JANE: No. No, of course not.
(Then:)
I could if you—
MARIAN: Please. No. Don’t.
BENJAMIN (To Jane): I don’t understand what you are saying.
(They all look at him.)
BARBARA: Jane’s writing a book, Uncle.
BENJAMIN: I heard that. I just have amnesia; I’m not an idiot.
RICHARD: The book’s about etiquette.
MARIAN: How—we talk to each other.
BENJAMIN: And that’s an interesting book?
JANE: I hope so.
BENJAMIN: How people talk to each other? Don’t we know that? Won’t that just seem boring?
JANE: I hope not.
TIM: Jane’s come across a number of interesting historical kinds of manners. That are very—revealing, she thinks. Things people did—customs—I’d never even heard about. I’m not sure what they say about us—
JANE: Maybe nothing. Maybe something.
RICHARD: What do you mean, “historical”—?
TIM (To Jane): Where’s that book you found? You had it in the car.
BARBARA: What book?
TIM (Getting up): I’ll get it from the car.
JANE: Tim—
TIM: They’ll be interested.
(Tim heads off through the kitchen and outside.
Pause.)
BARBARA: A whole chapter about people having dinner? Now I’m going to be self-conscious for the rest of the evening.
JANE: I promise you, Barbara, there are no hidden cameras, and all iPhone microphone apps are off.
BARBARA: Good.
JANE: No one is listening.
MARIAN (To Barbara): What did she just say was off?
BARBARA: I don’t know.
BENJAMIN: What are we doing?
RICHARD: We’re waiting for Tim. He’s going to read something to us. Something that’s very very interesting.
JANE: Don’t build it up.
BENJAMIN: Who’s Tim?
(The others look at each other.)
RICHARD: Tim is Jane’s new boyfriend.
MARIAN (Hesitates, then to Jane): He doesn’t look at all like your husband.
RICHARD: He’s younger.
MARIAN: He looks a bit like you, Richard. There’s a definite resemblance. (Smiles)
JANE: Why are you smiling?
MARIAN (To Benjamin): Tim’s an actor, Uncle Benjamin. But I’ve never heard of him.
JANE: He’s been in a lot of shows. When do you go to New York anyway?
MARIAN: I teach.
JANE: I know.
MARIAN: I do the books for Adam’s lawn business.
JANE: I know.
(Short pause.)
BARBARA (To Jane): What does that say?
JANE: What?
BARBARA: 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