What does that tell you? What you two just said to each other. You said you could analyze—
JANE: Nothing. It tells you nothing. Not everything does, Barbara.
BARBARA: I am so self-conscious now.
(Tim has returned with a book.)
TIM (The title): Bundling. We found this in a funky bookshop in Livingston. In a barn for about seventy-five cents. What?
MARIAN: We were talking about you.
BARBARA (To Jane): When did you go to Livingston?
JANE: I don’t know. (To Tim) A couple of days ago?
BARBARA: I thought you didn’t have a car until . . .
JANE: We borrowed one. We went to a bookshop. For my work.
BARBARA: If you’d already borrowed a car, you could have also come here.
RICHARD (To change the subject): How old is that book? It looks very old.
(Tim opens it and looks.)
TIM: “1871.” They didn’t know what they had.
MARIAN: And you didn’t tell them? They’re trying to make a living.
TIM (He keeps going): It was published in Albany.
RICHARD (To Barbara, teasing): “And fuck Albany and . . .”
MARIAN: What?
TIM: It’s all about bundling.
JANE: I’m now thinking of doing a whole chapter on bundling.
RICHARD: What is—?
BARBARA: I think I know—When a man and a woman—
TIM: Here. There’s a definition: “Bundling: a man and a woman lying on the same bed with their clothes on; an expedient practiced in America on a scarcity of beds, where, on such occasions, parents frequently permitted travelers to bundle with their daughters.”
(It sinks in.)
RICHARD: What??
BARBARA: That’s what I thought it was.
RICHARD: I’ve never heard of this.
BARBARA (To Richard): I have. (To the others) I have.
TIM: It says this definition is from The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. It’s sort of—pornographic, this book.
RICHARD: Let me see—
JANE: It reads like some sort of bundling “rule book.”
MARIAN: May I see?
(Tim continues to look through the book.)
TIM: How you weren’t supposed to take off all your clothes—you kept on your underwear.
JANE: And even what happens if the woman gets pregnant.
BARBARA: What happens?
TIM: The man’s “obliged” to marry her. And if he doesn’t and doesn’t “abscond,” then he’s excommunicated.
JANE: So the church seems to be involved too.
BENJAMIN: Are there any pictures?
TIM: No.
JANE: Read them the poem, or song, or whatever it is.
MARIAN: What poem?
JANE (To Tim): It’s toward the back . . .
TIM: Here it is . . .
JANE (To the others): Sh-sh. Listen.
TIM (Reads):
Since bundling very much abounds . . .
JANE: It’s from the very late 1700s.
TIM (Reads):
. . .abounds
In many parts in country towns,
No doubt but some will spurn my song . . .
JANE: It’s actually a song.
TIM (Reads):
And say I’d better hold my tongue . . .
Some maidens say, if through the nation,
Bundling should quite go out of fashion,
Courtship would lose its sweets; and they
Could have no fun till wedding day.
RICHARD: Case made. I vote for bundling.
(Laughter.)
BARBARA: Me too!
MARIAN: You? You’re an old maid.
BARBARA: What the fuck does that mean?
RICHARD: She’s had boyfriends, Marian.
BARBARA: Don’t defend me.
RICHARD: What did I do?
BARBARA: Keep reading.
TIM (Reads):
It shant be so, they rage and storm,
And country girls in clusters swarm,
And fly and buz, like angry bees,
And vow they’ll bundle when they please.
(Reactions: “Ohhh . . .”)
Some mothers too, will plead their cause,
And give their daughters great applause—
BARBARA: Not Marian.
MARIAN: Be quiet.
BARBARA (Getting even): She thinks her daughter’s become a slut.
MARIAN: Shut up!!
(Short pause.)
TIM (Reads):
And tell them, ’tis no sin or shame
For we, your mothers, did the same.
I’ll skip . . . (Turns a page)
MARIAN:
