday.
Maya deletes it. Through the diner window, a lone figure wipes down the counter as if the breakfast rush were an hour away.
## The last night
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - NIGHT
Chrome, red vinyl, a jukebox with the plug pulled. LEO (60s) stands behind the counter in an apron he has worn for forty years.
The bell over the door rings. He doesn't look up.
LEO
You came.
MAYA
You said closing. You didn't say tonight.
LEO
Tonight's when it closes.
[[Todo: does Leo know about the offer yet?]]
He pours two coffees. Neither of them drinks.
MAYA
Where is everybody?
LEO
Home. Asleep. Where people are at this hour.
MAYA
Dot?
LEO
Dot was in at six for her pie. Same as every night for thirty years.
MAYA
Does she know?
LEO
(wiping the same spot)
Everybody knows. It was in the paper.
MAYA
I didn't read it in the paper. You called me.
LEO
Then I'm glad I called.
Maya turns her mug a quarter turn on the counter. An old habit.
LEO (CONT'D)
How's the city?
MAYA
Loud. Expensive. Fine.
LEO
And the job?
MAYA
(a beat too quickly)
Also fine.
Leo nods as if he believes her. He doesn't.
LEO
You eat?
MAYA
I'm not hungry.
LEO
That's not what I asked.
He's already at the grill. Butter hisses. Maya watches him work: the same economy of movement, the spatula flipped and caught without looking.
LEO (CONT'D)
(over his shoulder)
Kitchen needs clearing out anyway. Everything back there that isn't nailed down belongs to somebody now.
He slides a grilled cheese across the counter, cut into triangles, a pickle on the side. Maya looks at it for a long moment.
MAYA
Triangles.
LEO
Your mother's rule.
She picks up the plate and follows him through the swinging door.
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
Boxes everywhere, taped and labelled. Leo has already vanished into the walk-in. Maya reads the nearest box: BOOTH SIX, DO NOT SELL.
MAYA
(calling out)
Who would buy a booth?
LEO (O.S.)
Somebody already did.
Maya runs a finger along the tape. Under the new label there is an older one, in her mother's handwriting: MAYA'S HOMEWORK.
[[Setup: her mother's handwriting. Let Maya find it again at the end.]]
She peels the new label back far enough to read the old one whole, then presses it flat again.
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - DAY (1996)
Sunlight through clean windows. Every stool taken, the jukebox playing. YOUNG MAYA (8) does long division in booth six, her tongue between her teeth.
Her mother, ROSA (30s), in a paper hat, sets down a grilled cheese cut into triangles without breaking stride.
ROSA
Homework first, then the pickle.
YOUNG MAYA
The pickle is part of the sandwich.
ROSA
The pickle is a reward.
A younger Leo, all elbows and moustache, leans through the kitchen hatch.
LEO
Rosa! Table four is asking for you by name.
ROSA
Table four can ask.
She slides a cardboard box under the booth for Maya's books, tears off a strip of tape and writes on it in marker: MAYA'S HOMEWORK.
YOUNG MAYA
Nobody's going to take it.
ROSA
Then the label won't hurt.
CUT TO:
## Closing time
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - LATER
Leo stacks chairs on the tables, legs in the air. Maya takes the other side of the room without being asked. They meet in the middle.
LEO
You still do the corners first.
MAYA
You taught me.
LEO
Your mother taught you. I just yelled.
The bell rings. DOT (70s), in a rain hat and a coat over her nightgown, stands dripping in the doorway.
DOT
Don't you dare tell me you're closed.
LEO
Dot, it's three in the morning.
DOT
And I couldn't sleep, and neither could you, or the lights would be off.
She takes her stool at the counter, third from the end. Nobody else has sat on it in thirty years.
DOT (CONT'D)
(to Maya)
Look at you. You got tall.
MAYA
I was tall when I left.
DOT
Then you got taller.
Leo lifts a glass dome off the last slice of cherry pie and sets it in front of her. Maya catches his eye. He looks away.
DOT
(between bites)
They say the new place will have forty flavors of coffee.
LEO
There's one flavor of coffee. It's coffee.
DOT
That's what I told them.
She finishes, folds a twenty under the plate, and pats Leo's hand on her way to the door.
DOT
Six o'clock tomorrow.
LEO
Dot. There's no tomorrow.
DOT
(without turning)
Then I'll be early.
The bell rings behind her. Leo lifts the plate. The twenty is wrapped around a key.
# ACT TWO
## The offer
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - OFFICE - NIGHT
A closet with a desk in it. Invoices on a spike, a calendar stuck on a month from years ago, and a wall of photographs: the diner in every decade.
Maya squeezes in with a flashlight, sent to find packing tape. On the desk, under a coffee can of pens, a letter on heavy paper from HALVERSON DEVELOPMENT GROUP. A number with a lot of zeros. At the bottom, Leo's signature, dated three weeks ago.
[[Question: did Maya know about the letter before tonight?]]
She sets it down exactly where it was. Her eyes go to the wall. One photograph: a girl of eight asleep in booth six, a textbook for a pillow, a waitress in a paper hat standing guard.
MAYA
(quietly)
Three weeks.
LEO (O.S.)
Maya? You find the tape?
She switches off the flashlight and stands in the dark a moment longer.
MAYA
(calling back)
Not yet.
EXT. RIVERSIDE DINER - BACK DOOR - NIGHT
Rain drums on a tin awning. Leo drags a trash bag to the dumpster. Maya waits in the doorway with the letter.
MAYA
You signed it three weeks ago.
LEO
I signed it when they asked me to.
MAYA
And you called me tonight.
LEO
I called you when I could.
He heaves the bag in. The lid bangs down. For a moment, only the rain.
MAYA
They're going to knock it down, Leo. All of it. The counter, the booths.
LEO
It's a building.
MAYA
It's *the* building.
LEO
(finally turning)
It's a building with a roof that leaks over table four, a freezer that dies every August and a man who's sixty-eight years old. That's what it is.
MAYA
You could have told me. Three weeks ago, you could have picked up the phone.
LEO
And said what? Come home and watch?
MAYA
Yes.
Leo has no answer for that. Water runs off the awning between them in a sheet.
Maya looks at the key in his fist. He sees her see it, and pockets it.
MAYA
What's that?
LEO
Dot's.
MAYA
Dot's what?
LEO
Come inside. You're getting wet.
## The booth
INT. RIVERSIDE DINER - NIGHT
Rain against the window. Maya slides into the booth across from Leo, who has not touched his coffee.
For a while neither of them speaks. Outside, the neon buzzes, and the dead letters stay dead.
LEO
You used to fall asleep right there. Your mother would carry you out to the car.
MAYA
I remember.
LEO
You don't. You were asleep.
Maya smiles in spite of herself. Her thumb finds the edge of the table, where a child once scratched four letters into the Formica.
MAYA
When do they come?
LEO
Seven. With a truck, and a man with a clipboard.
MAYA
And the booth?
LEO
The booth goes on a different truck.
[[Rewrite: too on the nose, let the booth say it]]
MAYA
You kept the table.
LEO
I kept the whole diner.
MAYA
Then you can keep a secret.
Leo finally drinks. It has gone cold.
[[Check: the secret pays off in act three]]
EXT. PARKING LOT - CONTINUOUS
INT. BAKERY - BEFORE DAWN
Flour in the air. SAM (19) shapes loaves the way *her mother* did.
SAM (V.O.)
Every town has one light on at four.
[[Todo: the radio, or silence?]]
The oven door opens. Heat. _Gold._
CUT TO:
Down to the last (CONT'D).
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Title page
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Breaks by the rules
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