took out a five-dollar bill and put it down, but when I reached for it he covered my hand and put it aside. Then he picked up the five, returned it to his wallet, and took out a twenty that he put down in its place. I took it to the bar, rang up 85 cents on the register, and took out his change, three fives, four ones, and 15 cents in nickels. Then remembering about the four bits, I put one of the ones back and took four quarters out. Then I put the fives, ones, and change on a pewter change tray that was there, and went back to the table with them. I confess it was in my mind, as a way of being on purpose quite personal, to decline the two quarters he’d give me-“Please, Mr. White, not from you.” Because, I don’t mind saying, a rich widower who liked me wasn’t someone to treat as a customer. “I think of you as a friend,” I was going to let myself stammer-but he crossed me up. When I put down the change he waved it off, being already on his feet. “That’s even, Joan-thanks for a most pleasant visit. I’ll probably be in tomorrow, and look forward to seeing you then.”
I couldn’t make myself give back $19.15, I needed it so.
He left, and I noticed for the first time a man in chauffeur’s uniform waiting for him in the foyer. I knew I’d made a strike that could be important to me, but what stuck in my mind was: I wished I liked him better.
5
If Jake saw me stuffing the bills in my pocket, the pocket I found in my trunks, it didn’t show on his face, but Liz saw me doing it, and gave me a squint-eyed look, that wondered at once what the meaning of it was. Maybe I wondered too, just a little. However, the time for wondering passed, as all of a sudden the place began filling up, and there was no time for anything except drinks. Of course, some of those people, instead of moving on to the dining room, decided to eat where they were, and I had to serve them dinner. For that, I had to meet the chef, a barrel-chested Lithuanian named Bergovizi whom everyone addressed as Mr. Bergie, so he could explain how things were done in the kitchen, especially how to “call it” for him, as he said. It had to be done in a certain way, especially on stuff like sauce-if the customer wanted it separate, like the
It made me laugh, and helped, and it helped still more when Liz gave me a pat, telling me: “You’ll get a break around eight, then go have dinner yourself-Mr. Bergie will fix you up.” Still, they kept coming, as Mrs. Rossi kept bringing them in, being her own maitre d’, or maitresse d’, I suppose I should say. Around eight-thirty things slacked off and Liz told me to eat, and I did, seating myself at a folding table set up between the six-burner stove and the propped-open pantry door. It was the first proper meal I’d had in months. Mr. Bergie cut me a thick slice of roast beef, and I had it with a baked potato, a dish of vanilla ice cream I dipped myself from the freezer box, and coffee, and it freshened me, especially the coffee, so I felt I could go through the rest of the night.
I was doing all right until just before closing time, when a man with a party of six began to give out about oil, and said it with gestures, one of which swept every glass off the table onto the floor. I wanted to scream, and couldn’t face getting that mess up. But then Jake was there with towels, and Liz was down on her knees, mopping up before I could start. I got down on my knees too, not being upset anymore. When the man paid his check, which with drinks and food for six had come to just about $50, he left an extra $15, and I split it with Liz and Jake, feeling warm and close and friendly. By the time we had it clear Mrs. Rossi locked the front door, toted the registers and counted the cash. Mine checked out O.K., and next thing I knew, I was in Liz’s car, and she was backing out of the lot. I still had on my uniform, as she had suggested I wear it home, “so you can dress for work there tomorrow, and skip the locker-room bit.”
We were halfway home, and she hadn’t said too much. But then suddenly she started to talk. “Joanie,” she began, “something happened tonight, that made me wonder about you. You know, how you feel about things.”
“Liz, make it plain. What happened tonight? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Mr. Four-Bits. One girl’s tips are strictly no other girl’s business, and girls don’t tell what they get, even to other girls. Just the same, I happened to see what he gave you-a lot more than he ever gave me. Well, all right, you’re less than half his age and pretty as hell, he’s entitled to like what he sees. But, I notice you took it.”
“… Well? Wouldn’t you have?”
“Are you being funny?”
“Well, you would have, wouldn’t you?”
“The point is, you did. And of course I wondered why. I mean I have that kind of mind. So, I get to it. Joan, do you take a broadminded view? I mean, when he ups and propositions you, you’re not going to smack him down?”
“I hadn’t got that far with it.”
She stopped talking and kept on driving, but then started up again. “What I’m leading to, Joanie: I get propositioned, myself. Time to time, I mean. And some passes I don’t turn down. Well? It’s fifty bucks. So what I’m leading to: Often, the guy, the one that likes my looks, has a pal, and wants to know if I have a sidekick, some girl who would care to make it four. Well, Joanie, what do you say? The comment I got tonight, you stirred up plenty of interest, and the subject is bound to come up. So, hit the nail on the head, what do I tell that pair that asks? Do I have a sidekick or not? Or in other words, it’s nice work if you can get it, and does it appeal to you?”
“You catch me by surprise. I never thought about-” Then: “You really do this? Let a man take you out and, and…”
“When opportunity presents, Joanie, and assuming I don’t mind his looks.”
“But don’t you ever get … in trouble?”
“If you mean what I think you mean,” she said, throwing my words back at me, “any girl can, whether there’s money involved or no. You just have to know where to take care of it if it happens.”
I thought back to my situation three years earlier, my ignorance of such matters. I’d lived a lot since then, and not all of it good, but I still was an innocent on some topics. “You can get that done here?”
“Here? No, of course not. But up in New York, if you know the doctor to call, and I do. But if you’re careful it never comes up. Hasn’t for me but once.”
“I … I don’t know what to tell you.”
“O.K., take your time. Think about it, Joan.”
And then, after perhaps three seconds: “O.K., you’ve thought it over, what do you say? Yes or no? You want one of them dates or not?”
By now, she had pulled up in front of my house, and sat there looking at me. And I sat looking at her, with a mixed feeling of love and terrible pity, that she’d even think of such a thing, and wondering why. In the bar she must have done well, as I was doing so far, and she was certainly good-looking enough to have a man of her own, without having to be dating strangers on the basis of passes made in a bar, by men she barely knew. And then suddenly, I thought I’d better tell her how things were with me, and why I couldn’t say yes, “at least at this time.” So I started off: “Liz, I couldn’t. I just buried my husband today. I’m Joan Medford-the girl that was in the papers this week, that put her husband out, and-”
I got no further.
“… Oh! Oh! Oh! The one who died in the car wreck? And they said his wife was-oh!”
She was warm, tender, and wonderful, taking my hand in hers, kissing it, patting me on the knee, doing the things you would want. “I read about it,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me the rest
“Liz, I had to. I had to get money, quick.”
“Well you got some, Joanie. I’m proud of you.”
“I tried to do as you showed me.”
“You did wonderful. Now Joanie, would it help if I came in with you? I mean, put you to bed? Made you a cup of tea? Or-you got some Scotch in the house?”
“I don’t drink, Liz.”
“Me neither. I got weaknesses, but not booze.”
