A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, Page 2

  BODEY: Oh. Yes. He’d be attracted to that.

  DOROTHEA: It was pouring down rain and Art Hill was deserted, no other cars on it but Ralph and I in his Reo. The windows curtained with rain that glistened in the lamplight.

  BODEY: Dotty, I hope you’re not leading up to something that shouldn’t of happened in this Flying Cloud on Art Hill. It really scares me, Dotty . . .

  DOROTHEA: Frankly, I was a little frightened myself because—we’ve never had this kind of discussion before, it’s rather—difficult for me but you must understand. I’ve always drawn a strict line with a man till this occasion.

  BODEY: Dotty, do you mean—?

  DOROTHEA: It was so magical to me, the windows curtained with rain, the soft look in his eyes, the warmth of his breath that’s always scented with clove, his fingers touching so gently as he—

  BODEY: Dotty, I don’t think I want to know any more about this—experience on Art Hill because, because—I got a suspicion, Dotty, that you didn’t hold the line with him.

  DOROTHEA: The line just—didn’t exist when he parked the car and turned and looked at me and I turned and looked at him. Our eyes, our eyes—

  BODEY: Your eyes?

  DOROTHEA: Burned the line out of existence, like it had never existed!

  BODEY: —I’m not gonna tell this to Buddy!

  DOROTHEA: You know, I wasn’t aware until then that the Reo was equipped with adjustable seats.

  BODEY: Seats that—?

  DOROTHEA: Adjusted to pressure, yes, reclined beneath me when he pushed a lever.

  BODEY [distracted from the phonebook which she had begun to leaf through]: —How far did this seat recline beneath you, Dotty?

  DOROTHEA: Horizontally, nearly. So gradually though that I didn’t know till later, later. Later, not then—the earth was whirling beneath me and the sky was spinning above.

  BODEY: Oh-ho, he got you drunk, did he, with a flask of liquor in that Flying Cloud on—

  DOROTHEA: Drunk on a single Pink Lady?

  BODEY: Pink?

  DOROTHEA: Lady. —The mildest sort of cocktail! Made with sloe gin and grenadine.

  BODEY: The gin was slow, maybe, but that man is a fast one, seducing a girl with adjustable seats and a flask of liquor in that Flying Cloud on—

  DOROTHEA: Not a flask, a cocktail, and not in the Reo but in a small private club called The Onyx, a club so exclusive he had to present an engraved card at the entrance.

  BODEY: Oh yes, I know such places!

  DOROTHEA: How would you know such places?

  BODEY: I seen one at the movies and so did you, at the West End Lyric, the last time you was all broke up from expectin’ a call from this Ellis which never came in, so we seen Roy D’Arcy take poor Janet Gaynor to one of them—private clubs to—!

  [Bodey has not found the Blewett number in the phonebook. She dials the operator.]

  Blewett, Blewett, get me the high school named Blewett.

  DOROTHEA: Bodey, what are you doing at the phone which I begged you not to use till Ralph has called?

  BODEY: Reporting him to Blewett!

  DOROTHEA: Bodey, that takes the cake, reporting on the principal of Blewett to Blewett that’s closed on Sundays. What a remarkable—

  BODEY [darting about]: Paper, pen!

  DOROTHEA: Now what?

  BODEY: A written report to the Board of Education of St. Louis. I tell you, that Board will be interested in all details of how that principal of the school system got you lying down drunk and defenseless in his Flying Cloud in a storm on Art Hill, every advantage taken with Valentino sheik tricks on a innocent teacher of civics just up from Memphis.

  DOROTHEA: YOU WILL NOT—

  BODEY: DON’T TELL ME NOT!

  DOROTHEA: LIBEL THE REPUTATION OF A MAN THAT I LOVE, GAVE MYSELF TO NOT JUST FREELY BUT WITH ABANDON, WITH JOY!

  BODEY [aloud as she writes]: Board of Education of St. Louis, Missouri. I think you should know that your principal at Blewett used his position to take disgusting advantage of a young teacher employed there by him for that purpose. I know, I got the facts, including the date and—

  [Dorothea snatches up and crumples the letter.]

  My letter, you tore up my—!

  DOROTHEA: Bodey, if you had written and mailed that letter, do you know what you’d have obliged me to do? I would be morally obliged to go personally down to the Board of Education and tell them an opposite story which happens to be the true one: that I desired Ralph Ellis, possibly even more than he did me!

