Mildred Pierce (29 page)

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Mrs Gessler, when she heard what Mildred was up to, flew into a rage, and wanted to know why Ida had been singled out to manage the Beverly branch, instead of herself. Mildred tried to explain that it was all Ida’s idea, that some people are suited to one thing, some to another, but got nowhere. Mrs Gessler continued bitter, and Mildred grew worried. She had come to depend on her tall, thin, profane bartender as she depended on nobody else, not only for shrewd business advice but also for some sort of emotional support that her nature demanded. Losing her would be a calamity, and she began to consider what could be done.

At that time there was considerable talk about the rise of Laguna Beach, a resort along the coast, a few miles below Long Beach. Mildred began to wonder if it would be a good place for still another branch, with Mrs Gessler in charge. She drove down a number of times and looked it over. Except for one place, she found no restaurants that impressed her, and unquestionably the resort was coming up, not only for summer trippers, but for year-round residents as well. Again it was the lease that decided her. She found a large house, with considerable land around it, on a bluff, overlooking the ocean. With an expert eye, she noted what would have to be done to it, noted that the grounds would be expensive to keep up. But when the terms were quoted to her, they were so low that she knew she could make a good profit if she got any business at all. They were so low that for a brief time she was suspicious, but the agent said the explanation was simple enough. It had been a private home, but it couldn’t be rented for that, as it was entirely too big for most of the people who came down from the city just to get a coat of tan. Furthermore, the beach in front of it was studded with rocks and was therefore unsuitable for swimming. For all ordinary purposes it was simply a turkey, and if she could use it, it was hers at the rate quoted. Mildred inspected the view, the house, the grounds, and felt a
little tingle inside. Abruptly, she paid 25 dollars cash for a tenday option, and that night held Mrs Gessler after closing time for a little talk. But she barely got started when Mrs Gessler broke in: ‘Oh, shut up, will you for God’s sake shut up?’

‘But – aren’t you
interested
?’

‘Does a duck like water? Listen, it’s halfway between LA and San Diego, isn’t it? Right on the main line, and Ike still has his trucks. It’s the first honest-to-God’s chance he’s had to get started again, in a legal way, since – well, you know. And it gets him out of this lousy place. Do you want me bawling right on your shoulder?’

‘What’s the matter with this place?’

‘It’s not the place, it’s him. OK, I’m working, see, and he has to find something to do with himself, at night. So he finds it. He says it’s pool, and he does come home with chalk all over him, I’ll say that for him. But he’s a liar. It’s a frazzle-haired blonde that works in one of those antique furniture factories on Los Feliz. Nothing serious maybe, but he sees her. It’s what I’ve been so jittery about, if you’ve got to know. And now, if I can just get him out of here, and in business again so he can hold his head up – well, maybe that’ll be that. Go on, tell me some more.’

So once again Mildred was in a flurry of alterations, purchases of inventory, and arguments about policy. She wanted a duplicate of the Glendale place, which would specialise in chicken, waffles, and pies, and operate a small bar as a sideline. Mrs Gessler, however, had other ideas. ‘Do they come all the way to the ocean just to get chicken? Not if I know them. They want a shore dinner – fish, lobster, and crab – and that’s what we’re giving them. And that’s where we make the dough. Don’t forget: fish is cheap. But we’ve got to have a little variety, so we give them steak, right from our own built-in charcoal broiler.’

When Mildred protested that she knew nothing about steaks, or fish, or lobster, or crab, and would be helpless to do the marketing, Mrs Gessler replied she could learn. It wasn’t until she sent for Mr Otis, the federal meat inspector who had been romantic about her in her waitress days, that her alarm eased a little. He came to the Glendale restaurant one night, and confirmed her suspicions that there were about a hundred
different ways to lose money on steaks. But when he talked with Mrs Gessler he was impressed. He told Mildred she was ‘smart’, and probably knew where she was coming out. It depended mainly, he said, on the chef, and to Mildred’s surprise he recommended Archie, of Mr Chris’s establishment. Archie, he assured her, had been wasted for years in a second-class place, but ‘he’s still the best steak man in town, bar none. Any bum can cook fish and make money on it, so don’t worry about that. But on steaks, you’ve got to have somebody that knows his stuff. You can’t go wrong on Archie.’

