Mildred Pierce - James M. Cain [45]
"You talk like Veda. She's always wanting to be hit."
"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 God, 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 glass, 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? On the first call for interest he'd lose it, wouldn't he?"
"But he looked 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 entitled 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