Characters
DOLORES 35, a swimmer at the Puritan Health Club.
PHILIP 44, also a swimmer at the Puritan Health Club.
MR. BOUSH (BOOsh) 56, the owner and manager of the Puritan Health Club.
ELANA 21, MR. BOUCH’s assistant.
SCENE
A garishly furnished office in downtown Boston. It is dominated by a huge desk behind which sits Mr. Boush smoking a large cigar. He is hefty and wears his dark hair slicked back. We can see his white and blue striped shirt and wide white tie above the desk. His weightlifter shoulders stretch the seams of his shirt. In front of the desk Dolores and Philip each stand next to overstuffed leather chairs that face one another. Dolores wears tight-fitting blue jeans and a white blouse unbuttoned to expose mammaries spilling over a black bra. Her blond hair is partially wet and appears hastily combed back accentuating her narrow face and long nose. Philip is short, bald and flabby. He is naked except for a towel around his middle. We hear Frank Sinatra singing, “It’s quarter to three/There’s no one in the place except you and me/So set ’em up Joell’ve got a little story you ought to know/Were drinkin’ my friend, to the end of a brief episode/Make it one for my baby and one more for the road” as the lights go on.
Sinatra fades and we hear Chris Montez sing, “The more I see you/The more I want you” which ends abruptly as the characters speak.
DOLORES
I hope this won’t take long. I have things to do.
PHILIP
(in an inane, sing-song, voice): Places to go and things to do.
MR BOUSH
(barking) Have a seat - both of you. (to Philip): You! Are you some kind of wise guy? You know what’s good for you, you shut up and speak only when requested. (He has a trace of a Russian accent.) It’s true my father, Boris Bushky, was high up in the mob. The only way to make a decent living in those days. Drug trade, trafficking in Eastern European girls. But that’s all a thing of the past. What’s now is now. I change my name, in honor of our president - I don’t want to hear any criticism of our president - and give it a little French twist. Compre ne vous? I’m a legitimate business man. I can’t have this place getting a bad name. I can’t have lewd stuff happening here. You see the sign on the wall of the Jacuzzi? It says no inappropriate behavior. Now, madame, if you will, tell us in your own words exactly what happened.
DOLORES
(Stands up and slinks a few slow steps in a burlesque of taking the stand): Those who are connoisseurs of art have compared me to Madame Pierre Gautreau, the model for John Singer Sargent famous Madame - in particular my nose, which, as you can see (she tilts her head up lifts an arm in a wave past her nose) is… indeed… unusual. This man… (turns toward the defendant with a sneer) if you can call him a man, stole a look, if you know what I mean, and I think, Mr. Boush, you know what I mean.
MR. BOUSH
“You mean?”
DOLORES
(nodding her head feverishly): Uh huh, uh huh.
MR. BOUSH
(staring at her breasts). He looked at, if you’ll pardon my using the term, your tetons.
DOLORES
(with a French accent): Non, non! (She clenches her fists, churns them in the air and stamps her feet). Oh why doesn’t anyone understand? Why must I endure this?
MR. BOUSH
(raises his head quickly so that his eyes are in line with her head): Madame, my heart goes out to you. I feel your pain…
DOLORES
(partially turning toward the audience and lifting her arms entreatingly): But you don’t understand, do you? You basically don’t get what I mean.
MR. BOUSH
(trying unsuccessfully to sound earnest): Madame, I understand. But my understanding could increase if… if you said more. More about the subject of what took place at the swimming pool a few minutes ago.
DOLORES
I was standing at the edge of the pool, about to jump in, to swim laps, as I am accustomed to doing three times a week at your excellent facility, Mr. Boush. This person, the one sitting across from you, wearing no more than a towel, was no more than ten feet away, swimming the breast stroke, approaching the end of his lane, which was the lane next to my lane. His head was out of the water. But it did not bob right down again, which as you know, Mr. Boush, is routine for the breast stroke. It remained above the surface of the water and the eyes were fixed on my middle section, on the middle of my middle section.
MR. BOUSH
I take it you do not mean your navel.
DOLORES
I was wearing a one piece bathing suit, so you could not see my navel. But I do not mean my navel. I mean lower.
MR. BOUSH
(with heightened interest): Somewhere that was not covered by the bathing suit?
DOLORES
Kind of at the lower margin of the bathing suit.
