All My Tomorrows

All My Tomorrows

A New Tale of Pride and Prejudice

Colette L. Saucier

First Southern Girl Press Edition, June 2012

Copyright © 2012 Colette L. Saucier

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under
copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by
any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise)
without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination
or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and
trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which
have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is
not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Southern Girl Press ISBN: 9781452491820

DEDICATION

To
my muse.

CHAPTER
1

The
Edge of Darkness

Chapter
1

It was raining when I awoke that Sunday morning. I
knew immediately because of the click-click of the drops hitting the awning
Daddy had put up that summer to shield my window from the sun’s burning rays.
It was autumn now, and when I looked outside, the brown, orange, and gold
leaves of the trees in our backyard were drenched and sleepily waving in the
breeze.

We didn’t have carpeting, and the floorboards were
cold on my bare feet. After climbing down the stairs, I pretended to be a
tightrope walker, balancing myself on single floorboards all the way to the
kitchen. Daddy was sitting in “his chair” reading the paper and smoking his
pipe. I always loved the smell of his burning tobacco, but when Tad, my older
brother, would sneak a cigarette, its stink made me sick.

Tad was thirteen, and that wasn’t his real name, which
was George. He had read “Tad” in some book and liked it better than being
called Junior because he had been named after Daddy. But now my two front teeth
were missing, and when I said “Tad” it came out “Dad.” This could make things
confusing since sometimes no one knew who was talking to whom, but it wasn’t
all the Toothfairy’s fault. Tad’s voice sounded a lot like mine, due to his
age, and he called our father simply Dad. Mommy said she’d be glad when her
children could speak normally.

Mommy was wearing a pink Sunday dress and a stained
white apron as she peered into the oven. When she turned around and saw me, her
lips pursed up as if she had eaten a lemon. “Lexie, look at you, walking around
barefoot on this cold floor.” I looked down at my dirty little feet and then
back to my mother’s eyes. “You’re sick enough as it is. Now you get back to
bed.”

Then Daddy said without taking his eyes off his paper,
“Let her stay. Her room gets so cold, the warm oven will do her good.” He
hadn’t gone to church that morning. He had stayed home because of me, but he
tried to get out of going to church as much as Mommy would let him anyway.

Mommy felt my face for fever. I always loved the way
she smelled, no matter what. I liked it on special occasions when she put
Émeraude on her wrists and behind her ears, but today she smelled like bread,
and I knew she’d been baking. This was my favorite smell since I was the one to
get the heel off the loaf fresh from the oven.  Mommy told me to sit down and
she’d fix me up some breakfast. Tad came in from outside. He was already filthy
from playing with the neighbors, and his oiled hair was messed up.

“What’d you do with your church clothes when you
changed?” Mommy asked without turning from the stove.

“I haven’t changed yet.”

Mommy looked at him, and her face turned red. “George
Andrew Hayward, Junior! You march up those stairs right now and take a bath so
hot that when you come down you’ll be steaming! And you’re not going out again
today!”

“Mom!”

“Don’t you raise your voice to me, young man! Now
march!” She pointed her finger in the direction of the living room, and Tad
sulked off.

Mommy’s face was sweet even though she frowned. Her
face relaxed when the kitchen door closed behind Tad. She and Daddy met eyes
and then she turned back to my breakfast on the stove.

Mommy and Daddy had some sort of secret communication
system. They seemed to have an entire conversation with just one glance. I
asked Mommy about it one day. “You’ll know someday when you marry the right
man.”

I sat in the chair next to my daddy’s with my feet on
the seat and rubbed my shins to warm them. Mommy placed a bowl of steaming
oatmeal before me and stirred in some sugar and milk, and I ate it. It was a
typical Sunday at our house, just like so many others.

Daddy had brought a TV home a couple of years before.
It was black and white and kind of dark. When we first got it, we thought if
you were watching a show and left for a while, when you came back the show
would still be on. Even Daddy was surprised when we found out the show was
over. Tad would always get a pillow from his bed and stretch out on the rug in
front of the TV. Daddy would yell at him because he’d keep squirming his feet.
Usually he fell asleep there on the floor, and I remember thinking how big his
rear end looked.

