A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, Page 3

  What’s that?

  [Sophie Gluck opens the front door and sticks her head in. At the sight of Helena, she withdraws in alarm.]

  Another tenant. Demented!

  [Helena moves to the door and slams and bolts it with such force that Sophie, outside, utters a soft cry of confused panic.]

  BODEY: Don’t do no more calisthenics if it affecks you this way.

  DOROTHEA: Just, just—knock at the door when Miss Gluck has gone back upstairs, that’s my—whew!—only—request . . .

  BODEY: —Yes, well . . .

  DOROTHEA: No coffee, no crullers or she—will stay—down here—forever—ha!

  [The phone rings; Helena picks it up. Bodey emerges from the bedroom with a whisk broom, closing the door behind her. Helena is at the phone.]

  HELENA: Oh, she seems engaged for the moment . . .

  BODEY: Aw, the phone! Is it that principal, Ellis?

  HELENA [aside from the phone]: I’m afraid not. It seems to be Dorothea’s other admirer—quel embarras de richesses . . .

  BODEY [rushing to the phone]: Must be Buddy. —Buddy? Well? —Yeh, good, what suit you got on? Well, take it off. It don’t look good on you, Buddy. Put on the striped suit, Buddy an’ the polka dot tie, and, Buddy, if you smoke a cigar at Creve Coeur, excuse yourself and smoke it in the bushes.

  HELENA: This is—

  BODEY: That’s right, ’bye.

  HELENA: —absolutely bizarre! You found a clothes brush? That’s not a clothes brush. It’s a whisk broom. Sorry. It doesn’t look clean.

  BODEY: Sorry. My nerves.

  HELENA [taking it and brushing herself delicately here and there]: What was that counting I heard? Is Dorothea counting something in there?

  BODEY: She’s counting her swivels in there.

  HELENA: Swivels of what?

  BODEY: Hip swivels, that’s what. She’s counting. Every morning she does one hundred bends and one hundred set-ups and one hundred hip swivels.

  HELENA: Regardless of weather?

  BODEY: That’s right, regardless of weather.

  HELENA: And regardless of—Hmmm . . .

  [Bodey senses a touch of malice implicit in this unfinished sentence.]

  BODEY: —What else, huh?

  HELENA: Dorothea has always impressed me as an emotionally fragile type of person who might collapse, just suddenly collapse, when confronted with the disappointing facts of a situation about which she’d allowed herself to have—romantic illusions.

  [It is now Bodey’s turn to say, “Hmmm . . .”]

  —No matter how—well, I hate to say foolish but even intelligent girls can make mistakes of this nature . . . of course we all felt she was attaching too much importance to—

  BODEY: “We all” is who?

  HELENA: Our little group at Blewett.

  BODEY: Yeh, there’s always a gossipy little group, even down at International Shoe where I work there is a gossipy little group that feels superior to the rest of us. Well, personally, I don’t want in with this gossipy little group because the gossip is malicious. Oh, they call it being concerned, but it’s not the right kind of concern, naw, I’d hate for that gossipy little group to feel concerned about me, don’t want that and don’t need it.

  HELENA: Understandably, yaiss. I will return this whisk broom to Dorothea.

  BODEY: No, no, just return it to me.

  HELENA: I have to speak to her and in order to do that I’ll have to enter that room. So if you’ll excuse me I’ll—

  [She starts toward the bedroom. Bodey snatches the whisk broom from her with a force that makes Helena gasp.]

  BODEY: Miss Brooksit, you’re a visitor here but the visit was not expected. Now you excuse me but I got to say you sort of act like this apartment was yours.

  HELENA: —What a dismaying idea! I mean I—

  BODEY: And excuse me or don’t excuse me but I got a very strong feeling that you got something in mind. All right, your mind is your mind, what’s in it is yours but keep it to yourself, huh?

  HELENA [cutting in]: Miss Bodenheifer, you seem to be implying something that’s a mystery to me.

  BODEY: You know what I mean and I know what I mean so where’s the mystery, huh?

  DOROTHEA [calling from the bedroom]: Is somebody out there, Bodey?

  BODEY: Just Sophie Gluck.

  DOROTHEA: Oh, Lord!

  HELENA: What was that you called me?

  BODEY: I told Dotty that you was Miss Gluck from upstairs.

  HELENA: —Gluck?

  BODEY: Yeah, Miss Gluck is a lady upstairs that comes downstairs to visit.

  HELENA: She comes down to see Dorothea?

