(The setting is a nursing home inside the room of one of the residents. It is CLAIRE’s room and MARGE, her friend, is there too.)
MARGE
I just sometimes think they’re trying to kill us.
CLAIRE
They’re not trying to kill us.
MARGE
Then how do you explain it?
CLAIRE
I don’t know…incompetent chefs. Low quality ingredients? Marge if the fine administrators of this nursing home were truly trying to poison us, there would be more overall death.
MARGE
That’s true. I’ve been waiting to take Sue Summers’ corner room for 5 years now and SHE WILL NOT DIE. Maybe I should poison her?
CLAIRE
Ok, I think we’ve deviated from fun banter to conspiracy to commit murder.
MARGE
Well then….fine. What else do you want to talk about.
CLAIRE
(struggling)
Oh…I guess maybe.
MARGE
Ya got nothing toots, bet you it makes my suspicions look pretty good now.
CLAIRE
Maybe we should join the book club.
MARGE
Have you seen them lately, they’re a bunch of people who joined from he dementia wing. They’ve read the same book for the last 6 months.
CLAIRE
We can make our own book club!
MARGE
I feel like that’s going to turn raunchy very quickly.
CLAIRE
I have no idea what you mean. Toni was the raunchy one.
MARGE
God I miss her.
CLAIRE
I do too. She just had a way of giving this sad end of life existence some meaning.
MARGE
Some fun!
CLAIRE
God did we have fun. Planning pranks, going to dances, flirting with guys.
MARGE
And girls!
CLAIRE
She just gave our lives meaning.
MARGE
We need to find our own meeting.
CLAIRE
I just wish she could offer a little help from the great beyond. If anyone would be a superior ghost it would be here.
MARGE
I’ve never heard a ghost scream singing Tom Jones at 2am like she did so I would welcome that.
CLAIRE
God she loved Tom Jones.
MARGE
Don’t you have her records?
CLAIRE
I do! Should we listen to some Tom Jones in her honor?
MARGE
Well it would pass the time.
(Claire goes over to her record player and finds the Tom Jones Record. It’s Not Unusual starts playing.)
MARGE
(singing)
It’s not unusual… Etc.
CLAIRE
Marge…I never noticed…what is this?
MARGE
Don’t interrupt me in the middle of a performance.
CLAIRE
(turning record off)
Be serious…It looks like a code? One of those what are they called QR codes?
MARGE
Like those things people make you scan instead of a menu at restaurants. Or give you instead of an actual playbill, which is ridiculous?
CLAIRE
No one will forget that day. You got us banned from the local high school auditorium. That production of Fiddler on the Roof Jr never saw us coming. Do you have your cell phone on you?
MARGE
I keep my cell phone in the freezer so I can’t get to it and use all my minutes.
CLAIRE
First of all, that’s credit cards you’re supposed to do that to not cell phones. Second of all that is not good for a cell phone! Nonetheless, let me get mine.
(She takes out her cell phone and scans the code on the record cover. A voice emerges)
TONI
Hi kittens!
MARGE
Oh my God
CLAIRE
Is that who I think it is?
TONI
If you’re listening to this I’m dead. Or you stole my Tom Jones record, in which case you’ll be dead soon. But most likely I’m dead. Which is a bummer, but at least I’m on my way to answer my eternal question: Are there bars in heaven? But I didn’t want you to get bored without me and have you do something lame like start a book club.
MARGE
How did she know!
TONI
So I’ve hidden something very valuable and it’s up to you to find it. Gotta keep it spicy right? Your first clue is. “If you go to sleep here you’re either Italian or Diane Keaton in The Godfather” Have fun kittens!
CLAIRE
Why would she do this?
MARGE
She really thought of everything. But what does it mean?
CLAIRE
The fish tank! The large fish tank in the lobby sleeping with the fishes! Lets go!
TO BE CONTINUED
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A cross between Iris Apfel, Miriam Margoles, Lucille Ball. But I am a devoted maximalist through and through. Although, as another inspiration once said
Style—all who have it share one thing: originality.
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