ROSALIE KNOPF Scene Two

Scene Two

The KNOPF living room Halloween night. It is chock full of pumpkins and jack o’ lanterns and cardboard witches and balloons and more pumpkins and jack o’ lanterns and cardboard witches. What it all lacks in taste. it compensates for in intention. And the food is delicious.

There are four or five extra chairs that have been carried in from the bedroom and the kitchen.

As the lights rise, LILLIAN LNDRESS and EUGENIA HELFERTY are seated on the sofa. EUGENIA is the biggest girl in the junior class—a distinction she has held since the first grade. Until only recently, she was bigger than any boy also. She is outfitted in a great white sheet which is supposed to fit like a toga. On her head is a string of wilting poinsettia leaves, the most expedient substitute for a crown of laurel. The comment around Mineola High has always been, "Eugenia is big and fat and all, but she does have a pretty face." Oddly enough, she does.

LILLIAN LANDRESS has a pretty face too. She is thin and petite, and there is nothing on the surface to distinguish her from the popular girls except her father’s profession. He’s a mailman. LILLIAN’S costume is a goulash of beads and bangles and an outlandish hat, but its efficacy depends mostly on the immense amounts of rouge and lipstick Lillian has used.

Across from them, in an outsized clown suit, sits BOBBY WASCOW, skinny, bespectacled, slightly effeminate and very small—so small his epithet has always been "Little Bobby Wascow." He adores it.

ROSALIE is standing by the phonograph, moodily staring toward the door. She is dressed in a costume that is supposed to represent "Justice". We know this by the slightly unbalanced scale hand painted in black on the front of her sleeveless cheesecloth creation.

LILLIAN And then Diane screamed out so the whole island could hear. "I’ll never speak to you again, Margot Robertson, if it’s the last thing I do!" Then Margot picked up her drum majorette stick and hurled it at Diane, but it hit Betty Claire instead. And Diane went rushing over to Margot and pushed her right into the Robertson’s simulated Tahitian lagoon swimming pool. And off they went in Diane’s Porsche.

BOBBY

Diane has almost the exact Porsche James Dean was killed in.

EUGENIA

You don’t mean it!

ROSALIE

(to Lillian, who has been removing the accoutrements from her gingerbread man)
What are you doing?

LILLIAN

Scraping the gook off.

ROSALIE

That’s not gook. That’s chocolate and lemon drops and jelly beans.

LILLIAN

I don’t like chocolate and lemon drops and jelly beans.

ROSALIE

Then take one without chocolate and lemon drops and jelly beans.

LILLIAN

They’ve all got some kind of gook.

ROSALIE

Get another one, Lillian.

LILLIAN

Why bother?

ROSALIE

Because you’re ripping Napoleon’s cloak off.

LILLIAN

What!

ROSALIE

It you don’t like Napoleon, take Samson. All he’s got are strawberry curls and orange rind in his navel.

LILLIAN

They’re all just gingerbread men with a lot of gook.

ROSALIE

If they’re all just gingerbread men with a lot of gook to you, don’t eat them!

(SHE grabs the gingerbread man out of Lillian’s hand and rushes into the kitchen.)

LILLIAN

Well, of all the…! She should have been glad we even showed up tonight.

BOBBY

She’s a strange girl, all right.

EUGENIA

What about Diane and Margot?

LILLIAN

She’s done nothing but make snide remake since we came.

BOBBY

She’s hardly said anything.

LILLIAN

She’s been on the verge of saying any number of nasty things. You can tell by the way she looks.

EUGENIA

I want to hear about Diane and Margot. What caused the fight?

LILLIAN

Nobody seems to know.

(ROSALIE reenters from the kitchen and goes back to brooding by the phonograph.)

BOBBY

Mrs. Fell knows.

EUGENIA

Mrs. Fell knows everything.

LILLIAN

What does she know?

BOBBY

I heard her tell Chuck Hatfield that the girls were the victims of malicious slander and that she planned to correct the situation tonight.

LILLIAN

Tonight?

EUGENIA

For goodness sakes!

LILLIAN

Where was she going tonight?

BOBBY

To the Halloween party at Mr. Peeples’ house.

ROSALIE

Oh, my God!
(to Bobby)
How do you know Mrs. Fell went there?

BOBBY

Because I’ve heard her planning her costume for weeks. She asked Margot it she could borrow an old ball gown of Mrs. Robertson’s. She’s going as Jane Austen.

EUGENIA

Bobby Wascow, how do you overhear all these things? Honestly. I listen all the time and I never hear what you hear.