That night we watched Walt Disney. When Tad fell
asleep, Daddy carried him up the stairs. Daddy was a very strong, big man.
Mommy told me once that the reason she married him was because he was so much
like her father, and I wondered if I would marry a man like Daddy someday, too.

Grandpa had been like a private detective or
something. I once saw him on the front porch picking at a bullet hole in his
chest, cleaning it with a knife. Grandpa must have had quite a life. I heard
Mommy tell our neighbor Mrs. Mahaffey that he had been married to an Indian woman
called Jess a long time before he met my grandmother, and before that he had
been married to a woman named Sarah who died from taking too much aspirin.

He and the Indian woman had had a son named Homer. Not
much was known about him, but Mommy said she remembered when she was little, a
boy named Homer came to stay with them until he was caught stealing and was
sent away. Jess had been murdered, shot in the head. I heard Mommy say that
some people thought Grandpa had done it, but he wasn’t convicted. I don’t think
he did it.

When we were older, Tad told me that Grandpa wasn’t
Mommy’s real father. Gram had been married once before to a much older man. He
said when Gram was young, she turned up pregnant one day, and her father threw
her out of the house. That didn’t make much sense to me because, after Gram’s
mother had died in some botched operation to keep her from having another baby,
Gram had been taking care of all her younger brothers and sisters. Gram had
been one of ten children, but Kate had been stillborn, Victor died when he was
six from a spider bite, and Ivan had been killed by a train. I guess Gram’s
father decided he’d rather take care of six children himself than let Gram stay
there with a baby.

After Gram left home and had my aunt, she met my mother’s
father. He had been in his fifties even then, but he married her in spite of
Aunt Eunice. Gram then had Aunt Sable and Mommy, but her husband was older than
her own father. When he got sick and was bedridden and couldn’t work, they took
in a boarder to help with the expenses. Tad said it was a well-known fact that
Gram and the boarder were having an affair, but I don’t know how he’d know
that. After her husband died of cancer, Gram married the boarder, and that was
my grandpa.

It was about midnight that Sunday when Tad came into
my room and shoved me until I woke up.

“What’s goin’ on?” I asked him sleepily.

“Come on,” he ordered. “The house is on fire.” He was
so calm, I didn’t half believe him. He took my hand and pulled me out of the
room.

I glanced at Mommy and Daddy’s room, but the door had
been swallowed by flames. I remember I started screaming then. The smoke stung
my eyes and made me cry, even before I started crying for real, and the heat
scorched my skin. I screamed even through my coughs, and Tad picked me up and
ran down the stairs. The mirror on the wall had turned black, and the hardwood
floors were changing colors.

Outside, Mrs. Mahaffey cried as she wrapped a blanket
around me. I stopped screaming and stared at the house as it was engulfed in
flames. I guess I was in shock. The thing I remember most about standing out in
the wet grass that night was the smell – a horrid, putrid smell that made me
ill. Little did I know it was the smell of burning flesh.

And my life would never be the same.

☼

Reality interrupted fiction with a light rapping
on the door. Alice set her tuna salad sandwich on the neon green nylon baggie
on her desk and dropped her mother’s ragged paperback in the bottom drawer with
her purse.

“Come in.”

The door opened, and Eileen’s head popped in. 
“Hey, Mrs. Jellyby is here.  Peacock wants the cast and crew on the hospital in
ten.”

“I wonder if this is it.” Alice rubbed her temple
in anticipation of the inevitable headache.

Eileen – in full make-up, scrubs, and white coat –
pushed in and closed the door.  “That bad, huh?” To Alice’s non-answer, she sat
down. “What will you do?”

“Go back to New York, I guess. I don’t really see
myself collaborating with a bunch of Hollywood writers.  You?”

“I think I’d like to try films, as a character
actor.”

“Why character?”

“Come on.  I’m no Giselle.  I don’t have ‘the
look.’ I think I would find more satisfaction playing interesting characters
than always being the leading lady’s best friend.”

“What about stage? You could come to New York with
me.”

“And not have the option of a second take? Never!”
She laughed.  “Plus, I like L.A.  It grows on you.”

