Tomorrow

The clock ticked its way, unimpeded by anything, that Thursday morning. Tomorrow, Madeline thought, tomorrow she’d be facing life alone. Life alone in this monstrosity of a house she didn’t really love, but would be hers, finally and absolutely.

“Mrs. Groves,” Imelda the housekeeper said, approaching Madeline, who was sitting on a lounge by the pool, “Mr. Carter is on the telephone. Would you like to speak with him?”

Carter, Madeline thought with something like hopeful alarm – why would he be calling on this of all possible days? Did he want to call off the whole thing? Did he want to tell the lawyers, we’ve changed our minds, we don’t want to go through with it? Did he really love her, after all that had happened?

And yet she’d gotten what she wanted – a Maserati, a housekeeper and a butler, this mansion in Pacific Heights, a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, and no one she’d have to share it with. Isn’t that what she’d always wanted? But no, she suddenly knew – it’d always been Carter she wanted.

“Yes, Imelda, please bring the telephone. I’ll speak with him.”

Madeline arranged her face in smooth lines. Odd, how a facelift and here-and-there Botox injections could turn the face into silly putty, so easy to arrange whenever she wanted. She cleared her throat and blinked. She wanted her voice to sound smooth and mellifluous when she consented to Carter’s moving home again. She wanted him to think of her with dignity and grace, someone whom he could trust –

Imelda brought the extension from the house.

“Carter,” she said into the phone.

Madeline heard noise in the background, like Carter was sitting in the Pacific Diner down on Union Street. Union Street – he was only five blocks away! He could be there in ten, perhaps fifteen minutes!

“Good morning, Madeline,” he said, business-like as ever. “I called to see if you’d agree to let me have my mother’s Waterford crystal bowl.”

“But Carter, I thought maybe –“

“I’m marrying Rhoda on Saturday, and I’d like to give it to her as a wedding present.”