The Cocktail Waitress

by James M. Cain

  “What happened in London was caused by all that wrestling you made me do. If you’ll stop arguing about it, and cooperate instead, then—”

  “I won’t cooperate.”

  I heard my mouth say it, cold and quiet, to mean it. His whole manner suddenly changed. Then, also quiet, to mean it, he said: “No, you won’t, will you.”

  “I don’t want you dropping dead beside me—”

  “No, Joan. Don’t lie.” He stepped closer. “That isn’t why. You sound quite noble, but there’s one thing wrong with it, slightly. You won’t cooperate because you don’t want to cooperate. I feel like a fool.”

  “Earl—”

  “You’ve been playing a game with me, haven’t you? You’ve been pretending it’s me you want, when actually it’s my money—my fortune, this house, these servants, and the rest that I’ve given you. It’s—”

  “Earl, it’s not, as I can prove.”

  “O.K., start proving.”

  “If it were what you’ve said, all I’d have to do is cooperate and lo and behold, a corpse would be holding me—and everything would fall in my hands. Instead of which, for your own good, I refuse to cooperate at the risk of your life. Now, does that prove it?”

  “It might have, when I still was at risk. Now, it does not.”

  “Well, you might think this new treatment is a sure thing, but I call it wishful thinking, and possibly quackery, and if I’m right you could die from it. What else can I say?”

  But he was shaking his head. “There’s nothing you can say, because you’re not telling the truth. You’re lying to me, also to yourself.”

  “Oh, you know what I tell myself? I wish you’d tell me how.”

  “Be glad to. What your eyes say is not the same as what’s coming out of your mouth. They have the same identical look as that boy of yours, when he screamed at me. You look exactly like him, Joan, and your eyes say the same thing. He hated me, and you do. I’ve been suspecting, since London, since you wouldn’t let me touch you, since you insisted we fly home early. And now—”

  I tried to take hold of his arm, but he shook me off, then at the top of his lungs he called: “Jasper! Jasper!”

  From the kitchen, and then out the dining room door, along came Boyd, buttoning his coat as he ran. “Jasper’s got the day off today, Mr. White, remember?” Earl didn’t answer, just stormed out to the car and got in. Boyd followed, bent low beside the window, touched his cap at some word from inside, got in, and drove off.

  I didn’t feel like dinner, and went out to the kitchen to explain to Araminta, as well as to Myra, who was also on duty. I apologized for having no appetite, and they said that was O.K. They were quite nice about it, but I could tell by their manner they knew why.

  I went upstairs and stewed—but then after a while felt hungry after all. Having passed up the dinner they’d already made, though, I couldn’t change my mind and ask them to do it over. Then I knew where I would eat. Going out through the kitchen again, I surprised Araminta and Myra having their own dinner together, and told them: “If Mr. White comes in while I’m gone, will you tell him I’ll be back around nine or ten? There’s something I have to do. I’m using my car, tell him.”

  “Yes, Miss Joan. We will.”

  I drove to the Garden, parked, and went in the cocktail bar. It was jammed, with Bianca helping Liz cover. Bianca came over, shook hands, asked how I’d been, and then when I explained I’d come for dinner, brought me to a table, the same one Earl had sat at and that Tom had sat at, and asked what I was going to have. “What have you got?” I asked her. “I’m good and hungry.”

  “Roast beef, fried chicken, goulash.”

  “I’ll have the goulash, Bianca.”

  The goulash was done to her own special recipe, and she was quite proud of it, so it was kind of a compliment to her that I said I’d have it. She went out in the kitchen to call it while I went over and shook hands with Jake, then put my arms around Liz, kissed her, and said “Surprise, surprise.” Then, taking my starters to the table as I’d done for customers so many times—the napkin, knife, fork, spoon, bread, and butter that everyone got with dinner—I sat down. But I suddenly had an impulse: “Never mind serving me, Bianca,” I told her. “I’ll eat in my usual place.”

