Escape (21 page)

“He was
here
?” Vicki asked, startled. She was in the kitchen, finishing a breakfast muffin.

I joined her at the table, close as could be, and looked her in the eye. “Briefly. Did you tell him where I was, Vicki Bell?”

She recoiled. “Me? No way. Your marriage is
your
business. I wouldn’t interfere. When did he get here?”

I knew Vicki. If she was lying, she would fidget or blink. But she looked curious, perhaps excited for me, but nothing more—all exculpatory evidence.

“Sometime yesterday.”
I sat there in my car
,
waiting
. “Omigod,” I suddenly realized, “that must have been the blue car I saw. I thought it was Lee’s guard.” I didn’t see her now. “Is she off for the weekend?”

“No. She works right through. She’s having her hair trimmed. She’ll be along.”

“I don’t have any news,” I apologized. “James and I didn’t have much time to talk.”

Vicki snickered.

“What?”

“You have whisker burns on your face.”

Too much sun, I might have said. My breasts were red, too. Not that she could see those. But denial seemed pointless. James was my husband. What did she think we’d be doing after a week apart?

“Are you blushing?” Vicki asked sweetly, resting her chin on her hand.

With a snort, I helped myself to coffee, taking my time, knowing she would wait. Women loved talking about sex when the opportunity presented itself, and I did trust my friend Vicki.

“Isn’t he usually clean-shaven?” she asked when I was sitting again.

Hidden by steam that rose from the mug, I sipped my coffee for a minute, before lowering the mug. “He hadn’t shaved in the two days it took him to track me here. He was”—I groped for the right words—“a different James, and not only the scruff on his face. He hadn’t shaved, hadn’t showered—”

Vicki crinkled her nose.

“No. It was amazing, actually. Raw.
Real.
” I described my walk in the woods, which was part of it, too. “I kept hearing noises behind me, but I couldn’t
see
him, and lots of things make noise in the woods. So I just sat there watching my coyote—”

“Your
coyote
?” Vicki cried in alarm.

I hadn’t meant to tell her. About James, yes, but not the coyote. She was mine. I felt protective. “She ran off. I’m not even sure if James saw her, or if he waited just long enough to know I wasn’t meeting a man. I didn’t even believe it was him at first. He was
wild.
” My voice said that this hadn’t been a bad thing.

“He was jealous,” Vicki decided. “Skipped two days of work for you, ravaged you in the woods, carried you back, then got up in the middle of the night to drive six hours to work. That’s totally romantic.”

“It’s slightly crazy,” I corrected, though I ignored the “carried you back” part, which was overly dramatic but did sound good.

In an abrupt turnaround, Vicki scowled. “I hope you put up a fight.”

“Fight James? Why?”

“Because you had good reason for leaving, and a strong woman wouldn’t cave.”

“I wasn’t exactly submissive,” I said, knowing I was blushing again, but how to remember our lovemaking and not blush?

“What did you tell him about Jude?”

“I assured him Jude and I are done.”

“He’ll still be nervous, y’know, knowing Jude’s here.”

I started to speak, but stopped.

“Oh boy. You didn’t tell him that part? How could you not, Emmie? That’s major important.”

“Not in terms of who I love.”

“But you still feel something for Jude. You told me yourself.”

“It isn’t romantic. It isn’t
sexual
. It’s spiritual.”

Vicki sat back. “You need to tell James.”

“I can’t,” I argued. “He wants me back in New York, and I’m not ready to go. If he knows Jude is here, he’ll insist.”

“He’ll find out anyway.”

“Like he found out Jude is from Bell Valley?” I puzzled. “How did he
know
?”

James hadn’t answered that. As I helped Vicki clean rooms a short time later, with the vacuum preventing talk, I brooded about it. I was still convinced that I hadn’t mentioned Jude in my sleep. He wasn’t the reason I loved James, and as for law school, I had been accepted there long before Jude and I were a thing. I don’t recall thinking of him when I said “I do” to James, signed on with Lane Lavash, or bought my fourth BlackBerry in succession, each a newer generation than the one before. I couldn’t blame Jude for any of that. I had gone overboard all by myself.

One thing I did know as the minutes passed was that I felt better this morning. Was it the sex? A reaffirmation of what James and I had done and could do again? Or was it simply the fact that he had cared enough to come?

Whatever, I still wondered how he had known about Jude. It had to be one of three people. But I wasn’t about to start making calls to the suspects, because that would get me into other discussions, and I wanted to focus on James.

So I drove to the Refuge. Since the weekend volunteers were everywhere, I was able to slip past the main desk, and once I was in Rehab, my shaky kitty quickly found me. Needing to nurture, I hand-fed her, though she ate little and seemed more frail than ever. I told myself I was imagining it, that
any
kitten would be tiny compared to the massive Maine coon that had plopped down by my thigh, minus a leg but sturdy. Still, I was worried. Had the regulars been around, I’d have asked, but they were off for the weekend, leaving the routine care to those weekend warriors. Some came for the day, making regular pilgrimages from places like Concord and Portsmouth. Others were headed elsewhere and simply stopped along the way.

There were enough of them to pick up the slack when I slid back to the wall with Precious on my lap, pulled out my BlackBerry, and tried calling James. I had four bars, so I knew my call went through. He just wasn’t picking up.

I had no right to be hurt. But I was. I knew he was working. But I wanted him to be thinking of me, too.

No phone, I had told him when I first left. My rule. So this was payback.

Or he had gotten what he wanted last night and was satisfied. Or he was so exhausted that he just couldn’t talk. Or he was
sleeping
, dead to the world with his head on his desk.

