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Bernadette : I really like Edmund in this movie. Have you seen it?
Academic woman : I love this movie.
Bernadette : Oh, I like it, but it's not Mansfield
Park. It's more of an interpretation.
Do you know the book?
Academic woman : Yes. And I happen to teach film.
Bernadette : Do you like this movie?
Prudie : No. Do you know it mixes up Fanny Price with the author of the book?
Makes Sir Bertram some kind of slave owner.
Bernadette : Well, it means well. And a little Jane Austen's better than none at
all.
Prudie : No. No. No. That is how I talk
myself into everything.
I'm married to a man who would cancel our trip to Paris for a basketball game,
which is making me a fraud in front of my students. A French teacher who's never
been to France?
Academic woman : The screenplay is outstanding.
Man : Excuse me.
Bernadette : I'd like to talk to you. Come with me. You seem to know a lot about
Jane Austen.
Prudie : I do.
Bernadette : You know, Prudie, I've been married six times. You're always happy
at first. It's how you feel at the end that counts. I've been thinking, I'd like
to get married again, maybe just once more. My favorite was Ben Weinberg. And
this is Ben. He produced Fred Astaire movies.
Don't underestimate older men. We lived in a house in Beverly Hills that had a
little pond and a bridge and goldfish. That's how I met my friend Jocelyn.
Carlos.
Carlos : My pleasure.
Bernadette : Ben was her godfather. Her family's
loaded.
Prudie : Who's Jocelyn again?
Bernadette : The one I wanna start the book club for. Lost her dog? Eat. So, book
club. I can get Jocelyn and maybe Sylvia. Jocelyn put Sylvia and Daniel together
in high school. They've been together ever since. Though Sylvia's gonna want
Daniel in the book club, but I think it should be all women. Don't you? I mean,
men, they pontificate and no one can get a word in
edgewise.
Prudie : Well, I think if you...
Bernadette : And women won't butt
in, but men, they keep monologuing. Yammer, yammer, yammer. And
we keep listening, protecting their feelings.
Prudie : But if...
Bernadette : And men don't do book clubs. Women want to share, but men, they
hoard what they read, if they crack open a book. Does your husband read?
Prudie : He reads stuff online.
Bernadette : You know, it's gonna be like extracting teeth to get Sylvia, because
she has to read so much already. She works at the state library. But, oh! Hey,
no. Okay. Now, this is brilliant. We'll only do books we've already read. Is
that inspired?
Prudie : How do we know what books all of us have read?
Bernadette : Isn't it obvious? Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice, Emma,
Northanger Abbey, Persuasion. I'm leaving some... Sense and Sensibility. And
Sense and Sensibility. It's been three years since I've read Sense and
Sensibility. I have to pee. When I get back, hot water and lemon. And we still
have to think of two more people. Six novels, six people. We'll each be
responsible for one book. All Jane Austen, all the time! It's the perfect
antidote.
Prudie : To what?
Bernadette : To life. |
