The Coal Diamond - Pearl

INEZ. Hello Pearl, we're just about ready to begin!

PEARL. (Greeting Inez) I'm so very sorry to be late. I was in the middle of this dreadfully boring report, and well-not doing it correctly, and well, finally I just gave up.

INEZ. This is Betty McGaffey.

PEARL. Pleased to meet you.

INEZ. Anyhow, this little girl is very smart and just graduated from Miss Richter Secretary school and is already working out of research.

PEARL. (looking at Betty enviously) Isn't that something?

LENA. Oh Betty dear could you please go buy me a soda? This one is warm. I'll deal you in. (Betty exits.) Now I have to tell you Pearl, we are so pleased to have you come in and be our fourth on Friday. Fridays are terribly difficult to get a fourth. Everyone goes uptown because Fridays are payday so everyone goes to deposit. That's why you really are an angel.

PEARL. I am so pleased to get out of underwriting for a while. All they do is play pinochle and my boss-well-he is horrible, continually grabbing at me!

LENA. (raising an eyebrow) Yes, Charles Logan.

PEARL. He tells me to call him Charlie, and he always makes me do my report over in his office. While he leans over me.

INEZ. Oh we know Charlie, but don't worry he will settle down. So Pearl just moved into the city from Hartford. You were working for a lawyer there weren't you?

PEARL. Yes, however, this is double the money.

INEZ. That's where we met in Hartford

PEARL. Is it? I thought we met at that company picnic for Atlas in New Haven. You were dating that executive.

INEZ. No. Pearl, you have a terrible memory. It was in Hartford. She can't even remember bird one. (Betty returns)

PEARL. You're right, it wasn't Hartford at the St. James you were with that one guy, Jimmy Florentino and his wife showed up and created a horrible scene.

BETTY. Two hearts

PEARL. Two spades.

INEZ. Still nothing, pass

PEARL. That's OK.

BETTY. Pass

PEARL. It's yours, Lena.

LENA. That's nice.

PEARL. So, who is the fourth here the rest of the week?

LENA. (with sarcasm) I guess.

PEARL. Tight?

LENA. Tight, well that's one way to put it. That girl could've put Jack Benny to shame! Why she lives in the Bronx in a rented room. She makes a complete diet out of soda, crackers, and skim milk, she never goes out to lunch with us girls. She won't even chip in for a birthday card.

PEARL. (Shocked) The Bronx?

LENA. Isn't that the limit though? Why, when she first came here to work and I knew she was looking for a place to live. I told her about my place in Manhattan at the Glenview.

PEARL. Oh, I've heard those are really nice!

LENA. They are. Well then she asks about how much do they cost and I tell her $240 a month and- (Pearl interrupts)

PEARL. (stunned) You paid $240 a month just for yourself?

INEZ. Now Lena that's not completely fair. She isn't so tight, the truth is that Wanda Sue is planning to get married and is saving for her future. Lena just doesn't like her. She has a chip on her shoulder about her.

PEARL. Oh?

LENA. She is too tight (pause) among other things (Betty burst out laughing, Inez joins in)

PEARL. (Looking at the girls) What did I miss? I want to be on what's so humorous, tell me, before you burst at the seams!

LENA. (collecting herself) Now look at our little Pearl, Miss Curiosity, you're far too young for such a torrid tale

PEARL. Go on, is she? (pause) ornery?

LENA. (laughing) Ornery? Well, I don't know if I'd call it that exactly. Besides it isn't totally her fault it's that bum. She seems to think is going to marry her.

PEARL. What's wrong with him?

INEZ. Until he ended up getting fired actually Lena got him fired

PEARL. He was the one, was he ornery?

LENA. He has completely passed ornery, dirty! That is a good descriptive word for that man for that dirty filthy man.

PEARL. (Shocked) Working here?

LENA. He was always taking the young girls out to lunch and then into a corner, any corner he could find, including right in the hall by the candy machine. I can tell you he wasn't just shoving Nickles in to get the candy.

PEARL. No!

LENA. Yes Betty. Some tycoon anyway, I saw Wanda Sue's intended, back this little girl up against the wall and practically rip her blouse right off by the candy machine. I was coming off the elevator so I had a complete view. Poor thing was so scared everybody would find out she quit the next day.

