Ask for Me Tomorrow

Aragon looked. The early-morning wind from the desert had thrown a film of dust across the water and littered it with pine needles and the petals of roses and jacarandas and cypress twigs and eucalyptus pods, all the leaves and loves and leavings of plants.

“We have two daily gardeners, a cleaning woman, a day maid, a pool boy who comes twice a week and a handyman living over the garage. So what happens? The handyman has arthritis, the gardeners say it’s not their job, the day maid and cleaning woman can’t be trusted with anything more complicated than a broom, and the pool boy has a term paper in biology due this week. Guess who’s left? Reed. Good old Reed. That’s me.”

“Hello, good old Reed.”

“Who are you?”

“Tom Aragon. I have an appointment with Mrs. Decker.”

“Aragon. There was a fighter named Aragon once. Remember him?”

“No.”

“Too young, eh? Actually, so am I. My mother told me about him. She was a fight fan. I’ll never forget her actually, really — can you beat it? — putting on the gloves with me when I was six or seven years old. She was one weird old lady.”

He thrust the vacuum across the mermaid’s face again, then suddenly dropped it in the pool and continued his monologue. “It’s only the middle of October. How could the kid have a term paper due the second week of school? And the handyman with his arthritis — hell, I’m a registered nurse, I know an arthritis case when I see it. There are over eighty different kinds and he hasn’t got any of them. What he’s got is a hangover, same as he had yesterday and the day before and last month and last year. If this place were managed, he’d be kicked out. What’s behind the whole thing is this — I’m the one who uses the pool most, so if I want it clean I better bloody well clean it myself.”

He was beginning to sound like a querulous old man. Aragon guessed that he was no more than thirty-five. He also guessed that Reed’s bad mood hadn’t much connection with merely cleaning the pool. Reed confirmed this indirectly: “Gilly told me to stick around till you got here. I had to give up my five o’clock cooking class. I was going to do beef Wellington with spinach soufflé orientale. The food around here is vile. If you’re invited for dinner, split fast. Gilly hired this crazy cook who keeps getting hyped on various diets. We haven’t been served any decent red meat for a week... I don’t know what Gilly expects me to do, size you up, maybe. She can be so obscure.”

“Well, size me up.”

Reed stared. He had green murky eyes like dirty little ponds. “You look okay.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course, it’s hard to tell nowadays. I had my wallet lifted last Thursday by two of the most innocent-faced chicks you ever saw... Go right across the patio to the glass door and shake the wind chimes good and hard. She’s in Marco’s room. If I hurry, maybe I can catch at least the soufflé part of my class.”

“Good luck.”

“A soufflé is more a matter of correct temperature and timing than luck. Do you cook?”

“Peanut butter sandwiches.”

“You might enjoy the food around here,” Reed said and disappeared around the side of the house.

It wasn’t necessary for Aragon to shake the wind chimes. Gilly was waiting for him inside the door of what seemed to be a family recreation room. Its focus was a round barbecue pit level with the floor and made of used brick. The steel grill in the pit was spotless, and underneath it there were no ashes from yesterday’s fire and no charcoal for tomorrow’s. Only a few stains indicated the pit had been used. Above it was a huge copper hood which reflected everything in the room distorted in various degrees, much like the convex mirrors utilized in stores to spot shoplifters.

Aragon saw himself in the copper hood, a bit taller and thinner and a great deal more mysterious than he looked in the mirror of the men’s room at the office. The lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses seemed almost opaque, as though they’d been designed to disguise his appearance rather than to improve his vision. He might have been a college professor who did a little spying on the side, or a spy who taught a few classes as a cover.

Gilly, too, looked different. Instead of the beige suit she’d worn earlier she had on a pink cotton dress a couple of sizes too large and espadrilles with frayed rope soles. Only the faintest coating of make-up remained on her face. The rest had disappeared, the mascara blinked off, the blushes rubbed off, the lipstick smiled or talked off. Or perhaps it had all simply been washed away in a deluge of tears. She was carrying a large manila envelope with some letters hand-printed across the front in black ink.

“Your name’s Tom, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose you’re curious about why I dragged you all the way out here.”

“It’s not far.”

“Now, that’s a nice evasive response. You should make a fine lawyer.”

“Well, okay. I am curious.”