The Probable Future

by Alice Hoffman

  They all knew Will was the one who was too lazy to throw the bags down the chute to the incinerator, that he picked through other people’s magazines left out in the entranceway, that he sang in the shower, that he slammed doors. Most of the other tenants were also well aware that Will had had an affair with Lauren Baker, previously of 2E, who wept for weeks after he broke up with her and then moved to Providence to start a new life. All of it, the recriminations and the crying that echoed through the air ducts to 3E and 4E, had gone on right under the nose of his wife, who now seemed to be taking him back, though she denied it. Not that anyone believed Jenny. For there Will Avery was once again, thankfully without his piano, which remained in storage, but still making a nuisance of himself all the same, leaving garbage in the hall, stealing people’s morning newspapers, blaring the TV when his wife went off to work, trying his best to flirt with Maureen Weber who lived in 2D, and who’d been warned never to invite Will Avery into her apartment, not unless she wanted trouble on her hands.

  While it was true that Jenny Sparrow made dinner for Will, she was used to cooking for two. She did his laundry, but she was washing her own clothes anyway; it was no bother to throw his shirts and underwear in with hers. Here was the thing Jenny most wished to share with her nosy, disapproving neighbors: their official divorce papers had come through. Briefly, she considered nailing the document to the lobby wall. She imagined standing in the hall to shout out that Will was sleeping on the couch. This was no reunion; no forgiveness was involved, no hot, greedy kisses in the kitchen while she fixed macaroni or beef stew. Jenny had gone so far as to invite the landlady, Mrs. Ehrland, up for tea and lemon pound cake, just to show that the couch in the living room was made up with blankets and sheets. Only a few months earlier, Jenny had accompanied Mrs. Ehrland to Mass General Hospital, and she’d sat in the waiting room all morning while the landlady had her cataracts removed. But Mrs. Ehrland could not be swayed or convinced that Will’s stay was only temporary. When she saw Will’s clothing piled up on a chair, and an overflowing ashtray he’d left on the floor, she clucked her tongue disapprovingly.

  “You are making a huge mistake,” the landlady told Jenny. “Now you’ll never get rid of him.”

  It would have been nice if Will had thought to help out, go food shopping or vacuum, or perhaps be kind enough to pack away the dreadful model of Cake House, still set on the hall table, but Will had other things on his mind. He was in constant contact with Fred Morrison, the detective Henry Elliot had hired, even though Jenny reminded him that his brother was surely being billed for every one of those phone calls to the detective. Jenny had tried to phone Matt several times, to thank him and touch base, since they seemed to be in this mess together, but no one ever seemed to be at home.

  “He’s probably sitting in the library,” Will guessed. “Hard at work on the thesis that will never be finished.”

  “He’s writing a thesis?” Jenny herself had always regretted not going to college, a mistake she thought about every weekday when she was forced to revisit a job she despised. Working in a bank she had realized that money had an odor, a mix of mothballs and sweat, and it had a texture as well, somewhere between silk and flypaper. She’d become quite allergic to the stuff, so that it often left a raised rash on her hands; she tended to tell waitresses and cabdrivers to keep the change, and when she came home from the bank, she washed her hands three times.

  “I thought you knew about Matt’s endless academic studies. History. The state college. He got his bachelor’s degree, which took about ten years. A master’s should take about twenty.”

  “Really? Well, say what you will, he’s the only one among us who managed to get a degree.” Jenny thought history would suit Matt, or the Matt she used to know, always so cautious, so very serious. If she remembered correctly, he was a big fan of butterscotch sundaes. “A degree in history is nothing to sneer at.”

  Of course Will would be jealous, having never finished his class-work. Why, he’d never even begun his senior thesis at Harvard.

  “Well, knowing Matt, it’s probably the history of the lawn mower. He’s still cutting down trees and taking care of people’s lawns, so don’t give him the Nobel prize yet.”

