The Probable Future

by Alice Hoffman

  “Now you tell me,” Jenny said. “After my marriage is over.”

  They stared at each other. The candle had burned down, past the pin, past the point of returning to the way things had been.

  “Maybe that was luck.”

  He was becoming a compulsive talker, like that foolish Farmer Hathaway, who blamed himself for what happened to Rebecca. Charles Hathaway could never stop talking about his mistakes, so that in time everyone in town who kept a journal took note of how they’d come to avoid him. Matt gulped the last of his coffee and put on his jacket. The one thing he didn’t want to do on a murky April day when the roads were sure to be flooded was to drive his brother into Boston and back again.

  “I think I’ve just worked in so many gardens in this town that the bees know me,” he told Jenny as he set out to leave. “That’s why I’ve never been stung.” It was Will who had the fear of bees, who’d been prey to allergic reactions, Will who all the same had gotten everything he’d ever wanted. But in this one circumstance, Matt had been the lucky one, and standing there at the counter, watching him duck into the rain, Jenny couldn’t help but wonder why she hadn’t seen it was him all along.

  II.

  THE TRAIN WAS ON TIME, but Stella had been asked to clean up the science lab, and so she was late. She had to run all the way to the station, splashing through puddles, winded by the time she arrived. The rain had eased to a drizzle, but the sky was still as dingy as steam. Juliet Aronson sat on one of the green wooden benches out on the platform, smoking a cigarette and sipping from a cup of coffee she’d bought at the vending machine inside the station. Juliet had her hair pulled back and her lipstick had worn off; leaving the city for parts unknown made her nervous, and she’d been biting her lips. She was wearing a black dress she’d borrowed from her aunt’s closet and a silk blazer that was too lightweight for the day’s cool, damp weather.

  “Finally,” Juliet announced when she spied Stella. “I’m freezing my ass off.”

  Juliet tossed her cigarette away and the girls hugged each other. Then Juliet held Stella at arm’s length in order to examine her. “Oh, my God! You’re a country bumpkin.”

  Stella looked down at her yellow rain gear, her heavy lace-up boots, her waterlogged jeans. Her hair had frizzed up in the humidity and she hadn’t a touch of makeup on her pale face. She had strapped on a backpack filled with books and test tubes to collect more water samples.

  “Bumpkin sounds like a bad thing.”

  Juliet laughed. “Don’t worry. We’ll fix you. Although I seriously can’t believe you actually live here.” Juliet grabbed her overnight case, Gucci, stolen from Saks. “Good gracious. You have trees out here.”

  The trees had leafed out after the past week of drenching rains. Now, when the girls looked upward, the sky itself seemed green. Stella usually slopped through puddles, but Juliet Aronson was wearing good leather boots, so they avoided the common and walked through town. Stella had homework, but she didn’t care. She felt lit up inside. It was Friday and Juliet was finally here and the rain was ending.

  Juliet sniffed and wrinkled her nose. “It smells like something around here.”

  Stella laughed. “Mud?”

  “Ah, mud. The bumpkin perfume. We have got some changes to make in this town.”

  They went to the pizza place and ordered four slices, then sat across from each other in a red vinyl booth. Juliet leaned her elbows on the table. Stella hadn’t noticed before that her friend had a nervous tick above her eye.

  “Did you try the love-foretelling thing?”

  “It didn’t work.” Stella recalled the look on her mother’s face when Matt walked into the tea shop. Close the door, you need not see more. “At least, not for me. I think I screwed it up.”

  “That just means you haven’t decided who it is you want to be in love with you. So when do I get to meet the famous Hap, so brilliant, so fascinating? I can compare him to the infamous Jimmy, who sounds like a dimwit.”

  Stella hadn’t exactly imagined Juliet meeting anyone in town. Rather, she’d thought of this visit confined to a bubble, rising above the rooftops and trees so there was no real contact with local residents and fewer occasions for Juliet to critique her life.

  Juliet had dropped her voice to a whisper. “Is that guy staring at us?”

  It was the pizza delivery guy. Stella recognized him from the night he’d made a delivery to the doctor’s house. He must have been fairly new at the job, because Jessica Harmon, married to Joe, the older of the Harmon brothers, and who managed the shop, was going over a map, giving the deliveryman directions.

