Mildred Pierce Part 9

"I'm glad there's a little of me in her."

He doubled his fist, brushed her chin with it. Then they both burst into shaking, uncontrollable sobs.

"The gams, the gams! Your face ain't news!"

It was a moment before Mildred quite knew what was meant, but then she gave her skirt a little hitch, and wasn't exactly displeased when a photographer whistled.

Mrs. Gessler, having no gams to speak of, stood behind her, and the bulbs went off. Next thing she knew, she was in court, raising her hand, swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help her G.o.d, and giving her name, address, and occupation, which she described as "housewife." Then she was answering questions put to her by a Wally she had never seen before, a solenm, sympathetic, red-haired man who gently urged her to tell an elderly judge the story of Bert's unendurable cruelties: his silences, during which he wouldn't speak to her for days on end; his absences from home, his striking her, "in an argument over money." Then she was sitting beside Wally, and Mrs. Gessler was up there, corroborating everything she said, with just the right shade of repressed indignation. When Mrs. Gessler got to the blow, and Wally asked her sternly if she had actually seen it, she closed her eyes and whispered, "I did."

Then Mildred and Mrs. Gessler were out in the corridor where Wally presently joined them. "O.K. Decree's entered."

"My—so soon?"

"That's how it goes when you got a properly prepared case. No trouble about a divorce if it's handled right. The law says cruelty, and that's what you got to prove, but that's all you got to prove. That sock in the jaw was worth two hours of argument."

He drove them home, and Mildred made drinks, and Bert came in, to sign papers. She was glad, somehow, that since the real-estate deal started, Wally had been curiously silent about romance. It permitted her to sit beside Bert without any sense of deceit, and really feel friendly toward him. The first chance she got, she whispered in his ear: "I told them the property settlement had been reached out of court. The reporters, I mean. Was that all right?"

"Perfectly."

That this elegant announcement should come out in the papers, she knew, meant a great deal to him. She patted his hand, and he patted back. Wally left, and then Bert, after a wistful look at his gla.s.s, decided he had to go too. But something caught in Mildred's throat as he went down the walk, his hat at what was intended to be a jaunty angle, his shoulders thrown bravely back. Mrs. Gessler looked at her sharply. "Now what is it?"

"I don't know. I feel as though I'd picked his bones. First his kids, and then his car, and now the house, and—everything he's got."

"Will you kindly tell me what good the house would do him him? On the first call for interest he'd lose it, wouldn't he?"

"But he looked looked so pitiful." so pitiful."

"Baby, they all do. That's what gets us."

CHAPTER VII.

IT WAS A HOT MORNiNG in October, her last at the restaurant. The previous two weeks had been a mad scramble in which it had seemed she would never find time for all she had to do. There had been visits to Los Angeles- Street, to order the equipment her precious credit ent.i.tled her to; calls on restaurant proprietors, to get her pie orders to the point where they would really help on expenses; endless scurrying to the model home, where painters were transforming it; hard, secret figuring about money; work and worry that sent her to bed at night almost too exhausted to sleep. But now that was over. The equipment was in, particularly a gigantic range that made her heart thump when she looked at it; the painters were done, almost; three new pie contracts were safely past the- sample stage. The load of debt she would have to carry, the interest, taxes, and installments involved, frightened her, and at the same time excited her. If she could ever struggle through the first year or two, she told herself, then she would "have something." So she sat with the girls at breakfast, listening to Ida instruct Shirley, who was to take her place, with a queer, light feeling, as though she were made of gas, and would float away.

Ida talked with her customary earnestness. "Now when you got to make a customer wait, you can't just leave him sit there, like you done with that old party yesterday. You got to take an interest in him, make him feel you're watching out for him. Like you could ask him if he wouldn't like a bowl of soup or something, while he's waiting."

"At leas' ask him don't he want to feel your leg."

Ida took no notice of Anna's interruption, but went grimly on. When a customer came in and sat down at Anna's station, Mildred motioned Anna back to her coffee. "Sit down, I'll take care of him."

She paid little attention to the customer, except to wonder whether his bald spot was brown by nature, or from sunburn. It was a tiny bald spot, with black hair all around it, but it was a bald spot just the same. While he fingered the menu, she decided for sunburn. Then she noticed he was heavily sunburned all over, but even this didn't account for a slightly Latin look about him. He was quite tall, and rather lanky, and a bit boyish looking in his battered flannels. But his eyes were brown, and the little clipped moustache was decidedly continental. All these things, though, she noted without interest until he put down the menu and glanced at her. "What in the h.e.l.l am I looking at that for? Why does anybody ever look at a menu for breakfast? You know exactly what you're going to have, and yet you keep looking at it."

"To find out the prices, of course."

She had no intention of making a gag, but his eyes were friendly, and it slipped out on her. He snapped his fingers as though this were the answer to something that had worried him all his life, and said: "That's it." Then they both laughed, and he got down to business. "O.K.—you ready?" it." Then they both laughed, and he got down to business. "O.K.—you ready?"

"Shoot."

"Orange juice, oatmeal, bacon and eggs, fried on one side and not too much, dry toast, and large coffee. You got it?"