  As the days wore on, Jenny felt more and more ill at ease over the way Will had been settling in. He left toothpaste in the sink, he charged booze on her account at the liquor store, he watched TV wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist. Once, she came home from work and smelled some sort of perfume. Jasmine, she thought, definitely. A bottle of wine appeared to be missing from the pantry. And Coltrane had been on her CD player, perfect for seduction.

  “Did you have someone up here?”

  Will had taken to watching Oprah at four in the afternoon and was therefore always engaged when Jenny came home from the bank. “Up here?” Will said, puzzled.

  Jenny’s feet were killing her. She’d stopped at the deli and bought all the ingredients for mushroom risotto, fool that she was.

  “You bastard,” she said. “You did.”

  “Am I not supposed to have friends in the apartment?” Will followed her into the kitchen, where she was proceeding to throw the groceries into the fridge. “Because you never mentioned that, Jenny. You never posted the frigging rules.”

  “Friends, fine. A fuck while I’m out working, in my apartment, in my bed most probably, no!”

  To hell with him, she thought. She’d be damned if she made him dinner. Let him eat Swiss cheese and crackers, rat that he was. Let him go hungry instead.

  “I won’t do it again,” he said later, when he brought her a sandwich, a rather lousy attempt, but an attempt all the same, consisting of old bologna and a dab of relish on a hard roll. “I’m in your debt,” he admitted.

  They had been together for so long, he was part of her family. So she let him stay, as she would an untrustworthy cousin she was doomed to assist, like it or not. They phoned Stella together every evening, and were properly cheerful, but more than ever, Jenny felt unmarried, and although Will spent a good deal of time sleeping, he was still the same dreamless creature he’d always been. Was it always this way: what attracted you most to someone was the trait that disappeared first? Only once did Jenny pick up a snippet of Will’s dream: a man was standing on the grass, weeping, lost and forgotten, his clothes stripped away, leaving him with nothing but the sound of his own cries. Afterward, Jenny knew she had to let Will stay for as long as need be, despite her misgivings and the nasty notes some of their neighbors had taken to stuffing under the door.

  They went together to meetings at Henry Elliot’s office on Milk Street, and met with Fred Morrison, the detective, who had found out a great deal about the victim’s life. She’d been born in New Hampshire and had been fairly new to Boston. She’d been teaching third grade in a public school since the previous September. She’d had several boyfriends, past and present, but only a handful of women acquaintances in town. She was quiet and pretty and law-abiding and her landlord swore she always kept her window locked at night. Whoever had killed her had most likely been let in through the front door. Thankfully, none of the fingerprints matched Will’s. DNA testing was being done, but with no clear suspects emerging, Will had better pray.

  Will, however, had never been one to leave well enough alone. He did more than pray, he did exactly what Henry Elliot had advised him against: he talked to a reporter. He didn’t bother to mention the encounter to Jenny, not any more than he’d ever explained the scent of perfume in the apartment, a favorite scent of Ellen Paxton, a fellow teacher at the music school who was surprisingly good in bed. In fact, Jenny found out about the interview with the reporter from one of the tellers at work, Mary Lou Harrington, who’d always resented Jenny for becoming a bank officer, and who was happy enough to show the article in the Boston Globe around. Eventually, the article made its way to Jenny’s desk. There, on the front page of the Metro section, was a photograph of Will Avery, a rather good one that showed off his handsome profil
e as he stood on the steps. Unfortunately, the photo also showed off the number of their building, which was clearly displayed.

  Some of their neighbors were already phoning Jenny at work, leaving outraged messages. How dare he drag everyone into his mess by publicly displaying the address? Hadn’t he any sense at all? Will’s interview was the reason Bill Hampton, Jenny’s boss, called her into his office; considering the publicity and the squeamishness of the bank’s trustees, it might be best if she left her position, Hampton informed her, with two weeks’ pay, of course, and another two weeks’ vacation.

  “They fired me,” Jenny announced when she got home. “Just like that. After twelve years.”

  Will had the TV on and was already deeply engaged in Oprah; by now, he’d already had his second drink of the day. He was keeping count of his alcohol intake now, at least until he got to the fifth drink. Hearing Jenny’s news, he was quick to be outraged. “We’ll sue. They can’t just fire you for no reason.”

