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  THEO packs up his briefcase on stage.

  CYNTHIA enters. She is not used to wearing a miniskirt.

  CYNTHIA

  I don’t believe in luck.

  THEO

  You must be Cynthia.

  CYNTHIA

  They sure cleared out the auditorium in a hurry.

  THEO

  Kickoff is in an hour and a half. I’m surprised anyone even came. I’m Theo.

  CYNTHIA

  I know who you are. I just sat through your speech, or whatever you call that.

  THEO

  You look familiar. Have we met before?

  CYNTHIA

  Are you hitting on me?

  THEO

  Excuse me?

  CYNTHIA

  I don’t believe in luck.

  THEO

  I don’t believe in unicorns with paisley headbands.

  CYNTHIA

  I’m serious.

  THEO

  So what brings you here then?

  CYNTHIA

  I’m here because you selected me.

  THEO

  Randomly.

  CYNTHIA

  It would seem.

  THEO

  If I had pulled another name out of the jar, I could be having an equally engaging conversation with a little old lady from Tallahassee.

  CYNTHIA

  But you wouldn’t want to sleep with her.

  THEO

  No. Probably not.

  CYNTHIA

  Isn’t that what this is about?

  THEO

  You won a book. In a draw. That’s what this is about. You got lucky, that’s all.

  THEO pulls out a book and a pen.

  Who should I make this out to?

  CYNTHIA

  There must have been a thousand people in this place. Assuming half of them actually wanted to meet you, that means there were five hundred names in that jar.

  THEO

  Why assume half?

  CYNTHIA

  I just assumed the other half might have to get back to the nursing home. Have a sponge bath.

  THEO

  I’ll bet you there were a thousand names in that jar. But I know it’s not about me. Or my book. It’s about the winning. Everybody wants to be lucky. Or luckier. As I say in the book, luck is like your penis. You can always use a little more. Except for me, of course.

  CYNTHIA

  Of course. You’re the luckiest man alive.

  THEO

  Exactly. But that’s why people showed up today. I have something everybody wants. They want my luck. They believe it’s contagious. Or somehow transmissible.

  CYNTHIA

  By exchange of bodily fluids?

  THEO

  Some do. And if some young woman in need of a little luck feels some of mine might rub off on her…

  CYNTHIA

  By rubbing off on you.

  THEO

  Then who am I to argue?

  CYNTHIA

  A self-serving father figure who thinks he’s God’s gift?

  THEO scribbles something in the book.

  THEO

  Don’t be so quick to judge. One day you might find yourself in a position where you need a little luck.

  THEO hands the book to CYNTHIA, puts on his jacket.

  CYNTHIA

  But I wouldn’t be so naive as to think fooling around with some self-professed lucky guy would win me the lottery.

  She reads the inscription.

  “To Cynthia. Good luck. From God’s gift.”

  THEO

  Theodore does mean “gift of God.”

  CYNTHIA tosses the book to the floor.

  CYNTHIA

  I think we both know I’m not here by luck alone.

  THEO

  Then why are you here? Just a coincidence?

  Laboratory

  MR. ADAMSON

  No way. Every question?

  DR. GUZMAN continues to try combinations on the briefcase.

  MR. ADAMSON looks for an opportunity to take it back.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Even the last one.

  MR. ADAMSON

  I got zero per cent?

  DR. GUZMAN

  Ha! If only. An exam should assess one’s knowledge, not one’s luck. Did you guess, Mr. Adamson?

  MR. ADAMSON

  It depends on what you mean by guessing.

  DR. GUZMAN

  I mean, did you throw a dart or two? Or a hundred and fifty?

  MR. ADAMSON

  I did my best.

  DR. GUZMAN

  If you had bothered to read the instructions, you would have realized that, to deter guessing, this examination was scored in a right-minus-wrong fashion.

  MR. ADAMSON

  Uh oh.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Your mark, Mr. Adamson, was negative one fifty.

  She draws an emphatic negative line on the board.

  MR. ADAMSON

  I thought you graded on a curve.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Mr. Adamson, for any kind of curve to help you, it would have to have been the statistical equivalent of Marilyn Monroe being sucked into a black hole. You even got the last question wrong. I thought I made it clear. C, simultaneous, is not the answer. It’s almost as if you were trying to fail this exam.

  MR. ADAMSON

  Why would I try to fail?

  DR. GUZMAN

  Why indeed. After I saw your result, as an experiment, I asked my graduate class to take this examination. And I assigned them the task of getting the lowest mark they could. The brightest guy in my group actually got four questions right. By accident! So how does some generic undergrad student earn the worst achievable score in my final examination?

  MR. ADAMSON

  What do you mean, “generic”?

  DR. GUZMAN

  Hmmm. Good question.

  DR. GUZMAN pulls a voice recorder from her pocket.

  (into voice recorder) Can one be both generic and handicapped, or are the two mutually exclusive? Fascinating…

  MR. ADAMSON

  Dr. Guzman, I’m a little confused. You wanted to see me because I got every question wrong? Is that why?

