ACT TWO, Scene 1 (GETTING THE RESTAURANT READY TO OPEN FOR BUSINESS):

INT. THE RESTAURANT, EARLY MORNING

(AUGUST AND EFRA ARE IN THE KITCHEN CLEANING THE HOOD BEFORE THE RESTAURANT IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS. DESDEE AND EUNICE ARE OFF TO THE SIDE SUPERVISING THEM. JAE-SAHN'S GREEN BANDANA IS HANGING OUT OF EUNICE'S BACK POCKET.)

(ENTER LAZARO.)

Lázaro: What’s up, gentlemen?

August: You’re usually the first here. How you been feelin this morning?

Lázaro: Naw, I’m alright, just been out thinkin. This neighborhood's kind of a rough one. Reminds me of my old apartment complex. When I grew up I left there.

(DESDEE GRABS JAE-SAHN'S BANDANA OUT OF EUNICE'S BACK POCKET AND WRAPS IT AROUND EUNICE'S HEAD.)

August: Any news from the Coast, Efra?

Efra: Not much. The winds are whipping the waves so high, you’d half expect them to touch the sky. The children seem to pelt the clouds with stones, they’re so low. And from the thunder such a sound you’d think the wind had spoke aloud about the land. A fuller blast had ne’er shook us upon our soft-tops. If it had ruffian’d before so upon the sea, what ribs of oak, when barrels break on them, could hold the foam?

August: I think we’re done here for now.

(LAZARO AND DESDEE ENTER THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE TO CLEAN UP AS AUGUST AND EFRA STAY BEHIND TO TAKE TURNS SANITIZING THEMSELVES IN THE WORK SINK.)

(EUNICE SIGHS, TAKES OFF JAE-SAHN'S BANDANA AND SETS IT DOWN ON A COUNTERTOP. SHE THEN ENTERS THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE AND TAKES HER SEAT AT THE “OWNER'S TABLE” TO DO SOME WORK ON HER LAPTOP.)

(EUNICE BANGS HER HANDS ON THE TABLE, STARTLING EVERYONE.)

Eunice: Ai-yah!

Lázaro: What’s the ruckus for, woman?

Eunice: Do I look like a fool to you?

Lázaro: Hey, girl, don’t take it out on me.

Desdee: Let her speak.

Eunice: Well, what noise then would you make of me, should you have the chance?

Lázaro: You don’t wanna know.

Eunice: Come now, Lázaro, I am not happy, though I do beguile. How judgest thou the spear? Which one would you deny?

Lázaro (taken aback): My words, they do escape me now. As my father once told me, “If her be fair and wise: to her fairness and wit. But if him be black and fit, he’ll find a white to get wit’.”

Desdee: What?! How do you dare?

Lázaro: The truth’s offen a dare.

Eunice: Oh, yet more the worse.

Desdee: How now if fair and foolish?

Lázaro: There are offen those that are foolish though they’re fair,
Yet even their folly helps them secure an heir.

Eunice: These are but a pot-head’s paradox. What little shrift you give a lady.

Lázaro: This, fair lady, is how the game is played.

Eunice: But how then shall the meek get laid? What vouch-safe could then goodness bring, so as not to trap a snare or a sling?

Lázaro: She that was ever fair and never proud, her tongue at will and yet was never loud. She that in wisdom never was so frail to choose the head nor to follow the tail. She that could think and not disclose her mind, wit’ suitors fallin and not be left behind. Yet wit’ such weight, if ever such weight were.

Eunice: For what?

Lázaro: To find the perfect hops.

Eunice: What now?

Lázaro: The perfect cut of steak.

Eunice: What the hell? How is this fool your boyfriend, Desdee?

August: This is how we speak.

Lázaro: There’s no one so thick-headed that does not play the same games the fair and the wise ones do.

[END SCENE]