Remember Tomorrow Page 14

  “Be where?” Cees watched Miranda wave good-bye and leave Arie standing in the middle of the faux kitchen. She had her arms folded, and Cees saw her rub her arms as if for warmth.

  Damn, she should have known that jacket wouldn’t be heavy enough.

  “Your house. I stay with her until you get home from work.”

  “You will?” Cees mulled it over in her head, knew it was a bad idea, but couldn’t Þ gure out why. If Momma stayed with Arie, she could get some rest and Cees wouldn’t have to worry that she was bored or uncomfortable around so many people.

  “Okay. Would you mind if I talked to her Þ rst?”

  “Fine. I’ll see you at Þ ve Þ fteen.” The click in her ear told Cees that Momma had disconnected the call without saying good-bye. Cees dropped her arm, realizing how tense her shoulders had been during the call.

  “Cees?” Arie’s voice so close to her ear caused Cees to jump and pitch forward. Arie reached out to steady her with a hand on her waist.

  “Sorry to startle you. Miranda, your producer, said Edith asked her to tell you you’re due in makeup.”

  • 136 •

  REMEMBER TOMORROW

  Cees looked at her watch. “How are you doing? You look a little pale.”

  “I’m Þ ne. You were right. This place is a little chilly.”

  “I get working and I don’t notice it as much. Be right back.

  I’m going to run up and get a sweatshirt for you.”

  Cees was already running up the stairs when Arie called out to remind her about makeup. Cees didn’t stop until she reached the top. Arie was watching her with an odd look on her face.

  Their eyes held until Cees pulled open the heavy door that led to the ofÞ ces and was forced to break eye contact.

  v

  Arie was pulling her coat out of the closet when she heard voices coming from the living room. She hadn’t meant to keep Cees waiting, but she ran yesterday’s events through her head while she dressed.

  Watching Cees live was a much different experience than she had ever imagined. For one thing, when Cees walked back onto the set she was wearing a different outÞ t from the one she had been wearing when she left home. The jeans looked as if they had been made for her, the tool belt hung low on her hips, and her breasts looked—what was the word? Perky. Not that they weren’t perky before, but now they drew the eye. Too many eyes, Arie thought as she watched Cees’s co-host, the jerk who in one breath had said hello, his name as if it should mean something to her, and asked her out. And then there was the woman who had introduced herself as Cees’s producer, but whose eyes implied that she and Cees were much more than coworkers.

  The fact that Cees was seeing someone was no surprise.

  She was beautiful, talented, and smart. Arie was more surprised by the anger she felt at having to act like she didn’t care that this woman had made no effort to hide that she had experienced what Arie couldn’t remember. The aching sadness threatened to descend before Arie pushed it away. She couldn’t allow herself

  • 137 •

  GABRIELLE GOLDSBY

  to think about this. What was the point of missing something she might never have again?

  v

  Cees had been so quiet after they’d arrived home from the studio that Arie had offered to clean up the remains of dinner so that Cees could go to bed early. The fact that Cees had practically run from the kitchen solidiÞ ed her certainty that she had done something wrong. Arie had spent nearly an hour on what should have been a Þ ve-minute cleanup racking her brain for some faux pas. When she had Þ nally retired to her room she was no closer to the answer than when she woke up that morning.

  Still, she’d spent several minutes in the shower practicing her apology to Cees. Whatever mistake she had unwittingly made had upset Cees, so she needed to apologize.

  Her nerves made her linger in the bedroom. The voices of the morning radio station Cees liked to listen to while she got ready for work sounded like a soft murmur. She was steeling herself for the possibility that Cees might be unhappy with her when she realized it wasn’t morning radio she was listening to, but rather someone speaking with Cees. Her mind ß ashed to Miranda and her certainty that she and Cees had been more than coworkers.

  Arie stood, opened the bedroom door, and the voices stopped. An older Asian woman dressed in white pants and a salmon-colored sweater was looking at Arie with no effort to hide her curiosity.