  BODEY: No, no, more to see me, and to drink coffee. She lost her mother, an’ she’s got a depression so bad she can’t make coffee, so I save her a cup, keep her a cup in the pot. You know for a single girl to lose a mother is a terrible thing. What else can you do? She oughta be down. Weekdays she comes down at seven. Well, this is Sunday.

  HELENA: Yes. This is Sunday.

  BODEY: Sundays she comes down for coffee and a cruller at ten.

  HELENA: Cruller? What is a cruller?

  BODEY: Aw. You call it a doughnut, but me, bein’ German, was raised to call it a cruller.

  HELENA: Oh. A cruller is a doughnut but you call it a cruller. Now if you’ll excuse me a moment, I will go in there and relieve Dorothea of the mistaken impression that I am Miss Gluck from upstairs who has come down for her coffee and—cruller.

  BODEY: Oh, no, don’t interrupt her calisthenics.

  [Helena ignores this admonition and opens the bedroom door.]

  DOROTHEA: Why, Helena Brookmire! —What a surprise. I—I—look a—mess!

  HELENA: I heard this counting and gasping. Inquired what was going on. Your friend Miss—what?

  DOROTHEA: You’ve met Miss Bodenhafer?

  HELENA: Yes, she received me very cordially. We’ve dispensed with introductions. She says any friend of yours is a friend of hers and wants me to call her Bodey as they do at the office. Excuse me, Miss Bodenheifer, I must have a bit of private conversation—

  [Helena closes the bedroom door, shutting out Bodey.]

  DOROTHEA: Well, I wasn’t expecting a visitor today, obviously not this early. You see, I—never receive a visitor here. . . . Is there something too urgent to hold off till Monday, Helena?

  HELENA: Have our negotiations with the realty firm of Orthwein and Muller slipped your flighty mind?

  DOROTHEA: Oh, the real estate people, but surely on Sunday—

  HELENA: Mr. Orthwein called Cousin Dee-Dee last night and she called me this morning that now the news has leaked out and there’s competitive bidding for the apartment on Westmoreland Place and the deal must be settled at once.

  DOROTHEA: You mean by—?

  HELENA: Immediate payment, yes, to pin it down.

  DOROTHEA: Today? Sunday?

  HELENA: The sanctity of a Sunday must sometimes be profaned by business transactions.

  [Bodey has now entered.]

  DOROTHEA: Helena, if you’ll just have some coffee and wait in the living room, I will come out as soon as I’ve showered and dressed.

  BODEY: Yeh, yeh, do that. You’re embarrassing Dotty, so come back out and—

  [Bodey almost drags Helena out of the bedroom, kicking the bedroom door shut.]

  HELENA: Gracious!

  BODEY: Yes, gracious, here! Set down, I’ll get you some coffee.

  HELENA [with a sharp laugh]: She said, “I look a mess,” and I couldn’t contradict her.

  BODEY: Here! Your coffee! Your cruller!

  HELENA [haughtily]: I don’t care for the cruller, as you call it. Pastries are not included in my diet. However—I’d like a clean napkin. You’ve splashed coffee everywhere.

  BODEY: Sure, we got plenty of napkins. You name it, we got it. [She thrusts a paper napkin at Helena like a challenge.]

  HELENA: This paper napkin is stained. Would you please give me—

  BODEY:
Take ’em all. You stained that napkin yourself. [She thrusts the entire pile of napkins at Helena.]

  HELENA: You shoved the cup at me so roughly the coffee splashed.

  [Helena fastidiously wipes the tabletop. There is a rap at the door.]

  BODEY: Aw, that’s Sophie Gluck.

  HELENA: I don’t care to meet Miss Gluck.

  BODEY: Will you set down so I can let in Sophie Gluck?

  HELENA: So if you’re going to admit her, I will take refuge again in Dorothea’s bedroom. . . . There is another matter I’ve come here to . . .

  BODEY [seizing Helena’s arm as she crosses toward the bedroom]: I know what you’re up to! —JUST A MINUTE, BITTE, SOPHIE! I can guess the other matter you just can’t hold your tongue about, but you’re gonna hold it. It’s not gonna be mentioned to cloud over the day and spoil the Creve Coeur picnic for Dotty, Buddy, an’ me! —COMIN’, SOPHIE! [Then, to Helena, fiercely.] YOU SET BACK DOWN!

  [During this altercation, Dorothea has been standing in the bedroom paralyzed with embarrassment and dismay. Now she calls sweetly through the door, opened a crack.]

