(Offstage sounds of door opening, greetings, laughter.
During the pause before Jake enters, Larry’s face settles into unaccustomed
lines of worry. In a few minutes when Jake comes in his face smoothes out into
the slight smile with which they are all so familiar.)
JAKE
And
there’s the Iron Chef in his accustomed place. What’s on the bill of fare
tonight?
LARRY
Well,
you can smell the risotto but I think I’ll keep the rest a secret. You know I
prefer the revelation of a course by course presentation.
JAKE
Have we
had any of the dishes before?
LARRY
Only
the risotto.
JAKE
(Helping himself to a
drink—short glass, three cubes of ice, Maker’s Mark.) You know this is the best meal I get every month. I look
forward to it for days. Sometimes, I’m working in the lab and I realize I’m
day-dreaming about menus.
LARRY
I don’t
cook every month.
JAKE
Lately,
more often than not. I bet we haven’t gone to other houses more than three or
four times in the last year. No matter
whose turn it is we somehow wind up here.
It’s your birthday and yet here you are cooking.
LARRY
Why is
that, do you think?
JAKE
(Helping himself to mixed nuts. He may put some on a small plate in
order to come over and sit at the counter.) We’re all doing you a favor.
LARRY
What?
JAKE
We know
how much you like to cook. Andy and I can’t cook and after twenty-five years
the women we married no longer enjoy it . . .
if they ever did, and none of them likes having their talents compared
to yours.
LARRY
Oh,
come on.
JAKE
No,
Norma said so, the last time it was our turn. I asked why she had told you we
were having the living room redecorated that week when they weren’t due to
start till after Saturday. She said Bunny and Rachel had told her that they had
made excuses and that you were only too happy to do it.
LARRY
I guess
I was. So, they were doing me a favor.
JAKE
I doubt
their reasons were quite so altruistic. None of us married women who enjoy
entertaining.
LARRY
Then
why . . . ?
JAKE
. . . belong to the dinner a month club?
Because we like each other’s company. It’s worth the tsuris every
four months for the pleasure. And if you’d just as soon entertain . . . well .
. . You know you should at least stick
us with the bills for food and drink.
LARRY
Oh, all
your wives offered. I turned them down. I don’t golf. I’d rather do this. So,
how’s the research going?
JAKE
Oh,
just great! I have a well-equipped lab and two eager grad students at my beck
and call. What more could I want?
LARRY
What’s
the matter, Jake.
JAKE
I’ve
been working on the same problem for years—since before the first Gulf War. I
was making steady progress and then, suddenly I was making big progress. Now it
just turns out that I’ve spent all those years riding the wrong horse.
LARRY
But I
thought your work was getting all kinds of attention . . . Your . . .
I’ve forgotten the word.
JAKE
Adjuvants.
Ad . . . a chemical that multiplies the effect of vaccines. I specialize in adjuvants. I’ve created a couple that are used in
pharmaceutical manufacture. I was
getting a lot of attention after nine-eleven. I was working on an anthrax
adjuvant. Even before we went to
Afghanistan the lab was running twenty-four-seven. I slept there more nights
than I was home. We were gearing up for war. Weapons of mass destruction, and
anthrax was right at the top of the biologicals list. And we had an effective
adjuvant.
LARRY
So, what happened?
JAKE
Well. The first waves of soldiers were taking the
vaccine before shipping out and then suddenly there were suspected side
effects. Who knows if it was the vaccine, the adjuvant, interaction with other
vaccines. Whatever. Fighter pilots suddenly refused to take the vaccine. A couple
even risked court martial. So the vaccinating stopped. We weren’t deterred. We
stepped up testing. Then—no weapons of mass destruction. No anthrax.
LARRY
So,
anthrax poisoning is still a threat isn’t it? Iran. North Korea.
JAKE
Stop
trying to cheer me up. Of course it’s still a threat. But it’s not a serious
enough threat to continue applications for research. I’ve been working on a
couple with possible effects in cancer pharma but . . . But it’s not sexy. A
cancer cure or even a treatment. But,
just an adjuvant? And I’m just another aging professor who doesn’t like to
teach, with a research subject that only attracts marginal grad students.
LARRY
I’ve
never heard you talk like this. I thought you loved your work. I didn’t know it
was celebrity you were looking for.
JAKE
No, you
don’t get it. I don’t want the Nobel. I just wanted my life’s work to finally
amount to something important. Something meaningful, even life-saving. (Pause.)
