Golden Girls: Miles to Go (1991)

Miles to Go (1991) Miles (Harold Gould) lied about his job background.

Scene 1: In the kitchen, Blanche is inspecting a new sequined silver dress when Dorothy enters.

DOROTHY: Hi Blanche.

BLANCHE: Oh, hi, how was school day?

DOROTHY: Pretty good, almost half the class came back after the fire drill.

BLANCHE: Uh, price tag pinned to right sleeve. (arranging tags)

DOROTHY: What are you doing?

BLANCHE: Oh, I’m taking the tags off this dress and saving them so I can put them back on again tomorrow. That way when I take it back, they won’t know I’ve worn it.

DOROTHY: You’re going to wear a dress and then return it, Blanche, that’s illegal.

BLANCHE: Oh, it is not illegal. It’s just wrong. (touches her earring)
See, I love the dress but I can’t afford it—not $300 worth—and I have a late date tonight, so I want to look stunning for it. Besides, it’s not like I’m not going to wear it all that much—I’m just going to put it on and take it off, then put it on, come home, and take it off again. (sips her coffee)

DOROTHY: (hand on chin)

SOPHIA: Dorothy, great news—Gladys Goldfein called. She’s taking me to see Tony Bennett.

BLANCHE: Oh, Sophia, that’s terrific.

SOPHIA: What that man does to me with his voice your father couldn’t accomplish with his hands.

BLANCHE: Oh, I kow what you’re talking about Sophia. There are men’s voices that get me going like that, too.

DOROTHY: Blanche, there are men’s socks that can get you going.

ROSE: Hi everybody.

BLANCHE: Hi.

ROSE: And do we all remember what today is?

SOPHIA: I’ll go out on a limb and say Thursday, but you can’t go by me. I’m in and out of my children’s first names.

ROSE: It’s the 117th anniversary of the birth of Robert Frost.

SOPHIA: I love him. Always nipping at your nose.

ROSE: That was Jack Frost. Robert Frost is the guy who interviewed Richard Nixon on TV. (chuckles) Who’s the dumb one now?

DOROTHY: Ah, you’re still the reigning champ Rose. That was David Frost. Robert Frost was a famous American poet.

SOPHIA: And when I was with him, he was always nipping at my nose.

ROSE: Miles is cooking dinner to celebrate Frost’s birthday. He invited us all, and we accepted.

BLANCHE: I don’t remember ever agreeing to that.

ROSE: Sure you did. I distinctly remember you said, “Oh, boy! Miles reading poetry, sign me up, sign me up.” You sounded pretty definite.

BLANCHE: Sarcasm, Rose, that’s like when I say you’re so lucky to be a natural blonde.

ROSE: (smiles) Thank you.

SOPHIA: All right, we’ll go. But I’d rather stay home and eat flot.

Scene 2: At Miles apartment

MILES: Overall then, what I’d say Frost is most significantly remembered for is his simple, clear use of uncomplicated imagery to express the quiet values of a rural New England life.

SOPHIA: Are we home yet?

BLANCHE: My, oh, my, oh, my, just look at all the other places to be. (spins globe)

MILES: It is amazing, isn’t it? How with a few carefully chosen words, a poet can convey the immediacy of a specific life experience.

ROSE: You don’t have to tell me. Remember, I grew up in a small farm town. Here a quack, there a quack… everywhere… a quack quack.

SOPHIA: Hey, look, there’s a black guy doing the news, and it isn’t even the weekend.

DOROTHY: Ma, did you turn that on?

SOPHIA: Poltergeist.

NEWSCASTER: Thanks, Steve. And lord knows, we can use the rain. In the news this hour—one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted criminal, escaped convict and underworld kingpin Mickey “the cheeseman” Moran is dead.

DOROTHY: Ma, turn it off. Now.

MILES: No. (closes book)Let’s just hear that to the end.

NEWSCASTER: He was blown up this morning outside his home in suburban Chicago by a bomb attached to the ignition of his car. A violent end to a violent man.

MILES: You know, ladies, what do you say we take a rain check on the poetry reading?

SOPHIA: I’d say no dice. Doesn’t a rain check mean we have to come back?

DOROTHY: (laughs) When she kids you like that, it means she likes you.

MILES: Well, I do have a few papers to grade, and I could use the time. Here, Rose, here are the poems I was going to read. (hands book) Look, why don’t you look them over and we’ll discuss them next time we’re all together, hum?

BLANCHE: So long.

MILES: Bye Blanche.

BLANCHE: Actually, I was describing the evening. (leaves)

MILES: (dials phone) Yeah, Burnett? Miles Weber. I just heard about the cheeseman on TV. Can it be? Am I free?

Scene 3: In kitchen, phone rings

SOPHIA: Hello? Oh, Gladys Bubbie. You what? Goldfein, I put a Sicilian curse on you. You’ll be barren. Okay, worse, you won’t be barren. And you know what else, Goldfein? That sandwich I gave you yesterday? It was ham!