BOBBY

So whatever caused what happened by Margot’s simulated Tahitian lagoon swimming pool is at the Peeples’ party right now. (ROSALIE dashes to the telephone and hurriedly checks a number.
The OTHERS look at her as if she were mad. She dials, cups her hand
over the mouthpiece and places her back to the trio.) ROSALIE                                         (assuming a heavy southern drawl)
Can I speak to Mrs. Albert Knopf please?
                                        (turning and catching the OTHERS staring at her, hunching her shoulders still further)
Mama…Yes, fine. Listen. Don’t let Daddy get near Mrs. Fell.
                                        (BOBBY struggles to eavesdrop, almost falling off his chair.)
What? Dancing with her now?…Oh, Mommy, stop them. Please…All right, but you must stop them…Call me back as soon as you do. I’ll be sitting here waiting.
                                        (SHE hangs up abruptly and turns catching the OTHERS straining
                                        to hear. SHE regards them with contempt, as THEY glance about
                                        the room pretending to have been uninterested in her conversation.)

BOBBY

Yes, those are the most attractive witches I’ve seen this season.

EUGENIA

(dreamily, to Lillian)
Your father’s so lucky, having Diane’s house on his mail route. She’s having a big Halloween party tonight.

LILLIAN

So’s Margot.

BOBBY

It’s the first time in the history of Mineola High there have ever been two cliques. (ROSALIE has begun pacing around the telephone, looking at it hopefully.) LILLIAN My sister told me the same thing almost happened in l947. But Mrs. Fell stepped in and patched things up.

BOBBY

She tried the same thing this time.

LILLIAN

I didn’t know that.

BOBBY

Yes. She organized a roundtable discussion at Howard Johnson’s. She treated all the girls to clam sandwiches and butternut ice cream sodas. It cost her fourteen dollars. There was only one problem. Neither Diane nor Margot showed up.

EUGENIA

If you had your choice, whose side would you go to?

LIlLLIAN

Oh, Margot’s.

EUGENIA

I wouldn’t. I’d go to Diane’s.

LILLIAN

Margot is much more popular. She’s already renounced the boys in the Junior Class.

BOBBY

That’s true.

LIlLLIAN

She’ll only date seniors and celebrated alumni.

EUGENIA

Diane’s more mysterious. You never really know what’s going on in her mind.

BOBBY

That’s true. She’s the only girl in the Junior Class with naturally sunken cheeks.

LILLIAN

Margot’s much more civic minded. When she was running for secretary of the Student Council, she advocated painting the school cafeteria even though she never eats there herself.

BOBBY

Diane knows more "sick" jokes than any girl in the school.

LILLIAN

Margot knows a lot of "sick" jokes, too.

BOBBY

The ones that Diane told her.

LILLIAN

Margot never uses dirty words.

EUGENIA

Diane dresses just like Loretta Young must have dressed when she was in high school.

BOBBY

That’s because she doesn’t buy them here. Even her blue jeans come from Dallas.

LILLIAN

Margot’s not a snob. She talks to everybody. Even the Future Homemakers of America.

EUGENIA

Diane’s not a snob.

BOBBY

If I were Diane, I’d be a snob, too.

EUGENIA

She wasn’t a snob to me.

LILLIAN

That was different.

BOBBY

What was different?

LILLIAN

Nothing.

EUGENIA

Didn’t you tell Bobby? You could have told him, Lillian. It was when the new term began. I was visiting some friends of my parents on Flamingo Island. Well, when I left I was walking back to the bridge and I just happened to glance across the river and I could see the back of Diane’s house. (LILLIAN has been shaking her head violently at Bobby.) BOBBY Yes, Eugenia. I heard. I heard all about it.

EUGENIA

She was having a big party. The music was floating through the air and there were two green spotlights shining on the lawn. It was so pretty. Suddenly, I had an urge to go over there. I just couldn’t restrain myself. They seemed like they were having so much fun. So I crossed over to Poinsettia Island. I decided I’d pretend I was looking for the Martins. They live right near Diane. They’re very close friends of my Daddy’s. They ride in his Glass Bottom boat all the time.

BOBBY

Yes, Genie, I heard the whole thing.

EUGENIA

So I knocked on the mahogany door, and Diane answered. And I said, "Diane Wolfe, of all people! I must have the wrong house. I was looking for the Martins." And Diane was as sweet as she could be. She asked me if I’d like to come in and taste the punch made by the chef at the Boca Raton Country Club! And I danced! I danced with Rickie and Chuck and Ham Hudson and…

ROSALIE

Stop it! It’s not true!

LILLIAN

Shut up, Rosalie.

ROSALIE

You didn’t just pass by Poinsettia Island. You went out there deliberately to crash Diane Wolfe’s party.

