All My Tomorrows (3 page)

He averted his eyes. “Um, fine.”

“You still haven’t explained your unexpected
appearance.”

“I’m here because I have to talk to you.” He looked at
his watch. “But you’d better get to school.”

“No, we can talk now. I have first hour free today
anyway. You can’t expect me to spend the day imagining the worst.”

He looked at me then. “Lexie, it is the worst. I’m
going. They’re sending me to Nam.”

“No. No, they can’t! What about Molly?”

“There’s nothing he could do. He arranged for me to come
here first to see you, but he couldn’t do anything else.”

“It’s not true! It’s not true! They can’t send you!” I
was screaming, and tears flowed down my cheeks in rivers. He held me close, but
he couldn’t stifle my hysteria. My screams had awoken Mother, and she and
Annette came running into the living room.  “You just can’t go!” I pulled out
of his arms and fled to my room.

I know he tried to cheer me up while he was there, but
sometimes just looking at him made me cry. I couldn’t believe my own brother
was going to Vietnam.  A few days later at the airport, Mother left us alone to
say goodbye.

“Don’t worry, Lexie. I’ll be back in thirteen months.”

“That’s over a year.”

“It will go by quickly. You’ll see. I want you to stay
as busy as possible and not think about where I am so the time will pass
faster.”

“What if something happens to you?”

“Nothing is going to happen. Don’t worry.” He kissed a
tear under my eye. “But I want to talk to you about something I think you
should know.”

We sat on a couch in the airport, and he took both my
hands and looked into my eyes. “Lexie, after Mama had me, she and Dad really
wanted another baby – more than anything in the world – but I gave her a hard
time in the delivery room. The doctor said it would be dangerous for her to
have another baby, but she didn’t care. She wanted a baby, and so she got
pregnant.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“She got pregnant, Lexie, but it was a difficult
pregnancy. She miscarried in the seventh month, and she had to have a
hysterectomy.”

As what he said came together in my mind and I started
to make sense of it, I began to cry. “Why are you telling me this now? You said
nothing was going to happen to you.”

“They still wanted a baby. So they adopted you.”

I shook my head back and forth. “No. No, I don’t
believe you.”

“It’s true, Lex. I went with them to New York to get
you.”

“So then who is my real mother?”

“I don’t know. She was a young actress in New York,
but I never knew her name. And they fixed it so your birth certificate had Mama
and Dad’s names. I don’t even know if they went through an adoption agency.”

“I suppose that explains why I love acting.”

He wiped at my tears with a handkerchief. “I’m sorry
to tell you like this.”

“I…I don’t suppose it matters. I mean, I was adopted
by Marlene anyway. Does she know?”

“I don’t think so. You know, something happened a long
time ago between Marlene and our mother that made them stop being friends. I
think Mama would have told her if she wanted her to know.”

“I just wish you weren’t telling me now because I know
why you’re telling me.”

“Lexie, nothing is going to happen to me, but just in
case, I thought you had the right to know.”

Then they called his flight and he kissed me goodbye.
“I love you, Alexandra.”

The summer before my junior year of high school, I
went through a tremendous metamorphosis. My face cleared up, I had my hair cut
and styled, and I lost all the weight. With a surge of confidence, I knew this
year would be different.

Although our high school was also all-girls, we were
close to an all-boys school and served as their sister school. We cheered for
their sports and had co-ed clubs. That year, one of the first things I did was
join the drama club and audition for
Godspell
.  Even though I only got a
part as an understudy, I had never been so thrilled in my life. I might not be
performing, but I had been chosen over so many other girls. And for the first
time, I had friends – lots of them – and the cast and crew spent all their time
together when we weren’t in school.

I worked hard on
Godspell
.  Not only did I have
to do all of the duties of an actress, in learning lines and blocking, but I
also worked on the tech crew.  But with the excitement and fulfillment of
working on the production, the work didn’t bother me at all. Plus I was the
envy of my classmates because I worked with Sean Hooker, the heartthrob of high
school. I hated to admit it, but even I had a bit of a crush on him. Besides
being the most gorgeous senior on the boys’ campus, he was a professional
actor, working on plays outside of school and even commercials, which made him
completely irresistible.

I understudied for Lisa, and she frequently missed
rehearsals, so I had to work closely with Sean in several scenes. I couldn’t
help feeling shy around him. I tried to treat him like all the other actors,
but he would look me right in the eyes and I would melt.

After opening night, I hugged the others in the cast,
but to Sean I only offered my hand. I refused to let him believe I was another
co-ed in love with him. It had gotten to the point where one day at tech, Sean
was forced into seclusion by ninth-grade girls who found out he would be there
that day. To my surprise, Sean rejected my hand and pulled me into a bear hug.
I, being a consummate actress, hid my state of shock well, even as my heart
raced, and said, “Congratulations! I’m so glad it went well!” He silently
released me and walked away.

After the next performance, I took the offensive and
placed my hand on his shoulder and said, “Congratulations,” just as a woman from
the audience came up and started commending his performance.

I removed my hand, but Sean stuck his out to me, and I
had no choice but to take it. He held my hand tightly and then took it between
both of his and rubbed it, never taking his eyes off the lady. I was totally
bedazzled. But then something caught his attention. He dropped my hand and
walked away, leaving me to talk to the woman. I came to the conclusion that,
since I didn’t throw myself at him like all the other girls, he was being kind
of a tease. That killed the crush.

A lizard lived outside my bedroom window. Every
morning when the alarm woke me, I would see his silhouette on my shade as the
rising sun shined in. On this particular morning, my lizard did not appear.

That day a Marine came to our door. Tad was missing in
action.

☼

“Come in,” Alice said without looking up from her
book.

