EMILY: I asked you that not in a competitive way.
MARSHA: I know. They’re both very close — I think it shifts. With Vinnie it’s such a delicate balance of picking and criticizing and then building up and love. They’re both very strange relationships. Do you really think he is madly in love with me? In any sense of the term?
EMILY: It’s very hard to say. What do you think?
MARSHA: I’m not sure I know what it means.
EMILY: It doesn’t mean anything.
MARSHA: Nathan was really relentless with him though, he kept sticking the knife in and in and in.
EMILY: What knife, darling?
MARSHA: That Vince is ruining my life.
EMILY: He didn’t say that.
MARSHA: Yes he did, he said that this relationship is screwing up my life, and as long as I cling to it, I can’t have any other.
EMILY: Yeah, but then he said that Vinnie was the one getting done in.
MARSHA: That was an afterthought.
EMILY: No, it was a second thought that became very important. You don’t have all your important thoughts first.
MARSHA: What role does Vinnie play in my relationships with other men? With Tim it was certainly very blatant — he almost couldn’t go to bed with me because of Vinnie. He kept saying I was Vinnie’s girl, it wasn’t right for us to go to bed together because I was Vinnie’s girl. Almost every time I’m in bed with someone, Vince is there too.
EMILY: You know Vinnie’s encouraging you with all these different men, but I’m sure it’s partly because he has no faith in any of them sticking. He can encourage you with Tim Cullen because he knows it doesn’t stand a chance. About 70 % of his feeling is absolutely genuine, I’m sure, but there’s that other percentage that’s more selfish. He knows that if you go with this one and that one, he can still maintain what he has with you.
MARSHA: Which is much stronger.
EMILY: And he’s happy to have that final fulfillment done by this one or that one. But Nathan was right to some extent— there are few men who could feel complete enough against this strong relationship you have with Vinnie. Which doesn’t mean the relationship has to end. In time you’ll change, Vince will change, and the other man who comes along will be a different man. But I think you always will have a relationship.
MARSHA: Is there more tea?
EMILY: Yeah, in the antique pitcher. Okay, so the thing is that on a certain level, your relationships with me and Vinnie are not constructive, they’re camouflages and excuses and props. We both serve. I won’t go into what you and Vinnie serve for me. I’m also interested in the affect thing, that you said you didn’t feel anything while all this combat was flying around your head. You still don’t feel anything now?
MARSHA: Who knows?
EMILY: I get this very often myself — someone says something to me and I get two contradicting, conflicting feelings, so I end up feeling neither and nothing, I end up feeling zero.
MARSHA: Is that me?
EMILY: Well, you say you don’t feel anything.
MARSHA: What I felt last night was locked, I felt such walls of defense around me. I just wouldn’t let myself enter into it, I was very cool. Tim Cullen would have been proud of me, I was so cool.
EMILY: What did he say to you that time? Cool it?
MARSHA: Yeah, and it’s funny because in a sense I’m the coolest person in the world, right?
EMILY: Right, 100 % right. That’s what’s so ridiculous. But let’s talk about this for a second. What do you think your relationship with Vinnie’s really about? Take it on a very ordinary level, not the soaring love level of it.
MARSHA: I don’t know. I’ve never known what was going on.
EMILY: You have to have some sneaky hunchy clue, you have to have some idea. Like in my friendship with Joan, I know what’s going on there. But I also don’t.
MARSHA: I assure you that what you don’t know is much more important than what you know.
EMILY: But at least I’m able to talk about the relationship and seemingly what it is.
MARSHA: I hope you’re being very careful with the disposal of the tissues. You know in a sense last night was like listening to the voice of the public, condemning my relationship with Vin.
EMILY: You also have to bear in mind that some of the things Nathan said are true, and the question remains how do you handle those things?
MARSHA: Those are the things to handle.
EMILY: Right. After all, Vinnie can be fantastically honest about himself, incredibly open and honorable, but he also has a tremendous facility for turning things to his own advantage.
MARSHA: But it didn’t work that way last night — he broke down at the end and his mind was flailing out in every direction. Emily, what do you think the mock sex business with Vinnie is really all about?
EMILY: I’ll tell you about the mock sex if you put up some more mock tea. Mock sex, that’s a soup made with mock genitals and mock come, and as far as I can see, mock sex is more fun than real sex. When is the moron coming over here anyway? I don’t get it. How come he wants to go out dancing tonight all of a sudden?
MARSHA: I have no idea, it must be some kind of inverse reaction. I mean here he is, destroyed and distraught and drained, his legs aching, he can’t paint, and then he wants to go out dancing.
EMILY: He’s not getting any chicken because I’m having a whole half of it.
MARSHA: And I’m having the other.
EMILY: Jonquil, come here. God, I’m in love with her. I’m not just fond of Jonquil, I’m in love with her.
MARSHA: I’m damaged, Jonquil, I’m damaged goods. Come on, Emily, please tell me about mock sex.
EMILY: OK, what do you think it’s about?
MARSHA: I think it’s about real sex.
EMILY: That’s your comprehensive answer to such an incredibly complex question? No, what mock sex is is heterosexual groping, like testing the water with your toe. Vinnie’s feeling things out. See, when he shows his penis, he’s exposing himself, but it’s still very passive aggression. He’s not showing you an erected penis, he’s just showing you a penis, right? Don’t you have these kinds of insights? I mean don’t you ever correlate what you do on the outside with Merrill Johnston?
MARSHA: Sure, didn’t I immediately when I threw Tim Cullen out on the Fourth of July correlate it with Merrill Johnston?
EMILY: Did you?
MARSHA: Of course. But I do sometimes get the feeling that I’m very dumb. I seem not to allow myself any perceptions — but maybe they’re not even there. Like last night, I just sat like a dumb animal.
EMILY: Well, it may be lucky that you are dumb in that sense. Come on, Jonquil, giù, giù, giù!
MARSHA: Catholic, Catholic, Catholic!
EMILY: She’s very hungry but I think this meat’s too cold for her to eat.
MARSHA: Put it on top of the tea kettle for a second.
EMILY: Good idea. My Marshie’s such a smart person, my Marshie’s really not dumb after all.
MARSHA: You know you can’t say my analysis has stopped this summer. It’s continuing on and on and on right under our noses.
EMILY: Analysis doesn’t stop.
MARSHA: No, but I mean it’s not like going off to Europe and having a real vacation from it. Uh-uh.
EMILY: I’m calling Vinnie right now and telling him he has to bring me some honey for my cold when he comes. Maybe we should all go to the beach for a little while and relax.