The Book of Someday (2 page)

Through the telescope Olivia is seeing the school bus stopping outside the Grangers’ gate. Where their mailbox is. The mailbox that has their name painted on it in bold black letters. And Mrs. Granger with her radiant prettiness, long shearling coat, and rainbow-colored muffler is running her fingers through her children’s hair. Giving each of them a kiss as they’re scrambling onto the bus.

Then the bus pulls away. And Olivia is grieving. Watching Mrs. Granger go back into her house.

When both the school bus and Mrs. Granger have disappeared Olivia closes her eyes and dreams. She dreams Mrs. Granger is still at the side of the road and that it is she, Olivia, who’s being lovingly sent off to school. She’s wearing a backpack, her shoulders warm with the sun. The air smells like perfume, like roses. And she’s hearing the friendly squeak and rattle of the bus as it’s stopping—for her. The sensation is glorious. Like dancing with butterflies. Mrs. Granger is raising her hand. On the other side of the dream, Olivia, with her eyes still closed, is raising her own hand and slipping her fingers into her hair. For the span of a heartbeat she is experiencing a mother’s caress. The sweetness of it, almost unbearable.

And in the midst of the sweetness—excruciating pain. Olivia’s fingers snagging against the tangles, pushing at the sore places on her scalp. Shattering the dream. Letting in the harsh reality that Calista has marched into the room, muttering: “Stop whatever nonsense you’re up to. And for goodness sake, open your eyes!”

Calista. Wearing a baggy, ankle-length woolen skirt, a flannel shirt, and a pair of blue clogs, scuffed at the toes. Placing an apple onto the pine table. Putting it on top of one of Olivia’s books, a thin volume in a dust jacket made out of white wrapping paper.

Olivia is frantic to keep the book away from Calista, to stop her from opening it and reading it. And killing the things that are inside it by simply laying her flat, black gaze on them.

But Calista doesn’t realize the book is different from any of the others on the tabletop. She’s pointing to the apple, telling Olivia: “Your father didn’t think you deserved any breakfast. You have me to thank for this.”

Olivia wants to believe Calista is lying. She wants it to be her father who sent the apple, although she knows he has offered no opinion on the subject of her breakfast. She knows he’s left the house and has done what he always does when he’s upset. He has vanished.

Now Calista is pulling a wooden-handled brush through Olivia’s hair. Inflicting hurt with each grim, determined stroke. And Olivia is thinking about the women in her history books, the women of the Old West. She’s thinking they must have had this same grim determination in their strokes when they were beating rugs. Or intruders.

Calista is gathering Olivia’s hair into a thick braid. “I envy you this. I’ve never seen hair so long and magnificent.”

“I hate it,” Olivia tells her.

Calista brusquely fastens the braid with a rubber band. “I think it pleases your father—for your hair not to be cut.”

“How do you know?” Olivia has turned so that she can look directly at Calista. Something she rarely does; she’s intrigued, curious. Her father seldom speaks, unless he’s instructing Olivia in her schoolwork. She’s eager for any scrap of information. “What did he say?”

“It’s not so much what he’s said, it’s more like—” Calista pauses; a slight catch in her breath, the same one that’s in Olivia’s when she thinks about her father. “He’s a complicated man. He’s brilliant, a genius. Geniuses don’t see the same world other people do. Ordinary people like you and me.”

“My father says I have an excellent mind.” Olivia doesn’t want to be grouped with Calista in any way.

“Well, you should use that ‘excellent mind’ of yours to do something other than play ugly tricks on the one person who’s sacrificed everything for you. Your father has devoted his life to raising you, schooling you, all on his own. He’s been a saint. Something that certainly can’t be said about your mother—”

A loud roaring. In Olivia’s ears. Like the bellow of a caged lion. The ferocity of it is stinging her eyes. Putting a low moan in the back of her throat.

“—your mother abandoned you, ran away, when you were still a baby in diapers. Because she was blond and beautiful and all she thought about was her own pleasure.” Calista is gripping Olivia’s chin, not letting her look away. “That heartless prank you pulled this morning tells me you’re headed down the same selfish road as your mother—more concerned with what you want than what you owe.”

Olivia expects this is where her punishment will come. A hit with the back of the wooden hairbrush. Or maybe a slap from Calista’s wide, bricklike hand.

