Dining room of the hotel. Next morning. MR. ODDI looks at a map. JENNY looks worriedly into a newspaper. MS. ODDI is eating her breakfast, putting jam on things. The music from the previous scene continues in this one, DAN now in the dining room, at another table.
“New Ways of Living” (cont’d)
It’s you and your kind
The new ways of living (x 4)
JENNY: They still haven’t found Daniel.
MS. ODDI: I think it’s very irresponsible of that woman to lose her son in the parade. Jack, have we ever lost Jenny?
MR. ODDI: We have never lost Jenny!
JENNY: It’s sad, that’s all. I see him, a friend from school, and the next thing—I’m reading in the paper that a boy from Cedervale has gone missing in that stupid parade! Dad, if you had told me Paris had parades all summer I never would have thought it was a good idea to come. Really, I wanted something authentic!
MS. ODDI: Isn’t this butter authentic?
JENNY: Yes, I suppose the butter is authentic.
MS. ODDI: Then I don’t see what you’re complaining about. You want to live in a world of absolute purity. That’s nonsense! You have to get your head together in time for grade seven! Do you want all the older boys laughing at you? Well, they will if you go around talking about authenticity all the time. The world is the world. You can’t divide it up like that!
MR. ODDI: If Jenny wanted your opinion she would have asked for it! All she’s saying is that she doesn’t like the parade. I can understand that. It swallowed up her friend.
MS. ODDI: Well then, I suppose there’s nothing to say.
JENNY: I’m sure I could find him if I looked.
MS. ODDI: (contemptuously) Why? Because you’re twelve and he’s twelve?
JENNY: It has nothing to do with that.
MS. ODDI: You are too romantic a girl!
JENNY: We have an understanding. A mutual sympathy. For instance—
MS. ODDI: (disgusted) Please Jenny, we don’t want to hear about your understanding.
JENNY: I was going to be polite.
MS. ODDI: Some things are best left to the imagination.
JENNY: All right! Leave it to the imagination, then!
MS. ODDI: You ought to spend your time thinking about other things. You ought to be taking a look at the world around you! As it is you’re like a six-year-old, completely self-involved.
(Pause.)
JENNY: I think it’s just terrible.
MR. ODDI: You are so fond of people.
MS. ODDI: Pass the jam.
JENNY: It’s right by your elbow! (after a pause) I am going off on my own today.
MR. ODDI: You can’t. You’re too young, obviously. Even you know it.
JENNY: I’ll take the phone and you can call me all day if that’s what it takes!
MS. ODDI: That is not what it takes, Jenny. It takes five or six years of maturity. You don’t know how to look at things in the right way. You’re always in a muddle. That boy you think is your friend? Well, was it very friendly to get lost and separated from his family?
JENNY: I suppose it wasn’t. But I’m sure on the other hand it had nothing to do with him. He was probably just looking at one of the characters when his parents wandered off.
MS. ODDI: I’ve come to expect more from you.
MR. ODDI: Leave her alone. She’s upset.
MS. ODDI: All right.
JENNY: No. She doesn’t have to leave me alone either. (with difficulty) I’m not upset.
MR. ODDI: Come, come. Obviously you’re upset. Look at you! Look at you!
MS. ODDI: Yes, look at you! You have a tear in your eye!
JENNY: I am trying to hold it in.
MS. ODDI: Well you’re doing a terrible job! Let it out, Jenny, you’re not proving anything.
MR. ODDI: She’s upset, Grace. Leave her alone.
JENNY: I’m going to go lie down.
MR. ODDI: If you lie down you’re going to miss the day. Do you want to miss the whole day?
JENNY: I don’t want to miss the whole day but I do want to lie down.
MS. ODDI: Well, I think it’s fine. Go lie down, Jenny. But just for ten minutes. We’ll be waiting here to leave in ten minutes. You have a little rest.
JENNY: Thank you.
MS. ODDI: It’s difficult. Daniel was your friend.
MS. ODDI: You’re very sensitive.
(JENNY leaves. MR. and MS. ODDI look at each other. MS. ODDI sighs.)
MS. ODDI: I don’t know. She’s a very sensitive girl.
