intern play - second draft
Here is the second draft first half of the second draft of the play i am writing. The title is now gravesongs.
All the parts are complete, meaning they all have a beginning, middle, and end. The only part that i'm planning on doing significant changes to is the murder monologue (grace). I don't think i'm going to add any more parts.
Comments, etc are always welcome.
A GRAVESTONE sits on her knees. TALIA lies with her head resting in the GRAVESTONE’s lap.
TALIA: My grandmother told me once: “There are three things in life that we expect to be beautiful, meaningful occurrences. Birth, death, and losing your virginity. But they never turn out the way you think they should.” My own birth, as my mother loved to remind me, was supposed to take place at home. There was a doula, I think her name was Alexandra, that my mom selected after researching and interviewing like a dozen different women. There was this lovely little corner picked out for the occasion. It’s actually still there, not much different, with huge soft pillows piled up and a charming, peaceful view over our wooded backyard, everything strategically placed to create the most optimal atmosphere for giving life. Those are the words my mother uses when she talks about this. Unfortunately for her birth plan, I arrived two weeks early via emergency C-section. The hospital had a view of the parking garage they were building across the street, but I was given life all the same.
As for my virginity, well, that’s another story for another play. Suffice it to say that it did NOT take place on a bed of white linen in a New England cottage with birds twittering outside the window.
Then there’s my death. Whenever I thought about it, if I thought about it at all, I was a good ninety, ninety-five years old. On a bed…on white linen in a New England cottage, actually. I wonder what that means. Anyway, I was always very old, dying of that non-specific ailment, old age, surrounded by children and grandchildren and maybe a loyal old dog at the foot of the bed. It was always after a full life. It was always soft and clean with someone’s hand in mine. I always always got to say goodbye.
When you are twenty-three years old, you never imagine your death coming when you are carrying a box of paint up your dirty stairs to your dirty apartment. If you imagine dying young at all, it is always to some rare cancer or some huge, spectacular car crash. It’s never because of a piece of loose carpet on your dirty stairs. You never consider what it might feel like to feel your center of gravity shifting as your box of paints presses against your chest heavier than you realized, to feel your feet sliding out from under you, to fall backwards so quickly you don’t even have time to grab the railing yet so slowly, you can almost count the ceiling tiles as they pass above you.
I died in a stairwell, of blunt force trauma to the head. (She places a hand on her head, in the same place a fontanel would be on an infant.)
They buried my body here, and here my body lies, under this gravestone. My mother always told me I would go to heaven. I have one friend from college that would say I would be reincarnated. The Jehovah’s Witnesses that came to our door sometimes said I would be resurrected. None of them really knew. They just expected these things. They all think that what happens after death, what is happening to me, right now, is a beautiful, meaningful occurrence. But these things never turn out the way you think they should.
~***~
ELLIE is working on the corpse’s makeup. TARA comes in to help her with the hair so ELLIE can leave earlier.
TARA: Hey, Ellie, you almost done?
ELLIE: This is my last one for the day.
TARA: You almost finished with it?
ELLIE: Sort of. The hair’s going to take me a while. They want it in this kind of up-do. They gave me a prom picture.
TARA: Let me see. (She takes the picture.) If my parents wanted me to look like my prom picture at my funeral, I think I would come back to life just so I could die again of embarrassment.
ELLIE: I looked damn cute at my prom. Hand me that foundation brush. Hey, how was karaoke last night?
TARA: Seriously, be glad you didn’t come. It sucked. First of all, Leo lost his phone like as soon as we got there. So we spent half the time looking for it.
ELLIE: I am not surprised.
TARA: And then there was this group of girls there, and those bitches stole our table when we got up to go to the bar. I was like what the hell.
ELLIE: Rude.
TARA: I know, right? And then they kept singing all these really old songs, like anybody wanted to hear that. I hate them. I hope they die.
ELLIE: You’re right, I am glad I missed that.
TARA: I know you are. Anyway. This doesn’t look too hard. You want me to do the hair while you do the makeup? I got an A on up-dos at beauty school.
ELLIE: Oh my god, yes. Here. (Hands TARA the hair stuff.)
TARA: I do not want to be late to this party. Are you wearing that shirt?
ELLIE: No, I have a top and pants in my car. I don’t want to smell like formaldehyde all night.
TARA: The red top?
ELLIE: Nah, the green one with the, like, flower thing on the neck?
TARA: You look cute in that. I shouldn’t smell, right? Just doing the hair real quick?
ELLIE: It’s fine.
TARA: This is a cute-ass shirt right here.
ELLIE: I know, right? I seriously thought about ganking it but it’s going to be an open casket.
TARA: What the hell. They’re just going to bury it anyway.
ELLIE: Burn it, actually. Cremation.
TARA: That sucks. See if you can sneak into the crematorium and steal the shirt before they shove her in.
ELLIE: Can’t. We’ve got a party to go to tonight.
TARA: So true. I don’t even really want to go, but I think Aaron’s gonna be there.
ELLIE: So? Aaron is a douchebag.
TARA: What the hell? No he isn’t.
ELLIE: Yes he is. For one, he wears those douchey hats. For two, what is the deal with his beard? It goes up to like his eyes. For three, last week I ran into him and Joanne at the bar.
TARA: Ugh, I hate that bitch. I already know this story’s going to be terrible.
ELLIE: She wasn’t that bad, actually. It was all him. She was telling me about her job at her salon and like, how she had to shampoo this three-year old that kept wiggling around and she accidentally got soap in the little girl’s eye. And she said, “At least you don’t have that problem at your job.” Which was a little bit bitchy but not really, you know? But then Aaron had to start going off about how gross it was that I touched dead people all day and how if he was my boyfriend he’d never be able to touch me without thinking about it and all this stuff.
TARA: Oh fuck off! You should have said that you’d rather touch dead bodies than his greasy ass any day.
ELLIE: I know, I thought of something like that like ten minutes after I left.
TARA: It’s not like it matters, anyway. I mean, he went to beauty school too. And what do we work on in beauty school? Hair, skin and nails. All of which are already dead.
ELLIE: Oh man, I should have said that to him. That’s really good.
TARA: Anyway, you’re making more money here than he’s making in his grandmother’s basement salon. That place has the shittiest ventilation.
ELLIE: And I will always have clients.
TARA: No repeat clients though.
They snicker.
ELLIE: Oh shit you almost made me spit out my gum. Oh my god! Did I tell you what happened last week?
TARA: I don’t want to hear this story, do I?
ELLIE: No but I’m going to tell it anyway. Okay so last week I was applying lip liner to this woman for an open casket. Her lips were kind of a weird shape so I got really close trying to get it right. The pencil pulling at her mouth sort of opened it up, and the second they did, my gum falls right out of my mouth and lands directly into her mouth. Right into this dead old lady’s mouth.
TARA: That is the most fucked-up thing I have ever heard.
ELLIE: I know, right?
