Happy Birthday, Wanda June by Kurt Vonnegut (read out loud books .txt) 📕

143) [10/16/2004 4:36:53 PM]

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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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