  “No reason?” Jenny laughed, but the sound was brittle. “You’re the reason. Why would you let yourself be photographed right in front of our building?”

  “I had to take a more positive stand against the false claims that had been made against me. Didn’t I? That’s what any self-respecting innocent man would do.”

  “No, that’s what an idiot would do, Will. Did you ever stop to think that whoever did murder that poor woman now knows where we live?”

  “Shit.” All at once Will seemed crushed. There were other people in the world, he’d forgotten about that. His daughter, for instance. His ex-wife. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Yeah, well it’s a little late for second thoughts.”

  Jenny sat down next to him on the couch. She felt exhausted.

  “They’re doing makeovers,” Will said of the Oprah show. “It’ll take your mind off the Globe article.”

  Will’s psyche worked that way; just cover up the facts and everything would be fine. Overlook what’s right in front of you, hope for the best, enjoy yourself, and don’t waste a moment worrying about what’s out there, lying in wait. But how could Jenny ignore the fact that with their address made public, they were now prey to all sorts: thrill-seekers, murder buffs, and, of course, the person responsible for such a cruel and heartless crime. Even if Jenny were able to find a school willing to take Stella at this point in the term, bringing her back to this apartment was clearly out of the question. No, Stella would remain in Elinor Sparrow’s care, but the least Jenny could do was to be there as well.

  She packed that night, taking only what was necessary, and the next day Will had the decency to help her carry her luggage out to the cab.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he told her.

  “It’s the apartment I’m worried about. Don’t forget to turn off the oven. Put out your cigarettes. None of your women in my bed.”

  “I’m not going to cook and I’m about to quit smoking, so stop worrying.” Jenny noticed he didn’t mention anything about other women. “It’s good you’re going. You can counteract the old witch’s influence. Keep an eye on Stell.”

  “My mother always said you were the wrong man for me. That’s why you hate her.”

  “She was probably right about that,” Will admitted. “I’m a waste.”

  The magnolia in front of their building was about to open. The photo in the Boston Globe had been black and white; it hadn’t shown how rosy the buds on the tree were, how the air itself seemed diffused with pink light. Jenny got into the taxi, headed for the noon train at South Station. She could see the pink light all the way down the street. It sifted through the bars of the wrought-iron gates; it caught in the window glass, making it difficult to see straight.

  Jenny dozed on the train, and was surprised by how short the trip was. Her hometown always seemed a million miles away, but here it was, so very close. People used to city life were always surprised by how quiet Unity was, especially once the noon train pulled away from the station in a rush of smoke and noise. There was a drizzly rain falling and the birds were attacking the hundreds of worms that had wriggled to the surface of the new grass. Jenny remembered that her mother had invented dozens of names for the varieties of rain that fell at this time of year. The air was filled with birdsong and a cloudy mist. What sort of rain was this? Jenny could hardly remember. She had forgotten what the rain was called, just as she had forgotten there were no taxi stands at the station. People who needed a ride to the airport had to call a limo service in Hamilton; locally there was only Eli Hathaway, who offered the one livery service in town. Jenny spied a station wagon idling at the curb, but she remembered Eli was old and strange even back when she was a girl. Given the choice of getting into his famously smoky car or calling her mother and swallowing her pride, asking to be picked up as though she were still a child, Jenny decided to walk in spite of the rain.

  She had a large roll-along suitcase, her overloaded purse, and an overnight case. The rain was light enough not to be bothersome. Daffodil rain, that’s what Elinor always called it, Jenny remembered now, as opposed to rose rain, which was a sudden downpour in a dry season; or fish rain, a torrent of greenish water falling in buckets so that any right-minded person would run for cover. Jenny cut across the town green, where the war memorials stood. As a girl, she had often come here; she’d waited for Will to meet her in the shade of the plane trees, lying in the grass, looking up at the flat, wide leaves above her. She had never paid much attention to anything in town except Will, but now she slowed down. She had no choice, really, what with the suitcase and the overnight bag to tote along.

