Class of 29 | Page 7

And yesterday I found a gray hair.
LAURA. Girls of eighteen sometimes have gray hairs.
KATE. But I feel old! And if I don't look it now, I will soon. [Pause.]
What am I to do, Laura? Keep on working at eighteen dollars a week
till I'm forty?--I haven't a decent thing to wear. I haven't had a new coat
in three years. [Feverishly.] And I'm frightened. Calendars frighten
me.--I want to have some fun. I want a man to take me to the Ritz
and--pay the check.
LAURA. I know how you feel. Don't you think that I ... What do you
want me to say, Kate?
KATE. There is nothing to say.
LAURA. Look, dear. I don't say you should keep Ted. Drop him and
go it alone a while. If you've been living on nine dollars a week,
eighteen will seem a fortune.

KATE. And what will become of him?
LAURA. If you are leaving him you can't worry about that.
KATE. I do worry about it. That's one of the reasons I'll take the old
man and his money.
LAURA. You're crazy!
KATE. Am I?
LAURA. That's something that--that just isn't done!
KATE. A lot you know.
LAURA. Kate ...
KATE. Oh, stop it! That just isn't done! You don't know anything. You
don't even know how I feel ... week after week giving Ted money.
You've been in love with a man whose fond papa's supported him so
you haven't had to soil your lovely ethics with dirty money.
LAURA. Darling ...
KATE. Don't darling me. And don't tell me what's decent and
proper--and what isn't done!
LAURA. I didn't mean ...
KATE. You didn't mean anything because you don't know anything.
But maybe you're going to learn.--Maybe now you're going to learn
because this gang is breaking up. Not only because my man is a
dead-bent, but because yours is broke.--So now maybe you'll try
keeping a man and see how it feels!
LAURA. Kate!
[KATE slams out, brushing KEN, who enters, violently aside.]

KEN. What's the matter with her?
LAURA. Nothing.
[KEN hands sugar to TIPPY and returns.]
KEN. She didn't act like it was nothing.
LAURA. She's going to leave Ted.
KEN. Good! The man's a leech.
LAURA. But he is so helpless.
KEN. He won't starve. We have no jobs in America, but we don't
starve.
LAURA. Ken, are you in trouble?
KEN. In trouble?
LAURA. With your father?
KEN. No. No, indeed--I merely sent dad's check back. It's time, don't
you think? [With elaborate unconcern.] And as for this arrangement
here ... we're getting on each other's nerves. And Tippy ought to get out
on his own.
LAURA. And you?
KEN. I, too. On my own.
LAURA. But how?
KEN. I don't know. But I'll manage somehow.
LAURA. Oh, Ken ...
KEN. Why don't you clear out like Kate? Forget me. I'm no good to

you. I never will be.
LAURA. Don't talk like that.
KEN. It's true, Laura. Face it. [She puts her arms around him.]
LAURA. Ken, let's get married.--We've put it off too long.
KEN. Married!
LAURA. Not married then. But let's be together. Let's ...
KEN. It's too late for that. If that was what we'd wanted it would have
happened three years ago.
LAURA. I love you more now than I did then.
KEN. And I'm not saying I love you less.
LAURA. Then?
KEN. In the last three years I've seen a man I used to love and respect
degenerate under my eyes, become a lousy parasite, living off a woman
whose whole income isn't enough for her to live on decently.
LAURA. How can you compare yourself to Ted?
KEN. Good God, I don't! Yet Ted was once all right.
LAURA. Ted expected the world to support him. He had nothing to
give it. You have ability and ambition. You want to give things to the
world.
KEN. [Flatly.] I want a job.
LAURA. Of course you do, darling!
KEN. [Fiercely.] That's all I want. A job. I lay awake nights, saying
over and over, "I want a job, a job, a job ..."

LAURA. Oh, I know!
KEN. I don't think about you when I lie awake at night. I don't think
how nice it would be to have you there in my arms. All I think about is
a job. If it were a choice between you and a job I'd take the job.--What's
the use of kidding ourselves any longer? [She is silent. He goes on
desperately.] I'm not the same fellow I was three years ago. People
slam doors in my face. Do you understand? They look at me. They see
my clothes, my eyes.... They're antagonized before they speak to
me,--just as people are to a beggar. They say "no" before I