Джеймс Кейн - Mildred Pierce

“You mean you work for the Exchange?”

“I should say not. That damned California Fruit Growers’ Exchange is taking the bread right out of my mouth. I hate Sunkist , and Sunmaid , and every other kind of a label with that wholesome-looking girl on it.”

“You mean you’re an independent?”

“Damn it, what difference does it make what I am? Yes, I guess I’m an independent. I have a company. Fruit export. I don’t have it. I own part of it. Land too, part of an estate I came into. Every quarter they send me a check, and it’s been getting smaller since this Sunkist thing cut it, too. I don’t do anything, if that’s what you mean.”

“You mean you just — loaf?”

“You can call it that, I suppose.”

“Aren’t you ever going to do something?”

“Why should I?”

He seemed quite nettled, and she stopped talking about it, but she found it disturbing. She had a complex on the subject of loafing, and hated it, but she detected there was something about this man’s loafing that was different from Bert’s loafing. Bert at least had plans, grandiose dreams that he thought would come true. But this loafing wasn’t a weakness, it was a way of life, and it had the same effect on her that Veda’s nonsense had: her mind rejected it, and yet her heart, somehow, was impressed by it; it made her feel small, mean, and vulgar. The offhand dismissal of the subject put her on the defensive too. Most of the men she knew were quite gabby about their work, and took the mandate of accomplishment seriously. Their talk might be tiresome, but it was what she accepted and believed in. This bland assumption that the whole subject was a bore, not worth discussing, was beyond her ken. However, her uneasiness vanished with a little ear-twiddling. At daybreak she felt cold, and pushed her bottom against him. When he took her in his arms she wriggled into his belly quite possessively, and dropped off to sleep with a sigh of deep content.

Next day they ate and swam and snoozed, and when Mildred opened her eyes after one of these naps, she could hardly believe it was late afternoon and time to go home. But still they dawdled, he arguing they should stay another day, and make a weekend of it. The Monday pies, however, were on her mind, and she knew she had to get at them. It was six o’clock when they drove over to the tavern for an early dinner, and seven before they got started. But the big blue Cord went down even faster than it had come up, and it was barely nine as they approached Glendale. He asked where she lived, and she told him, but then she got to thinking. “Want to see something, Monty?”

“What is it?”

“I’ll show you.”

He kept following Colorado Boulevard, and then at her direction he turned, and presently stopped. “You wait here. I won’t be a minute.”

She got out her key and ran to the door, her feet crunching on the gravel that had been dumped for the free parking. Inside, she groped her way to the switchbox, and threw on the neon sign. Then she ran out to observe its effect. He was already under it, peering, blinking. It was, indeed, a handsome work of art, made exactly as she had pictured it, except that it had a blazing red arrow through its middle. Monty looked first at the sign, then at Mildred. “Well what the hell? Is this yours?”

“Don’t you see whose name is on it?”

“Wait a minute. The last I heard, you were slinging hash in that-”

“But not anymore. Yesterday was my last day. I quit early to run off with you. From now on, I’m a businesswoman.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t get any chance, that I noticed.”

At this tribute to his prowess as a lover, he grinned, and she pulled him inside, to see the rest of it. She switched on the lights and took him through, lifting the painters’ cloths to show him the new maple tables, pointing out the smart linoleum floor covering, explaining it was required by the Department of Health. She took him to the kitchen, opened up the great range. He kept asking questions, and she poured out the whole story, excitedly flattered that a professional loafer could be interested. Yet it was an amended version. There was little in it of Wally, or Bert, or any of the circumstances that had actually figured in it, a great deal about her ambitions, her determination “to be something before I die.” Presently he asked when she was going to open. “Thursday. The cook’s night out. I mean everybody’s cook.”

“Next Thursday?”

“At six o’clock.”

“Am I invited?”

“Of course you are.”

She switched off the lights, and for a moment they were standing there in the dark, with the smell of paint all about them. Then she caught him in her arms. “Kiss me, Monty. I guess I’ve fallen for you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about all this?”

“I don’t know. I was going to, but I was afraid you might just think it was funny.”

“I’ll be here Thursday. With bells.”

“Please. It won’t be the same without you.”

He took her home, handed her to the door, made sure she had her key. As she was waving good-bye to the disappearing Cord she heard her name called. Automatically she looked toward the Gesslers’, but their house was still dark. Then she saw a woman coming across lawns, and saw it was Mrs. Floyd, who lived two doors away.

“Mrs. Pierce?”

There was a sharp note in the voice, and Mildred had a quick prescience that something was wrong. Then, in a tone of virtuous indignation that the whole street could hear, Mrs. Floyd cut loose. “Where in the world have you been? They’ve been a-trying to reach you ever since last night, and — where have you been?”

Mildred choked back an impulse to tell her it was none of her business where she had been, managed to inquire civilly: “What did they want with me, Mrs. Floyd?”

“It’s your daughter.”

“My—”

“Your daughter Ray. She’s got the flu, and they’ve taken her to a hospital, and—”

“Which hospital?”

“I don’t know which hospital, but—”

Mildred dashed into the house and back to the den, snapping on lights as she went. As she picked up the phone a horrible feeling came over her that God had had her number, after all.

As Mom made her dozenth remark about Mildred’s disappearance over the weekend, Mildred’s temper flared. It had been, indeed, a trying hour. She had rung a dozen numbers without finding out anything, while Mrs. Floyd sat there and kept up a running harangue about mothers who run off with some man and leave other people to take care of their children. As a last resort she had rung Mrs. Biederhof, and while that lady told her which hospital Ray had been taken to, and one or two other things, her syrupy good wishes hadn’t exactly put Mildred in a good humor. Now, after a dash to Los Angeles and a quick look at Ray, she was sitting with Bert, Veda, Mom, and Mr. Pierce at one end of the hospital corridor, waiting for the doctor, listening to Bert rehearse exactly what had happened: Ray had been dull Friday night, and then yesterday at the beach, when she seemed to be running a temperature, they had called Dr. Gale, and he had advised taking her to a hospital. Mom interrupted Bert and corrected: The doctor hadn’t done no such a thing. He had ordered her home and they had taken her home. But when they got there with her the house was all locked up and they rang him again. It was then that he ordered her to a hospital, because there was no other place to take her. Mildred wanted to ask what was the matter with the Pierces’ house, but made herself swallow it back.

Bert took up the story again: There was nothing serious the matter, just a case of grippe, not flu, as Mildred had been told. “That strip of adhesive on her lip don’t mean a thing. They opened a little pimple she had, that’s all.” Mom took the floor again, making more insinuations, until Mildred said: “I don’t know that it’s any of your business where I was, or anybody else’s.”