TARA: Did you get it out?
ELLIE: Hell no I was not going to go fishing around in a corpse’s mouth. I mean, hair and makeup is one thing, but that is something else entirely.
TARA: So what did you do?
ELLIE: I just left it in there.
TARA: During the whole funeral she had your gum in her mouth? What the hell! Did anyone notice?
ELLIE: I hope not. I didn’t get in trouble or anything so I assume nobody saw. Besides, how messed up would you have to be to get that close to your dead grandma to see inside her mouth?
TARA: Truth, truth.
ELLIE: She’s buried, too, not cremated. So my gum is somewhere in a cemetery in some lady’s mouth I never met.
TARA: That shit never biodegrades, either. Your gum is going to be with her longer than her heart. Hey, if they ever have to dig her up later, like if they suspect she was murdered or something and need evidence, your DNA is going to be on her person.
ELLIE: Uh oh.
TARA: Yeah! They should totally make a CSI episode about that.
ELLIE: She was like eighty or ninety something. No one suspects murder of people that old.
TARA: Have you ever worked on somebody here that was murdered?
ELLIE: I don’t know.
TARA: You don’t know? They don’t tell you the cause of death?
ELLIE: They told me how the first person died. After that I told them not to tell me anymore.
TARA: Why not?
ELLIE: I don’t know. I just don’t want to know.
TARA: Did the first person die in a really gruesome way or something?
ELLIE: No. It was just a heart attack. The woman was really old. I just…didn’t want to know any more after that. I mean, I’m supposed to be making them look like they’re still alive. How can I do that if I’m sitting here for hours knowing exactly how they died?
TARA: Fair enough. I’d still want to know, though, if I worked here. Think of all the stories you could tell.
ELLIE: People already don’t want to talk to me because I work at a funeral home. Can you imagine if I went around all the time telling stories about how somebody’s next door neighbor died of liver disease and how I had to choose the perfect shade of foundation to mask the signs of jaundice?
TARA: What are you talking about? That’s an awesome story. You should tell that to Aaron at the party tonight.
ELLIE: Anyway I wouldn’t have many good stories to tell. Everyone that comes in here is a hundred years old and died of ancientness.
TARA: Not this one.
They look at the dead body as if for the first time.
ELLIE: You’re right. This one is really young.
TARA: Like our age.
ELLIE: No, not our age. Older, right?
TARA: How should I know? You know, I bet the death was covered in the paper. My dad left one in the car. I’m going to go get it.
ELLIE: No, Tara! We don’t have time for that. Just finish the hair and let’s go.
TARA: It’ll only take a second!
TARA exits.
ELLIE: No, just forget about it! I told you I don’t want to know! Tara! God, she left strands of hair sticking up everywhere.
She repairs the up-do until TARA returns.
TARA: Okay, look! I found it. The picture in the paper is the same one you’ve got taped up over there.
ELLIE: You left hair sticking up everywhere.
TARA: You want to know the name?
ELLIE: No. I want you to fix this travesty of an up-do.
TARA: I got age and cause of death.
ELLIE: Look, the top is lumpy.
TARA: You were right. A year older than us.
ELLIE: Tara, will you quit? I told you I didn’t want to know.
TARA: What’s the difference? You’re almost done anyway. Oh man, listen to this: Killed in that five-car pileup that happened during that huge rainstorm. You actually could tell this story at the party; Terrence’s brother is an EMT and he was called to that accident. Says here “survived by mother, father, two brothers…”
TARA is interrupted by ELLIE gently taking the newspaper from her hands and tossing it away.
What the hell?
ELLIE: Look, can you just sit down and finish this hairstyle so we can go to the party? Please?
TARA: All right, all right. Sorry.
ELLIE: Thank you.
They work in silence for a moment. ELLIE takes her gum out of her mouth and throws it away.
TARA: I guess if I died next year, I wouldn’t want two girls I never met talking at a party about how I died. Or rushing through my hair and makeup so they wouldn’t be late.
ELLIE: It doesn’t look rushed.
They are finished. TARA casually puts away the hair and makeup items but ELLIE can’t stop looking at the corpse’s face.
TARA: No it doesn’t look rushed. Looks great, actually.
ELLIE: She looks beautiful.
They exit.
~***~
A GRAVESTONE sits on her knees. MARYAM lies comfortably with her head on the GRAVESTONE’s lap. A VISITOR approaches the pair and hands the GRAVESTONE a small stone before exiting. MARYAM and the GRAVESTONE admire the stone together. MARYAM smiles up at the GRAVESTONE before addressing the audience.
MARYAM: They buried me in holy ground. They sang Psalms over me and ripped their clothes. They covered me with consecrated soil, one by one, three shovelfuls at a time. One, two, three. One, two, three. They buried me here, in this peaceful, holy place. Sometimes they come and say prayers over me. Sometimes they come and leave these little stones for me. Look at my stones. You must admit, they last longer than flowers. I lie here while they leave them and say nothing.
I don’t want to believe it’s wrong. I’ve been a good person. Listen: I volunteered at the soup kitchen four times. I’ve never raised my hand against anyone in my entire life. When Kara Jennings offered me the answers to the final history exam in eighth grade, I didn’t take them.
But then again. I did smoke pot in college. And there was that time I rear-ended a Buick trying to move out of a parking space. I left a dent but no note. Premarital sex. Postmarital non-husband sex. I picked my nose in public.
Still, I can’t have been the only one. Even the holiest of ground is filled with sins. But I suppose it isn’t just those sins, is it? It’s the Sabbath. It’s meat and milk. It’s my mother.
They buried me in holy ground. I want to belong here but I do not. I’m not even Jewish.
~***~
KATHERINE, GRETA, LAURIE, BIANCA & SUE-ELLEN are at a funeral.
BIANCA: We finally get to meet your boyfriend, and it’s at his funeral. Typical.
KATHERINE: You know I always wait until the last minute for everything.
GRETA: Shouldn’t we be seated farther back? Shouldn’t these seats be for, you know, family?
KATHERINE: It’s festival seating, my dear. First come, first serve. These are the best seats in the house.
BIANCA: I’m surprised we’re here so early. I would have thought you would want to make a grander entrance than this, Kath.
KATHERINE: I was torn between sweeping in fashionably late, entourage in tow, or showing up before his wife.
BIANCA: Don’t call us your entourage. We’re here for moral support.
GRETA: I wouldn’t go throwing around the word “moral” like that.
SUE-ELLEN: You mean she’s not here yet? The wife?
KATHERINE: Oh, you won’t miss her when she comes in. She’s an absolute troll.
SUE-ELLEN: You’ve met her?
KATHERINE: We haven’t traded recipes for muffins or anything, but I’ve made her acquaintance.
BIANCA: You’ve met the wifey? You’re an absolute slut, Kath.
KATHERINE: It was strategic. I had to know what I was up against.
BIANCA: Married or not, I’m still appalled you didn’t introduce him before. I mean, we’re your best friends!
