The Cocktail Waitress

by James M. Cain

  I got up, dressed, had coffee and got in the car. Next thing I knew I was in Marlboro, and found myself driving past Eckert’s place, asking myself what I was doing there. Was there more legal advice I wanted —or was I tempted by his other offer after all? I shuddered at the thought. And yet here I was. The prospect of shackling myself to Mr. White was clearly getting to me, though I’d been the engineer and architect of the plan and could hardly complain of the outcome. I turned the car around and headed for home.

  At one o’clock I called Blue Bird, and asked them to send a cab to the Safety Garage, then drove my car there and left it. When the cab came I rode home, feeling queer. Before going in I rang Mrs. Stringer’s bell, next door, and when she came gave her my spare key, and the $10 payment I’d offered, for looking in each day, making sure one light was lit, and taking in the mail. Then I went in, walked back to the bedroom and had a look around, as well as in my bag, to make sure I had everything. It was a big one I’d had from Pittsburgh, and the only one I was taking, as that was one thing I’d learned from my father, one of the few memories of him I respected: “Take one bag and one bag only—it’ll hold what you need, if you use the facilities available where you go—the laundry, the cleaner, the bootblack, the barber, the beauty parlor—let them freshen you up. Don’t try to take the whole clothes-closet with you.” I checked my cash, $500 in twenties that I’d drawn and $2,000 in traveler’s checks.

  At two o’clock Mr. White’s car stopped out front and I let Jasper get out and ring my bell, so I could have him take the bag and I wouldn’t have to do it.

  Mr. White was waiting on the brick platform in front of the mansion’s door, with what looked like the whole household staff lined up behind him. I hadn’t realized there were so many—three women, two in maid outfits and one in a cook’s apron, and beside them three men in workclothes that might have made them gardeners or mechanics or what-have-you. They all looked warmly at me, but to see them arrayed there before me, almost as though for my inspection, gave the screw inside me another clockwise twist. Jasper jumped out of the car, snatched up Mr. White’s two suitcases and loaded them into the trunk. Mr. White gave a little speech to his staff, how he was leaving solo but would return as one half of husband-and-wife, and he trusted they would each welcome me to my new role as mistress of the house. There was much nodding, and I had all I could do to nod back and smile with gratitude rather than bolt down the oyster shell drive.

  I followed him back into the car, and a moment later the door closed firmly and then the car began to roll.

  “Hello, Joan,” he said.

  I said “Hello” back, but knew something more was called for; from the look on his face, he expected it. So I pulled his face down and kissed him. In a moment he kissed me back, whispering, “Our first.” Then: “Joan, your lips are like ice—is something wrong?”

  “I’m just the least little bit frightened—I guess your lips know without being told, what your heart is feeling.”

  I made myself sound wan, timid, and friendly, and he gathered me into his arms. They were narrow and I could feel the bones through the flesh. I started to cry silently. Then: “Frightened?” he asked. “Of what?”

  “Just on general principles. After all, this isn’t something I do every day.”

  “But not at something I’ve done?”

  “Of course not.”

  I gave him a pat, and wiped away the tears that had made it out before I regained control over myself. But on account of my lips, I didn’t venture another kiss. We rode along, I making myself lean toward him, though I didn’t at all want to.

  We bypassed Annapolis, then were out on the bridge over the Bay. Then we were on the Eastern Shore, which is flat, so a car eats up miles, without even going fast. Then we were in Delaware, and in a matter of minutes we were entering Dover. He said something to Jasper, who said, “Yes sir, I know,” and pulled in shortly at quite a handsome motel. Jasper got out and opened the door for us, then followed us inside, carrying the bags. Mr. White told the clerk: “Three of us—we’re reserved, Earl K. White, Mrs. Ronald Medford, and Jasper Wilson.” The clerk eyed us, then offered the pen to Mr. White, who gave it to me. I took it and filled out the card the clerk gave me, having a sudden panicky feeling at the realization it was the last time I’d write ‘Joan Medford.’ Motels don’t have bellboys, so it was Jasper who took up the bags. In a moment I was alone upstairs with mine and a feeling of utter panic.