To Olivia’s surprise, Calista steps away and has an unfamiliar gentleness in her voice as she says: “I’m not telling you these things to be cruel. I’m trying to teach you a lesson. You’re a difficult child and you need to grow up to be a good woman.”

Calista sits at the edge of Olivia’s bed, saying: “I’ve been trying to show you how to mend your ways, every day, for the two years I’ve lived in this house, the entire time I’ve been your father’s wife. I think it’s one of the reasons he married me. Being alone with you was too much for him; he needed a woman’s help.” Calista is smoothing the folds at the waistband of her baggy skirt and sighing. “But soon I won’t be able to look after you as much. You’ll need to be on your own. I’m going to have a baby, Olivia. A child that’s mine.” Calista’s tone is incredibly soft, as if she’s speaking only to herself. “There isn’t anything as precious as a baby of your own, if you’re a good woman. To a woman with a true mother’s heart there is nothing more important than cherishing her child.”

Olivia is again experiencing the sensation of fire and snakes. And knives.

***

In the afternoon, Olivia is standing in front of a shelf near her bed. The shelf contains an assortment of little-girl treasures that, over the course of her childhood, Olivia has discovered in her father’s attic. The most beloved of these objects is a small, beautifully delicate copper-wire cross. Olivia keeps it hidden, tucked away behind two other items from the attic. A portable record player and a stack of old record albums.

Olivia has put the soundtrack of a Broadway show onto the record player’s turntable. She waits for the music to begin. Then lowers herself out of sight. Into the sliver of space between her bed and the wall. There is no lock on her door: this is the only place she can find privacy. She has brought along a pencil and the book in the white dust jacket—and she’s opening the book to its first page. On that page, written in the perfect cursive taught to her by her father, is the book’s title:

“The Book of Someday”

The pages beneath the title page have been filled with what is essentially an evolving map of Olivia’s heart. Every sentence a dream being born, a vow waiting to be kept. Among them are notations such as:

Someday I will have a birthday party with people and singing.

Someday I will go to ballet lessons and wear pink ballet shoes. I will have a friend and we’ll hold hands and she’ll think I’m nice.

Someday after the century changes, when it’s in the 2000s and I’m all grown up, I won’t stay in the hills out by Santa Ynez, California any more. I’ll go to a place that is somewhere else. I will live in a house with a red door and roses.

Someday I will be pretty and not have long, heavy hair that aches my head.

Someday when I’m a mommy I’ll never run away because I’m selfish and bad. I’ll stay and I’ll say I love you. I’ll say it all the time, and give hugs. And I won’t hit, especially not with a wooden hairbrush because of the hurt not ever stopping, even after the bruises go.

Someday I will attend a real school.

Someday I will be brave and tell Mrs. Granger how much I love her. Maybe she will let me come and live with her and she will smile at me and let me have a dog. One that’s little, and is white with a curly tail.

Olivia is abruptly looking up from her book. The song coming from the record player is describing a concept she has never thought of before. A “someday” that needs to be added to her list.

Someday I’ll go to town in a golden gown and have my fortune told.

Olivia’s pencil is flying across the page—spelling out this new promise. And there is unbridled bliss.

***

When the day has faded, and night has come, there is unbridled terror.

Olivia is waking from a horrific dream. Screaming and at the same time burying her face in her pillow. Trying to stop the sound so he won’t hear. But her father is already on the other side of her doorway. In the darkness. She can feel him there with the look in his eyes that is soft, like sadness, and then harsh, like the sharp edge of a stone.

Her father knows about her nightmare. Olivia has told him exactly what she sees when she dreams it and that it has been with her for as long as she can remember. She doesn’t understand why, but she senses the knowledge of these details is what brings that strange look to her father’s eyes. That look of sorrow, and of stone.

Once her father is gone from the doorway, Olivia crawls into the frigid space between her bed and the wall. Desperate to stay awake. To keep the nightmare at bay.

