Is This Tomorrow

by Caroline Leavitt

  Lewis sat looking at her now in her bed. He had learned that sometimes sleep was like a kind of hypnosis, that sometimes even comatose patients would know there was a presence beside them. “I’m here,” he told her and took her hand. St. Merciful was a good hospital. He knew that. But he knew, too, that good doctors and good medicine weren’t always enough. He had seen it himself in the hospital. It was something all the nurses knew. Patients with family, with people who loved and needed them, just got better faster.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ava, bundled in her winter coat, came home thinking about the new year—imagine, 1966!—and Lewis again. He came to see her every six months, and a month ago, she had taken the train and visited him, letting him show her around Madison. She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him, her big, tall son. He was a man now, twenty-two, and orbiting away from her even more. Their visits never seemed long enough, and when she went to hug him good-bye, she could feel his body pulling away, which made her want to tug him closer.

  Most of the other boys in the neighborhood Lewis’s age had joined the armed forces, which terrified Ava, but at least more and more people were protesting Vietnam. Even Ava had gone to Boston Common to march. She had come home exhilarated, with a little flag she had been waving and an END THE WAR button pinned to her lapel. Spotting her, Ted Corcoran, whose son Stanley had just joined the marines, came over to scold. “You’re making a big mistake, Ava,” he told her. But she didn’t think so. Lewis was against the war, which made her proud and happy, and she had heard through the grapevine that Bob Gallagher’s son Eddy, now living in Canada, his brush cut now grown down to his shoulders, had actually burned his draft card, something Bob refused to discuss. It could be just wishful thinking on her part, but even Lyndon Johnson’s Texas-twanged speeches seemed a little less gung-ho these days, and he looked increasingly lined and tired. Ava saw a few of Lewis’s former classmates when they were pumping her gas at the local station. Some, when they spotted her, would blush furiously as if embarrassed, while others would preen, as if now that they had a job, everyone had to take them seriously.

  The girls were changing, too. The younger ones looked like beautiful English sheepdogs, with all that long pin-straight hair and bangs that hid their eyes, dressed in short little miniskirts or long flowy dresses. Of course, not everyone was like that. She still saw many a girl with teased-up hair and spit curls, hanging on to a boy with a wiffle cut. Even worse, she saw girls with wedding dresses over their arms, or with bellies swollen like little beach balls.

  The neighborhood, too, was changing. The Hula-Hoops, the trikes on the lawn, the occasional Beatles bubble-gum card, all belonged to a whole new sea of kids Ava only vaguely knew. The Browns, who had bought Dot’s house, had sturdy twin boys now. How had that happened so fast?

  It hadn’t taken long for word about Lewis being gone to spread. After he had left home, Ava got the feeling that everyone in the neighborhood expected her to leave, too. When the Bokma family two blocks away moved because Cindy, the wife, wanted to live in California, Cindy made a point of coming over so she could give Ava the name of her realtor. “Why would I want that?” Ava asked her.

  “You never know,” Cindy said. “And even a small house is a lot for just one person, isn’t it?”

  “Not really,” Ava said.

  “Maybe you’d like to rent something smaller,” Cindy said. “This guy knows all the good places. Or maybe you could move closer to your son.” Ava turned away so Cindy wouldn’t see Ava’s confused pain. “Thank you, but I’m staying here,” Ava said.

  She kept thinking about the day Lewis had left. She had found the white envelope on the kitchen table, and she had known what it was before she opened it. She had read his letter three times, standing in the middle of the living room, but she hadn’t cried. She always had known he’d leave eventually. You didn’t raise your kids to keep them. You wanted them to be independent and strong and the last thing she wanted was to have a relationship like the one Charmaine had with her mother, the two of them more like equals than mother and daughter. She had expected that when Lewis left she’d feel lonely, but she had also thought that maybe she’d feel good, too. She’d know that she had raised him right, that she was sending him off happy. Maybe, too, she had thought that as an adult he’d still be in her life.

