BODEY: Dotty will settle for Buddy. She’s got a few reservations about him so far, but at Creve Coeur she’ll suddenly recognize the—wonderful side of his nature.
HELENA: Miss Bodenheifer, Dorothea is not intending to remain in this tasteless apartment. Hasn’t she informed you that she is planning to share a lovely apartment with me? The upstairs of a duplex on Westmoreland Place?
BODEY: Stylish? Civilized, huh? And too expensive for you to swing it alone, so you want to rope Dotty in, rope her into a place that far from Blewett? Share expenses? You prob’ly mean pay most.
HELENA: To move from such an unsuitable environment must naturally involve some expense.
[Miss Gluck falls out of the bathroom onto Dorothea’s bed.]
DOROTHEA: MISS GLUCK! CAREFUL! Bodey, Bodey, Sophie Gluck’s collapsed on my bed in a cloud of steam!
HELENA: Has Miss Gluck broken a steam pipe?
[Bodey rushes from the kitchenette into the bedroom.]
BODEY [to Helena]: You stay out.
[Dorothea emerges from the bedroom. She closes the door and leans against it briefly, closing her eyes as if dizzy or faint.]
HELENA: At last.
DOROTHEA: I’m so mortified.
HELENA: Are you feeling better?
DOROTHEA: Sundays are always different—
HELENA: This one exceptionally so.
DOROTHEA: I don’t know why but—I don’t quite understand why I am so—agitated. Something happened last week, just a few evenings ago that—
HELENA: Yes? What?
DOROTHEA: Nothing that I’m—something I can’t discuss with you. I was and still am expecting a very important phone call—
HELENA: May I ask you from whom?
DOROTHEA: No, please.
HELENA: Then may I hazard a guess that the expected call not received was from a young gentleman who cuts a quite spectacular figure in the country club set but somehow became involved in the educational system?
DOROTHEA: If you don’t mind, Helena, I’d much prefer not to discuss anything of a—private nature right now.
HELENA: Yes, I understand, dear. And since you’ve located that chair, why don’t you seat yourself in it?
DOROTHEA: Oh, yes, excuse me. [She sits down, weakly, her hand lifted to her throat.] The happenings here today are still a bit confused in my head. I was doing my exercises before you dropped by.
HELENA: And for quite a while after.
DOROTHEA: I was about to—no, I’d taken my shower. I was about to get dressed.
HELENA: But the Gluck intervened. Such discipline! Well! I’ve had the privilege of an extended meeting with Miss Bodenheifer—[She lowers her voice.] She seemed completely surprised when I mentioned that you were moving to Westmoreland Place.
DOROTHEA: Oh, you told her. —I’m glad. —I’m such a coward, I couldn’t.
HELENA: Well, I broke the news to her.
DOROTHEA: I—just hadn’t the heart to.
[Miss Gluck advances from the bedroom with a dripping wet mop and a dazed look.]
HELENA [to Dorothea]: Can’t you see she’s already found a replacement?
DOROTHEA: Oh, no, there’s a limit even to Bodey’s endurance! Miss Gluck, would you please return that wet mop to the kitchen and wring it out. Küche—mop—Sophie.
HELENA: Appears to be catatonic.
DOROTHEA [as she goes into the bedroom to get Bodey]: Excuse me.
[Bodey enters from the bedroom and takes Miss Gluck, with mop, into the kitchenette.]
BODEY [singing nervously in the kitchenette]: “I’m just breezing along with the breeze, pleasing to live, and living to please!”
[Dorothea returns to the living room.]
DOROTHEA: How did Bodey take the news I was moving?
HELENA: “That far from Blewett!” she said as if it were transcontinental.
DOROTHEA: Well, it is a bit far, compared to this location.
HELENA: Surely you wouldn’t compare it to this location.
DOROTHEA: Oh, no, Westmoreland Place is a—fashionable address, incomparable in that respect, but it is quite a distance. Of course, just a block from Delmar Boulevard and the Olive Street car-line, that would let me off at—what point closest to Blewett?
HELENA: Dorothea, forget transportation, that problem. We’re going by automobile.
DOROTHEA: By—what automobile do you—?
HELENA: I have a lovely surprise for you, dear.
DOROTHEA: Someone is going to drive us?
HELENA: Yes, I will be the chauffeur and you the passenger, dear. You see, my wealthy cousin Dee-Dee, who lives in La Due, has replaced her foreign-made car, an Hispano-Suiza, no less, practically brand-new, with a Pierce Arrow limousine and has offered to sell us the Hispano for just a song! Immediately, as soon as she made me this offer, I applied for a driver’s license.
