Firs
A moment later, Richard talking about England, as they all drink, and pick at the food. Perhaps even the Chinese food now.
RICHARD: An old friend was passing through London.
(Barbara has just arrived in the doorway. Richard looks at Barbara.)
Barbara, they were asking me about London. (Back to Jane and Marian) An old friend was passing through London. We’d been together at the Attorney General’s office. For both Eliot and Cuomo. He’s still quite close to Andrew.
(Marian gestures for Barbara to come and sit with her by the puzzle. It will take her some time, but she will go and sit with Marian.)
And they’d had a dinner together, he said, where my name came up two three times. Andrew himself brought it up. He said I was an example of a lawyer who was totally fair. Who didn’t carry any—“agenda.” By which I think Andrew meant—“I don’t believe in anything.” (Smiles. The sisters don’t) And that I was, he said, just the sort they now needed up in Albany. I’m guessing my friend was told to tell me that.
JANE: You hate Andrew Cuomo, Richard. You make fun of him. You don’t trust him.
RICHARD: That’s true. I don’t—
JANE (Obvious): “The Dark Prince.”
MARIAN: He’s done some good things—Hasn’t he?
RICHARD (Over this): Maybe what we need right now is—“ruthless.” God knows he’s that. Anyway . . . He knows how to lead. We’d know who he was.
MARIAN: Richard—
RICHARD: The question of course is—where he’d lead us.
MARIAN: That’s what I was going to say—
JANE (Over the end of this): He’s in it for himself.
RICHARD: And that’s—unique? If you eliminate all politicians who—
JANE: You’re not seriously considering . . .
BARBARA (To Marian): He’s sitting in the backyard. I left him alone.
(They eat. Jane looks at her sisters.)
RICHARD (Eating): Andrew’s pumping money into Buffalo. So he can be the governor who “turned around” a rust-belt city. That plays well in—Ohio. Michigan . . . He’s always thinking . . .
JANE: About whom?
(Pause.)
RICHARD: This same friend? We got together three four times. I think we were both just lonely. One night we went to see a show. A character in the play talks about visiting the men’s public bathroom in some fancy part of London years and years ago. The walls are all marble. And the urinals have glass tanks full of water. In each tank swam ten, maybe twenty goldfish. And so—you’d flush and suddenly the water level would go down, and he said the fish would huddle together and you could see a real “consternation” on their faces.
But then—the water would start to fill up again, and so would rise, and the fish, he said, they all relaxed—because everything was going to be fine after all. And then—someone would flush again . . . (Smiles) My friend leaned over and said, “That’s how it is going to be like on election night.” “Hope . . . and change . . .”
Glad I’m not in the city tonight . . . God, what that’ll be like.
Speaking of England. I got presents for you. They’re in the car. (He gets up)
JANE: We weren’t expecting—
RICHARD: I’ll get the gifts. (He goes)
JANE: Shouldn’t we get dressed?
MARIAN (To Barbara): Are you going to vote before we go to Beacon? Or when we come back? I suppose when we come back, it’ll be something for you to do.
BARBARA: I don’t need something to do.
MARIAN: To take your mind— (Stops herself)
(Then:)
JANE (To no one): I’m not registered here.
MARIAN (To Barbara): I thought I would vote. Polls are open.
They open at six.
JANE: Why are we not surprised?
(Jane smiles at Barbara. Barbara, at the puzzle, smiles to herself.)
MARIAN: What? Why are you smiling? I want to vote. It’s not what you both think. Jesus.
JANE (Changing the subject, to Barbara): I think Richard wants to quit his job. All that about Cuomo . . . What do you think, Barbara?
BARBARA: Pamela wouldn’t be too happy. (Shrugs) I don’t know. He’s got kids. He’s just talking. We just talk.
MARIAN: I don’t think he’s saved anything. He seems to spend what he makes. I’m guessing that he feels ashamed about the work he’s doing—so he hasn’t really earned it.
JANE (To no one): Or he just likes to spend money . . . (Sees Benjamin coming) Benjamin.
BENJAMIN: “Benjamin.”
BARBARA (Getting up): Benjamin! Why don’t you sit here, work on the puzzle. It’s too hard for me. I need your help.
(Richard enters with a shopping bag.)
RICHARD (To Benjamin): There you are. (To his sisters) He was sitting on the front steps. I said he should come in.
(Benjamin goes to Barbara’s chair. She brings another chair to the table.)
JANE (About the shopping bag): Richard, you really didn’t need to—We don’t expect gifts.
MARIAN: I do. I’m joking.
JANE: She’s not.
BARBARA (Over this, to Benjamin about the puzzle): I was trying to work on the tablecloth—the white there . . .
(Benjamin looks and smiles at Barbara.
The others notice this.)
RICHARD (While watching): I wanted to, Jane. It gave me a reason to get out of the hotel room.
MARIAN: Uncle, Richard’s bought us presents.
RICHARD (Realizing): I didn’t bring anything for— (“Benjamin”) I should have. I don’t know why I didn’t think—
BARBARA: You should have, Richard. You should have thought of that. What’s wrong with you?
