Imaginary Friends (3 page)

Authors: Nora Ephron

Tags: #General, #Literary Quarrels, #Hellman; Lillian, #Drama, #American, #Women Authors, #McCarthy; Mary, #Libel and Slander

FIZZY
comes out of the boardinghouse and sits down on the porch
.

That’s Fizzy. Giggle for everyone, Fizzy.

FIZZY
giggles
.
FIZZY
takes out a fan and fans herself in a kind of exaggerated southern way
.
MAX HELLMAN
,
Lillian’s father, comes from around the back of the house and looks at
FIZZY
as she sits there
.

And that’s my father.

LILLIAN
hides behind some leaves, and we don’t see her in the tree
.
FIZZY
turns and sees
MAX HELLMAN
.

FIZZY
: Max! What a surprise. When did you get back?

MAX HELLMAN
: Train just got in. Beautiful morning, isn’t it? Even prettier now that I see you.

FIZZY
:
[Giggles again.]
Oh, Max!

The leaves in the tree rustle wildly, but
FIZZY
and
MAX HELLMAN
don’t seem to notice
.

MAX HELLMAN
: What were you thinking about?

FIZZY
: Just now? Summertime, and my mama’s hummingbird garden. Sarah and I used to sit still as statues on the stone bench and see if we could get the birds to buzz around our heads. Once I put a piece of honeysuckle in my mouth—

MAX HELLMAN
suddenly kisses
FIZZY
,
a long, passionate kiss
.
LILLIAN
spreads the branches of the tree just a little and peeks out wide-eyed at what’s happening. Then she closes them over herself again
.

MAX HELLMAN
: I missed you so much.
[Beat.]
Can I see you this afternoon?

FIZZY
: Two o’clock.

MAX HELLMAN
: Corner of Jackson Street.

FIZZY
rushes into the house and closes the door
.
MAX HELLMAN
walks off. A long beat
.
LILLIAN
falls from the fig tree. Splat. A horrible noise. She lies face down on the ground. And now we see the real
LILLIAN
walk onstage and pick up the
LILLIAN
that fell from the tree—which turns out to be a large stuffed doll of
LILLIAN
.
She carries it to the front porch, where she sits. She puts her hand melodramatically over her nose
.

LILLIAN
: I broke my nose. So I went running off to find my old nurse, Sophronia. I told her I’d seen Fizzy and my father kissing each other, and I decided to kill myself. Sophronia bandaged me up and told me that I must never ever tell anyone about Fizzy. I promised her I never would. A few minutes later, as she walked me home, she said, “Don’t go
through life making trouble for people.” I said, “If I tell you I won’t tell anyone about Fizzy, I won’t.”
[
LILLIAN
stands up, carrying the doll. Then she walks into the house and closes the door.]

The words “New Orleans” vanish from the scrim and are replaced with “Seattle,” and some sort of music begins. The baby picture of
LILLIAN
changes to one of
MARY MCCARTHY. MARY
comes onstage carrying a large doll of herself dressed like the little girl in the picture. She walks over to the musicians and looks at them
.

MARY
:
[To the musicians.]
Please don’t.
[They stop playing.]
My father was a lawyer, although he never really practiced law. He was sick and home most of the time, and he read me stories in the daytime, and once, when we were together, we heard a nightingale sing, I remember that. My mother was beautiful, and she had three more children, my brothers, and one day when I was six years old, we all got on the train to go to Minneapolis to visit my father’s parents, who were rich. It was during the influenza pandemic, and we all caught it on the train, and my parents died.

The word on the scrim changes to “Minneapolis.”

No one told us they’d died. We got off the train in Minneapolis, and there were nurses and ambulances waiting, and I woke up weeks later and everything was different. We were orphans. Not that we’d ever heard the word, and not that anyone had to tell us, really, because they told us in every way—there was to be no jam for the toast, and why anyone had ever let us have it in the first place no one knew, and “Sit up straight” and “Right this minute” and “Children should be seen but not heard,” especially spoiled children
—that was the problem, you see, we were spoiled, like food that had been left out too long. Something would have to be done with us, but what? And then, finally, a solution—a great-aunt had just married, to everyone’s enormous relief, for she was old and plain as a wet sidewalk, and she and her new husband, Myers, were given a small house to live in, and the four of us wretched children. And still no one told us our parents were dead. No one ever told us. For a while they said Mommy and Daddy had gone to get well in the hospital. And then they stopped saying things like that, and it was assumed we all knew, even though we’d never been told.

UNCLE MYERS
walks out of the house
.

That’s Uncle Myers.

UNCLE MYERS
takes out a leather razor strop and flicks it against the porch railing with a sharp snap
.

And that’s his razor strop.

UNCLE MYERS
: Mary—

MARY
: Yes, Uncle—

UNCLE MYERS
: I gave your brother a tin butterfly several days ago.

MARY
: I know. From a Cracker Jack box. Will you get me one? Please? I would love one so much.

UNCLE MYERS
: He can’t find it. Have you seen it anywhere?

MARY
: No. So it’s lost?

UNCLE MYERS
: Well, that all depends, doesn’t it …
[
UNCLE MYERS
flicks his strop against the railing again. Then he walks into the house.]

MARY
: The last thing I remember about my father was that I was sitting with him on the train.

We hear the sound of a train
.

