Mildred Pierce (7 page)

Then she came to the great yawning spaces in which she was to fill in the names and addresses of her former employers. Regretfully she wrote: Not previously employed. Then she signed the card, walked over, and handed it in. Miss Turner waved her to a chair, studied the card, shook her head, and pitched it on the desk. ‘You haven’t got a chance.’

‘Why not?’

‘Do you know what a receptionist is?’

‘I’m not sure, but—’

‘A receptionist is a lazy dame that can’t do anything on earth, and wants to sit out front where everybody can watch her do it. She’s the one in the black silk dress, cut low in the neck and high in the legs, just inside the gate, in front of that little one-position switchboard, that she gets a right number out of now and then, mostly then. You know, the one that tells you to have a seat, Mr Doakes will see you in just a few minutes. Then she goes on showing her legs and polishing her nails. If she sleeps with Doakes she gets twenty bucks a week, if not she gets twelve. In other words, nothing personal about it and I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but by the looks of this card I’d say that was you.’

‘It’s quite all right. I sleep fine.’

If this bravado had any effect on Miss Turner, there was no
sign of it. She nodded, and said: ‘I’m sure you sleep fine. Don’t we all? But I’m not running a house of call, and it just happens that at the moment receptionists are out. That was then. In those good old days. When even a hockshop had to have this receptionist thing out there in front to show it had class. But then they found out she wasn’t strictly necessary. They began sleeping with their wives, and I guess it worked all right. Anyway, the birth-rate went up. So I guess you’re out of luck.’

‘Receptionist isn’t the only thing I can do.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘You don’t give me much chance to tell you.’

‘If there was something else you could do, you’d have put it down in great big letters, right on this card. When you say receptionist, that’s all I want to know. There’s no more after that, and no use your wasting my time, and me wasting yours. I’ll file your card, but I told you once and I’m telling you again, you haven’t got a chance.’

The interview, obviously, was ended, but Mildred forced herself to make a little speech, a sales talk. As she talked she warmed up to it, explaining that she was married before she was seventeen, and that while other women were learning professions, she had been making a home, raising two children, ‘not generally regarded as a disgraceful career’. Now that her marriage had broken up, she wanted to know if it was fair that she be penalised for what she had done, and denied the right to earn her living like anybody else. Furthermore, she said, she hadn’t been asleep all that time, even if she had been married. She had taught herself to be a good housekeeper and a fine cook, was in fact earning such little income as she had by peddling her cookery around the neighbourhood. If she could do that, she could do other things. She kept repeating: ‘What I do, I do well.’

Miss Turner pulled out a lot of drawers, set them in a row on her desk. They were filled with cards of different colours. Looking intently at Mildred, she said: ‘I told you you’re not qualified. OK, you can take a look here and see what I mean. These three drawers are employers, people that call me when they want somebody. And they call me, too. They call me because I’m on the level with them and save them the trouble of talking to
nitwits like you. You see those pink ones? That means “No Jews”. See the blues? “No Gentiles” – not many of them, but a few. That’s got nothing to do with you, but it gives you an idea. People are sold over this desk just like cattle in the Chicago yards, and for exactly the same reason: they’ve got the points the buyer wants. All right, now take a look at something that does concern you. See those greens? That means “No Married Women”.’

‘Why, may I ask?’

‘Because right in the middle of rush hour you wonderful little homemakers have a habit of getting a call that Willie’s got the croup, and out you run, and maybe you come back next day, and maybe you come back next week.’

‘Somebody has to look after Willie.’

‘These people, these employers on the greens, they’re not much interested in Willie. And another habit you wonderful homemakers have got is running up a lot of bills you thought friend husband would pay, and then when he wouldn’t you had to get a job. And then the first pay cheque you draw, there’s eighteen attachments on it – and life’s too short.’

‘Do you call that fair?’

‘I call them green. I go by the cards.’

‘I don’t owe a cent.’

‘Not one?’

