The Probable Future

by Alice Hoffman

  Stella was soon lost in the rooms of Cake House, a place she’d never been allowed to visit. She tried her best to forget what an awful birthday this had been. Yesterday, when she’d spoken to her grandmother, Elinor Sparrow had advised her to expect the unexpected. Maybe this was what her grandmother had meant. The fizzing in her brain, the visions, the fish bone, the black dress that was far too grown-up, the way she’d fallen onto the floor of the classroom, wobbly and disoriented in the face of the death.

  At least her mother was still at work. Stella had a shred of privacy. She went to her room, where she hid the black dress under her bed, then threw on an old pair of jeans and a favorite white blouse. So often, Stella’s birthday began with sunshine only to end with snow flurries, or it started with high winds only to shift into fresh, mild air. You never could tell when it came to the equinox. The weather was already changing. When Stella opened the window, there was a damp scent in the air, one reminiscent of lake water, dark and muddy and sweet. Stella thought about hooks and bones, she thought about tumors that resembled garden peas, about birthdays and blood. She considered it all, and then she went back to the hall to phone her father at the music school.

  “Daddy,” she said, relieved as soon as she heard his voice. Love was like that, it could give you comfort and solace when it was most needed. It could give you hope when you thought there was none. “Come and get me now.”

  III.

  WILL AVERY was forty minutes late, which, for him, was almost like being on time. When he turned onto Marlborough Street and saw his daughter waiting for him, perched on the concrete steps, he felt a rush of joy. Stella still expected something from him, despite the disappointment he’d been to everyone else. Stella, at least, believed in him, and because of this he tried his best to come through for her—when he could, of course, which wasn’t as often as he liked. Better than anyone, Will knew he was careless and self-centered, traits that were as much a part of him as his good looks.

  He’d never given these failings much thought, not any more than he’d questioned his blood type or his bone structure, but lately something inside him had begun to shift. In recent months he’d found himself overwhelmed by some emotion he couldn’t place. He got teary for no reason. He felt the black, uneven edge of regret whenever he was alone, which, frankly, was most of the time. If he wasn’t careful, he’d soon become one of those poor souls who start to cry after two strong drinks, willing to confide in any stranger who happened to be close by, bemoaning the mess he’d made of his life.

  “Hey, baby,” he called when Stella came running to meet him.

  Stella’s hair was pulled back; she wore an old navy coat over a white shirt and jeans. Not exactly festive. Indeed, her face was drawn with worry and exhaustion.

  “Are you all right? Let me get a good look at you.” Will stared at his daughter. He knew how to cheer a woman up. It was the one thing he was good at, other than music. “Gorgeous as usual.”

  “Oh, yeah, right.” All the same, Stella smiled, pleased in spite of herself.

  “Where’s your mother? Wasn’t the plan for us all to go out for a birthday dinner?”

  Stella grabbed her father’s hand. “Actually, I want to go before Mom gets home. I want to celebrate my birthday with you. She wouldn’t understand.”

  “Ah. Ditching Mom.” Will was certainly agreeable to a maneuver such as this. It was a course of action he understood quite well. Every time he’d strayed, every time he’d had too much to drink or disappointed Jenny in some way, he’d done the exact same thing. And when it came right down to it, didn’t Jenny Sparrow Avery deserve to be disappointed? She was always so damned hurt. She simply refused to learn from experience. Was it Will’s fault that Jenny was naive? Was it his responsibility? Maybe he had done her a favor: waking her out of her dream world, letting her know there was a real universe that was filled with liars and cheaters—people like him who had just as much a right to walk this earth as she did.

