James Cain - The Cocktail Waitress

I couldn’t make myself give back $19.15, I needed it so.

He left, and I noticed for the first time a man in chauffeur’s uniform waiting for him in the foyer. I knew I’d made a strike that could be important to me, but what stuck in my mind was: I wished I liked him better.

If Jake saw me stuffing the bills in my pocket, the pocket I found in my trunks, it didn’t show on his face, but Liz saw me doing it, and gave me a squint-eyed look, that wondered at once what the meaning of it was. Maybe I wondered too, just a little. However, the time for wondering passed, as all of a sudden the place began filling up, and there was no time for anything except drinks. Of course, some of those people, instead of moving on to the dining room, decided to eat where they were, and I had to serve them dinner. For that, I had to meet the chef, a barrel-chested Lithuanian named Bergovizi whom everyone addressed as Mr. Bergie, so he could explain how things were done in the kitchen, especially how to “call it” for him, as he said. It had to be done in a certain way, especially on stuff like sauce-if the customer wanted it separate, like the meuniere on fish, I had to say “boat it,” not “serve the sauce separate,” or anything complicated. Or if the customer didn’t want sauce I had to call: “Hold the sauce.” I knew there was a reason for things like that, and put my mind on it to remember, but it was all quite a strain and soon, after all I’d gone through that day, I began to wilt. Jake noticed it, and whispered: “Take it easy, Joan. There’s no rush-let ’em chaw on their Fritos.”

It made me laugh, and helped, and it helped still more when Liz gave me a pat, telling me: “You’ll get a break around eight, then go have dinner yourself-Mr. Bergie will fix you up.” Still, they kept coming, as Mrs. Rossi kept bringing them in, being her own maitre d’, or maitresse d’, I suppose I should say. Around eight-thirty things slacked off and Liz told me to eat, and I did, seating myself at a folding table set up between the six-burner stove and the propped-open pantry door. It was the first proper meal I’d had in months. Mr. Bergie cut me a thick slice of roast beef, and I had it with a baked potato, a dish of vanilla ice cream I dipped myself from the freezer box, and coffee, and it freshened me, especially the coffee, so I felt I could go through the rest of the night.

I was doing all right until just before closing time, when a man with a party of six began to give out about oil, and said it with gestures, one of which swept every glass off the table onto the floor. I wanted to scream, and couldn’t face getting that mess up. But then Jake was there with towels, and Liz was down on her knees, mopping up before I could start. I got down on my knees too, not being upset anymore. When the man paid his check, which with drinks and food for six had come to just about $50, he left an extra $15, and I split it with Liz and Jake, feeling warm and close and friendly. By the time we had it clear Mrs. Rossi locked the front door, toted the registers and counted the cash. Mine checked out O.K., and next thing I knew, I was in Liz’s car, and she was backing out of the lot. I still had on my uniform, as she had suggested I wear it home, “so you can dress for work there tomorrow, and skip the locker-room bit.”

We were halfway home, and she hadn’t said too much. But then suddenly she started to talk. “Joanie,” she began, “something happened tonight, that made me wonder about you. You know, how you feel about things.”

“Liz, make it plain. What happened tonight? What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Mr. Four-Bits. One girl’s tips are strictly no other girl’s business, and girls don’t tell what they get, even to other girls. Just the same, I happened to see what he gave you-a lot more than he ever gave me. Well, all right, you’re less than half his age and pretty as hell, he’s entitled to like what he sees. But, I notice you took it.”

“… Well? Wouldn’t you have?”

“Are you being funny?”

“Well, you would have, wouldn’t you?”

“The point is, you did. And of course I wondered why. I mean I have that kind of mind. So, I get to it. Joan, do you take a broadminded view? I mean, when he ups and propositions you, you’re not going to smack him down?”

“I hadn’t got that far with it.”

