Read Online A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur by Tennessee Williams - Free Book Online

later.
    [
Dorothea glances at her watch and the silent phone
.]
    DOROTHEA [
raising her voice
]: Bodey, please not quite so loud in there! Miss Brookmire and I are holding a conversation inhere, you know. [
She turns back to Helena and continues the conversation with an abrupt vehemence
.] —Helena , that woman wants to absorb my life like a blotter, and I’m not an ink splash! I’m sorry you had to meet her. I’m awfully—embarrassed , believe me.
    HELENA: I don’t regret it at all. I found her most amusing. Even the Gluck!
    DOROTHEA [
resuming with the same intensity
]: Bodey wants me to follow the same, same old routine that she follows day in and day out and I—feel sympathy for the loneliness of the girl, but we have nothing, nothing, but
nothing
at all, in common. [
She interrupts herself
.] Shall we have some coffee?
    HELENA: Yes, please. I do love iced coffee, but perhaps the ice is depleted.
    BODEY [
from the kitchenette
]: She knows darn well she used the last piece.
    HELENA: Is it still warm?
    [
Dorothea has risen and gone into the kitchenette where she pours two cups of coffee
.]
    DOROTHEA: It never cools off in this electric percolator, runs out, but never cools off. Do you take cream?
    HELENA: No, thank you.
    DOROTHEA [
bringing the coffee into the living room
]: Bodey does make very good coffee. I think she was born and raised in a kitchen and will probably die in a kitchen if ever she does break her routine that way.
    [
Bodey crosses to the kitchen table with Dorothea’s purseand hat which she has collected from the living room while Helena and Dorothea sip their coffee
.]
    BODEY : Dotty, remember, Buddy is waiting for us at the Creve Coeur station, we mustn’t let him think we’ve stood him up.
    DOROTHEA [
sighing
]: Excuse me, Helena, there really has been a terrible problem with communication today. [
She crosses to Bodey and adjusts her hearing aid for her
.] Can you hear me clearly, now at last?
    BODEY: You got something to tell me?
    DOROTHEA: Something I’ve told you already, frequently, loudly, and clearly, but which you simply will not admit because of your hostility toward Ralph Ellis. I’m waiting here to receive an important call from him, and I am not going anywhere till it’s come through.
    BODEY: Dotty. It’s past noon and he still hasn’t called.
    DOROTHEA: On Saturday evenings he’s out late at social affairs and consequently sleeps late on Sundays.
    BODEY: This late?
    HELENA: Miss Bodenhafer doesn’t know how the privileged classes live.
    BODEY: No, I guess not, we’re ignorant of the history of art, but Buddy and me, we’ve got a life going on, you understand, we got a life . . .
    DOROTHEA: Bodey, you know I’m sorry to disappoint your plans for the Creve Coeur picnic, but you must realize by now—after our conversation before Miss Brookmire dropped in—that I can’t allow this well-meant design of yours to get me involved with your brother to go any further. So that even if I were
not
expecting this important phone call, I would not go to Creve Coeur with you and your brother this afternoon—or ever! It wouldn’t be fair to your brother to, to—lead him on that way . . .
    BODEY: Well, I did fry up three chickens and I boiled a dozen eggs, but, well, that’s—
    HELENA: Life for you, Miss Bodenhafer. We’ve got to face it.
    BODEY: But I really was hoping—expecting—
    [
Tears appear in Bodey’s large, childlike eyes
.]
    HELENA: Dorothea, I believe she’s beginning to weep over this. Say something comforting to her.
    DOROTHEA: Bodey? Bodey? This afternoon you must break the news to your brother that—much as I appreciate his attentions—I am seriously involved with someone else, and I think you can do this without hurting his feelings. Let him have some beer first and a—cigar . . . . And about this super-abundance of chicken and deviled eggs, Bodey, why don’t you call some girl who works in your office and get her to go to Creve Coeur and enjoy the