  Will and Stella hightailed it over to Beacon Street before Jenny was the wiser, laughing as they raced several blocks to their favorite restaurant, the Hornets’ Nest, famed for its strong drinks and its heavenly Boston cream pie. It was a happy occasion, just cause for celebration, and for once Will had remembered to get a present— reminded, of course, by a message from Jenny on his phone machine. He’d chosen a bracelet with a gold bell that Stella seemed to love. But before long, Will felt a wash of unease. Stella was chattering, which was very unlike her, and her cheerful manner seemed forced. She had always resembled him physically, with the same fine features and golden coloring. Now Will fervently hoped she hadn’t inherited anything of his character. Why, he’d been a liar since the day he learned to talk. Dishonesty had come to him as easily as music had; he had a natural talent, it seemed. A good thing, for he’d never worked at anything. He’d never even considered such a possibility. He’d simply opened his hands and fortune had found him, or at least that had been the case until now.

  In all this time, there had been only one person who had managed to see through him. Not Jenny. It had taken her thirty years to realize he couldn’t be trusted. No, it was Jenny’s mother who immediately knew him for what he was. Elinor Sparrow could tell that he was a liar when she first spied him in the parlor of her house. Will had been reckless in those days, he hadn’t been spooked by the dusty rooms in Cake House, but of course he hadn’t expected Elinor Sparrow to swoop down on them as they evaluated the belongings of Rebecca Sparrow, kept under lock and key.

  Don’t move, Jenny had whispered that day when she heard her mother in the hallway. But of course he didn’t comply. Will being Will, he found it impossible to obey. As soon as Jenny ran out to the hall to try and divert her mother, Will reached for the key hanging from a hook on the wall. Without thinking twice, he opened the glass case for a closer look. Unfortunately, Elinor Sparrow could not be diverted. Not when she heard the creak of the memento case as it was unlocked and opened. Standing in the hall, she had picked up a sweet, cloying odor, the unmistakable scent of a liar and a thief. And there he was: a foolish boy in her parlor, studying the family archives as though he were a rightful guest, searching through that old and bloody case of pain.

  Elinor Sparrow was a strong woman and quite large, more than six feet tall; when she grabbed Will by the shoulder he could feel her fingernails pinching his flesh.

  What have you taken? She shook him as though she could shake the truth right out of him. She treated him as though he were a mole in the garden, a rat in the cellar, nothing more than a household pest caught in a trap. What did you steal?

  Nothing. It was the hot response of a liar, syrupy and much too easily spoken. You’ve got it all wrong. I’m just visiting.

  Elinor had jeered at that notion. She had taken note of the way he licked his lips, how his eyes darted to the left; she was unmoved by the satiny tone of his voice. He was marked by the distinctive scent of his lies, a leathery, acrid smell. Elinor would have been able to find him even if he’d been hiding in a bale of straw. That’s how this boy stank, like old shoes, like dashed hopes, like someone who might steal a person’s daughter if she wasn’t careful.

  Elinor shook Will harder; she could have easily snapped one of the bones in his shoulder if Matt Avery hadn’t heard the ruckus and come running. Matt threw open the French doors, shattering several panes of glass, wielding a shovel he’d found beside the porch. Matt was exceedingly shy and rarely opened his mouth until he’d been spoken to, but now he faced off with Elinor Sparrow, shovel in hand, expression set.

  Let him go. Do it now!

  Elinor laughed at the sheer nerve of this trespasser. He was all of eleven. Twelve at the most.

  What are you planning to do about it? she said scornfully. When Matt paused to think over his answer, Elinor laughed again. I’ll tell you what you’ll do. Nothing.

  Matt would never have used the shovel as anything more than a shield, but when Elinor laughed at him, when she began to shake Wil
l once more, Matt leaped forward, accepting the challenge. Not knowing any other way to free his brother, he stomped on Elinor Sparrow’s foot. She howled and let go of Will.

  I want what he stole, Elinor cried.

  But Matt had grabbed Will by the shirtsleeve and waved the shovel in the air to keep Elinor at bay. My brother wouldn’t take anything. He wouldn’t want anything that belonged to you.