So Mildred stole Archie off Mr Chris, and under his dour supervision installed the built-in charcoal broiler. Presently, after signs had been put up along the road, and announcements inserted in the Los Angeles papers, the place opened. It was never the snug little gold mine that Ida’s place was, for Mrs Gessler was careless of expenses, and tended to slight the kitchen in favour of the bar. But her talent at making a sort of club out of whatever she touched drew big business. The ingenuity with which she worked out the arrangements drew Mildred’s reluctant admiration. The big living-room of the house was converted into a maple-panelled bar, with dim lights. The rooms behind it were joined together in a cluster of small dining-rooms, each with a pleasant air of intimacy about it. One of them opened on a verandah that ran around the house, and out here were tables for out-door drinkers, bathing suiters, and the overflow trade. But the most surprising thing to Mildred was the flower garden. She had never suspected Mrs Gessler of any such weakness, but within a few weeks the whole brow of the bluff was planted with bushes, and here, it appeared, was where Mrs Gessler spent her mornings, spading, pruning, and puttering with a Japanese gardener. The expense, what with water and the gardener, was high, but Mrs Gessler shrugged it off. ‘We’re running a high-class dump, baby, and we’ve got to have something. For some reason I don’t understand, a guy with an old-fashioned on the table likes to listen to the bumble-bees.’ But when the flowers began to bloom, Mildred paid without protest, because she liked them. At twilight, just before the dinner rush, she would stroll among them, smelling them and feeling proud and happy. On
one of these strolls Mrs Gessler joined her, and then led her a block or two down the main road that ran through the town. Then she stopped and pointed, and across the street Mildred saw the sign:

Mrs Gessler looked at it intently. ‘He’s on call all the time, too. All he needed was a chance. Next week he’s getting a new truck, streamlined.’

‘Is everything all right upstairs?’

Mildred had reference to the terms of Mrs Gessler’s employment. She didn’t get 30 dollars a week and 2 per cent of the gross, as Ida did. She got 30 dollars and 1 per cent, the rest of her pay being made up of free quarters in the upper part of the house, with light, heat, water, food, laundry, and everything furnished. Mrs Gessler nodded. ‘Everything’s fine. Ike loves those big rooms, and the sea, and the steaks, and – well, believe it or not, he even likes the flowers. “Service with a gardenia” – he’s thinking of having it lettered on the new truck. We’re living again, that’s all.’

Mildred never cooked anything herself now, or put on a uniform. At Glendale, Mrs Kramer had been promoted to cook, with an assistant named Bella; Mrs Gessler’s place was taken by a man bartender, named Jake; on nights when Mildred was at Beverly or Laguna, Sigrid acted as hostess, and wore the white uniform. Mildred worked from sun-up, when her marketing started, until long after dark; she worked so hard she began to feel driven, and relieved herself of every detail she could possibly assign to others. She continued to gain weight. There was still something voluptuous about her figure, but it was distinctly plump. Her face was losing such little colour as it had had, and she no longer seemed younger than her years. In fact, she was beginning to look matronly. The car itself, she discovered, took a great deal out of her, and she engaged a driver named Tommy,
older brother to Carl, who drove the truck. After some reflection she took him to Bullock’s and bought him a uniform, so he could help on the parking lots. When Veda first saw him in this regalia, she didn’t kiss him, as she had kissed the car. She gave her mother a long, thoughtful look, full of something almost describable as respect.

And in spite of mounting expenses, the driver, the girl Mildred engaged to keep the books, the money kept rolling in. Mildred paid for the piano, paid off the mortgages Bert had plastered on the house; she renovated, repainted, kept buying new equipment for all her establishments, and still it piled up. In 1936, when Mr Roosevelt came up for re-election, she was still smarting from the tax she had paid on her 1935 income, and for a few weeks wavered in her loyalty. But then business picked up and when he said ‘we planned it that way’, she decided she had to take the bitter with the sweet, and voted for him. She began to buy expensive clothes, especially expensive girdles to make her look thin. She bought Veda a little car, a Packard 120, in dark green, ‘to go with her hair’. On Wally’s advice, she incorporated, choosing Ida and Mrs Gessler as her two directors, in addition to herself. Her big danger, Wally said, was the old woman in Long Beach. ‘OK, she’s crossing against the lights, Tommy had his brakes on when he hit her, she’s not hurt a bit, but when she finds out you’ve got three restaurants, just watch what she does to you. And it works the other way around too. Sooner or later you’re going to have those five people that got ptomaine poisoning, from the fish, or say they did. And what those harpies do to you, once they get in court, will be just plain murder. You incorporate, your
personal
property is safe.’ The old woman in Long Beach, to say nothing of the five harpies on their pots, fretted Mildred terribly, as many things did. She bought fantastic liability insurance, on the car, on the pie factory, on the restaurants. It was horribly expensive, but worth it, to be safe.