  DOROTHEA: Bodey, Bodey, what is going on out there? How could a phone be heard above that shouting? Oh, My Blessed Savior, I was bawn on a Sunday, and I am convinced that I shall die on a Sunday! Could you please tell me what is the cause of the nerve-shattering altercations going on out there?

  HELENA: Dorothea, Miss Bodenheifer’s about to receive Miss Gluck.

  DOROTHEA: Oh, no, oh no, Bodey, entertain her upstairs! I’m not in shape for another visit today, especially not—Bodey!

  BODEY: Sophie, Sophie, you had me worried about you.

  HELENA: I’m afraid, Dorothea, your request has fallen upon a calcified eardrum.

  BODEY: You come downstairs so late.

  MISS GLUCK: Sie hat die Tür in mein Kopf zugeschlagen!

  BODEY [to Helena]: You done that to Sophie!

  HELENA: An unknown creature of demented appearance entering like a sneak thief!

  BODEY: My best friend in the building!

  HELENA: What a pitiful admission!

  BODEY: You come here uninvited, not by Dotty or me, since I never heard of you, but got the nerve to call my best friend in the building . . .

  MISS GLUCK: Diese Frau ist ein Spion.

  BODEY: What did you call her?

  HELENA: I called that woman demented. What I would call you is intolerably offensive.

  MISS GLUCK: Verstehen Sie? Spy. Vom Irrenhaus.

  BODEY: We live here, you don’t. See the difference?

  HELENA: Thank God for the difference. Vive la différence.

  DOROTHEA [coming just inside the living room]: Helena, Bodey.

  HELENA: Be calm Dorothea—don’t get overexcited.

  MISS GLUCK: Zwei Jahre. Two years.

  DOROTHEA: Why is she coming at me like this?

  MISS GLUCK: State asylum.

  BODEY: You come here to scrounge money outta Dotty which she ain’t got.

  MISS GLUCK: Sie ist hier—mich noch einmal—im Irrenhaus zu bringen. To take back to hospital.

  HELENA: Aside from the total inaccuracy of your assumption and the insulting manner in which you express it—. As you very well know, Dorothea and I are both employed at Blewett. We are both on salary there! And I have not come here to involve myself in your social group but to rescue my colleague from it.

  BODEY: Awright, you put it your way, it adds up to the same thing. You want money from Dotty which she ain’t got to give you. Dotty is broke, flat broke, and she’s been on a big buying spree, so big that just last night I had to loan her the price of a medium bottle of Golden Glow Shampoo, and not only that, I had to go purchase it for her because she come home exhausted. Dotty was too exhausted to walk to the drugstore. Well, me, I was tired, too, after my work at International Shoe and shopping, but out I hoofed it to Liggett’s and forked out the forty-nine cents for the medium size Golden Glow from my own pockets, money I set aside for incidentals at the Creve Coeur picnic. There’s always—

  HELENA [cutting in]: Miss Bodenheifer, you certainly have a gift for the felicitous phrase such as “out you hoofed it to Liggett’s,” sorry, sorry, but it does evoke an image.

  BODEY: I know what you mean by “hoof it” since you keep repeating “heifer” for “hafer.” I’m not too dumb like which you regard me to know why you’re struck so funny by “hoof it.”

  HELENA: You said you “hoofed it,” not me.

  BODEY: You keep saying “heifer” for “hafer.” Me, I’m a sensitive person with feelings I feel, but sensitive to you I am not. Insults from you bounce off me. I just want you to know that you come here shaking your tin cup at the wrong door.

  [As a soft but vibrant counterpoint to this exchange, Sophie, sobbing and rolling her eyes like a religieuse in a state of sorrowful vision, continues her slow shuffle toward Dorothea as she repeats in German an account of her violent ejection by Helena.]

  DOROTHEA [breathlessly]: Bodey, what is she saying? Translate and explain to her I have no knowledge of German.

  HELENA: Babbling, just lunatic babbling!

  BODEY: One minute, one minute, Dotty. I got to explain to this woman she’s wasting her time here and yours—and had the moxie to slam Sophie out of the door.

  HELENA: Miss Bodenheifer, it’s useless to attempt to intimidate me. . . . I would like the use of your phone for a moment. Then—

  DOROTHEA: No calls on the phone!

  BODEY: Dotty don’t want this phone used; she’s expecting a call to come in, but there is a pay phone at Liggett’s three blocks east on West Pine and Pearl.

  HELENA: Drugstores are shut on Sundays!

  DOROTHEA: Quiet! Listen! All! This thing’s getting out of hand!

