Escape (6 page)

“After Jude, you moved on.” She handed me the tea.

It was an offering of warmth, literally, figuratively. I wasn’t ready to talk about Jude yet, but it might be the price I’d have to pay for this room. Pushing my pillows higher, I took the tea. “You won’t let that go.”

“I can’t. Seeing you brings it back. You went in such a different direction after that summer, like you were repudiating him, me, Bell Valley.”

“Not repudiating,” I said quickly, then thought back on my life at that time. Painful as it was, this was why I had come—to find out what had happened to me after I’d left. “He took himself out of my life. I had to make another one.”

“The opposite of what you had here.”

“Yes. Reminders hurt.”

“Do tell,” she drawled.

“I’m sorry. I tried other places before coming back here, only they didn’t work. They were too much like what I was trying to escape.”

“Which is?”

I told her what my Friday morning had been like, ending with,
“Noise, lots of noise. And machines. And traffic. This is the quietest place I know. I mean, listen.” I stopped talking. The silence spoke for itself.

Her voice was gentle. “There are lots of other quiet places, Emmie.”

None with a coyote waiting on the edge of a clearing, I might have said if I had wanted to talk about dreams. “None where I know people. That’s part of the problem, too. There are times in New York when I don’t feel like I
know
anyone. I need human contact. I knew I could get it here.”

She stared at me for a minute, then broke off a corner of a scone and pressed it into my mouth. “The blueberries are from New Jersey. Ours won’t ripen for another month.”

I chewed the scone, tasting every crumb, and washed the last down with tea. “See?” I said when my insides were soothed. “You made my point. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. If I wanted to escape, where better to go? Where would
you
go?”

“A hotel.” When I gave her a puzzled look, she smiled. “Have you seen
Date Night
?” I shook my head. “Steve Carell plays Tina Fey’s husband, and they’ve designated a weekly date night to stir up a little excitement between them. So they’re at a restaurant, and he asks if she’s ever wanted to have an affair. She quickly says no, then grows sheepish and confesses to having times, like really bad days, when work stinks and the kids are acting up, when she’d give anything to check into a hotel and be alone. I’m there, too. You may think my life is quiet, certainly compared to yours, but chatter is not always audible. I have days when the oven malfunctions so the muffins won’t crust, when guests have a gazillion requests that take time to fill, and Rob wonders why I haven’t put out fresh flowers, and Charlotte just cling cling clings—”

“Charlotte,” I broke in, appalled. “I haven’t asked.”

“No.” Vicki’s eyes scolded. “You haven’t. She’s three now, and she’s great—sweet and adorable and slow to talk because we always know what she wants, so she doesn’t have to ask. Rob and I waited to have kids, and I think because of that, we appreciate her more. Being
a mom is the best thing in the world. I know you probably don’t want to hear that. You always used to say you wanted a baby, and it obviously hasn’t happened yet.”

“We’re trying.”

“Oh. Good.”

“No, I mean, we’ve been trying for a while. Lots of women put it off while they build their careers. Me, I wanted a baby three years ago. We’ve had tests. The doctors don’t know why it hasn’t happened.”

Vicki stared at me. “I’m no doctor, but if you think you’ll get pregnant in the condition you are in right now, think again.”

“I’m pathetic.”

She squeezed my hand. “You are not pathetic, just misguided. Your priorities are messed up. They didn’t used to be, before Jude.”

“I can’t blame Jude for the last ten years. He wasn’t telling me what to do.”

“And here you are. The problem, Emmie, is that if you stay even one more night, you’ll see Charlotte. And my mom. She’s here all the time, going back and forth with Charlotte.”

That brought a curious smile. “Amelia? Babysitting?”

Vicki bobbed her eyes, a little shrug of the lids that I’d always appreciated. “Weird, isn’t it? It’s actually nice. She’s a very involved grandmother—far better with Charlotte than she ever was with us.”

The last time I saw Amelia was at Vicki’s wedding. To say that she hadn’t welcomed me was putting it mildly. “Does she still blame me for Jude leaving?” I asked. Vicki’s silence said yes. “But I was not the offender. And he would have left here anyway. A part of him hated this town. I told him I’d have gone anywhere with him.”