KATHERINE: Well, there he is, ladies. May I formally introduce you to Mr. Charles F. Barrowcliff, CEO of Barrowcliff Industries, before his untimely death.
LAURIE: He doesn’t really look like your type. I haven’t known you to go after the balding ones.
GRETA: It doesn’t matter what the top of their heads look like; it’s the inside of the wallet that counts.
KATHERINE: Greta! You wound me. I admit I like the classier types, but there’s never a dearth of love and adoration. I simply doted on Charles.
LAURIE: You were with him for longer than anyone else I’ve known about.
KATHERINE: Two years.
SUE-ELLEN: And all that time we never met him.
KATHERINE: It’s not that I didn’t want to show him to you darlings. You know how it is with married men. They’ve always got to rush off to the wife or take some kid to dance class. He simply wasn’t available for our little cocktail parties.
BIANCA: Speaking of which, when are we going to meet your new fling, Laurie love?
LAURIE: Oh! I don’t know if I should make introductions very soon, or wait until I have full ownership. The relationship’s still on loan.
GRETA: They never leave the spouse, Laurie. They never ever do.
LAURIE: You’re probably right. I know you’re right! But promises were made. I was told the spouse problem would be taken care of soon.
GRETA: Soon! Hmph! You keep clinging to nebulous time frames and empty hopes.
KATHERINE: Oh shut up Greta. You’re just bitter because we’re getting laid and you’re not.
GRETA: I may not be getting laid, but at least my lover isn’t being laid out.
BIANCA: That’s some terrible wordplay, Greta. Not to mention tacky. I mean, the man is right there.
KATHERINE: Poor Charles. He never once told me he was going to leave his wife. He was very upfront about that. You have got to admire an honest man.
BIANCA: Indeed.
KATHERINE: Oh, my Charlie! Doesn’t he look peaceful lying there?
BIANCA: He looks like someone put on his makeup with their eyes closed.
SUE-ELLEN: Is he wearing makeup?
BIANCA: Oh yes dear, it’s all the rage amongst corpses these days. Greta, hand me your compact. (GRETA does.) Do you see that line of foundation along his jawline? Somebody forgot to blend.
BIANCA takes the pad from the compact and blends. GRETA is horrified and refuses to take back the compact. BIANCA ends up slipping it into GRETA’s bag at some point during the scene.
SUE-ELLEN: That’s much more natural. Good job.
BIANCA: Thank you.
LAURIE: Uh-oh, the family members are starting to sit down.
BIANCA: Hunker down, ladies. We’re getting the stink-eye from Granny over there.
SUE-ELLEN: Who’s the one in the purple tie? Do you know him, Kath?
KATHERINE: The one giving us the finger? Oh yes, that’s Charlie’s brother, Jon. He’s an investment banker. Never met him directly, but Charlie told me a fair bit about him.
SUE-ELLEN: Is he married?
KATHERINE: It doesn’t matter, honey. Did you not hear me say he’s an investment banker?
SUE-ELLEN: Is it poor etiquette to ask for somebody’s number at his brother’s funeral?
BIANCA: Hell no! Go for it, girl. But I’d wait until after the burial.
KATHERINE: You were always one for decorum, Bianca.
BIANCA: Funerals are excellent places to find men. I met Doug at one. Remember him? I think it was his sister’s funeral? It might have been his mother’s. Anyway, they’re perfect because emotions are running high, everyone’s looking for arms to rest in for comfort…and black is so flattering.
KATHERINE: I just bought this black dress. I was going to wear it for our two-year anniversary dinner. I had no idea I would end up wearing it at his funeral.
BIANCA: That’s one of the downfalls of dating older men. You never know when they’re going to poop out on you.
KATHERINE: My Charlie was a strong, healthy man. He was a 60 year old in a 40 year old’s body.
BIANCA: Delicious.
GRETA: He doesn’t look that healthy to me.
BIANCA: How did the darling die, Kath dear?
KATHERINE: I don’t know. The coroner wouldn’t tell me. The papers are saying heart failure but I know for a fact that Charlie had a heart like an ox.
SUE-ELLEN: Enlarged?
KATHERINE: Strong. I mean it was strong. Never had a problem with it a day in his life.
BIANCA: Well that’s odd.
GRETA has taken out a rosary and started muttering prayers on each bead. BIANCA slaps the rosary out of GRETA’s hand.
For crying out loud, Greta. This is a Methodist church.
GRETA: I think you all need a little Jesus.
BIANCA: Well I think you need a little-
KATHERINE: Save it, ladies. A worthier target has just entered the room.
BIANCA: The wifey?
KATHERINE: The devil herself.
THEY all turn and watch the wife enter the room. LAURIE is suddenly very uncomfortable.
LAURIE: Why didn’t you tell me he was married to Isabella Corthington?
SUE-ELLEN: Of the chip-dip fortune? That’s her?
KATHERINE: Why does it matter?
LAURIE: Remember that new fling I was telling you about? Well.
BIANCA: Laurie! You and Isabella Corthington? Why, bravo my dear! She’s Oprah-level rich. I’m green with envy!
SUE-ELLEN: But Bianca, you don’t even like women.
BIANCA: For Isabella Corthington, I’ll eat a mile of carpet.
GRETA: Bianca! I’m sure Laurie does not appreciate your language.
KATHERINE: Who are you people? Are we all missing the point? Who cares about Bianca’s language? Laurie is sleeping with my dead boyfriend’s wife! How did this happen?
LAURIE: I was one of the caterers at some fundraiser dinner.
BIANCA: And you bagged a billionaire? I’m in the wrong business.
LAURIE: Oh my god, she’s looking this way. Hide me. Give me that scarf. Do you think she saw?
GRETA: I actually think she was too distracted by Katherine to see you.
SUE-ELLEN: Oh my god, awkward.
KATHERINE: What are you talking about? This is marvelous. Now if she says anything to me about homewrecking or whatever, I have something to say to her.
LAURIE: No! I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about us. You’ll ruin everything.
BIANCA: This is possibly the worst conundrum a woman could come up against. Do you use your powerful knowledge to bring down your enemy, or do you keep the secret so as to protect your friend’s relationship? A relationship with a billionaire, no less. Kath, I’d keep my damn mouth shut if I were you.
KATHERINE: But it’s too perfect.
BIANCA: You’re right, it is! Augh! I would never be able to make a decision. This funeral has gotten too intense for me. I won’t make it much longer without a drink.
And with that, BIANCA pulls an entire bottle of wine from her purse along with a stack of plastic cups. SHE pours everyone a drink.
SUE-ELLEN: You’re a doll. To you, Charles. Rest in peace.
THEY drink to Charles.
KATHERINE: Okay, Laurie, I won’t say anything as long as she doesn’t say anything to me. You better keep your woman in check.
LAURIE: No, no, she can’t know I’m here.
