The Cocktail Waitress (11 page)

“… Wish I hadn’t? What are you saying, Joan? That I might have an accident like Ron’s someday?”

“I wouldn’t know, that depends on whether you drink as much as he did.”

She stood. “I’m sorry, Joan, but I don’t think it is appropriate for us to continue this conversation in front of the boy. If you would kindly leave, Jack will see you out.”

I bent to kiss my son, and he saw the tears I was holding back, because he flung his arms around my neck and clung, until finally I had to take his little hands and gently lift them off me and force myself to step away from him. “Mommy will be back,” I told him. “Next Sunday. And the Sunday after. And more than that, soon, much more, I promise.”

“More,” he said, but his voice quavered as though uncertain. And I knew then I couldn’t give up on Mr. White, however impossible it might seem.

All that time, I hadn’t said anything, to Liz, Bianca, or anyone there at the Garden, about what had happened to me.

And I said nothing to Mr. White as to what I’d done with his money, not that I minded his knowing, but I feared he wouldn’t approve, and shied off from letting him veto. I also said nothing to Tom, who came in as he had before—not every night, but two or three times a week, always sitting at Mr. White’s table, always taking seltzer, and always staying completely sober, but it must be said leaving me feeling a little tipsy in turn. He kept trying to date me, for an evening, or early morning actually, after I got through work, saying he knew a place where we could go “and not be bothered,” whatever that meant. And I kept putting him off, saying, “Soon, I hope—I’ll take another rain-check,” but it was harder each time. In spite of the way we’d begun, I’d come to like him. Or perhaps ‘like’ is the wrong word, but I was drawn to him, and I was coming to understand better what Liz had told me that first night, about the undeniable appeal of being asked, especially when it’s an attractive man doing the asking.

Then one night he came in earlier than usual and didn’t bring up the subject. He seemed in a very low mood, as though something was on his mind. I asked: “What is it, Tom? Did I pour gravy on your ice cream? What’s on your mind anyway?”

“Plenty. I have a friend that’s in trouble.”

“Someone I know?”

“Jim Lacey.”

“… Oh? The one whose son you spelled the day of the funeral?”

“The one. You may have seen him in the paper. He’s been indicted.”

“Indicted? For what?”

For answer, he dug into his briefcase and tossed a newspaper down on the table between us. The story was on the bottom of page one. James E. Lacey, senior municipal engineer with the county, had been indicted in a matter involving taking bribes to recommend sewer connections for some new development area. It was one of those cases they have all the time in Prince George’s County, where millions are made overnight on the basis of rezoning decisions, the award of sewer connections, of water connections, of paving connections. “Well, I’m sorry,” I said, as pleasantly as I could. “It always hurts when a friend gets in some trouble.”

“What hurts is, I’m not able to help.”

Not knowing what help was called for, I said nothing, but in a moment he explained: “He’s an idiot, a gambler, up to his ears in debt. No one would lend him a dime, and his trouble is, he can’t make bail. It’s been set at $12,000, and will cost over $1,000 for a bond, and he just doesn’t have it. Can you imagine, a man with his power and connections, sitting in a jail cell because he can’t raise a thousand dollars? If I had it I’d stand the bond myself—but it’s out of the question for me.”

“… You haven’t got a thousand dollars either?”

He smiled at me as if to say, What care I about money? But what it said was, No, I haven’t got a thousand dollars either.

“Once some of the things I’m working on ripen, I’ll have that much many times over—but at the moment I’m strapped, at least for that kind of money, so I have to deal myself out.”

Bail was something I knew nothing whatever about. I had heard of bail bondsmen, but just who they were and how they worked was completely out of my world. He waited some more, sipping his seltzer a bit, and then went on: “I have a house, of course. My father left me
the place, and I still live there. And it’s worth double the bail, which is what they require. Unfortunately, I borrowed some money on it— so that’s out. I could sign a property bond otherwise, and I’d be only too glad to. But what you can’t do, you can’t. That’s what’s getting me. He knows about the house but not about the mortgage, and wonders why I don’t sign his bond. And for some reason I hate to tell him the truth. It sounds as though I just cooked up an excuse.”

“Start over. Explain about the house.”