  *

  We had agreed to meet in the lobby, and he was waiting when I got down. So was Jasper, and we went out and got in the car. When I asked where we were headed he said: “Lab—we have to have blood tests. If they take their samples now we can get the report in the morning and get our license at once without waiting around.” I said: “Oh,” and Jasper stopped at an office building. The receptionist seemed to know what we wanted without being told, and was so coy it made me uncomfortable. The doctor was smiling too, and made quick work of us both, having us sit with our dab of cotton, holding it to our arms, and then telling us: “Just ask the girl in the morning— she’ll have your certificates ready.” Back in the motel, we went at once to the dining room, and all during dinner he talked of how happy he was, just to be with me at last, without having to get up and go, “or seeing that bartender eye me as though I were some kind of thief for occupying a table without ordering something pricier.” I told him Jake didn’t mean any harm, and that he’d been very nice to me from the first day, but it didn’t do any good, as Jake, something I had not known, was obviously his pet aversion. After the dinner we went back to the lobby to talk over cups of tea in a little sitting area they had. Around nine I said I was tired and would like to turn in, and he took me to my room. For one horrible moment there in the hall I wondered what I would do if he tried to come in, but he didn’t. He stood there, though, as if expecting something, and as I had in the car I knew what it was. I raised my mouth and he kissed me. “Good night, Earl,” I whispered and ducked inside, too jittered to ask if my lips were warmer than they had been, or to care.

  I’ll remember that night as long as I live, for its gray, dry tastelessness, and endless length. And yet not once, at least to remember it, did I tell myself I could still back out, or have any impulse to. I would like to make that clear. I could have backed out, packed my bag, turned my key in to the desk, taken a cab to the bus station, and gone home —no new thing for me, as that’s what I’d done with Tom. But, frightened though I was, and jittered, and numb, it didn’t enter my mind. So far as I was concerned, I had what I wanted, and never once doubted I wanted it.

  In the morning I dressed for my wedding, putting on the suit I had bought, a simple sharkskin thing, in the dark green I always liked, with a beige blouse and dark tan shoes, with gloves and hat to match. I didn’t want a hat, but felt I should have one, out of respect for him. So I wore a tiny velvet one, that took up no space in my bag but gave me a formal look. He got the idea at once, telling me: “I was hoping you’d put on a hat—you have beautiful hair, but it’s kind of a special occasion. Oh well, I might have known you would. You don’t have to be Social Register to know what’s what and what’s not.”

  “But I am Social Register.”

  “… You’re—what did you say, Joan?”

  By his reaction I knew he thought I was kidding him, and also that for all his and his father’s and his grandfather’s wealth he was not Social Register himself. But I was, one of the only legacies remaining from my parents—that, and the bag I’d packed for this trip, and worth just about as much in my eyes, or less. But I saw what it meant to him that his new wife, best known to him until this moment for serving him tonic water with her breasts half revealed, was higher on the social ladder than he, and just for a moment I let this thing that meant nothing to me give him his moment of torture.

  “Oh—I’m in, in Pittsburgh, of course. My father and mother are, and I’m listed as one of their children—or was. I guess I’m still in. Not that I very much c
are.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  All during breakfast he kept shooting glances at me, as though trying to readjust to something that to me was barely worth mentioning, but to him was apparently a staggering piece of news. At least it made a break in the talk, so I could eat my eggs in peace. Then, back to the lab to pick up our blood reports, and then to the courthouse for our license. When the woman saw Mr. White’s name she was excited at once, telling him: “We got your letter, Mr. White, and the judge is ready when you are.” Then a middle-aged man was there, shaking hands and congratulating us, and asking if we’d like two of the girls to be our witnesses. “Just one,” answered Mr. White. “We brought one witness with us.” He put his arm around Jasper, who seemed very pleased.