MR. ODDI: She’s just like you were when you were twelve.
MS. ODDI: You did not know me when I was twelve.
MR. ODDI: How I imagine you to have been.
MS. ODDI: You could imagine me one of a hundred different ways. What would it have to do with anything? Jenny’s upset! About her little friend, Daniel!
MR. ODDI: I really can’t take this anymore.
(He returns to his map.)
MS. ODDI: That’s right. Look at your map! As if the key to life were in your map!
MR. ODDI: Can’t we please have a pleasant breakfast?
MS. ODDI: That’s what I asked you this very morning, coming down the stairs. Don’t you remember?
MR. ODDI: You would see if you only looked around that there are a dozen other families right here in this very room and all of them are having pleasant breakfasts. Not one of them is running off in tears!
MS. ODDI: I don’t care to look at a bunch of other families who all smell bad in their own ways. Have you ever noticed that, Jack? How bad other families smell?
MR. ODDI: Sure. Remember Irene?
MS. ODDI: Yes! Irene Melo! Then you see what I’m speaking of. Phew! If that house didn’t stink! Like onions and sweat and soil.
MR. ODDI: Don’t start showing off.
MS. ODDI: What?
MR. ODDI: Please stop showing off! “Like onions and sweat and soil.” You’re not a poet, Grace.
MS. ODDI: (hurt) I’m not trying to be a poet.
MR. ODDI: …trying to describe the way things are. Leave that to the poets… for heaven’s sake, Grace!
MS. ODDI: I was just searching for the words.
MR. ODDI: A poet doesn’t search for the words, just ladies trying to look all poetical!
MS. ODDI: (still hurt) You’re wrong. Poets do search for the words. They search for the words in every lyric.
MR. ODDI: (looking back at his map) You have no idea what you’re talking about.
MS. ODDI: Maybe I don’t.
MS. ODDI: I’d like you to be more tender, Jack. Just a little. While we’re on vacation.
MR. ODDI: We should have gotten our own room.
MS. ODDI: It was expensive…
(MS. ODDI sighs. A pause.)
MS. ODDI: I once knew a little Japanese boy, when I was in school. He did everything wrong, backwards. When everyone else was wearing their pants with the zipper in front, he would wear his with the zipper in the back. Instead of eating, he threw up every lunchtime. No one thought it was peculiar. He came from the other side of the world, after all. Well, that’s all I remember of him. Just weird. Playful, too. If you can call one child playful… among the many.
(She sighs. She picks up the paper and reads, in a distracted manner. Into the dining room come MR. and MRS. SING. MS. ODDI notices them. THE SINGS go and sit down at their table.)
MS. ODDI: (leaning over, whispering to MR. ODDI) It’s those parents! The parents who lost the boy! We met them yesterday. The Sings!
MR. ODDI: (interested) I remember.
MS. ODDI: Should we go over and say hi?
MR. ODDI: I don’t know.
MR. ODDI: Yes, let’s try it.
MS. ODDI: But what if they’re too upset to be friendly? I would hate for them to be mean to me.
MR. ODDI: Come on, they won’t be mean to you. They know our daughter.
MS. ODDI: Right.
(They stand up and go over, carefully.)
MR. ODDI: Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Sing. We met you yesterday with our daughter, Jenny.
MR. SING: Oh, hello.
(MRS. SING looks up coldly, then goes on with her breakfast.)
MR. ODDI: Imagine… staying at the same hotel!
MR. SING: We like this hotel very much.
MR. ODDI: So do we.
MS. ODDI: I like the decor.
MR. ODDI: My wife is very particular about decor.
MS. ODDI: I think a building ought to have decor. Some call it a sense of place, others call it a sense of perspective. Either way, you must agree that it gives you a vantage to look out over the world from; a vantage that’s often lost when travelling, when you’re without a bit of your routine. So yes, I like the curtains they’ve chosen for this room, and that they thought of it. It makes it a little more like home.
MR. SING: Well, thank you for stopping by.
MR. ODDI: We’re sorry about Daniel.
MR. SING: (awkwardly) Well… thank you.
(Pause.)
MS. ODDI: Good-bye.
