Escape (8 page)

I might have argued that there had been far more than that, only she had given me the opening, and if my dreams were to be believed, the subject had a grip on at least a small part of my mind. “Speaking of animals, there were coyotes that summer. Are they still here?”

“No. Not since Jude left. He was the only one who saw them, or said he did.”

“I saw them.” I could vouch for Jude on this. “There was actually just one, up by his cabin. We watched it—and it us—for hours. Jude used to whisper to it, like they had this awesome connection. He was sure it had a mate in the woods, but we never saw the pair together. So, you haven’t heard them?”

She shook her head.

Not since Jude left
. That gave me a little chill. It was only in recent months that my dreams had begun. I wondered what the significance of that was.

“He always drew creatures that way,” Vicki mused. “Like I said, animal magnetism.” Her eyes found mine. “He’s coming back after all this time? Did he say what he wanted to do here or how long he’d stay?”

“He mentioned unfinished business, but he didn’t elaborate, and he knew he might have trouble staying here long.”

“That is Jude. I wonder what he looks like.”

So did I. One look at him that summer, and I’d been lost.

Vicki read my mind. With a little squeeze, she dropped my hand. “Is it good with James?”

“Sex?” Only with Vicki could I have this conversation. “It used to be fabulous,” I said, folding my legs. “Trying to get pregnant makes it less fun.”

“Does James agree?”

“Not in as many words. He would never tell me it isn’t good.”

“Would he ever have an affair?”

I didn’t immediately answer, as if saying the words aloud would make them real. But they were real. At least, my worry was real. “He may be.”

“Having one now?”

“I don’t know for sure. There’s one woman. They work together all the time. Breakfast, lunch, everything in between. When they work late, it’s take-in dinner in the conference room.”

“Aren’t other people there?”

“Sometimes.”

“Have you asked him about it?”

“Indirectly, like a joke.” Unable to meet her eye, I pulled at the grass between my legs. “He laughs it off.” I straightened. “I really don’t think he is. He is not that kind of person.” I wanted to believe, oh, I did. “And I’m hypersensitive about it because of Jude.”

“I’ll never forgive him for that.”

“It’s done.”

“So now you worry about James. Would you ever cheat on him?”

“Never. Of course, he’d probably say I’m cheating on him now.”

“By being here?”

“By not telling him I’m here.”

Vicki was silent. She would agree with James on that one.

“Maybe it’s a power thing,” I suggested. “I’ve felt so
without
power for so long.”

“He is your husband.”

“But I don’t want him coming after me.” I shot a look at the guy in the car at the end of the green. For all I knew, he was a detective. James couldn’t have sent him so fast, but my father might have. More likely, he was the husband of a woman having her hair done in the shop behind the General Store.

I sighed. “And that’s all I know, that I want time without James. Pathetic, isn’t it? I mean, I’m sitting here trying not to think. But if
I don’t think, I won’t figure out my life. And what do I do in the meanwhile?”

Vicki’s smile was warm. “Whatever your heart desires. Isn’t that what Bell Valley’s about?”

This time, it was me taking her hand. “You are such a good friend. I don’t have friends in New York. Well, I do, but it’s different.”

“Different, how?”

“Less personal. Less face-to-face. Mostly we text, and when we’re together, one of us is either typing or talking to someone else entirely. We’re all on all the time, so any one relationship is diluted by the others. It’s sad. I’m supposed to be a bridesmaid at Colleen Parker’s wedding, but we’re not even close. We met through book group, and since we’re both lawyers, we figured there ought to be a connection, but I wouldn’t call it strong. Book group meets once a month, and we relate the books to our own lives because we’re so hungry to talk about feelings. But there are ten of us in the group, so it isn’t intimate, and we only meet for an hour because that’s all we have. Colly and I used to meet for lunch, but even that stopped. No time.” I was working myself into a snit. “Maybe Colly defines friendship this way, but I don’t. I don’t know where she comes from, don’t know where she’s headed or what she dreams. I don’t know her family or her friends, and I don’t want to be in her wedding.”

“Why did you tell her yes?”

I had asked myself that dozens of times, kicking myself then and now for not having gently refused when she first asked. Explaining it to Vicki, I squirmed a little. “Because I want close friends, and this is what close friends do, and for whatever reason, Colly was desperate for it. Her specialty is patents, which I don’t understand, so it’s not like we even talk about work. Once the wedding’s over, we’ll probably only see each other at book group. We don’t have much in common”—I grabbed a breath—“which, in a nutshell, describes the friends I’ve made.”

“Then you haven’t found the right ones.”

“You’re right. But I’ve been in the city seven years. What’s the problem?”

Vicki’s eyes spoke for her.

“Okay. It’s me. I neglect friends, like I neglected you, so relationships never have a chance to develop, which would be fine if I didn’t want them, but I do.” I rubbed my forehead, pushing the dilemma around.

“Do not do that,” Vicki ordered. “You’re here to relax.”

“I’m here to decide what to
do
with my life,” I said, mildly hysterical.

“Shh. One step at a time. Right now, what are your choices?”

There were three. “Stay here. Go back to New York. Go somewhere else.”

“Forget somewhere else. Short run, it’s here or New York. Start with New York. If you went back, what would change?”

“Nothing. That’s the problem. If I go back, I have to accept that that’s my life, but I don’t know if I can. The alternative—staying here—creates other problems.”

“Like Jude?”

“No. Jude is not a factor in my being here. I told you that.”

“Okay.” She indulged me. “Then James. If he knew you were here, you could buy time with less guilt.”

“What about Lane Lavash?”

“Tell them you’re sick,” she said as she stood.

“That’d work if I planned to be back by the end of the week, but maybe I won’t.” I eyed her cautiously.

I’d said it before, but it bore repeating: when it came to me, Vicki Bell got it.