SUE-ELLEN: Ooh, I’ve got a pair of sunglasses. Here.
BIANCA: They totally work. And they’re fierce.
LAURIE: She made me promise to stay away from her in public places until she worked out her husband situation.
KATHERINE: What do you mean? Did she say she was going to leave Charles? He never said anything about trouble with Isabella.
LAURIE: Well, no, she never actually said she was going to leave him.
GRETA: They never leave their spouses. Never. Maybe this is what she meant by “working out the husband situation.” (indicates the coffin)
BIANCA: I love a good murder for passion! Tell us how she did it, Greta. Was it in the conservatory with the lead pipe?
GRETA: You’re hilarious. Why don’t you ever take me seriously?
BIANCA: You watch three episodes of CSI a day, and four different kinds of Law and Order. Do you really expect me to take you seriously?
GRETA: Those shows are based on real events, you know. It’s very educational.
BIANCA: You don’t say. Speaking of real events, I want to know more about Isabella Corthington. Tell me something I can’t find out on Page Six!
LAURIE: Shh! What if she overhears?
KATHERINE: She can’t hear anything with Mama Barrowcliff wailing in her ear.
BIANCA: The only one who can hear us is old man Charlie over there, and the dead don’t talk. Come on, Laurie. Is she really as eccentric as they say? Does she really collect the fur from her shedding dogs and have bedroom slippers made? Does she make all her servants enter the room backwards?
GRETA: Does she have toilet paper made of silkworm silk?
BIANCA: Why Greta.
GRETA: What? I read it in Star. In the line at the grocery. Everybody reads in line at the grocery.
LAURIE: People always make up the most ridiculous stuff. None of that is true. Although…
BIANCA & GRETA: Although?
LAURIE: She does have this bizarre fetish.
BIANCA: Wait. Don’t tell me. Write it down and sell it to a trashy tabloid.
LAURIE: Really?
BIANCA: No of course not really. Tell me immediately.
LAURIE: Well, she’s got this thing about…peanuts.
SUE-ELLEN: Peanuts? Like salted and roasted?
LAURIE: Honey-roasted, even.
SUE-ELLEN: Wow.
GRETA: What do you mean, peanuts? How is that a kink?
BIANCA: Don’t get too X-rated, Laurie. We are in a church.
LAURIE: No, no, it’s not like…what I’m sure you’re thinking. She just likes to have peanuts around the bedroom. She has me tuck them in the pillowcases, sprinkle them under the bed, she even told me to tie them to the chandelier. She can’t get off without them.
BIANCA: Peanuts, you say? Never heard that one before, but who knows? Maybe she’s on to something. Forget tabloids, sell this one to Cosmo.
KATHERINE: Are you telling me that Isabella covered her bedroom in peanuts?
LAURIE: I got cashews once but it didn’t have the same effect.
KATHERINE: Charles was deathly allergic to peanuts. I’ve gone two years without a Reese’s cup because of him.
GRETA: What did I tell you? Never mock CSI again!
SUE-ELLEN: What do you mean?
GRETA: Isn’t it obvious? It’s the perfect crime. Isabella needs Charles out of the way. Divorce is too uncivilized and besides, the man’s worth a mint. She can’t kill him in the obvious ways: jail is hell on the complexion. So she does what any rich person worthy of their wealth is best at: she gets creative.
SUE-ELLEN: Ooh.
BIANCA: Oh please.
GRETA: Listen! Isabella convinces her lover-that’s you, Laurie-that she needs peanuts spread around the room for the best lovemaking possible. Her lover-
LAURIE: Me.
GRETA: Yes we’ve established that. Her lover, eager to oblige as any good lover would-
LAURIE: Why, thank you.
GRETA: Hush! Her lover scatters the peanuts as requested. Isabella knows two things: that her husband is deathly allergic to peanuts, and that peanuts are very small things. Impossible to keep track of when they’re spread all over a room.
SUE-ELLEN: So Isabella Corthington killed her husband by booby-trapping his bedroom with peanuts!
GRETA: I was about to say that!
SUE-ELLEN: Oh my god, it’s perfect. Isabella couldn’t be blamed because it was Laurie who spread the peanuts. And Laurie couldn’t be blamed because she didn’t know anything about Charles’s allergy!
GRETA: Who’s telling this story here?
BIANCA: Oh stop. You’re turning a harmless sex kink into premeditated murder.
LAURIE: It can’t be. Izzy would never kill her husband.
BIANCA: “Izzy”? Ugh. That will stop during this conversation.
LAURIE: Well, she wouldn’t. She always made me clean up the peanuts after…well, you know. She watched me very carefully. Not a peanut went unswept.
GRETA: I’m telling you! Isabella had you hide peanuts so her husband would accidentally on purpose come across one and die unexpectedly!
KATHERINE: Impossible. Charles couldn’t have died from a rogue bedroom peanut. He was with me when he died.
A general gasp.
BIANCA: You certainly never told us that!
KATHERINE: It’s the truth. Garfield Suites room 1142. Our room. That’s right. That’s why I deserve to sit right here in this front row. She may have had his ring, but is heart was with me the day he died.
SUE-ELLEN: Why, darling, that’s awful!
BIANCA: You’re right; it’s simply tragic that she didn’t tell her friends earlier.
KATHERINE: I didn’t know where to begin. It all happened so fast. One minute we were rolling around on the ground, laughing, the next---I just don’t know. We were just about to go out to the pool. He was rubbing me with suntan lotion, I was showing him all the places he’d missed, when suddenly he just…
KATHERINE makes a collapsing movement with her hand.
LAURIE: Did you say suntan lotion?
KATHERINE: Yes…
LAURIE: Not Couteûx Bleu Hand-Blended Sun Lotion imported from Nice?
KATHERINE: How the hell did you know that?
LAURIE: That’s Izzy’s-uh, Isabella’s suntan lotion. She ordered it specifically for our trip to Fernando de Noronha.
BIANCA: Oh, she’s taking you to Fernando de Noronha? I drip with envy.
LAURIE: I’ll bring you back something.
BIANCA: You’re a gem.
LAURIE: Anyway, I’ve been looking for that bottle of lotion for days. You’re saying that Charles had it?
KATHERINE: He died clutching that bottle of lotion in one hand, my body in another.
SUE-ELLEN: Ooh.
LAURIE: Because I had, um, put a little surprise in the bottle for Izzy.
GRETA: You don’t mean…
LAURIE: I just thought it would be kind of romantic, you know? Open up the bottle of lotion on a secluded beach, I go to pour some on her back and some peanuts fall out.
BIANCA: That does sound hot.
KATHERINE: Peanuts? You put peanuts in the lotion?
LAURIE: I didn’t know Charles was going to take it!
SUE-ELLEN: That means…Laurie’s the killer.
LAURIE: What?
GRETA: Unbelievable.
BIANCA: I told you it was just a sex kink!
~***~
EDIT: LJ claims my post is too large. Screw you LiveJournal. Here is the second half.