  Although a bruise was surfacing on the mount of Elinor’s foot Matt’s certainty had caused her to lose her edge. For a moment at least, she seemed to forget she was the wronged party. The brothers hadn’t waited for Elinor to regain her wits. They ran off through the French doors so fast they thought their lungs would explode. They fled past the forsythia and the laurel, not stopping until they reached the end of the driveway. By then they could barely breathe. Matt for one was shaking. But Will threw himself down on the grass, laughing so hard, he nearly choked.

  What’s so funny?

  Matt had forgotten to drop the shovel when they took off running and was still holding on to it, his grip so tight blisters were already rising. Matt Avery couldn’t quite believe he’d actually confronted Elinor Sparrow. He hoped when he went to bed that night he wouldn’t find an onion stabbed through with pins beneath his pillow. He knew, after all, there were those in town who insisted such would surely be the fate of anyone who crossed Elinor: the gift of a small token that was said to be accompanied by seven years’ bad luck.

  Matt threw down the shovel and sat beside his brother, who was still chuckling, amused and terribly pleased with himself.

  Come on. Matt was always the last to know anything. Tell me. What’s so funny?

  Will had opened his hand in front of his brother’s face. There in his sweaty palm was one of Rebecca Sparrow’s arrowheads. There was the line marked by blood.

  Matt had stood up, furious. You bastard. Will couldn’t remember having ever heard his brother curse before. You made a liar out of me.

  Matt took off, cutting through a weedy patch of lawn gone to seed, deaf to Will’s pleas for him to grow up and stop being such a nitwit. What was wrong with telling a lie if it served your purpose? Will was ready to share the arrowhead, if that was what Matt wanted. He was amenable if Matt wanted to claim to have been beside him when he stole the damned thing, if Matt wanted to share in the glory. But Matt never turned around. He collected his sleeping bag and lantern from the far side of the lake, and he was long gone by the time Jenny came to look for Will.

  She was barefoot when she came down from the house, flushed from the fight she’d just had with her mother. Their arguments were stark, brittle things, with the insults hurled falling like bombs. As soon as Will heard Jenny approach, he slipped the arrowhead into his pocket. She might as well go on thinking the best of him. When she sat down beside him, on that green March day, her skin overheated, her hair still tangled, Will saw that she was beautiful in a way he hadn’t noticed before.

  If my mother hurt you, she’ll be sorry, Jenny told him.

  She couldn’t hurt me if she tried, Will had scoffed, his shoulder aching. All the same, Jenny’s concern had moved him; he wanted more of it. She was interesting in a way the other girls in town who chased after him simply were not.

  Did you dream about an angel with dark hair last night? And there was a bee and a woman who wasn’t afraid of anything. Not even the deepest water.

  Will felt mesmerized. He heard the chorus of the wood thrush, the peepers in the mud. Jenny’s looks were exotic for Unity, the long black hair that floated down her back like lake water, the dark, bottomless eyes. Even Will Avery wasn’t immune to spring fever. He could feel it creeping up on him, clouding his reason. Everything looked iridescent and new in the glittery sunlight.

  That was my dream, he said.

  I knew it. Jenny was delighted. I knew it was you.

  Jenny flicked back her black hair. She smelled like verbena and sleep. Will understood that she trusted him, she believed in him, and the very idea infatuated him. Sitting there beside her, Will temporarily forgot who he was and what he was capable of.

  And now, all these years later, he had begun to wonder if it wasn’t the angel Jenny spoke of that he sometimes saw in the dark, waiting on street corners, standing over his bed. It was a hallucination, surely, but one that seemed to follow him around these days. This vision was apparent to him in the bar of the Hornets’ Nest most every night. It was the reason he was drinking too much on the occasion of Stella’s birthday, already on his second Johnnie Walker by the time the salads arrived.

  This was one of those nights when he was sure to wind up teary-eyed. Time had passed; his little girl a teenager who would surely see him for who he was before long. Stella was busy playing with the bell on her bracelet; she seemed moody, not at all herself, although the fact that she was distracted allowed Will the opportunity to flirt with the waitress, a pretty girl who was clearly too young for him. Probably a graduate student who would expect him to have long conversations about things that mattered to her, her future, for instance, or her opinion. Seduction, Will had found lately, was so much damn work. It was far easier when someone knew you, when you could let down your guard.