MR. BOUSH
(more enlivened): At the side? Hip joint?
DOLORES
Lower down.
MR. BOUSH
Ankles?
DOLORES
Higher up.
MR. BOUSH
Your petula?
DOLORES
My what?
MR. BOUSH
That’s what my mother called it.
DOLORES
(partially addressing the audience). Never heard that one before. Fibula? Patella? (turns back toward Boush). Well, what would you call it? Assuming you’re acquainted with the subject. (adds on): You have children?
MR. BOUSH
Chichester, Winchester and Colt. But I… you’re not being clear.
DOLORES
You’ve heard of the bearded lady?
MR BOUSH
Not really. At the circus?
DOLORES
Lady Jane?
MR. BOUSH
British? Sounds British.
DOLORES
Bikini land?
MR. BOUSH
South Pacific? Atomic bomb?
DOLORES
(getting exasperated): How about The Gates of Hell.
MR. BOUSH
(flagging somewhat): Old Testament or New?
DOLORES
(loses control and screams): Is this real? Am I in somebody’s nightmare? (Recovering her composure she breathes the words softly): With all due respect, Sir, a breakdown in communication has occurred. I don’t have what you have.
MR. BOUSH
(with genuine surprise): You don’t! But, of course. (reassuring but deferential): It takes time. You have to save up to buy a Mercedes like me. What do you have? A BMW. That’s okay. Or an Audi. Audi is good.
PHILIP
(listening attentively with tightly pursed lips, can restrain himself no longer.); She is talking about her crotch. She’s saying I took a crotch shot.
MR. BOUSH
I’m totally against gun control. It’s unconstitutional.
PHILIP
She’s accusing me of an impropriety I didn’t take. My head above water for a split second. I was vaguely aware of a female formed edge of the pool.
DOLORES
You lie. You stopped and lost your rhythm. You stared right at me.
MR. BOUSH
Let’s hear his version.
PHILIP
Not a shot, not a shot. I had goggles on. They were foggy. Maybe my line of gaze was directed at her swimsuit, but I saw nothing, nothing at all.
MR. BOUSH
What I have is a lining in my swimming trunks. You can’t see through it. (addressing Dolores): What do you have?
DOLORES
I have a lining too. But I’m not talking about seeing what’s underneath. I’m talking about looking at the outerwear and imagining things. This is all about a lecherous imagination.
MR. BOUSH
I hate imagination. People imagine I’m in the Mafia. I’m legit. No hanky panky massages at my club. My wife is from solid Yankee stock. No prostitutes, you hear?
PHILIP
I’m freezing. Could I at least have a robe?
MR. BOUSH
(on the intercom): Elana, bring us a bathrobe… any size… now.
PHILIP
(arms crossed, waiting ostentatiously, hums): Out of your arms and into my dreams…
DOLORES
(rises from her chair as if she had heard a call from above): Rodgers and Hammerstein, The waltz. Hear it? (She waltzes): One two three, one two three. Julie Andrews. (rurns to Philip): Wasn’t she grand?
PHILIP
Magnificent. (He sings accompanied by music from offstage): It’s a grand night for singing… Was it State Fair?
DOLORES
(excitedly): Yes, yes, I think so. Certainly a Rodger’s waltz.
PHILIP
(singing again with musical accompaniment) Falling in love with her is playing with make believe…
ELANA
(She dances on stage carrying a white bathrobe. She is slender, wearing black leotards and presents the bathrobe to Philip with a flourish and a bow): Your robe.
PHILIP
(He puts on the robe with Elana’s help, strides over to Elana and they dance together): This is more like it. (He sings with accompaniment): If I loved you, time and again I would try to say, all I would want you to know Julie Jordan.
DOLORES
And you’re Billy Bigelow.
PHILIP
Who wrote I Got a Gal from Kalamazoo?
DOLORES
(sings): A, B, C, D, E, F; G. H, I gotta gal from Kalamazoo / Don’t wanna boast but she is the toast of Kalamazoo… Harry Warren. Who wrote (sings): In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening…
PHILIP
Hoagy, Hoagy Carmichael.
ELANA
You guys are great!
MR. BOUSH
(bored and dejected): It’s all been downhill since Anna K.
ELANA
Tolstoy was envious of his chauffeur. The chauffeur wrote love poems to the scullery maid. In a jealous rage he wrote Anna Karenina… (Curtain descends while she is monologuing.)