  DR. GUZMAN

  I wanted to meet you, Mr. Adamson, because there are only four possible answers. A, you’re exceptionally smart. B, you’re exceptionally stupid. C, you’re exceptionally unlucky. Or D, and I sincerely hope this is not the case, you cheated. Can you conceive of any other alternatives?

  Auditorium

  CYNTHIA

  A coincidence? That word is incense laced with crack. Or vice versa.

  THEO picks up his briefcase.

  THEO

  You don’t believe in coincidences?

  CYNTHIA

  Sure I believe in them. They happen every day. Simply a random statistical event that occurs no more or less frequently than the models predict. It’s called a co-incidence. Not a cause-incidence.

  THEO

  Guess what? My dog’s name is Cynthia.

  THEO tries to leave. CYNTHIA blocks his path. Repeatedly.

  CYNTHIA

  So what? There are twenty thousand Cynthias roaming this country. The chances are pretty good you’ll cross paths with one of us sooner or later. I am so sick of people seeing a predictable co-incidence as some sort of wormhole into the mystical side of the universe. It’s not very sexy and it clashes with everyone’s yoga pants, but the truth is, your dog and I just happen to be in the same subset and our paths intersected today.

  THEO

  But just because there’s a chance of something happening, that does
n’t mean it’s going to happen. You still need a little luck.

  CYNTHIA

  No, all you need is a little math. Talk to Pascal.

  THEO

  Who’s Pascal?

  CYNTHIA

  Grandfather of probability theory. Have you heard of Pascal’s Triangle? Pascal’s Wager?

  THEO

  Rings a bell.

  CYNTHIA

  Pascal would tell you, while the odds of you bumping into a Cynthia right here and now are miniscule, the odds of something like that happening are high. Even probable. Guess what? I have a goldfish named Theodore. Woooo. The universe must be trying to tell us something. Maybe we should compare zodiac signs. I’m a Scorpio, what are you? No, wait… I might be an Aquarius. You know what impresses me more than coincidence?

  THEO

  Name-dropping historical figures?

  CYNTHIA

  A lack of coincidence. Assuming one possible event per second, each of us can expect a one-in-a-million miracle every month. Now, if you manage to make it through this whole month without bumping into a Cynthia, then call up the papers and tell them about the coincidence that never happened.

  THEO

  Math major?

  THEO finally reaches the door.

  CYNTHIA

  Biology major, math minor, I mean, haven’t you ever noticed you can only identify a coincidence in hindsight? But the best way to prove any scientific theory is to predict the outcome. If you’d woken up this morning and declared, “Today at 3:20 p.m., I’m going to meet a left-handed woman with a goldfish named Theo, who will inexplicably grab my briefcase…”

  CYNTHIA grabs THEO’s briefcase, runs away.

  Now I’m interested!

  THEO

  Do you really have a goldfish named Theo?

  CYNTHIA

  You’re not getting this, are you?

  THEO

  I knew someone who died on her birthday. You have to admit, that seems coincidental. Can I have my briefcase back?

  CYNTHIA

  Do you know what the odds are of dying on your birthday?

  THEO

  Let me see. One in 365?

  CYNTHIA

  Actually, one in 321.

  THEO

  Really? Why’s that?

  CYNTHIA

  I don’t know. My point is, dying on your birthday is no big deal. Statistically speaking. Shakespeare died on his birthday. Three people in the audience today will die on their birthday.

  THEO

  Maybe you.

  CYNTHIA

  Maybe me. But that doesn’t mean the universe is trying to tell us something.

  THEO

  Fine, but you’re here. In this room. Holding my briefcase. Why? Why here? Why now? It can’t just be random chance, can it?

  CYNTHIA

  It can. But it isn’t. There’s another possibility.

  Laboratory

  DR. GUZMAN

  Let’s examine the options. A. You’re exceptionally smart. I think we can safely exclude that possibility.

  DR. GUZMAN searches for a screwdriver.

  MR. ADAMSON

  Based on what? My wheelchair?

  DR. GUZMAN

  Right, Professor Hawking, it’s about your wheelchair. I’m just saying that if you are smart enough to get all the questions wrong, then I would expect you’d be smart enough to get them all right. I have no idea why an aspiring scientist would aim for negative one fifty.

  MR. ADAMSON

  So now you’re calling me stupid?

  DR. GUZMAN

  Actually, no. If you were stupid enough to guess on all one hundred and fifty questions, you should still have gotten thirty-seven right. So, I ask myself, did you cheat? But for the life of me, I can’t figure out why anyone would cheat to get the worst possible score. Can you?

  MR. ADAMSON

  No.

  DR. GUZMAN

  If you cheat on my exam, that tells me you think you’re smarter than me. Do you think you’re smarter than me, Mr. Adamson?

  MR. ADAMSON

  No.

  DR. GUZMAN

  So you’re just unlucky. Exceptionally unlucky.

  MR. ADAMSON

  I don’t believe in luck.

