Is This Tomorrow: A Novel by Caroline Leavitt

an appointment.”
    Betty shrugged. “No skin off my nose. Long as you’re here now.”
    Richard hadn’t told them, then. It was one less thing for them to gossip about in the break room and thank God for that. She took off her coat and hung it up. Just as she had thought, her in-box was piled with papers. There were scribbled notes on her desk of the things Richard needed her to do, some of them with sharp little exclamation points after them, like stab wounds. She uncovered her typewriter and sat down.
    Then Cathy began talking about Maureen, a secretary in accounting who had run away and gotten married over the weekend and had called the office to announce she was quitting without notice. “Can you imagine?” Cathy marveled. “She said to just chuck her things.”
    “Why didn’t she at least stay for a party?” Betty said.
    “I’m so jealous of her I could spit,” Charmaine said.
    Ava kept silent. She couldn’t imagine having that luxury of quitting. She put a piece of paper into the roller, and Richard appeared. The other women straightened up, and Cathy fluffed her hair. Ava’s fingers froze on the keys. “Could you come into my office, please?” he said to Ava. He wasn’t smiling. The other women were watching her. She felt their stares, like a film on her body she wanted to scrub off. She walked into Richard’s office, sitting in the chair he pulled out for her.
    “I’ll work late to make up the hours,” she said.
    Richard waved his hand and sat down, putting his feet up on the desk. “First time in my life an officer of the law called me,” he said.
    “I’m sorry.”
    He waved his hand. “So what did they ask you?” His eyes were bright with interest. “What’s going on in that neighborhood of yours, Ava, and why would they ever question you?”
    “I’m not a suspect—”
    He laughed. “Of course you aren’t.”
    She didn’t know what else to tell him. “They just asked me some questions,” she said. She told him how she had driven around the other night in the cop car, helping to look for Jimmy, how everyone was worried. He listened, his eyes glazed with sympathy, but he didn’t say, “You have a son, take the day off,” or even, “If you need extra time, the break room is always open for you.”
    He let her go. She wound past him to the typing pool and sat down. “You get chewed out?” Betty asked, lowering her voice, not looking up from her typing. The return bell rang and she slammed the carriage back, frowning. Ava shook her head and stared at all the papers on her desk. She blinked hard, willing herself not to cry. She’d be lucky if she was able to leave by seven, let alone six, and she’d certainly have to work through lunch.
    She put paper and a carbon into the typewriter, trying to be careful so it wouldn’t smudge on her hands, and then her clothes. She should wear an apron, the way Betty did. The other women were busy typing. She put her hands on the keys.
    By three, when Lewis should be home, she felt anxious. Ava wasn’t supposed to make personal calls, so she waited until Richard was in a meeting and then dialed her home number. Lewis answered on the first ring. “Is your mother home?” she said, making her voice raspy, with a fake French accent she remembered from school, testing him.
    “Mom, I know it’s you,” he said. “And I’m fine.”
    Ava returned to her work, feeling better having spoken to Lewis. He had told her how everyone at school was acting weird because of Jimmy. “I have to work late, honey. Make yourself spaghetti for dinner,” she told him.
    The rest of the afternoon glided by. The sound of the typewriter keys, the steady ding of the carriage return bell hypnotized her. At four, the other women got up to go to the snack room for break, but Ava never went with them, so no one thought it odd that she was working straight through. She could hear them laughing and talking about hope chests and dresses and what to have for dinner.