Scripts / 355the chairs and floor. The kitchen, offstage left, connects to the living room by a door center
left. The upstairs bedrooms connect with the living room upstage center where the stairway
enters. The only sense of quality is in the painting stage right of the stairway, a Flemish oil of
obviously fine quality.
ACT I
Scene 1: Saturday morning.
As curtain opens, Renee, dressed in an oversized shirt and floppy house shoes, enters from
the kitchen munching a sweet roll. Her hair uncombed, she has obviously just awakened. Still
eating, dropping crumbs across the floor, she flops on the only empty chair in the room, at
downstage right.
Mrs. Westbrook: (From the kitchen.) Renee, are you eating in the living room again?
Renee: (With obvious disdain.) No, Mother. (Licks her fingers and adds quietly to herself.) Not
anymore. (She gets up, crosses to the sofa where she picks up her tennis racket and
takes a few practice swings.)
Mrs. Westbrook: (Entering from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel.) Is Julianne making
her usual trek by here today, dear?
Renee: (Continuing her practice swings.) I suppose. I haven’t talked to her today. (She flops
back in the chair downstage right, one leg draped over the arm.) She hasn’t called, and
I’m not calling her.
Mrs. Westbrook: (Looking carefully at her daughter.) Oh? (Renee does not respond. Mrs. W.
shrugs.) Well, whatever. At any rate, I want this living room straightened up. Pick up this
mess and put it away. Looks like pigs live here. (Mrs. W. exits upstage center toward
bedrooms and then calls down.) Oh, by the way, your father called about an hour ago.
(Mrs. W. reappears in the doorway.) He said if you’d meet him at Weston’s at noon, you
could put in your two cents’ worth on your new car.
Renee: (With an explosion of excitement.) Mom, really? Are you just kidding me? Is he really
going to get me a car—a new one? (Mrs. W. beams at her daughter.) Mom, really?
(Renee dances around the furniture, over stacks of books, doing a ballet with the tennis
racket.) Whooppeeeee!
Mrs. Westbrook: Only if you get the living room straightened before you go. It’s 10:30 now. (She
exits upstairs, then calls back.) And don’t forget to change the sheets on your bed this
morning.
(Renee begins furious activity. Stacking books, piling clothes and jackets in her arms, drop-
ping some as she goes, she heads for the upstairs bedroom. In her scurry, she fails to hear the
telephone ringing.)