The Escape Artist (14 page)

He reached out and pulled her into a hug. “I feel one hundred percent certain that Tyler is safe,” he said quietly. “I don’t think you want to hear that, though. I don’t think you want to hear me say that I think Susanna is a perfectly fine mother. She never missed an appointment with me. She did everything she was told to do to take care of Tyler.”

She nodded woodenly as she let go of him. They said good-bye, and she turned to walk slowly back to the kitchen. She knew she should be heartened by his assessment of Susanna’s ability to care well for Tyler, but he was right. She didn’t want to hear it.

IT WAS NOT THE
first time Kim and Cody had visited the park a few blocks from their apartment, but it was the first time they were not alone at the playground. A young woman about Kim’s age was pushing a toddler on the swing, while an older child, a boy, played in the collection of huge plastic tubes. Kim had intended to push Cody on the swing as well, but seeing the woman there changed her mind. She lifted him out of the stroller and began walking toward the slide instead, but Cody reached toward the swing set, trying to twist out of the confines of her arms.

“Deh, deh!” he said, his word for “swing,” a word only a mother could understand.

“All right.” She gave in and carried him over to the swings, slipping him into a molded plastic seat, one swing over from the woman and the toddler.

“Hi.” The woman smiled at her. She had short dark hair and looked a little like Valerie. “I haven’t seen you here before.”

“No. We’re new in town.”

“I’m Roxanne,” the woman said. “This is Brandon. And that’s Jack over there.” She pointed toward the little boy in the plastic tubes. He was talking loudly to himself, yelling with bravado.

“I’m Kim, and this is Cody.” She looked at the baby in the swing. “How old is Brandon?” she asked.

“A year yesterday.”

Kim leaned closer to the little boy. He had curly dark hair and enormous brown eyes. “Happy birthday, Brandon,” she said.

She pushed Cody in the swing, but her son’s attention was on Roxanne. He twisted in the seat to see her, reaching toward her with his arm.

“Bawrie, Bawrie!” He opened and closed his fist as though he wanted to grab hold of the stranger.

Kim smiled. “No, honey, that’s not Valerie.” She was surprised that he too saw the resemblance. They were both only seeing what they wanted to see. “You remind him of a friend of ours,” she said.

“Ah,” said Roxanne. She was keeping one eye on her older son as he shot through one of the tubes head-first, and she shook her head. “I can’t let Jack out of my sight for an instant. He’s a hellion.”

“How old is he?”

“Four, going on fourteen.”

Even at this distance, Kim could tell that Jack was one of those wired little boys—far too loud and far too active. He was the type of child she’d prayed Cody would not turn out to be.

“Cody’s about eleven months, right?” Roxanne asked.

“That’s right.”

“That’s a great monkey you have there, Cody,” Roxanne said, then she smiled at Kim. “So. Where did you move from?”

“New Jersey,” she said, then added, “but I like it here much better. Have you lived here long?” She wanted to get the conversation off herself and New Jersey as quickly as possible.

“We’ve lived here ten years,” Roxanne said. “My husband teaches at the Naval Academy. What does your husband do?”

“I’m recently divorced.” Kim felt suddenly embarrassed by her single parent status. It was doubtful she’d run across many other divorced mothers who had children Cody’s age. Maybe she should have made Kim Stratton a recent widow. More sympathetic. Too late to change the story now, though.

“Oh, that must be hard, having to raise Cody on your own,” Roxanne said. Then she brightened. “Listen, I try to bring the boys here about this time every day. Maybe you could come at the same time, and the kids could play together.”

“Sounds good. At least until I start working.”

Jack suddenly leapt off one of the plastic tubes and ran toward the swing set. He crashed right into the swing in which his brother was sitting, and Brandon burst into tears.

“Jack, stop that!” Roxanne grabbed her older son by the arm. “What did I tell you about playing rough?” She looked up at Kim. “Someone is a little resentful of someone else these days,” she said.

Kim nodded, but her eyes were riveted on the plastic gun in Jack’s hand. It was small, but looked real. Real enough to make her want to duck.

“Now you go sit over there until we’re ready to leave.” Roxanne pointed to the picnic table near the path.

Jack lifted his hand and pointed the gun at his mother. “Pow!” he said, and Kim caught her breath.

Roxanne gave a grunt of annoyance. “Could you watch Brandon for just a sec?” she asked.

Kim nodded, and Roxanne latched onto her older son’s shoulder. She marched him over to the picnic table, where she sat down, held on to his arms, and spoke to him quietly.

Brandon began to whimper, and Kim gave his swing a few gentle pushes. Roxanne was back in less than a minute and she took over pushing Brandon, a wry smile on her lips.

“Is this your only child?” she asked, nodding toward Cody.

“Yes.”

“Let me give you a word of advice. Stop while you’re ahead.”

Kim laughed as she lifted Cody out of the swing. “I’ll remember that,” she said. “I think we’d better get going.”

“Already?” Roxanne looked disappointed. “Well, I hope to see you here again.”

“I’m sure you will.” She settled Cody back into his stroller, bade Roxanne good-bye, and walked up the path to the street. She doubted very much that she would return to the park at this time of day. She wouldn’t have Cody playing with kids who used toy guns. That was one absolute nonnegotiable. No more guns in her life again, ever.

THERE WAS A PIECE
of mail waiting for her at the house.

Ellen had propped it up against the vase of silk flowers on the table in the foyer, and Kim nearly walked past it before she noticed her name on the cream-colored envelope.
Kimberly Stratton
.

She shifted Cody to her other hip, then stared at the envelope for a moment before picking it up. Mail for her? Here?