  HELENA: I want only to call a taxi for myself and for Dorothea. She’s trapped here and should be removed at once. You may not know that just two weeks after she came to Blewett she collapsed on the staircase, and the staff doctor examined her and discovered that Dorothea’s afflicted with neuro-circulatory asthenia.

  [Dorothea has disappeared behind the sofa. Miss Gluck is looking down at her with lamentations.]

  MISS GLUCK: BODEY.

  BODEY: Moment, Sophie.

  MISS GLUCK: Dotty, Dotty . . .

  HELENA: What is she saying? Where’s Dorothea?

  BODEY: Dotty?

  MISS GLUCK: Hier, auf dem Fussboden. Ist fallen.

  HELENA: This Gluck creature has thrown Dorothea onto the floor.

  BODEY: Gott im—! Wo ist—Dotty?

  HELENA: The Gluck has flung her to the floor behind the sofa!

  BODEY: Dotty!

  HELENA: Dorothea, I’m calling us a cab. Is she conscious?

  DOROTHEA: Mebaral—tablet—quick!

  BODEY: Mebarals, where?

  [Sophie wails loudly.]

  DOROTHEA: My pocketbook!

  BODEY: Hold on now, slowly, slowly—

  DOROTHEA: Mebaral! Tablets!

  HELENA: My physician told me those tablets are only prescribed for persons with—extreme nervous tension and asthenia.

  BODEY: Will you goddam shut up? —Dotty, you just need to—

  HELENA: What she needs is to stop these strenuous exercises and avoid all future confrontations with that lunatic from upstairs!

  BODEY: Dotty, let me lift you.

  DOROTHEA: Oh, oh, noooo, I—can’t, I—I am paralyzed, Bodey!

  BODEY: HEY, YOU BROOKS-IT, TAKE DOTTY’S OTHER ARM. HELP ME CARRY HER TO HER BED WILL YUH?

  [Sophie is moaning through clenched fists.]

  HELENA: All right, all right, but then I shall call my physician!

  [Dorothea is carried into the bedroom and deposited on the bed. Sophie props pillows behind her.]

  DOROTHEA: Meb—my meb . . .

  BODEY: Tablets. Bathroom. In your pocketbook.

  [Bodey rushes into the bathroom, then out with a small bottle. Dorothea raises a hand weakly and Bodey drops tablets in it.]

  Dotty, do
n’t swallow, that’s three tablets!

  DOROTHEA: My sherry to wash it down with—

  BODEY: Dotty, take out the two extra tablets, Dotty!

  HELENA: Sherry? Did she say sherry? Where is it?

  DOROTHEA: There, there.

  BODEY: Dotty, open your mouth, I got to take out those extras!

  HELENA: No glass, you must drink from the bottle.

  BODEY: NO! NOOOO!

  HELENA: STOP CLUTCHING AT ME!

  [Miss Gluck utters a terrified wail. Dorothea drinks from the bottle and falls back onto the pillows with a gasp.]

  BODEY [so angry she speaks half in German]: You Schwein, you bitch! Alte böse Katze. [She then goes on in English.] You washed three tablets down Dotty!

  DOROTHEA: Now will you BOTH get out so I can breathe!

  HELENA: The door’s obstructed by Gluck.

  BODEY: Sophie, go out, Sophie, go out of here with me for coffee and crullers!

  [Sobbing, Sophie retreats. Bodey grabs a strong hold of Helena’s wrist.]

  HELENA: Let go of my wrist. Oh, my God, you have broken. . . . I heard a bone snap in my—!

  BODEY: WALK! OUT! MOVE IT! . . .

  HELENA [turning quickly about and retreating behind the sofa]: Miss Bodenheifer, you are a one-woman demonstration of the aptness of the term “Huns” for Germans. . . . And, incidentally, what you broke was not my wrist but my Cartier wristwatch, a birthday present from my Cousin Dee-Dee; you shattered the crystal, and you’ve broken the minute hand and bent the two others. I am afraid the repair bill will cost you considerably more than keeping Dorothea in Golden Glow Shampoo.

  BODEY: It’s all right, Sophie, set down right here and I’ll. . . . Coffee’s still hot for you. Have a coupla crullers. Blow your nose on this napkin and—

  [Helena laughs tonelessly.]

  What’s funny, is something funny? You never been depressed, no sorrows in your life ever, yeh, and you call yourself a human.

  HELENA: Really, this is fantastic as the—color scheme of this room or the—view through the windows.

  [In the bedroom, Dorothea has staggered from the bed and stumbled to the floor.]