Ask for Me Tomorrow

by Margaret Millar

  No. But he let the egg slither down his throat.

  “Violet Smith made you some of her special Sunday toast.”

  The toast was cut into cubes, soaked in warm milk and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and wheat germ. She spooned it into his mouth, giving him several minutes to swallow each spoonful. During these intervals she read aloud items from the newspaper.

  Threat of a local bus strike was now believed ended. A government building on Downing Street had been bombed by the IRA. Dow-Jones went up twenty-four points during the past week. Heavy rains in Northern California were expected to hit the lower part of the state late tomorrow or Tuesday. Nine students were shot a few miles from Buenos Aires. A Los Angeles woman was found guilty of embezzling thirty thousand dollars from Crocker

  National Bank. The Coast Guard rescued a young couple becalmed five miles from shore in a small sailboat.

  “I don’t see anything in the paper about the magistrate who was murdered in Rio Seco. Aragon told me about it last night on the phone. Hernandez I believe his name was. It’s a funny coincidence, isn’t it, that he was the magistrate who took a bribe to release B. J. from jail. What a vicious man he must have been, allowing people to rot in jail until they got enough money to buy their way out. He deserved to be murdered, don’t you think so, dear?”

  He went on swallowing Violet Smith’s special Sunday toast. It tasted like Monday morning.

  Violet Smith came for the tray. She was dressed for church in a brown suit with an elaborate feathered hat given to her by a former employer. She talked across and around Marco almost as if he’d died during the night and no one had bothered to move the body.

  “Did he like the toast, Mrs. Decker?”

  “He didn’t complain,” Gilly said dryly.

  “What do you think of my hat, is it too dressy?”

  “No.”

  “Since I’m not allowed to wear jewelry anymore, I thought a few feathers would liven things up . . . Is he through?”

  “Yes.”

  “Poor soul, I hope he can’t taste too good. That wheat-germ stuff is nauseous. Reed bought it for his virility last week.” Violet Smith picked up the tray. “I wonder if I could speak to you in private for a minute. I don’t want him to hear. He has enough trouble already.”

  “I’ve told you before, Mr. Decker doesn’t like to be talked about as if he’s not here.”

  “Well, he’s not really here, is he?”

  “He’s here, dammit.”

  He was there. It was today. The bickering women were Violet Smith and his wife, Gilly. He wished they’d go away and come in again as two strangers. Strangers were easier to bear.

  They talked in the hall, with Marco’s door closed. Rays of the sun slanted through the skylight, and the feathers in Violet Smith’s hat iridesced and looked alive.

  “I’ve been turning this over and over in my mind,” she said, “until I’m on the verge of a sinking spell. I’m not sure what’s right and what’s not. There’s such a thing as minding your own business and then there’s such a thing as avoiding your responsibility.”

  “Get to the point.”

  “You told me I was never to talk in church about any of the things that happen here at the house—Mrs. Lockwood and all that hanky-panky—and I never did. I never so much as mentioned Mr. Lockwood. She did.”

  “Who?”

  “Ethel Lockwood, his first wife. She brought up the subject at the last meeting. I tried to stop her.” She couldn’t recall saying from the back of the room, Speak up, I can’t hear you. And if such a memory had struggled its way into her conscious mind, she would have disowned it. “Mrs. Lockwood was determined to continue.”

  “I can’t prevent her from talking,” Gilly said. “About Mr. Lockwood or anything else.”

  “But she’s saying bad things.”

  “How bad?”

  Violet Smith’s wooden face was splintered by uncertainty. “We’re honor-bound not to tell outsiders what goes on at the meetings and I’m scared. He is listening Up There. You better go and see Mrs. Lockwood for yourself.”

  “I don’t want to. I haven’t seen her in years.”

  “You better, anyway. She’s a little odd, which aren’t we all, but she knows something you don’t and you ought to.”

  “Concerning B. J.?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it important?”

