[Amy finds Norville out on the balcony with an ice pack on his eye]
Norville? What happened?
Oh. Nothing, really, just the more timid investors are no longer running for cover.
Let me look.
Sid found me the icepack.
Let me hold it, or you'll have a real shiner.
Thanks. People seem to be pretty hot over this imbecile story.
Oh, it isn't your fault, Amy. You're the one person who's been standing by me through all this.
Norville, there's something I have to tell you. You see, I'm not really a secretary.
I know that, Amy.
You do!?
I understand that you're not very skilled yet in the secretarial arts. I'm not that skilled as president. Oh sure, I put up a big front not that everyone's buying it.
I believe in you, Norville. At least I believe in your intentions --
Oh, I don't blame them, really. I guess I have sort of made a mess of things. These folks have to protect their investment. Most of them are very nice people --
Listen, Norville, you can't trust people here like you did in Muncie. Certain people are --
Did you ever go to the top of old man Larson's feed tower and look out over the town?
What?
You know, on Farm Route 17.
Oh yes! In Muncie!
No, in Vidalia. Farm Route 17?
Uh, yes. 17! Yes, I... well...
The boys from varsity use to take their girlfriends up there to hold hands, except... I never made varsity.
There's a place I go now, the cutest little place near my apartment in Greenwich Village. It's called Ann's 440; it's a beatnik bar.
A beatnik bar!
Yes!
You don't say.
You can get carrot juice or Italian coffee! And the people there are... well, none of them quite fit in. You'd love it. Why don't you come there with me. They're having a marathon poetry reading on New Year's Eve. I go every year.
Every year?
Well, this year... if it's good, I plan to make it a tradition. [laughs and changes subjects] My it certainly is beautiful. The people look like ants.
Well, the Hindus say, and the beatniks also, that in the next life some of us will come back as ants. Some will be butterflies. Others will be elephants or creatures of the sea.
What a beautiful thought.
Say, what do you think you were in your previous life, Amy?
Oh, I don't know. Maybe I was just a fast-talking career gal who thought she was one of the boys.
Oh no, Amy, pardon me for saying so but I find that very farfetched.
Norville, there really is something I have to tell you --
That kind of person would come back as a wildebeest, or a warthog. No, I think it more likely that you were a gazelle, with long, graceful legs, gamboling through the underbrush. Perhaps we met once, a chance encounter in a forest glade. I must have been an antelope or an ibex. What times we must have had. Foraging together for sustenance, picking the grubs and burrs from one another's coats. Or perhaps we simply touched our horns briefly and went our separate ways.
I wish it were that simple, Norville. I wish I was still a gazelle, and you were an antelope or an ibex.
Well, can I at least call you deer? [laughs] Seriously, Amy, the whole thing is what your beatnik friends call a kar-mah –
Karma.
The great circle of life.
Yeah, yeah. I think I've heard of that. What goes around comes around.
That's it. A great wheel that gives us each what we deserve... Golly, tomorrow's my big presentation to the board. I've gotta show Sidney and the guys that I deserve all their confidence!
Kiss me once, Amy! Kiss me once for luck!
Sure, Norville.
[Amy gives him a peck. They look at each other and then embraces and kiss again passionately]