Most likely, I decided, resigned, he was just working, buried in it to make up for the billable hours he’d lost chasing me. I wondered if he was enjoying the actual work. I hadn’t asked him that in a while. Our usual conversation ran more along the lines of complaints—an associate who wasn’t doing his share, a partner pointing fingers at the wrong people, a client whose sense of entitlement was as big as the money he shelled out. I hadn’t associated work with enjoyment in years.

I didn’t miss Lane Lavash. But I did miss law. After sitting with the kitten a while longer, stroking her head while she slept, I set her carefully in a little fleece bed and returned to the Red Fox. Using Vicki’s personal computer, in an out-of-the-way office that was piled with coloring books, littered with Legos, and smelling of a Play-Doh worm that lay near the mouse, I accessed my e-mail and sent one to James. In the subject line I typed
Legal Question
, hoping he wouldn’t be able to resist.

Hey
, I began.
How are you? I’ve wanted to talk
,
but you’re not answering your phone. I don’t blame you
,
James. I’ve rocked the boat big-time. Trust me
,
it’s hard for me
,
too
. I stopped. Self-pity was wrong. Deleting the last sentence, I wrote,
I know I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry for that. I would have told you in person if you hadn’t run off so fast
. Oops. I couldn’t be critical. Deleting again, I typed,
I would have told you in person if we’d had more time
,
and I loved what we did do with that time
,
but I really need to talk. My mind is clearing. I’m starting to understand me more
,
but it doesn’t mean much if I can’t share it with you
.

My fingers paused, suspended over the keyboard.
Legal Question
. That was all I’d planned to write him about, not matters of the heart.
Hadn’t I sworn off machines as a means of personal communication? Wasn’t I rebelling against a life of relationship-by-remote?

But technology wasn’t going away. It would only get faster, easier, more common. And here was a fact: Right now, for me and James, it was e-mail or nothing.

Besides, was sending my husband personal thoughts in an e-mail any different from my grandmother’s handwriting a love letter and sending it to my grandfather when he was fighting in Korea? Face-to-face might be ideal, but it wasn’t always possible.

My using a computer now was a concession to practicality—or so I reasoned as I left these personal thoughts on the screen.

But I needed to get to the point. James’s patience with me might be limited, and I wanted something to give Lee.

So I typed,
There’s a situation here where I could use your advice. It involves an employee at the inn. She’s a sweet person who bakes amazing cookies
,
but to her dead husband’s family
,
she’s a nobody
,
and because of that
,
she’s being screwed. The immediate problem involves a physical threat
,
but the larger case is interesting
.

I stopped. I knew what James would be thinking.
Don’t worry
, I wrote.
I’m not setting up shop here. My job at Lane Lavash is waiting
. I didn’t say if I wanted it. That would only stir him up.

But the James I’d fallen in love with had a soft spot for nobodies, and even if that James was diminished, the one that remained was a sucker for a good case. Last year, he had worked with warring branches of a family corporation, and though they had settled prior to trial, he had been energized. In comparison, Lee’s case was tiny, but not entirely different.

She was hiding out here
, I typed,
so maybe that’s why I feel for her
,
but she’s been found out
,
and not in a good way
. I typed a summary of her situation—felony barmaid turned heiress, dwindling trust fund, threats—and followed it up with the possibilities I had tossed out in the kitchen with Vicki and Lee.
Money isn’t an issue
, I concluded.
She has a relative who will pay
,
but the problem is jurisdiction. You know more
than I do about Massachusetts law
,
and you have a contact there. Do you think Sean Alexander could handle this? Or someone else in his firm?

I paused to consider how to close, then typed,
I know I’m asking a lot
,
James. You may still be angry enough at me to not want any part of this. But we used to talk about helping the underdog
,
and you were way better at it than I was
. I was thinking of law school again, comparing the promise of James versus how he’d turned out and wondering whether, like me, the turned-out side was simply what we saw because of our jobs. I wanted to believe the other was there, hidden but alive.
I keep thinking back to moot court. Why is it that I feel some of my best work was done then?
Resting the heel of my hands on the edge of the desk, I sighed. Then, as I anticipated his reading these words, I typed,
I can see you pressing your forehead
,
thinking that you need to get back to work and don’t have time for my rambling. But maybe something will come to you that will help my friend. If you think of anything
,
will you pass it on?

My hands hovered. I wanted to sign off with
I love you
, but feared he would think I was saying it only because I wanted something from him. Instead, as a greater act of contrition, I wrote,
I’ll leave my BlackBerry on
.

The problem with that was twofold. First, when James didn’t instantly reply, I was discouraged. I told myself that he would be two days behind in work and couldn’t drop everything for this, and that there was no legal action to be taken on the weekend anyway. I reminded myself that Sean might be gone from the office, gone from his firm, or simply not answering his cell. I assured myself that it was
fine
if James sent me his thoughts later today or tomorrow.

Second, though, in leaving my BlackBerry on, I saw other e-mail. My mom wrote saying that she wanted to talk, and my dad wrote saying I was being irresponsible and was upsetting Mom. On the plus side, my sister sent a surprisingly sympathetic note of envy, while Tessa, my cubicle-mate, said she missed me.

And then there was Walter.

Here’s the good news
,
Emily. You were betrayed by one of your fellow associates
,
who was so pissed at my giving you a four-week leave that he crabbed about it to the managing partner
,
who complained to enough of the equity partners that I’m now in deep shit. I’ve played the corporate compassion card
,
but they’re not buying. Tell me you’re in therapy. Tell me you’re thinking clearly and will be at your desk Monday morning. Tell me
something.
You promised to stay in touch
,
but I haven’t heard a word. Break your promise
,
and I may break mine
.