[A moment of shocked silence is interrupted by a short squawk from Bodey’s hearing aid.]
BODEY [advancing quickly from the kitchenette]: Limazine? What limazine? With a show-fer?
HELENA: Miss Bodenheifer, how does this concern you?
BODEY: Who’s gonna foot the bill for it, that’s how!
HELENA: My cousin Dee-Dee in La Due will accept payment on time.
BODEY: Whose time and how much?
HELENA: Negligible! A rich cousin! —Oh, my Lord, I’ve always heard that Germans—
BODEY: Lay off Germans!
HELENA: Have this excessive concern with money matters.
BODEY: Whose money?
HELENA: Practicality can be a stupefying—
MISS GLUCK: Bodey?
HELENA: —virtue, if it is one.
MISS GLUCK: Ich kann nicht—go up.
HELENA: Go up just one step to the kitchen! Please, Dorothea, can’t we—have a private discussion, briefly?
MISS GLUCK: Das Schlafzimmer is gespukt!
HELENA: Because you see, Dorothea, as I told you, I do have to make a payment on the Westmoreland Place apartment early tomorrow, and so must collect your half of it today.
DOROTHEA: —My half would amount to—?
HELENA: Seventy.
DOROTHEA: Ohhh! —Would the real estate people accept a—postdated check?
HELENA: Reluctantly—very.
DOROTHEA: You see, I had unusually heavy expenses this week—clothes, lingerie, a suitcase . . .
HELENA: Sounds as if you’d been purchasing a trousseau. —Miss Bodenhafer says that her brother, “Buddy,” is seriously interested in you. How selfish of you to keep it such a secret!—even from me!
DOROTHEA: Oh, my heavens, has Miss Bodenhafer—how fantastic!
HELENA: Yes, she is a bit, to put it politely.
DOROTHEA: I meant has she given you the preposterous impression that I am interested in her brother? Oh, my Lord, what a fantastic visit you’ve had! Believe me, the circumstances aren’t always so—chaotic. Well! Il n’y a rien à faire. When I tell you that she calls her brother Buddy and that he is her twin! [She throws up her arms.]
HELENA: Identical?
DOROTHEA: Except for gender, alike as two peas in a pod. You’re not so gullible, Helena, that you could really imagine for a moment that I’d—you know me better than that!
HELENA: Sometimes when a girl is on the rebound from a disappointing infatuation, she will leap without looking into the most improbable sort of—liaison—
DOROTHEA: Maybe some girls, but certainly not I. And what makes you think that I’m the victim of a “disappointing infatuation,” Helena?
HELENA: Sometimes a thing will seem like the end of the world, and yet the world continues.
DOROTHEA: I personally feel that my world is just beginning. . . . Excuse me for a moment. I’ll get my checkbook. . . .
[Dorothea goes into the bedroom. Miss Gluck wanders back into the living room from the kitchenette, wringing her hands and sobbing.]
HELENA: MISS BODENHEIFER!
BODEY: Don’t bother to tell me good-bye.
HELENA: I am not yet leaving.
BODEY: And it ain’t necessary to shake the walls when you call me, I got my hearing aid on.
HELENA: Would you be so kind as to confine Miss Gluck to that charming little kitchen while I’m completing my business with Dorothea?
[Bodey crosses toward Miss Gluck.]
BODEY: Sophie, come in here with me. You like a deviled egg don’t you? And a nice fried drumstick when your—digestion is better? Just stay in here with me.
[Bodey leads Miss Gluck back to the kitchenette, then turns to Helena.]
I can catch every word that you say to Dotty in there, and you better be careful the conversation don’t take the wrong turn!
MISS GLUCK [half in German]: Ich kann nicht liven opstairs no more, nimmer, nimmer—kann nicht—can’t go!
BODEY: You know what, Sophie? You better change apartments. There’s a brand-new vacancy. See—right over there, the fifth floor. It’s bright and cheerful—I used to go up there sometimes—it’s a sublet, furnished, everything in cheerful colors. I’ll speak to Mr. Schlogger, no, no, to Mrs. Schlogger, she makes better terms. Him, bein’ paralyzed, he’s got to accept ’em, y’know.
MISS GLUCK: I think—[She sobs.]—Missus Schlogger don’t like me.
BODEY: That’s—impossible, Sophie. I think she just had a little misunderstanding with your—[She stops herself.]