Thanks for reading!
All the parts are complete, meaning they all have a beginning, middle, and end. The only part that i'm planning on doing significant changes to is the murder monologue (grace). I don't think i'm going to add any more parts.
Comments, etc are always welcome.
A GRAVESTONE sits on her knees. TALIA lies with her head resting in the GRAVESTONE’s lap.
TALIA: My grandmother told me once: “There are three things in life that we expect to be beautiful, meaningful occurrences. Birth, death, and losing your virginity. But they never turn out the way you think they should.” My own birth, as my mother loved to remind me, was supposed to take place at home. There was a doula, I think her name was Alexandra, that my mom selected after researching and interviewing like a dozen different women. There was this lovely little corner picked out for the occasion. It’s actually still there, not much different, with huge soft pillows piled up and a charming, peaceful view over our wooded backyard, everything strategically placed to create the most optimal atmosphere for giving life. Those are the words my mother uses when she talks about this. Unfortunately for her birth plan, I arrived two weeks early via emergency C-section. The hospital had a view of the parking garage they were building across the street, but I was given life all the same.
As for my virginity, well, that’s another story for another play. Suffice it to say that it did NOT take place on a bed of white linen in a New England cottage with birds twittering outside the window.
Then there’s my death. Whenever I thought about it, if I thought about it at all, I was a good ninety, ninety-five years old. On a bed…on white linen in a New England cottage, actually. I wonder what that means. Anyway, I was always very old, dying of that non-specific ailment, old age, surrounded by children and grandchildren and maybe a loyal old dog at the foot of the bed. It was always after a full life. It was always soft and clean with someone’s hand in mine. I always always got to say goodbye.
When you are twenty-three years old, you never imagine your death coming when you are carrying a box of paint up your dirty stairs to your dirty apartment. If you imagine dying young at all, it is always to some rare cancer or some huge, spectacular car crash. It’s never because of a piece of loose carpet on your dirty stairs. You never consider what it might feel like to feel your center of gravity shifting as your box of paints presses against your chest heavier than you realized, to feel your feet sliding out from under you, to fall backwards so quickly you don’t even have time to grab the railing yet so slowly, you can almost count the ceiling tiles as they pass above you.
I died in a stairwell, of blunt force trauma to the head. (She places a hand on her head, in the same place a fontanel would be on an infant.)
They buried my body here, and here my body lies, under this gravestone. My mother always told me I would go to heaven. I have one friend from college that would say I would be reincarnated. The Jehovah’s Witnesses that came to our door sometimes said I would be resurrected. None of them really knew. They just expected these things. They all think that what happens after death, what is happening to me, right now, is a beautiful, meaningful occurrence. But these things never turn out the way you think they should.
~***~
ELLIE is working on the corpse’s makeup. TARA comes in to help her with the hair so ELLIE can leave earlier.
TARA: Hey, Ellie, you almost done?
ELLIE: This is my last one for the day.
TARA: You almost finished with it?
ELLIE: Sort of. The hair’s going to take me a while. They want it in this kind of up-do. They gave me a prom picture.
TARA: Let me see. (She takes the picture.) If my parents wanted me to look like my prom picture at my funeral, I think I would come back to life just so I could die again of embarrassment.
ELLIE: I looked damn cute at my prom. Hand me that foundation brush. Hey, how was karaoke last night?
TARA: Seriously, be glad you didn’t come. It sucked. First of all, Leo lost his phone like as soon as we got there. So we spent half the time looking for it.
ELLIE: I am not surprised.
TARA: And then there was this group of girls there, and those bitches stole our table when we got up to go to the bar. I was like what the hell.
ELLIE: Rude.
TARA: I know, right? And then they kept singing all these really old songs, like anybody wanted to hear that. I hate them. I hope they die.
ELLIE: You’re right, I am glad I missed that.
TARA: I know you are. Anyway. This doesn’t look too hard. You want me to do the hair while you do the makeup? I got an A on up-dos at beauty school.
ELLIE: Oh my god, yes. Here. (Hands TARA the hair stuff.)
TARA: I do not want to be late to this party. Are you wearing that shirt?
ELLIE: No, I have a top and pants in my car. I don’t want to smell like formaldehyde all night.
TARA: The red top?
ELLIE: Nah, the green one with the, like, flower thing on the neck?
TARA: You look cute in that. I shouldn’t smell, right? Just doing the hair real quick?
ELLIE: It’s fine.
TARA: This is a cute-ass shirt right here.
ELLIE: I know, right? I seriously thought about ganking it but it’s going to be an open casket.
TARA: What the hell. They’re just going to bury it anyway.
ELLIE: Burn it, actually. Cremation.
TARA: That sucks. See if you can sneak into the crematorium and steal the shirt before they shove her in.
ELLIE: Can’t. We’ve got a party to go to tonight.
TARA: So true. I don’t even really want to go, but I think Aaron’s gonna be there.
ELLIE: So? Aaron is a douchebag.
TARA: What the hell? No he isn’t.
ELLIE: Yes he is. For one, he wears those douchey hats. For two, what is the deal with his beard? It goes up to like his eyes. For three, last week I ran into him and Joanne at the bar.
TARA: Ugh, I hate that bitch. I already know this story’s going to be terrible.
ELLIE: She wasn’t that bad, actually. It was all him. She was telling me about her job at her salon and like, how she had to shampoo this three-year old that kept wiggling around and she accidentally got soap in the little girl’s eye. And she said, “At least you don’t have that problem at your job.” Which was a little bit bitchy but not really, you know? But then Aaron had to start going off about how gross it was that I touched dead people all day and how if he was my boyfriend he’d never be able to touch me without thinking about it and all this stuff.
TARA: Oh fuck off! You should have said that you’d rather touch dead bodies than his greasy ass any day.
ELLIE: I know, I thought of something like that like ten minutes after I left.
TARA: It’s not like it matters, anyway. I mean, he went to beauty school too. And what do we work on in beauty school? Hair, skin and nails. All of which are already dead.
ELLIE: Oh man, I should have said that to him. That’s really good.
TARA: Anyway, you’re making more money here than he’s making in his grandmother’s basement salon. That place has the shittiest ventilation.
ELLIE: And I will always have clients.
TARA: No repeat clients though.
They snicker.
ELLIE: Oh shit you almost made me spit out my gum. Oh my god! Did I tell you what happened last week?
TARA: I don’t want to hear this story, do I?
ELLIE: No but I’m going to tell it anyway. Okay so last week I was applying lip liner to this woman for an open casket. Her lips were kind of a weird shape so I got really close trying to get it right. The pencil pulling at her mouth sort of opened it up, and the second they did, my gum falls right out of my mouth and lands directly into her mouth. Right into this dead old lady’s mouth.
TARA: That is the most fucked-up thing I have ever heard.
ELLIE: I know, right?
TARA: Did you get it out?
