“Mine’s got to be derivative then, since its world premiere was last year. I know the play you mean, unless there are two famous Rumanian-born Frenchmen who wrote very similar plays. In mine there are no chairs in it. The setting’s one empty room eventually packed so tight with guests that by the end of the play many of them are sitting on ceiling crossbeams and hanging from wall hooks, while the doors are still being opened by this one principal on stage.”
“The actor.”
“Or actress. Because in the book of this playwright’s selected plays the role of ‘principal performer’—as she called it — is supposed to be played by an old man and young woman at alternate performances, though the sex and age of the person he or she wants to keep out stays the same.”
“I’m sure my play didn’t have those instructions. But what did you mean before by ‘imaginary guests’?”
“Actually, it’s the ringing that’s imaginary, the guests only conceivably. The audience sees them or at least sees what the principal performer thinks he or she’s seeing.”
“I think I heard about that play. Is it the one where the actor or actress finally asks the audience to get out of their seats and then out of the theater so the guests who are pouring in can have somewhere to sit and stand?”
“Not in my playwright’s play, though it’d be a better ending. And now I’ve lost what I was originally saying.”
“The intercom ringing. Leading to the absurdity of most modern dramaturgy. But there’s another one. You heard it. I know I did, if I’m not imagining us at this wonderful party and the bell ringing repeatedly. No, we’re both here and the bells are real and the party’s wonderful. You know Alan Merson there?”
“I know his work.”
“Fine fellow, fine work.”
“I don’t want to say anything. Undoubtedly he’s a fine fellow.”
“But you are saying something. Excuse me, I see someone I know.”
He goes over to a well-known painter, they clap backs and begin talking. The Times Sunday magazine did an article on the painter not long ago. I like a lot of his work but don’t consider it art. I consider it what? Illustrations. I said that to a couple of people at this party and before it. Nobody agreed with me. One person bristled and said “Where do you come to say that?” and I said “This might sound mindless and maybe makes no sense, but I like what I know.” She said “It makes no sense or not enough for me to want to think any more about it,” and the conversation stopped for a minute while we both, when we weren’t looking at the other looking at our feet, looked at our feet. Diana has several of his works on her walls. All inscribed to her, one from thirty years ago. It says “Sleep sheepishly Dee,” which could mean a number of things but has no connection from what I can see to the illustration, which is more like a child’s cartoon, and with its colors from play crayons, of the Staten Island skyline during the daytime and about ten ocean liners lined up to go out to sea. He’s taller than his photographs. Could that be correct? Taller if his photographs were lifesize and he was standing in them erect. Balder also I notice passing him on my way to the couch, with what seemed to be real hair in his photographs being real hair combed over his head from the back.
I sit and take a carrot stick off an end table plate. Diana sits beside me and says before I can put the carrot into my mouth “You can’t sit on a couch at one of my parties or even in one of the easy chairs so early. If you were elderly, lame or a single to multiple amputee and one of those amputated parts was a leg or foot or even recently one to so many toes, yes, but now I want you to move around and mix. Or stand in one place and have more cheese. What’s wrong? You’re not having fun.”
“If I don’t I won’t be invited to the next one, that it?”
“Don’t be silly. To me you’re practically an honored guest.”
“Honored guests rarely get the same honor twice.”
“I can honor them once and practically honor them another time and then invite them when others are actually and practically honored. But now you can honor me by getting up and socially enmeshed.”
“I just want to sit here and draw attention to myself and look around. You’ve a very interesting attractive group and Jane’s a doll though Phil’s a bit too driven, ass-kissing and affected to become a real artistic success.”
“Phil has every right to want what he hasn’t quite won but has long earned. The rest are everything you say but don’t want to be looked at just yet by someone sitting on a couch. Timing’s very important for a good party. Someone sits and stares before the right time comes, he makes people uncomfortable or close to it. Also, the right person or couple must usually be the first to sit. A stranger sits, particularly one who doesn’t come with a big rep or hasn’t yet made a terrific hit, the more frequent guests get the impression he’s not enjoying himself, which makes them doubly uncomfortable: his staring and apparent discomfort. Right now everyone here — if he’s to be stared at — wants it to be done by someone standing up and, allowing for variations of shyness or boldness and height, face to face. I wouldn’t expect you to know this, being part social animal but mostly hermit.”
“Hey, take it easy, for what am I doing that’s so wrong? You said someone will have to sit on the couch sooner or later, so why not me? Some people are the first in space. Others in the hearts of their partymen. Someone might be the first to get drunk tonight, another to break a valuable plate. I don’t want to be any of these, and even if I did want to I couldn’t be the first in space. So isn’t it better if I’m to be the first in anything—”
“You’ve a smooth protective and circumventive sense of humor, which could be a first-rate unctuous one if you did more to thwart people from detecting how protective it is. I’ll be back in two minutes. If you’re not off the couch by then or joined on it by anyone more than my cat, I’m moving it into the hallway and you can sit out there for as long as you like.”