MISS GLUCK: Meine Mutter, ja—
BODEY: Sophie, speak of the Schloggers, she’s wheeling that old Halunke out on their fire escape.
[The Schloggers are heard from offstage.]
MR. SCHLOGGER’S VOICE: I didn’t say out in the sun.
MRS. SCHLOGGER’S VOICE: You said out, so you’re out.
BODEY [shouting out the window]: Oh, my Gott, Missus Schlogger, a stranger that didn’t know you would think you meant to push him offa the landin’. Haul him back in, you better. Watch his cane, he’s about to hit you with it. Amazin’ the strength he’s still got in his good arm.
MRS. SCHLOGGER’S VOICE: Now you want back in?
[Helena rises to watch this episode on the fire escape.]
MR. SCHLOGGER’S VOICE: Not in the kitchen with you.
HELENA [to herself but rather loudly]: Schloggers, so those are Schloggers.
BODEY [to Miss Gluck]: She’s got him back in. I’m gonna speak to her right now. —HEY MISSUS SCHLOGGER, YOU KNOW MISS GLUCK? AW, SURE YOU REMEMBER SOPHIE UPSTAIRS IN 4-F? SHE LOST HER MOTHER LAST SUNDAY. Sophie, come here, stick your head out, Sophie. NOW YOU REMEMBER HER, DON’T YOU?
MRS. SCHLOGGER’S VOICE: Ja, ja.
BODEY: JA, JA, SURE YOU REMEMBER! MRS. SCHLOGGER, POOR SOPHIE CANT LIVE ALONE IN 4-F WHERE SHE LOST HER MOTHER. SHE NEEDS A NEW APARTMENT THAT’S BRIGHT AND CHEERFUL TO GET HER OUT OF DEPRESSION. HOW ABOUT THE VACANCY ON THE FIFTH FLOOR FOR SOPHIE. WE GOT TO LOOK OUT FOR EACH OTHER IN TIMES OF SORROW. VERSTEHEN SIE?
MRS. SCHLOGGER’S VOICE: I don’t know.
BODEY: GIVE SOPHIE THAT VACANCY UP THERE. THEN TERMS I’LL DISCUSS WITH YOU. [She draws Miss Gluck back from the window.] Sophie, I think that done it, and that apartment on five is bright and cheerful like here. And you’re not gonna be lonely. We got three chairs at this table, and we can work out an arrangement so you can eat here with us, more economical that way. It’s no good cooking for one, cookin’ and eatin’ alone is—lonely after—
[Helena resumes her seat as Bodey and Miss Gluck return to the kitchenette.]
HELENA [with obscure meaning]: Yes— [She draws a long breath and calls out.] Dorothea, can’t you locate your checkbook in there?
[Dorothea returns from the bedroom wearing a girlish summer print dress and looking quite pretty.]
DOROTHEA: I was just slipping into a dress. Now, then, here it is, my checkbook.
HELENA: Good. Where did you buy that new dress?
DOROTHEA: Why, at Scruggs-Vandervoort.
HELENA: Let me remove the price tag. [As she removes the tag, she looks at it and assumes an amused and slightly superior air.] Oh, my dear. I must teach you where to find the best values in clothes. In La Due there is a little French boutique, not expensive but excellent taste. I think a woman looks best when she dresses without the illusion she’s still a girl in her teens. Don’t you?
DOROTHEA [stung]: —My half will be—how much did you say?
HELENA: To be exact, $82.50.
DOROTHEA: My goodness, that will take a good bite out of my savings. Helena, I thought you mentioned a lower amount. Didn’t you say it would be seventy?
HELENA: Yes, I’d forgotten—utilities, dear. Now, we don’t want to move into a place with the phone turned off, the lights off. Utilities must be on, wouldn’t you say?
DOROTHEA: —Yes. —Of course, I don’t think I’ll be dependent on my savings much longer, and a duplex on Westmoreland Place— [She writes out a check.] —is a—quite a—worthwhile—investment . . .
HELENA: I should think it would strike you as one after confinement with Miss Bodenhafer in this nightmare of colors.
DOROTHEA: Oh. —Yes. —Excuse me . . . [she extends the check slightly.]
HELENA: —Are you holding it out for the ink to dry on it?
DOROTHEA: —Sorry. —Here. [She crosses to Helena and hands the check to her.]
[Helena puts on her glasses to examine the check carefully. She then folds it, puts it into her purse, and snaps the purse shut.]