RICHARD: Sorry. (He opens the bag—presents wrapped in Christmas wrapping. Then, handing out the gifts) Jane. Marian. Pamela only had Christmas wrapping . . . Barbara.
(They are not well wrapped.)
JANE: You wrapped them yourself. (To her sisters) That’s cute.
RICHARD: How could you tell?
(Jane and Marian share a look.)
MARIAN (As she and Jane open their gifts): Pamela let you wrap these yourself? (To Jane) That’s very unlike her.
RICHARD: She was asleep.
(Barbara hasn’t begun to open hers.
Richard watches as she does the puzzle.)
I didn’t get you anything, Uncle. I always think of you as the man who has everything.
BENJAMIN (In a smiling happy mood now): I do!
(Benjamin reaches across the card table and surprises Barbara by taking her hand. He holds it.
The others try not to watch, as he kisses her hand. She lets him, “smiles” at him, then she takes her hand back to “open” the present:)
BARBARA (To Benjamin, explaining, as she removes her hand): I have to open my present.
(Jane changes the subject, having opened her gift—a sweater. She holds it up.)
JANE: It’s beautiful, Richard. Is it cashmere? You shouldn’t have—
MARIAN (Her point earlier): He likes to spend his money.
RICHARD (Oblivious): I do. That’s true. (Laughs)
(To Marian and Barbara, who have opened their presents:)
I got both of you the same scarf.
BARBARA: It’s very pretty, Richard. Isn’t it, Benjamin?
BENJAMIN: Beautiful.
RICHARD (Explaining the same gift, over this): Remember the last time—and you two argued over—I thought this would be easier. The same scarf.
(No one is listening to him.)
MARIAN (To Barbara): They must have cost—
BARBARA: Handmade. (Looks to the label) From— (Decides not to read the label) Handmade. Thank you, Richard. (She kisses him on the cheek)
RICHARD (A joke): I didn’t want you two fighting over—
MARIAN (Thanking him): How much did they—?
BARBARA: Marian, don’t ask. He can’t take them back . . .
RICHARD: You don’t like them?
BARBARA (No enthusiasm): We—love them. We love them. Here . . .
(She puts her scarf around Benjamin’s shoulders.)
Like an ascot. Didn’t he used to wear—?
JANE: I think you did, Benjamin—
BARBARA: I remember. When we were kids. (She looks at Benjamin, smiles at him) I have a picture somewhere . . .
MARIAN (Distracting her): We were just saying, we should get dressed. Barbara? (To Barbara) Come on. We should get dressed.
BARBARA: We’re not going for a few hours.
MARIAN (Over this): We should get dressed.
BENJAMIN (At the puzzle): Are we going somewhere?
Jane has put her sweater on over her nightgown. Then:)
JANE: They’re going to vote, Uncle. It’s election day. (As a joke)
Who are you voting for?
BENJAMIN (At the puzzle): I don’t know.
BARBARA (Staring at Benjamin): He used to wear the ascot when he took us out to dinner. When Dad wasn’t around . . . He’d take Mom and us out to dinner . . . My god . . .
JANE: What?
BARBARA: It’s just sparked so many memories.
MARIAN (To Barbara): Come on. Come on.
RICHARD: Barbara. I was thinking when I was outside just now. That— (He looks at Benjamin, then) and I need to choose my words carefully—that all of this, what we’re doing, what we have to do, I know it’s hard. For you especially. Actually I can’t imagine how hard it must be.
BENJAMIN: What?
JANE: Nothing, Uncle.
RICHARD: But—I really do think it will help you get on with your life.
BARBARA: Go to hell, Richard.
RICHARD: What?
MARIAN (As they go): He means well . . .
(Barbara goes, Marian right behind her.)
BENJAMIN (Laughs to Richard): I’ve never heard Barbara say that before to anyone . . .
JANE (Calls off): I’ll pick up!
MARIAN (From off): Get Richard to help!
RICHARD: I meant—
JANE: I know what you meant. What did you expect her to say? Thank you? (She starts to pick up)
RICHARD: I can help.
JANE: Yes, Richard. You can help.
RICHARD: What did I say?
(No response, then:)
(About Barbara and Benjamin) I had no idea about all she’s been going through.
JANE: She thought she could handle it. Barbara always thinks that. She only told Marian when Marian happened to read the book (Gestures to “Benjamin’s journal”) with him and—
RICHARD (Looking at Benjamin): He hasn’t done . . .?
JANE: Barbara would have told us that.
But I’m sure there are “incidents”—like the watching, that she hasn’t told us. She’s scared.
BENJAMIN: What are you talking about?
JANE (To make a point to Richard): Uncle, I hear that you sometimes call Barbara—“Laura.”
RICHARD: Really?
BENJAMIN (Same time with Richard): Do I?
JANE: That was our mother’s name. (To Richard) Barbara sort of looks like her.
RICHARD: She does. A little.
JANE: So I can see how one could get confused.
BENJAMIN: Did I know your mother?
JANE: Yes, you did, Benjamin. You knew her very very well. (Then, to Richard) Don’t expect Barbara to appreciate that you think she’s been wasting her life doing this— (Gestures to Benjamin)
RICHARD: Is that what she heard?
