MARIGOLD: Never. Not even close. Alan Tooey is psychotic.

MRS. MAY: Well then.

MARIGOLD: You’re all loony.

MRS. MAY: That question is behind us.

MARIGOLD: Are you writing this down?

MRS. MAY: No. As you see.

MARIGOLD: Oh.

MRS. MAY: It’s being recorded.

MARIGOLD (glancing around): Fine.

MRS. MAY: Because tone of voice is often so important. Without it, a remark can sound absurd, or damning, when it’s really neither one. Do you see?

MARIGOLD: I’ve seen that everything is either absurd or damning, yes, ma’am.

Pause.

So my outburst will be perfectly preserved. In a little bureaucratic jar of jam.

MRS. MAY: I welcome your outbursts. I think of them as explosions of truth…Marigold, facts aren’t truth. Only when a fact has been interpreted by a desiring mind and colored by emotion does it become truth.

MARIGOLD: You’ve been at this work a long, long time.

MRS. MAY: Do you understand what I’m saying? When I tell you I’m not interested in what you do, I’m actually being even more radical than that might sound. I’m telling you I’m completely uninterested in the facts. This inquiry is your chance to be understood.

MARIGOLD: I appreciate that.

MRS. MAY: No, you don’t really. You’re just being polite.

MARIGOLD: Okay. So—then, shove it!

MRS. MAY laughs. Sobers. Pause.

MRS. MAY: When I asked you the question you wanted me to ask concerning you and Mr. Alan Tooey—I asked you to say yes or no to a report that claimed to be factual.

MARIGOLD: I understand that. And it never happened.

MRS. MAY: Well, I would hope that even if it had happened, you would deny it. I hope that in order to be truthful, you would deny the facts…Because a statement of the bare facts can be an awful lie, can’t it?

Pause.

MARIGOLD: Those are not the facts.

MRS. MAY opens her drawer and produces three sheets of letter-size paper, laying them out side by side in front of MARIGOLD. MARIGOLD doesn’t move a muscle.

MRS. MAY: This is the two-paragraph statement submitted by Alan Tooey. You’ve seen it?

MARIGOLD: I’ve seen it. I’ve got a copy in my purse.

MRS. MAY: Mr. Tooey made the statement and signed it. You see there’s a line for your signature also.

MARIGOLD: I’ll sign. Do you think I care anymore?

MRS. MAY: About this? I hope you don’t. I certainly don’t.

MARIGOLD: I don’t. I have nothing but contempt for what’s happening here.

MRS. MAY: I have more contempt for these statements than I would have for excrement.

MARIGOLD: I need some sort of representative. I should have asked for a representative.

MRS. MAY: You’re putting me on.

MARIGOLD: Of course not.

MRS. MAY: Deceiving me.

MARIGOLD: I just want a representative.

MRS. MAY: Marigold, I think you got up this morning, knocked back a double at Charlie’s Time-out Lounge across the street, and floated in here without any clear ideas about anything.

MARIGOLD: I am formally asking for—

MRS. MAY: I am your representative.