ELLIE: Hell no I was not going to go fishing around in a corpse’s mouth. I mean, hair and makeup is one thing, but that is something else entirely.
TARA: So what did you do?
ELLIE: I just left it in there.
TARA: During the whole funeral she had your gum in her mouth? What the hell! Did anyone notice?
ELLIE: I hope not. I didn’t get in trouble or anything so I assume nobody saw. Besides, how messed up would you have to be to get that close to your dead grandma to see inside her mouth?
TARA: Truth, truth.
ELLIE: She’s buried, too, not cremated. So my gum is somewhere in a cemetery in some lady’s mouth I never met.
TARA: That shit never biodegrades, either. Your gum is going to be with her longer than her heart. Hey, if they ever have to dig her up later, like if they suspect she was murdered or something and need evidence, your DNA is going to be on her person.
ELLIE: Uh oh.
TARA: Yeah! They should totally make a CSI episode about that.
ELLIE: She was like eighty or ninety something. No one suspects murder of people that old.
TARA: Have you ever worked on somebody here that was murdered?
ELLIE: I don’t know.
TARA: You don’t know? They don’t tell you the cause of death?
ELLIE: They told me how the first person died. After that I told them not to tell me anymore.
TARA: Why not?
ELLIE: I don’t know. I just don’t want to know.
TARA: Did the first person die in a really gruesome way or something?
ELLIE: No. It was just a heart attack. The woman was really old. I just…didn’t want to know any more after that. I mean, I’m supposed to be making them look like they’re still alive. How can I do that if I’m sitting here for hours knowing exactly how they died?
TARA: Fair enough. I’d still want to know, though, if I worked here. Think of all the stories you could tell.
ELLIE: People already don’t want to talk to me because I work at a funeral home. Can you imagine if I went around all the time telling stories about how somebody’s next door neighbor died of liver disease and how I had to choose the perfect shade of foundation to mask the signs of jaundice?
TARA: What are you talking about? That’s an awesome story. You should tell that to Aaron at the party tonight.
ELLIE: Anyway I wouldn’t have many good stories to tell. Everyone that comes in here is a hundred years old and died of ancientness.
TARA: Not this one.
They look at the dead body as if for the first time.
ELLIE: You’re right. This one is really young.
TARA: Like our age.
ELLIE: No, not our age. Older, right?
TARA: How should I know? You know, I bet the death was covered in the paper. My dad left one in the car. I’m going to go get it.
ELLIE: No, Tara! We don’t have time for that. Just finish the hair and let’s go.
TARA: It’ll only take a second!
TARA exits.
ELLIE: No, just forget about it! I told you I don’t want to know! Tara! God, she left strands of hair sticking up everywhere.
She repairs the up-do until TARA returns.
TARA: Okay, look! I found it. The picture in the paper is the same one you’ve got taped up over there.
ELLIE: You left hair sticking up everywhere.
TARA: You want to know the name?
ELLIE: No. I want you to fix this travesty of an up-do.
TARA: I got age and cause of death.
ELLIE: Look, the top is lumpy.
TARA: You were right. A year older than us.
ELLIE: Tara, will you quit? I told you I didn’t want to know.
TARA: What’s the difference? You’re almost done anyway. Oh man, listen to this: Killed in that five-car pileup that happened during that huge rainstorm. You actually could tell this story at the party; Terrence’s brother is an EMT and he was called to that accident. Says here “survived by mother, father, two brothers…”
TARA is interrupted by ELLIE gently taking the newspaper from her hands and tossing it away.
What the hell?
ELLIE: Look, can you just sit down and finish this hairstyle so we can go to the party? Please?
TARA: All right, all right. Sorry.
ELLIE: Thank you.
They work in silence for a moment. ELLIE takes her gum out of her mouth and throws it away.
TARA: I guess if I died next year, I wouldn’t want two girls I never met talking at a party about how I died. Or rushing through my hair and makeup so they wouldn’t be late.
ELLIE: It doesn’t look rushed.
They are finished. TARA casually puts away the hair and makeup items but ELLIE can’t stop looking at the corpse’s face.
TARA: No it doesn’t look rushed. Looks great, actually.
ELLIE: She looks beautiful.
They exit.
~***~
A GRAVESTONE sits on her knees. MARYAM lies comfortably with her head on the GRAVESTONE’s lap. A VISITOR approaches the pair and hands the GRAVESTONE a small stone before exiting. MARYAM and the GRAVESTONE admire the stone together. MARYAM smiles up at the GRAVESTONE before addressing the audience.
MARYAM: They buried me in holy ground. They sang Psalms over me and ripped their clothes. They covered me with consecrated soil, one by one, three shovelfuls at a time. One, two, three. One, two, three. They buried me here, in this peaceful, holy place. Sometimes they come and say prayers over me. Sometimes they come and leave these little stones for me. Look at my stones. You must admit, they last longer than flowers. I lie here while they leave them and say nothing.
I don’t want to believe it’s wrong. I’ve been a good person. Listen: I volunteered at the soup kitchen four times. I’ve never raised my hand against anyone in my entire life. When Kara Jennings offered me the answers to the final history exam in eighth grade, I didn’t take them.
But then again. I did smoke pot in college. And there was that time I rear-ended a Buick trying to move out of a parking space. I left a dent but no note. Premarital sex. Postmarital non-husband sex. I picked my nose in public.
Still, I can’t have been the only one. Even the holiest of ground is filled with sins. But I suppose it isn’t just those sins, is it? It’s the Sabbath. It’s meat and milk. It’s my mother.
They buried me in holy ground. I want to belong here but I do not. I’m not even Jewish.
~***~
KATHERINE, GRETA, LAURIE, BIANCA & SUE-ELLEN are at a funeral.
BIANCA: We finally get to meet your boyfriend, and it’s at his funeral. Typical.
KATHERINE: You know I always wait until the last minute for everything.
GRETA: Shouldn’t we be seated farther back? Shouldn’t these seats be for, you know, family?
KATHERINE: It’s festival seating, my dear. First come, first serve. These are the best seats in the house.
BIANCA: I’m surprised we’re here so early. I would have thought you would want to make a grander entrance than this, Kath.
KATHERINE: I was torn between sweeping in fashionably late, entourage in tow, or showing up before his wife.
BIANCA: Don’t call us your entourage. We’re here for moral support.
GRETA: I wouldn’t go throwing around the word “moral” like that.
SUE-ELLEN: You mean she’s not here yet? The wife?
KATHERINE: Oh, you won’t miss her when she comes in. She’s an absolute troll.
SUE-ELLEN: You’ve met her?
KATHERINE: We haven’t traded recipes for muffins or anything, but I’ve made her acquaintance.
BIANCA: You’ve met the wifey? You’re an absolute slut, Kath.
KATHERINE: It was strategic. I had to know what I was up against.
BIANCA: Married or not, I’m still appalled you didn’t introduce him before. I mean, we’re your best friends!