  [Bodey huffs and puffs wordlessly till she can speak.]

  BODEY: —Well, God help you, Dotty. —But I give you my word I won’t repeat this to Buddy.

  DOROTHEA: How does it concern Buddy?

  BODEY: It concerns Buddy and me because Buddy’s got deep feelings and respect for you, Dotty. He would respect you too much to cross the proper line before you had stood up together in the First Lutheran Church on South Grand.

  DOROTHEA: Now you admit it!

  BODEY: It’s you that’s makin’ admissions of a terrible kind that might shock Buddy out of his serious intentions.

  DOROTHEA: You are admitting that—

  [As she had threatened, Dorothea has begun doing her hip swivels in the living room, but now she stops and stares indignantly at Bodey.]

  —you’ve been deliberately planning and plotting to marry me off to your twin brother so that my life would be just one long Creve Coeur picnic, interspersed with knockwurst, sauerkraut—hot potato salad dinners. —Would I be asked to prepare them? Even in summer? I know what you Germans regard as the limits, the boundaries of a woman’s life—Kirche, Küche, und Kinder—while being asphyxiated gradually by cheap cigars. I’m sorry but the life I design for myself is not along those lines or in those limits. My life must include romance. Without romance in my life, I could no more live than I could without breath. I’ve got to find a partner in life, or my life will have no meaning. But what I must have and finally do have is an affair of the heart, two hearts, a true consummated romance—yes consummated, I’m not ashamed! [She gasps and sways.]

  BODEY: Dotty, Dotty, set down and catch your breath!

  DOROTHEA: In this breathless efficiency apartment?— I’ve got to have space in my life.

  BODEY: —Did I tell you that Buddy has made a down payment on a Buick?

  DOROTHEA: No, you didn’t and why should you, as it does not concern—Oh, my God, Blessed Savior!

  BODEY: Dotty, what Dotty? D’you want your, your whatamacallit tablets?

  DOROTHEA: Mebaral? No, I have not collapsed yet, but you’ve just about driven me to it.

  BODEY: Take a breather, take a seventh inning stretch while I—

  DOROTHEA: Bodey, this room is GLARING; it’s not cheerful but GLARING!

  BODEY: Stretch out on the sofa and look up, the ceiling is white!

  DOROTHEA: I don’t know why I’m so out of breath today.

  BODEY: Don’t do no more exercises. You drink too much coffee an’ Cokes. That’s stimulants for a girl high-strung like you. With a nervous heart condition.

  DOROTHEA: It’s functional—not nervous.

  BODEY: Lie down a minute.

  DOROTHEA: I will rest a little—but not because you say so. [Between gasps she sinks into a chair.] You’re very bossy—and very inquisitive, too.

  BODEY: I’m older’n you, and I got your interests at heart.

  DOROTHEA: Whew!

  BODEY: Think how cool it will be on the open-air streetcar to Creve Coeur.

  DOROTHEA: You must have had your hearing aid off when I said I had other plans.

  BODEY: Buddy, I been telling Buddy to cut down on his beer, and Buddy is listening to me. He’s cut down to eight a day—from a dozen and will cut down more . . .

  DOROTHEA: Bodey, could you stop talking about Buddy this hot Sunday morning? It’s not a suitable subject for hot weather. I know brother-sister relationships are deep, but it’s not just the beer, it’s the almost total lack of in
terests in common, no topics of conversations, of—of mutual—interest.

  BODEY: They could develop. I know Buddy just feels embarrassed. He hasn’t opened up yet. Give him time and he will.

  DOROTHEA: Bodey, this discussion is embarrassingly pointless in view of the fact that I’m already committed to Ralph Ellis. I still have to do my hip swivels . . .

  [Sipping coffee as she goes, Dorothea returns to the bedroom and resumes her exercises.]

  BODEY [rushing to the phone]: Olive 2697, Olive 2697! Buddy? Me! Grosser Gott! I can’t talk now, but you absolutley got to go to Creve Coeur with us this Sunday. —Dress good! Don’t smoke cigars! And laugh at her witty remarks. —Well, they are, they’re witty! She teaches civics.

  [The doorbell rings].

  Now be at the Creve Coeur station at 1:30, huh? —Please!— Somebody’s at the door, I can’t talk now. [Leaving the phone off the hook, she rushes to the door and opens it.] Oh. Hello.

  HELENA: Good morning.

  BODEY: Are you a friend of Dotty’s?

