Career in C Major: And Other Fiction

by James M. Cain

  “There’s only one thing a man ever has to tell a woman. You can’t tell me that. I know you can’t tell me that, we’ve been all over it—don’t offer me consolation prizes.”

  “All right, then. Good-bye.”

  I bent over and kissed her. She didn’t open her eyes, didn’t move. “There’s only one thing I ask, Leonard.”

  “The answer is yes, whatever it is.”

  “Don’t come back.”

  “… What?”

  “Don’t come back. You’re going now. You’re going with all my best wishes, and there’s no bitterness. I give you my word on that. You’ve been decent to me, and I’ve no complaint. You haven’t lied to me, and if it hasn’t turned out as I thought it would, that’s my fault, not yours. But—don’t come back. When you go out of that door, you go out of my life. You’ll be a memory, nothing more. A sweet, lovely, terrible memory, perhaps—but I’ll do my own grieving. Only—don’t come back.”

  “I had sort of hoped—”

  “Ah!”

  “… What’s the matter?”

  “You had sort of hoped that after this little honeymoon blows up, say in another week, you could give me a ring, and come on over, and start up again just as if nothing had happened.”

  “No. I hoped we could be friends.”

  “That’s what you think you hoped. You know in your heart it was something else. All right, you’re going back to her. She’s had a bad morning, and been hurt, and you feel sorry for her, and she’s whistled at you, and you’re running back. But remember what I say, Leonard: you’re going back on her terms, not yours. You’re still her little whimpering lapdog, and if you think she’s not going to dump you down on the floor, or sell you to the gypsies, or put you out in the yard in your little house, or do anything else to you that enters her head, just as soon as this blows over, you’re mistaken. That woman is not licked until you’ve licked her, and if you think this is licking her, it’s more than I do, and more than she does.”

  “No. You’re wrong. Doris has had her lesson.”

  “All right, I’m wrong. For your sake, I hope so. But—don’t come back. Don’t come running to me again. I’ll not be a hot towel—for you or anybody.”

  “Then friendship’s out?”

  “It is. I’m sorry.”

  “All right.”

  “Come here.”

  She pulled me down, and kissed me, and turned away quick, and motioned me out. I was on the street before I remembered I had left my coat up there. I went in and sent a bellboy up for it. When he came down I was hoping he would have some kind of a message from her. He didn’t. He handed me my coat, I handed him a quarter, and I went out.

  When I got back to the house, the kids were home, and came running downstairs, and said did I know we were all going that night to hear Mamma sing. I said there had been a little change in the plans on that, and they were a little down in the mouth, but I said I had brought presents for them, and that fixed it all up, and we went running up to get them. I went in the nursery for my bag. It wasn’t there. Then I heard Doris call, and we went in there.

  “Were you looking for something?”

  “Yes. Are you awake?”

  “Been awake…. You might find it in there.”

  She gave a funny little smile and pointed to the dressing room. I went in there, and there it was. The kids began jumping up and down when I gave them the candy, and Doris kept smiling and talking over their heads. “I would have had Nils take your things out, but I didn’t want him poking around.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Just down to the office to look at my mail.”

  “No, but I mean—”

  “Oh—Rochester, Chicago, Indianapolis, and around. Thought it was about time to look things over.”

  “Did you have a nice trip?”

  “Only fair.”

  “You certainly took plenty of glad rags.”

  “Just in case. Didn’t really need them, as it turned out.”

  Christine called the kids, and they went out. I went over to her and took her in my arms. “Why didn’t you want Nils poking around?”

  “Well—do you want him?”

  “No.”

  We both laughed, and she put her head against mine, and let her hair fall over my face, and made a little opening in front of my mouth, and kissed me through that. Oh, don’t think Doris couldn’t be a sweet armful when she wanted to be. “You glad to be back, Leonard? From Chicago—and the nursery?”

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “So glad, Leonard, I could—cry.”

  8

  I kept letting her hair fall over my face, and holding her a little tighter, and then all of a sudden she jumped up. “Oh my God, the cocktail party!”

  “What cocktail party?”

  “Gwenny Blair’s cocktail party. Her lousy annual stinkaroo that nobody wants to go to and everybody does. I said I’d drop in before the supper show, and I had completely forgotten it. The supper show, think of that. Wasn’t I the darling little trouper then? My that seems a long time ago. And it was only this morning.”

  “Oh, let’s skip it.”

  “What! And have them think I’m dying of grief? I should say not. We’re going. And we’re going quick, so we can leave before the whole mob gets there. Hurry up. Get dressed.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was go to Gwenny Blair’s cocktail party. I wanted to stay where I was, and inhale hair. There was nothing to it, though, but to get dressed. I began changing my clothes, and she began pulling things out and muttering: “… No, not that…. It’s black, and looks like mourning…. And not that. It makes me look too pale…. Leonard, I’m going to wear a suit.”

  “Well, why not?”

  “A suit, that’s it. Casual, been out all day, just dropped in, got to run in a few minutes, lovely party—it will be, like hell. That’s it, a suit.”

  I always loved Doris when she dropped the act and came out as the calculating little wench that she really was. She heard me laugh, and laughed too. “Right?”

