In Plain Sight · Season 1
Can you believe we're just rolling out the red carpet for this douche bag?
It's what we do: we keep douche bags honest and occasionally remunerate them, even when they aren't.
Disappearing. It's not a bad deal. No baggage. No exes tracking you down.
So, you and Mark are...
I just couldn't buy a ticket for a movie I'd already seen.
[voiceover] Forward progress is impeded by several menial laws: inertia, friction, fear of the unknown, and the impeccable timing of charming ex-husbands. But somehow, improbable as it may be, we find ourselves not quite free of the past, but lurching toward the future, inch by bittersweet inch.
[voiceover] To raise a child, says an African proverb, and one first lady of note, it takes a village, a community. Families splashing at a car wash to support the local school. Seeding a little league field in advance of opening day. That's not how it went in our house. We never made it to the car wash or the bake sales. Our communal experiences meant ducking debt collectors and the FBI, which wasn't without its lessons. Shutting all the lights off, a sudden makeshift hide and seek, or moving every month or two teaches you quick to count on a community of one.
[whispers across the hallway to her out of sight partner] Marshall!
[whispers back] I'm done with the Amish jokes!
Why? They're funny!
They're not, and before you ask, I haven't seen the remote.
Ugh. What about a pillow? Have you seen an extra pillow? These beds suck. I swear to God, I think my mattress is made of wood. [looks up as Marshall appears in her doorway wearing an Amish style men's nightgown] Oh, no. What are you doing?! No, no, no, no, no! Eli was just being polite! He didn't expect you to actually wear them!
[motions to his exposed lower leg] Can you not handle this?
Oh, my God. Put them away, Ichabod. Yuck!
Here. [throws her a pillow]
Hey, hey, hey. One more thing!
I'm not giving you my pie.
Hoarder.
Glutton.
I am thinking of buying Marshall a first edition of Leaves of Grass. Do you know if he has it already?
[laughs] Right. Because I've got Marshall's pretentious book collection memorized.
Well, I just thought you might...
Tell me you're not one of those psycho girlfriends trolling for intel about the guy she's dating.
Mary, this isn't a trick question. It's not espionage. You know Marshall better than he knows himself, and you sit five feet away from him ten hours a day.
[voiceover] Community is not exactly one size fits all. One man's slice of heaven is another man's hellhole. The lucky few fit in from the start, like a glove; always with the wind at their backs and a place to call home, surrounded by parents, kids and the green of the grass. For some, though, all the community you'll ever need can be found on the other side of the room.
So here's something... I'm kind of ...how should I put this? I'm...
Expecting? With child? In a family way?
How did you know?
Mary, you're my partner and my best friend, I'm with you all the time.
Yeah, and?
Well, lately, you're ah ...[motions to her breasts]
Oh, ew! Marshall! Just...
You do like a pie, but your liking pie is nothing new. What's new is...[motions again]
Yeah, got it.
Also, there was the vomiting, as well as something Abigail mentioned about you hating the taste of coffee?
All of a sudden, I can't drink it without wanting to hurl. Can you believe that? I can't drink coffee. Good luck with that, by the way.
Yeah. Yeah.
So she knows?
Abigail? No. I'm not gonna talk to her about it before I talk to you.
Why didn't you say anything?
Well, Mary... The thing is, I... I just thought. I kinda thought... That it wasn't my place.
That book... So did you have it already?
Yeah, but not a first edition. I love first editions.
I know. I mean, I know now.
Yeah. So...
Mark.
Who says you can't go home again?
Yeah.
So all the available options, what's your next move?
Hell if I know.
[voiceover] A week before my father left, we were in the kitchen as the sun came up. Just the two of us. I was six. Mom was passed out in the bedroom in a tangle of sweaty sheets while I scavenged cupboards in a nearly-empty fridge for anything to eat. Dad called me over to the table, told me to bring the milk. We sat there, the last meal we ever shared, eating oreos that he'd left out overnight. Over soft, stale oreos, my father told me we were special because we knew a secret that other people don't. Like many things, an oreo, over time, becomes the very best version of itself. That was his last bit of wisdom. The final gospel of James Wiley Shannon. Five days later, he was gone.
A doctor.
No.