JANE: We’ll pick up later. We’ve got time.
(Jane sits at the table.)
You can sometimes be so goddamn thick. I’m hungry . . . (She looks at the Chinese food) Sit down . . . Have an egg roll . . .
RICHARD (About Barbara): That’s not what I meant.
JANE: I know. And she probably knows it too. Sit down.
We’ve been waiting for you. (Looks at him) Are you thinking of quitting your job? That’s what all that sounded like to me.
(No response.)
Tim thinks we should move to Rhinebeck.
RICHARD: I know. It’s a nice place.
JANE: Pour me a drink.
(He pours.)
Tim says he wants to raise a pig for the Dutchess County Fair.
RICHARD: You’re kidding.
JANE: He says he thinks it must be like doing a play. Because there’s a beginning, middle and end . . .
(They smile.)
The strangest things come out of his mouth. Actors . . .
RICHARD: What do you want?
JANE: There are restaurants here. He could get a waiter job I think in a heartbeat. Having experience in New York. (Then answering his question) I’m thinking about it too.
RICHARD: Do you know yet when—or if—they’ll bring your book out?
(Short pause.)
JANE: I took it away from them. They were taking their time.
I’m going to start a new book.
RICHARD: I know. We were just talking about what that could—
JANE (Changing the subject): Tim wants to have his daughter full-time—
JANE: Karen’s a very sweet girl. Marian falls all over her.
RICHARD: Why does that not surprise me.
JANE: You know Marian now has a Girl Scout troop?
RICHARD: No. I didn’t know . . .
(Barbara returns, dressed now.)
Barbara, I’m sorry—
BARBARA: I thought you were picking up—
JANE: Sit down. And join us. Let’s live in a mess for a change.
BARBARA: For a change?
JANE: I mean—in terms of dirty dishes.
RICHARD: Have a glass of wine, Barbara.
(Barbara looks at Benjamin.)
He’s been working hard on that puzzle. Really concentrating.
(Barbara begins to pick up.)
JANE (To “Richard”): Marian was telling me about Barbara and her dish-washing? Marian said no matter how well she did the dishes—how much she cleaned up and scrubbed everything, Barbara always finds one thing more to do. She has to do the last thing.
(Barbara takes some dirty dishes out into the kitchen.)
A glass, a spot on the counter. This drove Marian crazy for a while, then she decided that she’d always leave one thing unfinished. So Barbara can do that. She said she feels like one of the Muslim rug-makers who leave one fault in the rug on purpose as their homage to Allah.
(Barbara has returned with a tray and continues to straighten up.)
(To Richard) Marian has a boyfriend. Barbara told me.
(To Barbara) When you said that was a secret, you didn’t mean from Richard, did you?
BARBARA (To Jane): That sweater will look better when you’re not in your nightgown.
JANE: I’m getting dressed. (Makes a face at Richard about Barbara; to Barbara) You don’t have to tell me to get dressed. (Then, to Richard) Marian’s new boyfriend is poll-watching now. That’s why she can’t wait to vote.
BARBARA (Moving to go): What about dessert, Richard?
JANE: He just had breakfast.
BARBARA: He’s been eating Chinese food. I feel like dessert. (On her way out) You all right there, Uncle? (She goes with the tray of dirty dishes)
JANE (To Benjamin): You find a piece that fits yet?
BENJAMIN: Not yet.
JANE: You know you can’t force them. (Then, to Richard) Barbara’s a little jealous I think. About Marian’s boyfriend.
RICHARD: I doubt that. If she didn’t want you to tell me, then— (To change the subject) I haven’t asked you how Billy is.
JANE: Got a job. Part-time. Which he sort of likes. That’s not easy for kids these days.
RICHARD: No. It isn’t easy.
(Barbara returns with ice cream, plates, etc.)
BARBARA: What “isn’t”?
JANE: Billy.
BARBARA: Oh. Yes. Good for him. Tell Richard about Billy and the intern. Who wants that disgusting fake whip cream that Marian bought? (Then) I think I do.
(As Barbara heads off:)
RICHARD: Barbara, is there another bottle of wine?
What intern?
JANE: At Billy’s job—An intern arrives. She arrives with another young woman. Who’s that, everyone’s wondering. Then the intern introduces the woman as “my personal assistant.”
RICHARD: You’re kidding.
(Marian enters, now dressed.)
JANE (To Marian): The intern.
MARIAN: Oh god.
JANE: She started her day by giving dictation to her assistant. “If you need anything and I’m not around,” she told everyone, “just ask my personal assistant.” (To Marian, who stands over Benjamin at the puzzle) Barbara’s getting dessert.
MARIAN: Good. (Picks up a puzzle piece) I hope it’s chocolate—something.
RICHARD: Was she handicapped in some way? The intern.
JANE: No. Just rich.
MARIAN: How’s the puzzle going, Uncle? We bought that for him. (To Benjamin) You picked it out, remember? At Stickles. You said you liked it because they all seemed to be having such a nice meal together.