  “Quite right.”

  She was dressed in five minutes flat, and for once she had to wait on me. The suit was dark gray, almost black, and cut so she looked slim as a boy. The blouse was light green, but with a copper tone in it, so it was perfect for her hair. Trust Doris not to put on anything that was just green. When I got downstairs she was pinning on a white camellia that had come on the run from the florist. Another woman would have had a gardenia, but not Doris. She knew the effect of those two shiny green leaves lying flat on the lapel.

  “How do I look?”

  How she looked was like some nineteen-year-old flapper that spent her first day at the races, cashed $27.50 on a $2 ticket, and was feeling just swell. But she didn’t want hooey, she wanted the low-down, so I just nodded, and we started out.

  It was only four or five blocks away, in a big penthouse on top of one of those apartment buildings on Park Avenue, so we walked. On the way, she kept damning Gwenny, and all of Gwenny’s friends, under her breath, and saying she’d rather take a horsewhipping than go in and face them. But when we got there, she was all smiles. Only twenty or thirty people had shown up by then, and most of them hadn’t heard of it. That was the funny thing. I had bought some papers on my way up from Cecil’s, and two or three of them had nothing about it at all, and the others let it out with a line. In the theatrical business, bad news is no news. It’s only the hits that cause excitement.

  So they were all crowding around her with their congratulations, and wanted to know what it felt like to be a big head-liner. Of course, that made it swell. But Doris leveled it out without batting an eye. “But I flopped! I’m not a headliner! I’m an ex-headliner!”

  “You—! Come on, stop being funny!”

  “I flopped. I’m out. They gave me my notice.”

  “How could you flop?”

  “Oh please, please, don’t ask me—it just breaks my heart
. And now I can’t go to Bermuda! Honestly, it’s not the principle of the thing, it’s the money! Think of all those lovely, lovely dollars that I’m not going to get!”

  She didn’t lie about it, or pretend that she had done better than she had done, or pretty it up in any way. She had too much sense for that. But in twenty seconds she had them switched off from the horrible part, and had managed to work it in that she must have been getting a terrific price to go on at all, and had it going her way. Leighton came in while she was talking, and said the publicity was all wrong, and he was going to raise hell about it. They all agreed that was it, and in five minutes they were talking about the Yale game Saturday.

  She drifted over to me. “Thank God that’s over. Was it all right?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Damn them.”

  “Just a few minutes, and we’ll blow. We’ve still got my bag to unpack.”

  She nodded, and looked at me, and let her lashes droop over her eyes. It was Eve looking at the apple, and my heart began to pound, and the room swam in front of me.

  Lorentz came in. He didn’t come over. He waved, and smiled, and Doris waved back, but looked away quick. “I’m a little out of humor with Hugo. He must have known. You did, didn’t you? He could have given me some little hint.”

  I thought of what he had said, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t care. I was still groggy from that look.

  We got separated then, but pretty soon she had me by the arm, pulling me into a corner. “We’ve got to go. Make it quick with Gwenny, and then—out!”

  “Why sure. But what’s the matter?”

  “The fool.”

  “Who?”

  “Gwenny. I could kill her. She knows how crazy I’ve been about that woman, and how I’ve wanted to meet her, and now, today of all days she had to pick out—she’s invited her! And she’s coming!”

  “What woman?”

  “Cecil Carver! Haven’t you heard me speak of her a hundred times? And now—I can’t meet her today. I can’t have her—pitying me! … Can I?”

  “No. We’ll blow.”

  “I’ll meet you at the elevator—Oh my, there she is!”

  I looked around, and Cecil was just coming in the room. I turned back to Doris, and she wasn’t there.

  She was with Wilkins, Cecil I mean. That meant she was going to sing. There wasn’t much talk while Gwenny was taking her around. They piped down, and waited. They all had money, and position from ’way-back, but all they ever saw was each other. When a real celebrity showed up, they were as excited as a bunch of high school kids meeting some big-league ball player. I was still in the corner, and she didn’t see me until Gwenny called me out. She caught her breath. Gwenny introduced me, and I said “How do you do, Miss Carver,” and she said “How do you do, Mr. Borland,” and went on. But in a minute she came back. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming here?”

  “I didn’t know it.”

  “Is she here?”

  “Didn’t Gwenny tell you?”

  “No.”

  “It was on her account she asked you.”

  “Her account?”

  “She’s wanted to meet you. So I just found out.”

  “Gwenny didn’t say anything. She called an hour ago and said come on up—and I wanted to go somewhere. I had to go somewhere. Why has she wanted to meet me?”

  “Admires you. From afar.”

  “Only that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Back there somewhere. In one of the bedrooms, would be the best bet. Hiding.”

  “From what?”

  “You, I think.”

  “Leonard, what is this? She wants to meet me, she’s hiding from me—what are you getting at? She’s not a child, to duck behind curtains when teacher comes.”

  “I should say not.”

  “Then what is this nonsense?”

  “It’s no nonsense. Gwenny asked you, as a big favor to her. But Gwenny hadn’t heard about the flop. And on account of the flop, she’d rather not. Just—prefers some other time.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Yeah, but it was an awful flop.”