He did, in words of one syllable, telling how the bail bondsmen use one house over and over, to sign a dozen bonds, each one for a nice charge, “but the house must be free and clear. If it’s mortgaged it can’t be pledged.”

“And it bothers you, not to be able to help?”

“Well? Wouldn’t it bother you?”

He opened up a little bit then, saying how Mr. Lacey was more than a friend. “He’s someone I badly need, for something I’m shooting for. I have an eye on a position in the administration—I want to run the Department of Natural Resources, and his cousin down in Annapolis could put it over for me. I’m pretty sure she could. She’s close to the governor, and takes an interest in it.” I drew a blank on that, and he said: “I’d give anything to have charge of Chesapeake Bay, on account of an idea I have.” And he came out with the very idea Liz had mentioned, that if he worked things around he might be able to get the bay clear of the nettles. “Chesapeake Bay,” he explained, almost as though making a speech, “is the garden spot of the world, of this part of the world anyway, the garden spot of the U.S.A.—perfect for yachting, swimming, wading, or what-have-you, all except for one thing, the goddam nettles. With them out there it’s no good for anything. It seems to me we could get rid of those goddam things. And it seems to me, that those atomic plants might help. The whole population’s against them, scared to death of what they might do. But suppose I can figure a way, to use those plants somehow? To use the
water they spill? That hot water they sluice with their pumps? If all it takes is temperature, a slight change in how hot the bay is, to kill all those nettles we have, then that would do it, and not cost the state a dime. Then, ’stead of opposing those plants, the people would welcome them in—and we got a tremendous problem solved—the nettles, the atomic plants, the energy that we need, all at one fell swoop.”

He got so excited talking about it, and it was all I could do to keep the expression on my face from breaking out in a grin like we both knew he was pulling my leg—because it was pretty clear he believed in what he was selling and didn’t see it as leg pulling at all. It made me feel a little bittersweet, actually, as it put him in a new light, like seeing a beautiful home by day after only previously seeing it in the moonlight, only to realize that the shutters need painting and the roof’s in a terrible state. Tom thought he had the prettiest little house in town and had no idea how rickety it was. Apart from the radiation, I wanted to ask him, wouldn’t the hot water kill off all the fish …? But those were only two of a thousand arguments against his plan, and I didn’t raise them. I just watched him deliver his pitch with all his heart behind it, and in a strange way the very hopelessness of it made me warm to him—not to it, but to him, this handsome young man with a mortgaged house and not a thousand dollars to his name and a castle in the air he’d never be able to sell anyone on but a couple of women at a Hyattsville bar who’d known him as a teenager and were fond of him.

And not even them, necessarily, as halfway through his speech Bianca was there at my shoulder, whispering to me: “He’s a bit gone on the subject. Don’t pay too much attention.”

Then Liz was there, telling me: “Give him a drink.”

They drifted away, but he kept going. I saw in his eyes, behind the unwavering conviction, a sort of desperation I recognized, and my heart went out to him. I saw the chance to do for someone, in a smaller way, what Mr. White had done for me—and perhaps also felt
a bit of the same impulse that had led me to promise toys to all the children in Ethel’s yard. I said: “You need someone, is that it? With a house that’s free and clear? Suppose I had that house?”

He stared at me, then said: “Joan, it’s a serious thing. Don’t try to be funny—not on this subject, anyway.”

“Who says I’m being funny?”

I snapped it, the least little bit, and suddenly he knew I was serious. “… You? Could sign that bond?”

“If that’s what it takes, a house.”

“I didn’t realize.”

“I’d have to be asked, nicely.”

“I wouldn’t ask you. I don’t have the right.”

“… O.K. Then for you I volunteer.”

After a long time, still staring at me, he asked: “You’d do that for me, Joan?”

“And why not? It’s just for a time, right? Once he shows up at the trial, the bond is cancelled?”

“Of course. But there’s risk.”

“There’s always risk. If you’d trust him with your house…”

“I would if I could.”

“Then why can’t I?”

“Is it all right, then? That I call his lawyer and get him in? Because, as I understand it, Jim could be out tonight—they do it that quick, I’ve heard.
If,
as and when—”

“You have a house free and clear. Well, I have.”