PEARL. Right here in this office, shocking!

LENA. Well I'm telling you that man is trash

PEARL. Still rather exciting. Up in underwriting the only single man we have is Mr. Johnson and he lives with his mother.

BETTY. He threatened to lock me away until I was old. He was terrible upset

PEARL. (slightly interested) Really, Atlantic City, huh?

BETTY. Well to be honest, Pearl that's only one story, I heard how he suggested to Howard Brockwell, that after Howard's wife had their third baby he should fix himself to prevent any further consequences

PEARL. Can they do that?

LENA. Oh Betty now I'm not sure if that's true. Lola, what's her name? She used to work on the third floor on the IBM machine, I believe her husband had the doctor do the same procedure.

PEARL. Really?

INEZ. I didn't know that

PEARL. So what happened to Lola? Did she say?

LENA. (Annoyed) Oh shut it Betty

PEARL. Have you ever been to Hartford? Or Westport?

LENA. (Quickly) No. Why?

PEARL. You, you look like someone I know. Only for the life of me I can't seem....

INEZ. Oh you're too much Pearl, you always think you know someone

PEARL. No, but, Lena really does seem familiar...

BETTY. It's hardly worth a sad little bid, Well Pearl lead out. Oh, can you pass me the crackers?

PEARL. (passing the crackers) So, they met here?

LENA. Yes they did, he was a junior partner. Can you imagine a junior partner at 40? I mean how humiliating it was, the only job he could handle, especially at a terrible time, keeping secretaries a girl a week I was giving him.

PEARL. Where is he now?

LENA. Well I complained enough and finally they had to fire him. I told the senior partners I was going to lose all the good girls.

PEARL. So you had him fired?

LENA. Betty, you can be so vulgar

PEARL. What does she look like? Is she pretty?

BETTY. She is very simple. Can you believe she's making her own wedding dress and after Lena told her about 97 times about those gorgeous little numbers over at three sisters where everyone knows to go, but they just got gobs and gobs of lace and tulle for less than $100 she didn't listen. She just keeps bringing in her silly old veil to work and sewing at lunch isn't that dumb? She got mayonnaise on it last week.

(Lena and Pearl start to laugh)

PEARL. So does she have an engagement ring?

INEZ. What did you say darling? Does she have an engagement ring? That's the question you've asked?

PEARL. (bewildered. Turns a cooler look at them) Yes?

LENA. Does she have a ring? Well I should say she has the most unusual ring this side of 186th Street. That's what I would say (all the girls burst out laughing)

PEARL. So are you gonna let me in on the big mystery?

LENA. Oh honey, she is definitely engaged all right and she has a ring! A coal diamond all of her very own

PEARL. What?

INEZ. As I was saying! This Wanda Sue is a closed mouth she never will tell you anything you really want to know. But one morning she comes in and announces right out of the blue. She's getting engaged the very next day and is getting a half carat ring!

PEARL. A half carat!? Are you kidding me!?

LENA, (interrupting) And it was a half carat all right but darling it had a black spot right in the center, big as a dime, a chunk of coal that no one could polish into a diamond and so they left it there black as an ace of spades.

PEARL. What?

BETTY. It's the MOST serious looking ring you have ever seen

PEARL. Seems like I have seen that ring before.. In the washroom, I imagine.

LENA. Hmmm. Probably, she's still wearing it. She won't take it off for love or money and she still thinks that he is coming back to her.

PEARL. He left? Where did he go? What's he doing?

BETTY. Before he went, he took Wanda Sue to dinner at Savoy's

PEARL. Oh, I've never cared for the food there

LENA. Dear, will you ever let up on that, you're becoming a bore. Well girls, I have to go excuse myself for a moment. Deal out Betty and I'll be right back. We haven't got much time left and please try to keep from totally shredding my character and no cheating.

(Lena exits and as soon as she is gone Pearl rises very conspiratorially)

PEARL. So, what was that guy's name?

BETTY. Who? What guy?

PEARL. That guy, the guy you were just talking about

INEZ. Who?

PEARL. The guy with Wanda Sue!

INEZ. Red Haner.

PEARL. Red?

INEZ. Yes. Had this big bushy mass of red hair and freckles why, what are you thinking?

PEARL. That's just what I thought.

