We got a birthday cake, kid. Did you see the cake? PAUL
Are you and Dr. Woodly engaged? PENELOPE
(stunned) Who have you been talking to?
PAUL
What difference does that make? Is Dr. Woodly going to be my father now? Pause. PENELOPE
Yes, he is.
PAUL
(a stifled, gargling cry) Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! SHUTTLE
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
That goes double for me.
PAUL
I don't want to live any more. SHUTTLE
I feel like I want to yell my head off--just yell anything. (yelling)
Bulllllllllllllll-dickey!
PAUL
I'll kill myself. SHUTTLE
The wife of Harold Ryan is going to marry a pansy next? This is the end of Western Civilization as far as I'm concerned. You must be crazy as a fruitcake. PENELOPE
Possibly. SHUTTLE
How long has this been going on? PENELOPE
A week. We were waiting for the right time to-SHUTTLE I feel as though I had been made a perfect chump of.
PENELOPE
I'm sorry. SHUTTLE
Marry me instead. PENELOPE
Thank you, Herb. You're a wonderful man. You really are. Everybody respects you for what file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (60 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
you've done for scouting and the Little League.
SHUTTLE
You're saying no. PENELOPE
I'm saying no--and thank you. SHUTTLE
I didn't make my move fast enough. That's it, isn't it? I was too respectful. PENELOPE
You were wonderful. SHUTTLE
What's so wonderful if I lost the sale? (turning to PAUL)
You poor kid.
PAUL
Don't touch me. SHUTTLE
Wouldn't you rather have your mother marry me than him? PAUL
No. SHUTTLE
(moving dazedly
toward the front door) All my dreams have suddenly collapsed.
(pause)
We did have a lot of laughs together, Penelope.
PENELOPE
It's true. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (61 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
SHUTTLE
Well--it was nice while it lasted. Thanks for the memories. He exits.
Silence. A toilet flushes loudly and complicatedly.
PENELOPE
Is Norbert still here? PAUL
No. PENELOPE
Then who flushed the toilet?
PAUL
Father's friend. PENELOPE
What's his name? PAUL
Don't know. PENELOPE
For Heaven's sakes! HAROLD enters, still adjusting his trousers.
PENELOPE
How do you do? HAROLD
How do you do, Mrs. Ryan? I'd heard you were beautiful, and so you are. Am I intruding here? PENELOPE
Not at all. HAROLD
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PENELOPE has now recognized him, but attempts to protect herself from shock by pretending that she has not.
PENELOPE
Our family physician has asked me to marry him. Paul needs the guidance and companionship that only a man can give. He isn't at all like Harold. But then again, I'm not the woman I was eight years ago. She slumps into a chair, buries her face in her hands.
PAUL
Mom? PENELOPE
(pointing weakly)
That man is your father.
PAUL
What? PENELOPE
There stands the loins from which you've sprung.
PAUL
I don't get it. PENELOPE
It is you, isn't it, Harold? HAROLD
(enjoying the drama hugely) Yes, wife, it is. (to PAUL)
Come here, boy. Your father is home.
PAUL
Sir? PENELOPE
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
Go to him.
PAUL goes to HAROLD dazedly. They embrace clumsily.
HAROLD PAUL
Son, son, son... Father, father, father... They part, unsatisfied and confused. HAROLD goes to PENELOPE, his arms outstretched. HAROLD
Wife, wife, wife... PENELOPE struggles to her feet, her face blank. HAROLD embraces her, finds himself wrestling with a rigid, unresponsive object.
HAROLD
Wife, wife, wife...
HAROLD lets go, backs away from her.
HAROLD
What's the matter? PENELOPE
(tearful) Give us time.
HAROLD
Like hugging a lamp post. PENELOPE
Give us time, Harold--to adjust to your being alive. HAROLD
You were well adjusted to my being dead? PENELOPE
We adjust to what there is to adjust to. Perhaps Paul, being young, can adjust to joy or grief immediately. I hope he can. I file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (64 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
will take a little longer. I'll be as quick as I can.
HAROLD
What sort of time period do you have in mind? Half an hour? An hour? PENELOPE
I don't know. This is a new disease to me. HAROLD
Disease? PENELOPE
Situation. HAROLD
This reunion isn't what I imagined it would be. PENELOPE
A telegram--a phone call might have helped. HAROLD
Seemed the most honest way to begin life together again--natural, unrehearsed.
PENELOPE
Well--enjoy the natural, honest, unrehearsed result--surgical shock. HAROLD
You feel that you're behaving as a woman should? PENELOPE
Every fuse in my nervous system has been blown. Lion doorbell roars.
PENELOPE
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Who's that? Teddy Roosevelt? PAUL answers the door, admits WOODLY.
WOODLY
(to PAUL) Safe and sound, I see.
(to HAROLD)
Oh--you came back.
HAROLD
I came back. PENELOPE
You know each other? WOODLY
We met here earlier this evening. PENELOPE
How neat. How keen. HAROLD
How was the emergency, Doctor? Profitable, I hope. WOODLY
A policeman delivered the baby in a taxicab. HAROLD
Tough luck. You'll have to split the fee.
WOODLY
(puzzled by PENELOPE's mood)
Are--are you crying, Penelope?
HAROLD
She's crying because she's so happy. PENELOPE
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
PAUL
Dr. Woodly? (indicating HAROLD) You know who this is?
WOODLY
I didn't get his name. A friend of your father? PAUL
He isn't any friend of Father. WOODLY
He isn't? PAUL
He is my father.
WOODLY
No! PENELOPE
Eeeeeeeeeeee-yup. Dr. Woodly--I would like you to meet Harold, my husband. Harold, this is Dr. Woodly, my f
iancé.
She crosses to the door of the master bedroom, kissing each male lightly as she passes.
