Philip Wylie - Tomorrow!

“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.