  “I wouldn’t be standing here talking like this with Him listening Up There if it wasn’t important.” Violet Smith’s feathers were quivering. “Do you want me to tell you her address?”

  “I know her address,” Gilly said. “Ethel and I are old friends.”

  20

  She remembered the last time she’d seen the house.

  B. J. was waiting to let her in. His face was flushed with excitement and anticipation.

  “We’ll have the whole house to ourselves for a week. Ethel’s gone to visit her sister in Tucson and I’m supposed to be staying at the University Club while she’s away. Isn’t that marvelous?”

  It was marvelous.

  They used the guest room, which had a king-size bed with a blue silk spread that wrinkled. Afterward B. J., still naked, tried to iron out the wrinkles with his hands. He looked foolish and helpless. She loved him desperately.

  “Next time,” she said, “we’ll take the spread off.”

  “Next time?” He couldn’t cope with this time, let alone think about a next time. He glanced over at the suitcase she’d brought as if he couldn’t recall carrying it upstairs for her and putting it on the rack at the foot of the bed. “Maybe you shouldn’t actually move in, G. G. It might be better if we met at a motel.”

  “I want to stay here. I love this room. I love you.”

  “That damn spread, it’ll be the first thing she notices. Why couldn’t she have picked some material that doesn’t wrinkle?”

  “You mustn’t be afraid of her.”

  “She might faint. She faints a lot.”

  “What if I fainted? Right this minute?”

  “Oh hell, G. G., you wouldn’t. I mean… would you?”

  “I guess not. I’m trying, but I can’t seem to get the hang of it.”

  She sat down on the bed again, deliberately, heavily.

  “For God’s sake,” he said. “Get off there.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t realize—”

  “I realize. I just want you to love me so much that you don’t care about anything else in the world.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “So I’m crazy. Do you love me anyway?”

  “Sure I do. But Ethel brought that spread all the way from Hong Kong.”

  “Maybe if we’re lucky she’ll take it back to Hong Kong.”

  He began to laugh in spite of himself at the image of Ethel dragging the spread all the way back to Hong Kong.

  Later he was sober again, and scared. Gilly wasn’t. “I don’t care,” she said, “if Ethel walks in right this minute.” She didn’t. She walked in five days later. She and her sister had an argument and Ethel came home early. She was shocked, disgusted, reproachful. She sobbed, she fainted, she screamed. Then she went back to her sister’s in Tucson to think things over.

  B. J. thought things over, too. “She doesn’t really like me, you know. I don’t blame her. I’m no prize.”

  “You are to me,” Gilly said.

  “You weren’t kidding when you said you were crazy. Me a prize. That’s a laugh.”

  “It’s true.”

  “What do you suppose I should do now?”

  “Get a divorce and marry me.”

  “Is this—are you proposing to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Women aren’t supposed to do that, G. G. They’re supposed to wait to be asked.”

&n
bsp; “I waited. You never asked.”

  “How could I? I’m married.”

  “I’m not. So I’ll do the asking. Will you marry me?”

  “Well, for Christ’s sake—”

  “Leave Christ out of it. It’s you and me, B. J.”

  B. J. consulted a lawyer and moved to the University Club. Ethel sent the bedspread to the dry cleaner. Gilly started shopping for a trousseau. If a shadow of remorse appeared now and then, she closed her eyes or turned her back. It’s you and me, B. J.

  From a distance the big white stucco house looked the same. But as she approached, Gilly saw that the paint was peeling off the walls and the window frames. The trees in the courtyard had turned brown from lack of water and were dropping their leaves in the dry birdbath and the empty lily pond. A black cat crouched on top of the wall as if he were waiting for Halloween or for the birdbath to be filled. It watched with green-eyed interest as Gilly walked through the courtyard and pressed the chime of the front door.

  This time it was Ethel who let her in.

  “I’ve been expecting you,” she said. “Violet Smith called to tell me you were on your way.”