  She had taken his letter and gone to his room. He must have slunk out early in the morning, before she had even thought to struggle out of bed. Had he planned this or was it spur of the moment? She had looked around as if she might find clues, trailing her hands along his desk, his dresser. She felt relieved that almost nothing there was gone, that there was so much he had left behind. His bed was made. She opened his closet, his drawers, and some of his clothes were still there. His books.

  She sat on his bed. He had the right to do this. He was eighteen. You couldn’t stop anyone who really wanted to leave, and he was so angry at her. His rage was like a hot little heart and all she could do was listen to it beat.

  AVA BEGAN STAYING later and later at the office, marking off the days on her calendar. She didn’t really have that much work to do. Now that Richard had bought them all brand-new Selectrics with a little typeball and roller, work was faster and easier, but that meant she had even more time when she had to pretend to be busy. She barely looked up when the other women left, their arms linked, hats bobbing on their heads as they gossiped. When Richard strode out, he nodded at her, that tight, pleased grin on his face because he thought she was still working, and she waved and kept typing the same words over and over again, killing time: Ava. Ava Lark.

  She liked the way the office felt when it was empty. None of the men were asking her to make coffee or copies when they were steps away from both the coffee machine and the copier. She wasn’t summoned over to deliver papers to yet another associate in another office, whose gaze would linger on her body as he made some lame joke that she was expected to laugh at. Hey Ava, you could be a train conductor because you’re sure stopping me in my tracks! The phones were silent so she didn’t have to deal with customers wanting to talk to Richard because they were angry that the pink Satin Glide vanity case looked wrong in their bathroom, that the antique-looking faucets on their new sink didn’t really look all that antique. If, every day, she could have done her job without anyone else around her, she would have been done by noon.

  She wandered the empty rooms, passing the other women’s desks, looking at their decorations. Charmaine had a sad little picture of her and her mother, two grown women both dressed up like witches for Halloween and a WAR IS NOT HEALTHY FOR CHILDREN AND OTHER LIVING THINGS button, which Betty, who supported the war, kept pointedly taking down. “Vietnam falls and it’s dominoes, all the way to us,” Betty insisted, flipping her hands. “You want to live under Communism? I don’t.” Only Cathy was gone, two months now. Tired of pining after Richard, she had grown out and straightened her hair with Curl Free, coming into the office flashing fishnet tights and miniskirts, and in six months, she had snagged a husband from accounting. When Cathy left, triumphant, Richard threw her a party and immediately replaced her with an older woman in her fifties, a widow who wasn’t likely to marry again and leave the company.

  Ava walked into Richard’s office. It was decorated with all sorts of knickknacks that he thought were funny. A fake brass statue of a grinning man in a suit holding a trophy that said WORLD’S BEST BOSS. Two windup toys, a walking tub and a clacking toilet. He had his diploma from the University of Massachusetts framed so it was the first thing you saw, and there was a photo of his wife perched on his desk. She was a little blonde with a toothy smile and big round sunglasses and her arm was thrown carelessly around his shoulders. The two of them were beaming over their little girl, who thankfully didn’t have their mother’s grin.

  The typing pool had straight-back wood chairs that they sometimes padded with a cushion to support their backs. You had to get up to stretch every few hours or you’d really regret it. But Rich
ard’s chair was deep brown leather and so plush it looked as if you could sink down into it and never want to get up. Ava sat, half shutting her eyes. The leather cushioned her whole body and there was an extra ridge of support right where she needed it at her back. The chair was tall enough so she could rest her head and neck, too. So this is what it felt like to be king of the castle. If she had a chair like this, she could type for hours and never feel the aches. For a moment she saw what he saw, the grand sweep of his office, the line of desks in the other room, the elevator at the end of the room so he could note who had arrived and who had snuck out early. He had a fine view of the typing pool, with Ava’s desk right in front, framed by his doorway.

  She had felt his stares before, but only for a moment, because she had ten invoices to get out before noon, because she had calls she had to field, and because she didn’t like looking at him. Now, though, sitting in his chair, she felt how exposed she was. Anytime he wanted to take a gander at her, he could. Her desk was open in front so he could watch her legs. If she bent over, he could look right down her blouse.