She recited it back to him, with his own intonations, and they laughed again. "And if you could step on it slightly, show just a little speed—why, I might get to Arrowhead in time for a little swimming before the sun goes down."

"Gee, I wish I I could go to Arrowhead." could go to Arrowhead."

"Come on."

"You better look out, I might say yes."

When she came back with his orange juice, he grinned and said: "Well? I mean it."

"I told you to look out. Maybe I did too."

"You know what would be a highly original thing for you to do?"

"What's that?"

"Say yes, right away—like that."

A wild, excited feeling swept over her. It suddenly occurred to her that for the moment she was free as a bird. Her pies were all made and delivered, the children were with the Pierces at the beach, the painters would be done by noon, there was nothing to detain her at all. It was as though for just a little while she was- unlisted in G.o.d's big index, and as she turned away from him she could feel the wind in her hair. She went to the kitchen, and beckoned to Ida. "Ida, I think the real trouble with that girl is me. I think I make her nervous. And she's got to start some time. Why don't I just quietly get out?"

Ida looked over toward Mr. Chris, who was doing his morning accounts. "Well he'd he'd just love to save a buck." just love to save a buck."

"Of course he would."

"All right, Mildred, you run along, and I wish you all kinds of luck with your little restaurant, and I'll be out the very first chance I get, and—oh, your check!"

"I'll pick it up next week."

"That's right, when you come with the pies."

Mildred got the bacon and eggs, went out with them. His eyes met hers before she was through the kitchen door, and she couldn't repress a little smile as she approached. As she set down the plate she asked: "Well, what are you grinning about?"

"And what are you you grinning about?" grinning about?"

"Oh—might as well be original once in a while."

"d.a.m.n it, I like like you." you."

The rest of it was quick, breathless, and eager. He wanted to get started, she insisted she had to take her car home. He wanted to tail her there, she said she had an errand to do after she got there. The errand was to see that the model home was locked after the painters got out, but she didn't go into that. They made the rendezvous at the Colorado Pharmacy, at twelve fifteen. Then Anna approached, to take over and collect her tip. Mildred hurried to her locker, changed, said her hasty good-byes, and scooted.

She didn't, however, go home at once. She raced over to the Broadway Hollywood and bought swimming things, thanking her luck that she had money enough with her to pay for them. Then she raced to her car and started home. It was fourteen minutes to twelve, by the dash clock, when she whirled up the drive. She put the car away, closed the garage, and ran into the house with her bundles, glancing from habit toward the Gesslers', but the shades were all down, they apparently having gone away for the weekend. Inside, she pulled her own shades down, locked all doors, checked icebox, range, water heater, and spigots. Then she whipped off her dress, changed into the little sports suit and floppy hat. She ripped open the new beach bag, stuffed her purchases into it. From her dressing table she took a comb, dropped that in. From the bathroom she got a clean towel and cake of soap, dropped them in. Then she closed the bag, got out a light coat, and dived out the door. Then, trying it to make sure it was locked, she started down the drive, but at a pace in comic contrast with the haste of a moment before. For the benefit of all who might be looking, she proceeded at demure leisure, merely a lady out for a Sat.u.r.day swim, the beach bag dangling innocently from her hand, the coat thrown carelessly over one arm.

But when she got out of the block her pace quickened. She was almost running when she reached the model home. It was properly locked, and a glance through the windows told her the painters had gone. She tiptoed around it, her eyes shooting into every precious part. Then, satisfied that everything was in order, she started for the drugstore. She had gone only a block or two when she heard a horn, so close it made her jump. He was within a few feet of her, at the wheel of a big blue Cord. "I honked you before, but I couldn't make you stop."

"Anyway, we're both on time."

"Get in. Say, you look great."

Going through Pasadena they decided it was time to tell names, and when he heard hers, he asked if she was related to Pierce Homes. When she said she was "married to them for a while," he professed to be delighted, saying they were the worst homes ever built, as all the roofs leaked. She said that was nothing to how the treasury leaked; and they both laughed gaily. His name, Beragon, he had to spell for her before she got it straight, and as he put the accent on the last syllable she asked: "Is it French?"

"Spanish, or supposed to be. My great-great-grandfather was one of the original settlers—you know, the gay caballeros that gypped the Indians out of their land, the king out of his taxes, and then sold out to the Americans when Polk started annexing. But if you ask me, the old coot was really a wop. I can't prove it, but I think the name was originally Bergoni. However, if he Spanished it up, it's all right with me. Wop or spig, I wouldn't trust either one as far as a snail can hop, so it doesn't make much difference, one way or the other."

"And what's your first name?"

"Montgomery, believe it or not. But Monty's not so bad."

"Then, if I ever get to know you well enough to call you by your first name, I'll call you that."

"Is that a promise, Mrs. Pierce?"

"It is, Mr. Beragon."

She was pleased at all these particulars about himself, for they told her he was giving her his real name, and not a phony invented for a somewhat irregular occasion. She settled back, lost a slightly uneasy feeling she had had, of being just a pick-up.