  [A stylishly dressed woman with the eyes of a predatory bird appears.]

  HELENA: Of Dorothea’s? —Yes.

  BODEY: Well, then come on in. Any friend of Dotty’s is a friend of mine.

  HELENA: Is that so?

  BODEY [discomfited]: Yes, I—got grease on my hand. I was fryin’ up some chickens for a picnic.

  HELENA: —Well! This is a surprise! [She makes several turns in a mechanical, rigid fashion, eyes staring.]

  BODEY: Excuse me, I should of—interduced myself.

  HELENA: You are Miss Bodenheifer.

  BODEY: Hafer, not heifer. [She laughs nervously.] Heifer meaning a cow.

  HELENA: No conscious association whatsoever. [She advances forward a step.] So this is Schlogger Haven?

  BODEY: Oh, Schlogger Haven, that’s just a joke of Dotty’s. The landlord’s name is Schlogger, that’s all—that’s all . . .

  HELENA: Dorothea was joking, was she?

  BODEY: Yeh, she jokes a lot, full of humor. We have lots of laughs. [Bodey extends her hand.]

  HELENA: I can imagine you might, Miss Bodenheifer.

  BODEY: You can forget the Miss. —Everyone at the office calls me Bodey.

  HELENA: But we are not at the office—we are here in Schlogger Haven. [She continues enigmatically.] Hmmm . . . I’ve never ventured this side of Blewett before.

  BODEY: Never gone downtown?

  HELENA: I do nearly all my shopping in the West End, so naturally it amazed me to discover street after street without a shade tree on it, and the glare, the glare, and the heat refracted by all the brick, concrete, asphalt—was so overpowering that I nearly collapsed. I think I must be afflicted with a combination of photo- and heliophobia, both.

  BODEY [unconsciously retreating a step as if fearing contagion]: I never heard of neither—but you got both?

  HELENA: An exceptional sensitivity to both heat and strong light.

  BODEY: Aw.

  HELENA: Yes. Now would you please let Dorothea know I’m here to see her?

  BODEY: Does Dotty expect you, Miss, uh—

  HELENA: Helena Brookmire, no, she doesn’t expect me, but a very urgent business matter has obliged me to drop by this early.

  BODEY: She won’t have no one in there with her. She’s exercising.

  HELENA: But Dorothea and I are well acquainted.

  BODEY: Well acquainted or not acquainted at all, makes no difference. I think that modern girls emphasize too much these advertised treatments and keep their weight down too much for their health.

  HELENA: The preservation of youth requires some sacrifices.

  [She continues to stare about her, blinking her birdlike eyes as if dazzled.]

  BODEY: —I guess you and Dotty teach together at Blewett High?

  HELENA: —Separately.

  BODEY: You mean you’re not at Blewett where Dotty teaches civics?

  HELENA [as if addressing a backward child]: I teach there, too. When I said separately, I meant we teach separate classes.

  BODEY: Oh, naturally, yes. [She tries to laugh.] I been to high school.

  HELENA: Have you?

  BODEY: Yes. I know that two teachers don’t teach in the same class at the same time, on two different subjects.

  HELENA [opening her eyes very wide]: Wouldn’t that be peculiar.

  BODEY: Yes. That would be peculiar.

  HELENA [chuckling unpleasantly]: It might create some confusion among the students.

  BODEY: Yes, I reckon it would.

  HELENA: Especially if the subjects were as different as civics and the history of art.

  [Bodey attempts to laugh again; Helena imitates the laugh almost exactly.

  [Pause]

  This is, it really is!

  BODEY: Is what?

  HELENA: The most remarkable room that I’ve ever stepped into! Especially the combination of colors! Such a vivid contrast! May I sit down?

  BODEY: Yeh, yeh, excuse me, I’m not myself today. It’s the heat and the—

  HELENA: Colors?— The vivid contrast of colors? [She removes a pair of round, white-rimmed dark glasses from her purse and puts them on.] Did Dorothea assist you, Miss Bodenheifer, in decorating this room?

  BODEY: No, when Dotty moved in, it was just like it is now.

  HELENA: Then you are solely responsible for this inspired selection of colors?

  [There is a loud sputter of hot fat from the kitchenette.]

  BODEY: Excuse me a moment, I got to turn over the fryers in the skillet.

  HELENA: Don’t let me interrupt your preparations for a picnic.

  BODEY: Didn’t catch that. I don’t hear good sometimes.

