Mildred Pierce - James M. Cain [126]
"Contralto gets it if you don't 'pologize."
There was silence in the sunlight, while Veda's mouth became thick and wet, and Mr. Treviso smiled at a dancing mote, looking like a very benign cadaver. After a long time, Veda said: "O.K., Levy. I apologize."
Mr. Levinson got up, walked over to Veda, 'and slapped her hard, on 'the cheek. Monty and Mr. Hobey jumped up, but Mr. Levinson paid no attention. His soft, pendulous lower lip hanging down, he spoke softly to Veda: "What ya say now?"
Veda's face turned pink, then crimson, then scarlet, and her light blue eyes stared at Mr. Levinson with a fixity characteristic of certain varieties of shark. There was another dreadful pause, and Veda said: "O.K."
"Then O.K. And lemme tell ya someth'n, Pierce. Don't ya start noth'n with Moe Levinson. Maybe ya don't know where ya comin' out." Before sitting down, Mr. Levinson turned to Mr. Hobey. "Opie Lucas, she's free. She's free and she's hot. You want her? For twenny-five hunnerd?"
". . . No."
"I thought not."
Mr. Levinson resumed his seat. Monty and Mr. Hobey resumed their seats, Mr. Treviso poured himself a spoonful of the red wine he had elected, instead of a highball, and shot a charge of seltzer into it.
For the rest of the summer Mildred did nothing, and Veda did nothing, but get ready for this appearance at the Bowl. There were innumerable trips to buy clothes: apparently a coloratura couldn't merely buy a dress, and let it go at that. All sorts of questions had to be considered, such as whether the material took up light, from the spots, or reflected it, whether it gave, or whether it took. Then the question of 'a hat had to be decided. Veda was determined she must have one, a little evening affair that she could remove after the intermission, "to give some sense of progression, a gain in intimacy." These points were a little beyond Mildred, but she went eagerly to place after place, until a dressmaker in the Sunset Strip, near Beverly Hills, seemed to be indicated, and presently made the dress. It was, Mildred thought, incomparably lovely. It was bottlegreen, with a pale pink top, and a bodice that laced in front. With the little green bonnet' it gave a sort of French garden-party effect. But Veda tried it on a dozen times, unable to make up her mind whether it was right. The question, it seemed, was whether it "looked like vaudeville." "I can't come out looking like both Gish sisters," said Veda, and when Mildred replied th'at neither of the Gish sisters had ever been in vaudeville, so far as she knew, Veda stared in the mirror and said it was all the same thing. In the end, she decided the bodice was "too much," and took it off. In truth, Mildred thought, the dress did look a little fresher, a little simpler, a little more suitable to a girl of twenty, than it had before. Still unsatisfied, Veda decided presently she would carry a parasol. When the parasol arrived, and Veda entered the 'living room, one night, as she would enter the Bowl, she got a hand. Mildred knew, and they all knew, that this was it.
Then there was the question of the newspapers, and how they should be handled. Here again, it seemed out of the question merely to call up the editors, tell them a local girl was going to appear, and leave the' rest to their judgment. Veda did a great deal of telephoning about the "releases," as she called them, and then when the first item about her came out, she went into a rage almost as bad as the one that had been provoked by Mr. Hobey. At the end of an afternoon in which she tried vainly to locate Mr. Levinson, that gentleman arrived in person, and Veda marched around in a perfect lather: "You've got to stop it, Levy, you've got to kill this society girl stuff right now! And the Pasadena stuff! What do they want to do, kill my draw? And get me razzed off the stage when I come on? How many society people are there in this town, anyway? And how many Pasadena people go to, concerts? Glendale! And radio! And studied right here in Los Angeles! There's twenty-five thousand seats in that place, Levy, and those boobs