“The room is yours as long as you want it. I don’t hate you anymore—not even for telling me about Jude, because I’d rather know than not.” She studied me for another minute, before reaching down with a hug. “I don’t live in the city, and I do have lots of friends, but you were always the best of the bunch.”

The feeling was mutual. I thought about that as Vicki walked back to the Red Fox. What made a friend a best friend? Did it have to be someone who knew your people, who shared your life outlook or your views on religion or politics? Could it just be someone who could talk and listen and commiserate?

Vicki and I were strangers until we were eighteen. It was move-in day freshman year. Assigned to different roommates down the hall from each other, we met for the first time in the communal bathroom. I was brushing my hair, she was brushing her teeth, both of us needing to escape the scary newness of our lives by doing the mundane.

She was from New Hampshire, I was from Maine, she wanted Art, I wanted English, but we started to talk and didn’t stop until my worried mother came looking for me. I found myself looking for Vicki wherever I went, and she did the same. When her roommate dropped out after a week, my moving into her room was a no-brainer.

Chemistry. Vicki and I had that. Right from the start.

But wasn’t a best friend also someone you could trust not to hurt you? I had hurt Vicki, yet here she was, opening her home and heart to me again. So maybe being a best friend entailed the ability to forgive.

Gradually, the sun moved, casting me in the dappled shade of the goldfinch’s oak. Thinking about friendship, then marriage, then dreams, I sat on the grass as the life of Bell Valley flowed by. It was a leisurely life, but it had purpose. There was Carl Younger, owner of the hardware store, carrying a bag of trash out the side door and pausing to check a birdfeeder before disappearing around back. And Sara Carney, adjusting the big
OPEN
flag in front of The Fiber Store, which had been The Sewing Store when I was here last but had expanded into yarn, to judge from the colorful window display. Likewise, the telephone store was now The Gadget Store.

Simple and straightforward. That’s Bell Valley. What you see is what you get.

Take The Bookstore. A hot new release was advertised in the window, along with displays of other books, but I also saw puzzles, games, and gift wrap. Vickie Longosz—the Book V, we called her—had branched out, which made total sense, given the economic reality. I wondered if she would think me a traitor for owning a Kindle.

I was thinking that I ought to drop in and buy a few books with the cash that my husband was worried about, when I saw the car that had been parked at the end of the green move closer. It was a small charcoal SUV. I smiled, wondering if the hair shop was still doing the same tight perms, when I heard another car, this one
mine
, coasting around the green. Slowing, it turned into the parking lot of the Red Fox. A second car followed and waited while the gangly boy who’d been driving mine went inside. This would be his ride back to the garage.

The responsible thing would have been to act. Nestor’s son should be thanked, and he would need to be paid. But I remained in the shadow of the bench, watching as the door of the second car opened and a chocolate lab hopped out. It trotted across the street and onto the green, pausing to pee before making for me. Its nose was cold, but its eyes were beseeching, and when I scratched its ears, its whole rear end wagged. Its tongue followed, licking me into a laugh.

I loved dogs. We’d always had one when I was growing up, first Morgan, then Dane. I cried for weeks when Morgan died, and leaving Dane when I went to college was harder than leaving my mom. At least Mom and I could talk on the phone. She used to put the handset to Dane’s ear, and she told me that my voice made him grin, but did he understand where I was, why I was there, and that I loved him even though I’d left?

Did James?

At the sound of a whistle, the dog loped back to the car. I wanted to think he watched me out the window as, with Nestor’s son inside, they drove off. I wanted to think we had connected and that he would seek me out whenever I was within sniffing distance. I wanted to think it had been love at first sight.

My car dying had been a sign telling me I was right to have come to Bell Valley. I wanted to think meeting this dog was a sign I should stay.

Foolish me. It was a sign, all right—a sign that I was hungry for love. Thought of that choked me up, and since I was tired of crying, I closed my eyes, put my head back against the side of the bench, and changed the subject.

With one sense closed off, the others sharpened. The Grill might be the only restaurant for miles around, but the lack of competition hadn’t hurt it any. The food had always been good. From the smell of it now, nothing had changed. My mind’s eye pictured a bacon cheeseburger, a BLT, even a Cobb salad with warm goodies crumbled all over the top.

I was definitely hungry. But having lunch at The Grill would mean Exposure with a capital “E.” So I returned to the Red Fox and entered the kitchen through the back door, then stopped short when I spotted Rob. Brown-haired and lanky, he was standing at the counter forking down lunch. I might have backed away, postponing the moment of reckoning, if he hadn’t looked up.

“Hey,” I said with a sheepish smile. I had always liked Rob. He was quiet, perhaps a tad boring, but kindhearted. Taking off my hat, which somehow felt wrong in such a personal place, I kissed his cheek. “Good to see you, Rob.”

“And you,” he replied, and though I heard caution, his voice felt like home. “Vicki’s putting Charlotte in for a nap.”
Chahlette
. Definitely like home.

“That’s good.” I leaned against the counter. “She’s precious, Rob. And a new baby on the way?” I clucked in admiration. “That’s great.”

He was studying me, waiting.

I sighed. “I’ve been a bad friend, Rob. I’m sorry. It wasn’t intentional.”

“Vicki was hurt.”

“I know.”

“Don’t do it again.”

I smiled. With Vicki the talker, Rob never said much. Like her, though, he let you know where he stood.

“I’m serious,” he said, but I could see he was softening.

“Hey, in shutting her out, I hurt me, too. I need to mend that for both our sakes.”

Looking down, he studied his fork as it moved macaroni and cheese around the plate. When he looked back at me, there were furrows on a brow that was normally smooth. “It isn’t just Vicki and me or even Charlotte. It’s the rest of Bell Valley. You left abruptly.”