(Barbara is returning with wine bottle, fake whipped cream and chocolate sauce.)
BARBARA (To Marian): You’re dressed . . . (A look at Jane)
JANE: I’m getting dressed . . .
BARBARA (Holds up the bottle): It’s a screw-top, Richard. (To Marian, knowing she’ll ask) I got the chocolate sauce.
(To Richard) You going to want more cereal or anything?
RICHARD: I’m switching to chocolate sauce and ice cream.
(The sisters serve themselves ice cream.)
So Marian, I hear you have a boyfriend.
MARIAN (Turns to Barbara): I said that was a secret.
BARBARA: I didn’t tell him.
RICHARD: That’s—good. That you do.
BARBARA: We don’t think it’s serious.
MARIAN: How do you know? (To Richard) We tell each other it’s not serious. He’s only been separated from his wife for a few months . . . I only met him after—
BARBARA: You’ve known him for years. He’s lived here for years.
MARIAN: I meant . . . You know what I meant.
BARBARA (Serving the ice cream): He’s a Republican.
MARIAN: He’s not a Republican. (To Richard) He’s an Independent. Libertarian. Like a lot of people were in the sixties, seventies.
BARBARA: He had a Ron Paul bumper sticker on his car.
MARIAN (Over the end of this): I made him take that off.
RICHARD: And you used to give me so much shit just for working with Republicans. And now she’s—
(Barbara stands to reach for something across the table.)
MARIAN: He’s not a Republican.
Anyway, you see people differently, when you sleep with them. (She smiles)
(Richard and Jane laugh, Barbara “laughs,” then:)
JANE: That’s true. When I first met Tim, I thought—
BARBARA (Surprised, to Marian): You sleep with him??
MARIAN (To Barbara): Sit down. Sit down.
RICHARD: That’s not how to get her to—
(Barbara sits.)
BARBARA (To Marian): You’ve only been dating him for . . .
MARIAN: I don’t tell you everything. Because you can’t keep a secret.
(Barbara looks to Jane, who looks down at her ice cream.)
They’re your brother and sister. They worry about you.
(They eat. Richard checks his watch. Barbara notices this.)
RICHARD: So Jane was telling me Billy’s doing fine in Philadelphia.
MARIAN: I visited him there.
RICHARD: Did you? Good for you. You’re a good aunt. I feel like a bad uncle.
BARBARA: It’s not a competition, Richard.
(Then:)
MARIAN: John wanted to see a show in the museum in Philly.
RICHARD: John?
BARBARA: The boyfriend. He’s a painter. Not houses. People. More money in houses. At least up here. This isn’t Chelsea. Or Hudson.
MARIAN: So we went and took Billy out to lunch.
RICHARD: He can make a living painting?
MARIAN: Not a great one, but . . . And he has to do some teaching, which he hates. Says the students now are like “consumers.”
I hardly knew him, and then one day out of the blue he asks me to pose for a portrait. (To Barbara) With my clothes on. That’s the first thing she asked.
BARBARA (Eating): Sounds like they didn’t stay on long.
MARIAN: He first asked Barbara. She was scared.
BARBARA: I wasn’t “scared.” We were—are—taking care of Benjamin. (To the others) I thought that’s what we were doing.
(They look at Benjamin.)
JANE: I think he’s asleep. He’s bored listening to us complain. I can only imagine what we sound like sometimes . . .
(Barbara has stood, goes to check on Benjamin.)
MARIAN: Let him sleep.
(Barbara nods.)
He’s been up all night.
JANE: So have we . . .
BARBARA (To Benjamin): Do you want to lie down?
BENJAMIN: No.
(Barbara takes a cushion off Benjamin’s chair at the table, and goes to Benjamin. She puts the cushion on the card table, and slowly helps Benjamin’s head onto the table.)
RICHARD: Shouldn’t he go to bed?
MARIAN: He’d just wake up. I think he likes the voices.
(Barbara returns to the table.)
BARBARA: Maybe we should keep our voices down. (Then, quietly) I’m glad you have a “boyfriend,” Marian. She thinks I’m jealous.
MARIAN (To Richard): Jane’s worried about Tim—
JANE: Marian.
MARIAN: She was telling us tonight, right? That maybe Tim has never really forgiven her for—for when she went back to Alfred that time.
JANE (To Marian): That was a secret too.
MARIAN: We told her to talk to you, Richard. How you dealt with—when Pamela—left you. You’ve forgiven her, right?
RICHARD: I’ve forgiven her. I haven’t forgotten. But I think I’ve forgiven. But you can’t forget . . .
MARIAN: Unless you’re Benjamin.
(They eat.)
(Prodding Jane to tell more) And Tim is right now staying—where? With whom? Tell Richard.
JANE: He’s in Chicago, staying on a friend’s couch. (To Marian) To save money. (To Richard) To get the job he had to lie and say he was local. She’s an old girlfriend. Her couch. He didn’t exactly tell me that at first. When he suggested it as a “cheap alternative” to a rented room somewhere. (She shrugs)
MARIAN (To Richard): So Jane thinks if she can get Tim to move to Rhinebeck—that’ll sort all this out.