EUGENIA

I didn’t. I couldn’t have. I wasn’t even dressed for it. I had on my old pink taffeta.

ROSALIE

And Diane Wolfe didn’t ask you in. She slammed the door in your face. And the story was all over school the next day. Diane practically screamed it at the top of her lungs in Study Hall. "What do you think of the gall, the absolute gall of that big fat slob!"

(EUGENIA bursts into hysterical sobs and hides her head
in one of the pillows. LILLIAN hurries to her.)

LILLIAN

Genie…Genie…

BOBBY

Genie, we still have time to make the last show at the Hanahan. It’s Audrey Hepburn.

LILLIAN

You love Audrey Hepburn.

BOBBY

Mel Ferrer is with her. It got four stars from the The New York Daily News..

LILLIAN

We’ll treat. Won’t we, Bobby?

ROSALIE

What are you crying for? You know Diane spread it all around school. How can you keep on defending girls like that?

LILLIAN

Will you leave her alone?

ROSALIE

I just don’t under…

LILLIAN

Just leave her alone. Come on, Genie.

(EUGENIA is hunched with humiliation as BOBBY and LILLIAN
lead her slowly to the door.)

BOBBY

We’ll treat you to the movies and a double hot fudge sundae at Mother Hanahan’s. You can have three exotic flavors. They have a new one. Today’s Friday. I saw it advertised. It’s Scottish Delight.

LILLIAN

(at the door turning to Rosalie)
You’re a little coward, Rosalie Knopf. You’d never have done this to Diane Wolfe.

(THEY open the front door and exit. ROSALIE follows them.)

ROSALIE

I’m sorry, Eugenia. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Honestly I didn’t.

                                      (But it’s too late. THEY have already disappeared into the night.
                                      ROSALIE closes the door and moves slowly back into the room.
                                      A car is heard outside. But she is too absorbed to notice.)

ROSALIE

I would, too. I would have told Diane Wolfe off.
(throwing herself on the sofa)
No, I wouldn’t have. She’s right. I wouldn’t have.

(There is a quick tap at the door. ROSALIE quickly answers it.)

ROSALIE

David!

(DAVID DUBIN enters breathlessly. He is a slim 16 year
old with an extraordinarily attractive Semitic face.)

DAVID

I would have got here…Where is everyone?

ROSALIE

Not everybody showed up.

DAVID

I tried to get here earlier. But I had to drive my damned sister down to Lauderdale to see her damned boy friend. Isn’t that the end? He couldn’t drive up to her. She had to drive down to see him. But he’s a dentist. In my family that’s all that counts.
(indicating a small box he is holding)
Oh. This is for you, I guess. Or your mother.

ROSALIE

Oh, David. Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s so pretty. You shouldn’t have.

DAVID

I didn’t. It’s my mother. She won’t let me step out of the house without bringing somebody a box of candy.

ROSALIE

Oh.

DAVID

She has a whole bureau drawer full of all the candy people give her so’s she can give it right back to then.
(extracting a pack of cigarettes and lighting one)
I hate parents. Don’t you?

ROSALIE

Only fathers. No. I mean not all parents. Not my mother. My mother is just so wonderful. You know what she did the other day?

DAVID

(conscious of his reflection in the mirror)
I look pretty good with a cigarette, you know? Some of the guys in the senior class have begun tattooing the backs of their hands just so’s it’ll look good when they smoke. I’d do it, too, but my mother’d kill me.
(inhaling with sophistication)
I think the government should do what they did in ancient Sparta. Grab all the kids when they’re a year and a half old and get them away from their goddamned parents. I shock you?

ROSALIE

No, lots of people in the Junior Class smoke.

DAVID

I ‘m not talking about smoking. I’m talking about my views on parents.

ROSALIE

No. No. That doesn’t shock me.

DAVID

Then why were you staring at me?

ROSALIE

I wasn’t…well, it’s just that I’ve never heard you talk so much before.

DAVID

Oh?

ROSALIE

I mean, you’d come over and I’d help you with your algebra and you’d sort of be real quiet and shy and just keep on chewing leaves and stems and things. Like Rickie Richards.

DAVID

Yeah? Lots of people are different at different times. You are.

ROSALIE

I am?

DAVID

Sure. Your walk is different for one thing. At school it looks like you’re walking against a great big wind. But whenever I’ve seen you at home it looks like you’re only walking against a small breeze,

ROSALIE

Oh?