Through all the work, however, the endless driving, the worry, the feeling there were not enough hours in the day for all she had to do, one luxury she permitted herself. No matter how the day broke, she was home as three o’clock in the afternoon, for what she called her ‘rest’. It was a rest, to be sure, but that wasn’t
the main idea. Primarily, it was a concert, with herself the sole auditor. When Veda turned sixteen, she persuaded Mildred to let her quit high school, so she could devote her whole time to music. In the morning she did harmony, and what she called ‘paper work’. In the afternoon she practised. For two hours she practised exercises, but at three she began to practise pieces, and it was then that Mildred arrived. Tiptoeing in the back way, she would slip into the hall, and for a moment stand looking into the living-room, where Veda was seated at the satiny black grand. It was a picture that never failed to thrill her: the beautiful instrument that she had worked for and paid for, the no less beautiful child she had brought into the world; a picture moreover, that she could really call her own. Then, after a soft ‘I’m home, darling’, she would tip-toe to her bedroom, lie down, and listen. She didn’t know the names of many of the pieces, but she had her favourites, and Veda usually played one. There was one in particular, something by Chopin, that she liked best of all, ‘because it reminds me of that song about rainbows’. Veda, somewhat ironically said: ‘Well, Mother, there’s a reason’; but she played it, nevertheless. Mildred was delighted at the way the child was coming along: warm, shy intimacy continued, and Mildred laughed to think she had once supposed that Monty had something to do with it. This, she told herself, was what made everything worth while.

One afternoon the concert was interrupted by a phone call. Veda answered, and from the tone of her voice, Mildred knew something was wrong. She came in and sat on the bed, but to Mildred’s ‘What is it darling?’ returned no answer at once. Then, after a few moments of gloomy silence, she said: ‘Hannen’s had a haemorrhage.’

‘Oh my, isn’t that awful!’

‘He knew it was coming on. He had two or three little ones. This one caught him on the street, while he was walking home from the post office. The ambulance doctor made a mess of it – had him lifted by the shoulders or something – and it’s a lot worse than it might have been. Mrs Hannen’s almost in hysterics about it.’

‘You’ll have to go over there. At once.’

‘Not today. He’s all packed in icebags, and they give him some kind of gas to inhale. It’s just hell.’

‘Is there something I could do? I mean, if there are any special dishes he needs, I can send anything that’s wanted, hot, all ready to serve—’

‘I can find out.’

Veda stared at the Gessler house, now for rent. Then: ‘God, but I’m going to miss that damned he-bear.’

‘Well my goodness, he’s not
gone
yet.’

Mildred said this sharply. She had the true California tradition of optimism in such matters; to her it was almost blasphemous not to hope for the best. But Veda got up heavily and spoke quietly. ‘Mother, it’s bad. I know from the way he’s been acting lately that he’s known it would be bad, when it came. I can tell from the way she was wailing over that phone that it’s bad . . . And what I’m going to do I don’t know.’

Special dishes, it turned out, were needed desperately, on the chance that the stricken man could be tempted to eat, and in that way build up his strength. So daily, for a week, a big hamper was delivered by Tommy, full of chicken cooked by Mildred herself, tiny sandwiches prepared by Ida, cracked crab nested in ice by Archie, sherries selected by Mr Gessler. Mildred Pierce, Inc., spit on its hands to show what it could do. Then one day Mildred and Veda took the hamper over in person, together with a great bunch of red roses. When they arrived at the house, the morning paper was still on the grass, a market circular was stuffed under the door. They rang, and there was no answer. Veda looked at Mildred, and Tommy carried the things back to the car. That afternoon, a long incoherent telegram arrived for Mildred, dated out of Phoenix, Ariz, and signed by Mrs Hannen. It told of the wild ride to the sanitarium there, and begged Mildred to have the gas turned off.