James Cain - The Cocktail Waitress

“What are you going to do?”

“You’ll see.”

So I saw, because next night here she came in with four pairs of chambray hot pants, in the same color the velveteens were, crimson. Or almost the same color-they were really more like maroon, which of course had some black mixed in, instead of blue. When I’d paid her for my two, one to wear, the other to wash overnight, she led the way back to the locker room, where we made the switch. “And Joanie,” she whispered, when we both had the velveteens off, “we take off the pantyhose too. And we don’t put them back on.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t ask Bianca?”

“No, Joanie, we should not.”

“Why not? Why go looking for trouble?”

“That’s it, she might say no.”

And when I’d peeled the pantyhose off, and had put the hot pants on, pulling them up over skin, she said: “And, with the legs you got, Joanie, it could also be a nice feature. It could attract trade, you know what I mean.”

“Speak for yourself, why don’t you?”

“O.K., then, O.K.”

Under pantyhose I wear panties-there’s two schools of opinion about it, but decency, it seems to me, as well as personal cleanliness, wants that layer of silk, in against your personal parts. So, silk panties inside, chambray pants outside, both kind of loose, don’t forget-and topside the peasant blouse as I always wore it before to go out on the floor, when who should come in but Bianca. We had it hot for some minutes-she didn’t really have a good objection to offer, but insisted she should have been asked.

I said: “O.K., then we ask.”

“And the answer, Joan, is no.”

Liz cut in: “No, Bianca, on this we don’t ask you, we tell you. Did you hear what I said?”

Bianca was looking furious, but I could see her sense of affront warring with her native preference to give in when pressed. Liz must have seen it, too, and pressed harder.

“O.K., then, we strike. As of right now, if you say we have to wear those velveteens in this heat, we’re on strike. We’re going to letter us up some signs and parade up and down in front. And we’ll wear these when we do it.”

“But those hot pants’ll get wrinkles in them,” Bianca said. “All pointing front and center and down. They won’t be decent.”

“Wrinkles are good for business. Wrinkles like you say we’ll have.” Liz went on: “Anyhow we won’t have wrinkles, Bianca, these pants are made out of chambray-chambray the shirting material, made on purpose not to get wrinkles.” She pulled out the label on her extra pair. “Hey, these are Burlington pants. Wake up-Burlington wouldn’t make wrinkles.”

It gave her the excuse she needed, to save face: “Then-I guess it’s O.K.”

“Then, Bianca,” I told her, “we graciously call the strike off.”

“O.K., Joan.”

She kissed me, and Liz gave a little cheer, and that was the end of the matter.

So I thought.

I guess it was 11:30 that night, when Tom came in with his friends, three other guys and two girls, the men all young and rugged and both the women beauties, and all of them half crocked when they got there. Liz had overflow business, and Bianca gave them to me, putting them in a booth, which made a pretty tight fit. It was so tight that Tom had to push one girl in just a little bit tighter before wedging in himself, on the left side of the booth as I faced it, which of course put him next to me, one leg jutting out into the aisle, when I stood in to serve. He grinned naughtily at me, in a way clearly meant to make my heart race, and it annoyed me that, being a rather handsome grin, it did, just a little. Then they all began ordering doubles-bourbon and ginger ale, I suppose the worst combination ever, not only to make them all drunker, but also to make them sick. However, Bianca said go along, give them what they wanted. “He’s an old friend, Tom Barclay is, so don’t hurt his feelings, please.” I tried to imagine how this young buck with the rakish grin could be an old friend of a woman Bianca’s age, and I suppose it showed in my face because Bianca said, “His father was a regular here from the time my husband built the place. Tom’s grown up here.”

He didn’t seem to have grown up too much, judging by the way he was carrying on with his friends. But Liz got in the act, saying how nice he was, “except of course when slopped, but even then no worse than somebody else. Who is nice slopped?”

“I couldn’t think of anyone.”

Serving drinks to the slopped is no work to write home about, no matter how nice when sober. The girls got louder and louder, and the guys more personal with me, meaning they said things no one should say, to any girl any time anywhere. But Tom, being next to the aisle and to me, didn’t confine it to saying. He also did some doing, pawing me over whenever I came to the table, especially around the bottom, which he patted a number of times. I fixed that by stepping away, and no great harm was done. But then, as I was reaching across to pour one of the girls her drink, he put his hand on my leg, on my bare leg, above the knee on the inside, and began sliding it up. You can see now why I’ve gone into such detail, about the hot pants, the silk panties underneath, and how loose they both were. I’m trying to say I all but turned to ice, and reacted automatically: I clamped both legs together, so his hand couldn’t move, and at the same time turned away, on my heel or something. But that pulled his hand around too, and I suppose threw him off balance, because all in the same split second, there he was on the floor, pulled out of the booth when I turned. Then, in a flash, there was Liz. And then, there was Bianca. It was she, not me, who saw what the fall had done to him-reacted on his stomach, so he was holding on to his mouth, gulping and gagging and trying not to throw up on the floor. And I was standing back, his hand off me at last, wondering what I should do.

It was one of his friends, sliding out of the booth, who got him to his feet and began rushing him back to the men’s room, growling into his ear: “Not here, Tommy, not here! Hold it! Hold it three more steps, and then let it come, the whole goddam bellyful!”

He got to the men’s room without letting go in the lounge, and after a long moment of silence, somebody laughed and conversation went on. Bianca, for once in her life, showed some spine, and said to the bunch at the table: “You’ve all had enough. When you’ve drunk out, you can get. I said get, I mean get the hell out.”

She came, stood by me, and waited while Jake went back in the men’s room. He came out and came over. “We’re in luck,” he reported. “He let go all right, five and a half gallons-but in the toilet. He flushed it, and not none went on the floor.”

He went back to the bar.

The friend came out of the men’s room, and rejoined his other two friends and the girls.

Then at last, here came Tom.

He started for the booth, but changed his mind and sat at a table, the same one Mr. White sat at, every day when he came. I brought him a cup of hot coffee from the kitchen, black, and said: “Maybe this will help.”

“You bet,” he whispered. “Thanks.”

He sipped it, flinched at how hot it was, then sipped again. He kept on sipping until it was all gone, then wiped his mouth with a cocktail napkin. He took out a pocket comb and combed his hair, and then picked up the napkin again and wiped his face, where it was covered with sweat. “Feel better now,” he said with a smile more subdued than the grin he’d given me before, but no less handsome, and don’t think he didn’t know it.

“Wouldn’t you like a little more coffee?” I said.

“No, I’m O.K. now.”

“You sure you are?”