(They walk away.)
MR. ODDI: (hissing, quiet) You were very rude.
MS. ODDI: (astonished) How?
MR. ODDI: I’m embarrassed to be your husband. I won’t go any further than that.
MS. ODDI: What happened?
MR. ODDI: (gritting his teeth) How can you go on making pleasantries when their son is dead?
MS. ODDI: He’s not dead. He’s missing.
MR. ODDI: A fair bit of difference that makes to the parents! When a child is missing a child is dead!
MS. ODDI: What do you know? You exaggerate.
MR. ODDI: I know these things, Grace.
MS. ODDI: You think you know everything because you read magazines. Well, a magazine can’t tell you about the heart, Jack, as much as you’d like it to. For that there’s only fiction. Books!
MR. ODDI: I am speaking about your behavior! Don’t bring up magazines.
MS. ODDI: Well my behavior is not up for conversation! I put a stop to it! It is not up for conversation!
MR. ODDI: I will tell Jenny this. I will tell her of how you have behaved. Then she will be ashamed to have a mother!
(He goes back to his map. MR. SING comes over.)
MS. ODDI: Mr. Sing!
MR. SING: I am sorry to bother you, but may we borrow the sugar? We won’t be a moment with it.
MS. ODDI: Oh yes! Oh yes, of course! Please, have the sugar. Take it. Keep it! We don’t need it back!
MR. SING: Thank you.
MS. ODDI: (calling after him as he retreats to his table) We don’t need it!
MR. ODDI: (nodding approvingly) That was good of you.
MS. ODDI: I thought: We need the sugar, but they need it more.
(MR. ODDI keeps reading his map.)
MS. ODDI: (smiling, satisfied) “We need it, but they need it more.”
(JENNY enters, a little disheveled, as if having woken from a nap.)
JENNY: I’m ready to go.
MS. ODDI: (excited) Ready?
JENNY: I said I’m ready. You’re just repeating me now.
(MR. ODDI folds up his map.)
MR. ODDI: You’ll be happy to know I have figured out our day. Ready and set?
JENNY: Oh, there are the Sings!
(JENNY wanders over to them, uncertain.)
MS. ODDI: (calling after her, warning) It’s a very difficult situation, Jenny.
JENNY: Mr. and Mrs. Sing?
(MRS. SING looks up.)
MR. SING: Hello, Jenny.
JENNY: Would you like to… I was wondering if you’d like to come around with me and my family today?
MR. SING: No thank you, Jenny. We’re going to stay by the hotel and wait for Daniel.
JENNY: I just thought that if we all went together, it would be a nicer day, for the company.
MRS. SING: I don’t want to say it, Jenny, but your mother is very irritating to me and I am just in no mood.
JENNY: (weakly) But when people come together—
MRS. SING: You are a very pushy girl! We are going to stay in our room and wait for Daniel! Our son has gone missing and we love him very much! (begins crying) I don’t want to be rude but we are in no mood to go off with your family today! We don’t know if we’ll ever see him again!
JENNY: I think you will see him again.
MRS. SING: What do you know! You’re only twelve! There is nothing stupider, I repeat nothing stupider, than being twelve!
MR. SING: Today is not a good day, Jenny.
(JENNY turns to go. She returns to her parents.)
MS. ODDI: Come. You shouldn’t have created a scene.
(She puts her arm around JENNY.)
JENNY: I’m sorry.
MS. ODDI: You thought your charm could take care of it all, but that is not always the case. Even for girls with whom it is always the case, they are generally much prettier than you are. One day it will be easier, when you have wit, and that day will come in its own time, but not until you know a little more about the world first. As it stands, you are very naive. (shrill) A great naïf!
MR. ODDI: That’s enough for today. The day has just begun and we are already two hours into a lecture! Can’t we please just try to be happy?
MS. ODDI: You and I discussed this, Jack. If you were completely uninterested in the educational aspect of this trip you should have laid that out before we left and I would have stayed at home. I have little enough time for fun. Jenny will be thirteen in May!
JENNY: I’ll learn!
(They all go.)
MRS. SING: (appalled) What an astonishing woman!