From Glendale to Lake Arrowhead, for any law-abiding citizen, is a trip of two hours and a half. But Mr. Beragon didn't pay much attention to the law. The blue car climbed into the seventies and stayed there, and when they pulled up at the gate of the settlement it was only a little after two. They didn't enter it, however. They took the little road to the right, and in a moment were stealing through great mountain pines that ladened the air with their smell. Presently they nosed down a rough dirt track, twisted through bushes that whacked the windshield, and pulled up with a jerk behind a little shingled shack. Mr. Beragon set his brake, started to get out, and then said, as though he had just thought of it: "Or would you prefer a bathhouse, around on the other side? I keep this shack here, but—"

"I think this is fine."

He took her bag, and they went clumping around a boardwalk to the front. He unlocked the door, and they stepped into the hottest, stuffiest room that Mildred had ever been in.

"Wooh!"

He strode around, throwing up windows, going out back and opening doors, letting air circulate in a place that evidently hadn't been opened for a month. While he was doing this she looked around. It was the living room of a rough mountain shack, with a rough board floor through whose c.h.i.n.ks she could see the red earth beneath. Two or three Mexican rugs were scattered around, and the furniture was oak, with leather seats. However, there was a stone fireplace, and a horsy, masculine look to everything, so she half liked it. He reappeared presently, and said: "Well, are you hungry? We can get lunch at the tavern, or would you rather swim first?"

"Hungry? You just had had breakfast!" breakfast!"

"Then we'll swim."

He picked up her bag and led the way to a small back room whose only furnishings were a cotton rug, a chair, and an iron bed, made up neatly with blankets. "If you can manage here, I'll use the front room, and—see you in a few minutes."

"I won't be long."

Both of them spoke with elaborate casualness, but she was no sooner alone than she pitched the bag on the bed and zipped it open even more quickly than she had zipped it shut. She was terrified he would reappear before she had finished dressing. Yet the possible consequences, as such, weren't what frightened her. The heat, and now the piny breeze that was blowing in, filled her with a heavy, languorous, South Seas feeling that wanted to dawdle, to play, to get caught half dressed, without any shame whatever. But as he left her, she had caught a whiff of her hair, and it reeked of Archie's bacon grease. It often did, she knew, specially when she was a day or so late at the beauty shop but as to whether Wally noticed this, or liked it, or didn'l like it, she cared no more than she cared whether he dropped by or didn't drop by. But that this man should notice it was a possibility that made her squirm. She had an obsession to get overboard, to get washed, before he came near her.

She slipped feverishly out of her clothes, put them on a chair, slipped on the suit. This was before the day of sarongs, and it was a simple maroon affair that made her look small, soft, and absurdly childish. She put on the rubber slippers, picked up the soap. Near her was a door that seemed to lead to some sort of small corridor. She opened it and peeped. Out back was a lattice, and beyond that the walk that circled the house. She pattered out and around, then ran straight down to the little jetty, with its small float. Clutching the soap in her hand, she dived off. The water was so cold she flinched, but she swam down until she was within a few inches of the stones she could see on bottom. Now safely out of sight, she ground the soap into her hair, swimming down with her free hand, holding her breath until her heart began to pound.

When she came up he was standing there, on the float, so she let the soap flutter to the bottom. "You were certainly in one h.e.l.l of a hurry."

"I was hot."

"You forgot your cap."

"I—? I must be a sight."

"You look like a drowned rat."

"If you could only see what you you look like!" look like!"

At this pert remark he dived in, and there ensued an immemorial chase, with the immemorial squeals, kicks, and splashes. She retreated out of his reach, he followed with slow, lazy strokes; sometimes they stopped and floated, then resumed, as he thought of some new stratagem to catch her. After a while she tired, and began circling to get back to the float. Then he was in front of her, having swum under water to cut her off. Then she was caught, and the next thing she knew was being carried bodily into the shack. As she felt its warmth again, the dopey South Seas feeling returned. She felt limp and helpless, and barely had strength to kick the beach bag off the bed.

It was dark when they got up, and they drove over to the tavern for dinner. When they got back it was cold, and they decided to build a fire, of pine knots. But then they decided they hadn't had enough to eat, and got in the car, and drove down to San Bernardino, for a steak, which she offered to broil. When they got back it was late, but they gathered pine knots by the car lights, and carried them in, and started them going. When they were glowing red she laid the steak on them, to burn it, and then held it with the tongs while it cooked. Then he got plates, and they cut hungrily into it, chewing it down like a pair of wolves. Then he helped her wash up. Then he asked solemnly if she was ready to go home, and she solemnly replied that she was. Then he carried her into the bedroom, and they shivered at the unexpected cold, and in five minutes were exclaiming at how good the blankets felt.

After a while they got to talking, and she learned that he was thirty-three years old, that he had attended the University of California at Los Angeles, that he lived in Pasadena, that his family lived there too, or at any rate his mother and sister, who seemed to be all the family he had. When she asked him what he did, he said: "Oh I don't know. Fruit I guess. Oranges, grapefruit, something like that."

"You mean you work for the Exchange?"

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

"You mean you're an independent?"

"d.a.m.n 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 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." 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 a.s.sumption 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.