“Which likely scared him shitless, but Mom can’t accept that. She believes that you asked more of him than he could give and that he felt like a failure, so he left.”

My jaw dropped. “I asked more of him than he could give? Is fidelity asking too much?”

“No,” Vicki drawled, “but moms aren’t always rational.” She grew apologetic. “I used to think she was crazy, but now that I’m a mom
myself, I understand the concept of needing to blame someone for losing a child. It doesn’t have to make sense. But if anything happened to Charlotte, I’d need someone—
anyone
—to go after.”

“Jude isn’t lost,” I said, because I really did need to tell Vicki Bell what I knew.

“Well, not dead, not yet, but he asks for it all the time. Think Iraq. After Saddam fell and chaos broke out, he raced there to rescue injured pets and was caught in the crossfire. He went places he should never have gone.”

“He was on a humanitarian mission.”

“Yes, but there are right and wrong ways to go about it. Our military had to use valuable resources protecting him, and they weren’t happy. Jude took chances he didn’t need to take. He was too cocky for his own good.”

“Not cocky,” I reasoned, because that wasn’t how I saw Jude. “Self-assured. He was committed to ideals.”

“Emily, he was a rebel.”

“An adventurer,” I insisted.

“Well, that’s the nice word. You always picked those when it came to Jude. He wasn’t rude, he was honest. He wasn’t rash, he was spirited. Don’t get me wrong. I love my brother. But I saw his faults. You? You were blinded by first love.”

“But he was so much fun,” I argued. “Rash, spirited—call him what you will, but there was an irreverent streak in him that was totally creative. He was the muscle behind the Refuge’s outreach program, and look at how much good it’s done. Okay. He was impulsive. But maybe,” I added in a troubled tone, “that’s better than overthinking every last decision.”

Vicki got it. I could tell by the way she studied me. “Is that what you’ve done?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. I wasn’t aware of it, because it came easily, like law school led to James, who led to New York, which led to my firm. But it was all so
cerebral.
”

“Do you love James?”

“Yes,” I said quickly, then paused. “I think so.”

“What does that mean?”

A door closed somewhere downstairs, the gentleness of it a reminder of where I was and, in that, encouragement. I couldn’t talk with anyone in New York about James. It would have felt like a betrayal. But this was Bell Valley, and I had roomed with Vicki Bell through four years of college, which made her part of my life well before James.

“I was bowled over when I met him,” I told her. “I mean, there he was—blue eyes, dark hair, six-two, and toned. He was a runner.” Jude had been a climber and, by contrast, stood six-four, had gold eyes and a tumble of blond hair. “James was smart and hardworking. He was driven, but so was I. It was like I’d found a twin. We wanted to make law review, and we did. We wanted to graduate summa cum laude, and we did. When it came to law, James had a plan for success. We set out to accomplish it.” I recalled the conclusion I’d reached sitting alone on that porch in the Berkshires.

“And now?” Vicki prompted.

“I’m not sure the plan’s right for me. It is for James. He’s going full-speed ahead. I’m the problem.” Saying it aloud made it more real. But today was Monday, which made my escape itself more real—terrifying, actually. “I feel like I’m skipping school.”

“You never skipped school.”

“Right. I never hated school like I hate work. This case, another case, would it matter? It’s the culture of the firm, the race to rack up billable hours, the lack of warmth among partners even at the top levels. Walter Burbridge is probably furious at me right now, but when I think of being back there, my head fills with static. It is
deafening.
”

“Have you told James all this?”

“I’ve tried, but he doesn’t want to hear. Besides, if we’re not working, we’re sleeping, unless the chart says I’m ovulating, in which case we’re making love, which is not terribly romantic when it’s scheduled like that. In any case, we’re too tired to have a substantive discussion.”

“Have you talked with him since you left?”

“Briefly. He thinks I’m having a nervous breakdown. Is that what this is?”

Vicki snickered. “Seems to me like you’re living a fantasy. Just putting a stop to the things you hate in your life and taking time off. Any chance he’ll follow you here?”

“He can’t. He doesn’t know where I am.”

She looked startled by that. “Shouldn’t you tell him? He’s your husband. Don’t you owe it to him?”

“More than I owe myself time away to think?” the newly assertive me asked.

