When Tomorrow Comes Read Online Free PDF Page B

shrugged. She assumed he had been turned down before.
    The elevator bumped gently to a stop, and the door opened, allowing their escape. The young man managed to jingle their room keys in hands filled with luggage. He soon opened their door and, with a wave of a practiced hand, bid them enter.
    “The dining room is on the first floor to the left. Dinner is served from five to eight each evening. They will begin serving breakfast in the morning at six. The lunch hour—”
    “We will not be here for the lunch hour,” Elizabeth stopped him. “Thank you for . . . for seeing us to our room.” She dropped coins into his gloved hand and took possession of the open door. He bowed his way out, and she closed the door as soon as she could.
    “Cheeky young rascal, isn’t he?” she said as she turned back to Christine. “Imagine him asking you out when you don’t even know him.”
    Christine shook her head and crossed the room to lay her coat on a chair. “Well,” she joked, “I guess it would have been one way to put in some time while you’re lounging in the tub for the evening.”
    Elizabeth tossed a glove her way. “Talk about cheeky,” she said, shaking her own head. “You are almost a match for him.”
    They both laughed.
    The dining room was not able to supply Elizabeth with her oysters. “It’s the war, you know,” said the dark-suited waiter. “We are unable to bring such items in on the trains. It seems that the train cars are all used for transporting troops and supplies right now.”
    Christine wondered if it was the truth or a bald lie to excuse their shortcoming. Elizabeth masked her disappointment and ordered duck instead.
    To make up for it, she told Christine, she ordered cherries jubilee for dessert and drank four cups of the rich, strong coffee.
    “I’ll never sleep tonight,” she said almost girlishly. Christine was sure she had never seen her mother so . . . so unmotherly.
    So relaxed, and enjoying herself.
    “The soak in the tub will relax you.”
    “Yes. Yes, it will. I just hope I don’t fall asleep right there. You’d never manage to get me off to bed.”
    “I’d add a bit more hot water now and then.”
    They laughed at the exchange and excused themselves from the table.
    “Let’s walk up,” suggested Christine. “I want to see how they have furnished and decorated all the halls.”
    “I’m too full to walk,” protested Elizabeth. “I’d never make it up five flights.”
    “Then you take the elevator. I’ll meet you at the room.”
    “But we’ve only one key.”
    “You take it. You’ll be there first. I’ll knock.”
    Elizabeth nodded and headed for the elevator. Christine began the long trek up five flights of stairs. She did not rush but enjoyed each new floor with its rich, fine furniture and pieces of artwork. Heavy velvet curtains graced the wide windows at the end of each hallway and shimmering candelabra sent prisms of light over the deep wine-colored carpeting.
    It wasn’t until she was on the fourth floor that she saw anyone, a man and woman just leaving their room. They seemed to have been arguing about something and quickly hushed as Christine approached. The woman shot an angry look her way, but the man avoided eye contact with her as he fumbled with the key in the door lock. Christine did not bother with a greeting. She hurried on by, only glancing at the picture of the English countryside that hung near the elevator door. She moved toward the exit sign that announced her next flight of stairs and continued on to the fifth floor. But her little journey had been spoiled by their hostility toward each other and toward her.
    Her mother answered the door at the sound of her knock. “There you are. I was beginning to worry.”
    “I dawdled. There was so much to see. You’ve never seen such magnificent paintings.”
    “Perhaps we should walk down when we go for breakfast in the morning. It’s much easier to walk down than up.”
    Christine nodded. She