  “Does your mother ask about me much?” he inquired of Stella.

  Stella shook her wrist. The little bell on her new bracelet made a cool, metallic sound. “Not much.”

  “No?”

  Her father seemed wounded, so Stella quickly backtracked. “Well, sometimes. But it’s not like we communicate or anything. I can’t talk to her the way I can talk to you.”

  Will smiled, delighted. At least someone still trusted him.

  Stella leaned forward on her elbows. “Actually, I have something I need to talk to you about right now. Something she’d never understand.”

  So that was the reason the girl had been so ill at ease all through dinner. Will hoped this wasn’t to be a confession that involved sex or drugs. He was no one’s moral compass, how could he hope to weigh in with a parental opinion? Stella was looking at him as though she really needed him, and that in itself was a worry. She had the same gold flecks in her eyes he had; the same habit of lowering her voice when she had something serious to discuss.

  “I think I can tell what’s going to happen to some people,” Stella told her father.

  Will laughed out loud. He really couldn’t help it, not when he thought about all the crap he’d been into at her age. The terror he put his poor mother through, the nights he hadn’t come home, all those rules he felt compelled to break, hashish stored in his closet, bags of marijuana in his desk drawer, the fires he’d started when he’d needed a little excitement, the many times he’d misbehaved and poor Matt had covered for him and taken the blame.

  “Sorry,” Will said when he saw the hurt look on Stella’s face. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m just relieved. I thought you were about to tell me something awful.”

  “It is awful.”

  “Baby, listen, I can tell what’s going to happen to people also.” He nodded to a rear table where a couple had been bickering all evening. “See those two? They’ll be divorced by the end of the year. Take it from me. Oh, and another thing, I can predict that your mother will be furious that we went to dinner without her. I can definitely foresee that.”

  “I don’t mean things like that.” Stella leaned closer still. There was the chime of the bell on her bracelet. “I see how they die.”

  “Ah.” Will lit a cigarette and thought this over. Outside, the brown twilight washed over Beacon Street. There were a dozen pigeons on the sidewalk, their feathers pale and gleaming in the fading light.

  “I think you should put out that cigarette,” Stella advised.

  Her tone was suddenly so sure, so adult, Will found he was spooked. He felt something cold drift across his skin. His future, perhaps? His well-deserved fate? He had been coughing a good deal lately and more often than not he awoke with a sore throat.

  “Why? Because it will kill me?”
<
br />   There was a little smile on Stella’s lips. “No. Because we’re in the no-smoking section.”

  Will laughed and stubbed out his cigarette in a half-eaten roll. There was indeed a sign on the wall: NO PIPES, NO CIGARETTES, NO CIGARS. “So I’m not about to die of lung cancer any time soon?”

  “I can’t see it with you. It’s only with some people, and I never know who it will be. I don’t control it.”

  Will finished his drink and called for another. He’d begun to relax. This didn’t sound too awful. Premonitions, fears, that sort of thing; surely, it was bound to pass. She had probably fooled around with a Ouija board or a pack of fortune-telling cards. It was nothing when compared to the troubles some people had with their children: schizophrenia, anorexia, kleptomania. What were a few visions compared with all that? The way Will figured the situation, Stella was passing through some developmental stage, a natural fear of death mixed with anxiety caused by her parents’ breakup. He’d read a book about children reacting to divorce—actually half a book, since the philosophizing bored him silly. But now he wondered if he should have read all the way to the end. He wondered if Jenny hadn’t been right; they probably should have gone into family therapy, but of course Will had refused. It didn’t seem worthwhile to pay for an expensive hour of questions and answers when all he would tell were bold-faced lies.

  “Can you see it with anyone here?” Will had decided to treat Stella’s alleged affliction as though it were a parlor game. Tell me how many aces I have in my hand, how many one-eyed jacks, how much time I have on earth. “What about those two in the corner?”