ACT I

EVERYBODY LOVES LOUIS

DOT
(looking in the direction of George's departure from the park)

Hello, George...
Where did you go, George?
I know you're near, George.
I caught your eyes, George.
I want your ear, George.
I've a surprise, George...

Everybody loves Louis,
Louis' simple and kind.
Everybody loves Louis,
Louis' lovable
Seems we never know, do we,
Who we're going to find?
And Louis the baker is not what I had in mind.
But...

Louis' really an artist:
Louis' cakes are an art.
Louis isn't the smartest-
Louis' popular.
Everybody loves Louis,
Louis bakes from the heart...

The bread, George.
I mean the bread, George.
And then in bed, George...
I mean he kneads me-
I mean like dough, George...
Hello, George...

Louis' always so pleasant,
Louis' always so fair.
Louis makes you feel present,
Louis' generous.
That's the thing about Louis
Louis always is "there."
Louis' thoughts are not hard to follow,
Louis' art is not hard to swallow.

Not that Louis' perfection-
That's what makes him ideal.
Hardly anything worth objection:
Louis drinks a bit,
Louis blinks a bit.
Louis makes a connection,
That's the thing that you feel...
We lose things.
And then we choose things.
And there are Louis's
And there are Georges-
Well, Louis's
And George.
But George has George,
And I need-
Someone-
Louis-
(Louis gives her a pastry and leaves.)
Everybody loves Louis,
Him as well as his cakes.
Everybody loves Louis,
Me included, George.
Not afraid to be gooey,
Louis sells what he makes.
Everybody gets along him.
That's the trouble, nothing's wrong with him.

Louis has to bake his way,
George can only bake his...
(bites into the pastry)
Louis it is.
(Dot goes off.)

FINISHING THE HAT

George sits near Fifi, leafing back through his sketches.

GEORGE
Mademoiselles...
(turns a page)
You end me, pal...
(turns another page)
Second bottle...
Ah, she looks for me...
Bonnet flapping...
Yapping...
Ruff!...
Chicken...
Pastry...
Yes, she looks for me-good.
Let her look for me to tell me why she left me-
As I always knew she would.
I had thought she understood.
They have never understood,
And no reason that they should.
But if anybody could...
Finishing the hat,
How you have to finish the hat.
How you watch the rest of the world
From a window
While you finish the hat.

Mapping out a sky.
What you feel like, planning a sky.
What you feel when voices that come
Through the window
Go
Until they distance and die,
Until there's nothing but sky
And how you're always turning back too late
From the grass or the stick
Or the dog or the light,
How the kind of woman willing to wait's
Not the kind that you want to find waiting
To return you to the night,
Dizzy from the height,
Coming from the hat,
Studying the hat,
Entering the world of the hat,
Reaching through the world of the hat
Like a window,
Back to this one from that.

Studying a face,
Stepping back to look at a face
Leaves a little space in the way like a window,
But to see-
It's the only way to see.

And when the woman that you wanted goes,
You can say to yourself, "Well, I give what I give."
But the women who won't wait for you knows
That, however you live,
There's a part of you always standing by,
Mapping out the sky,
Finishing a hat...
Starting on a hat..
Finishing a hat...
(shows sketch to Fifi)
Look, I made a hat...