DOROTHY: Ma, what is it?

SOPHIA: Gladys want to take a man to Tony Bennett in my place.

BLANCHE: Oh, Sophia, calm down. Honey, it’s all right if you want to drop your girlfriend because a man asks you out. That’s the law of the jungle.

SOPHIA: Thank you, Sheena, queen of the slut people.

DOROTHY: Ma, Gladys is your best friend. She didn’t do this to you’re your feelings. It was probably an accident. She must have forgotten that she already invited you.

SOPHIA: Let me tell you something, pussycat, there are no accidents. Nobody wrongs someone without meaning it.

DOROTHY: Come on, that’s ridiculous.

BLANCHE: Ahh! Ahhh! (coffee thrown on new dress)

DOROTHY: Oh, I’m sorry.

BLANCHE: I was going to take this dress back.

DOROTHY: I am sorry Blanche.

BLANCHE: You’re sorry?

DOROTHY: Oh, come on, it was an accident.

SOPHIA: Or was it?

BLANCHE: Well, I’ll tell you one thing—you are paying for this dress.

DOROTHY: I am not paying for the dress. I will pay for the dry cleaning and that’s all. I told you before, (goes to living room) you can’t return something after it’s been worn)

BLANCHE: I certainly can’t now, after your little spasm. I wanted to wear something tonight that Duane’s never seen me in.

SOPHIA: Maybe you should try underwear. (spins away as doorbell chimes)

ROSE: Miles, I thought you were grading papers.

MILES: No, I wasn’t. I lied.

ROSE: Oh my God, what were you grading?

MILES: Rose, Rose, I have wonderful news. But I think you better sit down first before you hear it.

ROSE: Ok, you’re the professor.

MILES: Well, you see, I’m not. I’m not really a professor.

ROSE: What?

MILES: My name is not really Miles Weber.

ROSE: Well, then… (looks around) What are you talking about Miles?

MILES: Rose, my real name is Nicholas Carbone. I was an accountant in Chicago, and my biggest client was the dead man we saw on the TV news bulletin this evening.

ROSE: The Cheeseman?

MILES: That’s right, but, Rose, you have to believe me. By the time I found out, I was too deeply involved. I was arrested. The FEDS tried to pin everything on me.

ROSE: You mean… did they –have you been to prison?

MILES: Oh, no. I couldn’t let that happen. Can you imagine what my life would have been like if the other inmates found out how much I love to dance? No. The D.A. offered me a deal and I turned state’s evidence which put my client Mr. Moran away for a long, long time. Do you understand what I’m saying?

SOPHIA: Yeah, you’re a snitch.

MILES: I’m not a snitch. I’m an informant.

SOPHIA: Oh, a snitch in a tie.

MILES: The point is, it all would have been behind me but he escaped. The government had to put me in the witness protection program, gave me a new name, a new job –whole new identity.

ROSE: I don’t know what to say. I can’t believe this story you’re telling me.

DOROTHY: But you can believe the story about Henrik Felderstuhl, St. Olaf’s half-man, half-grasshopper?

ROSE: Dorothy, I’m telling you, when he rubbed his legs together, you’d swear you were on a camping trip.

SOPHIA: Ok, let me get this straight, you mean to tell me you are personally acquainted with men who do bodily harm to private citizens for money?

MILES: I can’t deny it, Sophia, yes.

SOPHIA: Then take down this address. Gladys Goldfein, 327—

DOROTHY: Ma!

MILES: Rose, I know this is a little overwhelming for you. But try to look at it through my eyes. I have my life back now for the first time in years, I’ve been able to call my friends and let them know where I am.

ROSE: Well, you may have your life back, but I’ve had the rug pulled out from under mine.

MILES: Look, I know it sounds awful, but it’s not. I can be free. I go back to Chicago, and sweetheart, I want you there with me.

ROSE: Chicago? Go to Chicago? I don’t even know you! (throws book and runs off)

Scene 3 In the kitchen

BLANCHE: Oh, Rose, honey, we know how confused you must feel, but no matter how unfocused your emotions are, you must try to express them. So just go ahead and cry if you want to or scream or throw things if you have to. But let those feelings out, honey. Let them fill this room.

ROSE: (chest heaves) Heck!

BLANCHE: I know, baby, I know. (wraps arm around her)

DOROTHY: Oh, Rose, this is terrible. You have been robbed of the most basic sense of security. You know, no matter what else is happening, at the very least I know that when I come home at night you are you, Blanche is Blanche, and ma, if she’s taken her medication is my mother.

ROSE: I don’t know what’s real anymore. When I think of the things I’ve told Miles –the things he’s told me, the things we’ve told each other, things we’ve said in a restaurant, things we’ve said on our way to a restaurant, things we’ve said on the way home—

DOROTHY: The two of you shared! We get it!