  Despite at least a thirty-year age difference, Arie immediately spotted the physical resemblance to Cees’s friend Lilly. Arie walked into the living room, dismayed by the look on Cees’s face.

  “I meant to speak with you last night, but I was a little distracted.” Arie thought Cees still looked a little distracted based on the worried frown and the way she hadn’t met her gaze once since they had been in each other’s presence. “This is Momma

  • 138 •

  REMEMBER TOMORROW

  Nguyen. She’s going to stay with you so you don’t have to spend all day at the studio.”

  Arie began to protest. She didn’t mind going to the studio with Cees. The memory of Cees ß ubbing her lines and how apologetic and ß ushed she looked afterward stopped her. Now she understood. Cees had, at one point, suggested she would be more comfortable watching upstairs. Arie had turned down the suggestion, preferring to watch Cees up close. Actually she was having a hard time keeping her eyes off her. Cees had Þ nally stepped closer to her, pushing up the unfamiliar TV show glasses, and with her hand still partially covering her mouth, she’d said,

  “Okay, but you have to stop looking at me like that.”

  “I understand,” Arie said, and tried to hide her hurt and embarrassment.

  “Momma Nguyen, there’s coffee in the kitchen.”

  “I don’t drink coffee,” Momma said, folded her arms, and looked from Cees to Arie with avid interest.

  “Arie,” Cees said, her voice just a little too soft to be natural,

  “Momma’s going to stay with you while I’m at work. She’ll also need to take you to your doctor’s appointments. If you really want to come with me, I’m Þ ne with it. I just thought you would be more comfortable here.”

  Arie tamped down her disappointment. “You’re right, I would be more comfortable here.”

  Cees’s obvious relief was almost worth being left behind.

  Arie looked at the still scrutinizing Momma Nguyen.

  “Thank you for staying with me. I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you in any way.”

  Momma Nguyen slanted her head regally in acknowledgment of Arie’s gratitude. “Yes, you are putting me out a little, but I always have to help Cees because she’s a little—”

  “Can I talk to you over here?” Cees pulled Momma toward the front door and lowered her voice to a whisper that carried just

  • 139 •

  GABRIELLE GOLDSBY

  Þ ne to Arie’s ear. “Could you not tell her that? I am not stupid, and you know I’m not. She won’t know that you’re just teasing me when you say that.”

  Momma Nguyen didn’t bother lowering her voice. “Oh, did I embarrass you in front of your friend?” Momma made her eyes wide and put her hand over her mouth. Arie didn’t think she looked the least bit apologetic. Based on the scowl on her face, neither did Cees.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it.” Momma turned and looked at Arie for so long that she began to feel uncomfortable. “She looks pretty stupid too.”

  v

  Arie returned Cees’s awkward good-bye wave from her spot across the room and watched helplessly as the door shut. She tried to meet Momma Nguyen’s stern gaze but ended up looking at the ß oor.

  “You play cards?”

  “Cods?” The question was so odd that Arie forgot to be uncomfortable.

  “Cards! Cards!” Momma repeated harshly, and Arie swallowed.

  “I don’t know, maybe. I could learn, I’m sure.”

  Momma looked doubtful. “You got any money?”

>   Arie quickly patted her front pocket and pulled out the four twenty dollar bills that the hospital staff had found shoved into her pocket when she was brought in by ambulance. Momma took the money from her hand and held the bills up to the light. “You got plastic?”

  “Plastic? You mean like a bag?”

  “No, I mean like Visa, MasterCard. American Express.

  Discover work too.”

  “Oh…oh, yeah, I do.” Arie retrieved her wallet from the bedroom and held it out it to Momma Nguyen.

  • 140 •

  REMEMBER TOMORROW

  Momma Nguyen took the wallet, frowned into it, then smiled. “Good girl.”

  She picked up her purse and keys and stood looking at Arie expectantly. “Well, come on. You need to get more money out if you want to play cards.” Arie was about to say she didn’t want to play cards, but decided that making Momma Nguyen angry was not in her best interest.

  “Okay, where are we going?”