  HELENA: Oh?

  BODEY: You see, I got this calcium deposit in my ears . . . and they advised me to have an operation, but it’s very expensive for me and sometimes it don’t work.

  PHONE VOICE: Booow-deeee!

  [Helena notices but doesn’t comment on the unhooked phone.]

  HELENA: I would advise you against it. I had an elderly acquaintance who had this calcification problem and she had a hole bored in her skull to correct it. The operation is called fenestration—it involves a good deal of danger and whether or not it was successful could not be determined since she never recovered consciousness.

  BODEY: Never recovered?

  HELENA: Consciousness.

  BODEY: Yeh, well, I think maybe I’d better learn to live with it.

  PHONE VOICE [shouting again]: Bodeyyyyy—Bodeyyyy—

  BODEY: What’s that?

  HELENA: I was wondering, too. Very strange barking sounds are coming out of the phone.

  BODEY [laughing]: Oh, God, I left it unhooked. [She snatches it up.] Buddy, sorry, somebody just dropped in, forgot you was still on the line. Buddy, call me back in a few minutes, huh, Buddy, it’s, uh, very important. [She hangs up the phone.] That was my brother. Buddy. He says he drunk two beers and made him a liverwurst sandwich before I got back to the phone. Thank God he is so good-natured. . . . He and me are going out on a picnic at Creve Coeur with Dotty this afternoon. My brother is very interested in Dotty.

  HELENA: Interested? Romantically?

  BODEY: Oh, yes, Buddy’s a very serious person.

  HELENA [rising]: —I am very impressed!

  BODEY: By what, what by?

  HELENA [with disguised fury]: The ingenuity with which you’ve fitted yourself into this limited space. Every inch seems to be utilized by some appliance or—decoration? [She picks up a large painted china frog.] —A frahg?

  BODEY: Yes, frawg.

  HELENA: So realistically colored and designed you’d almost expect it to croak. —Oh, and you have a canary . . . stuffed!

  BODEY: Little Hilda . . . she lived ten years. That’s the limit for a canary.

  HELENA: Limit of longevity for the species?

  BODEY: She broke it by three months.

  HELENA: Establishing a record. It’s quite heroic, enduring more than ten years
in such confinement. What tenacity to existence some creatures do have!

  BODEY: I got so attached to it, I took it to a, a—

  HELENA: Taxidermist.

  BODEY: Excuse me a moment. [She rushes to the stove in the alcove.] OW! —Got burnt again.

  HELENA [following curiously]: You were burnt before?

  [Bodey profusely powders her arms with baking soda. Helena backs away.]

  Miss Bodenheifer, please! You’ve sprinkled my clothes with that powder!

  BODEY: Sorry, I didn’t mean to.

  HELENA: Intentional or not, I’m afraid you have! May I have a clothes brush?

  BODEY: Look at that, I spilt it on the carpet. [She rushes to fetch a broom.]

  HELENA: Miss Bodenheifer, I WOULD LIKE A CLOTHES BRUSH, IF YOU HAVE A CLOTHES BRUSH! Not a broom. I am not a carpet.

  BODEY: AW. SURE. Dotty’s got a clothes brush. Oh. Help yourself to some coffee. [She drops the broom and enters the bedroom.]

  [Through the open door, Dorothea can be heard counting as she swivels.]

  DOROTHEA’S VOICE: Sixty, ha! Sixty-one, ha! [She continues counting but stops when she notices Bodey.] —The PHONE? Is it the PHONE?

  BODEY: Clothes brush. [Bodey closes the bedroom door and begins opening and shutting drawers as she looks for the clothes brush.]

  DOROTHEA: DON’T, DONT, DON’T—slam a drawer shut like that! I feel like screaming!

  [Helena opens a closet in the kitchenette; a box falls out.]

  HELENA: The hazards of this place almost equal the horrors.

  DOROTHEA [in the bedroom]: I asked you if the phone rang.

  BODEY: No, no, the doorbell.

  HELENA [who has moved to the icebox]: Ah. Ice, mostly melted, what squalor!

  [This dual scene must be carefully timed.]

  DOROTHEA: I presume it’s Miss Gluck from upstairs in boudoir cap and wrapper. Bodey, get her out as quickly as possible. The sight of that woman destroys me for the whole day.

  HELENA [still in the kitchenette]: This remnant of ice will not survive in this steaming glass of coffee.

  [A knock at the door is heard.]