Mildred Pierce - James M. Cain [88]
"We're talking about my child."
"Oh for God's sake, what do you mean, child? If she's a child, she's forgotten more about such things than you'll ever know. You ought to keep up with the times. I don't know how it was once—maybe the sweet young things were told by their mothers at the age of seventeen and were greatly surprised, you can't prove it by me. But now—they know all there is to know before they've even been told about Santa Claus. Anyway, she knows. What am I supposed to do? Act like a zany when I drive off with you at night and don't bring you back until the next morning? Do you think she doesn't know where you've been? Hell she even asks me how many times."
"And you tell her?"
"Sure. She greatly admires my capacity—and yours. Yours she simply can't get over. 'Who'd think the poor mope had it in her?'"
As Monty mimicked Veda, Mildred knew this was nothing he had invented, as a sort of counter-offensive. Her rage mounted still higher. She said "I see," then said it over again, three or four times. Then, getting up and going over to him, she asked: "And how about the best legs being found in kitchens, not in the drawing room?"
"What in the hell are you talking about?"
"You know what I'm talking about."
Monty stared, touched his brow, as though in a great effort of recollection. Then, snapping his fingers briskly, he said: "Oh, I knew there was something familiar about that. Yes, I did give a little dissertation along those lines one afternoon. We passed a girl—she had on a uniform of some sort, and an apron—quite a pretty little thing, especially around the ankles. And I got that off—what you've just quoted. Nothing 'original, I assure you. I had almost forgotten it. . . . How does that concern us?"
He was plausible, circumstantial, casual, but a little flicker around the eyes betrayed him. Mildred didn't answer his question. She came over close, and there was something snakelike about her as she said: "That's a lie. You weren't talking about any girl you saw on the street. You were talking about me."
Monty shrugged and Mildred went back to her chair and sat down. Then she began to talk slowly, but with rising stridency. She said he had deliberately tried to set Veda against her, to hold her up to ridicule, to make the child think of her as an inferior, somebody to be ashamed of. "I see it all now. I always thought it was funny she never invited any of these people over here in Pasadena to see her once in a while. Not that I don't give her the opportunity. Not that I don't remind her that you can't accept invitations all the time without giving any in return. Not that I didn't do my part. But no. Because you were ifiling her up with all this foolishness, she's been ashamed to ask these people over. She actually believes Glendale is not good enough for them. She thinks I'm not good enough. She—"
"Oh for God's sake shut up."
Monty's eyes were black now, and had little hard points of light in them. "In the first place, what invitations did she accept? My mother's, right here in this house. Well, we went all over that once, and we're not going over it again. And to the Hannens'. And so far as I know the only invitation Charlie and Roberta ever got out of you was an invitation to go over and buy their dinner in that Pie Wagon, and they did go over, and—"
"No check was ever presented to them."
"O.K., then you're square. For the rest, who the hell would expect a kid of fourteen to be doing something about every cocktail party I dragged her to? She asked about it, and I said it would be silly. Come on. What else?"
"That may be all right, for older people. But there have been plenty of others she's met, girls her own age—"
"No, there haven't. And right there's where I suggest you get better acquainted with your own daughter. She's a strange child. Girls her own age don't interest her. She likes older women—"
"If they're rich."
"Anyway, she's damned nice to them. And