Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? Read Free

Tomlin was, and would always be, the class brain. There was a sad earnestness about the crude haircut, the expensive but wrinkled suit. You never saw him without his briefcase. He had it now, in fact. He also had an occasional tic that jerked his entire head a quarter inch to the right, made more obvious than it had to be by a blue walleye.
        "We'd better get going, Richard. You've got that radio interview at nine."
        "Oh, thanks for reminding me." He reached out a massive arm and gave Bill a brotherly hug. "I wish the girls got along as well as we did." Then, to me: "What I told you is between us. Not even Esme should know. I don't want that dunce Cliffie Sykes Junior hearing about this."
        "Like it or not, he's the law in Black River Falls."
        "Yes, and he's also an idiot."
        "No argument here."
        "And he supports Jeff wholeheartedly. I doubt he'd put much effort into an investigation. Hell, he may be involved himself. Wouldn't surprise me." He turned toward his car. "Gotta go. There's a dinner thing at the school tonight." He looked at me. "I want to give you something tomorrow. Want you to keep it for me."
        Then he and Bill Tomlin, big striding brother and shambling little one, headed back toward their fancy car.
        

TWO
        
        "You know what I am, McCain?"
        "Yes, I do know what you are: fetching."
        "No, I'm serious."
        "So am I."
        The beautiful Pamela and I were going back home in my red '51 Ford convertible with the white sidewalls and the extra-powerful radio that can pull in clear-channel KOMA, the world's best rock-and-roll station, with no problem at all. Though the top was still down, and the sky was filled with those impossible colors only near-dusk can create, a chill was in the air and I knew that soon enough she'd be asking me to stop and put the top up. Such are the duties of ragtop owners.
        Pamela had put a sweater over her elegant shoulders. "I was watching this movie the other night."
        "Uh-huh."
        "With Alexis Smith and Zachary Scott. Did you happen to see it, by any chance?"
        "Uh-uh."
        "Zachary Scott is married and he's got two little daughters, but he's having this affair with Alexis Smith."
        "I see." Not sure where this was going.
        "The Other Woman. That was the name of it."
        "Makes sense."
        "Well, think about it, McCain."
        "Huh?"
        "The similarities? Stu and me? He has a wife and two sweet little daughters. So what does that make me?"
        "Oh, I see."
        "I'm the other woman."
        I reached over and took her hand. Sometimes that's OK with her; sometimes it's not. This time it was. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm sorry, Pamela."
        "So the first thing next morning I called him at the office and said that either he did the right thing and ask his wife for a divorce or it was over for us. I couldn't hurt his wife and daughters anymore."
        "And he said what?"
        "He said he'd get back to me."
        "He'd get back to you? What did he think he was doing, closing on a mortgage?"
        "He always talks like that. I never said he was real romantic."
        "Apparently not."
        "Anyway, I told him if people ever found out, just think what my reputation would be like. Everybody'd think I was a whore." She looked off at the cornfields and pastures and then back at me. "Maybe I am a whore."
        "You know better than that." Then: "So, did he get back to you?"
        "Yes," she said. "He called me last night. When I told him I was going to see Khrushchev with you, he got mad."
        "Because of me or Khrushchev?"
        "Both. He's jealous of you, though he always says that's ridiculous because you're so short; and his dad is a member of the John Birch Society, so he wouldn't cross the street to see a communist."
        I was afraid to ask. "What did he say about leaving