A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur Read Online Free PDF Page A

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,