DAVID

Besides. Rickie Richards isn’t the right guy to model yourself after. There are some people who don’t like him, you know. I’m only just finding that out. Besides one day I started chewing a weed and goddamn it if it didn’t have a thorn right in the middle. My mouth was a bloody mess. Chuck Hatfield is just about the most popular boy in school. And he talks and talks and talks and everybody seems to love it. I didn’t have a costume. My mother said I should wear one of her old dresses and put cantaloupes in the top. Can you beat that? She said I did that in eighth grade and she didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t do that now. I told her it was because one of her dresses would fit a pair of fat Siamese twins. That’s what started the whole thing tonight. No wonder you read about all those kids bludgeoning their parents. What’s this about you and Mrs. Fell and how two great friends are no longer friends?

ROSALIE

What!

DAVID

Old flappy breast had me stay after school today. She said I was the only one in the world who could convince you to apologize.

ROSALIE

She didn’t!

DAVID

Apologize about what?

ROSALIE

Didn’t she tell you?

DAVID

She kept saying you’d know. She was goddamned mysterious. She kept saying two great friends were no longer friends because of you. She said other strange things, too. I don’t know quite what. All that orange blossom perfume kept making me sneeze end my eyes water.

ROSALIE

Let me get you something to eat.

DAVID

(rising and following her)
Come on, Rosalie. What’s it all about?

ROSALIE

My mother made gingerbread men incognito. Not many people understand gingerbread men incognito.

DAVID

And why am I the only one in the world who can convince you to apologize?

ROSALIE

There’s some warm kartoffelkloesse in the kitchen. That’s my favorite food.

DAVID

You’re not behind the big blow-up between Margot and Diane!

ROSALIE

My father’s mother had a German restaurant in Boston. Kartoffelkloesse was her specialty.

DAVID

Come on, Rosalie. I came all the way the way out here tonight to find out.

ROSALIE

Oh?

DAVID

Are you behind the big blow-up?

ROSALIE

(pushing the plate into his hands)
Don’t be silly. How could I cause a blow-up between girls like Diane and Margot?

DAVID

That’s what I’ve been asking myself all day. Then what’s this about Mrs. Fell and you…and me, I guess?

ROSALIE

Mrs. Fell isn’t really adjusted, David. It’s from years of poor integration. My father can tell you. There’s something desperately wrong with her. Doses and doses of orange henna must have seeped right through the scalp.

DAVID

Boy, if you only were.

ROSALIE

If I only was what?

DAVID

Behind the blow-up.

ROSALIE

Why?

DAVID

Why? All sorts of things can be accomplished now. The time is ripe for action. (The telephone rings. ROSALIE hurries to answer it.) ROSALIE Hello?…Oh, Mama, no!
(clapping her hands over the mouthpiece)
Everything?…Oh Mama, I told you to separate them…Yes, the party’s still going on…
(glancing sickly about the room)
Everyone’ s having a ball…Oh no!…All right, Mama, I’ll break up the party. (SHE hangs up slowly, her face clouded with fear and disappointment.) DAVID Bad news?

ROSALIE

My father just had an asthma attack.

DAVID

Hey, I’m sorry. I’d better go.

ROSALIE

No. Don’t go yet. We still have a few minutes.

DAVID

I’ve still got to go back to Lauderdale and pick up my goddamned sister.

ROSALIE

Why did you say the time was ripe for action?

DAVID

Because the clique is split right down the middle. It makes it easier for everybody else.

ROSALIE

But, David…who cares?

DAVID

Everybody cares. Except a few deadbeats. But all the others would give their right arms to get in with either Margot or Diane.

ROSALIE

But why?

DAVID

Why? Because they’ve got the school sewn up. They’re the ones who always get out of classes because of student council meetings and football conferences and well, hell! They’ve always got something to do.

ROSALIE

Oh?

DAVID

Just look at them and then look at the Unholy Three.

ROSALIE

Who?

DAVID

The Unholy Three. You know…Sour Lillian and Big Eugenia and Little Bobby Wascow. All they do is go to the movies, get hot fudge sundaes and watch the old people shuffleboard in Hanahan Park. I get sick at the thought that someday I’ll be a senior and spend all my evenings watching old people shuffleboard in Hanahan Park.

ROSALIE

You’ll never have to watch old people shuffleboard in Hanahan Park.

DAVID

I’ve already done it. Twice. With them yet.

ROSALIE

But David…there are so many other things....

DAVID

Name two…

ROSALIE

Books and records…and…well..daydreams.

DAVID

Daydreams, schmaydreams. Whenever I start in, they’re always about all the people I can’t stand.

ROSALIE

Oh, then you should start writing.

DAVID

Yeah. Start writing. I can just see double-dating at the Thanksgiving Dance with a Bluejay composition pad and two Ticonderoga pencils.

ROSALIE

As far as dances go, there are other girls in the school to…

DAVID

Who, for instance?

