All My Tomorrows

by Colette L. Saucier

  All My Tomorrows

  A New Tale of Pride and Prejudice

  Colette L. Saucier

  First Southern Girl Press Edition, June 2012

  Copyright © 2012 Colette L. Saucier

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Southern Girl Press ISBN: 9781452491820

  DEDICATION

  To my muse.

  CHAPTER 1

  The Edge of Darkness

  Chapter 1

  It was raining when I awoke that Sunday morning. I knew immediately because of the click-click of the drops hitting the awning Daddy had put up that summer to shield my window from the sun’s burning rays. It was autumn now, and when I looked outside, the brown, orange, and gold leaves of the trees in our backyard were drenched and sleepily waving in the breeze.

  We didn’t have carpeting, and the floorboards were cold on my bare feet. After climbing down the stairs, I pretended to be a tightrope walker, balancing myself on single floorboards all the way to the kitchen. Daddy was sitting in “his chair” reading the paper and smoking his pipe. I always loved the smell of his burning tobacco, but when Tad, my older brother, would sneak a cigarette, its stink made me sick.

  Tad was thirteen, and that wasn’t his real name, which was George. He had read “Tad” in some book and liked it better than being called Junior because he had been named after Daddy. But now my two front teeth were missing, and when I said “Tad” it came out “Dad.” This could make things confusing since sometimes no one knew who was talking to whom, but it wasn’t all the Toothfairy’s fault. Tad’s voice sounded a lot like mine, due to his age, and he called our father simply Dad. Mommy said she’d be glad when her children could speak normally.

  Mommy was wearing a pink Sunday dress and a stained white apron as she peered into the oven. When she turned around and saw me, her lips pursed up as if she had eaten a lemon. “Lexie, look at you, walking around barefoot on this cold floor.” I looked down at my dirty little feet and then back to my mother’s eyes. “You’re sick enough as it is. Now you get back to bed.”

  Then Daddy said without taking his eyes off his paper, “Let her stay. Her room gets so cold, the warm oven will do her good.” He hadn’t gone to church that morning. He had stayed home because of me, but he tried to get out of going to church as much as Mommy would let him anyway.

  Mommy felt my face for fever. I always loved the way she smelled, no matter what. I liked it on special occasions when she put Émeraude on her wrists and behind her ears, but today she smelled like bread, and I knew she’d been baking. This was my favorite smell since I was the one to get the heel off the loaf fresh from the oven. Mommy told me to sit down and she’d fix me up some breakfast. Tad came in from outside. He was already filthy from playing with the neighbors, and his oiled hair was messed up.

  “What’d you do with your church clothes when you changed?” Mommy asked without turning from the stove.

  “I haven’t changed yet.”

  Mommy looked at him, and her face turned red. “George Andrew Hayward, Junior! You march up those stairs right now and take a bath so hot that when you come down you’ll be steaming! And you’re not going out again today!”

  “Mom!”

  “Don’t you raise your voice to me, young man! Now march!” She pointed her finger in the direction of the living room, and Tad sulked off.

  Mommy’s face was sweet even though she frowned. Her face relaxed when the kitchen door closed behind Tad. She and Daddy met eyes and then she turned back to my breakfast on the stove.

  Mommy and Daddy had some sort of secret communication system. They seemed to have an entire conversation with just one glance. I asked Mommy about it one day. “You’ll know someday when you marry the right man.”

  I sat in the chair next to my daddy’s with my feet on the seat and rubbed my shins to warm them. Mommy placed a bowl of steaming oatmeal before me and stirred in some sugar and milk, and I ate it. It was a typical Sunday at our house, just like so many others.

  Daddy had brought a TV home a couple of years before. It was black and white and kind of dark. When we first got it, we thought if you were watching a show and left for a while, when you came back the show would still be on. Even Daddy was surprised when we found out the show was over. Tad would always get a pillow from his bed and stretch out on the rug in front of the TV. Daddy would yell at him because he’d keep squirming his feet. Usually he fell asleep there on the floor, and I remember thinking how big his rear end looked.

  That night we watched Walt Disney. When Tad fell asleep, Daddy carried him up the stairs. Daddy was a very strong, big man. Mommy told me once that the reason she married him was because he was so much like her father, and I wondered if I would marry a man like Daddy someday, too.

  Grandpa had been like a private detective or something. I once saw him on the front porch picking at a bullet hole in his chest, cleaning it with a knife. Grandpa must have had quite a life. I heard Mommy tell our neighbor Mrs. Mahaffey that he had been married to an Indian woman called Jess a long time before he met my grandmother, and before that he had been married to a woman named Sarah who died from taking too much aspirin.

  He and the Indian woman had had a son named Homer. Not much was known about him, but Mommy said she remembered when she was little, a boy named Homer came to stay with them until he was caught stealing and was sent away. Jess had been murdered, shot in the head. I heard Mommy say that some people thought Grandpa had done it, but he wasn’t convicted. I don’t think he did it.