  So, carrying my starters back through the swinging door, I went out in the kitchen, shook hands with Mr. Bergie, as well as the dishwasher boy, who was new. Then I told Mr. Bergie: “I’m the goulash Bianca just called—and I’ll have it here at my regular spot.” I seated myself at the same folding table I’d sat at my first night, between the stove and the pantry door. I made myself comfortable and waited while Mr. Bergie put my plate together. Then I went and got it, used the cutlery I had in my hand, sat down and ate it. “Goulash is nice tonight,” I told him, and he gave a little salute. I took some salad from the crisper, decided to skip dessert, and drew myself black coffee. Then I sat there and sipped it, feeling easy, relaxed, and as though I was with friends.

  When I went back to the bar, the dinner rush had eased off, and I sat down at my same table, to continue my talk with Liz. “Someone was in,” she whispered.

  “… Oh? When?”

  “Today, right after we opened.”

  “… And?”

  “I told him I’d seen you.”

  “O.K.”

  I tried to act unconcerned, but she did not let me get away with it. She just stood there and waited, and finally I couldn’t take it any longer. “Well?” I burst out. “What did he say?”

  “That he couldn’t care less—or words to that effect.”

  “… So? He couldn’t care less.”

  But she stood there some more, and then once again I burst out: “And what did you say?”

  “Nothing I could repeat.”

  Then: “I told him stop handing me horseshit, that if he wanted to hear the rest, say so.”

  “And? Did he?”

  “What do you think?”

  “And what did you tell him then?”

  “Baby, I don’t know if I did right, but there’s such a thing as heading a mess off—I mean, if he knew what you told me today, he could feel better already, and not go barging off to do something foolish. So, I took the liberty. I told him what you said—not all, but so he got the idea.”

  “What idea, Liz?”

  “That you’re hooked on him still and haven’t slept with your new husband because of it.”

  “But—that’s not true.”

  “Then I misunderstood you when you said you hadn’t consummated. If I told it wrong, I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t misunderstand that—it’s just as you told him it is. But not for that reason. I wish it was, but it’s not.”

  “Baby, I’m getting dizzy.”

  “Liz, if it was as you said, that I have that kind of marriage on account of torching for Tom, I’d say so, I’d be only too glad, I wouldn’t be too proud. But it’s not that. If I could, I’d have gone through with it, Liz—the lawyer told me I had to. But it came to a head tonight, everything just as I feared it would. And I couldn’t go through with it—not because of Tom, just because I couldn’t stomach the thought of that old man climbing on top of me, and—and—”

  “So, you’re leaving him?”

  “… I don’t know yet.”

  “Joan, you’re as bad as Tom. Suppose you stop handing me horseshit too. Why did you call me today? Why did you ask me to lunch? Way I saw it, I was to take a message. O.K., then, I took it. Now you’ve given him hope. So if you go back on the message, he’s been made a fool of. And I’m warning you, he may not take it friendly.”

  “… O.K., Liz. Thanks.”

  All that took longer to talk out than it takes for me to tell it, and by then the place began to fill up again, this time with the late, after-the-picture-show bunch. As usual, they were younger than the dinner people, and as usual, they began running Liz ragged. In a minute I got up and began filling orders for her—a lot of people knew me, and bega
n calling my name very friendly, not paying too much attention that I wasn’t in uniform. And then all of a sudden in front of me there was Earl, his face trembling with rage. “Mrs. Earl K. White,” he roared, “does not serve drinks in a bar!”

  “Mrs. Earl K. White the Third,” I told him. “Let’s use the full thing if we’re going to use it at all. And Mrs. Earl K. White the Third decides for herself where she serves drinks, whether she serves drinks or throws them in somebody’s face that interferes—or tries to interfere.”

  I was at the bar, a tray of rickeys in my hand, and he stepped aside, but quick. However, I didn’t walk past him—not yet. “I thought I told you,” I went on, “to call off that snoop you had—and I thought you promised to do it.”