  “I don’t know exactly what I’m doing here.”

  “You will. Come inside.”

  “We can talk out here.”

  “Are you afraid I’ve arranged some kind of trap for you? How quaint. I assure you I bear no grudges and I have forgiven all my enemies. Come, you’ll want to see the changes in the house.”

  Gilly went inside, wondering about the changes and whether the blue silk bedspread had been one of them. Probably the first.

  The living room was lavishly furnished, but it had the pervasive chill of a place that was never used. A layer of dust covered everything, like a family curse, the red velvet chairs and marble-topped tables, the gilt-framed portraits of plump gentle women and stiff-necked men. Silver vases for rosebuds, and crystal bowls made to float camellias, were empty. Spiderwebs hung undisturbed across the chandeliers, and there were cracks in the plaster of the ceiling as though the house had been shaken by a series of explosions.

  There were matching cracks in Ethel’s face, dividing it into sections like a relief map. She was very thin. Everything about her was thin, her arms and legs, her greying hair, even her skin looked transparent. The blue veins in her temples seemed barely covered.

  “It’s rude to stare.” She spoke just above a whisper, hissing slightly over the s sounds. The effect was soft and deadly like escaping gas. “I told you there were changes. I can’t afford to keep the place up.”

  “B. J. left you well provided for.”

  “He did. But times change—increasing taxes, inflation, some bad investments, a loan to an old friend. No wild extravagances, simply normal living, yet in a few years a house begins to look like this. B. J. would be distressed to see it.”

  “Don’t worry, he won’t see it.”

  “No? You might be wrong.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “ESP, perhaps. Perhaps something a good deal more practical . . . Gracious, I’m forgetting my manners. Please sit down. The wing chairs by the fireplace are very comfortable, but then, you know that, don’t you? Now, how shall I address you? I don’t believe it would be quite appropriate to call you Gilly or G. G., as B. J. did. B. J. and G. G. How sweet.”

  “My name is Mrs. Decker. I prefer to stand.”

  “Very well.” She herself sat down in one of the wing chairs and began stroking its red velvet upholstery very gently as though soothing an elderly family pet. “You mustn’t think Violet Smith has been indulging in idle gossip. She felt compelled to tell me certain facts.”

  “Such as?”

  “That you were attempting to locate B. J. and the trail ended in the Rio Seco jail, where he is believed to have died.”

  “And why did Violet Smith feel compelled to tell you all this?”

  “Because your facts and mine don’t agree. That loan to an old friend I mentioned a few minutes ago, it wasn’t actually for an old friend.”

  “It was for B. J.?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Three years ago. He didn’t die in jail. I paid ten thousand dollars to get him out of there. It wasn’t easy to collect that much extra cash. I sold some of my antiques and borrowed the rest from my sister. I know the money arrived safely. He wrote me a thank you note after his release, just a line or two, without any return address. I didn’t keep it. I guess I was piqued because it was so short, so—almost ungracious. I don’t think he’d ever accepted money from a woman before and perhaps it hurt his pride.” There was a ragged edge of doubt in her voice. “I still have the first letter, though, the one where he asked for the money. That was gracious, oh yes, very gracious indeed. I want you to read it.”

  “Why?”

  “So you won’t have to take my word for anything.”

  “I take it.”

  “Don’t you think it would be better if you took his? Here.”

  The letter Gilly had received five years before had been written on heavy bond, engraved Jenlock Haciendas, Bahía de Ballenas, Baja California Sur. This one was on a kind of onionskin paper Gilly hadn’t seen since she was a child. It was postmarked Rio Seco and the return address was the Quarry: La Cantera, Penitenciaria del Estado.

  Dear Ethel:

  I don’t know how to start this letter because I shouldn’t be writing it—not to you of all people. I treated you rotten. You have every right and reason to tear this up before you go any further. But please don’t. I haven’t anyone else to turn to. I am locked in this terrible place which is so terrible you couldn’t bear to come inside the gate. I remember that day we went to the pound to claim Angel, how you cried just seeing the animals locked up. Well now I’m one of them . . .