PENELOPE
Good night, dear. Good night, dear. She stands in the doorway. PENELOPE
Stay or go, talk or sulk, laugh or cry--as you wish. Do whatever seems called for. My mind is gone. Good night. She exits into bedroom, closes the door firmly, locks it audibly.
WOODLY
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
(dazedly)
I feel the same way. What next?
HAROLD
What next? You leave promptly, of course. There is no question as to whose home this is-WOODLY None.
HAROLD
Whose son this is, whose wife that is. A fiancé is the most ridiculous appurtenance this household could have at this time. Good night.
WOODLY
(crushed, without any possible comeback) Good night. He exits through the front door. HAROLD goes at once to PENELOPE's door, tries it, finds it locked.
HAROLD
Penelope! God damn it! Penelope! He considers kicking down the door, thinks better of this, turns away.
HAROLD
Wants to fix up her makeup, no doubt.
PAUL
Is Looseleaf Harper alive? HAROLD
Alive and hale. He's throwing a little surprise party for his own family. Is your mother often this unstable? (not waiting for an answer, calling again) Penelope!
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
PAUL
She's a real heavy sleeper sometimes. HAROLD
Why don't you go to bed--son. PAUL
I can't take my eyes off you. HAROLD
Tomorrow's another day. PAUL
You know what my English literature teacher said about you? HAROLD
Can't it keep till morning? PAUL
She said you were legendary. I wrote a theme about you, and she said, "Your father is a legendary hero out of the Golden Age of Heroes." HAROLD
That's nice. You thank her for me. Go to bed and get lots of sleep, and then you thank her in the morning. PAUL
Tomorrow's Saturday. Anyway, she's dead. HAROLD
Penelope!
PAUL
She was killed in the park two months ago--in the daytime.
HAROLD
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
PAUL
She was on her way home from a meeting of the African Violet Society, and they got her. HAROLD
(sharply) Will you go to bed?
PAUL
(stung) Yes sir. If you can't wake Mom up, I've got double-decker bunks.
HAROLD
(stamping his foot) Scat! PAUL exits hastily down the corridor to his room. HAROLD goes to PENELOPE's door, attempts to woo her through it.
HAROLD
Penelope--darling--can you hear me? Wife--you know what kept me alive all these fevered, swampy, nightmare years? Your heavenly face, Penelope, my wife--shimmering before me, coaxing me up from my knees, begging me to stagger one step closer to home. Has love ever reached so far? Has love ever overcome more hardships than mine? (silence) Has love ever asked more manliness of a man, more womanliness of a woman? Has ever a man done more for a woman's reward?
The bedroom door opens, revealing PENELOPE.
PENELOPE
(hollowly, to the world at large)
There is no one in here of any file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (70 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
earthly use to anyone tonight. Tomorrow is another day.
She closes the door and locks it.
HAROLD
(to audience) End of Act One.
Blackout.
ACT TWO
SCENE ONE
DARKNESS. PAUL, alone in the living room, hammers on his mother's door. He wears pajamas.
PAUL
Mom! Mother! Mom! Toilet flushes. Lights come up on the living room. It is morning.
PAUL
Dad's got jungle fever, Mom. What'll I do? Mom!
HAROLD
(a moment of exhaustion) Damn. PAUL
Mom?
Door to the master bedroom suite opens. PENELOPE appears in the doorway. She has decided during an almost sleepless night that she owes it to PAUL and to her own self-respect to explore the possibility of beginning her life with HAROLD anew. She is terrified of him. She hopes that if she can keep calm and open, her fears will diminish. Perhaps she can love him again.
PENELOPE
(attempting to behave file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (71 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
mechanically as a
good wife should)
What are his symptoms?
PAUL
Shivers and sweats and groans. His teeth chatter. What'll we do? PENELOPE
What does he say to do? PAUL
He can hardly talk. HAROLD
(responding to a last twinge of nausea) Bluh.
PENELOPE
You'd better get Dr. Woodly.
PAUL
Really? PENELOPE
It is an emergency, isn't it? PAUL
(uncertainly) Yeah.
PENELOPE
Then get him.
PAUL
(thinking she has made a mistake)
Okay.
He exits through front door, leaves door open. We hear him knocking on a door in the hallway.
PAUL
Dr. Woodly? file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (72 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
HAROLD enters, drained but recovering. He chews on a root. He has slept in the shirt and trousers he wore the night before. He is barefoot. PAUL knocks again.
PAUL
Dr. Woodly? There is the sound of WOODLY's door opening. WOODLY and PAUL speak unintelligibly, WOODLY evidently inviting PAUL in for a moment. WOODLY's door closes.
HAROLD
What's that all about? PENELOPE
We thought a doctor might help. HAROLD
Your old beau? PENELOPE
We thought it was an emergency. HAROLD
I don't want that chancre mechanic in here. PENELOPE
He's a very decent man, Harold. HAROLD
We all are. PENELOPE
Shouldn't you lie down? HAROLD
When I'm dead-(throwing it away) or fucking. PENELOPE
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HAROLD
I was, I was. It never lasts long. He hears WOODLY's door open, is alert to WOODLY's approach, continues to speak to PENELOPE absently. HAROLD
The Indians call it "Zamba keetya"--the little cloudburst. WOODLY and PAUL enter. WOODLY is correctly professional and carries a little black bag. WOODLY
Ah! You're ambulatory! HAROLD
What a brilliant diagnosis! PENELOPE
You know what I want? (all look at her)
I want you both to be friends. I know you both, respect you both. You should be friends.
HAROLD
Nothing would please me more. PENELOPE
(believing him) Thank God!
WOODLY
(pleased but careful) Well now--what seems to be the trouble with the patient today? A touch of malaria, perhaps? HAROLD
Happy Birthday, Wanda June Page 5