James Cain - The Cocktail Waitress

Next morning I got up, made coffee for myself over the flame of a chafing dish, a skill I’d learned ever since the gas had been discontinued, and put on pants and a blouse. Then I sat down at the dressing table and wrote three checks, one to the gas company, one to the electric, and one to the phone. Two of them I put in a drawer, as I wouldn’t have money to cover; but one of them, to the phone company, I put in my bag and I went out. I walked down to the bank, reserved $10, and deposited the rest, more than $50 in all. Then I walked up the hill to the phone company, which had offices near the bank. They sent me up to Mr. Wilson, on the second floor. I handed him my check, tucked into the last bill we’d received, marked “Third Notice,” and asked him: “Mr. Wilson, how soon can the phone be turned on?”

“… Just a second. I’ll see.”

He left the room, but then in a short time was back. He sat down and pushed me his phone. “Will you dial your number?” he asked.

“Mr. Wilson, my phone is cut off. Perhaps I should have mentioned, it happened some time ago, when I didn’t pay my bill, and-”

“Well, try it anyway.”

I dialed my number. “Oh!” I yelped. “It’s ringing.”

“I thought it would.”

He laughed, and I hung up so I could clap my hands, though I loved hearing the ring. He gave me a little pat on the arm, and once more I felt happy and friendly. Then I walked down the hill, crossed the street, and a half block up went into a luncheonette in the middle of a big parking lot, where I ordered breakfast-a big, real breakfast, of orange juice, fried eggs sunny side up with a slice of ham, buttered toast, and coffee. For the figure, it’s not recommended, but for the soul, when you haven’t eaten like that, at least at breakfast time, for so long you can’t remember the last time you did, it’s wonderful. I took my time, and chewed every bite. When she brought me my check, the girl asked me: “Didn’t I see you last night at the Garden? Didn’t you serve us our drinks? Me and my friend?”

“That’s right, I remember. You were in the blue dress.”

“First night out in a while.”

“Did you find the service O.K.?”

“Little too good, I’m sorry to say-especially how well the friend liked it. He’s not my boyfriend, exactly, but since he was taking me out, I could have done with a little less looking. Not that it was your fault.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t notice.”

“Well, he sure did. That boy liked you.”

“They make us wear those things, you know.”

“I imagine it helps with tips, from male customers anyway.”

“It seems to.”

She looked down at her own torso and shook her head. “And I’m working here. If I had what you have …”

I left her a dollar as tip. It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t fill out a blouse the way Liz and I could.

Back in the house I looked up Elizabeth Baumgarten in the phone book and dialed her number. When she answered I said: “Liz, this is Joan. I got my phone turned on, and in celebration thereof, called you first of all.” She took it big and flung off a couple of gags, then said she’d stop by around 3:30 and run me down to work. I told her: “Make it three, so we can visit a little while,” and she said she would. Then I set the alarm and lay down for a little nap, to let the breakfast digest. I got up just after two, put on light tan pantyhose, the trunks, flat-heel comfortable shoes, and a peasant blouse of my own, as the other wasn’t fresh anymore, and needed a dunk in the basin. I was hanging it up on the shower rail when the doorbell clicked, with a knock following, and I skipped down the hall to answer. But instead of Liz it was Ethel. Her eyes opened wide at my costume. “Oh,” I said. “Hello, Ethel.”

“I’m here for Tad’s things,” she told me.

“Well come in, why don’t you? Act sociable.”

“… If he has any things, that is.”

I didn’t appreciate this crack, but I still played it friendly and took no notice. “Of course he has things,” I assured her, motioning her inside.

“I only say so because you seemed to have so little, when I first came here on Sunday. It was truly a shock.”

“So you said at the time.”

She continued to speak, not bothering to face me, as she walked past me to the living room: “I mean, not even electricity, Joan! I don’t see how you could live that way, how you could raise a child that way.”

Before I followed I glanced at her car, which she’d put in the drive, to make sure Tad wasn’t in it, locked up to bake in the sun. He wasn’t, and I went in the living room. By then she’d taken a seat, but resumed her stare at my outfit, especially my trunks. “I see you’ve noticed my uniform,” I said. “I’ve taken a job. I work in a cocktail bar-the Garden of Roses, down the street.”

“… Joan, I’d be ashamed!”

“Of what? Working for a living?”

“There are livings that don’t require you to dress like… a tramp.”

“Find me one that’ll have me and I’ll apply. In the meantime, I’m earning good money and all I’m doing for it is bringing people drinks and a bit of food, and a smile to go with them.”

“Might as well have nothing on but that smile.”

“The more they admire what they see, Ethel, the more they tip- and tips are the object of the game. They have to be, when you have a little boy and have to pay board for him.”

“You don’t have to pay board, I’ve told you.”

“Oh, but Ethel, I do. I can’t be beholden to you.”

She stared some more, then broke out: “Joan, don’t you have any pride? If not for your own sake, Joan, you could think of Tad.”

“You mean, to be a fit mother for him?”

“… Yes! That’s what I mean, exactly!”

“And you’re not the only one, Ethel. Would you believe it, some woman called up the police about it, talked to the officers who handled Ron’s case, trying to get them to move, to have me declared an unfit mother. Can you imagine something like that? This woman even mentioned Joe Pennington-you know, that boy you spread rumors about, as being something more to me than just an acquaintance. Who do you suppose would have done a thing like that?”

She didn’t answer, and I sat there kicking my foot. Then the doorbell spoke again, and when I opened the door Liz was there. She came in and I presented her: “Ethel, Miss Baumgarten, my very good friend. Liz, my sister-in-law, Mrs. Lucas.”

Liz waved her hand, and as Ethel nodded her head, threw off the spring coat she had on, standing forth in her cocktail-bar outfit, which of course was identical with mine, except for the blouse not quite the same. Seeing Ethel’s expression she said: “If the clothes kind of startle a little, Mrs. Lucas, they’re O.K., we work in a ginmill, Joanie and I. We serve drinks in a cocktail bar, and our bunch, they kind of like legs. They shouldn’t but they do. Mine aren’t terrific, like Joanie’s, but for an old lady, they’ll do. At least, so I’ve been told.”

“They’re-quite striking,” said Ethel.

“I’ll get Tad’s things,” I said, “and then we can have some coffee.”

I went back to the kitchen, started water in the chafing dish, then went in the little room that I had used as a nursery and got Tad’s things from the chiffonier drawer. Most of them were clean, but in one corner were the things he’d had on since the day Ron got killed, and those I had in my hand when I took the clean ones, which I put in a grocery bag, back to the living room. I handed the bag to Ethel, waved the others, and told her: “These aren’t clean, I’ll wash them out and bring them Sunday, when I go over to visit my child-if I’m invited, that is.”