INEZ. What do you mean that's just what I thought

PEARL. Oh girls, do I have a story for you, and just our luck, Lena has left

BETTY. Why?

PEARL. You know how I said Lena looks familiar to me?

INEZ. Oh everyone looks familiar to you. What are you trying to say?

PEARL. I was thinking all hour that I knew Lena from somewhere, only I couldn't locate where. Then just a few minutes ago right out of the blue I started thinking of my Aunt Franny, who has a summer inn on the cape, and I spent summers there when I was a kid, four or five years ago

INEZ. Well who the hell cares what you did when you were 16?

PEARL. But that's when I know I saw Lena. It was the summer I graduated and finished school, and for my sweet 16, I went out to visit my Aunt Franny. Lena was renting a room for the summer and had a job at some little office and Lena was young then, very young.

BETTY. Well imagine that.

PEARL. The peculiar thing is that she never brought home any boyfriends like the rest of the girls that stayed there. You know it was just her first job, that's all Lena had was that silly old job.

INEZ. Not Lena.

PEARL. Other girls kept going out on their Saturday night dates while Lena just sat there with me and Aunt Franny on the front porch, until one night, we saw her coming down the Willow Street running and shouting at us and waving her left hand and then she came up on the porch and stuck it in our faces and shows us this big half carat engagement ring.

BETTY. What?

PEARL. And tells her she met someone on the job and has gotten engaged and she's going to get married.

BETTY. Oh my...

PEARL. The only thing of it was that ring had a chunk of coal right in the middle, big as a dime.

INEZ. What do you mean?

PEARL. That Lena was engaged to this Red too, and wore that coal diamond just like Little Wanda Sue, I knew I'd seen that ring before.

BETTY. For the love-do you mean it?

PEARL. Mmmhmmm and to beat it all, she pretended there wasn't even a piece of coal in it. That it was the most perfect ring ever.

INEZ. I can't believe it

PEARL. That's the truth, it didn't last more than two or three more weeks, and after I left, Aunt Franny said that Lena used to sneak him up to her room. Then she started paying for all their meals. By the time I went back to my aunt's for Christmas, she said it was over. That Lena had told her that he had said he needed to support his mother and so they had to postpone the wedding and take back the ring because he loved Lena so much, didn't want to spoil her chances with all other men. Of course it's perfectly obvious that Red only gave Lena the ring so he could get a job at the company she was working for.

INEZ. Probably thought she'd be able to tie him down in the end.

PEARL. Yes, then comes Wanda Sue. Well, how's that for a story, girls? Guess that takes the cake about that keen girl you all seem to brag on.

LENA. That a fact, Pearl?

PEARL. Oh, but it was so long ago, I don't remember anything about it, really, not a thing.

LENA. Pearl?

PEARL. Pass

BETTY. Two spades

PEARL. Pass

LENA. Pass

PEARL. You have it, Lena. For two spades.

LENA. Well then it's our lead (Inez leads Lena becomes very pictorial now ordering everyone) Betty lay down your hand (Betty does) now put the eight on the- Pearl, what are you doing?

PEARL. The King, I have no choice.

LENA. OK here we go, that's mine. Inez put down yours.(she leads Inez plays ) so Pearl you're in underwriting, huh?

PEARL. Yes...Yes, I am.

LENA. Me and Charlie Logan are quite good friends... We were once an item

PEARL Oh, Charlie? Mr. Logan is just a wonderful boss to work for, I can tell you that.

LENA. Really. I thought you said you didn't like Charlie.

PEARL. Charlie? Oh, no, I didn't.

LENA. Oh well it really doesn't matter

PEARL. Oh well, I can't remember.

INEZ. (motioning to Pearl) Dear have you met my darling friend Pearl Brewster? Pearl is new here and has played as our fourth this afternoon. Pearl meet Wanda Sue Turner.

PEARL. Pleased to meet you. I've heard so many wonderful things about you.

LENA. Yes darling you should get started. Pearl you should get going too

PEARL. I....I...I SHOULD go. I do have a report to finish off. Well, see you all. (she is terrified as she starts hurrying off.)

LENA. Pearl? (Pearl freezes and doesn't look back) I do hope you will join us next Friday, we can make it a permanent on Fridays. At least for a while, see how everything goes because Pearl honey you're just like us, and you play a mean hand of bridge.

END