She stopped talking and kept on driving, but then started up again. “What I’m leading to, Joanie: I get propositioned, myself. Time to time, I mean. And some passes I don’t turn down. Well? It’s fifty bucks. So what I’m leading to: Often, the guy, the one that likes my looks, has a pal, and wants to know if I have a sidekick, some girl who would care to make it four. Well, Joanie, what do you say? The comment I got tonight, you stirred up plenty of interest, and the subject is bound to come up. So, hit the nail on the head, what do I tell that pair that asks? Do I have a sidekick or not? Or in other words, it’s nice work if you can get it, and does it appeal to you?”

“You catch me by surprise. I never thought about-” Then: “You really do this? Let a man take you out and, and…”

“When opportunity presents, Joanie, and assuming I don’t mind his looks.”

“But don’t you ever get … in trouble?”

“If you mean what I think you mean,” she said, throwing my words back at me, “any girl can, whether there’s money involved or no. You just have to know where to take care of it if it happens.”

I thought back to my situation three years earlier, my ignorance of such matters. I’d lived a lot since then, and not all of it good, but I still was an innocent on some topics. “You can get that done here?”

“Here? No, of course not. But up in New York, if you know the doctor to call, and I do. But if you’re careful it never comes up. Hasn’t for me but once.”

“I … I don’t know what to tell you.”

“O.K., take your time. Think about it, Joan.”

And then, after perhaps three seconds: “O.K., you’ve thought it over, what do you say? Yes or no? You want one of them dates or not?”

By now, she had pulled up in front of my house, and sat there looking at me. And I sat looking at her, with a mixed feeling of love and terrible pity, that she’d even think of such a thing, and wondering why. In the bar she must have done well, as I was doing so far, and she was certainly good-looking enough to have a man of her own, without having to be dating strangers on the basis of passes made in a bar, by men she barely knew. And then suddenly, I thought I’d better tell her how things were with me, and why I couldn’t say yes, “at least at this time.” So I started off: “Liz, I couldn’t. I just buried my husband today. I’m Joan Medford-the girl that was in the papers this week, that put her husband out, and-”

I got no further.

“… Oh! Oh! Oh! The one who died in the car wreck? And they said his wife was-oh!”

She was warm, tender, and wonderful, taking my hand in hers, kissing it, patting me on the knee, doing the things you would want. “I read about it,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me the rest -and you’re her? You came down today, and worked ?”

“Liz, I had to. I had to get money, quick.”

“Well you got some, Joanie. I’m proud of you.”

“I tried to do as you showed me.”

“You did wonderful. Now Joanie, would it help if I came in with you? I mean, put you to bed? Made you a cup of tea? Or-you got some Scotch in the house?”

“I don’t drink, Liz.”

“Me neither. I got weaknesses, but not booze.”

“Just let me sit here a minute.”

“Sit all night if you want.”

She kissed me when I got out, then waited while I unlocked the front door before driving off. I went in and lit a candle, as of course my lights were cut off, and started to count my money. But then I collapsed into tears, as a crying spell hit me, not from feeling bad, but from feeling so happy all over. That may make no sense, but it did, in a way, because from feeling so utterly sunk, so unable to think what to do, except to get some work mowing lawns, here I was with a job, with friends that warmed to me, and money, cash money, bulging my velveteen pocket, in these silly trunks I had to wear. By candlelight I knelt, by the side of my bed all alone, and counted the money I’d brought home. With the $19.15 I’d got from Mr. White, my $5 share of the last tip I had got, from the man who knocked over the glasses, and the other tips, I had $61-an amount I couldn’t believe. And I had the prospect of making more the next day, the day after that, the day after that, and as many days as I wanted. It seemed too good to be true. I tried to remember Ron, how I had felt for him once, when I’d first met him and he was at his most charming, and I suppose I did manage to summon some memories suitable to the day of a man’s funeral-but my tears of joy kept coming. At last I put the money under my pillow, took off my trunks and blouse, crept into bed with no clothes on, and slept.