  “To the ATM. You don’t have enough money to play cards with me.”

  Arie ß ushed. “I don’t think I remember…”

  “You punch in your pin number and get money. Simple.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I know how to use the ATM, but I don’t remember my pin number. I don’t know that I ever knew it by heart.”

  Momma stopped, straightening her clothing long enough to stare at Arie as if she had just grown two horns. “Oh.” Momma looked at her wristwatch. “Can’t go in for another few hours.

  That’s okay. I’ll loan you money if you need it. We’ll go to the grocery store. Fred Meyer is open twenty-four hours. Can’t play cards without Bloody Mary.”

  v

  Arie had purchased the Bloody Mary mix by swiping the credit card per Momma Nguyen’s instruction. They had returned to the house and Arie had been instructed on the proper way to play poker, blackjack, and another game that she couldn’t even pronounce. All of Arie’s money was now neatly tucked in Momma Nguyen’s bra. Despite the fact that she had taken all of her money, plus another twenty-eight dollars in the form of an IOU, Arie had to admit that she had enjoyed every moment of being teased and beat up by Momma Nguyen. She had a strange way of showing affection, but it was obvious how much she cared for Cees by how detailed her memory was of Cees and Lilly’s

  • 141 •

  GABRIELLE GOLDSBY

  teenage years. When Arie broached the subject of Cees’s father, Momma’s animated face sagged. When Arie hinted at how much Cees missed him, Momma Nguyen admitted that they worried about Cees for a long time after his death. “We thought things would get better after she met you.”

  Arie heard the “but we were wrong” even though it wasn’t voiced. “Do you know what happened? With us, I mean.”

  “Cees would not want me to talk to you about this stuff.”

  Arie sat back and glared at the Momma Nguyen. “You don’t know, do you?”

  “If I did know, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “If you don’t tell me now, I’m cutting you off. No more Bloody Marys.”

  “Game’s not over.”

  “It will be. If you don’t tell me what you know.”

  “You’re a mean girl.”

  “And stupid too, from what I’m told.” Arie smiled. Momma Nguyen’s glare had lost all potency now that Arie had spent some time with her. “Tell me.” Arie began stacking the cards neatly on the table.

  Either the implied threat worked, or Momma wanted to tell her anyway, because she said, “All Cees told me was that you wouldn’t tell her what she did. It drove her crazy for weeks afterward. She racked her brain until she made herself sick.

  She Þ nally decided that you left because you didn’t really want kids.”

  Arie frowned. “What? That can’t be it.”

  Momma Nguyen sighed and began to speak very slowly, as if she were indeed talking to a person lacking mental capacity. “I’m just telling you what Cees told me she thought happened. Now get my Bloody Mary.” Arie obediently walked into the kitchen to mix the drink. She needed to process the information she had been given. Cees had wanted babies. So I just left her instead of trying to work it out? Instead of talking to her about it? There had to be more to it than that.

  • 142 •

  REMEMBER TOMORROW

  “Olive this time. Green one,” Momma Nguyen yelled from the living room.

  Arie speared the olive at an angle with a toothpick and dropped it into the glass as Momma Nguyen had taught her. She was just about to lift the glass and take it into the living room when she saw her face reß ected in the glass panes of the kitchen cabinets. She didn’t remember herself almost two years ago, and she certainly didn’t remember Cees Bannigan. She might never remember what went on between them back then. But what she did know was that when she looked at Cees now, she felt like she was scared and happy all rolled into one. She felt protective and protected. She felt whole. The thought of starting a family with a woman she barely knew but now lived with Þ lled her with curiosity, not fear. So why would she have run from that?

  Ice clinked in the glass and a drop of chilled perspiration landed on Arie’s Þ nger, pulling her from her thoughts. She carried the drink into the living room and found Momma Nguyen lying on the couch ß at on her back with her mouth open.

  Arie set the Bloody Mary on a coaster, turned the TV volume down, and went in search of a blanket. Momma Nguyen sighed, and murmured, “Who ate my pistachios?” as Arie put a blanket over her.

