“That was his idea, not mine. He wanted to do his share, to contribute something for you and Ray. And it was all covered with mortgages, that he couldn’t even have paid the interest on, let alone—”
“At any rate, you took it.”
By now, Mildred had sensed that Veda’s boredom was pure affectation. Actually she was enjoying the unhappiness she inflicted, and had probably rehearsed her main points in advance. This, ordinarily, would have been enough to make Mildred back down, seek a reconciliation, but this feeling within kept goading her. After trying to keep quiet, she lashed out: “But why? Why — will you tell me that? Don’t I give you everything that money can buy? Is there one single thing I ever denied you? If there was something you wanted, couldn’t you have come to me for it, instead of resorting to — blackmail. Because that woman was right! That’s all it is! Blackmail! Blackmail! Blackmail!”
In the silence that followed, Mildred felt first frightened, then coldly brave, as the feeling within drove her on. Veda puffed her cigarette, reflected, and asked: “Are you sure you want to know?”
“I dare you to tell me!”
“Well, since you ask, with enough money, I can get away from you, you poor, half-witted mope. From you, and your pie wagon, and your chickens, and your waffles, and your kitchens, and everything that smells of grease. And from this shack, that you blackmailed out of my father with your threats about the Biederhof, and its neat little two-car garage, and its lousy furniture. And from Glendale, and its dollar days, and its furniture factories, and its women that wear uniforms and its men that wear smocks. From every rotten, stinking thing that even reminds me of the place — or you.”
“I see.”
Mildred got up and put on her hat. “Well it’s a good thing I found out what you were up to, when I did. Because I can tell you right now, if you had gone through with this, or even tried to go through with it, you’d have been out of here a little sooner than you expected.”
She headed for the door, but Veda was there first. Mildred laughed, and tore up the card Mr. Simons had given her. “Oh you needn’t worry that I’ll go to the sheriff’s office now. It’ll be a long time before they find out from me where the boy is hiding, or you do either.”
Again she started for the door, but Veda didn’t move. Mildred backed off and sat down. If Veda thought she would break, she was mistaken. Mildred sat motionless, her face hard, cold, and implacable. After a long time the silence was shattered by the phone. Veda jumped for it. After four or five brief, cryptic monosyllables, she hung up, turned to Mildred with a malicious smile. “That was Wally. You may be interested to know that they’re ready to settle.”
“Are you?”
“I’m meeting them at his office.”
“Then get out. Now.”
“I’ll decide that. And I’ll decide when.”
“You’ll get your things out of this house right now or you’ll find them in the middle of Pierce Drive when you come back.”
Veda screamed curses at Mildred, but presently she got it through her head that this time, for some reason, was different from all other times. She went out, backed her car down to the kitchen door, began carrying out her things, and packing them in the luggage carrier. Mildred sat quite still, and when she heard Veda drive off she was consumed by a fury so cold that it almost seemed as though she felt nothing at all. It didn’t occur to her that she was acting less like a mother than like a lover who has unexpectedly discovered an act of faithlessness, and avenged it.
Chapter 14
It was at least six months after this that Bert called up to invite her to the broadcast. For her, it had been a dismal six months. She had found out soon enough where Veda was staying. It was in one of the small, swank apartment houses on Franklin Avenue, in Hollywood. Every fibre of her being had wanted to pay a visit there, to take back what she had said, to reestablish things as they had been, or try to. But when this thought entered her mind, or rather shot through her heart like a hot arrow, she set her face as if it had been cast in metal, and not once did she even drive past Veda’s door. And yet, even in her loneliness, her relation with Veda was developing, twisting her painfully, like some sort of cancer. She discovered rye, and in the boozy dreams of her daily rest, she pictured Veda as going from bad to worse, as hungering and mending threadbare finery, until she had to come back, penitent and tearful, for forgiveness. This view of the future was somewhat obscured by the circumstance that Mildred didn’t know exactly how much Veda had obtained from the Lenhardts, and thus couldn’t calculate, with any degree of accuracy, when destitution was likely to strike. But Bert contributed a thought that assisted drama, if not truth. Bert, having tried unsuccessfully to stand on his rights as a father to bluff information out of Wally, and having threatened even to “hold up the settlement” unless full data were furnished, had learned only that his consent was not needed for a settlement; all the Lenhardts wanted was a release from Veda, a signed letter denying promises, intimidation, or pregnancy. But the episode had left him with a lower opinion of Wally’s honesty than he had had before, if that were possible, and he hatched the theory that “Wally would have every damned cent of it before the year was out, didn’t make a bit of difference what they paid, or what he got, or what she got.” On this theory Mildred eagerly seized, and pictured the cheated Veda, not only as cold, hungry, and in rags, but as horribly bruised in spirit, creeping to the strong, silent mother who could cope with Wally or anybody else. When the scene materialized almost daily before her eyes, with a hundred little variations and embellishments, she always experienced the same brief ecstasy as she lifted the weeping Veda into her arms, patted her, inhaled the fragrance of the soft, coppery hair, and bestowed love, understanding, and forgiveness. One slight incongruity she overlooked: Veda in real life, rarely wept.
At Bert’s mention of a broadcast it took her a moment or two to collect her wits. “What broadcast?”
“Why, Veda.”
“You mean she’s playing on the air?”
“Singing, the way I get it.”
“Veda? Singing?”
“Maybe I better come over.”
By the time he got there, she was a-tremble with excitement. She found the radio page of the Times, and there, sure enough, was Veda’s picture, with the news that “the popular singer will be heard tonight at 8:30, on the Hank Somerville (Snack-O-Ham) program.” Bert had seen the Examiner, but hadn’t seen the Times, and together they looked at the picture, and commented on how lovely Veda looked. When Mildred wanted to know how long this had been going on, meaning the singing, Bert said quickly you couldn’t prove it by him, as though to disclaim participation in secrets that had been withheld from Mildred. Then he added that the way he got it, Veda had been on the air quite a lot already, on the little afternoon programs that nobody paid any attention to, and that was how she’d got this chance on a big national hook-up. Mildred got the rye she had been sipping, poured two more drinks, and Bert revealed that his invitation had really been Mrs. Beiderhof’s idea. “She figured it meant a lot more to you than it would to her, so that’s how I came to call you up.”
“It was certainly nice of her.”
“She’s a real friend.”
“You mean we’ll go to the studio?”
“That’s it. It’s going out from the NBC studio right here in Hollywood, and we’ll be able to see it and hear it.”
“Don’t we have to have tickets?”
“... I got a couple.”