Episode #7

This time on BARBARA's

Barbara's life whirls by over the next few days, what with rehearsals, stagings, fittings, waiting for the cable man and all other manner of appointments to get her and Beulah's act up and ready for their premiere. But, not only is she organizing her own life, she is organizing Beulah's in return for the meager, but sheltered, living accomodations offered by her twin.

"It's a spare and hard life, yet it's also a growing experience."

Barbara throws herself into her work, drudgery and artistic. It is as if she is trying to forget something.

"Excuse me, but I think that cauliflower is 39 cents a pound this week, you have this mismarked, sir, at 40 cents, sir ... sir ...."

Nothing escapes her attention. She is sharp as a tack and ready to take the world by storm. Nothing is going to stand in her way to the top. And she will get there with compassion and good deeds, not like some. Things are going so well, just as if the last few months were a dream, a horrible nightmare: the box, the street, the child...

"My little wiggle-wattle..."

These memories of the little girl would come in a flash at the oddest times: while rehearsing, while scraping the splooge from behind Beulah's stove, while doing Beulah's laundry...

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Barbara had given the little girl a spectacular burial at sea, well, burial at Hudson River, at night to avoid the health officials. And the distant gunfire from the neighborhood seemed an appropriate hymn to send off her special little one's mortal body.

"Oh, how I miss that sweet tiddlywink. What fun we could be having now."

One wonders what Beulah would have thought of a second house guest -- perhaps one less industrious due to youth.

Today Barbara rehearses with all her might a particularly difficult song and dance number that requires her to spin around Beulah like a rabid hyena only to end arched like a delicate rose trellis in front of her sister -- all while singing the love theme from Personal Best. She collapses onto the stage as soon as the number is over. Beulah looks down.

"People, something has happened here. I need a splash."

Beulah exits, making way for more expert hands to deal with this health matter. Joan, the stage manager, comes onto the stage. Joan is concerned when she notices that Barbara doesn't seem to be breathing, and her head has swollen up like a hot basketball full of compressed air, possibly due to the unlikely position Barbara is required to maintain during that last number.

Joan takes matters into her own hands. Summoning up all her formative lifeguard years at the local country club pool, she lays Barbara out flat on the stage, cradles the back of her neck with her right hand and lifts. This opens up Barbara's air passages. Joan then checks inside Barbara's mouth for foreign objects, pinches off her nose with her left hand and creates a tight seal with her mouth around Barbara's mouth. She gently blows the air from her lungs, air needed for life, into Barbara's lungs, watching them rise and fall. She blows once, and allows Barbara to exhale. She blows again, and allows Barbara to exhale. She begins to blow again when she feels Barbara suddenly and voraciously drawing that air in on her own, drawing in so much air from Joan that she almost can't break free.

"Barbara, Barbara, can you hear me? Barbara...?"

"I ... What ... Where ... Did I miss the next number?"

Still holding onto her friend, Joan worries that Barbara isn't quite back yet. Most of the gawkers have left, leaving Barbara to recover in Joan's arms in peace.

"Barbara, you passed out. It's that last damn number. I've told Ms. Max that it's too much for anyone, even someone in such great shape as you. But she's more concerned about the way your costume flys up during the dance then your health."

"Don't blame her Joan, she has a business to run and has to be concerned about staying open and providing enough money to pay our salaries. She's doing the best she can, and we need to try and help her, although I wish she could afford put me in a dressing room instead of making me change in her office ..."

"Barbara, do you think your okay to walk? Rehearsal's over and you could come lay down on the couch at my place about a block away..."

"Rehearsal's over, but I need to go over the whole show one more time!"

And from the cast dressing rooms underneath the stage we hear Barbara's sister's honeyed tones ...

"You bring me one more bottle of that cheap Vouvray, and you're going to wish I drank more!"

Joan looks down at her friend and murmurs

"Rehearsal's over."

What Happens?

• Will the show ever open?

• Shouldn't we know more about Joan's intentions before letting Barbara just go lay on a couch?

• Did the boys ever get dressed from the last episode?

On The Next Episode of BARBARA's

Aqua Seraglio, sweet and demur, has a momentary lapse and forgets her name and thus is nowhere to be found when the limo arrives to pick her up for her read-through where, if she had arrived , she would have replaced Chastity D. Style to star as the fading chanteuse who is Joan's unsuspecting roomate.