Ask for Me Tomorrow

“B. J. wrote me a letter five years ago.”

“Do you still have it?”

“It’s in here.”

She opened the envelope and shook out the contents on the table, snapshots, photographs, newspaper clippings, notarized documents, a bunch of letters tied together, a single one by itself.

The largest photograph was that of a bride and groom: Gilly, in a white lace gown and veil, carrying a tiny bouquet of lilies of the valley. Her expression was mischievous and girlish, as if the photographer had caught her between giggles. B. J., in morning coat and striped trousers, seemed to be sharing the joke and trying hard to keep from laughing. He had a small round face, very red, as though the strain of suppressing his laughter had sent the blood rushing to his head and the tight collar had trapped it there. He looked like a kind man who wished other people well and expected nothing but kindness from them in return. Aragon wondered how often he’d been surprised.

Gilly stared at the photograph for a long time. “We were very happy.”

“I can see you were.”

“Naturally he won’t look like that anymore. The picture was taken thirteen years ago when he was forty-one. Maybe we’ve both changed so much we wouldn’t even recognize each other.”

“You haven’t changed much — some loss of weight, hair not so brown, laugh lines a little deeper.”

“Those aren’t laugh lines, Aragon, they’re cry lines. And they’re deeper, all right. They’re etched all the way through to the back of my head... Well, anyway, I wanted to show you a picture of him as he was in his prime. I thought he was simply beautiful. I see now, of course, that he wasn’t. In the cold light of an eight-year separation he may even look a little silly, don’t you think?”

“No.”

“No, neither do I, really.” The pitch of her voice altered like an instrument suddenly gone flat. “I was crazy about him. I’m not the kind of woman who attracts men without any effort. I’m not pretty enough or tactful enough or whatever enough. I had to fight like hell to land B. J. He was married when I met him. So was Marco. I often wonder if it isn’t some kind of retribution that I should lose them both.”

“I don’t believe in retribution.”

“You haven’t met Violet Smith.” She put the wedding portrait back in the manila envelope, her hands trembling slightly. “You’ll need some pictures of him with you when you go.”

“Exactly where and when am I going?”

“When is as soon as you can get ready and we can agree on terms. Where I’m not sure... There are several good snapshots of B. J. Here’s the last one. I took it myself. And I know it’s the last because by the time the negative was developed and returned to me, B. J. was gone.”

The snapshot showed B. J. behind the wheel of an elaborate new motor home. The fancy gold script across the door identified it as Dreamboat.

B. J. needed no identification. He hadn’t changed much in the five years since the wedding portrait was taken. His face was still plump and ruddy, and he wore a placid smile as if nothing whatever was bothering him, least of all the fact that he was about to run away with a pregnant fifteen-year-old girl. Obviously B. J. was expecting pleasant things ahead. He may have been imagining himself in the new role of father, helping his son learn to walk, taking him to parks and zoos, teaching him to play ball, swim, sail a boat, telling him about the birds and the bees and how a little sister would be arriving, or a little brother... They didn’t live happily ever after with half a dozen kids. They only had one, a boy. He was born crippled.

Aragon said, “Do you have a picture of the girl, Tula Lopez?”

“Why should I? She was a servant, not a member of the family. In fact, she was only employed here for about six months. She proved incompetent and lazy. But she must have been a fast worker in her off hours. By the time I decided to fire her, the decision had been made for me.”

“How did you hire her in the first place?”

“Stupidly. There was a sob story in the local newspaper about some illegal aliens who were going to be sent back to Mexico if they weren’t sponsored and given jobs. B. J. and I offered to help. He had a soft heart and I had a soft head, or maybe it was vice versa. Anyhow, for a couple of softies we did some pretty hard damage.” She added cryptically, “The whole thing was like a war — nobody won.”

Aragon set aside the pictures he wanted to take with him: the one of B. J. in Dreamboat, another of him sitting on the edge of the pool with his feet dangling in the water, a couple of full-face Polaroid shots and a copy of his passport photo. In all of them, even the passport, he looked pretty much the same, rather homely in a pleasant way, the kind of man who posed no threat to anyone and offered no challenge. Only a woman Gilly’s age could have considered him beautiful; a fifteen-year-old would see him more clearly.