ROSALIE

Oh, I don’t know…there are some very pretty girls…there’s… Oh, David. They’ll never accept you. You’re Jewish. (HE stands, his mouth agape as if she had slapped him. Then HE turns slowly away, his eyes filling with tears he is tenaciously trying to repudiate.) DAVID I know.
(ROSALIE is about to speak and reach out to him, but only the hand gesture is completed.)
I know. I know. I know. You’d think my parents would have had the brains to change the whole goddam name---not just cut the "sky" off the end. That’s the only way people could tell. It is, too. This Jewish business is a bunch of crap. My father won’t touch pork, but he can’t have eggs without bacon. My mother can’t be bothered with two sets of dishes, but on Passover I’ve got to bring matzoh sandwiches to school or she’d kill me. My parents haven’t stepped inside the temple since three years ago when they had this screaming match with the rabbi’s wife over who would do the catering for my bar mitzvah. But if I wasn’t Jewish, and they still wouldn’t accept me, you know what I’d do?

ROSALIE

What would you do, David?

DAVID

You know Little Sherlock?

ROSALIE

The comic strip? Sure.

DAVID

Back in New Jersey when I was in the fifth grade, there was this real jerk in the class. No one could stand him. But then someone discovered his uncle drew Little Sherlock, and then before you knew it everyone wanted to be his friend.

ROSALIE

I don’t get it.

DAVID

Success. That’s all people understand. Doesn’t have to be your success. You can just be related to it. Or pretend you’re related to it. Of course, you got to be real clever and subtle about it so’s nobody finds out.

ROSALIE

There’s an atomic scientist named Dubin. Morris Dubin. He pushed the button that exploded two rockets off Cape Canaveral so they wouldn’t injure any of the onlookers.

DAVID

An atomic scientist. Boy, that'll impress 'em! If my name were only Knopf.

ROSALIE

Why?

DAVID

Because of Art Knopf, of course.

ROSALIE

Who’s Art Knopf?

DAVID

You’ve never heard of Art Knopf!

ROSALIE

I don’t think so.

DAVID

Only the most important quarterback the University of Oklahoma’s ever had.

R0ALI E

Is he still living?

DAVID

He’s only a freshman, Rosalie. For Christ’s sake, Life devoted six pages to him last week!

ROSALIE

I never read Life.

DAVID

This lousy prof’s trying to get him thrown out of Oklahoma for using crib notes in a Trig test. You shoulda seen the color pictures of the student rally. Boy, was it something. They burned the teacher three times in effigy. If I was related to a football hero or a movie star or a band leader…or pretended I was related…

ROSALIE

David, is it all really that important to you?

DAVID

No. I like sitting around with the Unholy Three and listening to Bobby Wascow tell how many stars The New York Daily News gave what picture.

ROSALIE

But think of the future. Think of what it’ll be like when you graduate.

DAVID

What’ll it be like?

ROSALIE

Think of New York and San Francisco and all kinds of exciting jobs and interesting people…where it doesn’t make any difference if you own a Porsche or a simulated Tahitian lagoon swimming pool. In an art museum, people don’t care how many sick jokes you know.

DAVID

Huh?

ROSALIE

The whole world isn’t Mineola High.

DAVID

How do you know it isn’t?

ROSALIE

Because I know. I just do.

DAVID

Listen to my parents sometime. The whole world is just one great big Mineola High.

ROSALIE

Oh, David. Don’t even think that!

(There is the sound of a car outside coming to a quick and noisy stop.
Almost immediately a car door is heard slamming.)
It’s Daddy! I hate to rush you out like this. But he does very strange things when he gets an attack.

DAVID

(moving towards the front door)
That’s okay.

ROSALIE

Oh, David. Go through the back way. Please. I’ll explain sometime.
(DAVID goes a little reluctantly toward the kitchen.)
And David. Please come back soon. There’s so much we have to talk about.

DAVID

There is? (HE tips his hand to his head with a cocky little gesture and exits. The front door flies open, and DR. ALBERT KNOPF bursts on stage, gasping for breath, a handkerchief over his nose. Although in his late fifties, there is a determined little boy underneath the wrinkling skin and the balding dome. He is thin and lean and short, almost as short as his wife and daughter. He is costumed as King Solomon with a flowing purple robe and an impressive purple crown. NADINE trails after him in a strange outfit of not quite diaphanous material. The thin veil about her nose suggests she might be one of King Solomon’s wives.) NADINE Dear. Sit quietly. I’ll get your pills.

