Crimes of the Heart

Lenny Magrath is a thirty-year-old woman. She steps onstage carrying a white suitcase, a saxophone case, and a brown bag. In an empty kitchen she tries to stick a birthday candle into a cookie, but it crumbles. When she hears Chick’s voice outside, she quickly blows out the lit candle and hides the cookie in her dress pocket. Chick is twenty-nine and has yellow hair. When she asks Lenny if she has seen the day’s paper, Lenny nods. There was a piece of very bad news in the paper, although they do not yet say what it is. Chick asks if Lenny picked up new nylons for her, and then takes them out of the brown bag and begins trying them on in the middle of the kitchen.  

The two women start talking about someone named Babe. Babe is going to be home soon, and this has thrown them into a state of worry. Lenny says she sent someone named Meg a telegraph about Babe, which shocks Chick. Chick doesn’t want Meg to come home for whatever drama is unfolding. She says that because Meg had “loose morals” in high school (6), her “appearance” is going to make thing harder for Babe. Chick also mentions that she’ll never understand why Lenny’s mother hung herself, but the subject passes quickly.