ROSE: But who was I sharing with? If you say something to somebody who isn’t really who he is, have you actually said anything or not? And if he’s heard it as someone he really isn’t, has anything you’ve said actually been heard?

SOPHIA: Sorry, I wasn’t listening.

DOROTHY: She wants to know what to do about Miles.

SOPHIA: Drop him.

DOROTHY: Ma.

SOPHIA: When someone you trusted tells you something that later turns out not to be true, wash your hands of them give him the boot. Drop him.

DOROTHY: A little bit of Gladys Goldfein slipping into this opinion, ma?

SOPHIA: Who else are we talking about?

ROSE: Now I know how my friend Mary Jan von Helfenphfelfer felt.

BLANCHE: Oh, well, considering what you’ve been through, go ahead, Rose.

ROSE: She took a vacation to Mexico, and she found this poor, scrawny, helpless little Chihuahua puppy on the street, and she brought it home to St. Olaf with her. And she nurse it back to health. She loved it. She took it to bed with her. She taught it to fetch. She’d throw a ball, and he’d bring it back, and she’d throw a ball and he’d bring it back. Well, Ig uses I don’t have tot ell you that’s pretty much what fetch is. (makes throwing motion)

DOROTHY: How much longer are we going to circle the airport, Rose? You want to bring this baby in?

ROSE: Well, when she took the puppy in to get shots, the vet told her the bad news. He said, Mary Jane, this is no Chihuahua. This is a rat.

BLANCHE: (Blanche stretches her arms and gives her a sideway glance)


SOPHIA: (Sophia gives a sideway glance at the others)

DOROTHY: (Dorothy looks straight at her for a long time, clasps her hands under her chin) And the point, Aesop?

ROSE: I thought Miles was a chihuahuah. It turns out he was a rat.

SOPHIA: You know, I once prepared a six-course meal with what I thought was chicken. But it turned out to be—

DOROTHY: Ma! Rose, in my heart, I cannot believe that Miles is a rat. He just fell in with the wrong people, that’s all. Now, look, I know you have a date with him tomorrow night, keep it. I’m sure you’ll fine he’s the same caring, sensitive man you’ve known all along. (turns to Sophia) My God, it wasn’t my confirmation dinner, was it?!

SOPHIA: (blinks several times) Your pop sure made everyone laugh when he made the little feet dance.

DOROTHY: (hand to chest, looking disgusted)

Scene 4 Living room, Rose enters thru front door

DOROTHY: Rose, how did your date go?

ROSE: Oh, Dorothy, you were absolutely right. It was better than I could have dreamed. When we sat down to our meal, Nick ordered a whiskey neat and a shrimp cocktail which was positively uncanny because Miles always began his meal with a whiskey neat and a shrimp cocktail.

DOROTHY: You haven’t had much experience with the uncanny, have you Rose?

BLANCHE: Oh, Rose, I thought I heard your voice. Now I want you start at the beginning and tell us everything.

SOPHIA: Booze, shrimp, you’re up to speed. Go Rose.

ROSE: Well, to begin with, I had an absolutely fantastic time. He’s the same man. The man I love, and that’s why I told him… I’d go to Chicago with him.

DOROTHY: You’d what? (sits up, happy)

BLANCHE: You’re not moving, are you?

ROSE: Only for 3 months, just so he can clean up his business then we’ll come back.

DOROTHY: Oh, Rose, I’m so happy everything worked out.

SOPHIA: Rose, I never thought I’d say this, (put a hand on her shoulder) but I’m going to miss you. Your laugh, your smile, your St. Olaf stories… okay, I’m over it now.

Scene 5 Living room

(Sophia’s cleaning, dusting the table and placing flower arrangement)

DOROTHY: Gee, ma, I think it’s nice how things are working out for Rose and Miles.

SOPHIA: Well, it had to happen sometime, pussycat.

(Doorbell rings.)

Rose found a man—

and pretty soon blanche will find a man and before you know it, you... you should buy a parakeet or something.

DOROTHY: (opens door) Gladys! Honey, how are you?

GLADYS: Fine, Dorothy. Is your mother home?

DOROTHY: Uh… (Sophia’s motioning to her) No, I can’t say that she is.

GLADYS: I’ve been trying to call, but she keeps hanging up. You sure she isn’t home?

DOROTHY: (Sophia’s motioning to her) No, I still can’t say that, no. Would you like to leave a message?

GLADYS: Oh, I don’t know. I just wanted to apologize.

SOPHIA: (pushes Dorothy aside) What took you so long?

DOROTHY: Ma, when did you get in?

SOPHIA: Oh, Dorothy, grow up. So, are you reading from a prepared statement, Goldfein? Or are you feeling cocky enough to wing it?