Everyone else is sick, tossing in their sleeping berths, but we’re not, we’re sitting there together, and I feel so proud of my father—the conductor tried to throw us off the train because so many of us are sick, but my father had a gun and wouldn’t let him. Now we’re riding through the Rockies, and he’s saying that sometimes there are boulders that tumble down and crush the train and kill all the passengers. I remember it so clearly—the moment my father lifts me up so I’m standing on the seat, looking out the window as the mountains rush past. My heart is absolutely filled with fear that we’ll all be squashed flat, but I feel completely safe because I’m in his arms—

The sound of the train dies away
.

But it never happened. My father was sick long before we rode through the Rockies, and he couldn’t possibly have told me anything about boulders. And no one tried to throw us off the train, and my father didn’t have a gun, and there are no nightingales in North America.

UNCLE MYERS
comes out of the house again with the strop
.

UNCLE MYERS
: Mary—

He hits the strop against the railing with a sharp snap.

BLACKOUT
.

Scene 3

A nightclub
.

Two bars onstage, each with a
BARTENDER
mixing martinis. We’re in a wonderful nightclub. The
BARTENDERS
are wearing white jackets that exactly match what the bartenders wear in an early scene from
The Thin Man.

On the scrim are the words “New York.”

And now we see
LILLIAN
and
MARY
,
both in their late twenties and chic in simple black dresses, sitting on bar stools at their respective bars, as the
BARTENDERS
pour their perfect drinks into stemmed glasses
.

LILLIAN
and
MARY
each light a cigarette and blow smoke
.

The
BARTENDERS
sing “A Smoke, A Drink, and You.”

BARTENDERS
:

A SMOKE, A DRINK, AND YOU
A HAUNTING BEGUINE
AT THE START OF A SCENE FOR TWO
YOU OFFER A LIGHT RIGHT ON CUE
A SMOKE, A DRINK, AND YOU

WE JOKE, WE WINK, WE WOO
THE UNIVERSE SPINS
AS A CORKSCREW BEGINS TO SCREW
THE BARTENDERS FADE OUT OF VIEW
A SMOKE, A DRINK, AND YOU

COCKTAILS ARE FLOWING
AND SMOKE RINGS ARE BLOWING
AND SOMEHOW YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO
I’M HIGH AS THE MOON IS
AND EVEN THE TUNE IS ASCENDING
YOU STIR ME AND SHAKE ME
THE HEIGHTS THAT YOU TAKE ME
ARE SO VERY NEW
AND THEN YOU SHOW ME A VIEW
WITHOUT ENDING

Music continues. The
BARTENDERS
pour another drink into
MARY
’s and
LILLIAN
’s glasses, and each lights another cigarette
.

MARY
: Vassar.

LILLIAN
: NYU.

MARY
: Graduated.

LILLIAN
: Dropped out.

MARY
: Married.

LILLIAN
: Married.

BARTENDERS
:

THEY’LL BE ETERNALLY TRUE

MARY
: Divorced.

LILLIAN
: Divorced.

MARY
: New York.

LILLIAN
: New York.

MARY
: I slept with Philip Rahv.

LILLIAN
: I slept with Philip Rahv.

BARTENDERS
:

THEY SLEPT WITH PHILIP RAHV

MARY
: You did not sleep with Philip Rahv—

LILLIAN
: Once. Once was enough.

BARTENDERS
:

A SMOKE, A DRINK, AND YOU

LILLIAN
and
MARY
drain their drinks. The
BARTENDERS
pour each of them another
.

MARY
: I was very beautiful.

LILLIAN
: I was not.

MARY
: And very smart.

LILLIAN
: Whip-smart.

MARY
: Cold eye.

LILLIAN
: Sharp tongue.

MARY
: Sharp tongue.

LILLIAN
: Cold eye.

MARY
: Loved danger.

LILLIAN
: Loved trouble.

MARY
: Loved fights.

LILLIAN
:
Loved
fights.

MARY
: Quick.

LILLIAN
: Just as quick.

MARY
: And very beautiful.

LILLIAN
: I wish I’d been beautiful.

MARY
: I wish I’d been rich.

LILLIAN
: But if I’d been beautiful, would any of it have happened?

MARY
: And if I’d been rich—

LILLIAN
: You’d have been sued many more times than you were. Philip Rahv wanted to sue you and so did Edmund Wilson and so did all those girls you went to Vassar with. Even your own uncle wanted to sue you.

MARY
: You wanted to sue me.

LILLIAN
: And I did sue you. That’s where all this is leading.

MARY
: And I didn’t have enough money to defend myself.

LILLIAN
: But people gave it to you. People felt sorry for you and gave it to you. People who hated me gave it to you. People who hated you gave it to you because they hated me more. And you took the money—

MARY
: For my lawyers.

LILLIAN
: Hmmph.

A beat
.

MARY
: I was very beautiful.

LILLIAN
: And I was not. But I had something.

A tall man walks up to the bar, and a
BARTENDER
starts to mix him a drink. This is
DASHIELL HAMMETT
.

DASHIELL HAMMETT
:

A MAN APPEARS ON CUE

BARTENDERS
:

A HANDSOME THIN MAN APPEARS
A NICK FOR A NORA
FOR WHOM WE MIGHT POUR A FEW

DASHIELL HAMMETT
:

QUITE A FEW