  “Snoop? I didn’t need any snoop! A dozen people have called to tell me you were here! That Earl K. White’s wife was serving drinks—”

  “The Third,” I said, and walked past him with my tray. I set the rickeys in front of the guests and beckoned Liz to make out the check—I being strictly a bus girl helping out. Then I turned to Earl and told him: “I’m ready now if you are.”

  “… Ready for what, Joan?”

  “To go home, what else? Having been left alone all evening, I decided to visit with friends—and when they needed help to give it—being in the Social Register has obligations—noblesse oblige, it’s called. But now, as you’ve arrived and made a scene—”

  He snapped his fingers in the direction of the vestibule and I saw Boyd come forward. “We’re going home,” he announced. “Bring the car around.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Not for me, thanks,” I said, “I’m using my own car. You may ride with me if you like, Earl, or take yours, as you prefer, but I’m taking mine.”

  He was steaming, and I expected him to storm off as he had earlier. Instead, he told Boyd to take the car back on his own, and waited for me to get my jacket. I suddenly realized it was not his humiliation he was here to make sure I knew of, or his embarrassment, or his shame, or any of the things he pretended, but a triumph of some sort, that he had to gloat over with me. There was something he wanted me to know, and he didn’t want me out of his sight until he’d said it. But my realization was vague, as I wasn’t caught up yet, as to what kind of evening he’d had. I just had an uneasy feeling there would be more.

  I didn’t know the half.

  28

  I led outside, opened the passenger door for him and put him in. Then I got in myself and drove home—his home, at least, and the place I had to call home, as I seemed to be living there. I drove around to the garage and put my car away, then walked back to the front door with him. All this time he was holding in whatever it was he wanted to say. As soon as we made it inside the drawing room, he burst out: “What was the idea? Disgracing me? Earl K. White’s wife doesn’t work in a cocktail bar!”

  “Earl K. White’s wife did work in a cocktail bar, as Earl K. White well knows—and Earl K. White’s wife can do as she goddam well pleases, and it pleases her, when left alone for an evening, to spend it with friends, and if they need help in the work, to give it. Any more questions?”

  “… Why don’t you ask one?”

  “Such as which one?”

  “Why don’t you ask where I spent the evening?”

  “It’s none of my business, that’s why—but since you make it my business, O.K., where did you spend the evening?”

  “Massage parlor.”

  “You mean, a junior whorehouse?”

  “… O.K., call it that.”

  “I call it what it is—at least as I’ve heard, in such way as to believe it. And you enjoyed your little visit?”

  “You bet I did.”

  “Then I’m glad.”

  “I thought you would be. You might be interested to know it proved you wrong, and Dr. Cord wrong. I had myself what we can call a massage, two of them, matter of fact—with no fatal results, as you see.”

  “That’s wonderful, Earl, but it doesn’t prove Dr. Cord wrong.”

  “It doesn’t? I’d say it does.”

  “Not if by ‘massage’ you mean what I think you mean, namely a young woman working you over with her hands. All right, she took the towel off at the end and worked a little more than she’s supposed to under the law—you might have died from that, and thank goodness you didn’t. But there’s a difference between that and what you were proposing we do, and if you don’t know what the difference is I’m not going to be the one to tell you.”

  “I survived the one, and I would survive the other just the same.”

  “You might as well say, I can step off the curb so I can step out a window.”

  “You’re saying you think the act with you would be that much more tremendous?”

  “I’m saying you do, or you wouldn’t be pursuing it so single-mindedly. Earl, I’ve seen what happens to you when you get excited. A woman you’ve never met and will never see again cannot excite you like your wife, and the touch of a woman’s hand cannot excite you the way possessing her entire body would. You’ve learned something tonight about what your body can withstand, but you haven’t learned enough to say you’re ready for what you want. And the only way you could find that out is too dangerous.”

  “And you know that how? You’re an impressive woman, Joan, I don’t say you aren’t—but I don’t recall your having a medical degree. Let me show you something ” He got up and pulled over a little stairway, a mahogany thing no more than eighteen inches high, with two steps on it, for use in front of the bookshelves, which on one side of the room were quite high. “Journal Dr. Jameson lent me—has an article in it, on angina.”