  Then Mr. White, a girl, Jasper, and I all went in the judge’s office. He was the least bit fussy telling us how to stand. Then he started the service and I suddenly felt suffocated, knowing what it meant. Then Mr. White was slipping a ring on my finger and repeating after the judge, “With this ring I thee wed,” and I was promising to love, honor and cherish. Then Mr. White was kissing me, and I was hoping my lips weren’t as cold to him as yesterday. To me, they felt colder.

  Then we were out on the street, and Jasper was trotting off to bring up the car. I looked down, and pinned to my jacket were flowers, a beautiful corsage of orange blossoms—I hadn’t the faintest idea, and haven’t to this day, how it got there, or when. Then we were in the car, headed north, I didn’t know where. Then I could see New York in the distance, and then, after tunnels, knew we must be headed for Kennedy Airport. By then I knew he had some surprise for me, but we were in front of the airline counter, and he was off to one side, whispering to Jasper and giving him money, before I was sure we were headed for London.

  22

  My seat was next to the window in a row of three, and his was in front of me, but he moved to the one beside me and I tried to act as though pleased, though on a plane I like to be left to myself, as the clouds and the sky and drone of the motor all make me feel dreamy, and dreams are a solo enterprise. However, his intentions were clearly friendly and I responded as well as I could. I suddenly realized, though, as he kept asking how I liked it, and if it made me nervous at all, that he assumed I’d never been on a plane before. So, once again, as when he brought up the Social Register, I had to cut him down to size. I said: “Oh no—I don’t mind flying at all—never did. Even when I was little, and we flew to St. Louis each year, I loved it even in rough air, when the plane would go down and everyone was scared to death. Once I yelled ‘Whee!’ and my mother spanked me but quick. And then naturally my father had to make made out like he was really annoyed too.”

  “I find myself wondering about this father of yours. Who was he, Joan?”

  “Lawyer. As I’ve told you.”

  “… He still living?”

  “I don’t really know—and don’t care.”

  He took the hint and cut off the questions—for a while. But then after we’d been flying perhaps two hours he resumed, and I thought it best to cover the subject, of my parents and the falling out we’d had, once and for all, so once it was done, I’d not have to do it again. “I had a brawl with my mother,” I explained, “over a boy she’d picked out for me, a rich boy from one of the steel families. But he bored me to tears, and when I refused even to consider marrying him, she put me out, and instead of standing up for me my father stood beside her. I’ve made my own way since, with what results you already know. If I don’t seem as refined as a girl with my background should, it’s being on my own from seventeen on, and not in the best of situations, that’s done it.” I shrugged away the sympathetic look he was giving me. “I wrote my mother when I got pregnant, but never heard from her—or him, as perhaps should go without saying. That was when I knew for sure I’d been cut off but good. Of course, no parent can be expected to respond with enthusiasm to the news that their unmarried daughter is pregnant. It’s not as though anyone else was too excited either—Ron’s enthusiasm for it wasn’t visible to the naked eye, his parents’ bordered on nausea, his sister’s on galloping lockjaw. If that’s why he drank I don’t know, but it could have been, and eventually it was drinking that cost him his life, so you might say there were bad outcomes all around. But I did get one good thing out of it: my darling little Tad.”

  “You’ll be pleased to know I’ve made arrangements for him, Joan— had a nursery fixed up, next to your suite, in the house.”

  It was the first moment since the ceremony—no, longer, since the day he’d returned from his business in New York and said he’d marry me—that I felt warmly toward him. I caught his hand, pressed it in both of mine, then lifted it and kissed it, and meant it.

  We had left Kennedy at noon, so it was something like seven New York time when we got to Heathrow Airport, but late at night in London, on account of the time differential. We’d just had dinner on the plane, and in various ways it still seemed like early evening; however, I try to adjust to what comes up. Customs took only a few minutes, and then we were in a cab, headed for town. There wasn’t much to see except streetlights, but after the snubs I’d dished out earlier when he’d tried to play mentor and guide, I thought best to act very pleased. “I just love it!” I kept saying. But it wasn’t real until we came to the city itself and were suddenly on a bridge, rolling across the river. At that hour no boats were out there, or at any rate moving around, but the lights on the water reflected in a mysterious, beautiful way, and suddenly I was overwhelmed. “It’s thrilling,” I whispered. “It’s just out of this world.” He smiled happily, at having pleased me at last.