The dream is ghastly in its silence and its simplicity. A void. And a woman. Floating in an eerie kind of sleep. Draped in a shimmering garment that flows from her shoulders to her knees like a column of starlight. Wearing pale-colored, high-heeled shoes fastened with a strap at the instep, each strap anchored by a single pearl button. Her arms outstretched. A silver band encircling her head. In the band, a plumed white feather. Her hair is short. Chestnut brown. Her face is in shadow. Only her lips are visible. Fiery red and slowly parting. Making way for a noise. A shrieking howl. Which, when it comes, will be the sound of unadulterated horror.

Olivia’s fear of her nightmare is colossal. Her only defense is to gaze toward the window—waiting anxiously for the protection that morning will bring.

This will become a habit with Olivia—her passion for morning. As an adult, she will greet each new dawn by walking briskly toward the rising sun. And on one of these walks, almost twenty years from now, Olivia will again encounter the fiery-lipped woman in the pearl-button shoes. But she will no longer be an apparition haunting the night. She will be a reality. Existing in the cold, clear light of day.

Livvi

Los Angeles, California ~ 2012

“Honey-colored curls.” He’s leaning toward her, ruffling her hair. “Very pretty. But awfully short. Do you ever think about letting it grow?”

Livvi’s answer is emphatic. “No. I can’t stand long hair.”

He gives her a surprised look.

She realizes how overly adamant she must have sounded. And she’s embarrassed, ducking her head, softly saying: “It’s ancient history.”

“Okay, no more hair questions.” He’s grinning at her now, with a charming, easygoing humor.

The two of them are in a butler’s pantry, sitting at the end of a marble-topped counter, in a mansion. In the hills above Los Angeles.

And he’s telling her: “Remember that thing I was talking about when we came in here? I was serious. I really do want to know everything about you. From the time you were a little kid right up to the minute we met.” He’s saying this while slipping a spoonful of caviar into Livvi’s mouth.

For a split second, she’s in a state of shock.

She’s never had caviar before. The taste of it, the feel of it on her tongue, the sensuality of the salt and the satin, is indescribable.

He’s leaning back in his chair. Relaxed. Smiling.

This is the most beguiling man Livvi has ever seen, and he’s making it clear that he finds her attractive. She is breathless. Amazed.

He’s absolutely compelling. Stunningly handsome. In his early forties. Beautifully muscled. Several inches over six feet tall. With hair so dark it’s almost black. And eyes that are steel gray. His body language has an effortless, predatory elegance. He moves the way a tiger moves, completely at ease with what, and who, he is.

Livvi knows he’s flirting with her. It’s something she’s not accustomed to—it’s making her slightly self-conscious.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” he’s asking.

Livvi blushes. “I don’t go out a lot. I’m not good at flirting.”

He’s chuckling as if she’s told him a joke.

Her smile is hesitant. “Why are you laughing?”

“Because you’re a gorgeous woman who shows up unescorted at a black-tie fundraiser, and—”

“Oh, but I’m not unescorted. I came with a friend—he’s my literary agent. I’m a writer.”

“You’re a writer wearing stilettos and a little gold dress that fits you like a very attractive second skin.”

“It’s new. I bought it in kind of a hurry.”

Livvi is scooting back in her chair, hoping to move her hemline lower on her thigh. She would never have chosen a dress this short or heels this tall, but the sales clerk was so sophisticated, so self-assured: Livvi hadn’t felt qualified to contradict her.

“And in light of your killer outfit,” he’s saying, “tell me again how you don’t know anything about flirting?”

Livvi responds with a wry smile, a quick shrug. “I think it’s one of those things you have to learn early on. I never learned. I’m twenty-six and it’s too late.”

He narrows his eyes, shoots her a questioning look.

She’s worried she’s said the wrong thing and he’s changed his opinion of her, and now he thinks she’s silly.

Livvi is shy around people she doesn’t know. A little tentative. Because she never learned “playground rules” and sometimes has trouble figuring out what everyone else’s normal is.

She suspects he’s probably waiting for her to say something—yet she’s keeping her gaze fixed on the floor. On the gleaming, intricately laid black-and-white tiles. She’s thinking that maybe she shouldn’t have come in here with him. She should’ve pulled back when he suddenly appeared at her side with a sly grin, slipping his arm through hers and whispering: “Follow me. I know where they keep the good caviar.” But he hadn’t given her the chance to pull back. He’d literally, physically, swept her off her feet. Swept her through the crowd and away from the party. The sparkle in his eyes making it seem safe and innocently adolescent.