Dolores Claiborne - Stephen King [4]
You don't understand that, I know, but you will. Before you open that door and walk out of this room, I promise you'll understand everything.
She had three ways of bein a bitch. I've known women who had more, but three's good for a senile old lady mostly stuck in a wheelchair or in bed. Three's damn good for a woman like that.
The first way was when she was a bitch because she couldn't help it. You remember what I said about the clothespins, how you had to use six of em to hang the sheets, never just four? Well, that was just one example.
There were certain ways things had to be done if you worked for Mrs Kiss-My-Back-Cheeks Vera Donovan, and you didn't want to forget a single one of them. She told you how things were going to go right up front, and I'm here to tell you that's how things went. If you forgot something once, you got the rough side of her tongue. If you forgot twice, you got docked on payday. If you forgot three times, that was it-you were down the road, and no excuses listened to. That was Vera's rule, and it sat all right with me. I thought it was hard, but I thought it was fair. If you was told twice which racks she wanted the bakin put on after it came out of the oven, and not ever to stick it on the kitchen windowsills to cool like shanty Irish would do, and if you still couldn't remember, the chances were good you wasn't never going to remember.
Three strikes and you're out was the rule, there was absolutely no exceptions to it, and I worked with a lot of different people in that house over the years because of it. I heard it said more'n once in the old days that workin for the Donovans was like steppin into one of those revolvin doors. You might get one spin, or two, and some folks went around as many as ten times or a dozen, but you always got spat out onto the sidewalk in the end. So when I went to work for her in the first place-this was in 1949-I went like you'd go into a dragon's cave. But she wasn't as bad as people liked to make out. If you kept your ears open, you could stay. I did, and the hunky did, too. But you had to stay on your toes all the time, because she was sharp, because she always knew more of what was going on with the island folk than any of the other summer people did and because she could be mean. Even back then, before all her other troubles befell her, she could be mean. It was like a hobby with her.
What are you doing here? she says to me on that first day. Shouldn't you he home minding that new baby of yours and making nice big dinners for the light of your life?
Mrs Cullum's happy to watch Selena four hours a day, I said. Part-time is all I can take, ma'am.
Part-time is all I need, as I believe my advertisement in the local excuse for a newspaper said, she comes right back-just showin me the edge of that sharp tongue of hers, not actually cuttin me with it like she would so many times later. She was knittin that day, as I remember. That woman could knit like a flash-a whole pair of socks in a single day was no problem for her, even if she started as late as ten o'clock. But she said she had to be in the mood.
Yessum, I said. It did.
My name isn't Yessum, she said, putting her knitting down. It's Vera Donovan. If I hire you, you'll call me Missus Donovan-at least until we know each other well enough to make a change-and I'll call you Dolores. Is that clear?
Yes, Missus Donovan, I said.
All right, we're off to a good start. Now answer my question. What are you doing here when you've got a house of your own to keep, Dolores?
I want to earn a little extra money for Christmas, I said. I'd already decided