HELENA: Well, that’s that. I hate financial dealings but they do have to be dealt with. Don’t they?
DOROTHEA: Yes, they seem to . . .
HELENA: Require it. —Oh, contract.
DOROTHEA: Contract? For the apartment?
HELENA: Oh, no, a book on contract bridge, the bidding system and so forth. You do play bridge a little? I asked you once before and you said you did sometimes.
DOROTHEA: Here?
HELENA: Naturally not here. But on Westmoreland Place I hope you’ll join in the twice-weekly games. You remember Joan Goode?
DOROTHEA: Yes, vaguely. Why?
HELENA: We were partners in duplicate bridge, which we usually played, worked out our own set of bidding conventions. But now Joan’s gone to Wellesley for her Master’s degree in, of all things, the pre-Ptolemaic dynasties of Egypt.
DOROTHEA: Did she do that? I didn’t know what she did.
HELENA: You were only very casually—
DOROTHEA: Acquainted.
HELENA: My cousin Dee-Dee from La Due takes part whenever her social calendar permits her to. She often sends over dainty little sandwiches, watercress, tomato, sherbets from Zeller’s in the summer. And a nicely uniformed maid to serve. Well, now we’re convening from auction to contract, which is more complicated but stimulates the mind. —Dorothea, you have an abstracted look. Are you troubled over something?
DOROTHEA: Are these parties mixed?
HELENA: “Mixed” in what manner?
DOROTHEA: I mean would I invite Ralph?
HELENA: I have a feeling that Mr. T. Ralph Ellis might not be able to spare the time this summer. And anyway, professional women do need social occasions without the—male intrusion . . .
DOROTHEA [with spirit]: I’ve never thought of the presence of men as being an intrusion.
HELENA: Dorothea, that’s just a lingering symptom of your Southern belle complex.
DOROTHEA: In order to be completely honest with you, Helena, I think I ought to tell you—I probably won’t be able to share expenses with you in Westmoreland Place for very long, Helena!
HELENA: Oh, is that so? Is that why you’ve given me the postdated check which you could cancel tomorrow?
DOROTHEA: You know I wouldn’t do that, but—
HELENA: Yes, but—you could and possibly you would. . . . Look before you, there stands the specter that confronts you . . .
DOROTHEA: Miss??
HELENA: Gluck, the perennial, the irremediable, Miss Gluck! You probably think me superficial to value as much as I do, cousin Dee-Dee of La Due, contract bridge, possessio
n of an elegant foreign car. Dorothea, only such things can protect us from a future of descent into the Gluck abyss of surrender to the bottom level of squalor. Look at it and tell me honestly that you can afford not to provide yourself with the Westmoreland Place apartment . . . its elevation, its style, its kind of éclat.
[Miss Gluck, who has come out of the kitchenette and moved downstage during Helena’s speech, throws a glass of water in Helena’s face.]
DOROTHEA: Bodey, RESTRAIN HER, RESTRAIN MISS GLUCK, SHE’S TURNED VIOLENT.
BODEY: Sophie, no, no. I didn’t say you done wrong. I think you done right. I don’t think you did enough.
HELENA: Violence does exist in the vegetable kingdom, you see! It doesn’t terrify me since I shall soon be safely out of its range. . . . Just let me draw two good deep breaths and I’ll be myself again. [She does so.] That did it. . . . I’m back in my skin. Oh, Dorothea, we must, must advance in appearances. You don’t seem to know how vastly important it is, the move to Westmoreland Place, particularly now at this time when you must escape from reminders of, specters of, that alternative there! Surrender without conditions . . .
DOROTHEA: Sorry. I am a little abstracted. Helena, you sound as if you haven’t even suspected that Ralph and I have been dating . . .
HELENA: Seriously?
DOROTHEA: Well, now that I’ve mentioned it to you, yes, quite. You see, I don’t intend to devote the rest of my life to teaching civics at Blewett. I dream, I’ve always dreamed, of a marriage someday, and I think you should know that it might become a reality this summer.
HELENA: With whom?
DOROTHEA: Why, naturally with the person whom I love. And obviously loves me.
HELENA: T? RALPH? ELLIS?
[Bodey, still in the kitchenette, nervously sings “Me and My Shadow.”]
DOROTHEA: I thought I’d made that clear, thought I’d made everything clear.
HELENA: Oh, Dorothea, my dear. I hope and pray that you haven’t allowed him to take advantage of your—generous nature.
DOROTHEA: Miss Bodenhafer has the same apprehension.