The Last Tomorrow

FORTY

1

Candice reaches into her dress and lifts her breasts, pushing them together to create more cleavage. They’re sticky with sweat and feel heavy in her hands. She leans forward slightly and looks at herself in the mirror, tries to smile but can’t make it look real, can’t bring light into her eyes. She hopes the makeup can at least hide their puffy redness, the fact that she’s been crying.

She’ll do the best she can tonight.

Maybe once the evening begins in earnest she’ll forget about her real life. Maybe the music, flirtation, dancing, and drinks, watered-down though they are, will help her briefly forget everything. She doesn’t think so, doesn’t think anything could make her forget that her husband is dead, doesn’t think anything could make her forget that her thirteen-year-old son is a murderer, or that he’s missing, doesn’t think even the junk Carl shoots into his veins could make her forget those things, but maybe she’s wrong. Maybe there will be a moment, just one, in which she’s able to feel like herself again. Maybe something will make her laugh. Or distract her enough that, for a time, she’s completely free of thought and worry.

She picks up a compact and clicks it open, loads the applicator with powder, and is bringing it toward her face when a knock at the front door stops her. She sets the compact back down on the counter.

She hopes she doesn’t find Carl on the other side. It’d be one thing if she didn’t care for him. She could slam the door in his face and that would be that. That’s the way it should be. But it was difficult to shut him out the way she did. It was difficult, and she doesn’t know if she has the strength to do it again. A big part of her wants him around to lean on. But she knows, too, that he isn’t really present most of the time. He’s only a husk, and there’s no point leaning on a husk. There’s nothing solid within to support you. It could blow away in the wind. Certainly it would crumble beneath your weight. You might as well try leaning on a column of smoke.

Anyway, she hopes it isn’t Carl.

She walks to the front door and looks through the peephole but sees no one and nothing but empty space. After a moment’s hesitation she pulls open the door. The welcome mat is empty but for a small bundle of white flowers. Several of them still have brown clods of dirt hanging from them, held in place by thin roots.

She leans down and picks them up and smells them, earthy and pleasant with a slight pollen sharpness. It reminds her of being a teenager. When she was fifteen she was courted by an eighteen-year-old Mexican boy named Albert. He gave her flowers like this and they went for walks. Once they did more than walk. She lay back and let him take her virginity. It was sweet and awkward and brief. She wonders what happened to him, but supposes she’ll never know.

She smells the flowers again. She wants to bring them into the house and put them in water, but something tells her she shouldn’t. They’re sure to be from Carl, she can think of no one else who’d leave flowers for her, and she doesn’t want to be reminded of him every time she looks at them over the course of the next week.

He was a mistake and she doesn’t want to think about it.

She tosses them aside, into the dirt to the left of the porch, looks toward them briefly with some regret, and closes the door.

Then she heads back to the bathroom. She has to finish getting ready for work.

2

Sandy watches from down the street, from behind a car. His mother opens the front door, looks around briefly, and then looks down. She picks up the flowers he left for her and smells them. It makes him smile to see her there. He misses her very much. Seeing her makes a large part of him wish that he could take it all back. If he could take it all back he could run up to her right now and hug her. He knows he’s supposed to be strong now. He knows the gun tucked into his pants is supposed to make him bigger than he really is. But seeing his mother makes him feel like a little boy.

She throws the flowers to the ground, steps inside, shuts the door.

She hates him now. She must hate him now to throw his flowers away. He left them for her to let her know he was okay, to let her know he loved her, and she didn’t care. She threw them to the ground and shut the door.

That’s it, then. He needs to stop thinking about her. He really is on his own. He knew he couldn’t go home, knew he couldn’t talk to her no matter how much he wanted to, but he thought he still had a mother somewhere. Now he knows he doesn’t. He has no one. He closes his eyes. He tells himself that men don’t cry. Men are big and strong. They don’t say please, they don’t say thank you, and they never, ever cry.

He turns and walks away from there, walks down to Macy Street and heads west, toward Hollywood.

He never should have come here. It’s getting late. It’s getting dark. Unless he goes back to the house he broke into earlier he has nowhere to sleep, and it doesn’t seem worth it. It’s far away, and he has no car and no money. He’s hungry again. He wishes he could steal a car like hoodlums in movies do, but he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know how to do anything. He’s just a stupid little kid and he doesn’t know how to do anything and he was stupid for thinking he did. He was stupid for thinking he could do this on his own. He wishes he was tough and crazy like James Cagney, but he isn’t. He’s just a stupid little kid. No wonder everybody hates him. No wonder the other kids wipe boogers on his clothes and push him and punch him. He’s no good. He never was any good. It was only a matter of time before his mother saw it too. No wonder she threw those flowers away. If he was her he’d have thrown them away too. And ground them into the dirt with his foot. If he was tough like James Cagney he would’ve pulled out his gun earlier and taken all the money from that stupid shop. He wouldn’t have run. That’s not what toughs do. But he isn’t a tough, is he? He tries to be but he isn’t.

He wipes at his eyes with the heels of his hands and tells himself to stop being a baby. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his packet of cigarettes. He lights one. He takes a drag, inhaling the smoke, and coughs. He takes a second drag.

He can be tough like James Cagney if he wants to be. He can be crazy like him too. He knows he can. He can make it on his own.

He’s a vicious dog. He’s a wild horse.

He’s killed people.

He doesn’t need anybody.

He reaches into his pants and pulls out the gun. It feels heavy in his hand. He rubs his thumb against the hammer spur, feeling the grooves in the metal. He can see a liquor store up ahead. There are lights on. He’s going to rob it.

He’s going to take all their money.

And he won’t say please.

And he won’t say thank you.

3

Candice parks her car in the lot behind the Sugar Cube and steps into the night. She looks toward the dark sky. She likes its depth, the way it just goes on and on. She closes her eyes and experiences the same depth in the other direction. That she likes less. She opens her eyes and walks into the bar through the back door. She makes her way through the stock room, past boxes of liquor and wine and beer, into the front of the place. It’s just beginning to come to life with talk and laughter.

She scans the room for Vivian, but there’s no sign of her.

She does, however, see Heath sitting at a table sipping a glass of Johnnie Walker Black and watching the room.

She walks over and asks about Vivian.

‘She called in.’

‘She all right?’

‘Didn’t say.’

‘How’d she sound?’

‘Fine. But you don’t need to worry about it. You been through too much as it is. I don’t even think you should be back at work yet.’

‘I don’t have anything else to do.’

He doesn’t respond. Eventually he looks away.

She stands there a moment, then turns toward the bar. There she sees a gentleman in a suit sitting alone, sipping his drink, looking around the room. She walks over and slides onto the stool to his right, hoping he can help her temporarily escape herself.

‘You look lonely,’ she says.

He turns toward her and smiles.