  When we were older, Tad told me that Grandpa wasn’t Mommy’s real father. Gram had been married once before to a much older man. He said when Gram was young, she turned up pregnant one day, and her father threw her out of the house. That didn’t make much sense to me because, after Gram’s mother had died in some botched operation to keep her from having another baby, Gram had been taking care of all her younger brothers and sisters. Gram had been one of ten children, but Kate had been stillborn, Victor died when he was six from a spider bite, and Ivan had been killed by a train. I guess Gram’s father decided he’d rather take care of six children himself than let Gram stay there with a baby.

  After Gram left home and had my aunt, she met my mother’s father. He had been in his fifties even then, but he married her in spite of Aunt Eunice. Gram then had Aunt Sable and Mommy, but her husband was older than her own father. When he got sick and was bedridden and couldn’t work, they took in a boarder to help with the expenses. Tad said it was a well-known fact that Gram and the boarder were having an affair, but I don’t know how he’d know that. After her husband died of cancer, Gram married the boarder, and that was my grandpa.

  It was about midnight that Sunday when Tad came into my room and shoved me until I woke up.

  “What’s goin’ on?” I asked him sleepily.

  “Come on,” he ordered. “The house is on fire.” He was so calm, I didn’t half believe him. He took my hand and pulled me out of the room.

  I glanced at Mommy and Daddy�
�s room, but the door had been swallowed by flames. I remember I started screaming then. The smoke stung my eyes and made me cry, even before I started crying for real, and the heat scorched my skin. I screamed even through my coughs, and Tad picked me up and ran down the stairs. The mirror on the wall had turned black, and the hardwood floors were changing colors.

  Outside, Mrs. Mahaffey cried as she wrapped a blanket around me. I stopped screaming and stared at the house as it was engulfed in flames. I guess I was in shock. The thing I remember most about standing out in the wet grass that night was the smell – a horrid, putrid smell that made me ill. Little did I know it was the smell of burning flesh.

  And my life would never be the same.

  ☼

  Reality interrupted fiction with a light rapping on the door. Alice set her tuna salad sandwich on the neon green nylon baggie on her desk and dropped her mother’s ragged paperback in the bottom drawer with her purse.

  “Come in.”

  The door opened, and Eileen’s head popped in. “Hey, Mrs. Jellyby is here. Peacock wants the cast and crew on the hospital in ten.”

  “I wonder if this is it.” Alice rubbed her temple in anticipation of the inevitable headache.

  Eileen – in full make-up, scrubs, and white coat – pushed in and closed the door. “That bad, huh?” To Alice’s non-answer, she sat down. “What will you do?”

  “Go back to New York, I guess. I don’t really see myself collaborating with a bunch of Hollywood writers. You?”

  “I think I’d like to try films, as a character actor.”

  “Why character?”

  “Come on. I’m no Giselle. I don’t have ‘the look.’ I think I would find more satisfaction playing interesting characters than always being the leading lady’s best friend.”

  “What about stage? You could come to New York with me.”

  “And not have the option of a second take? Never!” She laughed. “Plus, I like L.A. It grows on you.”

  Alice took another bite of her sandwich before tucking it away. “Yeah, like a fungus,” she said as she chewed.

  “Well, I’m still going to try to talk you into staying. I’ll miss you too much if you leave. Who will I have to split a bottle of Malbec with me?”

  “That’s what video chat is for, and then we each get our own bottle.”

  Alice and Eileen were the last to arrive at the hospital set, and their appearance quieted the buzz of the others gathered. All eyes turned to Mrs. Jellyby, and Alice immediately knew one thing by the slight upturn at the corners of the producer’s mouth and her bright floral-print dress: the soap had not been cancelled.

  “Thank you for coming so quickly,” Mrs. Jellyby began in a quivering falsetto that carried across the soundstage. “I have important and exciting news. As I am sure you are all aware, this has been a tough year for All My Tomorrows from a ratings and affiliate sponsor point of view. After thirty-seven years, the very survival of the show has been at risk.

  “Today the network demonstrated its unwavering support for All My Tomorrows with a new addition to the cast.”

  Uh-oh. In a split-second, Alice’s mind ran over all the concurrent storylines and where a new character would fit in. I wonder if it’s too soon since her fiancé’s death for Sienna to have a new romance.

  “Peter Walsingham will be joining our family next week!” Mrs. Jellyby grinned and clapped her hands.

  Alice cursed her own heart for skipping a beat at his name. What she would have scripted as a “collective gasp from the crowd” led into applause by all but herself and Mr. Peacock, who met her eyes across the set with a quick nod. An actor from film and primetime meant a leading role. All the scripts would have to be rewritten.

  “Giselle, I don’t think you will mind sharing love scenes with Peter.” Bingo. To Mrs. Jellyby’s pronouncement, Giselle smiled and blushed as the other’s laughed.

  Even though Alice had a lot of long nights of rewrites ahead of her, she knew the excitement of Peter Walsingham provided a much-needed relief from the pall that had settled over the soap since sweeps.

