Tomorrow! (23 page)

But the pleasure of having Charles at home again, so soon, had been alloyed. He didn’t seem the same. He was thinner. He was preoccupied. Twice, in the first four days after his homecoming, he’d put on his uniform, borrowed the family car and driven to Hink Field, the military base, “on business.” Restricted business, confidential business, business that upset him, Beth thought.

On Friday, the Friday before the Monday which would be Christmas, Beth was in the kitchen, working and thinking. It was late afternoon, getting dark, threatening to snow again. A gray light softened the already white world outside. Across the shoveled snowbanks along the drive, across the children-tracked yards, through the kitchen windows, the yellow lights of the Bailey house made a picture post card. The summer shrubs were covered, like igloos: it looked cozy beneath their snow roofs and Huffy sides; the gazebo had a fringe of icicles that shone golden in the light.

Beth was “going over things” in her mind. Yuletide lists.

The turkey would be delivered in the morning.

The presents were all wrapped and hidden in the bedroom closet. Nora, she was sure, had inspected them thoroughly; it was possible that even Ted had taken a peek: sometimes he was still more like a child than a man. The holly and mistletoe had arrived from Beth’s aunt in North Carolina, as usual. As usual, they were going to the Williamses’ for a pre-Christmas dinner.

The gifts for the Williams children were already wrapped, too, heaped in a clothesbasket in the front hall.

Mr. Nesbit had sent the tree over from the grocery store that afternoon. If they got back in time from the Williamses’ and from seeing Santa Claus in the park, they could trim the tree on Saturday. If they were too tired, Sunday would do. Maybe Lenore would come over and help: Charles would like that.

Old snow slid down the roof, cascaded into the yard.

She opened the kitchen door, hardly knowing why, and looked at the roped-up tree.

Seven feet and symmetrical. She could see it in the front room, decorated—see, back through the years, all the Christmas trees of her children and all her own Christmas trees, spangled, shining, redolent, the big magic of childhood: gifts and excitement, seasonal aroma, Santa Claus and love.

Henry drove in, racing the car before switching it off, beating his feet on the frozen doormat, blowing as he entered the kitchen, helping her shut the door. “Beauty,” he said of the tree. “How you coming?”

“All right.” She picked up a big spoon, stirred the cranberries on the stove. “Do you think we could leave my sister’s in time to see Santa
and
do a little shopping?”

He kissed her on the back of her neck, grinned. “Why not? Matter of fact, I have a couple of things to get, myself, still.” His look of innocence was absurd.

My present, she thought. He hasn’t bought mine yet. And she reminded herself for the hundredth time to phone Mr. Salten at the men’s shop and tell him she’d decided to take the dressing gown for her husband and would he please deliver it, rush.

“Maybe,” he said, breaking and buttering a hot cinnamon roll, “we could skip Santa this year. Kids are pretty grown-up—”

“Nora would be scandalized!”

“I suppose so.” He ate a mouthful. “Mighty good!”

“Don’t spoil your appetite!”

“Fat chance,” he chuckled. “Hungry as a bear! Truth is, I’d miss Santa, myself. Saw him the first year they put him up and every year since.”

In Simmons Park, annually, the stores erected a giant mechanical Santa Claus whose arms moved to hand gifts to children, who talked over a loud-speaker in his midriff and who even sang carols in a sonorous voice. He was the yuletide deity and big wonder of Green Prairie; a child who missed him was unfortunate indeed.

Beth looked at the roast. Her mind moved even raster than her dinner-getting hands. “I’ve got to find something yet for the minister’s wife. Every year I promise myself I’ll give her a Christmas present, and every year I put it oil’ or forged” She handed him a spoon. “Hold this—

over the sink!” She took the lid from a pot, looked, popped it back. “And don’t let me forget to take the ice cream along tomorrow. It’s in the deep freeze. Ruth couldn’t afford it this year.”

“
Where’s everybody?”

“They’ll be in soon. Nora’s over with the Crandon youngsters. I don’t know where Ted is. And Charles is shopping.” Henry eyed another roll and restrained himself. “If Chuck’s downtown, he’ll be late. Never saw such crowds.”

“I’m worried about him,” she said.

Henry looked at her thoughtfully. “Me, too. It’s”—He nodded toward the window, the snow, the gleaming house where the Baileys lived, where Lenore had always lived.

“I think he got his leave to try to see what he could do about it,” Beth said. ‘‘I’m perfectly sure he’s aware what’s afoot. . . .”