GLADYS: I came because I was thinking at our age, the last thing you say to somebody might be the last thing you say. So I just want you to know that I’m sorry, Sophia. I want to take you to the concert. (pulls out tickets from bag)

SOPHIA: Bubbie! (shoots arms out)

GLADYS: Faccia bella!

(they hug)

SOPHIA: Dorothy learn from this. This is what friendships are built on—loyalty, mutual respect, trust—give me my ticket. (snatches them and reads)

GLADYS: What?

SOPHIA: Gladys, you yutz, these aren’t for Tony Bennett. They’re for Tony Martin.

GLADYS: Of course they’re for Tony Martin. You think I’d cam overnight for tickets to Tony Bennett?

SOPHIA: Tell you what, sweetheart, take Milton. Have a swell time. Only this time, don’t throw your underwear on stage.

GLADYS: Then why go?

SOPHIA: Why couldn’t they put Tony Bennett and Tony Martin on the same bill? (sits down on couch) Ah who am I kidding? There will never be another Woodstock. (throws arms looking up)

BLANCHE: (enters) I am never shopping at Fiedler Brothers again.

DOROTHY: I beg your pardon?

BLANCHE: It’s a little late for that. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life.

DOROTHY: What about the time you lost the key to your handcuffs and had to go with that guy on his mail route?

BLANCHE: (readjusts dress) It seems that before I returned the dress I was so busy putting the price tags back on, I neglected to remove the dry cleaning tag. Not only did they refuse to take the dress back, the store manager had the gall to accuse me of being dishonest. (looks at her nails)

DOROTHY: Oh, that’s terrible, Blanche. If I were you, I’d take my dishonesty elsewhere.

BLANCHE: They made me pay. $300 for a dress I didn’t even want.

DOROTHY: Blanche, it’s only fair. You tried something crooked, and you got caught. Now you’re going to have to scrimp and cut corners and find some way to pay for it.

BLANCHE: I already have. The rent increases go into effect tomorrow. All except Sophia.

DOROTHY: Why not her?

BLANCHE: The rent increase was her idea.

SOPHIA: So, I’m the one musketeer. I’ll make new friends.

ROSE: You won’t believe the horrible thing I just heard on the radio.

DOROTHY: Oh, Rose, we go through this everytime. This is merely a test. In the event of an actual emergency…

ROSE: No! The news! I was just listening to the news, and the cheeseman isn’t dead.

DOROTHY: What?

ROSE: A coroner’s investigation proved that Moran staged the whole thing.

BLANCHE: He’s alive, and he knows Miles is seeing Rose and Rose knows me, and they always hold the prettiest one hostage.

DOROTHY: (shakes head)

BLANCHE: Oh, if I could just do something to make myself less attractive.

SOPHIA: Try soap and water.

BLANCHE: (throws head back)

ROSE: I have to call Miles. He must be out of his mind with worry…

MILES: Rose! (enters from glass door)

ROSE: Oh, darling, we heard.

MILES: Rose, it’s awful. (hugs her) Look, we don’t have much time.

DOROTHY: Oh, I’m so sorry about this Miles.

SOPHIA: Can we get this guy out of here? I don’t want to be killed at my age. That would be like getting tackled on the one-yard line.

MILES: Rose, you realize that Chicago is out of the picture now.

ROSE: There’s no way we can just stay in Miami?

MILES: No, no, that’s impossible too sweetheart. Look, I don’t know where the government’s going to move us. But all I do know is that everything’s going to be fine as long as the two of us are together.

ROSE: I can’t believe this is happening. Maybe we better try Springfield. He’d never find us in Springfield.

MILES: Which Springfield?

ROSE: Aha! Girls don’t worry, soon as Miles and I are settled, we’ll let you know where we are.

MILES: No Rose, I’m afraid we won’t be able to let anybody know where we are.

BLANCHE: But we won’t tell a soul even when we come to visit.

MILES: You can’t visit, it’s too dangerous.

DOROTHY: But at least we’ll be able to phone.

MILES: No, I’m sorry.

ROSE: What about my children?

MILES: Rose, it’s just too risky for us and for them.

ROSE: Oh, Miles, this is an impossible decision. Oh, I love you so much.

MILES: Rose, I love you too.

ROSE: But I also love my friends and my family, and the thought of leaving…I’m sorry.

MILES: All right. I understand.

ROSE: Oh, I’m going to miss you Miles.

MILES: Rose, there won’t be a day (hugs her) I won’t be thinking about you. Good bye, Rose, darling. (they kiss) You take good care of her, ladies. (runs to front door)

ROSE: Miles, your poetry book.

MILES: Keep it. And when you read page 73, think of me. (leaves)

ROSE: (clasps book, then drops down and opens it to the page)

And when to the heart of man was it ever less than a treason to bow and accept the end of a love or of a season…