His last bag strapped up, he unlocked the door and walked dramatically to the kitchen. Mildred was still at work on the cake, which by now was a thing of overwhelming beauty, with the bird sitting on a leafy green twig, holding the scroll, “Happy Birthday to Bob,” perkily in its beak, while a circle of rosebuds, spaced neatly around the rim, set up a sort of silent twittering. She didn’t look up. He moistened his lips, asked: “Is Veda home?”
“Not yet she isn’t.”
“I laid low when Ray came to the door just now. I didn’t see any reason for her to know about it. I don’t see any reason for either of them to know about it. I don’t want you to tell them I said good-bye or anything. You can just say—”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“O.K., then. I’ll leave it to you.”
He hesitated. Then: “Well, good-bye, Mildred.”
With jerky steps, she walked over to the wall, stood leaning on it, her face hidden, then beat on it once or twice, helplessly, with her fists. “Go on, Bert. There’s nothing to say. Just — go on.”
When she turned around he was gone, and then the tears came, and she stood away from the cake, to keep them from falling on it. But when she heard the car back out of the garage, she gave a low, frightened exclamation, and ran to the window. They used it so seldom now, except on Sundays if they had a little money to buy gas, that she had completely forgotten about it. And so, as she saw this man slip out of her life, the only clear thought in her head was that now she had no way to deliver the cake.
She had got the last rosebud in place, and was removing stray flecks of icing with a cotton swab wound on a toothpick, when there was a rap on the screen door, and Mrs. Gessler, who lived next door, came in. She was a thin, dark woman of forty or so, with lines on her face that might have come from care, and might have come from liquor. Her husband was in the trucking business, but they were more prosperous than most truckers were at that time. There was a general impression that Gessler trucks often dropped down to Point Loma, where certain low, fast boats put into the cove.
Seeing the cake, Mrs. Gessler gave an exclamation, and came over to look. It was indeed worth the stare which her beady eyes gave it. All its decorations were now in place, but in spite of their somewhat conventional design, it had an aroma, a texture, a totality that proclaimed high distinction. It carried on its face the guarantee that every crumb would meet the inexorable confectioners’ test: It must melt on the tongue.
In an awed way, Mrs. Gessler murmured: “I don’t see how you do it, Mildred. It’s beautiful, just beautiful.”
“If you have to do it, you can do it.”
“But it’s beautiful!”
Only after a long final look did Mrs. Gessler get to what she came for. She had a small plate in her hand, with another plate clamped over it, and now lifted the top one. “I thought maybe you could use it, I fricasseed it for supper, but Ike’s had a call to Long Beach, and I’m going with him, and I was afraid it might spoil.”
Mildred got a plate, slid the chicken on it, and put it in the icebox. Then she washed Mrs. Gessler’s plates, dried them and handed them back. “I can use practically anything, Lucy. Thanks.”
“Well, I’ve got to run along.”
“Have a nice time.”
“Tell Bert I said hello.”
“... I will.”
Mrs. Gessler stopped. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, baby. Something’s wrong. What is it?”
“Bert’s gone.”
“You mean — for good?”
“Just now. He left.”
“Walked out on you, just like that?”
“He got a little help, maybe. It had to come.”
“Well what do you know about that? And that floppy-looking frump he left you for. How can he even look at her?”
“She’s what he wants.”
“But she doesn’t even wash!”
“Oh, what’s the use of talking? If she likes him, all right then, she’s got him. Bert’s all right. And it wasn’t his fault. It was just — everything. And I did pester him. I nagged him, he said, and he ought to know. But I can’t take things lying down, I don’t care if we’ve got a Depression or not. If she can, then they ought to get along fine, because that’s exactly the way he’s built. But I’ve got my own ideas, and I can’t change them even for him.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What am I doing now?”
A grim silence fell on both women. Then Mrs. Gessler shook her head. “Well, you’ve joined the biggest army on earth. You’re the great American institution that never gets mentioned on Fourth of July — a grass widow with two small children to support. The dirty bastards.”
“Oh Bert’s all right.”
“He’s all right, but he’s a dirty bastard and they’re all dirty bastards.”
“We’re not so perfect.”
“We wouldn’t pull what they pull.”
The front door slammed and Mildred held up a warning finger. Mrs. Gessler nodded and asked if there was anything she could do, today. Mildred wanted desperately to say she could give her a lift with the cake, but there had been one or two impatient taps on an automobile horn from across the yard, and she didn’t have the nerve. “Not right now.”
“I’ll be seeing you.”
“Thanks again for the chicken.”
The child who now entered the kitchen didn’t scamper in, as little Ray had a short time before. She stepped in primly, sniffed contemptuously at the scent left by Mrs. Gessler, and put her schoolbooks on the table before she kissed her mother. Though she was only eleven she was something to look at twice. In the jaunty way she wore her clothes, as well as the handsome look around the upper part of her face, she resembled her father more than her mother: it was commonly said that “Veda’s a Pierce.” But around her mouth the resemblance vanished, for Bert’s mouth had a slanting weakness that hers didn’t have. Her hair, which was a coppery red, and her eyes, which were light blue like her mother’s, were all the more vivid by contrast with the scramble of freckles and sunburn which formed her complexion. But the most arresting thing about her was her walk. Possibly because of her high, arching chest, possibly because of the slim hips and legs below it, she moved with an erect, arrogant haughtiness that seemed comic in one so young.
She took the cake her mother gave her, a chocolate muffin with a white V iced upon it, counted the remaining ones, and calmly gave an account of her piano practice. Through all the horrors of the last year and a half, Mildred had managed fifty cents a week for the lessons, since she had a deep, almost religious conviction that Veda was “talented,” and although she didn’t exactly know at what, piano seemed indicated, as a sound, useful preliminary to almost anything. Veda was a satisfactory pupil, for she practiced faithfully and showed lively interest. Her piano, picked out when Mildred picked out her coat, never actually arrived, so she practiced at her Grandfather Pierce’s, where there was an ancient upright, and on this account always arrived home from school somewhat later than Ray.
She told of her progress with the Chopin Grand Valse Brillante, repeating the title of the piece a number of times, somewhat to Mildred’s amusement, for she employed the full French pronunciation, and obviously enjoyed the elegant effect. She spoke in the clear, affected voice that one associates with stage children, and indeed everything she said had the effect of having been learned by heart, and recited in the manner prescribed by some stiff book of etiquette. The waltz disposed of, she walked over to have a look at the cake. “Who’s it for, Mother?”