“You should be,” Henry answered with mild disapproval. “You wrote him, phoned him—”

She defended herself. “I thought he had a right to know.”

“That’s the trouble with love. People think it involves rights.”

“Doesn’t it?” He laughed and put a sturdy arm over her shoulder, rocking her slightly.

“Only when it’s returned, Beth. Lenore’s kind of drifted away from our boy.”

“I don’t believe it. It’s all Netta’s doing!
My!
I wish I could talk some sense in her head!”

“Still?” He chuckled. “After twenty-odd years of trying?”

“Netta’s Netta. Too ambitious. Not so bad other ways.” Beth sighed a little and tried the boiling potatoes with a fork.

“Ready?” he asked eagerly.

“Heavens no! Half hour till supper, and you know it. They have to be mashed and quick-baked, still. He’s worried about something that has to do with the Air Force, too.”

Henry followed the transition without difficulty. “Chuck’s in Intelligence now, Mother.

Guess he knows quite a few worrisome things. He has responsibility—with all these air exercises going on.

“Shake the plaster off the attic someday, those jet planes will. Charles takes things slowly the way you do, Henry.” She paused, thought, amended. “The way you do—
sometimes.
He’s going to be a real long while getting used to the fact that Lenore Bailey is marrying Kit Sloan, not Charles Conner.”

“Is she? You sure?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Won’t be the merriest Christmas we ever had,” he said quietly. He peered out the window at the prettily lighted snowscape, sniffed the steaming home smell of the kitchen, shook his grizzled head. “Take
me
awhile to get used to the idea of not having Lenore for a daughter-in-law. Always saw those kids together”—he gave a stifled chuckle—“since that day we
found

‘ern together! Cute little thing, she was. Didn’t blame Chuck a bit.”

“Henry!”

He slapped her bottom gently. “Don’t be hypocritical, Mother!”

Nora came in. That is, the front door burst open and stayed open long enough to send a few bushels of arctic air down the hall into the kitchen. Then the door slammed. Galoshes thudded as they were kicked into the hall closet. Then that door slammed. There was a long indrawn sniffle followed by a sneeze. Followed, in turn, by a
sotto voce
“Dammit!”

“Nora?”

“Yes, Mom. Not burglars and not the Fuller Brush man. Not the Realsilk Hosiery man or any
other
secret lover you were expecting.” The words sounded nasal. She came into the kitchen, saw her father. “Hi, Pop.”

“Nora, let me see your throat,” Beth said.

“I’m all right!”

“You sound as if you were catching cold.”

“I’m not.” Nora coughed defensively. “I feel fine.”

“Say ah-h-h-h-h.”

Nora stood under the center light, lifted her winter-rouged face, said the word.

“Look at this, Henry. She’s getting a very red throat.”

“It’s not a bit sore,” Nora asserted urgently.

Mrs. Conner suddenly sat down. “That’s about the last straw!”

“Oh,
Mother.
Just because I’ve got a little red in the throat.”

“It could be measles,” Mrs. Conner went on aggravatedly. “They’re going around.”

“I haven’t been exposed.”

“How do you know? Henry, I just can’t take her over to Ruth’s if she’s catching a cold.

The new baby—the other children—”

“I knew it!” Nora said in a low, dismal tone. “I knew it all along. Like a prophecy! This Christmas was going to be utterly totally wrecked for me.”

“It isn’t Christmas tomorrow; it’s the Saturday before,” Beth answered. “And it isn’t being wrecked at all. You’ll have to stay in tomorrow and not go to Aunt Ruth’s dinner, so as to be perfectly all right again by Christmas!”

“But we
always
go!”

“I mean you, Nora. The rest of us will go, of course. I’ll have to find somebody to look after you tomorrow.”

Nora threatened tears. “I’ll miss the dinner we
always
have. I’ll miss
Santa
Claus.”

“Charles, or your father, can take you Sunday.”

“Sure,” Henry said. He felt unhappy; he seemed to share Nora’s distress over the possibility of missing the yearly, pre-Christmas dinner at Ferndale; he appeared to feel that the matter of not exposing his nieces and nephews to a slight touch of sore throat, even a faint risk of measles, was being over-stressed.
“Sure,
Beth. I mean—if you
really
think Nora has to stay away. . . ?”

“I definitely do! The baby’s delicate. Ruth was talking about it only the other day. And I know how mad
I
got when they came here, years ago, and left our Ted with
mumps!”

Nora’s face contracted.