  Gilly said, “Who was Angel?”

  “Our Yorkshire terrier.”

  “I didn’t know B. J. ever had a dog.” It was such a small thing, completely unimportant, but it bothered her. It made her realize that he’d had a whole life before she even met him, that he’d been married to Ethel twice as long as to her.

  I’m in this filthy cage Ethel and I didn’t do anything to hurt people. I just thought it was a good idea to bring some prosperity to that God forsaken village I was stuck in. Why am I always being stuck in places? It must be lack of character like you told me once. It really hurt me your saying that. I was never sure what character was so how could I get any.

  I keep wishing I could start over or at least go back to the point where I began making bad mistakes. You are the only woman I ever truly loved and admired and respected. I could never live up to your standards. None of the other women had class like you Ethel. That’s why they appealed to me I guess because they were no better than I was which wasn’t much . . .

  Gilly’s hands had begun to tremble. The paper made little rustling sounds like evil whispers. “He was desperate. People tell lies when they’re desperate.”

  “Or truths.”

  “There’s not a word of truth in—”

  “Go on reading.”

  I don’t understand how it all happened between Gilly and me. She was a lot of fun and we had some laughs but then suddenly she was expecting me to marry her. She asked me to, I’m not kidding. I was flattered. I had to really talk fast to get you even to consider marrying me and here was this other woman anxious to have me. I’m not making excuses Ethel. I just want you to realize that often things just happen to people like me. Ordinary people must see things coming and duck maybe, or fight back or run away. But there are some of us who don’t see what’s coming and we end up in a place like this. I won’t try to describe it for you. You wouldn’t believe it anyway being you’re so clean in mind and body. Do you still take all those showers every day? My God what I’d give for a long hot shower right now. To be c
lean again what a luxury that would be. Everybody and everything at the Quarry is slimy. It’s funny how the people in the U.S. have so many nicknames for prison like it was kind of a joke—pokey, slammer, clink, brig, cooler, tank etc. Here nobody ever calls it anything but the Quarry. It’s too serious to have a nickname. I must get out. I must.

  Ethel you are the only hope I have left. One of the guards told me that my case is finally coming up next month. I can’t explain how this crazy system works but it’s not the way ours does with a jury, etc. The man who is the magistrate assigned to me will decide my fate. Word from the grapevine is that he charges a fixed price to release Americans $10,000. Guilt and innocence and justice they’re only words here. No matter what I did nor didn’t do, for $10,000 I can get out of this place.

  Please help me. Please for the love of God help me Ethel. I’m going to die here unless you get me out. I am filthy. My clothes, my cot, the food I eat, it’s all filthy. My teeth are rotting and my hair is falling out and my eyes are so bad I can hardly see what I’m writing. I’ve paid a hundred times for every hurt I’ve done anyone. I can’t take it much longer. I am at your mercy Ethel.

  B. J.

  Gilly folded the letter and put it back in the envelope very quickly so that Ethel might not notice how badly her hands were trembling. She felt sick, as if someone had struck her a mortal blow in the stomach, and the lump in her throat was so large and heavy that she was afraid her voice couldn’t push past it: “Why did you ask me to read this?”

  “So you’d understand how useless it is for you to go on searching for B. J. Even if you found him, he wouldn’t want to live with you anyway. He turned to me in his hour of need, not you. It’s all there in the letter. I am the only woman he ever loved and admired and respected.”

  “Shut up, damn you! Shut your vicious mouth, you—”

  “B. J. was right,” Ethel said softly. “You have no class.”

  During the afternoon Gilly cried, sometimes for B. J., sometimes for herself. Mrs. Morrison gave her two pills and Violet Smith brought her the kind of drink Violet Smith had often made for her own consumption before she’d taken the pledge.