“What door?”
Monty was puzzled, but Mildred knew which door, even before Veda went on: “Of music. I’d driven a knife through its heart, and locked it up, and thrown the key away, and now here was Treviso, telling me to come down and see him tomorrow, at four o’clock. And do you know why I went?”
Veda was dead serious now, and looking at them both as though to make sure they got things straight. “It was because once he had told me the truth. I had hated him for it, the way he had closed the piano in front of me without saying a word, but it was his way of telling me the truth now. So I went. And for a week he worked on me, to get me to sing like a woman, and then it began to come the right way, and I could hear what he had heard that night out there in the park. And then he began to tell me how important it was that I become a musician. I had the voice, he said, if I could master music. And he gave me the names of this one and that one, who could teach me theory, and sight-reading, and piano, and I don’t know what-all.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, and did I get my revenge, for that day when he closed the piano on me. I asked him if there was a little sight-reading he wanted done, and he handed me the Inflammatus from Rossini’s Stabat Mater. Well nuts. I went through that like a hot knife through butter, and he began to get excited. Then I asked him if he had a little job of arranging he wanted done, and then I told him about Charlie, and reminded him I’d been in there before. Well, if he’d hit gold in Death Valley he couldn’t have acted more like a goof. He went all over me with instruments, little wooden hammers that he used on my knuckles, and caliper things that went over my nose, and gadgets with lights on them that went down my throat. Why he even—”
Veda made curious, prodding motions just above her midriff, while Monty frowned incredulously. “Yes! Believe it or not, he even dug his fingers in the Dairy. Well! I didn’t exactly know what to think, or do.”
Veda could make a very funny face when she wanted to, and Monty started to laugh. In spite of herself, so did Mildred. Veda went on: “But it turned out he wasn’t interested in love. He was interested in meat. He said it enriched the tone.”
“The what?”
Monty’s voice rose to a whoop as he said this, and the next thing they knew, the three of them were howling with laughter, howling at Veda’s Dairy as they had howled at Mrs. Biederhof’s bosom, that first night, many years before.
When Mildred went to bed her stomach hurt from laughter, her heart ached from happiness. Then she remembered that while Veda had kissed her, that first moment when she had entered the house, she still hadn’t kissed Veda. She tiptoed into the room she had hoped Veda would occupy, knelt beside the bed as she had knelt so many times in Glendale, took the lovely creature in her arms and kissed her, hard, on the mouth. She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay, to blow through the holes in Veda’s pajamas. And when she got back to her room she couldn’t bear it that Monty should be there. She wanted to be alone, to let these little laughs come bubbling out of her, to think about Veda.
Monty agreed to withdraw to the tackroom as he called the place where he stored his saddles, bridles, and furniture from the shack, with complete good humor — with more good humor, perhaps, than a husband should show, at such a request.
Chapter 16
Mildred now entered the days of her apotheosis. War was crashing in Europe, but she knew little of it, and cared less. She was drunk with the glory of the Valhalla she had entered: the house among the oaks, where dwelt the girl with the coppery hair, the lovely voice, and the retinue of admirers, teachers, coaches, agents, and thieves who made life so exciting. For the first time, Mildred became acquainted with theatres, opera houses, broadcasting studios, and such places, and learned something of the heartbreak they can hold. There was, for example, the time Veda sang in a local performance of Traviata, given at the Philharmonic under the direction of Mr. Treviso. She had just had the delightful sensation of beholding Veda alone on stage for at least ten minutes, and at the intermission went out into the lobby, to drink in the awestruck comment of the public. To her furious surprise, a voice behind her, a man’s voice, with effeminate intonation, began: “So that’s La Pierce, radio’s gift to the lyric muse. Well, there’s no use telling me, you can’t raise singers in Glendale. Why, the girl’s simply nauseating. She gargles it over her tonsils in that horrible California way, she’s off pitch half the time, and as for acting — did you notice her routine, after Alfredo went off? She had no routine. She planted one heel on that dime, locked both hands in front of her, and just stayed there until...”