  She flushed, anger rising up her throat. Tomorrow she’d start wearing scarves tucked around her neck. She’d make sure her legs were covered in dark nylons. If she caught him staring, she’d stare right back.

  She leaned back in his chair, resting her head. God, but this chair was comfortable. She could fall asleep right here, right now. She had no idea what he did all day, no real clues what his family life might really be like. Look how happy he was in this photo, but didn’t she know how photographs could lie? For all she knew, his wife could be a harridan, his daughter a tantrum machine. “I have everything,” she had heard Richard say to one of the other salesmen, but did he? You could look at the last picture she had taken with Brian, at the beach, the two of them posed awkwardly in the sand, her hair in a white puckered bathing cap, the strap fastened under her chin. Everyone had thought they were a golden couple and maybe Ava had thought that, too.

  Suddenly, a woman from the cleaning staff appeared in the doorway. She was middle-aged, with a frowsy mop of fake black hair, dressed in a blue uniform and a kerchief, a white name tag perched on her chest. Jane. The other women in the office always complained about Jane. She broke knickknacks and then just put the pieces in the trash. She ate any remaining candy on a desk. The other typists looked down their noses at her, and once Charmaine had even put a big sign on her typewriter that said: CLEANING PERSON, DO NOT TOUCH THIS AREA!

  Ava knew what a thin line there was between one job and another and Ava never complained, not even when her ashtrays weren’t emptied and she had to clean them herself. She knew it was just her speedy typing that kept her from a job like Jane’s.

  Jane cleared her throat, regarding Ava.

  “Jane,” Ava said, because unlike her boss, she believed you should be kind to everyone, you should recognize them, no matter their job. “Don’t worry,” Jane said. “I do it, too. Sometimes I even catnap in that chair.” She winked at Ava. “Sleep,” she said. “I can work around you. And I won’t tell. I’ll wake you up before I go, if you like.”

  Ava grinned at Jane. She didn’t stay in the chair very long after that. Instead, she got up and went to the break room and made herself and Jane some coffee, pouring it into Richard’s fancy cup and then her own. She brought both cups over to Jane, who was polishing the desk of an account executive. Jane blinked when Ava handed one cup to her. “Go ahead,” Ava said.

  “Why, aren’t you nice,” Jane said, taking Richard’s cup. Jane breathed in the coffee, sighing. “This will get me through the next floor,” Jane said. “You should see what pigs the accountants are. Condoms in their wastebaskets. Once vomit on a desk. I think they do it deliberately.”

  “I know what we need,” Ava said. “Come on with me.” She walked Jane back to Richard’s office, to the row of liquor bottles, the special gold-rimmed glasses he kept on the ledge. She had seen him pouring alcohol for clients, the toilet-and-tub guys who sauntered into his office in their fancy suits, wanting him to buy the novelty items, the toilets made out of fake gold. Richard’s voice would grow more boisterous, the other men would guffaw, and then Richard would carefully close his door. She tried to find the bottle that was the most expensive, scanning the labels. There it was, Chivas Regal Royal Salute. Brian had ordered it for their honeymoon and when she had made a face at the taste, how strong it was, he had laughed. “You’re drinking money,” he had told her.

  She picked up the bottle. “Scotch okay?” she said.

  Jane hesitated.

  “Come on, let’s drink some money,” Ava said. She liked the way that sounded.

  “We won’t get in trouble?”

  “I take full responsibility,” Ava said. “If we get caught or anyone notices, you can blame it all on me.” She poured a little of the scotch, warm and golden into their coffee mugs. “Really, it’s fine,” she said. “He doesn’t notice anything but himself.” She lifted her cup, waiting for Jane to do the same. “To us,” she said, clinking cups with Jane, and she drank it down, and she didn’t know if she felt giddy from the alcohol or from the fact that they had dared to drink it.

