Root of His Evil by James M. Cain

sat around talking as though we had never called each other names. We were ahead of the crowd, as she had asked us to be, and it was all very quiet and casual. Then Elsie and Jane arrived and joined in the discussion and you would hardly have known they were giving any party at all. I really didn’t like Mrs. Hunt, or any of them, but I caught the point and remembered it: Never make a fuss about your hospitality, as so many people I had known were so prone to do. Then Mr. Hunt came in. He had just left his office and disappeared for a little while to dress, but he stopped long enough to shake hands with me and I caught him eyeing me sharply and, I thought, in a not unfriendly way. He was considerably older than Mrs. Hunt, who was younger than Grant, as were the other two girls, but even so he couldn’t have been more than thirty-five, and was tall and rather good-looking. When he came down again he had on a short black coat and gray trousers, and I had a sudden reminder that, in spite of the pleasant casualness of the preliminaries, what I had to go through with would be, for me at any rate, very formidable indeed.
    Then the guests began to arrive and they were being introduced to me very rapidly and I must say Mrs. Hunt was very graceful and considerate about it and made it seem that everything was in my honor and I almost felt I was welcome. So in a few minutes I was faced with what worried me most of all, which was what to talk about. Once more I had drilled it into myself: “Don’t talk about the weather.” But what else did I know to talk about? This had given me several bad nights, for I try to be honest with myself, and after a great deal of restless tossing around I had come to the realization that I didn’t know anything to talk about. I had never read any books or heard any music or seen any pictures or done any traveling. Of what is called culture I had none whatever. My world had been limited to my work, my savings and the few people I had come in contact with, and that was all I ever talked about with other girls of my kind from morning until night. But certainly I couldn’t begin complaining about the slowness of Karb’s counterman to these people, or criticize the way the cooks neglected to break the soft-boiled eggs, so the waitress had to do it. For Grant’s sake I had to give some kind of account of myself, and I stood there shaking hands, badly frightened as to what it was going to be, when suddenly an idea hit me.
    I began telling them about the strike. Luck was with me, for all of them became excited and wanted to hear about it, and so the ice was broken in two ways. I had found something that interested them and that I knew enough about not to make a fool of myself in discussing it, and also it relieved them of any embarrassment they may have felt about mentioning my occupation, and I breathed much easier. When another houseman came with a tray of cocktails I took one and sipped it a little so I could laugh and seem to be having a good time, but I was careful of the amount I drank, for I didn’t want any repetition of what had happened before. One thing helped me a great deal. In my work as a waitress I had trained myself to remember people’s names and use them in speaking to them, as that is the way to get regular customers. So it was no trouble for me to keep all the names straight, even after fifty or sixty people had arrived, and this greatly astonished Mrs. Hunt. I thought it advisable not to tell her how I became so name-conscious, but I could see that she was favorably impressed and also was breathing much easier.
    This went on for about an hour and I managed fairly well, for when the strike ran thin one of them would usually say something which permitted me to let them take the lead and I fell back on something which has stood me in good stead before, especially with talkative customers. I professed to be greatly interested, which in a way I was, as I find many things interesting, and