While Mildred’s temples throbbed with helpless rage, the voice moved off somewhere, and another one began, off to one side: “Well, I hope you all paid close attention to the critique of operatic acting, by one who knows nothing about it — somebody ought to tell that fag that the whole test of operatic acting is how few motions they have to make, to put across what they’re trying to deliver. John Charles Thomas, can he make them wait till he’s ready to shoot it! And Flagstad, how to be an animated Statue of Liberty! And Scotti, I guess he was nauseating. He was the greatest of them all. Do you know how many gestures he made when he sang the Pagliacci Prologue? One, just one. When he came to the F — poor bastard, he could never quite make the A flat — he raised his hand, and turned it over, palm upward. That was all, and he made you cry... This kid, if I ever saw one right out of that can, she’s it. So she locked her hands in front of her, did she? Listen, when she folded one sweet little paw into the other sweet little paw, and tilted that pan at a forty-five-degree angle, and began to warble about the delicious agony of love — I saw Scotti’s little girl. My throat came up in my mouth. Take it from me, this one’s in the money, or will be soon. Well, hell, it’s what you pay for, isn’t it?”
Then Mildred wanted to run after the first man, and stick out her tongue at him, and laugh. Some things, to be sure, she tried not to think about, such as her relations with Monty. Since the night Veda came home, Mildred had been unable to have him near her, or anybody near her. She continued to sleep alone, and he, for a few days, to sleep in the tackroom. Then she assigned a bedroom to him, with bath, dressing room, and phone extension. The only time the subject of their relations was ever discussed between them was when he suggested that he pick out his furniture himself; on that occasion, she had tried to be facetious, and said something about their being “middle-aged.” To her great relief, he quickly agreed, and looked away, and started talking about something else. From then on, he was host to the numerous guests, master of the house, escort to Mildred when she went to hear Veda sing — but he was not her husband. She felt better about it when she noted that much of his former gaiety had returned. In a way, she had played him a trick. If, as a result, he was enjoying himself, that was the way she wanted it.
And there were certain disturbing aspects of life with Veda, as for example the row with Mr. Levinson, her agent. Mr. Levinson had signed Veda to a radio contract singing for Pleasant, a new brand of mentholated cigarettes that was just coming on the market. For her weekly broadcast Veda received $500, and was “sewed,” as Mr. Levinson put it, for a year, meaning that during this period she could do no broadcasting for anybody else. Mildred thought $500 a week a fabulous stipend for so little work, and so apparently did Veda, until Monty came home one day with Mr. Hobey, who was president of Consolidated Foods, and had decided to spend part of his year in Pasadena. They were in high spirits, for they had been in college together: it was Mr. Hobey’s mountainous, shapeless form that reminded Mildred that Monty was now in his forties. And Mr. Hobey met Veda. And Mr. Hobey heard Veda sing. And Mr. Hobey experienced a slight lapse of the senses, apparently, for he offered her $2,500 a week, a two-year contract, and a guarantee of mention in 25 percent of Consol’s national advertising, if she would only sing for Sunbake, a new vitamin bread he was promoting. Veda, now sewed, was unable to accept, and for some days after that her profanity, her studied, cruel insults to Mr. Levinson, her raving at all hours of the day and night, her monomania on this one subject, were a little more than even Mildred could put up with amiably. But while Mildred was trying to think what to do, Mr. Levinson re-revealed an unexpected ability to deal with such situations himself. He bided his time, waited until a Sunday afternoon, when highballs were being served on the lawn out back, and Veda chose to bring up the subject again, in front of Mildred, Monty, Mr. Hobey, and Mr. Treviso. A pasty, judgy little man in his late twenties, he lit a cigar, and listened with half-closed eyes. Then he said: “O.K. ya dirdy li’l rat. Now s’pose ya take it back. Now s’pose ya ’pologize. Now s’pose ya say ya sorry.”