Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain Page A

it just happens that at the moment receptionists are out. That was then. In those good old days. When even a hockshop had to have this receptionist thing out there in front to show it had class. But then they found out she wasn’t strictly necessary. They began sleeping with their wives, and I guess it worked all right. Anyway, the birth-rate went up. So I guess you’re out of luck.’
    ‘Receptionist isn’t the only thing I can do.’
    ‘Yes, it is.’
    ‘You don’t give me much chance to tell you.’
    ‘If there was something else you could do, you’d have put it down in great big letters, right on this card. When you say receptionist, that’s all I want to know. There’s no more after that, and no use your wasting my time, and me wasting yours. I’ll file your card, but I told you once and I’m telling you again, you haven’t got a chance.’
    The interview, obviously, was ended, but Mildred forced herself to make a little speech, a sales talk. As she talked she warmed up to it, explaining that she was married before she was seventeen, and that while other women were learning professions, she had been making a home, raising two children, ‘not generally regarded as a disgraceful career’. Now that her marriage had broken up, she wanted to know if it was fair that she be penalised for what she had done, and denied the right to earn her living like anybody else. Furthermore, she said, she hadn’t been asleep all that time, even if she had been married. She had taught herself to be a good housekeeper and a fine cook, was in fact earning such little income as she had by peddling her cookery around the neighbourhood. If she could do that, she could do other things. She kept repeating: ‘What I do, I do well.’
    Miss Turner pulled out a lot of drawers, set them in a row on her desk. They were filled with cards of different colours. Looking intently at Mildred, she said: ‘I told you you’re not qualified. OK, you can take a look here and see what I mean. These three drawers are employers, people that call me when they want somebody. And they call me, too. They call me because I’m on the level with them and save them the trouble of talking tonitwits like you. You see those pink ones? That means “No Jews”. See the blues? “No Gentiles” – not many of them, but a few. That’s got nothing to do with you, but it gives you an idea. People are sold over this desk just like cattle in the Chicago yards, and for exactly the same reason: they’ve got the points the buyer wants. All right, now take a look at something that does concern you. See those greens? That means “No Married Women”.’
    ‘Why, may I ask?’
    ‘Because right in the middle of rush hour you wonderful little homemakers have a habit of getting a call that Willie’s got the croup, and out you run, and maybe you come back next day, and maybe you come back next week.’
    ‘Somebody has to look after Willie.’
    ‘These people, these employers on the greens, they’re not much interested in Willie. And another habit you wonderful homemakers have got is running up a lot of bills you thought friend husband would pay, and then when he wouldn’t you had to get a job. And then the first pay cheque you draw, there’s eighteen attachments on it – and life’s too short.’
    ‘Do you call that fair?’
    ‘I call them green. I go by the cards.’
    ‘I don’t owe a cent.’
    ‘Not one?’
    Mildred thought guilty of the interest that would be due July 1st, and Miss Turner, seeing the flicker in her eye, said: ‘I thought so . . . Now take a look at these other drawers. They’re all applicants. These are stenographers – a dime a dozen, but at least they can do
something
. These are qualified secretaries – a dime a dozen too, but they rate a different file. These are stenographers with scientific experience, nurses, laboratory assistants, chemists, all able to take charge of a clinic, or run an office for three or four doctors, or do