“You’re a big girl, now,” her mother admonished.
“Don’t
cry. I’ll phone the Crandons.”

“They’re having a family dinner, too—in River City.”

“Well, somebody. You can stay with Netta, I’m sure. She’s having a cleaning woman in.”

“She’s totally despicable! I abhor staying there!”

“She’s minded your brothers, often. She’s usually a pretty good neighbor when these problems come up.”

Nora said, “Phooie! Vixen. Shrew. Termignant.”

Henry snorted.

“Termagant,” Beth corrected, absently. “She is not. You can stay with her tomorrow if you’ve still got a raw throat. I’ll give you medicine.
My,
I
hope
it isn’t measles.” She moved toward the kitchen phone and presently began to make arrangements for the custody. ‘We’ll shop and hurry home, Netta, so you won’t have her on your hands later than, say, four. . . .”

Nora was folding and unfolding a cloth pot holder. Queenie, the tomcat, at that moment decided to move from the kitchen to the front rooms. Nora flung the pot holder and hit the cat.

Queenie stopped, looked to see who had done him the dirty deed, shrugged and departed. Beth had hung up.

“Go gargle,” she said, and she added, “Mercy! The beans!”

Nora stood, regarded her parents balefully, and left the room. From upstairs, shortly, came a sound suggesting bad drains, excepting for the fact that, to an acute listener, it would have become evident that the burbling monody was trying to be a song. This was the case: Nora was gargling, “Aloha Ohe.”

The front door opened again and Chuck came to the kitchen, his arms heavy with packages. “Unload me, somebody,” he cried. “Boy! What a day! Downtown, it’s like a Cecil B.

de Mille mob scene. So many people, you’d think they were giving everything away, not selling it.”

“Be worse, tomorrow,” Henry said, helping his son. “Shop early, they tell you. Serves me right.”

Unloaded, still coated, Chuck heard the sound from above. “What’s
that?”
He identified the theme and went to the foot of the stairs to add a falsetto alto.

The bathroom door slammed—all but shattered.

It was a beautiful morning—and that was the hell of it.

So Nora thought when she opened her eyes.

She dressed lugubriously. Lugubriously, she went downstairs for breakfast. Ted was there. Charles was still asleep. Her father was downtown doing a few “last-minute” things, Beth said.

Nora ate two eggs, three pieces of toast with apple jelly, some bacon, a bowl of Wheaties, a glass and a half of milk and a few prunes. She didn’t say a word but consumed the food with the glowering look of a condemned and unrepentant criminal. She watched with an aloof, almost disdainful eye, as her mother cleaned up, as Ted washed the dishes, as Charles came down in his blue suit and best tie and her father returned from town, merry as Santa Claus himself, laden with packages, and reporting the place “crowded as an oyster bed.”

It didn’t concern Nora.

She looked out the front window for a while. The Jarvis kids went by: Alf and Penny and Kate. All three pulled sleds. The runners squeaked on the dry, hard snow and rang when they bumped over the frozen slush in Walnut Street. They were evidently going over to slide down terraces and out onto the ice at Crystal Lake.

Nora, however, was sure she was going to have to help Mrs. Bailey houseclean.

Probably, she thought, old blood-eye Bailey would make her stand on a stepladder and dust chandeliers and poke at cobwebs all day. Probably the stepladder would fall and she’d break her back. Maybe she’d be told to scrub. Nora had read, once, of a farm woman who decided to clean out the gurry imbedded between some floorboards in an old house. She’d come down with diphtheria, the germs of which had survived in the dirt for twenty-six years. It had been the Black Diphtheria, and the woman had died.

Nora felt her mother and father might easily be damned good and sorry they’d deserted her that day.

In what seemed like no time at all, her mother stood there, in her pretty new gray suit and her fox fur saying, “We’re just about ready! Get your hat and coat and scarf, Nora.”

“Just to go next door?”

“And your arctics. You tell Netta I said you could play outdoors awhile, after lunch. And we’ll come right Lack from Ruth’s dinner, so expect us around three. Four, at the latest.”

“Can’t I go with you?”

“No, Nora, you can’t. And I want you to show Netta what a fine cleaning woman you are, too!”

Looking at the old, spotty, brown dress she’d been ordered to wear, Nora felt the Cinderella legend applied to her—backward. Her last hope died. Solemnly, thinking of the Williams home, of tables heaped with goodies, of the fun of riding all the way to Ferndale, of cousins to play with, Nora put on her scarf, her winter hat, her winter coat, her red galoshes.