“Mrs. McGillicutty, we need to talk about –”

At the sound of Peter’s voice Alice had raised her
head, and he broke off. She frowned. “Mrs.?”

“It’s you,” he said, frozen in the doorway.

“Not if you are looking for
Mrs
.
McGillicutty. Why would you presume I am married?”

“I – well…with a name like McGillicutty, I
assumed…”

“So you assume every female McGillicutty emerges
from the womb married?”

The shock from recognition fell away as his face
relaxed. “No, of course not. I apologize if I offended you,
Miss
McGillicutty.”

She pointed at a chair with her pen. “Alice will
do. You have something to discuss?”

He closed the door and took the offered seat. She
was too pissed off at him to be star-struck, and she had prepared for this
conversation.

“I saw you on the set,” he said. “I assumed you
were an actress on the show.”

“You assume quite a lot, Mr. Walsingham.”

“Peter. You can call me Peter.”

“What an honor,” she said. “Now, why are you
here?”

“Yes. About my character. Tristram.”

“Tristan.”

“Tristan. Right. I don’t want that role.”

“Oh? And why might that be?”

“He was lost at sea and declared dead. The premise
is ridiculous.”

“No, it isn’t; it happens all the time.”

“Like when?”

“Well, there’s
My Favorite Wife; Move Over,
Darling
; Gilligan.”

“That’s fiction. I mean it’s not realistic.
Besides,
Move Over, Darling
is a remake of
My Favorite Wife
.”

Although amused at his knowledge of old romance
movies, she would not let it divert her. “Realistic? So you really are a war
veteran slash forensic pathologist who will not rest until he avenges the
murder of his wife? No wonder you embodied your role on
COD.
”

He smiled at her. 
Oh, dear Lord, he’s smiling
at me
.

“I take your point,” he said, “and thank you for
the compliment.”

She rolled her eyes.
Shit
. She
had
complimented him.

“Regardless, I feel uncomfortable portraying a
character that belonged to another actor. Should I be watching tapes of his
performance? I should have an original –”

“I am surprised you care so much, Mr. Walsingham.
With our cheap sets and implausible plots, we both know even appearing on a
soap is far beneath you.”

He stared at her, the smile now gone, replaced
with…nothing – his face completely blank.

She let a few moments of silence pass between them
before she spoke again. “Listen, you are here for a limited run. I do not have
time to create a new character and develop a new romantic storyline with
Sienna. Tristan already has a backstory and a previous relationship with Sienna
that I can work with.”

“Was that before or after she went into the
convent?”

“Before. I think. I don’t know; that was before my
time. We have researchers in charge of continuity.” When she stood up, he did
as well, and she walked around the desk. “I am sure you can understand why it
needs to be that role. Forget the previous actor – you’ve been ‘changed by the
sea.’ Make the role your own.” She opened the door and stepped back to invite
him to leave.

His eyes flicked back and forth between her and
the doorway, and a crease formed between them.

“You shouldn’t frown like that; you’ll get
wrinkles between your eyebrows.”

He ignored her. “Do you think the audience will
believe that Eileen Meyer and I could be brother and sister?”

“Why? Because she’s a neurosurgeon?  I’m sure they
will just assume she got all the brains in the family.”

She took advantage of his confusion to usher him
out and close the door. Then she leaned back against it and blew out a full
breath.

CHAPTER
3

The
Edge of Darkness

Chapter
10

I didn’t cry for Molly when he was killed in a car
accident; I cried for his family. I hadn’t seen Anthony since his high school
graduation. Then he had gone off to Harvard. His father lived just long enough
to see him pass the bar exam.

Tony, as he preferred to be called now, moved in with
us right after Annette and I graduated from high school. He had been taken on
at a law firm in the area and needed a place to stay while he figured out where
he wanted to live. He was tall – six two – with light brown curly hair and big
blue eyes. I was scared to death of him. I barely spoke to him until two weeks
after Molly’s funeral, and then just to say hi. I didn’t feel like his sister,
and I’m sure he did not feel like my brother. Even he and Annette didn’t act
like brother and sister – nothing like Tad and I.

Annette left a month after the funeral for Radcliffe
to get settled in before the semester started, and I was relieved. She and I
had tried to keep our distance throughout high school, but we never could get
along after Mother legally adopted me.

I hadn’t decided what I wanted to do now. My grades
were good, and I considered college, but I still thought I wanted to try it as
an actress.

I wanted to be closer to Tony, especially since his
father had just died and his own sister, or our sister, had gone. I was just so
frightened of him. Something about him scared yet intrigued me. When he
occasionally joined Mother and me for dinner, I never could think of anything
to say.

Molly’s death had left Mother terribly distraught. I suppose,
in spite of her male houseguests, she never stopped loving him. The next thing
I knew, her friends had packed her up for New York, and she had a ticket on the
QE2. Once she had gone, I rarely saw Tony at all, which was fine with me. He
worked and stayed at his end of the hall while I hung out with my friends and
stayed in my room.

Ben from high school called me one day. I hadn’t seen
him since he had graduated two years before, but I still remembered he was a
good kisser. He was home from college and looked me up. Ben picked me up at
two, and we went to a movie. I enjoyed having his arm around me again as we
watched the film. Then we went to his parents’ house for dinner as we had so
many times before, and it was as if we hadn’t been apart for two years.

I sat close to him in the car on the way back home as
the radio played softly. He had his arm around me, and we kissed at each stop
sign. Then he detoured off to park by a lake and turned off the engine, leaving
the radio on. Ben turned to me and wrapped me in his arms. We started kissing
and lay down. After a while, the steering wheel got in the way, so we moved to
the backseat.