  “You’re sure you haven’t told her about me? Gone and got all full of contrition, and made a clean breast of it, and wiped the slate clean, so you can start all over again—have you? Have you?”

  “No, not a word.”

  She stood twisting a handkerchief and thinking, and then she turned and headed back toward the bedrooms. “Cecil—!”

  “She had a flop, didn’t she? Then I guess I’m the one she wants to talk to.”

  She went on back. I went over and had a drink. I needed one.

  I was on my third when she came back, and I went over to her. “What happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Told her to forget it. Told her it could happen to anybody—which it can, baby, and don’t you forget it.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Asked if it had ever happened to me. I told her it had, and then we talked about Hugo.”

  “He’s here, by the way.”

  “Is he? She’s not bad. I halfway liked her.”

  She still didn’t look at me, but I had the same old feeling about her, of how swell she was, and thought I’d die if I couldn’t let her know, anyway a little. “Cecil, can I say something?”

  “Leonard, I cut my heart out after you left. I cut it out, and put it in the electric icebox, to freeze into—whatever a heart is made of. Jelly, I guess. Anyway my heart. So if you’ve got anything to say, you’d better go down there and see if it can still hear you. Me, I’ve got other things to do. I’ve got to be gay, and sing tra-la-la-la, and get my talons into the first man that—”

  She saw Lorentz then, and went running over to him, and put her arms around him, and kissed him. It was gay, maybe, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

  Doris came out then, and I hurried to her. I didn’t want to let on about Cecil, so I began right where we left off, and asked if she was ready to go. “Oh—the tooth’s out now. I think she’s going to sing. Let’s stay.”

  “Oh—you saw her then?”

  “She came back to powder. I didn’t start it. She spoke to me. She remembered me. She came to my recital, you may recall.”

  “Oh yes, so she did.”

  “Don’t ever meet your gods face to face, and especially not your goddesses. It’s a most disillusioning experience. They have clay feet. My, what an awful woman.”

  “You didn’t like her?”

  “She knew about it. And she couldn’t wait to make me feel better. She was just so tactful and sweet—and mean—that I just hated her. And did she love it. Did she enjoy purring over me.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe she meant it.”

  “Of course she meant it—her way.”

  “And what way is that?”

  “Don’t be so dense. Perhaps a man doesn’t see through those things, but a woman does. Oh yes, she meant it. She meant every word of it—the cat. She was having the time of her life.”

  I could feel myself getting hot under the collar, and all my romantic humor was gone. After what Cecil had done, and what it had cost her to do it, this kind of talk went against my grain. “And what a frump. Did you ever see such a dress?”

  “What’s the matter with it?”

  “Well—never mind. She did say one thing, though. To forget it. That it can happen to anybody, that it has even happened to her. ‘All in a day’s work, a thing you expect now and then, so what? Forget it and go on.’ Leonard, are you listening?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “That’s it. Nothing has happened. How silly I was, to feel that way about it. I don’t have to quit. I just go on. Why certainly. Even she had sense enough to know that.”

  I could hardly believe my eyes, and certainly not my ears. Here it had only been that morning when she was broken on the wheel, when she heard th
e gong ring for her if ever anybody did. And now, after just a few words from Cecil, she was standing there with her eyes open wide, telling herself that nothing had happened, that it was all just a dream. And all of a sudden, I knew that nothing had happened, and that it was all just a dream. She was the same old Doris, and it would be about one more day before we’d be right back where we always had been, with me having the fool career rubbed into me morning, noon and night, and everything else just as it was, only worse. I wondered if the way she was acting was what they call pluck. To me, it was not having sense enough to know when you’ve been hit with a brick.

  A whole mob was there by then, and pretty soon Gwenny began to stamp her foot, and got them quiet, and she said Cecil was going to sing. But when Cecil stood up, it wasn’t Wilkins that took the piano, it was Lorentz. She made a little speech, and told how he had played for her in Berlin, and how she would do one of the things they had done that night, and how she hoped it would go better this time, and he wouldn’t have to yell the words at her from the piano, the way he had then. They all laughed, and she waited till they had found seats and got still, and then she sang the Titania song from Mignon.

  She had made her little speech with her arm around Lorentz, and Doris looked like murder, and during the little wait she began to whisper. “That’s nice.”

  “What’s nice?”

  “She brought her own accompanist, but oh no. She had to have Hugo.”

  “Well what of it?”

  “Don’t you see through it?”

  “No. They seem to be old friends.”

  “Oh, that’s not it.”

  “And what is it?”

  “She knows he’s my accompanist, and that he’s been attentive to me—”

  “And how would she know that?”

  “She must know it, from what I said. The first thing she asked me about was Hugo, and—”

  “I thought Hugo was out.”

  “Maybe he is, but she doesn’t know it. And these people don’t know it. My goodness, but you’re stupid about some things. Oh no, this I’ll not forgive. The other, I pass over. But this is a public matter, and I’ll get even with her for it, if I—”

  The music started then. About the third bar Doris leaned over to me. “She’s flatting.”