RICHARD: I thought it was Tim who wanted to . . .
(Then:)
JANE: Tim told me he went on a “pilgrimage” to Obama’s pizzeria.
RICHARD: What? What’s that?
JANE: In Chicago. On the South Side. Hyde Park. They had pictures of Obama all over its walls he said.
MARIAN: He went all that way—?
RICHARD: He’s in Chicago.
MARIAN: I know.
JANE: The theater’s around the corner.
RICHARD: Oh.
JANE: A couple of blocks away.
Tim said he happened to go in. He wanted pizza. He was sitting there and saw all the photos.
I guess it wasn’t really a “pilgrimage.”
MARIAN (Then, to Jane): Rhinebeck’s not all you and Tim might think it is.
JANE: What do you—?
BARBARA: Marian’s right, Jane.
MARIAN: Look what Barbara’s been going through.
RICHARD (Eating): What, Barbara?
JANE: You told me. (To Richard) They told me.
MARIAN: You haven’t told Richard. It’s all been really silly. You want to tell him?
(Barbara doesn’t. She eats.)
There’s a writer who lives around the corner on South Street. He writes novels. He wrote a novel about of all people Benedict Arnold. Barbara knows the writer, and now for years she’s asked him to come into her class and the students read the book and . . . It’s a chance for the kids to hear from a real writer. About—what? Fiction versus history? Opens up a lot of good discussion, right?
BARBARA (Eating): The difference between what a novelist is after, and say a biographer—
RICHARD (To Barbara): I want to take your class. It always sounds so interesting.
MARIAN: In this novel, George Washington is shown to be— (Looks to Barbara) frustrated? Even bitter? He’s even drinking a bit.
(Richard “toasts” Washington.)
Angry at the politicians.
(Richard toasts again.)
(To Barbara) Tell him.
BARBARA: Last Friday before my friend is to come to our class—the principal wants to see me. He’s in his office with the superintendent, and some parent has complained about the way Washington is treated in this novel. And now I’m told my students aren’t allowed to read or discuss this book anymore.
I made up some excuse to the writer. I was embarrassed.
MARIAN (To Jane): It’s not the liberal haven you think it is, Jane. I keep telling her that. It’s more complicated than that. Rhinebeck is not going to solve all your problems.
(Barbara smiles.)
BARBARA (Eating): Marian and I sometimes say we should move back to the city. Or into the city, she’s never lived there. “Back” for me.
RICHARD: Are you serious?
BARBARA: Sell this house, quit our jobs and—to New York! To New York! (Smiles to herself)
JANE: For what you’d get for this, maybe you could buy a closet in Queens. You never go back to New York. Tim and I have talked about that. We know that. You go—you go. You’re gone . . .
MARIAN: Still, I’d like to stop teaching.
BARBARA: Marian says that all the time.
MARIAN (Over this): I meant it. More and more. You used to be able to do what you thought was best. If you did good teaching, if you were passionate and energetic, kids would learn, and that would be enough. But the faith—that’s the word, the “faith” we once had in ourselves—as professional teachers—it’s been ruined. By all the rankings . . . those tests. The . . . At staff meetings, right Barbara, we talk about “brain games,” healthy “brain” food. No homework the week before the tests. So they can rest their little brains.
The really sad thing is that you now see young teachers— (To Barbara) Correct?
BARBARA: Right.
MARIAN: We comment on this all the time. The young ones—and this is all they know. They think—this is what teaching is . . .
(Short pause. Benjamin, his head on the puzzle, coughs. They look at him. Barbara has gotten up and goes to Benjamin.)
JANE: He’s going to be all right there, Barbara. It’s for the best. It really is.
(Then:)
MARIAN: Are we doing the right thing, Richard? We waited for you to come home to tell us. (Then, quietly) Barbara . . .
(Barbara looks at Benjamin.)
BARBARA (Whispers to the others): What it must feel like . . . All the things you feel you’re missing . . . The gaps . . . My god . . . (To Jane) Talk about a private life . . .
(They watch him. Then:)
MARIAN: I was listening in the car the other day to NPR. They were talking about that feeling—of missing something. The worry of having missed that day of “school” when they talked about something that everyone else now knows—but you.
BARBARA: That’s what he must feel about everything. Every day.
MARIAN: They talked about a woman, a friend of one of theirs—a smart woman, maybe thirty years old, with a good job. One day, she’s on a committee for a benefit, I think, and it’s been decided that there would be a petting zoo, at the benefit. So they go around the table, someone suggests: sheep. Another: a horse. A third: he knows someone who has a llama. And then it’s this woman’s turn and she says: how about a unicorn?
Everyone thinks she’s joking. They laugh. But it’s soon clear that she’s not. Somehow, in her thirty-some years, which included a very good and expensive education, she’s missed the fact that unicorns weren’t real. (Laughs) She said it made her wonder: what else has she missed? What else doesn’t she know that everyone else does?
(Barbara has sat with Benjamin at the puzzle table.)
RICHARD: Or you make “leaps” trying to make sense of things that at first don’t make sense. It must be—“wired” into us—this need to try and make sense of things.
