MAISIE’S DEAD: Act One, SCENE 4
Maisie’s Dead: A Comedic Tale of Love and Marriage
Copyright © 2007 by William D. Coffey, All rights reserved
Act One, SCENE 4: Thursday morning, the senior apartment
Jessie’s apartment. She, Maud and Germaine sit around the card table, having tea. The phone rings, Jessie stretches to lift receiver.
JESSIE
Hello?
FRIEDA [voice over speakerphone]
Mama, it’s us. Buzz the door and let us in.
JESSIE
Oh!… OK, come on in… [to Maud and Germaine] It’s Frieda and John. They’re coming to visit. [she hangs up and picks up her tea]
MAUD
I didn’t hear the buzzer. Did you unlock the front door? [phone rings again]
JESSIE [stretches to receiver again]
Hello?…
FRIEDA [voice over speakerphone]
Mama, press the buzzer! You forgot to unlock the door again!
JESSIE
Oh!… haha … Sorry ‘bout that! [audible buzz as she presses phone button]
GERMAINE
Better watch that. She’ll worry that you’re getting Alzheimer’s.
JESSIE
Fiddlefaddle. Frieda worries over me too much.
MAUD
Well, you need to see things from her point of view. There isn’t a month goes by that we don’t have apartments in this building vacated by a stroke… or dementia … or … whatever… The turnover rate around here could depress you if you let it.
GERMAINE
All the more reason to live a full life every day, I say.
JESSIE
Hear, hear. [John & Frieda enter] Hello dears, will you join us for tea?
FRIEDA
No thank you, I’m not in the mood this morning. We just stopped by to check on you.
JESSIE
And what is it about me you’re checking on? By the way, how’s the funeral shaping up?
FRIEDA
Ask John. It’s his project.
JOHN
You mean the memorial service. Well, I suppose it will happen Saturday. I don’t know what the will meant by a “decent” place, but I’ve been all over town trying to find one. Funeral homes want a fortune per hour, forget that. And I’ve been surprised at how many public gathering places smell like stale beer, or just look … not decent.
MAUD
Why don’t you use ours?
JOHN
Your what?
MAUD
Our social room. Right here in Mayflower Senior Apartments. It’s pretty decent.
JOHN
I hadn’t thought of that. You think it might do?
GERMAINE
Of course it’ll do. We hold all our wild senior parties in there. Has running water and a real ice box. Only thirty dollars an hour and you can crowd a hundred people in there. How many mourners are you expecting? I mean, besides yourself?
FRIEDA [irritated]
Oh come on, Germaine, John’s just being a nice guy because the will asked him to!
JOHN
Well now, there’s another little problem. I have no idea how many will attend. We
haven’t found any surviving relatives. Just a couple more ex-husbands… so far.
FRIEDA
Tell them about “all those others.”
MAUD
All those other whats?
JOHN [uncomfortable]
In her will, Maisie specified that the memorial service should be arranged by me, because — she said — I’m “responsible and can be depended on to see that it gets done right.” And then she said “…unlike all those others I was married to.”
JESSIE
In heaven’s name…
MAUD & GERMAINE
How many others?
JOHN
I don’t know. I’ve asked Ben Smith to help me find out who these “others” are.
GERMAINE
Is Smith that lawyer who came here from Chicago last year?
FRIEDA
He’s the one. The one who charges quite well for his time. John’s going to pay his bill … like the nice guy he is. [she strokes his cheek]
MAUD
Didn’t this Maisie person leave any money to pay for such things?
JOHN
Nobody knows. She might have left money in a bank – or buried in a coffee can. Smith is checking that too, while he’s searching for her ex-husbands – however many that is.
JESSIE
Can he actually do that? I mean, trace unknown people back more than thirty years?
JOHN
Probably. He says people don’t just disappear like they used to. He says they always leave paper trails that can be traced if you know how.
MAUD
People don’t disappear, huh? I hear this Maisie didn’t even leave a body to bury.
JOHN
Yes, lawyer Smith already confirmed that. Apparently she was on somebody’s cabin cruiser out in the middle of Lake Michigan. A big storm came up, and the boat sank.
MAUD
What a terrible way to go.
GERMAINE
Or glorious, depending on how you look at it. Like I’ve said, live every day…
FRIEDA [interrupting, a tad sarcastic]
John, we must get home. I feel a deep need to carry out garbage and scrub floors.
JOHN
All right. I’ll stop by later and check out that social room. Maybe I’ll bring Clyde along.
GERMAINE
Who’s Clyde?
JOHN
He’s the bereaved husband who called us Sunday evening and started this whole thing.
FRIEDA
He’s staying in our barn room. And he loves tuna salad.
JESSIE
Thanks for dropping by to “check on me.” Just remember, Honey, this Maisie person left town a long time ago, and John’s been yours for more than thirty years now.
FRIEDA
I know, Mama. But I still feel like I want to scrub something. Everything feels … soiled.
JOHN
Frieda, this will all be over soon and we’ll be back to normal. Bye everyone. [they exit]
MAUD
Well isn’t she in a tizzie.
JESSIE
She does not like being reminded that she wasn’t the first woman in John’s life.
MAUD
I hear this Maisie was quite something.
JESSIE
Apparently yes. She may have been only nineteen years old when she hooked John, but they say she was already quite accomplished with men.
GERMAINE
Sounds like she kept her talents in good shape. What’s this about a string of husbands?
JESSIE
Isn’t that a fine question! What if this lawyer Smith finds two or three more? Do you suppose they might all actually come here for this memorial service?
MAUD
And what if they all stayed in John and Frieda’s barn?! They might have to. The only lodging in town is those scrungy little cabins down by the bus station.
JESSIE
That is John’s problem. He’s the one paying the lawyer to find all of that woman’s husbands and invite them to come here. He’s the one who’s going to have to deal with it.
MAUD
He’s going to have to deal with Frieda too. Seems like she’s building up steam.
JESSIE
And deal with Frieda. If she blows. Scratch that. When she blows.
…to be continued…
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