MOTHER: He said the lung-tissues can heal if you give them a chance.

GLORIA: I’m restless, I have to go out. I can’t stay in all the time.

MOTHER: Your energy’s feverish, Bessie. You feel like doing more than you’re fit for.

[Gloria sinks upon sofa beside her mother. She sits very rigidly. Neither looks at the other. There are several inches of space between them.]

GLORIA: I can’t just sit here and wait for something to happen. Polish my nails and curl my hair and wait for Christ’s Second Coming! Is that what you and the doctor would recommend for me?

MOTHER: No, Bessie.

gloria: I’m glad of that!

MOTHER Vernon is—

gloria: Yes! Vernon is! And that’s absolutely all!

MOTHER: I believe he would still marry you if you came to your senses.

GLORIA: Vernon does not represent the future I plan for myself.

MOTHER: I remember you said the same thing ten years ago.

GLORIA: Well, it’s still true.

MOTHER: There’s quite a difference between the future and the past.

GLORIA: I know that.

MOTHER: The past keeps getting bigger and bigger at the future’s expense! [Pause.]

GLORIA [with a desperate effort to shake off despair]: We drove into Meridian and bought a copy of Billboard. It has my ad in it. [Rises quickly and snatches up magazine.] Look here, listen to this! [Reads aloud in a high, excited voice. Trembling and drunkenly, she crouches toward the table lamp for better light.] “At Liberty.” [She pauses to cough.]

MOTHER [ironically]: Yes—at liberty!

GLORIA [going on breathlessly]: “Leads, ingenues—27, blond, attractive—”

MOTHER: Huh!

GLORIA: “5 ft. 2, 114 lbs., singing, dancing, specialties—” [The mother makes a stiff, fretful gesture. Gloria reads with rising excitement, panting breathlessly.] “Quick study, versatile—Excellent wardrobe—Write! Wire! —Gloria La Greene—Blue Mountain—” [Here suddenly the enthusiasm dies out and she looks at her mother with a frightened expression.] Blue—Mountain—Mississippi. . . . [Coughs.] How do you like it?

MOTHER [grimly]: It’s full of misrepresentations.

GLORIA: Oh, it is not!

MOTHER: It is! Can’t you even distinguish between a truth and a lie? You’re not twenty-seven, Bessie, you’re thirty-two.

GLORIA: I don’t look it.

MOTHER: You do!

GLORIA: Nobody says I do.

MOTHER: Why should they? —Shout it across the street at you?

GLORIA: You want to destroy my confidence! Make me feel utterly hopeless. [Sobbing a little.] I’ve had bad times, no breaks, like everyone else in show business. But I’m not—through! —Do you think? [The mother stares at her implacably. Then Gloria continues, slowly.] Oh—so you think I am? [Her voice rises almost to a scream.] You sit on that old threadbare sofa, night after night, waiting there for me, like Mrs. Doomsday in person! Honest to God, your eyes, they’re like a tape measure, taking my size for a coffin! But I’ll—I’ll cheat you out of it, though!

MOTHER: Bessie!

GLORIA: Don’t Bessie me! [She coughs and shudders.]

MOTHER: You’re drunk and you’re sick, your face is burning with fever! Look at your dress, how it’s torn!