  “I swear he was staring at us. Yuck. He’s probably thirty years old. Don’t look at him,” Juliet hissed when Stella turned to gaze over her shoulder. “We have other things to think about. Tonight we can look through your wardrobe and toss out everything that doesn’t work. That ought to debumpkin you.”

  “I don’t have a wardrobe. I have three pairs of jeans, four T-shirts, and four sweaters. Oh, and some socks.”

  Juliet grinned. She reached into her overnight case and pulled out several packets of Rit dye. “Black,” she said. “Don’t leave home without it. By tonight, you’ll have a wardrobe.”

  Hap Stewart caught up with them soon after they’d been to the pharmacy, where Juliet had managed to swipe a tube of long-lash mascara and a pair of hoop earrings.

  “Always in style,” she said when she pocketed the earrings.

  “It’s not the same here,” Stella informed her friend as they walked down Main Street. “Everybody knows everybody else. You can’t just steal.”

  “But I just did.” Juliet made a face. “Little Miss Honesty.”

  “Hey, wait up.” It was Hap loping across the common.

  Stella had a sinking feeling as he approached. Two universes were about to collide, and she could guess which one would come out on top.

  “Hap Stewart.” Juliet looked him up and down, considering.

  Stella noticed that Hap looked like a bumpkin as well, wearing an oversized brown jacket and muddy work boots, with his hair curling foolishly and that huge grin of his. For no reason at all, she thought about the expression on Jimmy Elliot’s face that day they watched the doctor’s horse, how puzzled he’d seemed, how he’d made her want to laugh out loud.

  “You’ve just turned fifteen, you plan to go to Columbia University, if accepted, not that you’re worried because you can always go to the state college. You’re interested in biology, but your real dream is to become a photographer. You’re six-two, your hair is brown, but it looks blond in the sunlight. You don’t like the sight of blood, you have a great smile. Hapgood was your mother’s family name.” All of the information that Stella had slowly revealed to Juliet over the past few weeks had now been reeled back out in a single whoosh. Juliet turned to Stella, who seemed stunned. “Did I get everything?”

  “Pretty much.” Stella couldn’t bring herself to look at Hap, who now knew how much she had confided in Juliet. Would he feel betrayed? But, no, this release of information worked two ways and Hap was still grinning.

  “Juliet Aronson.” They continued on across the green, and now that they were with Hap, Juliet didn’t seem to mind that her boots were soaked by the wet grass. “You’ll be fifteen on July twenty-seventh. Your mother’s in Framingham Prison for Women, and you’re not certain what you believe constitutes a crime of passion. You like black clothes, cigarettes, gold earrings, older men. You’re far smarter than most people give you credit for. You’re beautiful.”

  Stella looked up; that last part was Hap’s own observation.

  “In regard to the older-man reference? That’s not always the case.”

  Juliet grinned as well. Stella noticed there was no mention of bumpkins now that Hap was around. Stella glanced over at him. He actually had a blade of grass in his mouth. How much more of a bumpkin could anyone be?

  “I like her,” Hap confided when Juliet was out of earshot, stopped by a parked truck t
o peer into the side-view mirror as she tried out her newly stolen mascara.

  “Do you?” Stella said coldly. “Well, great.”

  After Hap had taken off for home, Stella and Juliet walked toward the tea house. “What a strange person,” Juliet said of Hap. “I like him.” She must have then noticed Stella’s cool expression. “For you, I mean. God, not for me.”

  They had reached the corner of East Main. Liza had lit a fire and a plume of smoke rose into the damp air. Everything was gray, and perhaps that was why Juliet didn’t notice Jimmy Elliot on the corner. He’d biked over with his sister, but had stayed on after Cynthia had begun her shift, the way he did most days, acting as if he were looking at something important, when the only thing out in front of him was the foggy air.