  “Won’t change my mind, but all right, show me.”

  Fuming, holding onto the shelf with one hand for balance, he climbed up, stood on top, and reached for a narrow volume. Suddenly, instead of getting it, he clutched his chest and turned to face the room. I knew a seizure had hit him, and that if something wasn’t done quickly he’d topple and fall. I got to the stair and wrapped my arms around his legs. Then, “Lean on me, Earl,” I whispered. “Don’t try to step down—lean on me and slide down.”

  He did, and then was down on the floor. I’m fairly strong, and was able to half carry him to a chair. Then: “Your pills are by your bed, the way they were in London?”

  “Yes! Yes!” He whispered it, and then: “Joan, hurry! For Christ’s sake, get them, quick!”

  I hurried. I didn’t even know which room was his, but by opening doors I found it, then found the vial, in the corner at the head of his bed. I grabbed it and ran downstairs. He was still in the chair, in agony. I got him a pill and put it in his hand. He popped it into his mouth, and I could see him roll it under his tongue. He held out his hand for another one and I gave it to him. He popped it in and after a moment his breathing began to ease. Whispering hoarsely, he started in again, as he had in London, about what to do if he should die this time.

  “Will you, goddam it, shut up?”

  He exhaled hugely, his whole face red and tortured.

  “You won’t die this time. I’m here, and I’ll see you don’t.”

  “You don’t want me to?”

  “What do you think?”

  “… Joan, you don’t love me, not even a little bit, but I love you, I can’t help it.”

  “Earl, I love you, but know no way of loving a corpse.”

  “O.K. O.K.”

  *

  Little by little his seizure passed. “When it starts going away, that’s the worst of all. Feels like a hand was there, squeezing the air out of your lungs—not your heart, your lungs, though of course your heart is the cause of it all.”

  “Take it easy.”

  “Joan, I’m trying to.”

  And then, all of a sudden, it was over, and he half lay in the chair, still in a state of collapse. When he was somewhat recovered, so he could sit up, I asked: “Now—can we talk?”

  “… O.K. What is it, Joan?”

  “A
bout the massage parlor.”

  “… All right, but I want to add something to what I told you. It all happened as I said, except that it happened with you, not the massage girl at all.”

  “Oh?”

  “I pretended, that’s why. Pretended she was you. In my mind, in my heart, she was you—it’s what I wanted to say. I’m trying to tell you, spite of everything, spite of how you feel toward me, I do love you. I do.”

  There, once more, was the thing Liz had suggested, to fix everything up by pretending. I suddenly realized I had, back in the early days of my marriage, when Ron and I were still trying, and I’ve since read it’s something the whole human race does, at one time or another. But with Earl I just couldn’t. No amount of pretending would help.

  He waited, and then: “But I interrupted you, Joan. What was it you wanted to say?”

  “About the massage parlor—please don’t go there anymore.”

  “Will you give me a reason not to?”

  “You can still ask me that, after what just happened?”

  He didn’t even look abashed. “It wasn’t the parlor that did it,” he said, “it was the argument with you, the strain of it—”

  “It was both, Earl. It was the combination. And even without the argument it might have happened if what came before had brought you to a similar emotional peak. And if that happened with me, as a result of my allowing you what you’ve been begging for—I couldn’t live with myself, knowing I’d been the cause of it. Do you get my full meaning, why I can’t, won’t let myself, say yes? Do you realize what that would mean?”

  “But do you realize, Joan, what it would mean to me, to know I can be normal—live the life everyone leads—and forego it just because you are afraid? I cannot promise that, Joan. I can’t.”

  “… Then, if you must have it, at least we can remove as much of the risk as possible.”

  “Meaning what?”

  I said: “You liked her, that girl in the massage place?”

  “Believe it or not she was very nice—kind, understanding, and sweet.”

  I couldn’t help myself, and snapped: “I’m sure she was.”

  “It wasn’t cheap, what I did.”