BARBARA: What do you mean?
RICHARD: When I got the flu in London?
MARIAN: You got the flu?
JANE: And did he whine about that. In his emails.
MARIAN (To Barbara): Did you know he had the flu?
(Barbara shakes her head.)
How come you tell Jane—?
JANE (Shushing her): Marian—
RICHARD (Over this): I was on the couch in the hotel room watching TV, the news. Half asleep. (To Jane) Feeling sorry for myself. Feeling like shit. And I hear this report on TV about a disease infecting British sheep. And how they’ve just learned that the disease is being transmitted to England from the continent—by midgets.
JANE: What??
RICHARD: By midgets. I’m lying there thinking, this is odd. What a different culture this is, we may speak the same language, but . . . I mean in America, we wouldn’t even use that word. Would we? I fall back asleep, wake up, TV is still on, the news again. Same thing. From the continent—by midgets. Wow. I start to use this as a way of really understanding England—its culture, its whatever. And how different they are from . . . I even start theorizing—why “midgets”—and not other people as carriers. I’m thinking this is very very interesting.
In the morning, the newspaper is delivered to my door, and I see the same story about the sheep. And as I read it, I suddenly see that it’s not “midgets,” it’s “midges”—little flies that the wind carries . . .
I’d made up this whole complicated theory . . .
(They look at Benjamin.)
BARBARA: This semester, I assigned my students to write a story based on Greek myths. So I decided to write one myself.
RICHARD: You’re writing, Barbara . . .
BARBARA: I write when Benjamin is writing in his journal. It helps him, I think, seeing me sitting there doing the same thing.
The story’s about a girl who is born blind. Her father’s the king and he gets all the kingdom to conspire, so that his daughter will never know that there is such a thing as sight. He does this for the best intentions. She grows up, she’s happy, she meets someone; and magically sight is given to her.
In my story, which I keep as a fairy tale, she’s now conflicted—thrilled with being able to see; and just as angry that for all this time she’d been told she’d been missing—nothing.
I don’t know what it’s about. Except—as you say, that feeling—that you’re missing something. In her case, waking up to the realization that you’ve missed almost everything.
When I took Benjamin to Lincoln Center to see the tape of his show. His Gaev.
JANE: I’d really like to see that again.
BARBARA: He loved it. Utterly absorbed. Until the end, when the old servant is left behind? And the servant realizes the door is locked from the outside? And he’s been forgotten?
Benjamin stopped watching. I asked him why? He said he didn’t like that part. What does he know?
(Then:)
JANE (Looking at Benjamin): Will he vote before we take him to Beacon?
BARBARA: I don’t know. Is that necessary? Does he have to?
RICHARD: I ask myself the same thing.
MARIAN: Richard . . .
JANE: We’d have to tell him who to vote for.
MARIAN: He’ll vote Democrat.
RICHARD (To himself): Glad that’s settled . . .
MARIAN: That’s what he said last night. We watched a little of Obama’s last rally—
BARBARA: Until I made her turn it off—
MARIAN: Obama with Bruce Springsteen? And Uncle said he’d vote for him.
JANE: You sure he didn’t mean Springsteen? That’s what I thought he meant. (Then, to Richard) Did you vote absentee, Richard?
(No response.)
MARIAN: Did you?
(No response.)
(To Richard) Then, Richard, I’ll blame you—
JANE (Over her): He’s going to win.
MARIAN: Do you really think so?
JANE: He’s going to win New York.
RICHARD: I would have voted for Obama. I think I would have. Does that count for something? (Smiles)
(Then:)
JANE: I tell myself—and try to convince myself—that voting is like—recycling. I know it doesn’t seem to make any difference. What the hell is another Coke can more or less? But—for that second, when you’re throwing something in the recycling trash—you can feel like you’re part of something—greater than yourself. That’s what I tell myself. I’m trying to convince myself.
RICHARD: The way I see it now is that most people seem to just want somebody who can articulate their hatreds.
(Then:)
MARIAN: I think we’re arguing about important things, Richard. Medicare, Social Security, Ryan—
RICHARD: Shouting. Scaring people. Demonizing.
MARIAN: There are differences, Richard.
(Richard shrugs.)
Don’t just shrug . . .
(Pause.)
RICHARD: Do we know what we’re rooting for? I think we know what we’re rooting against. And is that enough? Why have we become—“not them”? Oh, but today anyone with doubts must shut up. Save the doubts for tomorrow. I’m sorry. Sorry. I should shut up. “Today” we’re interested in—who is going to fucking win. (Then) Because—“Today, thank god we’re not them.”
(Benjamin makes a noise.)
BARBARA: Just dreaming.
MARIAN (To Richard): I want to be more—than just disappointed.
(Then:)
JANE: I want to be useful.
MARIAN: So do something useful, for god’s sake.
BARBARA: Marian . . .
MARIAN (To Barbara): What a stupid thing to say.
JANE: No one’s listening. It’s just us. Let me say stupid things, okay? (Then) I voted. Absentee.
MARIAN: Good.
RICHARD: Was that you saying something stupid?