  Stella had already decided. If Jimmy was there, she would not mention his presence. She would not say See that boy over there, the one with the dark eyes? He spends a lot of time staring at me, and for reasons I don’t understand, I’m staring back. For the first time, she didn’t want anyone’s opinion but her own. She opened the door for Juliet, and waited until Juliet went inside, before she quickly turned and waved. Spotted, Jimmy sped down the street, right through the deep puddles on East Main.

  “Very Hansel and Gretel,” Juliet said when they hung up their jackets inside the tea house. There was the spicy scent of the apple turnovers that Liza had recently baked. “I’ll bet if you walk into this place, you never walk out. You’re charmed into staying for the rest of your natural life.”

  Thankfully, Stella’s mother was already gone for the day; Stella had wisely been watching the clock to make sure they didn’t arrive until after 4:30. Her mother needn’t know her every move, her every friend, her every desire. She needn’t know anything at all.

  When they went into the kitchen, only Liza was there to greet them. Liza was wearing a white cook’s jacket over her blue jeans and sweatshirt; her hair was tied back and she wore a kerchief. “Too bad! You just missed your mom.”

  Stella and Juliet looked at each other and tried not to giggle.

  “Rats.” Juliet had the ability to sound sincere in the most frivolous of times. “And I was so looking forward to seeing her.”

  “Instead you’ve got me.” Liza smiled and had them sit down for a snack. “You can be my test cases. New recipe. Actually, old recipe. One of Elisabeth Sparrow’s.”

  “My great-great-gran,” Stella explained.

  It was curds-and-cream with raspberry sauce, which the girls deemed delicious, although they suggested the name be changed if Elisabeth’s dish was added to the menu. No one liked the notion of curds these days. Pudding, perhaps, or, better yet, mousse.

  “Have you heard about your father?” Liza asked. “He’s moving in with Matt.” Liza slipped off her kerchief and ran her fingers through her hair, which once had been auburn but had faded to a dull brown. “He’s probably already there. Moved in to his old room.”

  “Yippee,” Stella said. “I’m so glad he’s staying. He’s wonderful,” she told Juliet. “I want you to meet him.”

  “Then let’s go over there tonight. We can get ourselves invited for dinner. I never got the chance to meet him in Boston. He was never around.”

  They began to plan their evening, forgetting that Liza was there until Juliet elbowed Stella. Look, she mouthed. Lovestruck.

  “Why don’t you come with us?” Stella asked Liza. “You could show us the way. I’ve never even been to my uncle’s house.”

  “Oh, no.” Liza grew flushed. She wiped at her eyes as though she’d had a bit of curd in the corners that caused her to tear up. “I couldn’t.”

  “But you know what we should do first?” Juliet Aronson knew a fair share about being vulnerable. She knew that people’s emotions showed in their faces even when they didn’t think they were giving anything away. “We should dye your hair,” she told Liza. “I’ll bet you used to be a redhead.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Liza demurred.

  Juliet reached into her overnight case. Along with the black clothing dye, she had brought along several boxes of Egyptian henna. You never could tell when someone might need a makeover, as Liza Hull certainly did. Why, she had pastry flour streaked through her hair. She probably hadn’t worn lipstick for years. Anything they did to her would be an improvement.

  “Oh, please, Liza,” Stella begged. “And if you don’t like it, it can always be undone.”

  Actually, it would take a good three months of shampooing to get the color out, but Juliet nodded in agreement. “It’s perfect timing. It will just be us and Stella’s uncle and father. And who cares what they think?”

  It was a simple trap, but one that Liza fell right into: Juliet grinned when she saw that Liza’s complexion grew even more florid. Yes, indeed, there was definitely something there. When they’d finally talked Liza into trying the henna, and had left to race up the narrow twisted stairway for some shampoo and towels, Juliet Aronson was chortling. She loved it when she was right.

  “Ten to one Liza is in love with your uncle,” she crooned. “Ah, love. No one is immune.”

  Stella stopped on the narrowest section of stair and allowed Juliet to go first. Standing there in the dim stairway, she understood why Liza would allow them to pour henna all over her hair and change her utterly. It was true and lasting and unrequited love that was at the bottom of all this, the sort of ardor for which some people said there was no remedy, but which others believed could be turned around in an instant, so that someone like Stella might find herself looking out her window before she went to bed each night, furious when she spied Jimmy Elliot sitting out there beyond the plane trees, but even more disappointed on those occasions when he failed to appear.