  DR. GUZMAN

  And I don’t believe in handing over cheaters to that pansy-assed dean for a slap on the wrist.

  MR. ADAMSON

  I didn’t cheat.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Well, it has to be one or the other, and I intend to find out which.

  Auditorium

  CYNTHIA

  What if… I’m here today because I wanted to be here?

  THEO tries to get his briefcase back, but CYNTHIA stays one step ahead.

  Although CYNTHIA moves throughout the room, she conspicuously avoids walking under the ladder.

  THEO

  There are 999 other people who wanted to be here.

  CYNTHIA

  Give or take. But maybe these 999 rocket scientists were so busy reading chapter seven, “Change Your Luck by Changing the Way You Wipe Your Ass,” that they neglected to exercise their free will.

  THEO

  So you willed your way into being selected? Maybe I should read your book. How exactly does one overcome the one-in-a-thousand odds?

  CYNTHIA

  Let’s see. Perhaps one could surreptitiously replace all the slips of paper in the jar with a bunch of new ones. I mean, really, is anyone going to pull out a second name to confirm the validity of the draw?

  THEO

  Are you saying you cheated?

  CYNTHIA

  Or maybe one could use one’s analytical mind to consider that in both of your other readings this week, the “random draw” just happened to select a young woman in the front row who was wearing a miniskirt.

  THEO

  Are you saying I cheated?

  CYNTHIA

  Did you?

  THEO

  Maybe I just got lucky.

  CYNTHIA

  The chances of you selecting three young women wearing miniskirts from the front row, by chance alone, even assuming an optimistic ten per cent miniskirt coefficient is one in two billion.

  THEO

  It’s not zero.

  CYNTHIA

  It’s never zero. Unless it’s impossible.

  THEO

  So you’re saying I’m lucky.

  CYNTHIA

  Unbelievably lucky.

  THEO

  That’s what I’ve been telling you!

  Pause.

  Did you actually sit through my talk three times?

  CYNTHIA

  Yes.

  THEO

  Why? Are you a stalker?

  THEO corners CYNTHIA behind the ladder. Her only apparent option is to duck under the ladder. She hesitates.

  CYNTHIA

  Define stalker.

  THEO

  Why three times?

  CYNTHIA

  I was trying to decide.

  Abruptly, CYNTHIA scrambles up the ladder, still holding the briefcase.

  THEO

  Decide what?

  CYNTHIA sits on top of the ladder, briefcase on her lap.

  CYNTHIA

  Whether to wear a miniskirt.

  THEO

  Excellent decision.

  CYNTHIA

  Evidently. But I’m not going to sleep with you.

  THEO

  Zero chance?

  CYNTHIA

  Let’s call it one in ten to the forty-ninth.

  THEO

  That’s not zero. Right?

  CYNTHIA

>   All you have to do is persuade me that sleeping with you will give me everything my little heart desires. Then yes, it’s a non-zero probability.

  THEO reaches into his inside jacket pocket. He produces a small bottle.

  THEO

  Champagne?

  CYNTHIA

  I shouldn’t. I’m pregnant.

  Laboratory

  DR. GUZMAN

  What are the odds? Mr. Adamson, do you know what the chances are of getting all one hundred and fifty questions wrong, purely by guessing? About the same chance as throwing sixty-three coins on the ground and having them all come up heads. One in five quintillion.

  DR. GUZMAN finds a screwdriver, tries using it to open the briefcase.

  So you see? I don’t mean to insult you by calling you unlucky. It’s a fact, not an opinion.

  MR. ADAMSON

  I disagree.

  DR. GUZMAN

  There is no other explanation.

  MR. ADAMSON

  There is.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Educate me.

  MR. ADAMSON

  Maybe it was God’s will.

  DR. GUZMAN

  God?

  She backs away from him, finds her white cane.

  My unannounced late-night caller is a religious nut? This gets better and better.

  MR. ADAMSON

  I’m not a nut.

  DR. GUZMAN

  If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were here under false pretenses.

  MR. ADAMSON

  I’m here because you said you wanted to see me. If we’re all finished here—

  DR. GUZMAN

  Mr. Adamson, would you consider yourself unlucky?

  MR. ADAMSON

  Absolutely not.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Have you ever won anything?

  MR. ADAMSON

  I won the heart of a girl once. But she left me for someone who could walk. Darn walkers.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Anything random? A raffle? A toaster? Two tickets to a monster-truck show?

  MR. ADAMSON

  No, can’t say I have.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Ever play a slot machine? Roulette? The lottery?

  MR. ADAMSON

  I’ve bought a lottery ticket every week for the last seven years.

  DR. GUZMAN

  What have you won?

  MR. ADAMSON

  I won a free ticket once. That was pretty exciting. I thought it was a sign.

  DR. GUZMAN

  Was it?

  MR. ADAMSON

  No.

  MR. ADAMSON checks the watch on his right hand.

  What time is it? I really should get going, it’s getting kinda—

  DR. GUZMAN

  Why are you in a wheelchair?

  MR. ADAMSON