Linda Rosenkrantz - Talk

VINCENT: Why?

EMILY: Because now I’m living out exactly what she wants from me.

VINCENT: She wants you to be a success?

EMILY: No.

VINCENT: She wants you not to be a success.

EMILY: She wants me to be just what I am, full of dreams about what I could be.

VINCENT: You mean she wants you not to be more than she is.

EMILY: No more than she is. Because my mother was never a mother, she never distinguished between herself and what she gave birth to. I’m only an extension of her ego. What I know about love for my mother is remaining true to what she needs from me; that’s how I get the love, that’s how I recognize it. No matter what kind of defiant life I may lead, sleeping with men, doing all kinds of things she doesn’t approve of, I’m remaining basically true to the love pact between us. As soon as I go out and get the things for myself that I was never given, I lose her love. I gain the real one, the true one, I gain a love for myself which I never had. What’s this moron doing? Look at this moron.

VINCENT: You’re so brilliant, Emmy. Tell me what I should do about that boy.

EMILY: I don’t know.

VINCENT: How do you truthfully feel about my relationship with Nico? Be absolutely honest — I can take it.

EMILY: As far as I can see, you have a very beautiful and deep relationship with him.

VINCENT: But I mean, don’t you think it’s strange that I’m here with you today talking about that boy and he’s off in Salt Lake City?

EMILY: I believe life is very complex and no one person can fulfill the needs of any other, it’s that simple.

VINCENT: That’s my philosophy exactly. I don’t think my psychiatrist understands that.

EMILY: Should I get it?

MARSHA: No, it’s not going to be for you. Hello? Qui est-il? Which moi? Who? Oh, Nathan, what are you doing out here? Yeah, she is. May I ask you one thing first though? Did Emily by any chance ever leave my sneakers in your house? I need them very much. All right, just a second, here she is.

EMILY: Nathan? Hi. What are you doing in East Hampton, darling? It’s very strange, Marsha and I were just talking before about if we were faced with the ultimatum of spending our lives on a desert island, who would we choose to take along? We were just sitting around and it was a nice topic to relax with. I said Nathan Fass would be excellent because he’d figure out how to make the salt water sweet, he’d have rational deduction at his fingertips. Zeke Sutherland would also be great, he’d knock down the trees and build up the houses and everything else. What? Yeah, sure, okay, bye.

MARSHA: What’s up? What did he want?

EMILY: I don’t know. He’s going to call back later, he wants to talk to me. He’s so nuts. You know what Nathan is? Nathan Fass is the supreme authority on everything. For instance, say you have to buy an icebox, he knows you don’t go to Korvette’s for it, you go to someplace on 86th Street and Third Avenue where you get the best buy in the city. If you want to have a drink, you don’t go to the Plaza — he knows a bar where they make the best Bloody Marys for the best value. If someone comes in from out of town and they need a hotel, you don’t send them to the St. Regis — he knows the best hotel. You never heard of any of these places, and that’s the point — you get the best value because nobody ever heard of them. I cannot stand it. He knows everything . There’s never any—

MARSHA: Dubbio .

EMILY: Never any dubbio . Except that you always must buy a brand name. I asked him about getting my icebox? You have to get an American make, you have to do this, you have to do that. There’s only one mayonnaise to buy, there’s only one brand of frozen food, there’s only one diet cola that’s really diet cola.

MARSHA: How does he know? Does he read Consumers’ Union or something?

EMILY: That’s right. I couldn’t have a paint job on my apartment until I read Consumers’ Report . Absolutely.

MARSHA: I don’t understand the Consumers’ Report .

EMILY: It makes no sense to me whatsoever. I can’t stand the people who consult it either. I understand the reasons for it — it’s all got to do with paranoia, checking out every possibility because they’re so positive they’re going to be done in. There’s so much attack from the outside, in order to really get yourself ready for it, you have to make sure you’re not going to be anybody’s sucker, you’re not getting your prick and your balls snipped off. Snip, snip. I told you what Nathan once said to me. He said our relationship would be so simple, Emily, we wouldn’t have any problems at all, if I just made a small incision right here. That’s what he said. Wasn’t it strange, him calling me here?

MARSHA: I know, with that whole French business.

EMILY: He’s a very weird guy. He was coming on to you too, darling.

MARSHA: Oh no.

EMILY: Big fucking come-on, I’m telling you. I know him deeply, I know his whole schtick.

MARSHA: Don’t be silly — he knew you were here.

EMILY: I don’t see how.

MARSHA: You think he was calling me?

EMILY: No, he was calling for me.

MARSHA: What does desert island mean anyway? A desert island.

EMILY: That’s not it, is it?

MARSHA: It’s called a desert island.

EMILY: Deserted?

MARSHA: Desert island.

EMILY: Remember that time Nathan found a tampax under my bed and he said who did you fuck last night? My analyst said what did he mean, who did you fuck?

MARSHA: Making you the active one.

EMILY: Now is that true? Does it work that way?

MARSHA: I think it’s just a figure of speech.

EMILY: What am I supposed to say? Last night I got laid? Last night someone put his prick into me? What’s the correct way of phrasing it?

MARSHA: I don’t know. I say I got fucked.

EMILY: You mean the man fucks and the girl gets fucked?

MARSHA: Don’t people fuck each other? What does fuck mean anyway? Does it mean to put your penis in or to make love?

EMILY: That’s what I’m asking. Look it up in your dictionary of slang, it’s very interesting.

MARSHA: Okay, wait a second: “Fuck, an act of sexual connection, verb transitive only of the male.”

EMILY: No kidding. Verb transitive only of the male. What’s a transitive verb?

MARSHA: I forget, something about an object.

EMILY: It means it takes an object.

MARSHA: So women take objects and men don’t?

EMILY: Yeah, so when Nathan Fass says who’d you fuck last night, he’s wrong. When a girl says I fuck around, it’s wrong. Then what do you say? I went to bed with, I slept with?

MARSHA: That’s what I always say, I slept with. How do you know when something’s sautéed?

EMILY: It becomes transparent and honey-colored. I like your cooking spoon, it’s very nice. A measuring spoon she cooks with.

MARSHA: You know, talking about coming on, I never mentioned it, but I really don’t like those long phone calls you have with Eliot.

EMILY: I don’t blame you, I don’t like them either. But they aren’t sexual.

MARSHA: They are for him — talking out is his big kick, and I don’t think he should be allowed to do it.

EMILY: Why was he always so interested in calling you after you broke up?

MARSHA: Probably because I was the one person in the whole world who really knew who he was.

EMILY: Yeah, it’s amazing, isn’t it, when you know that you know someone? There’s nothing more painful than to be with a person who doesn’t know who the fuck you are, and to like see him coming towards you, making love to you. It’s so sad.