A View from the Bridge Read Free

out.
    LOUIS: You workin’ tomorrow?
    EDDIE: Yeah, there’s another day yet on that ship. See ya, Louis.
    Eddie goes into the house, as light rises in the apartment.
    Catherine is waving to Louis from the window and turns to him.
    CATHERINE: Hi, Eddie!
    Eddie is pleased and therefore shy about it; he hangs up his cap and jacket.
    EDDIE: Where you goin’ all dressed up?
    CATHERINE, running her hands over her skirt: I just got it. You like it?
    EDDIE: Yeah, it’s nice. And what happened to your hair?
    CATHERINE: You like it? I fixed it different. Calling to kitchen: He’s here, B.!
    EDDIE: Beautiful. Turn around, lemme see in the back. She turns for him. Oh, if your mother was alive to see you now! She wouldn’t believe it.
    CATHERINE: You like it, huh?
    EDDIE : You look like one of them girls that went to college. Where you goin’?
    CATHERINE, taking his arm: Wait’ll B. comes in, I’ll tell you something. Here, sit down. She is walking him to the armchair. Calling offstage: Hurry up, will you,
    B.?
    EDDIE, sitting: What’s goin’ on?
    CATHERINE: I’ll get you a beer, all right?
    EDDIE: Well, tell me what happened. Come over here, talk to me.
    CATHERINE: I want to wait till B. comes in. She sits on her heels beside him. Guess how much we paid for the skirt.
    EDDIE: I think it’s too short, ain’t it?
    CATHERINE, standing: No! not when I stand up.
    EDDIE: Yeah, but you gotta sit down sometimes.
    CATHERINE: Eddie, it’s the style now. She walks to show him. I mean, if you see me walkin’ down the street—
    EDDIE: Listen, you been givin’ me the willies the way you walk down the street, I mean it.
    CATHERINE: Why?
    EDDIE: Catherine, I don’t want to be a pest, but I’m tellin’ you you’re walkin’ wavy.
    CATHERINE: I’m walkin’ wavy?
    EDDIE: Now don’t aggravate me, Katie, you are walkin’ wavy! I don’t like the looks they’re givin’ you in the candy store. And with them new high heels on the sidewalk—clack, clack, clack. The heads are turnin’ like windmills.
    CATHERINE: But those guys look at all the girls, you know that.
    EDDIE: You ain’t “all the girls.”
    CATHERINE, almost in tears because he disapproves: What do you want me to do? You want me to—
    EDDIE : Now don’t get mad, kid.
    CATHERINE: Well, I don’t know what you want from me.
    EDDIE: Katie, I promised your mother on her death-bed. I’m responsible for you. You’re a baby, you don’t understand these things. I mean like when you stand here by the window, wavin’ outside.
    CATHERINE: I was wavin’ to Louis!
    EDDIE: Listen, I could tell you things about Louis which you wouldn’t wave to him no more.
    CATHERINE, trying to joke him out of his warning: Eddie, I wish there was one guy you couldn’t tell me things about!
    EDDIE: Catherine, do me a favor, will you? You’re gettin’ to be a big girl now, you gotta keep yourself more, you can’t be so friendly, kid. Calls: Hey, B., what’re you doin’ in there? To Catherine: Get her in here, will you? I got news for her.
    CATHERINE, starting out: What?
    EDDIE: Her cousins landed.
    CATHERINE, clapping her hands together: No! She turns instantly and starts for the kitchen. B.! Your cousins!
    Beatrice enters, wiping her hands with a towel.
    BEATRICE, in the face of Catherine’s shout: What?
    CATHERINE: Your cousins got in!
    BEATRICE, astounded, turns to Eddie: What are you talkin’ about? Where?
    EDDIE: I was just knockin’ off work before and Tony Bereli come over to me; he says the ship is in the North River.
    BEATRICE— her hands are clasped at her breast; she seems half in fear, half in unutterable joy: They’re all right?
    EDDIE: He didn’t see them yet, they’re still on board. But as soon as they get off he’ll meet them. He figures about ten o’clock they’ll be here.
    BEATRICE