Alice took another bite of her sandwich before
tucking it away.  “Yeah, like a fungus,” she said as she chewed.

“Well, I’m still going to try to talk you into
staying.  I’ll miss you too much if you leave.  Who will I have to split a
bottle of Malbec with me?”

“That’s what video chat is for, and then we each
get our own bottle.”

Alice and Eileen were the last to arrive at the
hospital set, and their appearance quieted the buzz of the others gathered. 
All eyes turned to Mrs. Jellyby, and Alice immediately knew one thing by the
slight upturn at the corners of the producer’s mouth and her bright
floral-print dress:  the soap had not been cancelled.

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Mrs. Jellyby
began in a quivering falsetto that carried across the soundstage. “I have
important and exciting news.  As I am sure you are all aware, this has been a
tough year for
All My Tomorrows
from a ratings and affiliate sponsor
point of view.  After thirty-seven years, the very survival of the show has
been at risk.

“Today the network demonstrated its unwavering
support for
All My Tomorrows
with a new addition to the cast.”

Uh-oh.
In a split-second, Alice’s mind ran
over all the concurrent storylines and where a new character would fit in.
I
wonder if it’s too soon since her fiancé’s death for Sienna to have a new
romance.

“Peter Walsingham will be joining our family next
week!” Mrs. Jellyby grinned and clapped her hands.

Alice cursed her own heart for skipping a beat at
his name.  What she would have scripted as a “collective gasp from the crowd”
led into applause by all but herself and Mr. Peacock, who met her eyes across
the set with a quick nod. An actor from film and primetime meant a leading
role. All the scripts would have to be rewritten.

“Giselle, I don’t think you will mind sharing love
scenes with Peter.” 
Bingo.
To Mrs. Jellyby’s pronouncement, Giselle
smiled and blushed as the other’s laughed.

Even though Alice had a lot of long nights of
rewrites ahead of her, she knew the excitement of Peter Walsingham provided a
much-needed relief from the pall that had settled over the soap since sweeps.

“And perhaps, just perhaps, we can convince him
that he wants to stay on with us.” Mrs. Jellyby waded in with the others, and
from where Alice stood, she sounded like she was cooing.

“What do you think?” Mr. Peacock asked Alice after
making his way across stage to her side.

“I think Sienna has recovered quickly from
Blaine’s death.”

The director grinned. “Time is relative,
especially on soaps.”

“So how did you manage this coup?”

“I had nothing to do with it.  You know Walsingham
was just killed off on
COD
? That was at his request. Said the publicity
from his relationship with his co-star was disruptive on the set.”

Alice raised her eyebrows. “I’m surprised they
didn’t let Winnie Johnson go instead.”

“They didn’t want either one of them to go. Even
negative publicity is publicity, and they thought having off-camera lovers
brought in more viewers.”

Alice scoffed. “I’m sure his
wife
will be
relieved to hear it.”

“I think that’s one of the reasons he wanted out.
This has been a big drama itself.  It was not an amicable break.”

“With the wife or the show?”

“Both, I think, but I meant the show.” Mr. Peacock
pulled out an electronic cigarette and sucked on it. “They killed him off so he
couldn’t come back, and the only way they agreed to let him out was if he
finished off his contract here.”

Shit
. “For how long? Mrs. Jellyby is
smoking crack if she thinks he will stay on. Will he be here for a full story
arc? We can’t have sweet and innocent Sienna having a fling. She can’t sleep
with anyone unless they are
violently in love
.”

“He will be here until July when he has to go on
location for some movie, then he’ll be here for three months after the
Olympics, although Mrs. Jellyby thinks she can convince him to stay.”

Alice wished she smoked, if for no other reason
than to have something to do with her hands – and she did still think it looked
cool – but she figured it would be silly to start smoking with a fake
cigarette. “I still don’t like it. The viewers are not going to like her
hopping into bed with someone without falling in love with him first. Even
having a known adulterer cast in the role could tarnish her reputation in the
eyes of some viewers. When ‘Hollywood’s Bad Boy’ married ‘America’s
Sweetheart,’ they thought he had reformed.”