He went into the alcove and phoned, then was back, taking a flash at his watch. Half an hour later a bald-headed man came in, dropped down at the table with him, took out a paper, and whispered something to him. Tom beckoned to me, and the bald-headed man, who introduced himself as Mr. Lackman, asked me about my house. Did I have one free of any mortgages, leases, tenancies or other encumbrances? I told him I had one, and he wanted to know where. So, on my scratch pad there on the bar, I wrote the address of my home, the one I’d got upon Ron’s death and now owned free and clear, and laid it down in front of him. He copied it onto his paper, held the ballpoint to his teeth, then motioned me to sit down, make myself comfortable, but I told him it wasn’t allowed. He said he had to make a telephone call to someone in the courthouse or the hall of records, I don’t remember which, to confirm that my name was on the deed for the property and that there were no outstanding liens or claims, and I told him I’d be surprised if anyone would be working so late at night. He replied: “You’re working, aren’t you? You think the justice system closes down at ten o’clock?”

He was on the phone for nearly twenty minutes, then he came back, sat down, and called me over again. He had another paper in his hand, a legal document, and he read it to me. It was a declaration that I owned the property at the address given below and was hereby offering it in pledge as security for the release of the named prisoner, or something of that kind. When he finished reading he told me to sign. So I did, and he waved it around in the air as if to dry it, then jumped up and scooted.

It took the better part of two more hours, maybe three, to the point where I thought we might close up before he made it back. But then there he was, diving back to the table, with another man by his side, a chunky red-faced man in a rumpled suit, unshaven, who shook hands with Tom and sat. When Tom motioned toward me, he got up, came over, shook my hand, and said he was Jim Lacey and how grateful he was that I had helped him out. He said: “You’ll never regret it, I promise you.” And then: “Now, Mrs. Medford, how about joining us? Tom, Mel, and me, for a little drink to celebrate? Celebrate my release?”

“Mr. Lacey, I don’t drink. But thanks.”

“Take seltzer, like Tom.”

“It’s also against the rules.”

“Not tonight it’s not.”

He called to Bianca, to know if it was all right if I sat down with him at the table, and added: “It better be, Bianca, you know what’s good for you.” Bianca told him: “For you, Jim, we make an exception of course.”

So I sat down at the table, and he ordered champagne, with Liz serving the order. I told her: “Ginger ale for me,” and she nodded, but stared, all crossed up. It went on I suppose a half hour, I feeling very self-conscious, but then Mr. Lacey proclaimed: “Got to be going now—come on, Mel, time we both shoved off. We’ll leave these other two here.”

So, in a minute they were gone, and I jumped up to become a waitress again, but there were only two other tables occupied this late, and Liz had already seen to them. I stood by Tom’s chair and looked down at him. He eyed me with an odd expression, and I guess I enjoyed his reaction. He said: “I wouldn’t know how to thank you. You did a great thing for Jim—and for me, you helped me more than I can say.”

“Well,” I said, “there’s a couple of ways, if you really want to thank me.”

“Just say what they are, Joanie.”

“To begin with you could apologize, at long last.”

“For what?”

I didn’t answer him, just stood my ground and waited for him to work it through. I thought perhaps he’d blush when he finally got there, but I suppose some men aren’t made for blushes, and what came out in the end was a smile, and not a trace of shame behind it. “You mean that first night, here at the Garden? For what I did?”

“Now he’s thinking.”

“I do apologize, Joan, if you want me to, for being drunk and
giving in to temptation, but I won’t apologize for the temptation itself, since I’m just as tempted now, maybe more so.”

It was not the apology I’d been waiting for, but it set my blood racing as that apology never would have.

I said: “Maybe I am as well, now—but that’s after I’ve gotten to know you. And more to the point, there’s a difference between temptation and action, and you know well enough to keep on the right side of that line.”

“I apologize, then, for straying over the line.”

“Thank you.”

“Or for doing it too soon, if that’s what you mean. So, what’s the other way…?”

“The other way …?”

“To thank you.”

“Oh. Well, all this talk about taking me out, day after day. Now that I know you’re so strapped I wouldn’t expect anywhere fancy, but you could still—”