DR. KNOPF

I’ll get them myself. (HE disappears through the bedroom door stage right. NADINE goes apologetically to Rosalie.) NADINE (whispering)
I’m sorry the party had to break up. I tried to separate them, Rosalie. I even tried accidentally spilling some of Mrs. Peeples’ terrible punch. But nobody seems to pay attention to that kind of thing when I do it. Please promise me you won’t aggravate him. Just let him go on. You remember what happened at Rivington. Just promise you’ll join the debate team again and everything will work itself out.

DR. KNOPF

(breathing heavily as he enters)
What are you trying to do to me, young lady?

NADINE

Albert. Wait till morning, please. You’ll only upset yourself and wheeze all night.

DR. KNOPF

Why are you trying to humiliate me?

ROSALIE

I’m not trying to humiliate you.

DR. KNOPF

Here I spent months lecturing from one end of Florida to the other---elucidating the Knopf Plan of Elementary Education and its subsequent effects on the Knopf Plan of Secondary Education. Here I am discoursing on the efficacy of group integration till my throat is raw and parched. When all the time behind my back my daughter…my own daughter…is…anti-togetherness.

ROSALIE

Daddy, please sit down. I’ll explain everything. But don’t get excited until the pills have a chance to work.

DR. KNOPF

I am not excited. And there is nothing to explain. Monday morning you will go to school and apologize to all three of the young ladies you have maligned.

ROSALIE

Daddy…

DR. KNOPF

And you will not do it by writing. You have written quite enough. You will do it in person.

ROSALIE

No!

NADINE

Rosalie…

ROSALIE

I can’t apologize to them. I’ve no reason to apologize.

DR . KNOPF

You have severed a four year friendship.

ROSALIE

That’s not my fault. It’s Mrs. Fell’s fault. She had no business telling Betty Claire Richmond in the first place. And she had no business telling you.
(to Nadine)
She even told David Dubin.

NADINE

Oh, that’s unkind.

ROSALIE

If she had anything to say she should have come to me.

DR. KNOPF

Mrs. Fell cannot communicate with you. In her thirty-three years of teaching, she says you are the only student with whom she cannot communicate.

ROSALIE

That’s not my fault.

NADINE

It was unkind of her to say anything to David Dubin…

DR. KNOPF

Will you keep out of this?

NADINE

I also think it was very poor taste for her to come as Belle Watling

DR. KNOPF

What are you talking about? She came as Jane Austen.

NADINE

She said she came as Jane Austen. But everybody knew she came as Belle Watling.

DR. KNOPF

That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard.

NADINE

You thought just because you went as King Solomon that I went as one of King Solomon’s wives, didn’t you?

DR. KNOPF

Nadine…

NADINE

Didn’t you?

DR. KNOPF

Of course I did!

NADINE

Well, I didn’t. I went as Salome.

DR. KNOPF

Will you…

NADINE

Within my mind I went as Salome and that’s all that mattered.

DR. KNOP

Are you finished?

NADINE

Yes.

DR. KNOPF

No wonder your daughter is either writing malicious little exposés or romantic fiddlefaddle.

ROSALIE

Daddy, look. Why…

DR. KNOPF

I was appalled when Mrs. Fell described some of those composition papers. Nell Gwynn saving Charles the Second’s life by throwing oranges at Oliver Cromwell.

ROSALIE

Daddy, why don’t we all go to sleep? Monday morning I promise I’ll join the debate team and…

DR. KNOPF

(to Nadine)
Is this another of your placatory suggestions? Do you think I’m a Mongoloid idiot?

NADINE

Oh, Albert, I…

DR. KNOPF

You think that’ll solve everything like you thought it would solve everything at Rivington. You thought I was too busy to notice that she joined the debate team so I would forget the letter she wrote to Billy Zilkey’s gym teacher.
(to Rosalie)
You thought I was too busy to notice you were on the debate team for less than three weeks.

ROSALIE

They voted me out after three weeks.

DR. KNOPF

In all the years I was principal they never voted anyone out.

ROSALIE

I was the exception.

DR. KNOPF

You are always the exception!

ROSALIE

But, Daddy, you don’t know the story…

DR. KNOPF

I was watching, Rosalie. I was watching with…

ROSALIE

But it was over the debate about whether or not Hawaii should become a state. I wanted Hawaii to become a state. But they had enough older members who wanted Hawaii to become a state. So I had to tell why Hawaii shouldn’t become a state. And I couldn’t. Because I didn’t believe in it. The debate captain kept saying any good member of the debate team can take either side to any question.

DR. KNOPF

And he was right!

ROSALIE

It wasn’t a he, it was a she.

DR. KNOPF

What difference does that make?

ROSALIE

You just said you were watching.

DR. KNOPF

(to Nadine)
Did you teach her to digress like bits?