KATHERINE: Well, there he is, ladies. May I formally introduce you to Mr. Charles F. Barrowcliff, CEO of Barrowcliff Industries, before his untimely death.
LAURIE: He doesn’t really look like your type. I haven’t known you to go after the balding ones.
GRETA: It doesn’t matter what the top of their heads look like; it’s the inside of the wallet that counts.
KATHERINE: Greta! You wound me. I admit I like the classier types, but there’s never a dearth of love and adoration. I simply doted on Charles.
LAURIE: You were with him for longer than anyone else I’ve known about.
KATHERINE: Two years.
SUE-ELLEN: And all that time we never met him.
KATHERINE: It’s not that I didn’t want to show him to you darlings. You know how it is with married men. They’ve always got to rush off to the wife or take some kid to dance class. He simply wasn’t available for our little cocktail parties.
BIANCA: Speaking of which, when are we going to meet your new fling, Laurie love?
LAURIE: Oh! I don’t know if I should make introductions very soon, or wait until I have full ownership. The relationship’s still on loan.
GRETA: They never leave the spouse, Laurie. They never ever do.
LAURIE: You’re probably right. I know you’re right! But promises were made. I was told the spouse problem would be taken care of soon.
GRETA: Soon! Hmph! You keep clinging to nebulous time frames and empty hopes.
KATHERINE: Oh shut up Greta. You’re just bitter because we’re getting laid and you’re not.
GRETA: I may not be getting laid, but at least my lover isn’t being laid out.
BIANCA: That’s some terrible wordplay, Greta. Not to mention tacky. I mean, the man is right there.
KATHERINE: Poor Charles. He never once told me he was going to leave his wife. He was very upfront about that. You have got to admire an honest man.
BIANCA: Indeed.
KATHERINE: Oh, my Charlie! Doesn’t he look peaceful lying there?
BIANCA: He looks like someone put on his makeup with their eyes closed.
SUE-ELLEN: Is he wearing makeup?
BIANCA: Oh yes dear, it’s all the rage amongst corpses these days. Greta, hand me your compact. (GRETA does.) Do you see that line of foundation along his jawline? Somebody forgot to blend.
BIANCA takes the pad from the compact and blends. GRETA is horrified and refuses to take back the compact. BIANCA ends up slipping it into GRETA’s bag at some point during the scene.
SUE-ELLEN: That’s much more natural. Good job.
BIANCA: Thank you.
LAURIE: Uh-oh, the family members are starting to sit down.
BIANCA: Hunker down, ladies. We’re getting the stink-eye from Granny over there.
SUE-ELLEN: Who’s the one in the purple tie? Do you know him, Kath?
KATHERINE: The one giving us the finger? Oh yes, that’s Charlie’s brother, Jon. He’s an investment banker. Never met him directly, but Charlie told me a fair bit about him.
SUE-ELLEN: Is he married?
KATHERINE: It doesn’t matter, honey. Did you not hear me say he’s an investment banker?
SUE-ELLEN: Is it poor etiquette to ask for somebody’s number at his brother’s funeral?
BIANCA: Hell no! Go for it, girl. But I’d wait until after the burial.
KATHERINE: You were always one for decorum, Bianca.
BIANCA: Funerals are excellent places to find men. I met Doug at one. Remember him? I think it was his sister’s funeral? It might have been his mother’s. Anyway, they’re perfect because emotions are running high, everyone’s looking for arms to rest in for comfort…and black is so flattering.
KATHERINE: I just bought this black dress. I was going to wear it for our two-year anniversary dinner. I had no idea I would end up wearing it at his funeral.
BIANCA: That’s one of the downfalls of dating older men. You never know when they’re going to poop out on you.
KATHERINE: My Charlie was a strong, healthy man. He was a 60 year old in a 40 year old’s body.
BIANCA: Delicious.
GRETA: He doesn’t look that healthy to me.
BIANCA: How did the darling die, Kath dear?
KATHERINE: I don’t know. The coroner wouldn’t tell me. The papers are saying heart failure but I know for a fact that Charlie had a heart like an ox.
SUE-ELLEN: Enlarged?
KATHERINE: Strong. I mean it was strong. Never had a problem with it a day in his life.
BIANCA: Well that’s odd.
GRETA has taken out a rosary and started muttering prayers on each bead. BIANCA slaps the rosary out of GRETA’s hand.
For crying out loud, Greta. This is a Methodist church.
GRETA: I think you all need a little Jesus.
BIANCA: Well I think you need a little-
KATHERINE: Save it, ladies. A worthier target has just entered the room.
BIANCA: The wifey?
KATHERINE: The devil herself.
THEY all turn and watch the wife enter the room. LAURIE is suddenly very uncomfortable.
LAURIE: Why didn’t you tell me he was married to Isabella Corthington?
SUE-ELLEN: Of the chip-dip fortune? That’s her?
KATHERINE: Why does it matter?
LAURIE: Remember that new fling I was telling you about? Well.
BIANCA: Laurie! You and Isabella Corthington? Why, bravo my dear! She’s Oprah-level rich. I’m green with envy!
SUE-ELLEN: But Bianca, you don’t even like women.
BIANCA: For Isabella Corthington, I’ll eat a mile of carpet.
GRETA: Bianca! I’m sure Laurie does not appreciate your language.
KATHERINE: Who are you people? Are we all missing the point? Who cares about Bianca’s language? Laurie is sleeping with my dead boyfriend’s wife! How did this happen?
LAURIE: I was one of the caterers at some fundraiser dinner.
BIANCA: And you bagged a billionaire? I’m in the wrong business.
LAURIE: Oh my god, she’s looking this way. Hide me. Give me that scarf. Do you think she saw?
GRETA: I actually think she was too distracted by Katherine to see you.
SUE-ELLEN: Oh my god, awkward.
KATHERINE: What are you talking about? This is marvelous. Now if she says anything to me about homewrecking or whatever, I have something to say to her.
LAURIE: No! I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about us. You’ll ruin everything.
BIANCA: This is possibly the worst conundrum a woman could come up against. Do you use your powerful knowledge to bring down your enemy, or do you keep the secret so as to protect your friend’s relationship? A relationship with a billionaire, no less. Kath, I’d keep my damn mouth shut if I were you.
KATHERINE: But it’s too perfect.
BIANCA: You’re right, it is! Augh! I would never be able to make a decision. This funeral has gotten too intense for me. I won’t make it much longer without a drink.
And with that, BIANCA pulls an entire bottle of wine from her purse along with a stack of plastic cups. SHE pours everyone a drink.
SUE-ELLEN: You’re a doll. To you, Charles. Rest in peace.
THEY drink to Charles.
KATHERINE: Okay, Laurie, I won’t say anything as long as she doesn’t say anything to me. You better keep your woman in check.
LAURIE: No, no, she can’t know I’m here.
SUE-ELLEN: Ooh, I’ve got a pair of sunglasses. Here.