“But won’t he worry?”

“Yes. But he’s busy with work.”

“Okay, then there’s this. You met him right after you left here. Won’t he put two and two together and guess that you’re here?”

“No. I never talked about this place much to him.”

“Does he know about Jude?”

“No.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“Emily,” she protested. “Jude was your
life
that summer. How could you not talk about him?”

“Have you told Rob about every guy you ever dated?”

“He was the only guy I ever dated.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Big picture, here. Does a husband need to know everything about his wife’s past? If it’s over and done,
no
. I’m sure James dated in college, but I don’t know the girls. He worked for three years before law school. Of course he dated, but I don’t want to know the details. When it came to Jude, well, when I left here, I closed that door. It was a clean break. That was the only way I could handle it.”

“And you never talked about it later?”

I shook my head. “James and I talk about present and future. He knows nothing about Bell Valley.”

“Wow,” Vicki breathed, but I was distracted by a movement
behind her, a small face at the crack of the door. It was instantly familiar, like that of her mom. When a warmth spread in my chest, I caught in a breath and whispered, “Oh my.”

Vicki turned. “Oh my, is right,” she gently scolded. “How many guest rooms did you peek into before you found me here, Charlotte Bell?” But she wasn’t angry. I knew it. So did Charlotte Bell.

The little girl looked from her mother to me, remaining at the door until Vicki waved her in. She walked slowly, cautious eyes on me the whole way. Small and perfectly formed, she had her father’s gray eyes, her mother’s blond hair, and curls nearly as long as Jude’s. She wore a jersey dress that was purple and pink, with leggings in the reverse pattern. When she was within reach, Vicki scooped her up and settled her on her lap.

If I was enthralled by the child, Vicki was that much more so. The love in her eyes was something to behold. “This is Emily,” she said against a small ear. “I knew Emily at school, just like you know Clara at school. We used to have overnights, like you sometimes have with Nana Amelia. Remember, you had pizza?” Eyes still on mine, the child gave a tiny nod. “Charlotte loves pizza,” Vicki told me. “And hot chocolate. Emmie and I used to have hot chocolate,” she told Charlotte. “With marshmallows. And whipped cream.”

“At two in the morning,” I put in.

“But only during exams.”

“Hah. We gave meaning to the Freshman Fifteen.”

Vicki squeezed her daughter and said into that little ear again, “Remember I told you I went to school for a while in England, where everyone talks like Alec, the little boy in your class? Emmie was with me. We traveled all around Europe.”

I doubted the child knew what Europe was, but I jumped aboard the memory. “If I had to choose the highlight of my college experience, it’d be our semester in Bath. I still have the scarf I bought at the bridge. Remember that?”

“How could I forget?” Vicki crowed. “It was neon pink and
awful
. You wore it constantly.”

“And that gorgeous Italian guy—”

“Dante.”

“That was not his real name,” I insisted.

“He said it was, but he was bad. He never studied. I swear, his goal was to corrupt
us
. Remember that one night—”

“At the Roman baths.” Embarrassed, I covered my face. “Omigod. Beer.
Guinness.
”

Vicki grew wistful. “I haven’t thought about that in a long time. It was another life.”

A sobering thought there. A better life? A freer life? It had sure been fun.

Vicki was on the same wavelength. “We should have gone for the whole year, not just the fall. Coming back was a drag.”

“I wear the scarf sometimes. It spices up my uniform. Not that it gets past the coatroom. I haven’t been bold at Lane Lavash.” Not until now. Of course, the question remained as to whether what I was doing was bold or just plain irresponsible. I thought of Layla and the other innocent people suffering from drinking water that they thought was safe. Someone did have to help them, but that wouldn’t be me today. Maybe not tomorrow or Wednesday either.

“Big frown,” Vicki observed.

“Big worry.” But for later. Determinedly, I returned to the present, to Vicki and her precious little girl. “So you go to school?” I asked Charlotte.

The little girl nodded.

“Every day?”

“Three mornings a week,” Vicki said. “It’s been an adjustment, but we wanted her to be with other children. Come fall, it’ll be five mornings a week. The timing’s good.”

Something about her tone and a certain look in her eye made me catch my breath a second time. Another baby on the way?