Besides, something happened this week.
LARRY
What?
JAKE
The
university named my wife Scholar-Teacher of the year.
LARRY
That’s
great! Just great! I mean, it is great, isn’t it?
JAKE
Of
course it’s great! She’s a great teacher. But now suddenly she’s the scholar of
the family too. When I married her she was in a soft science--Psychology, which
begat behavioral psych, which begat Cognitive Science. I thought it was kind of
cute. She was like the continual undergraduate, flitting from discipline to
discipline. Then she does a few fMRI experiments on gender differences in brain
structure, writes a handful of papers for a flock of new scholarly
publications—I mean the field is hardly twenty years old. And suddenly she’s got the future by the tail
and I’m a has-been.
LARRY
Oh,
come on . . .
JAKE
I know!
Petty, petty, petty! But the kicker is, she thinks it’s funny! She doesn’t
think of herself as a traditional scholar or a scientist. She’s a teacher! She
only does research to stay relevant to her students. And most of them are
undergraduates!
LARRY
Well,
it is kind of . . .
JAKE
Oh, I
know! It’s pathetic! I’m pathetic! Until they made the announcement at the
Senate meeting I didn’t even know I felt this way! It’s appalling. I’m
professionally jealous of my wife.
LARRY
Have
you told her?
JAKE
Are you
nuts?!? Of course not. I told her I couldn’t be happier. I took her out for dinner at the most
expensive restaurant in town . . .the
one in the new Hilton? I had booked a room for the night, had a chilled bottle
of Cristal sent up, undressed her and made celebratory love to her.
LARRY
OK,
wayyyyy too much information.
JAKE
No, you
don’t get it. While she’s thinking it’s the most romantic thing I’d ever done,
I’m thinking, “I got hosed, now you get hosed.” I make me sick!
LARRY
Jeeze,
Jake, shut up! She’ll be in here any moment!
JAKE
Nah,
Laura’s ostensibly showing her the newest acquisitions.
LARRY
Ostensibly?
JAKE
I
figure they’re really chewing over the Rob situation.
LARRY
Why are
you telling me all this?
JAKE
You’re
a good listener. No, I mean it! You listen almost as good as you cook. Besides,
who else am I going to tell? I walked in
and suddenly I felt like if I didn’t get this off my chest I’d die. I can’t
sleep. I can hardly work. I feel like a phony every time I look at my wife. I
smile. I tell all our friends about the good news. I accept my colleagues’
congratulations, presumably for the reflected glory. I don’t know who I am
anymore. I never knew I could have these
thoughts.
LARRY
I don’t
know what to say to you.
JAKE
I don’t
need you to say anything. I’ve said it all to myself. Twice. Now that I’ve said
it to you, maybe I can stop thinking about it. I mean you are my best friend. (He catches a look of surprise quickly
crossing Larry’s face.) Of course I’m not sure
what that means anymore. I guess I mean I can tell you what I can’t tell anyone
else.
LARRY
You
mean things you can’t tell Norma.
JAKE
I see
what you mean. I guess until now Norma’s been my best friend. But how can I
tell her what I just told you when what I told you is all about her.
LARRY
Is it?
JAKE
Sure.
You’re right. It’s not about her at all. It’s about me. But it’s a me I don’t
want her to know exists inside my head.
(During the last moments the swinging door has been opened
by Norma who follows it in. She is a
pleasant looking woman, not particularly large or particularly attractive, but
she has a maternal quality that makes her instantly appealing.)
NORMA
What
about your head?
JAKE
I was
saying that . . . I don’t have much of a head for alcohol any longer. I’d
better go easy on this stuff.
NORMA
While
my head is just fine. I’ll drink your share.
JAKE
Did you
lose Laura?
NORMA
She saw
Bunny and Andrew coming up the walk. I thought I’d come in here for a little
fortification before I faced them.
LARRY
Faced
them?
NORMA
Don’t
get me wrong—I like them both very much but they are just so indefatigably
upbeat and cheerful. They make me feel like an old poop. I’m hoping a couple of
inches of excellent hooch will suitably liberate my mood.
JAKE
Well,
I’ve had my fortification so I’ll go join them.
NORMA
I warn
you, she was just starting to explain the new painting.
JAKE
I’d better hurry. I don’t want to
be the only one who doesn’t understand it.
No comments:
Post a Comment