“I love lessons in decorating.”
“Do you know the best room I was ever in?”
“No, I don’t.”
“It’s that den of yours, or Bert’s rather, over in Glendale. Everything in that room meant something to that guy. Those banquets, those foolish-looking blueprints of houses that will never be built, are a part of him. They do things to you. That’s why the room is good. And do you know the worst room I was ever in?”
“Go on, I’m learning.”
“It’s that living room of yours, right in the same house. Not one thing in it — until the piano came in, but that’s recent — ever meant a thing to you, or him, or anybody. It’s just a room, I suppose the most horrible thing in the world... A home is not a museum. It doesn’t have to be furnished with Picasso paintings, or Sheraton suites, or Oriental rugs, or Chinese pottery. But it does have to be furnished with things that mean something to you. If they’re just phonies, bought in a hurry to fill up, it’ll look like that living room over there, or the way this lawn looked when my father got through showing how much money he had... Let’s have this place the way we want it. If you don’t like the Pie Wagon corner, I do.”
“I love it.”
“Then it stays.”
From then on, Mildred began to feel proud of the house and happy about it, and particularly relished the last hectic week, when hammer, saw, phone bell, and vacuum cleaner mingled their separate songs into one lovely cacophony of preparation. She moved Letty over, with a room of her own, and Tommy, with a room and a private bath. She engaged, at Monty’s request, Kurt and Frieda, the couple who had worked for Mrs. Beragon before “es went kaput,” as Kurt put it. She drove to Phoenix, with Monty, and got married.
For a week after this quiet courthouse ceremony she was almost frantic. She had addressed Veda’s announcement herself, and the papers were full of the nuptials, with pictures of herself and lengthy accounts of her career, and pictures of Monty and just as lengthy accounts of his career. But there was no call from Veda, no visit, no telegram, no note. Many people dropped in: friends of Monty’s, mostly, who treated her very pleasantly, and didn’t seem offended when she had to excuse herself, in the afternoon at any rate, to go to work. Bert called, with all wishes for her happiness, and sincere praise for Monty, whom he described as a “thoroughbred.” She was surprised to learn that he was living with Mom and Mr. Pierce. Mrs. Biederhof’s husband having struck oil in Texas, and she having joined him there. Mildred had always supposed Mrs. Biederhof a widow, and so apparently had Bert. Yet the call that Mildred hoped for didn’t come. Monty, well aware by now that a situation of some sort existed with regard to Veda, rather pointedly didn’t notice her mood, or make any inquiries about it.
And then one night at Laguna, Mrs. Gessler appeared around eight in a bright red evening dress, and almost peremptorily told Mildred to close the place, as she herself was invited out. Mildred was annoyed, and her temper didn’t improve when Archie took off his regimentals at nine sharp, and left within a minute or two. She was in a gloomy irritable humor going home, and several times called Tommy down for driving too fast. Until she was at the door of her new house, she didn’t notice that a great many cars seemed to be parked out front, and even then they made no particular impression on her. Tommy, instead of opening for her, rang the bell twice, then rang it twice again. She was opening her mouth to say something peevish about people who forget their keys, when lights went up all over the first floor, and the door, as though of its own accord, swung slowly open, wide open. Then, from somewhere within, a voice, the only voice in the world to Mildred, began to sing. After a long time Mildred heard a piano, realized Veda was singing the Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin. “Here comes the bride,” sang Veda, but “comes” was hardly the word. Mildred floated in, seeing faces, flowers, dinner coats, paper hats, hearing laughter, applause, greetings, as things in a dream. When Veda, still singing, came over, took her in her arms, and kissed her, it was almost more than she could stand, and she stumbled hurriedly out, and let Monty take her upstairs, on the pretext that she must put on a suitable dress for the occasion.
A few years before, Mildred would have been incapable of presiding over such a party: her commonplaceness, her upbringing, her sense of inferiority in the presence of “society people,” would have combined to make her acutely miserable, completely incompetent. Tonight, however, she was a completely charming hostess and guest of honor, rolled into one. In the black evening dress, she was everywhere, seeing that people had what they wanted, seeing that Archie, who presided in the kitchen, and Kurt, Frieda, and Letty, assisted by Arline and Sigrid, from the Pie Wagon itself, kept things going smoothly. Most of the guests were Pasadena people, friends of Veda’s and Monty’s, but her waitress training, plus her years as Mildred Pierce, Inc., stood her in good stead now. She had acquired a memory like a filing cabinet, and had everybody’s name as soon as she heard it, causing even Monty to look at her with sincere admiration. But she was pleased that he had asked such few friends as she had: Mrs. Gessler, and Ida, and particularly Bert, who looked unusually handsome in his dinner coat, and helped with the drinks, and turned music for Mr. Treviso when Veda, importuned by everybody, graciously consented to sing.
Mildred wanted to cry when people began to leave, and then discovered that the evening had hardly begun. The best part came when she, and Veda, and Monty sat around in the small library, across from the big living room, and decided that Veda should spend the night, and talked. Then Monty, not at all reverent in the presence of art, said: “Well goddam it, how did you get to be a singer? When I discovered you, practically pulled you out of the gutter, you were a pianist, or supposed to be. Then I no sooner turn my back than you turn into some kind of a yodeler.”
“Well goddam it, it was an accident.”
“Then report.”
“I was at the Philharmonic.”
“Yes, I’ve been there.”
“Listening to a concert. And they played the Schubert Unfinished. And afterwards I was walking across the park, to my car, and I was humming it. And ahead of me I could see him walking along—”
“Who?’
“Treviso.”
“Oh yes, the Neapolitan Stokowski.”
“So I had plenty of reason for not walking to meet the honorable signor, because I’d played for him once, and he wasn’t at all appreciative. So I slowed down, to let him get ahead. But then he stopped, and turned around, and looked, and then he came over to me, and said: ‘Was that you singing?’ Well, I have to explain that I wasn’t so proud of my singing just about that time. I used to sing Hannen’s songs for him, whenever he wrote one, but he used to kid me about it, because I sang full chest, and sounded exactly like a man. He called me the Glendale Baritone. Well, that was Charlie, but I didn’t know why I had to take any kidding off Treviso. So I told him it didn’t concern him whether I was singing or not, but he grabbed me by the arm, and said it concerned him very much, and me. Then he took a card from his pocket, and a pen, and ran under a light, and wrote his address on it, and handed it to me, and told me to be there the next day at four o’clock, that it was important. So that night I had it out with myself. I knew, when he handed me the card, that he had no recollection he had ever seen me before, so there was no question of kidding. But — did I want to unlock that door again or not?”