  When they were finished, Ava took the cups and washed them and put them back. She hoped that Richard wasn’t the type to notice the level of his scotch.

  Ava hung around until Jane headed to the next floor. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jane said, and Ava waved and thought what that would be like, staying here every night just so she could have the cleaning woman for company. It made her think of all those days with Jimmy, when she was so lost and lonely that she was grateful to see him showing up at her door, a little boy who made her feel better. How she had depended on his company!

  She got up and put on her coat and then walked down the five flights instead of taking the elevator because it spooked her being the only person in it late at night. She had heard that last year the elevator had gotten stuck, and one of the cleaning staff had been cooped up by herself for six hours before someone came to rescue her.

  When she got home, the neighborhood streets were dark, but the houses were lit up from within. There were all these signs of life still and though it should have made her feel better, instead, she felt her skin tensing, like it was stretched too tightly over her bones. A small headache was already forming, as the fizzy lift of the drink plummeted. She went into her house and flicked on the living room lights. She turned on the radio, and there was that song, “Strangers in the Night.” Sinatra’s voice grated against her so much, she felt like hitting him. When was the last time someone brought her roses? And his tone was so sweet. That godawful word sweet. Wasn’t that just another word men used to turn women into children? They might as well call you docile. Like sheep. She thought of how Jake used to call her kitty, which she didn’t mind, and then, out of the blue, it was jungle cat, and when she raised her eyebrows at him, he said, “You’re no house kitty. You’re a wild thing. You don’t like it?”

  “I love it,” she said. And she had. The whole image of herself as a sleek, powerful jungle creature, of something undomesticated, made her want to kiss the spot where his neck joined his shoulder. Jungle Cat.

  Suddenly sleepy, she turned off the lights and headed for her room. Lewis used to believe in ghosts when he was a little boy. He’d insist on sleeping with the lights on, and sometimes he would grow so frightened, he’d ask for Ava to sit in the rocker and wait until he was sleep. Lewis would pull the covers up to his chin. She would see him trembling. “Be a man,” Brian would urge him.

  “He’s not a man, he’s a little boy,” Ava said, one night.

  Brian shined a light under the bed. He poked in Lewis’s closet, pushing the clothes aside. “No zombies. No devils. No nothing,” Brian said.

  “Zombies?” Lewis quavered and Brian sighed again. “Don’t you start,” he said.

  “Leave the door open as wide as it goes,” Lewis pleaded.

  “Fine, but don’t complain if you hear the TV,
” Brian said.

  Ava bent and kissed her boy goodnight, breathing him in. “I’m right here,” she whispered. When Ava checked on Lewis later, she saw him sleeping with the blanket all around him like a shroud, with only his tiny nose poking out. God, but it broke her heart. She carefully bent over and loosened up the folds so he’d get more air.

  Now she went into his room. She opened a drawer and there was an old rugby shirt of his. She pulled it out and held it against her face, breathing in his scent, and when she started to cry, she told herself she was being stupid. She had lied when she had told him there were no ghosts. There most certainly were, and they were right here in this room, haunting her.

  IN THE MORNING, the phone rang and she ran to the kitchen to get it and as soon as she said hello, she somehow knew it was Lewis. She was still his mother, no matter what had happened between them. His voice sounded tinny, like the scratch of metal on a can. Her knees buckled and she reached for the kitchen stool, sloping her body down onto it. “Lewis,” she said because she didn’t know what else to say, and because she didn’t want to say anything that would make him hang up. He told her about his job, a little about his life. He wished her a Happy New Year.

  She wanted to ask if he had a girlfriend, if he had friends or if he was lonely, but instead, she pressed the phone against her temple. It was like talking to a stranger sometimes.

  “I’m tired from work,” he said. He told her how he had sat with a cancer patient all night, holding her hand, listening to stories about her grandkids until she felt better. He was glad it was Saturday and as soon as he got off the phone, he said he was going to sleep all day. “I read medical books at night,” he told her.

  “You were always smart,” she said. She could hear something humming through the wires.