Scene Four



 

The Knopf living room, the following Monday morning. At rise, ROSALIE is stretched out on the sofa in an old terrycloth bath robe. SHE is avidly reading a copy of Sports Illustrated. About her are several magazines all of them concerned with football. NADINE appears from the bedroom door, wrapping a house coat around her and staring at Rosalie in abject surprise.
   
NADINE
Rosalie! It’s nine-thirty.

ROSALIE

I know, Mama.

NADINE

Why aren’t you in school?

ROSALIE

I have some reading to catch up on.

NADINE

                              (hurrying to her and feeling her forehead)
Darling, are you ill?

ROSALIE

No.

NADINE

Is it your leg? It’s infected!

ROSALIE

No, Mama. My leg is fine.

NADINE

Is it because I overslept? I wanted to get up in time to fix your breakfast. But I was up at five fixing your father’s breakfast before he left for his lecture tour of central Florida.

ROSALIE

I want you to sleep, Mama. I told you. I can fix my own breakfast.

NADINE

But you haven’t missed a day of school since you had Asian flu at Rivington.

ROSALIE

I told you. I have all this outside reading. Did you do your outside reading?

NADINE

Yes I did. And I can’t go through with It.

ROSALIE

Last night you promised!

NADINE

Rosalie, what is this all about?

ROSALIE

You also promised you wouldn’t ask any questions.

NADINE

But it’s…

ROSALIE

It’s just a game, Mama. And it’s going to help Daddy’s work. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

NADINE

Yes, but what if people in town find out I’ve been concealing a two hundred and eighty-five pound son?

ROSALIE

You don’t have any close friends in Mineola. And nobody’s going to care. Just Mrs. Fell. She’s the only reason you’ve got to know something about your son Art.

NADINE

Oh, Rosalie, I read four of those magazines before I went to sleep last night. And I don’t understand about cross bucks and quarterback sneaks.

ROSALIE

You don’t have to. Do you think Mrs. Beethoven had perfect pitch?

NADINE

It’s all too silly. Art Knopf couldn’t be a member of our family. Not only does he weigh two hundred and eighty-five pounds, he’s six feet four and has red hair.

ROSALIE

You can say a brother of Daddy’s has red hair…the one with the megaphone in the Times Square subway station.

NADINE

Red hair that extends right to his eyebrows?

ROSALIE

That’s not his hair, Mama…his eyebrows just need tweezing.

NADINE

That’s his hair, Rosalie.

ROSALIE

No look, Mama…it’s his eyebrows. They’re just a little thick.

NADINE

And his arms. Why, his fingertips touch his knees.

ROSALIE

He may be a little strange looking, Mama…but so are all of us.

NADINE

All right, Rosalie. But nobody will ever believe you. (Suddenly the screech of brakes is heard. NADINE and ROSALIE jump up and rush to the window. A car door slams violently.)
ROSALIE
Well, of…! Mama, please. Go back in the bedroom until I call you.

NADINE

Rosalie…

ROSALIE

Remember? No questions. (NADINE shrugs as SHE returns to the bedroom. There is a furious rapping on the door.)
ROSALIE
                                        (assuming an almost cretin-like mask as she goes to answer it)
Why, Sharlene Harkness! (The door flies open and SHARLENE HARKNESS enters. She is plump and ungainly with stiff coarse hair which she is constantly blowing and pushing from her eyes. Right now, she is also breathing heavily and wiping the sweat from her brow.)
SHARLENE
Rosalie? Did you do your Spanish translation?

ROSALIE

Why…yes, Sharlene.

SHARLENE

Let me see it.

                                        (ROSALIE stares at her, trying to figure out what is happening.)

SHARLENE

Hurry up, for pete’s sake! I cut English to get here. There I was waiting for you since ten of eight…the one day you don’t show up for school.
                                        (ROSALIE obediently goes to the table, picks up her notebook and leafs through a few pages.)
I’ve got to be back for Spanish in twenty minutes.

ROSALIE

It was so sweet of you to think of me, Sharlene.

SHARLENE

                                        (impatiently grabbing the notebook)
Mrs. Glass is the toughest teacher in school. If you don’t have your homework, she makes you do thirty pages of outside translation.
                                        (as she opens her own notebook, flops on the arm chair and begins to copy furiously)
"Ponce de Leon was born in fourteen sixty…" (The telephone rings. ROSALIE, still bewildered, answers it.)
ROSALIE
Hello?…It’s for you, Sharlene.

SHARLENE

                                         (looking up, throwing the notebook down irascibly, her eyes welling with tears of frustration)
Ohhhh…
                                         (picking up the phone)
Yes?…Yes, Diane, I’m doing it now!  
 (ROSALIE assumes a nonchalant pose with her back to Sharlene, but she listens attentively, a    smile of satisfaction on her face.)
SHARLENE
                                        (whispering)
I don’t know if Margot’s been over or not…I can’t just ask her, Diane…I’ve got to get back. If I have to do thirty pages of outside translation…You and your ideas…Nothing. I didn’t say anything…Yes, Diane.
                                        (SHE hangs up, rushes back to the notebooks, picks them up and begins copying again.)
"He was governor of Puerto Rico from 1509 to…"
                                       (speaking as she copies)
Do you know why I didn’t do my homework?

ROSALIE

No. Why, Sharlene?

SHARLENE

I was too busy. That’s why. With all the social activities Margot and her friends can’t hope to match. First there was the progressive dinner Friday night…

ROSALIE

What’s a progressive dinner, Sharlene?

SHARLENE

You know…appetizer at Diane’s, soup at Dodie’s, entree at my place…you know..

ROSALIE

Is that very good for the digestion?

SHARLENE

Then afterwards Ham and Betty Claire and Jimmy and I went to Hanahan’s Hideaway. That new trio is really super. Saturday I didn’t wake up till noon and I would have forgotten all about Zona's picnic at Hanahan Park if Jimmy hadn’t blown his horn so loud I had to get up. Golly, it was super. Chuck started tossing all the girls into the lake. It was super. I was so beat when I got home, I had to take a nap before we all drove up to the Boca Raton Country Club to see Diane’s cousins. Did we have a ball! Then Rickie and Diane drove with us back to catch the midnight show at the Hanahan. Diane was dying to see it. It’s with Robert Mitchum and Sophia Loren. They keep slugging each other all the way through the picture. It was super. Yesterday, before I knew it I was at Hanahan’s Point with Betty Claire and Chuck and Jimmy, of course. I had to stay under the umbrella all day because I burn so. I would have done my Spanish then, but we started playing this game Zona’s sister brought back from Duke…where you describe people as animals and things…and before I knew it it was time for dinner at Dodie’s and then straight off to Evie Clapp’s party with Biff. Then Diane asked us all over to her house when Evie’s neighbors started complaining and we danced until I don’t know what time, so I just didn’t have a minute to glance at my Spanish.
                                      (SHE breathes a great sigh of relief, shuts the notebook and rushes to the door.)
Margot and her friends only gave one party this weekend.
                                      (with a little wave of her hand as SHE starts to exit)
Tonight’s a slumber party at Bab’s. (The door slams. ROSALIE stands in the middle of the room, a small, triumphant smile gradually appearing on her face as she picks up her notebook.)
ROSALIE
                                      (as we hear the car motor being revved up)
Sharlene, that all sounds super…but you just copied the beginning of my history report.
 
 


LIGHTS DIM