BIANCA: They totally work. And they’re fierce.
LAURIE: She made me promise to stay away from her in public places until she worked out her husband situation.
KATHERINE: What do you mean? Did she say she was going to leave Charles? He never said anything about trouble with Isabella.
LAURIE: Well, no, she never actually said she was going to leave him.
GRETA: They never leave their spouses. Never. Maybe this is what she meant by “working out the husband situation.” (indicates the coffin)
BIANCA: I love a good murder for passion! Tell us how she did it, Greta. Was it in the conservatory with the lead pipe?
GRETA: You’re hilarious. Why don’t you ever take me seriously?
BIANCA: You watch three episodes of CSI a day, and four different kinds of Law and Order. Do you really expect me to take you seriously?
GRETA: Those shows are based on real events, you know. It’s very educational.
BIANCA: You don’t say. Speaking of real events, I want to know more about Isabella Corthington. Tell me something I can’t find out on Page Six!
LAURIE: Shh! What if she overhears?
KATHERINE: She can’t hear anything with Mama Barrowcliff wailing in her ear.
BIANCA: The only one who can hear us is old man Charlie over there, and the dead don’t talk. Come on, Laurie. Is she really as eccentric as they say? Does she really collect the fur from her shedding dogs and have bedroom slippers made? Does she make all her servants enter the room backwards?
GRETA: Does she have toilet paper made of silkworm silk?
BIANCA: Why Greta.
GRETA: What? I read it in Star. In the line at the grocery. Everybody reads in line at the grocery.
LAURIE: People always make up the most ridiculous stuff. None of that is true. Although…
BIANCA & GRETA: Although?
LAURIE: She does have this bizarre fetish.
BIANCA: Wait. Don’t tell me. Write it down and sell it to a trashy tabloid.
LAURIE: Really?
BIANCA: No of course not really. Tell me immediately.
LAURIE: Well, she’s got this thing about…peanuts.
SUE-ELLEN: Peanuts? Like salted and roasted?
LAURIE: Honey-roasted, even.
SUE-ELLEN: Wow.
GRETA: What do you mean, peanuts? How is that a kink?
BIANCA: Don’t get too X-rated, Laurie. We are in a church.
LAURIE: No, no, it’s not like…what I’m sure you’re thinking. She just likes to have peanuts around the bedroom. She has me tuck them in the pillowcases, sprinkle them under the bed, she even told me to tie them to the chandelier. She can’t get off without them.
BIANCA: Peanuts, you say? Never heard that one before, but who knows? Maybe she’s on to something. Forget tabloids, sell this one to Cosmo.
KATHERINE: Are you telling me that Isabella covered her bedroom in peanuts?
LAURIE: I got cashews once but it didn’t have the same effect.
KATHERINE: Charles was deathly allergic to peanuts. I’ve gone two years without a Reese’s cup because of him.
GRETA: What did I tell you? Never mock CSI again!
SUE-ELLEN: What do you mean?
GRETA: Isn’t it obvious? It’s the perfect crime. Isabella needs Charles out of the way. Divorce is too uncivilized and besides, the man’s worth a mint. She can’t kill him in the obvious ways: jail is hell on the complexion. So she does what any rich person worthy of their wealth is best at: she gets creative.
SUE-ELLEN: Ooh.
BIANCA: Oh please.
GRETA: Listen! Isabella convinces her lover-that’s you, Laurie-that she needs peanuts spread around the room for the best lovemaking possible. Her lover-
LAURIE: Me.
GRETA: Yes we’ve established that. Her lover, eager to oblige as any good lover would-
LAURIE: Why, thank you.
GRETA: Hush! Her lover scatters the peanuts as requested. Isabella knows two things: that her husband is deathly allergic to peanuts, and that peanuts are very small things. Impossible to keep track of when they’re spread all over a room.
SUE-ELLEN: So Isabella Corthington killed her husband by booby-trapping his bedroom with peanuts!
GRETA: I was about to say that!
SUE-ELLEN: Oh my god, it’s perfect. Isabella couldn’t be blamed because it was Laurie who spread the peanuts. And Laurie couldn’t be blamed because she didn’t know anything about Charles’s allergy!
GRETA: Who’s telling this story here?
BIANCA: Oh stop. You’re turning a harmless sex kink into premeditated murder.
LAURIE: It can’t be. Izzy would never kill her husband.
BIANCA: “Izzy”? Ugh. That will stop during this conversation.
LAURIE: Well, she wouldn’t. She always made me clean up the peanuts after…well, you know. She watched me very carefully. Not a peanut went unswept.
GRETA: I’m telling you! Isabella had you hide peanuts so her husband would accidentally on purpose come across one and die unexpectedly!
KATHERINE: Impossible. Charles couldn’t have died from a rogue bedroom peanut. He was with me when he died.
A general gasp.
BIANCA: You certainly never told us that!
KATHERINE: It’s the truth. Garfield Suites room 1142. Our room. That’s right. That’s why I deserve to sit right here in this front row. She may have had his ring, but is heart was with me the day he died.
SUE-ELLEN: Why, darling, that’s awful!
BIANCA: You’re right; it’s simply tragic that she didn’t tell her friends earlier.
KATHERINE: I didn’t know where to begin. It all happened so fast. One minute we were rolling around on the ground, laughing, the next---I just don’t know. We were just about to go out to the pool. He was rubbing me with suntan lotion, I was showing him all the places he’d missed, when suddenly he just…
KATHERINE makes a collapsing movement with her hand.
LAURIE: Did you say suntan lotion?
KATHERINE: Yes…
LAURIE: Not Couteûx Bleu Hand-Blended Sun Lotion imported from Nice?
KATHERINE: How the hell did you know that?
LAURIE: That’s Izzy’s-uh, Isabella’s suntan lotion. She ordered it specifically for our trip to Fernando de Noronha.
BIANCA: Oh, she’s taking you to Fernando de Noronha? I drip with envy.
LAURIE: I’ll bring you back something.
BIANCA: You’re a gem.
LAURIE: Anyway, I’ve been looking for that bottle of lotion for days. You’re saying that Charles had it?
KATHERINE: He died clutching that bottle of lotion in one hand, my body in another.
SUE-ELLEN: Ooh.
LAURIE: Because I had, um, put a little surprise in the bottle for Izzy.
GRETA: You don’t mean…
LAURIE: I just thought it would be kind of romantic, you know? Open up the bottle of lotion on a secluded beach, I go to pour some on her back and some peanuts fall out.
BIANCA: That does sound hot.
KATHERINE: Peanuts? You put peanuts in the lotion?
LAURIE: I didn’t know Charles was going to take it!
SUE-ELLEN: That means…Laurie’s the killer.
LAURIE: What?
GRETA: Unbelievable.
BIANCA: I told you it was just a sex kink!
~***~
EDIT: LJ claims my post is too large. Screw you LiveJournal. Here is the second half.
Thanks for reading!