New Yorker in Tondo

Tony and Kikay

KIKAY (Sitting down on sofa). Apparently, our Totoy still has a most terrific crush on Nena. (Tony is silent) Do wake up,Tony...what are you looking so miserable about?

(Tony rises from his chair and sits down beside Kikay on sofa. He is nervous and cannot speak. Kikay smilingly gazes at him.)
TONY (Finally gathering courage).

KIKAY...I don't know just how to begin...

KIKAY. Just call me Francesca...that's a good beginning.

TONY. There is something I must tell you...something very important.

KIKAY. Oh, Tony, can't we just forget all about it?

TONY. Forget?

KIKAY. That's the New York way, Tony. Forget. Nothing must ever be too serious, nothing must drag on too long. Tonight, give all your heart. Tomorrow, forget. And when you meet again, smile, shake hands...just good sports.

TONY. What are you talking about?

KIKAY. Tony, I was only a child at that time.

TONY. When?

KIKAY. When you and I got engaged. I've changed so much since then, Tony.

TONY. That was only a year ago.

KIKAY. To me, it seems a century. So much has happened to me. I've become a completely different person in just one year. After all, what's a year, what's a person? Just relative terms. More can happen to you in just one year in New York than in all a lifetime spent anywhere else. Do you know... I feel as if I've always lived in New York. In spirit, I am and I have always been a native of Manhattan. When I first arrived there I felt I had come home at last. It's my real home. Oh, listen, last summer it was really hot...one of the hottest summers we ever had. I'd go riding on one of those double-decker buses just to cool off, and all those people fom Kalamazoo and Peoria and other places like that would be wandering around the streets... sightseeing, you know... and there I would be on top of this bus looking down at them, and feeling very amused at the way they gaped at the skyscrapers and the way they gaped at the shop windows; but I'd be feeling very proud too, because it was my city they were admiring, and I'd feel rather sorry for them, living out there in the sticks...

TONY. Listen, I don't want to talk about New York... I want to talk about our engagement.

KIKAY. And that's what we cannot do, Tony... not anymore.

TONY. Why not?

KIKAY. Tony,you got engaged to a girl named Kikay. Well that girl doesn't exist anymore... she's dead. The person you see before you is Francesca, Don't you see Tony, I'm a stranger to you...we don't speak the same language...and I feel so much, much older than you. I'm a woman of the world, you are only a boy. I hate to hurt you, Tony...but surely you see that there can be no more talk of an engagement between us. And marriage between us would be a stark miscegenation! Imagine a New Yorker marrying a Tondo boy!

TONY (Blazing). Now look here.

KIKAY (Very tolerantly). I'm sorry if I've hurt you, Tony, but I wanted you to realize how ridiculous it would be that I could still be engaged to you.

TONY (Leaping up). I'm not going to sit here and be insulted.

KIKAY. Hush, Tony, hush! Don't shout, don't lose your temper... it's so uncivilized. People in New York don't lose their temper. Not people of the haut monde anyway!

TONY (Shouting). What do you want me to do...smile and say thank you for slapping my face?

KIKAY. Yes, Tony, be a sport. Let's smile and shake hands and be just friends, huh? Be brave,Tony... forget: that's the New York way. Find another girl. There are other "goils" in other "esters," as they say in Brooklyn. You'll find somebody else... someone more proper for you.

TONY (Waving his fists). If you weren't a woman, I'd... I'd...