ROSALIE

The debate captain said it doesn’t take any brains to figure out why Hawaii shouldn’t become a state. She said think of all the money it would take to replace the old flags. And I said I didn’t care about the money. And she said I didn’t have the proper attitude for a "dynamic debater." So they voted me out.

DR. KNOPF

The time has come to face facts, Rosalie. Not only have you been the perpetual square peg, this is the second time you have humiliated me because of a silly adolescent crush.

ROSALIE

It wasn’t a silly adolescent crush. Billy Zilkey needed my help.

DR. KNOPF

Billy Zilkey needed to integrate.

ROSALIE

How could he integrate? When all those boys were ganging up on him and tearing his clothes off and tossing him in the shower?

DR. KNOPF

You should have come to me first.

ROSALIE

I did go to you first. But you wouldn’t do anything. So I had to write to his gym teacher.

DR. KNOPF

Those boys were doing Billy Zilkey a favor.

ROSALIE

A favor? Daddy, Billy used to throw up every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

DR. KNOPF

He would have got over that. Those boys were helping him to shed that pernicious and absurd physical modesty of his. They were preparing him for college and the army and the locker rooms of any number of important golf clubs.

ROSALIE

Daddy, it was wrong.

DR. KNOPF

No matter what your mother may have told you to the contrary, young lady, people do not live by themselves in a microcosmic world of their own. They live with other people. That’s the simple secret of the Revised Knopf Plan. And here you are doing everything in your power to spread anti-togetherness.

ROSALIE

It wasn’t anti-togetherness with Billy Zilkey. It was anti-bullyism. And with David Dubin, it’s anti-anti-Semitism.

DR. KNOPF

Hogwash!

ROSALIE

You just don’t recognize social protest.

DR. KNOPF

Don’t tell me what I recognize. Anti-anti-Semitism sounds mighty good, Susan B. Anthony, If you had one ounce of social consciousness in your entire body. I’ll tell you what I recognize. I recognize a destructive way you have of trying to make the young man on whom you have your latest crush feel obligated to you.

ROSALIE

That’s not true! It was wrong! Both of these things…they’re wrong! And if I had to do it all over again I’d write another letter to Billy Zilkey’s gym teacher.

DR. KNOPF

Do not raise your voice to me.

ROSALIE

And I’m not sorry I wrote "Love, War and the Girl’s Locker Room". Do you know what one of those girls in the clique tries to do almost every afternoon while I’m riding my bike home? She drives up behind me and suddenly honks her horn and sees if she can push me into the palmetto bushes.

NADINE

Oh, Rosalie. Which one?

ROSALIE

Her name’s Sharlene Harkness. She’s the daughter of "Happy" Harkness, the ex-mayor of our fair city.

DR. KNOPF

What has that got to do with the three that you have maligned?

ROSALIE

They’re all cut from the same old rusty cookie-maker. And I’m not apologizing. And I don’t care about your lectures! And I don’t care about the Knopf Plan. It never worked anyway!

NADINE

Rosalie!

DR. KNOPF

The Knopf Plan was used for seven straight years in the Humperdink Elementary School in Lincoln, Nebraska.

ROSALIE

They used it all right. Until all the kids who started out under it finally reached Junior High and suddenly began forming sex clubs.

NADINE

Rosalie!

DR. KNOPF

That wasn’t the fault of the Knopf Plan. That was the fault of their maladjusted parents!

ROSALIE

That’s not what the Nebraska State Supreme Court judge said.

DR. KNOPF

That judge was a damned reactionary!

NADINE

Rosalie, you weren’t supposed to read those articles. I did hide that, Albert. With the wedding pictures.

DR. KNOPF

The Knopf Plan was better than the Winnetka plan and the Dalton plan put together. They became bogged down in a mire of self-interest. The Knopf Plan was concerned with group interest.

ROSALIE

Oh, crumb bun!

DR. KNOPF

Don’t turn your back on me.

NADINE

Don’t turn your back on your father, Rosalie. (ROSALIE turns around obediently) DR. KNOPF Listen and you’ll learn something about what you’re talking about. Listen and it’ll help you the day you start teaching...

ROSALIE

I’ll never teach!

DR. KNOPF

Girls who look like you, Rosalie, always teach.

NADINE

Oh, Albert! That’s so vindictive!

DR. KNOPF

Well, I’m sick of these foolish crushes that can only send her deeper into that world of retreat you’ve make for her
(to Rosalie)
Look into the future, young lady, and see your need for people and belonging to people.

ROSALIE

I only need the right people.