  Arie folded her arms and looked around the house, bereft.

  Cees had left her phone number. She wondered if it would be all right to call her. A glance at the clock told her that Cees wouldn’t be home for another four hours. Four hours seemed like a long time to go without hearing Cees’s voice.

  • 143 •

  • 144 •

  REMEMBER TOMORROW

  CHAPTER TEN

  Arie’s nightmare started the same way it had the last three times. She watched herself as if she were a character in a movie. She still looked thin, but not quite as gaunt as she was now. She saw herself reaching for a glass of wine—red, one of many she had drunk that day. She knew the doorbell would ring before it did. She knew who would be standing there, looking angry and spiteful and ready for a Þ ght.

  She always let her in, because pain was sometimes better than nothing at all, and because she deserved every damage-inducing word. Her reaction was always the same. She’d let her in, accept every verbal bullet to the chest in the pitiful hopes that, in the midst of the fury, she would get a new tidbit of information that the TV couldn’t give her. At least, not until the regular season.

  “She doesn’t love you anymore. She’s moving on with her life. She can’t even stand to have your name mentioned.” These words she always heard. These words she always remembered.

  These were the ones that woke her, and tonight was no different.

  “No. Lilly, stop.” The scream was new. It startled her until she realized it came from her own mouth.

  She heard a loud thump and then the sound of running. Her door burst open, and she caught a glimpse of Cees’s silhouette,

  • 145 •

  GABRIELLE GOLDSBY

  then she felt strong hands on her body. “Arie, Arie it’s Cees, you’re here with me.” The bed dipped and she reached out toward the voice, the one that would bring comfort. She reached for it, remembered she couldn’t, shouldn’t take it, but didn’t understand why.

  “It was just a nightmare, sweetheart. Lilly isn’t here,”

  Cees murmured into her ear rocking her in a motion that felt comfortable but unfamiliar. Cees was sitting with Arie across her lap. “Just another one of those nightmares.”

  Arie didn’t say anything because she was starting to wonder if they really were just nightmares. She’d had three in the last week. For the most part they were strangely detailed at moments, yet fuzzy and hard to understand at others. Most of them had been of her and Cees. Only it was
n’t her, or it didn’t feel like her.

  She was too angry, so cold, so dispassionate, and she had hurt Cees. She had done it on purpose.

  “Can you tell me what it was about? You screamed Lilly’s name.” Cees was speaking softly, and Arie started to tell her all the painful things her nightmare-self said to Cees, how she had made her cry, how she had erased her phone messages. But she didn’t tell her because she was afraid that Cees would conÞ rm what she already more than suspected—that the nightmares were truths of what she had been like before, and that her current life where Cees would allow her to forget how much she had hurt her was the dream. No wonder Lilly hated her guts.

  “Is it starting to come back to you, Arie? Is that what’s going on?”

  Arie pulled away from Cees, the light from the living room just enough for her to see the wide look in Cees’s eyes. How could she answer that? Her dreams felt like they were nightmarish portals to things that happened in their past, but were they really memories?

  “No,” she said. Her voice sounded like it had been forced out of a cone-shaped tunnel.

  Cees’s face changed. Closed.

  • 146 •

  REMEMBER TOMORROW

  “How’s your head? Do you need to take anything for it?”

  Arie was grateful that Cees wasn’t insisting they discuss the nightmare. Arie ran her hand through her short hair. In the nightmares it had always been long; she liked it better short. She shook her head. “No headache this time.”

  Cees did smile then, although she still looked slightly puzzled. “Okay. Well, I might as well get ready for work. It’s Friday, so I should be home at a decent hour.”

  Arie straightened and Cees started to rise to her feet.

  “Wait.” Arie reached out and grabbed Cees’s hand. Cees sat back down on the bed and Arie laced her Þ ngers through Cees’s.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? For what?”

  Arie hesitated. “For waking you.”

  “It’s okay, Arie. You just scared me. I was already awake. I wake up long before my alarm clock actually goes off.”