Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? Read Free Page A

his wife?"
        She looked at me, and I couldn't ever remember seeing her more lovely. "He said yes, McCain. He said he wants to marry me. I still can't believe it. He's going to tell Donna about us tonight."
        
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        There's a great F. Scott Fitzgerald story called "Winter Dreams," in which the protagonist falls in love with this girl when he's barely a teen and loves her throughout his life. He becomes all the things she wanted for a husband: rich, powerful, successful. And yet she always eludes him. She ends up having a pretty terrible life - marrying a faithless alcoholic, losing her looks - and when this is recounted to him many years later he isn't sure what to feel. He still loves her too much to feel good about her dashed hopes. But what he mostly feels is nothing, his care having been blunted by losing her so many times. He wants to cry - maybe for himself; maybe for her; maybe for both of them - but nothing comes. His grief over not having her was something to cling to. Now there is just emptiness.
        I guess I felt that way. She didn't gloat. I mean, she knew her happiness meant my doom. So she would move beyond me forever. The worst part of it was Stu. His ambition was to become governor. He stood a good chance. But now he was willing to sacrifice it for Pamela. He loved her as much as I did, maybe more. How could I blame him?
        Just at dusk, with clouds and shadows tinted in that midwestern violet, I stopped to put up the top. She used the rest room of the tiny gas station. I leaned against the car, smoking a Lucky, and for just a moment, and utterly without warning, tears stung my eyes. God, I'd loved her for so long. And now it was done.
        
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        I'm not a drinker. Like my dad, I'm small and I just don't have the capacity. By the time I dropped her off and tooled back downtown, the liquor store was closed. They keep strict hours, and you have to sign for every bottle you take out so the state has a record of it. This is what you get when boozers and teetotalers work out a compromise.
        But there were bellhops at all four hotels who could provide you with a bottle for twice what it would cost you at the liquor store. I wasn't even sure I wanted one. But it seemed like the kind of thing Robert Ryan would do in one of his crime movies, and sometimes in my head - and this is sort of embarrassing because I'm going on twenty-six years old - sometimes in my head I'm Robert Ryan. I used to be Gene Autry, but at least then I had an excuse. I was seven years old.
        I got a fifth of Old Grand Dad and drove back to my apartment. Mrs. Goldman, the widow who owns the house and lets out two upstairs apartments - I'd call her my landlady but if you ever saw her you'd never call her a landlady - wasn't home, so I knew I'd be drinking alone.
        Things got fuzzy pretty quick. I told you I just don't have the capacity. I hauled out some old photos of Pamela, and then I didn't have any trouble crying at all. I had to damned near nail my hand down to keep from calling her and telling her what a mistake she was making. Around two I started vomiting, and the first time I tried to flop into bed I missed and hit the floor face first. Then I vomited some more and then I tried the bed again. I did a little better. I got most of my body on the mattress. The rest is a blank.
        
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        "C'mon, now, don't be a baby."
        "You really didn't have to do this."
        "Yes, I did."
        "Why?"
        "Because you asked me to."
        "I did? When?"
        "When you came down last night."
        "I came down last night?"
        "Yes."
        "When?"
        "Maybe four."
        "Oh, my God, I'm sorry."
        "You told me all about Pamela. And then you told me you were afraid you'd never be able to get up in the morning. And that you had too much to do to sleep in. So I said I'd make sure you got up."
        What