JANE: Something—useful. Something—good. I know how that sounds. I admire Barbara—all she’s done—
BARBARA: Don’t patronize me.
JANE: I wasn’t—
MARIAN: What are you trying to say, Jane? And don’t do that to Barbara, you know she hates that.
JANE: I was just reading in a book Tim gave me about a small village in Switzerland. It’d been chosen to be the site of a nuclear waste dump? It does have to go somewhere right? But the villagers have to vote on it first. The government offers them thousands of Swiss francs each. And—they vote “no.” Then someone gets what sounds like a crazy idea—to vote again, but this time, offer them nothing. And so they vote, and it passes. I understand that.
When did sacrifice become something foolish? Or have I just woken up to this, and it’s always been this way? It’s always been—take what you can get. You are an idiot if you don’t. God what I must sound like. Glad no one’s listening. “I want to do useful things.” People are starving, Jane. Go feed them.
BARBARA: We understand.
(Then:)
JANE: An important man, who was in the Obama administration. He’d been president of Harvard.
RICHARD: Larry Summers. That’s Larry Summers.
JANE: He’s quoted in this book, the same book—
MARIAN: As the Swiss village?
JANE (Nods): That Tim wanted me to read.
The man says: we have only so much altruism in us. Only so much generosity. So much civic spirit. So we need to think of it as a commodity that gets depleted. And so, he says, you—and I think he means politicians—have to be careful how you ask it to be spent.
I’ve asked myself this and wanted to ask you. What do you think? Is generosity, is being good, is goodness itself for Christ sake, even love of country—are these all just commodities, goods that can be depleted with use? Or—are they more like muscles that can develop and grow stronger with exercise? And atrophy if not used?
If I could have one minute with our president, I would ask him that.
(Short pause.)
Four years ago, I thought he knew the answer. Now?
MARIAN: After four years of being beaten to a pulp by Republicans—
JANE: I hope that’s not all he’d say, Marian. I hope to god he wouldn’t just say that.
RICHARD: He might.
JANE: I know.
RICHARD: That’s what he seems to say—
JANE: I know.
MARIAN: FOX has been on his back, Richard, since the day he was elected. Even before—
RICHARD: And “our” side’s better? “We” put Al Sharpton on TV. “Why the fuck not?”
(Short pause.)
JANE: I remember being on 86th and Broadway getting on the bus and the black driver putting his hand over where you put your MetroCard, and saying—not today, it’s free tonight. It was a party.
RICHARD: It won’t be like that tonight . . . No matter what, it won’t be like that tonight.
What would you ask the president, Marian? If you had a minute with him?
(Then:)
MARIAN: I’d thank him.
JANE: You would.
RICHARD: For what?
MARIAN: I think he’s done his best. I haven’t agreed with everything, sir.
(Jane makes a face.)
I’m not even looking at you. (Continues to “the president”)
And a lot of things didn’t get done that should have, sir.
My boyfriend, John—
BARBARA: You’re going to tell the president about your boyfriend?
MARIAN: Why not? It’s not a secret anymore.
BARBARA: I don’t think he’s interested—
MARIAN (Continues): John says, sir, that even he has admired how hard you’ve worked. But he isn’t voting for you. And we both think you’ve survived with integrity intact, sir. (To the others) That’s an accomplishment.
RICHARD: If it’s true.
Is it true? (Shrugs)
MARIAN: When John and I were in Philly visiting (To Jane) your son—by the way did you know he wants to be called “William” now—
(Jane rolls her eyes.)
John asked if he and his friends felt at all—disappointed. Some do, he said. One of his friends, who was staying with him—I asked her—
MARIAN: A friend. I think. She said, his friend— (To Jane) We both liked her. (Continues)—that it wasn’t really a feeling of betrayal. Nothing at all like that. More like the everyday disappointments you have in a long-term relationship. (Smiles) Of course she wasn’t quite old enough to know about long-term relationships. But I get it. She said it was part of what she thought growing up meant.
JANE: Being—“sort of” disappointed?
RICHARD: I don’t talk enough to young people. I tried during Occupy—that seems like years ago . . . I remember some kid saying to me, that it was just a natural reaction—anger, angst, scorn at the way things are. The overwhelming sense that things are fucked up—so the only response is to fix it. And so that’s what they were trying to do. How? That’s what I don’t understand. What do they want to do? I couldn’t figure that out from being down there then.
BARBARA: My students—My kids of course are younger, but the older ones also come back. And I see them. They come back and seek me out.
RICHARD: Why am I not surprised.
BARBARA: I asked one of my favorites. She was back from college. Like you, Richard, I was curious. So I asked her: what do young people want now?
RICHARD: And?
BARBARA: Damn it, she said, why separate out the “young people”? She got quite angry with me. Which I liked of course. She said it really pisses her off that people keep emphasizing “our youthfulness”—that feels to them infantilizing and dismissive. And, she looked right at me—and, she said, it also lets older people off the hook.
(Then:)
JANE: Billy said—
JANE (To Marian): I’m his mother. (Continues) Billy said something to me. He does talk to me too. Not just to his aunt and her sexy boyfriend.