An OB/GYN.
Still a doctor, still a no.
It's a simple blood test. It takes five minutes. Five minutes.
"Five minutes to blood test, five minutes to blood test." Ease up, Rain Man. Maybe count some cards or toothpicks or something.
We're having a baby, Mary.
Oh, we are?
I'm with you every day if you're having a baby, trust me, we're having a baby.
Fine, whatever. Just get back to me when you need three jog bras to run to the phone.
The Lithuanian operation is more than just money laundering. They're terrorists. We're talking murder, drug smuggling, prostitution, and that's just what they do to unwind. Now I've been tracking this group for seventeen months, and I'm telling you, they're a scourge. [gets hard looks from Mary and Marshall] The group. Not Lithuanians as a whole. [hurriedly explains] My mother's side is half Lithuanian! I'm not being a racist!
Huh! Next Mother's Day maybe you embroider that on a pillow!
Bottom line, unless Ben get's a transplant he's not going to make it to the trial.
Great! Wouldn't want anything to be easy. Ever!
That's right. He gave himself liver failure. You know, to spite you.
Oh, my God, Miami. Even the humidity's humid.
I don't mind. It's good for the pores. What? A man can't care about his complexion?
Just step on it, lady. I gotta pee like a Russian racehorse.
Teamster.
Tinker bell.
You sure it was a good idea flying down here, considering...
Marshall, fine. I took a blood test. It was positive. You happy?
Are you?
That's not the point. The point is, Dr. Wolk said it's fine for me to fly in my first trimester. So how about you take care of your uterus, I'll take care of mine?
Okay, I'm just gonna say it. You took a fall, a bad one.
Gee, you think?
You should see a doctor. And not tomorrow. Seriously, Mary, a person in your condition...
Marshall, I'm pregnant. I'm not disabled, okay?
Okay. So, um, what's the plan?
I don't know. The plan is I'd rather not be pregnant. But I'll do what I do, protect and relocate. There must be hundreds of couples in a ten-mile radius who'd kill for the shot at 3:00 A.M. feedings, and I'm just the girl to give it to them.
Just like that? You sure?
No, I'm not sure of anything, except I wanna keep doing my job and I don't want anyone else to know. And if you keep treating me like some sort of wounded koala, someone's gonna figure it out.
Mary, you're never tempted to, you know, look for him? I mean, with your job and everything?
Brandi, the man is an FBI fugitive. The day I'd find him I'd cuff him at hello.
I know, but it's been so long, and Peter was saying something about a statute of limitations.
Look, guys like dad don't change. The picture you're going to find is of a guy who held up banks, ditched me and mom and a baby in a crib, and then got a new family and bailed on them, too. I mean, are you sensing a pattern here?
You never know. Peter says it takes some people a long time to grow into their authentic selves.
Okay, first of all, don't say authentic selves. Second, you're getting married, so you're all overflowing with perspective and forgiveness. Forgiveness is for people who deserve it, and dad is still out there doing God knows what, so he's not one of those people, you know. He's just the guy in the picture.
Procreation is remarkable in its complexity...
Here we go.
And its relative simplicity.
Kill me now.
What comes after: family dynamics, hopes and dreams, the triumphs, the tragedies.
Sweet Jesus, shut your hole.
That's the tricky stuff.
I can't believe I'm pregnant.
I know you can't, and yes you are.
I'm not sure I know how to do this.
It's just like you said, treat it like a witness: protect and relocate.
Yeah.
We'll make a list. You do like lists.
I do like a list.
I'll draw up a template tomorrow with 'locate nearest restroom' on every other line. Can I walk you out? I'll let you get the door.
No, I've got some stuff to finish up.
Okay. We'll talk more tomorrow.
Don't threaten me. [smiles as Marshall laughs]
[voiceover] Growing up sucks. The days of cookies, dreams and the ice cream man do their flickering fade to black, like some wounded firefly or a nightlight on the fritz. Children become parents, parents become helpless, and dreams you thought you'd always dream slip silent out the door. But ultimately, in sickness and in health, for better or worse, when you look at your life with a hard, unflinching eye, there's only one real certainty: the growing never stops. That and the death and taxes thing.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's In Plain Sight pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
