The Cocktail Waitress

let him in, and one thing led to another. Next time, I was pregnant. But I knew nothing at all of anything that could be done. So far as I was concerned, a pregnant girl got married, which I did. To call Ron a reluctant bridegroom would be the understatement of the year. He hated getting married, hated little Tad, and I think hated me.

My mother hated me, and my father cut me off. I was left at the mercy of the Medfords, who I think hated me too, just to make it unanimous. Mr. Medford gave Ron a job, as a salesman in his real estate firm, and Ron did quite well-except he kept getting drunk. Then Mr. Medford would fire him, but hire him on again the following week. He fired and rehired him so often that Ron began gagging about it, calling himself Finnegan Medford, though that ended for good when Ron ruined the sale to the Castles, turning up drunk the way he did and putting his hands on Mrs. Castle, accidentally he claimed. There was no hiring him again after that, and Ron spent the months that followed cursing his father’s name, and my name, and our son’s, but not earning any income, so that our savings ran out and the utility companies wouldn’t hear excuses anymore and turned off service at our house.

The house-Mr. Medford also gave us that, or half gave it to us, leaving a $7,500 mortgage dangling, as an “incentive” to Ron, he said, to straighten himself up and accept responsibility. It had no such effect, but it did make me gray in my teens, finding $110 each month for the amortization payments, back when there was still money to be found. Now there was none, and the foreclosure warnings had begun to arrive by mail.

It was in front of this house, a bungalow from the 1920s, that we stopped that day of the funeral, with Tom jumping out, handing me down, and waiting on the sidewalk while I ran up on the porch, found my key, and unlocked the front door. Then I turned, waved, and (he insisted later) blew him a kiss (which I don’t believe), having no idea at all that at that moment I was looking straight at my job, in a restaurant down the hill, and at the man I would come to crave as I crave life itself.

So what’s the fly in the ointment, and why am I taping this? It’s in the hope of getting it printed to clear my name of the slanders against me, in connection with the job and the marriage it led to and all that came after- always the same charge, the one Ethel flung at me of being a femme fatale who knew ways of killing a husband so slick they couldn’t be proved. Unfortunately, they can’t be disproved either, at least in a court of law, for as long as the papers say “it is alleged,” you can’t sue anyone. All I know to do is tell it and tell it all, including some things no woman would willingly tell. I don’t look forward to it, but if that’s how it has to be, it’s how it has to be.

Whatever I did, Tom blew me a kiss, and drove off.

2

I had put on the veil, not from old-fashioned ideas about what a widow should wear, but to hide the side of my chin, which was black and blue from the bruises Ron had put on it, by hitting me that night, while we wrestled for Tad. I could have covered them with makeup, but knew the Medfords, to whom I couldn’t explain the reason, would disapprove, and the veil was a simple way out. So now I opened my jar of Max Factor and went to work. But first of all I undressed, taking off the dark suit, pantyhose, black bra, and dress shoes I had on, then working in front of the mirror, there at my dressing table. And as to what I looked like naked: This was thirteen months ago, and I was just twenty-one. I’m just under medium in height, normally a bit on the slender side, and heavy-busted, as they say. But my legs are my best point, as I’ve been told often enough. They are straight, round, soft, and gracefully formed. My face is thick and my features stubby, but shadows under my eyes do something for me, so I’m not too bad-looking. My hair is blonde, but dark blonde, “corn-husk blonde,” some call it, with the gray streaks I’ve already mentioned. My eyes are green and a bit large, so with the shadows I do have a cat look, that I have to admit.

I put the makeup on, then powdered and used my rabbit’s foot, finally coming up with a reasonably decent face. Then I dressed, putting on white bra, white panties, red socklets, flat shoes, Levis, and a rough blouse, as being suited to the work I had in mind, of which more in a moment. I had just finished when I heard the front doorbell. It didn’t ring, as my current was cut off for non-payment of bills, but it clicked, and then there came a knock. I went down the hall and opened, expecting some bill collector, and rehearsing something to say. But the same two men were there as I’d talked to before, down at the county building, police officers. “Sergeant Young, Private Church, come in,” I told them.

“You remember us, then?” said the older of the two men, the sergeant, taking the cap of his uniform into his hands as he came inside.

“Well, I wouldn’t forget you so soon.”

“I mean, our names.”

“I have them right, haven’t I?”

“Yes, but it’s unusual.”

By that time, I’d brought them into the living room, that I wasn’t any too proud of, as the sofa had had one of its legs pulled off, on one of Ron’s lively nights, and the broken corner was held up by a pile of books. However, I seated them with their backs to it, sat down myself, and asked: “So? What can I do for you gentlemen?”

“Tell her,” the sergeant told Church. The younger officer eyed him with what I thought was a little reluctance, but finally turned back to face me.

“We’re off duty, Mrs. Medford,” said Church, “but you were so cooperative before, when we questioned you on what happened, that we stopped by this time to tell you, ’stead of asking you, something you ought to know-that we think you ought to know. And why we’re free to tell is, the woman who called last night didn’t give her name, so she can’t claim confidentiality-as they’re calling it now. Hey, there’s a word and a half.”

We all laughed and I felt guilty inside, seeing anything funny on this day of days, but then I said: “O.K., Private Church, I’m listening. What did you come to tell me?”

“About this call we got. In reference to a guy, a guy so happens you know, name of Joe Pennington.”

“Now I know who called you!”

“As we think we do too.”

“What did she say about Joe?”

“That he was here, that he was with you Saturday night, at the time your husband came home. That instead of your little boy, he was the cause of the fight, and helped you do it, push your husband out on the porch, that-”

“I haven’t seen him in over a year!”

“As we found out, Mrs. Medford.”

“Why it’s all a silly lie!”

“We know that, Mrs. Medford-we checked Joe Pennington out, he was doing the Block that night, the Block over in Baltimore, as he had a witness to prove, a very pretty witness, who really went into detail-”

“What we came about,” the sergeant interrupted to say: “Why would this woman tell it, such a made-out-of- the-whole-cloth tale? Well, after we checked out Joe, we think we came up with the answer, and as it kind of concerns you, we thought we’d stop by and tell you. She kept talking, this woman who called, about your sister-in- law, who had taken in your little boy, for a reason she said over and over-”

“‘Out of the goodness of her heart.’”

“That’s what she said, we expected you to know, as it sounded like kind of a habit, something she said pretty often. And the thought crossed our mind that the woman who called us up and the kind sister-in-law were one and the same woman. So, where do you come in, and what was the point of Joe? You wouldn’t come in at all, and Joe wouldn’t have any point, unless, unless, unless, she was trying to egg us on, to move against you somehow, to have you declared unfit, an unfit mother that is, of the child she’s now taking care of. In other words, if she could prove that you were immoral, she could keep the child herself-something of that kind, we both thought was in her mind, and that’s what we came to tell you. Now does it tie in, at all?”

“She practically told me so, no more than an hour ago. At my husband’s graveside she stood and all but admitted she wanted my boy for herself. If she loves him, I can’t blame her for that-I do, and everyone does, and she’s had a blow, a terrible tragic blow. And she can’t have a child anymore of her own, and no doubt it’s affected her mind. But-”

I couldn’t go on, and sat there, trying to regain control. “It’s what we came to tell you,” said Sergeant Young, very gently. “We thought you ought to know.”