Джеймс Кейн - Mildred Pierce

She started out. On Orange Grove Avenue more tree limbs were down, and it didn’t look so sleek and harmless. She pulled in to the curb, found the kerchief in the trench coat pocket, tied it around her head. Then, cautiously, feeling a throb of fright every time the car bucked in the wind, she went on. As she turned at the traffic circle, she caught the lights of another car, behind.

There were no men with lanterns now, nothing but the black, wild, and terrible night. She got over the bridge without trouble, but when she came to the detour, she was afraid, and waited until the other car caught up a little. Then she went on, noting with relief that the other car turned into the detour too. She had no trouble for a mile or so, and then she came to the washout. To her dismay it had spread: the road was completely blocked. All resolution having deserted her, she stopped and waited, to see what the other car was going to do. It stopped, and she watched. A door slammed, and she strained her eyes to see. Then Monty’s face was at the window, not six inches from her own. Water was pouring off an old felt hat, and off the slicker that was buttoned to his ears. Furiously he pointed at the washout. “Look at that! It never occurred to you there’d be something like that, did it? Damn it, the trouble you’re putting me to!”

For a moment or two, as he savagely ordered her to lock the car, get out, and come back with him, she had a happy, contented feeling, as though he were her father, she a bad little girl that would be taken care of, anyway. Then once more her fixed resolve rose in her. She shifted into reverse and backed. She backed past his car, came to a corner, headed into it. When she had followed the new road a few feet, she saw it led down into Eagle Rock. It was full of rubble, and she proceeded by inches, rolling and braking, then rolling on again. Then ahead of her she saw that the rubble stopped, that a black shining road lay ahead. She stepped on the gas. It was the check of the car that told her the black shining road was black shining water. When she stepped on the brake the car slid right on. The lights went out. The motor stopped. The car stopped. She was alone in a pool that extended as far as she could see. When she took her foot off the brake she felt it splash into a puddle. She screamed.

The rain was driving against her, and she wound up the window. Outside, she could hear the purling of the torrent against the wheels, and in a moment or two the car began to move. She guided it to the right, and when she felt it catch the curb, pulled up the hand brake. Then she sat there. In a few minutes, her breath had misted the glass so she could see nothing. Then the door beside her was jerked open, and once more Monty was standing there. He had evidently gone back to his car to take off his trousers, for as the slicker floated on the pool she could see he was in his shorts. He braced his right arm against the doorjamb. “All right, now throw your legs over my arm, and put your arm around my neck. Hold on tight, and I think I can get you to the top of the hill.”

She lifted her feet to the seat, took off the gold shoes and stockings, put them in the dashboard compartment. Then she put on the galoshes, over her bare feet. Then she wriggled out of both coats and the dress. The dress and the brocaded coat she stuffed over the shoes, closed the compartment and locked it. Then shivering, she got into the trench coat. Then she motioned to Monty to move his hand. When he did, she pulled the door shut and snapped the catch. Then she slipped out the opposite door, locking it. A yelp came out of her as she stepped off the running board and felt the water around her thighs, and the current almost swept her off her feet. But she held on to the door handle and steadied herself. Above her was a high bank, evidently with some sort of sidewalk on top of it. Paying no attention to Monty and his barely audible shouts, she scrambled up, and then slipped, slid, and staggered home through the worst storm in the annals of the Los Angeles weather bureau, or of any weather bureau.

She passed many cars stalled as hers was stalled, some deserted, some full of people. One car, caught between vast lakes of water, was standing near a curb, its top lights on, filled with people in evening clothes, helpless to do anything but sit. She slogged on, up the long hill to Glendale, down block after block of rubble, torrents, seas of water. Her galoshes filled repeatedly, and periodically she stopped, holding first one foot high behind her, then the other, to let the water run out. But she couldn’t let the sand and pebbles out, and they cut her feet cruelly. She was in a hysteria of weakness, cold, and pain when she finally reached Pierce Drive, and half ran, half limped, the rest of the way to the house.

Veda and Letty, like two frightened kittens, hadn’t slept very well that night, and when lights began to snap on in the house, and a sobbing, mud-spattered, staggering apparition appeared at their door, they screamed in terror. When they realized it was Mildred, they dutifully followed her to her room, but it was seconds before they got readjusted to the point of helping her out of her clothes and getting her into bed. But suddenly Letty recovered from her fright, and was soon running around frantically, getting Mildred what she needed, especially whiskey, coffee, and a hot-water bottle. Veda sat on the bed, chafing Mildred’s hands, spooning the scalding coffee into her mouth, pushing the covers close around her. Presently she shook her head. “But Mother, I simply can’t understand it. Why didn’t you stay with him? After all, it wouldn’t have been much of a novelty.”

“Never mind. Tomorrow you get your piano.”

At Veda’s squeal of delight, at the warm arms around her neck, the sticky kisses that started at her eyes and ended away below her throat, Mildred relaxed, found a moment of happiness. As the gray day broke, she fell into a deep sleep.

For some time after that, Mildred was too busy to pay much attention to Veda. Relieved of Monty, she began to have money, above installments on the piano and everything else. In spite of hard times, her business grew better; the bar shook down into a profitable sideline; most important of all, she paid off the last of the $4,000 she had owed for the property, and last of her equipment notes. Now the place was hers, and she took a step she had been considering for some time. The pies put a dreadful strain on her kitchen, so she built an annex, out back of the parking space, to house them as a separate unit. There was some little trouble about it, on account of the zoning regulations. But when she submitted acceptable exterior plans, which made it look like a rather large private garage, and agreed to display no advertising except the neon sign she was already using, the difficulty was smoothed out. When it was finished, she added pastries to her list, clever items suitable for restaurant perambulators, and had little trouble selling them. Hans presently needed an assistant, and then another. She bought a new truck, a really smart one. About the same time she turned in the car, never quite recovered from the battering it took in the storm, and bought a new one, a sleek maroon Buick with white tires that Veda kissed when the dealer delivered it.

But when Ida, who was a regular visitor now, saw the annex, she grew thoughtful, and then one night started a campaign to get Mildred to open a branch in Beverly, with herself as manager. “Mildred, I know what I’m talking about. That town is just crying for a place that will put out a real line of ready desserts. Think of the entertaining they do over there. Them movie people giving parties every night, and the dessert nothing but a headache to them women. And look how easy you can give them what they want — why you’re making all that stuff right now. And look at the prices you’ll get. And look at the sidelines you got. Look at the fountain trade. Look at the sandwich trade. And I can do it all with four girls, a fountain man, a short-order cook, and a dish washer.”