  III.

  AT THIS RAINY, green time of the year, the snapping turtles had already laid clutches of eggs in every muddy hollow in the driveway and the lawn. Jenny had even found some beside the kitchen door, which she’d covered with handfuls of grass in the hopes that the opossums and raccoons wouldn’t have those poor kitchen eggs for dinner. Jenny had already found such sorrowful leftovers on Rebecca Sparrow’s dirt path; some animal had gotten to a clutch of eggs and left only the rubbery cases, split in two, emptied and shimmering like pearls. Poor mother turtle. Jenny had wondered if she would know what she’d lost when she returned. Would she tend to the ruined eggs, hopeful still, or would she have already moved on, back to the depths of the lake, back to the water lilies and the duck grass and the reeds?

  Every night, Jenny went to the bedroom where Stella had been sleeping before she moved over to Liza’s apartment. She hadn’t changed the sheets because Stella’s impression had been caught in the creases of the pillowcase, and her scent was there as well, a mixture of resentment and water lilies. Some people swore that when you let a daughter go, she was sure to come back, like the sparrows which perched on the window ledge, begging for crumbs, for crusts, for kindness. But Stella wouldn’t even come to the phone when Jenny called over to the tea house. She was busy, Liza was quick to explain, but Jenny had heard Stella’s muffled voice in the background. Just tell her I’m not here.

  She had wanted the opposite of what she’d had with her own mother, but somehow it had turned out the same. The same words unspoken, the pain held on to, all tenderness invisible, like ink that has drifted off a page to leave only a blank white sheet. Just last night, Jenny had gone for a walk. It was loneliness that got her walking, and perhaps it was loneliness that drew her to the Avery house, although the path might have come naturally to her, for she’d taken this route so very often as a girl. Past Lockhart Avenue, past the old oak, the most rotten section of which was now held down by wire, like a captured giant that might take to roaming the streets if it were ever freed.

  As a girl, Jenny had always felt expectation rising within her as she walked to the Averys’; now she felt it again. She crossed the common, passing the black angel that was Matt Avery’s favorite. Thinking about him, even for a momen
t, made it difficult to breathe. It was so silly that she tried a child’s trick to ward off whatever was happening to her and began to count to one hundred. She tried not to think about Matt. For reasons she didn’t understand, she imagined a pin, silver, shining. She imagined she was falling right through the dark, her way lit by a candle, when in fact all she was doing was treading across the town green. There was a faint breeze and the scent of the plane trees rose into the air, spicy and damp.

  In town, the shops were closed except for the Pizza Palace, whose blinking neon light cast pools of blue and yellow onto the sidewalk. In Jenny’s day there had been an ice cream parlor in its place, Grandpa’s, run by the Harmon family. There had been cardboard tubs of vanilla bean and butter pecan, and Jenny had worked there for three summers, good practice, it turned out, for the manager’s job at Bailey’s when she moved to Cambridge. Before she could stop herself, she thought about Matt sitting at the counter of Baileys, watching her work, ordering sundae after sundae when he’d preferred bread and butter all along. She thought about the look on his face when he’d walked through the door of the tea house on that rainy day when the rain fell in sheets, the stone rain that filled all the gutters and the streets.

  She hadn’t been back to the Averys’ for more than twenty years; it looked smaller than she’d remembered. But there was the old slate path, the white fence, the perennial boarder in which Catherine had taken such pride, a collection which Elinor Sparrow had always dismissed as the typical hodgepodge of the unsophisticated gardener, a jumble of phlox and daisies and snapdragons. Jenny stopped beside a holly tree Catherine had planted to ensure there would be green in her garden all year long. She could see inside the window; there was the exact same furniture, the love seat where she and Will had kissed until they were burning up, until they had no choice but to go further, which they finally did one summer evening when Catherine was out at her bridge club. There was the table under which they’d made love one night when there was a terrible thunderstorm. Catherine and Matt had been home, asleep in their beds, and Jenny was so terrified she and Will would be caught that she’d broken out in hives.