Mildred Pierce - James M. Cain [4]
"Not yet she isn't."
"I laid low when Ray came to the door just now. I didn't see any reason for her to know about it. I don't see any reason for either of them to know about it. I don't want you to tell them I said good-bye or anything. You can just say—"
"I'll take care of it."
"O.K., then. I'll leave it to you."
He hesitated. Then: "Well, good-bye, Mildred."
With jerky steps, she walked over to the wall, stood leaning on it, her face hidden, then beat on it once or twice, helplessly, with her fists. "Go on, Bert. There's nothing to say. Just—go on."
When she turned around he was gone, and then the tears came, and she stood away from the cake, to keep them from falling on it. But when she heard the car back out of the garage, she gave a low, frightened exclamation, and ran to the window. They used it so seldom now, except on Sundays if they had a little money to buy gas, that she had completely forgotten about it. And so, as she saw this man slip out of her life, the only clear thought in her head was that now she had no way to deliver the cake.
She had got the last rosebud in place, and was removing stray flecks of icing with a cotton swab wound on a toothpick, when there was a rap on the screen door, and Mrs. Gessler, who lived next door, came in. She was a thin, dark woman of forty or so, with lines on her face that might have come from care, and might have come from liquor. Her husband was in the trucking business, but they were more prosperous than most truckers were at that time. There was a general impression that Gessler trucks often dropped down to Point Loma, where certain low, fast boats put into the cove.
Seeing the cake, Mrs. Gessler gave an exclamation, and came over to look. It was indeed worth the stare which her beady eyes gave it. All its decorations were now in place, but in spite of their somewhat conventional design, it had an aroma, a texture, a totality that proclaimed high distinction. It carried on its face the guarantee that every crumb would meet the inexorable confectioners' test: It must melt on the tongue.
In an awed way, Mrs. Gessler murmured: "I don't see how you do it, Mildred. It's beautiful, just beautiful."
"If you have to do it, you can do it."
"But it's beautiful!"
Only after a long final look did Mrs. Gessler get to what she came for. She had a small plate in her hand, with another plate clamped over it, and now lifted the top one. "I thought maybe you could use it. I fricasseed it for supper, but Ike's had a call to Long Beach, and I'm going with him, and I was afraid it might spoil."
Mildred got a plate, slid the chicken on it, and put it in the icebox. Then she washed Mrs. Gessler's plates, dried them and handed them back. "I can use practically anything, Lucy. Thanks."
"Well, I've got to run along."
"Have a nice time."
"Tell Bert I said hello."
". . . I will."
Mrs. Gessler stopped. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing."
"Come on, baby. Something's wrong. What is it?"
"Bert's gone."
"You mean—for good?"
"Just now. He left."
"Walked out on you, just like that?"
"He got a little help, maybe. It had to come."
"Well what do you know about that? And that floppylooking frump he left you for. How can he even look at her?"
"She's what he wants."
"But she doesn't even wash!"
"Oh, what's the use of talking? If she likes him, all right then, she's got him. Bert's all right. And it wasn't his fault. It was just—everything. And I did pester him. I nagged him, he said, and he ought to know. But I can't take things lying down, I don't care if we've got a Depression or not. If she can, then they ought to get along fine, because that's exactly the way he's built. But I've got my own ideas, and I can't change them even for him."
"What are you going to do?"
"What am I doing now?"
A grim silence fell on both women. Then Mrs. Gessler shook her head. "Well, you've joined the biggest army on earth. You're the great American institution that