DR. KNOPF

The Knopf Plan was revised with you paramount in my mind. That’s how I conceived the "Dynamic Division of the Group." Divide an entire first grade, not by intellectual groupings or personality groupings but by group groupings. We take the normal child. And we can take the normal child. With the help of eminent Boston psychologists, I have invented tests by which we can come as close to the normal child as is humanly possible. Use that child as a centrifugal force and build each class around him. Make sure there is a cross-section of personality types. Eventually they will be guided and directed into the standards set by the pivotal child. Each class is a microcosm of society. And all children are striving for the goal of normality and integration they must strive for in life. (He finishes and sits with enormous self-satisfaction as he would after one of his lectures. There is a long pause.) ROSALIE Is that what the Knopf Plan is?

DR. KNOPF

It’s what the Knopf Plan is---after eighteen years of assiduous work.

ROSALIE

I’m not apologizing, Daddy.

DR. KNOPF

You did not understand one word.

ROSALIE

I didn’t understand everything, Daddy. But I did understand this much. If Diane Wolfe and Margot Robertson are those children in the center, I ‘m not apologizing.

DR. KNOPF

Since they were not schooled under the Knopf Plan, they cannot be those children in the center.

ROSALIE

They’re those children in the center at Mineola High.

DR. KNOPF

The whole world can’t be wrong, Rosalie.

ROSALIE

It’s not the whole…it’s…oh, what’s the use?

DR. KNOPF

It’s Mineola High now, but someday it’ll be the whole world.

ROSALIE

Look, Daddy. I’m sure the Knopf Plan is wonderful for people like your brother.

NADINE

Rosalie…you promised you’d never mention that!

ROSALIE

Well, it’s true.

NADINE

Albert, I didn’t tell her. She read it in that article about New York in Collier’s.

ROSALIE

I realize it must be quite a shock to have a brother who stands in the middle of the Times Square subway station with little pamphlets in his hand and a megaphone to his mouth telling everybody they’re going to hell if they don’t wake up end see the light of Jesus. And in a family of thirteen children one of them might conceivably wind up that way. But, just because of him, I wouldn’t prescribe the same medicine for the other twelve. (There is an uncomfortable silence. DR. KNOPF avoids their eyes.) DR. KNOPF All right, Rosalie. I do not believe in punishing children. You know that. If I cannot reach them with persuasive words and ideas, I have failed. I know too well what it’s like to be punished. I was the only boy in my class the teacher wasn’t afraid of.
(pausing, attempting to shake the memory.)
I can only say this. If what has happened with Mrs. Fell and your composition paper ever leaks out, my eighteen years of work on the Knopf Plan will have gone for naught. If you have no respect for me or my work, there is nothing more to be said. Good night. (HE turns and begins to walk slowly toward the bedroom.) ROSALIE Daddy!

DR. KNOPF

Yes?

ROSALIE

Daddy, I won’t apologize. I can’t apologize to those girls. But…

DR. KNOPF

But what, Rosalie?

ROSALIE

If…if in some way I became part of those girls…I mean, if all of a sudden they accepted me, would that help you?

DR. KNOPF

What do you mean?

ROSALIE

I mean integrating and togetherness and everything you mean. Would that help you?

DR. KNOPF

Yes, Rosalie. It would help me.

ROSALIE

(to herself)
I know someone else it would help, too.

NADINE

You see, Albert. She’s a good child.

DR. KNOPF

It takes more than three weeks on the debate team.

ROSALIE

It won’t be three weeks on the debate team. I don’t know it it’ll even work…I mean, I don’t know if I can do it. But it’s got no connection with the debate team.

DR. KNOPF

It it’s something you want to do, Rosalie. If it’s something you feel you’re not being forced into. If it’s something that will eventually help you and your future.

ROSALIE

I don’t know, Daddy. But I’m willing to find out.

DR. KNOPF

I cannot say we must forget what has passed between us tonight. But I do want you to know whatever I said was not out of vindictiveness.

ROSALIE

Yes, Daddy.

DR. KNOPF

It hurt me to say it, but we’ve kept things tacit for too long.

ROSALIE

That’s okay, Daddy. I am homely.

NADINE

Now you apologize, too, Rosalie.

ROSALIE

I apologize, Daddy.

DR. KNOPF

Good night, Rosalie. (HE exits through the bedroom door.) NADINE (following him)
Oh, Albert, your vocabulary had improved so since you started working on your book.
(turning at the door, to Rosalie)
Are you going to bed, dear?

ROSALIE

In a moment, Mama. First I have to write a letter. (NADINE follows DR. KNOPF through the doorway. ROSALIE goes to the desk, hurriedly takes a sheet of paper and begins to write.)

LIGHTS DIM