A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur Read Free Page A

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 interests 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?