MARIAN (To Barbara): I’m glad she thinks he’s—
BARBARA (Over this, to Marian): She hasn’t even seen him, Marian. She’s making fun of you.
MARIAN: I don’t think so.
JANE (Continues): I was going on about the “millennials” or whatever that generation is now called. All this—what looked to me like—just constant self-absorption? Who the hell cares what you ate for lunch? I said it seemed like they were just wasting their lives. To me.
RICHARD: I agree. That’s what it looks like.
JANE: Listen to our music, he said. The belief is out there now that anyone can make his own music. Or video. YouTube. And he said, isn’t that a good thing? Why isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t it—to use a word you, Mom, always liked to use, he said to me—isn’t it—democratic?
Then he said, that in maybe two, three years, or my god maybe ten—he said that like he’d never live to see it . . . (Smiles) In maybe ten years—what now looks to be an inextricable mess, Mom, or what you call “self-absorption”—it’s going to be seen as only something we’re going through, and after we’ve gone through it, it will all make sense.
(Benjamin mumbles in his sleep. Barbara leans over and listens.)
RICHARD: What’s he saying?
BARBARA: It sounded like “bullshit.”
(They laugh.)
JANE: One night when I was visiting Billy, while I couldn’t sleep—Billy was giving me his bed, he slept on the floor. He and I talked.
He said—Mom, let me explain it to you this way. How I see the country.
It’s like two divorcing parents, Mom. Like you and Dad. And they hate each other. They’re screaming at each other. They’re certainly not talking and listening to each other. And they both turn to their son and they say to him—who’s right, son? They shout at him: damn it, son, you need to take a side! They scream at him: take a goddamn side!
But the son says, I can’t. I won’t take a fucking side. Can’t you and Dad understand what I’m trying to tell you? I don’t want to be like either of you . . .
(Then:)
RICHARD: How did we get talking about our children? It’s election day. (Then, the answer) Because it’s election day.
MARIAN: On Evan’s iPod . . . it took me about six months after Evan died . . . After she killed herself . . . That’s the first time I think I’ve been able to say those words. (Looks to Barbara)
BARBARA: I never heard you say it.
(Then:)
MARIAN: Six months after—for me to really listen to—the songs on her iPod. To really hear them.
BARBARA (Smiles, teasing): Now it’s all she listens to.
MARIAN: That’s not true.
Really listen. And hear them. She had good taste. I’m learning her taste. It’s so strange to hear some of these young women singers . . . They sound like kids. Little girl voices. They are kids. There’s one I keep listening to. I’m sure you don’t know her.
I’ve played it for Barbara. It starts: “They made a statue of us.” And this young female, child-like and so-innocent voice, she sounds so proud, “And put it on a mountaintop / Where tourists come and stare at us. / Blow bubbles with their gum, take photographs for fun.” Then a swell of strings: “They’ll name a city after us!”
“And later say it’s all our fault. / Then they’ll give us a talking to. / They’ll give us a talking to, / Because they have years of experience.” The latter is sung with just dripping distain. “Years of experience.” Then, “We’re living in a den of thieves.” Which she repeats over and over. Until, she just sings: “It’s contagious. / It’s contagious.”
(Then:)
JANE: If I could have another minute with the president.
(All interested in this.)
I’d tell him what Billy said recently to me. Mom, I think mine is a lost generation. We’re doing shit jobs, and not being trained for anything. And when the economy gets better, it’s the younger ones they’re going to want to train then. He’s twenty-two years old. And he and his friends think they’ve been forgotten.
(Then:)
MARIAN: What about you, Richard? If you had one minute with the president. What would you say to him?
(He thinks, then:)
RICHARD: President Obama or President Romney?
MARIAN: Jesus—
RICHARD: Which one?
MARIAN (Over this): That can’t happen. I’d move to Canada.
JANE: No you won’t.
RICHARD: Dear President Obama . . .
How did you, the voice of our better selves, begin appealing to our hates? How did that happen? How?
Do you accept any responsibility for that?
And are you sorry?
MARIAN: That’s not fair, Richard.
JANE: If it’s what he feels . . . Anyway who’s listening? And I doubt if he’s the only one who feels like that today.
BARBARA: Romney—Richard. Just in case he wins. Say a fluke.
JANE: I’m not sure he needs a fluke—
(They all wait. Then:)
RICHARD: Dear President Romney:
Well, Nixon went to China. So there’s that sort of hope. But if this really is all about helping your rich friends; if you are scamming us. If you really see us just as the heavy baggage to be tossed overboard to keep the ship sailing smooth and fast. If those who are saying this now, warning us—turn out to be correct, sir. Then—god have mercy on your soul . . .
JANE: And Barbara? What would you like to say, to either one?
(Then:)
BARBARA: I suppose I’d tell them both that I sort of stopped paying attention a while back. Sorry.
And then I think I’d ask them—you both spent how much on this election? I think I read—two billion dollars. Maybe I’m wrong but it seems to me, it was mostly spent—scaring people about the other guy. And so now—look what you’ve got—a whole lot of people who are very scared . . .
(Then:
The lights fade.)