  “And perhaps, just perhaps, we can convince him that he wants to stay on with us.” Mrs. Jellyby waded in with the others, and from where Alice stood, she sounded like she was cooing.

  “What do you think?” Mr. Peacock asked Alice after making his way across stage to her side.

  “I think Sienna has recovered quickly from Blaine’s death.”

  The director grinned. “Time is relative, especially on soaps.”

  “So how did you manage this coup?”

  “I had nothing to do with it. You know Walsingham was just killed off on COD? That was at his request. Said the publicity from his relationship with his co-star was disruptive on the set.”

  Alice raised her eyebrows. “I’m surprised they didn’t let Winnie Johnson go instead.”

  “They didn’t want either one of them to go. Even negative publicity is publicity, and they thought having off-camera lovers brought in more viewers.”

  Alice scoffed. “I’m sure his wife will be relieved to hear it.”

  “I think that’s one of the reasons he wanted out. This has been a big drama itself. It was not an amicable break.”

  “With the wife or the show?”

  “Both, I think, but I meant the show.” Mr. Peacock pulled out an electronic cigarette and sucked on it. “They killed him off so he couldn’t come back, and the only way they agreed to let him out was if he finished off his contract here.”

  Shit. “For how long? Mrs. Jellyby is smoking crack if she thinks he will stay on. Will he be here for a full story arc? We can’t have sweet and innocent Sienna having a fling. She can’t sleep with anyone unless they are violently in love.”

  “He will be here until July when he has to go on location for some movie, then he’ll be here for three months after the Olympics, although Mrs. Jellyby thinks she can convince him to stay.”

  Alice wished she smoked, if for no other reason than to have something to do with her hands – and she did still think it looked cool – but she figured it would be silly to start smoking with a fake cigarette. “I still don’t like it. The viewers are not going to like her hopping into bed with someone without falling in love with him first. Even having a known adulterer cast in the role could tarnish her reputation in the eyes of some viewers. When ‘Hollywood’s Bad Boy’ married ‘America’s Sweetheart,’ they thought he had reformed.”

  “Who knows? It might get us new viewers.”

  “We’re talking backstory, character development, romance, conflict. And where am I supposed to send him in July?”

  He laughed and put his cigarette back in his pocket. “You’ll think of something. I have faith.”

  “I need a Xanax,” she said as he walked away.

  ☼

  The Edge of Darkness

  Chapter 2

  Marlene Hollingsworth had known my mother since they were little girls. They had both been born and raised in Joplin, Missouri, as I had been for my six years although I had been born while Mommy and Daddy were staying in New York. Mommy and Marlene had been best friends in school and stood up with each other when they each got married right after Pearl Harbor. During World War II, Daddy had to go to Fort Robinson in Little Rock for boot camp, and Mommy went, too.

  Mommy lived at a house as a boarder since Daddy had to stay on base, and to pay for her room, she worked at the dime store. One day after she had been standing on her feet for hours, a customer was rude to her. She started crying and all she wanted was to go back to Missouri. Like a miracle, Marlene and her husband Molly walked into the store right at that moment. They packed her up and took her back home to Missouri.

  The war moved people around a lot. When Daddy was stationed in Louisiana, Mommy went with him, and she didn’t see Marlene again until Daddy went overseas. After the war was over, Marlene and Molly and Mommy and Daddy bought houses down the street from each other and were best friends all over again. They even
both had little boys about a year apart. Then Molly went into politics, and first he and Marlene had moved to a bigger house in a finer neighborhood, then he took his family all the way to Washington, D.C. Mommy and Marlene would write letters, but they didn’t see each other again until I was three. That was when Marlene had wanted to come home for Christmas, and Mommy and Daddy invited them to stay with us. Their son Anthony stayed in Tad’s room, and their daughter Annette stayed with me, but I don’t really remember it. After that visit, Mommy and Marlene stopped writing, and we never saw them again. Until now.

  Marlene and Molly were divorced now, which I didn’t really understand then, and she had gotten their house in Alexandria, Virginia. She lived there with her daughter Annette, only a few months older than I, and her son lived in Georgetown with his father.

  After Tad and Anthony were born, Mommy and Daddy had drawn up a will stating that Marlene and Molly would become the legal guardians of Tad and any subsequent children should anything happen to them, and Marlene and Molly had done the same for their children. That’s why after the fire, Tad and I went to go live with Marlene.

  I really liked Marlene; she was like a movie star. She let us call her by her first name. She always wore her blond hair in a tower on top of her head. She wore tons of eye make-up and bright red lipstick and nail polish. She puffed at a cigarette she held in a long holder. She had fancy clothes and mink coats and one that she said was beaver. I liked it best. Her black poodle Jake had a fluffy hairdo and painted nails and always stayed by her side, and she would feed him the olives from her martinis. Sometimes she would pour some of her morning coffee into the saucer and put it on the floor, and he would drink it. She said he might have a hangover from eating too many olives. I think Jake liked it best on the mornings when Lillian, the maid, brought donuts and Marlene would tear a piece off and put it in his coffee.