Mildred Pierce - James M. Cain [11]
"Yes?"
"What you doing tomorrow night?"
"Why, nothing that I know of."
"Well then—?"
She dropped her eyes, pleated her dress demurely over her knee, glanced at him. "I don't know why not."
He got up and she got up. "Then it's a date. That's what we'll do. We'll step out."
"If I haven't forgotten how."
"Oh, you'll know how. When? Half past six, maybe?"
"That suits me fine."
"Make it seven."
"Seven o'clock I'll be ready."
Around noon next day, while Mildred was breakfasting off the hot dogs, Mrs. Gessler came over to invite her to a party that night. Mildred, pouring her a cup of coffee, said she'd -love to come, but as she had a date, she wasn't sure she could make it. "A date? Gee, you're working fast."
"You've got to do something."
"Do I know him?"
"Wally Burgan."
"Wally—well, bring him!"
"I'll see what his plans are."
"I didn't know he was interested in you."
"Neither did I. . . . Lucy, I don't think he was. I don't think he'd ever looked at me. But the second he heard Bert was gone, well it was almost funny the effect it had on him. You could see him get excited. Will you kindly tell me why?"
"I ought to have told you about that. The morals they give you credit for, you'd be surprised. To him, you were a red-hot mamma the second he found out about you."
"About what?"
"Grass widow! From now on, you're fast."
"Are you serious?"
"I am. And they are."
Mildred, feeling no faster than she had ever felt, pondered this riddle for some little time, while Mrs. Gessler sipped her coffee and seemed to be pondering something else. Presently she asked: "Is Wally married?"
"Why—not that I know of. No, of course he's not. He was always gagging about how lucky the married ones were on income-tax day. Why?"
"I wouldn't bring him over, if I were you."
"Well, as you like."
"Oh, it's not that—he's welcome, so far as that goes. But—you know. These are business friends of Ike's, with their lady friends, all-right guys, trying to make a living same as anybody else, but a little rough, and a little noisy. Maybe they spend too much time on the sea, playing around in their speedboats. And the girls are the squealing type. None of them are what you ought to be identified with, specially when you've got a single young man on your hands, that's already a little suspicious of your morals, and—"
"Do you think I'm taking Wally seriously?"
"You ought to be, if you're not. Well if not, why not? He's a fine, upstanding, decent young man, that looks a little like a pot-bellied rat, but he's single and he's working, and that's enough."
"I don't think he'd be shocked at your party."
"I haven't finished yet. It's not a question of whether you're making proper use of your time. What are his plans, so far as you know them?"
"Well, he's coming here and—"
"When?"
"Seven."
"That's mistake No. 1. Baby, I wouldn't let that cluck buy your dinner. I'd sit him right down and give him one of those Mildred Pierce specials—"
"What? Me work when he's willing to—"
"As an investment, baby, an investment in time, effort, and raw materials. Now shut up and let me talk. Whatever outlay it involves is on me, because I've become inspired and when inspired I never count little things like costs. It's going to be a perfectly terrible night." She waved a hand at the weather, which had turned gray, cold, and overcast, as it usually does at the peak of a California spring. "It Won't be no fit night out for man nor beast. And what's more, you've already got dinner half fixed, and you're not going to have things spoil just because he's got some foolish notion he wants to take you out."
"Just the same, that was the idea."
"Not so fast, baby—let us pause and examine that idea. Why would