  Our hotel was the Savoy, which is on a little inset, a half square with a theatre on one side, business places on the other, and the hotel in the middle—a quiet, elegant haven off the Strand, one of their busiest streets. A doorman got out our bags and took them in while Earl paid the driver in English money he’d bought in Washington, at the same time opening my bag and stuffing some in for me, notes as big as napkins. Then we were inside and I noticed Earl took off his hat, though in an American hotel lobby men leave their hats on. He registered, and when the clerk saw who this was he as all deference. “Yes, Mr. White,” he exclaimed. “Your suite’s ready as requested—sitting room, two bedrooms, two baths. We’ll take you up in just a moment.”

  While we were waiting to be taken up, people were leaving the dining room, as it was coming on for one in the morning, and the theatre crowd was going home. They were all in evening clothes, and I felt the slightest bit self-conscious in my traveling suit, which was respectable but ordinary. He saw my expression and leaned in to me. “We’ll get you a long dress tomorrow.”

  I couldn’t help snapping, “I have one, thanks. It’s just packed.”

  “Well then you’ll have another,” he whispered back, untroubled by my tone. Perhaps he’d been told to expect a new bride to be skittish; perhaps he remembered from the previous time he’d wed.

  Just then an assistant manager came and took us up, standing around while we looked at the suite. “In the U.S.,” said Earl, “you’re given a room and you take it, if you know what’s good for you. Here they let you see it, and if you don’t like it, show you something else. Most people like it, I’m sure—but it’s nice, having a vote.”

  To the assistant manager, he said: “Suite’s fine—thanks.”

  When we were alone, Earl said, “Now I don’t know about you, Joan, but after a wedding, a car ride, and a plane trip, I could do with a little bed rest.”

  “Oh, I’m quite tired too.”

  But once more the drawstring pulled in my stomach, as I still didn’t quite know what to expect.

  I found out soon enough.

  Both our bedrooms opened onto the sitting room, and as he stepped into his, he half whispered, in a friendly confidential way: “I’ll be getting my things off.” It seemed to mean more to come, and when I went to my room, I couldn’t make myself undress. I put my things away, th
en sat down to think, but managed only to feel numb. When there came a rap on the door I called: “Come.” But I sounded muffled and strangled and queer. Then he was there in pajamas and slippers and robe. “So!” he exclaimed, very friendly. “Thanks for waiting. Now I can see the whole show.”

  I’ve spoken of my temper, and now I wrestled with it, trying to hold it back. I couldn’t. “What show?” I heard myself say, sounding ugly.

  “Why, as your husband, I’d like to watch you undress. Fact of the matter, I’ve been looking forward to it.”

  I wanted to do what I did to Tom, flatten his ears with slaps, but did nothing at first but sit there, swallowing, trying to get myself under control. Then: “Are you sure that’s recommended?” I asked. “After all I’m anatomically normal, and might have an anatomically normal effect.”

  “So? I’m normal too. All God’s children are normal. I can only go so far, but that far at least I mean to go—here, I’ll take that coat.”

  He took it from me and hung it up in the closet. “Raise your arms, I’ll lift off that dress.”

  I did, and quite expertly he slipped it off and let me take it. I hung it up, beside the coat, and rolled the closet door shut. That left me in bra and pantyhose, and I didn’t know which to take off first. I stepped out of my shoes, rolled the closet open again, found my trees on the floor where I’d put them, pushed them in, and set the shoes under the dress, the toes pointing to the room. Then I took off the bra, and put it on the shelf above the hangers. But as I was still reaching up, his hands were cupping me in, raising my breasts, while breath blew on my neck. I wanted to cry out, to bite, to rear away. I had to think of my darling Tad, to remember what I’d been told by Mr. Eckert, that I must never withhold what a husband could legally claim.