Джеймс Кейн - Mildred Pierce

Mildred left in, such a pleasant glow that she forgot to be disappointed, and she was halfway down the hall before she realized that her name was being called. Mrs. Boole was standing in the hallway, the card still in her hand, and came toward her nervously. She took Mildred’s hand, held it a moment or two while she looked down at the street, many stories below. Then: “Mrs. Pierce, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

“Yes?”

“There aren’t any jobs.”

“Well, I knew things were slack, but—”

“Listen to me, Mrs. Pierce. I wouldn’t say this to many of them, but you seem different from most of the applicants that come in here. I don’t want you to go home thinking there’s any hope. There isn’t. In this store, we’ve taken on just two people in the last three months — one to take the place of a gentleman who was killed in an automobile accident, the other to take the place of a lady who had to retire on account of ill health. We see everybody that comes in, partly because we think we ought to, partly because we don’t want to close up the department altogether. There just aren’t any jobs, here or in the other stores either. I know I’m making you feel bad, but I don’t want you to be — kidded.”

Mildred patted her arm, and laughed. “Well my goodness, it’s not your fault. And I know exactly what you mean. You don’t want me to be wearing out shoes, for nothing.”

“That’s it. The shoes.”

“But if you do have something—”

“Oh, if I have anything, don’t worry. I’ll be only too glad to let you know — by paid telegram. And, if you’re down this way again, will you drop in on me? We could have lunch.”

“I’ll be only too glad to.”

Mrs. Boole kissed her, and Mildred left, feeling footsore, hungry, and strangely happy. When she got home there was a notice hanging on the door, asking her to call for a paid telegram.

“Mrs. Pierce, it was like something in a movie. You had hardly stepped into the elevator, honestly. In fact I had you paged downstairs, hoping you hadn’t left the store,”

They sat down, in Mrs. Boole’s private office this time, Mrs. Boole behind her big desk, Mildred in the chair beside it. Mrs. Boole went on: “I was watching you step into the down car, I was admiring your figure if you have to know why I was watching you, when this call came from the restaurant.”

“You mean the store restaurant?”

“Yes, the tea room on the roof. Of course, the store doesn’t have anything to do with that. It’s sublet, but the manager likes to take people from our lists, just the same. He feels it makes a better tie-up, and then of course we do quite a lot of sifting ourselves, before we place a name on file, and it puts him in touch with a better class of girls.”

“And what is the job?”

Mildred’s mind was leaping wildly from cashier to hostess to dietician: she didn’t quite know what a dietician was, but she felt she could fill the bill. Mrs. Boole answered at once: “Oh, nothing very exciting. One of his waitresses got married, and he wants somebody to take her place. Just a job — but those girls do very well for a four-hour day; they’re only busy at lunch, of course — and it would give you plenty of time with your own children, and home — and at least it’s a job.”

The idea of putting on a uniform, carrying a tray, and making her living from tips made Mildred positively ill. Her lips wanted to flutter, and she ran her tongue around inside them to keep them under control. “Why, thanks ever so much, Mrs. Boole. I realize, of course, that it’s quite a nice opening — but I doubt if I’m really fitted for it.”

Mrs. Boole suddenly got red, and began to talk as though she didn’t quite know what she was saying. “Well, I’m sorry, Mrs. Pierce, if I got you down here about something that — perhaps you don’t feel you could accept. But I somehow got the idea that you wanted work—”

“I do, Mrs. Boole, but-”

“But it’s perfectly all right, my dear—”

Mrs. Boole was standing now, and Mildred was edging toward the door, her face feeling hot. Then she was in the elevator again, and when she got out on the street she hated herself, and felt that Mrs. Boole must hate her, and despise her, and regard her as a fool.

Shortly after this, she registered with an employment agency. To decide which agency, she consulted the phone book, and decided on Alice Brooks Turner, mainly on account of the crisp succinctness of her advertisement:

Miss Turner, who had a small suite in one of the downtown office buildings, turned out to be a trim little person, not much older than Mildred, and a little on the hard-boiled side. She smoked her cigarette in a long holder, with which she waved Mildred to a small desk, and without looking up, told her to fill out a card. Mildred, remembering to write neatly, furnished what seemed to her an absurd amount of information about herself, from her age, weight, height, and nationality, to her religion, education, and exact marital status. Most of these questions struck her as irrelevant, and some of them as impertinent. However, she answered them. When she came to the question: What type of work desired? — she hesitated. What type of work did she desire? Any work that would pay her something, but obviously she couldn’t say that. She wrote: Receptionist. As in the case of Dietician, she wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but it had caught her ear these last few weeks, and at least it had an authoritative sound to it.

Then she came to the great yawning spaces in which she was to fill in the names and addresses of her former employers. Regretfully she wrote: Not previously employed. Then she signed the card, walked over, and handed it in. Miss Turner waved her to a chair, studied the card, shook her head, and pitched it on the desk. “You haven’t got a chance.”

“Why not?”

“Do you know what a receptionist is?”

“I’m not sure, but—”

“A receptionist is a lazy dame that can’t do anything on earth, and wants to sit out front where everybody can watch her do it. She’s the one in the black silk dress, cut low in the neck and high in the legs, just inside the gate, in front of that little one-position switchboard, that she gets a right number out of now and then, mostly then. You know, the one that tells you to have a seat, Mr. Doakes will see you in just a few minutes. Then she goes on showing her legs and polishing her nails. If she sleeps with Doakes she gets twenty bucks a week, if not she gets twelve. In other words, nothing personal about it and I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but by the looks of this card I’d say that was you.”

“It’s quite all right. I sleep fine.”

If this bravado had any effect on Miss Turner, there was no sign of it. She nodded, and said: “I’m sure you sleep fine. Don’t we all? But I’m not running a house of call, and it just happens that at the moment receptionists are out. That was then. In those good old days. When even a hockshop had to have this receptionist thing out there in front to show it had class. But then they found out she wasn’t strictly necessary. They began sleeping with their wives, and I guess it worked out all right. Anyway, the birth rate went up. So I guess you’re out of luck.”

“Receptionist isn’t the only thing I can do.”

“Yes, it is.”

“You don’t give me much chance to tell you.”

“If there was something else you could do, you’d have put it down in great big letters, right on this card. When you say receptionist, that’s all I want to know. There’s no more after that, and no use your wasting my time, and me wasting yours. I’ll file your card, but I told you once and I’m telling you again, you haven’t got a chance.”