Another One-Act Play

Setting: Brooklyn, New York. A bench along the sidewalk. Late morning.

Two Italian women, 70-ish, sit a little apart. Both wear muted skirts, sensible flat shoes, stockings, dark coats. Their hair is permed. Both hold purses. One woman is named GLORIA, the other MARIA. The audience does not need to know this.

Curtain rises. The women do nothing, the way people do nothing: looking into space, occasionally turning their heads at a noise, glancing at their fingernails. At least a minute passes.

GLORIA
(sniffing)

I smell something cooking. Somebody’s cooking something.

MARIA
(sniffing)

I smell it too.

GLORIA

It makes me want a piece of lard bread. That just popped in my head: Lard bread. I don’t know why.

MARIA

Didn’t you eat breakfast?

GLORIA

I had toast. You know, with the raisins. It was nice, but it’s not enough.

MARIA

No, that’s not enough.

GLORIA

Lard bread, a nice piece of lard bread. That just popped in my head: Lard bread.

MARIA

That would be good.

GLORIA

But I just went to the doctor. The cholesterol.

MARIA

It’s good that you went.

GLORIA

With my parents going like they did? I know.

MARIA

But sometimes you want something nice anyway. I’m going to the bakery after this. [She points, out over the heads of the audience.] You know, the sfingi?

GLORIA

[Dreamily] Lard bread. That just popped in my head. I don’t know why. Lard bread.

The women go back to doing nothing, looking out into space in the audience’s general direction. At least twenty seconds pass. The curtain falls.