Mildred thought guilty of the interest that would be due July 1st, and Miss Turner, seeing the flicker in her eye, said: ‘I thought so . . . Now take a look at these other drawers. They’re all applicants. These are stenographers – a dime a dozen, but at least they can do
something
. These are qualified secretaries – a dime a dozen too, but they rate a different file. These are stenographers with scientific experience, nurses, laboratory assistants, chemists, all able to take charge of a clinic, or run an office for three or four doctors, or do hospital work. Why would I recommend you ahead of any of them? Some of those girls are PhDs and ScDs from UCLA and other places. Here’s a whole file of stenographers that are expert bookkeepers. Any one of them could take charge of all the office work for a small firm, and still have time for a little sleeping. Here are sales people, men and women, every one
of them with an A1 reference – they can really move goods. They’re all laid off, there’s no goods moving, but I don’t see how I could put you ahead of them. And here’s the preferred list. Look at it, a whole drawerful, men and women, every one of them a real executive, or auditor, or manager of some business, and when I recommend one, I know somebody is getting something for his money. They’re all home, sitting by their phones, hoping I’ll call. I won’t call. I’ve got nothing to tell them. What I’m trying to get through your head is: You haven’t got a chance. Those people, it hurts me, it makes me lie awake nights, that I’ve got nothing for them. They deserve something, and there’s not a thing I can do. But there’s not a chance I’d slip you ahead of any one of them. You’re not qualified. There’s not a thing on earth you can do, and I hate people that can’t do anything.’

‘How do I qualify?’

Mildred’s lips were fluttering again, the way they had in Miss Boole’s office. Miss Turner looked quickly away, then said: ‘Can I make a suggestion?’

‘You certainly can.’

‘I wouldn’t call you a raving beauty, but you’ve got an A1 shape and you say you cook fine and sleep fine. Why don’t you forget about a job, hook yourself a man, and get married again?’

‘I tried that.’

‘Didn’t work?’

‘I don’t seem to be able to kid you much. It was the first thing I thought of, and just for a little while I seemed to be doing all right. But then, I guess two little children disqualified me, even there. That wasn’t what he said, but—’

‘Hey, hey, you’re breaking my heart.’

‘I didn’t know you had a heart.’

‘Neither did I.’

The cold logic of Miss Turner’s harangue reached Mildred’s bowels, where the tramping, waiting, and hoping of the last few weeks hadn’t. She went home, collapsed, and wept for an hour. But next day she doggedly registered at three more agencies. She took to doing desperate things, like turning suddenly into business places, as she was passing them on the street, and asking
for an opening. One day she entered an office building and, beginning at the top floor, called on every firm, in only two places getting past the gate. All the time the thought of July 1st haunted her, and she got weaker, paler, and tackier-looking. The print dress was pressed so many times that she searched the seams anxiously every time she put the iron on it. She lived on oatmeal and bread, reserving for the children such eggs, chicken, and milk as she could buy.

One morning, to her surprise, there came a card from Miss Turner, asking her to call. She dressed in about four minutes, caught the nine o’clock bus, and was in the familiar little office by nine-thirty. Miss Turner waved her to a seat. ‘Something’s come up, so I dropped you that card.’

‘What is it?’

‘Housekeeper.’

‘. . . Oh.’

‘It’s not what you think, so don’t employ that tone of voice. I mean, there’s no sleeping in it, so far as I know. And it means nothing to me. I don’t handle domestic help, so I won’t collect a dime. But I was over in Beverly the other night, and got talking with a lady that’s going to marry a director, and he doesn’t know it yet, but his house is due for a big shake-up. So she wants a housekeeper. So, on account of all that fine domestic efficiency you were telling me about, I told her about you, and I think it’s yours if you want it. Children OK. You’ll have your own quarters, and I think you can nick her for one-fifty if you get tough, but you’d better ask for two hundred and come down. That’s over and above all your uniforms, food, laundry, heat, light, and quarters, and quite a lot more than most of my talented stable are making.’