  The Civil War monument, a soldier astride a great horse, was in the center of the green. It was modeled, some people said, after Anton Hathaway, the son of the mayor of Unity at the time, killed in a Pennsylvania battlefield. On the far side of the green was the black granite memorial dedicated to those who gave their lives in the Revolution. Jenny was out of breath by the time she got to that one, so she didn’t bother to examine it. Instead, she stopped and let the daffodil rain fall down on her. Funny how you could grow up in a place and never notice certain things. Jenny, for instance, had never realized that the plane trees had been planted in rows, or that the steeple of Town Hall was decorated with two golden birds, or that rain could smell so fresh, precisely like new daffodils.

  Jenny was about to go on, past the green and toward Shepherd Street, when a car honked at her. It was one of those cute little SUVs, the kind she’d wanted to get after Will wrecked the BMW, and after their next car, an old Ford, was stolen from the parking lot behind the Hornets’ Nest Restaurant. But they’d never had enough cash for a down payment, even for something secondhand.

  The SUV pulled up and the driver rolled down the window. It was Liza Hull from the tea shop.

  “Come on. I’ll give you a ride.”

  Jenny threw her luggage into the back, then came round and got into the passenger seat.

  “Thanks. I forgot you need a car out here.”

  “Where’s yours? Break down?”

  “I don’t have one.” Now that she was out of the rain, Jenny felt a chill in her bones. April was like that, sneaky sometimes, appearing to be mild as could be, until your teeth began to chatter. “No job either. Actually, I have nothing.”

  “Untrue. You have your daughter.” Liza wasn’t one for self-pity. She explained that she’d been married and divorced and currently lived alone, no children, no pets. “Unencumbered” was the way she chose to characterize her situation.

  “You’re right.” Jenny appraised Liza Hull. Back in high school she’d never taken the time to get to know her. “I do have my daughter. Even if she doesn’t speak to me very often.”

  “Stella comes in to the tea house pretty regularly. I think she’s going through every dessert on the menu.”

  Jenny laughed.

  “I told her that one of your ancestors used to work for one of mine. Leonie Sparrow, the one who saved the tea house and started the f
ire brigade in town? Actually, I think I was named for her, and for another one of the Sparrows who was famous for her cooking. I guess it would be your great-grandmother, Elisabeth. My full name is Elisabeth Leonie Hull. If you’re staying around for a while, maybe you’d want to work for me. Continue the tradition.”

  “Me? I’m not a baker.”

  “You don’t have to be. I need a shop manager, which means waiting tables and balancing the books. Cynthia Elliot comes in after school and on weekends, but I really need someone else.”

  “I couldn’t make you any promises. …”

  “Good,” Liza agreed. “I won’t make you any either. Unless you think it’s demeaning to take people’s lunch orders and wash a few dishes.”

  “Nothing’s beneath me. I married Will Avery.”

  Jenny had expected a laugh, but Liza’s expression was dreamy. “Will Avery. Man, oh man. I had the biggest crush on him.”

  They had turned onto Lockhart Avenue, where the big oak stood. Jenny had met Will a hundred times or more on this corner, for it was exactly halfway between his house and hers. The old tree was on the record books, if she remembered correctly. More than three centuries old, part of the ancient-growth forest, all of which had been chopped down by the colonists, all of it replaced by farms and fields, save for one single beloved tree.

  The rain had eased off, leaving the air glassy. It was still humid, and the sweet smell of mint lingered, as it had so long ago on the morning of Jenny’s thirteenth birthday. There was a droning sound that reverberated, much like the buzzing of a thousand bees, the sort of hum that could wake even the drowsiest individuals and boil their blood. When they went a bit farther down Lockhart, Jenny saw that the noise was caused by a chain saw. Orange cones made for a detour around the base of the old oak, which had been ailing in past years, and now seemed to have finally died. The town council had voted to have the whole thing cut down before a storm could shatter the trunk, leaving limbs free to fall and strike electric wires and street signs.