HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
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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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
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
That's why I'm crying.
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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 fiancé.
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
Penelope!
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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