‘I hardly know what to say.’

‘Make up your mind. I’ve got to let her know.’

‘Why did you think of me, for this?’

‘Didn’t I tell you? You broke my goddam heart.’

‘Yes, but – it’s the second time lately I’ve had an offer of this kind. Not long ago a lady offered me a job as – a waitress.’

‘And you turned it
down
?’

‘I had to.’

‘Why?’

‘I can’t go home and face my children if they know I’ve been working all day at taking tips, and wearing a uniform, and mopping up crumbs.’

‘But you can face them with nothing for them to eat?’

‘I’d rather not talk about that.’

‘Listen, this is just one woman’s opinion, and it may be all wrong. I’ve got my own little business, and it’s all shot, and I’m just about holding my own if I eat in the tea rooms instead of the Biltmore. But if that goes, and I have to choose between my belly and my pride, I’m telling right now, I’m picking my belly every time. I mean, if I had to wear a uniform, I’d do it.’

‘I’ll go over there,
as a courtesy to you
.’

For the first time, Miss Turner departed from her hard-boiled manner, and showed some sign of annoyance. ‘What have I got to do with it? Either you want this place or you don’t. If you don’t just say so and all I’ve got to do is call up and tell her, and that lets me out. But if you do want it, for God’s sake get over there and act like you mean it.’

‘I’ll go, as a courtesy to you.’

Miss Turner got out a card and savagely wrote a note on it, her eyes snapping as she handed it over to Mildred. ‘All right, you wanted to know why that lady offered you a job as waitress, and why I recommended you for this. It’s because you’ve let half your life slip by without learning anything but sleeping, cooking, and setting the table, and that’s all you’re good for. So get over there. It’s what you’ve got to do, so you may as well start doing it.’

Shaken, Mildred got on the Sunset bus, but the address was unfamiliar to her, and she had to ask the conductor where to get off. At Coldwater Canon Drive, where he set her down, there was no sign of the street, and she started wandering around an unfamiliar neighbourhood, trying to get her bearings. The houses were big and forbidding, with driveways in front of them and clipped grass all around, and she couldn’t find the courage to approach one. Of pedestrians there were none, and she plodded around for the better part of an hour, peering at each street sign,
losing all sense of direction in the winding streets. She got into a hysteria of rage at Bert, for taking the car, since if she had that, she would not only be saved walking, but could slip into a filling station and inquire in a self-respecting way, having the attendant produce maps. But here there were no filling stations, nobody she could ask, nothing but miles of deserted pavements, shaded by frowning trees. Finally a laundry truck pulled up, and she got the driver to straighten her out. She found the house, a big mansion with a low hedge around it, went up to the door and rang. A white-coated house man appeared. When she asked for Mrs Forrester he bowed and stepped aside for her to enter. Then he noticed she had no car, and froze. ‘Housekeeper?’

‘Yes, I was sent by—’

‘Back way.’

His eyes glistening with suddenly secreted venom, he closed the door, and she savagely trudged around to the back. Here he admitted her, and told her to wait. She was in a sort of service foyer, and in the kitchen, which was only a few steps away, she could see a cook and a waitress eyeing her. He returned, led her through dark, cool halls to a library, and left her. She sat down, glad to rest her aching feet. In a few minutes Mrs Forrester came in. She was a tall woman in flowing negligee, who wafted graciousness all around her, putting the world at its ease. Mildred got up, handed over Miss Turner’s note, and sat down while Mrs Forrester read it. Evidently it was flattering, for it evoked one or two nods and clucks. Then Mrs Forrester smilingly looked up. ‘It’s customary, Mildred, for the servant to sit on the
Mistress’s
invitation, not on her own
initiative
.’

Mildred was so startled at hearing herself addressed by her first name that it was a second or two before the sense of this made its way to her mind. Then she shot up as though her legs were made of springs, her face hot, her mouth dry. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon.’