This Time Tomorrow: A Novel by Michael Jaime-Becerra

Author:Michael Jaime-Becerra
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780312605025
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2010-02-16T06:00:00+00:00

He came toward her. He could have used a shower and his eyes were wild. “Do I look like I need your purses?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “They’re all in very good shape.” She reached into the Rosenfeld and pulled out two stacks of Polaroids. “You can see them if you want.”

He removed the rubber bands from the first stack, glanced at one and flipped it over his shoulder, glanced at two more and did the same. He sighed and tossed the stack in the air, scattering them about. “I don’t need purses,” he said.

The Polaroids were everywhere, the sight of them provoking a clear and painful sense that she was letting Gilbert down.

“There’s no reason to be like that,” she said. She was aware that she had raised her voice, that she was speaking angrily at him. “If you don’t want them, you don’t want them. But there’s no reason to be mean.”

The activity in the ware house ceased. She could feel the attention on them. She was shaking. His expression didn’t change, and she could see that what ever she said wouldn’t matter to him. Murmurs came from the various piles. She attempted to gather herself as she had in the entry, but there was nothing to be gathered, for her sense of disappointment had emptied her resolve. She hurried about, collecting Polaroids as quickly as she could find them. The future wasn’t here. She didn’t know where else she might show the Polaroids.

The young man stepped aside, out of Joyce’s way. He stooped down and handed her the photo at his feet. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

His words had no effect on her because she knew them to be false. Had they been alone, who knew how badly he might have treated her. She picked up one picture and then another. She stepped away from him to get the ones that had landed on the scale.

“Here,” he said, “help yourself to something.” He went to the pile nearest them and grabbed a dress, a blue and white floral-print dress that had been a hit at someone’s luau thirty years prior. “Take a dress,” he said. “Take some shoes.”

But she had no interest in his secondhand dresses and shoes. She took a step back, scanning the ground to make sure she hadn’t overlooked a single picture. She stuffed them in her purse and rushed from the ware house, racing down the hall, past the foil windows and the Eduardo & Frank office, past the freight elevator to the stairwell. She took the steps two at a time, and as she veered around the second-story landing she slipped, landing on her backside, her elbows getting the worst of the fall. There was activity at the top of the stairwell. She picked up her purse and promptly left the building.

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