It was a squarish envelope with a typewritten label. Mystified, she carried it upstairs to her apartment. She put Cody down for his nap, then sat on the sofa to open the envelope. Inside was a formal looking invitation.

You are cordially invited

to a showing of Adam Soria’s work

at the Cherise Gallery

October 3, 7:00 p.m
.

The mural painter. How on earth? She studied the card, then peered inside the envelope as if she might find a clue as to why she’d received the invitation. Maybe someone had gone through an Annapolis directory—a very recent directory—and sent invitations to everyone within the town limits. Or maybe Ellen had something to do with it. That had to be it. Ellen probably knew someone at the gallery and asked them to invite the friendless new kid on the block to the showing.

She set the invitation aside and pulled her sketchbook from the magazine rack by the sofa. Sitting in a chair by the window, she began working on the sketch she’d started the day before of the house across the street. She’d gotten a couple of books from the library on drawing, and the techniques she’d learned in high school were coming back to her. Too bad she had stayed away from art for so long. She had to keep reminding herself that there was no one she had to answer to for her drawing these days. There was no one around to tell her she had no talent, no one who could take this sketchbook away from her. She was finding it hard to concentrate, though. The invitation kept creeping back into her mind.

As soon as Cody awakened from his nap, she carried him downstairs and loaded him back into his stroller. “We’re taking another walk, kiddo,” she said.

She headed in the direction of the Cherise Gallery. After fifteen minutes of walking, she found it on a narrow, cobblestone side street. A simple wooden sign hung from the front of a brick facade: Cherise Gallery.

Kim peered in the front window. The walls of the gallery appeared to be covered with Adam Soria’s work, the paintings on a smaller scale than the murals, of course, but still possessing that distinctive play of light and dark, that half-real, half-surreal quality that had enticed her on the street.

A handwritten sign taped to the door read “back in twenty minutes.” She wondered how long ago that twenty minutes had started, but it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t hang around here and let herself be that conspicuous. She had already made up her mind, though, that she was going to the show the following night.

Ellen was coming out the front door of the house, the mesh bag she used for groceries hanging over her shoulder, when Kim and Cody arrived home.

“Hi, Kim. Hi Cody,” Ellen said. “Guess what? You two are going to have a new neighbor.”

“We are?” At the bottom of the porch steps, Kim lifted Cody out of the stroller.

“I just took her deposit a few minutes ago. She seems very nice.”

Oh. The other apartment. Kim masked her disappointment. “Really,” she said.

“Her name is Lucy O’Connor,” Ellen continued. “She’s sixty-ish, I’d say. Divorced, so that makes three of us, huh? She’s a writer and works at home. She’s been published in lots of magazines and newspapers, and she didn’t have a problem with there being a baby next door. She says she writes articles for parenting magazines, so babies are right up her alley.”

Kim forced a smile. “Sounds perfect.” She collapsed the stroller and started up the porch steps. “When is she moving in?”

“Tomorrow night.” Ellen reached out to take the stroller from Kim’s hands and set it next to the front door. “Some friends are helping her. You can meet her then.”

“Oh, I’m going out tomorrow night. To an art show.” She waited for Ellen to say, “Oh, so you got the invitation! I asked them to send you one,” but Ellen didn’t even seem to hear her.

“Well, you can meet her when you come home then,” she said as she started down the stairs. “I’m going to the store. Do you need anything?”

“No thanks.”

At the bottom of the stairs, Ellen turned to study her quizzically for a moment. “You know, I might be able to find a babysitter if you want to get out without Cody sometime. It must be hard for you, not knowing anyone.”

“No, thanks,” Kim said again. “It’s really not a problem.” She didn’t plan on being separated from her son any time soon. Yes, he made it more difficult for her to be able to move through town—through her life—incognito, but that was the risk she had to take. She wondered, though, if it would be completely inappropriate to show up at an art show with a baby in tow.

It was quite dark by seven o’clock the following evening, and she decided to drive to the gallery instead of walk. There was no parking on the tiny street, but she found a space a block away.

Even from that distance, she could hear the noise from the gallery as soon as she got out of her car. Laughter bounced off the buildings on the opposite side of the street, and she could see light spilling onto the cobblestones from the gallery window and the open front door. She decided against trying to maneuver the stroller through a crowd of people and carried Cody in her arms instead.

She began walking toward the commotion. A few people were outside the gallery itself and a man and woman stood laughing on the narrow stone steps. This was probably a bad idea, Kim thought, but already she was close enough to the building that people had noticed her, and she would have felt silly turning around and walking back to the car.

“Excuse me.” She stepped between the couple on the steps and walked through the open front door.

The bright lights and press of people nearly took her breath away, and she stood still for a moment, trying to get her bearings. She was definitely the only person carrying a child, and she was not as formally dressed as most people. Her fifty-cent garage sale skirt, the only skirt in her nearly empty closet, had seemed appropriate before she left the apartment, but now she felt dowdy. Some of the women in the gallery looked as if they belonged in a nightclub.

A few people, plastic cups of wine in their hands, glanced at her as they conversed with one another, and she was glad she’d remembered to tuck the invitation into her purse in case anyone asked her what she thought she was doing there.

A tall black woman, her hair braided and beaded, suddenly emerged from the throng, shaking hands, touching shoulders, talking quickly and loudly. She looked as though she was in charge.

“Excuse me.” Kim tightened her hold on Cody and took a step toward the woman. “Is it all right if I bring my son in? I’ll hold him.”

“You will not hold him.” The woman laughed. “Because I’m gonna hold him.” She snatched the baby, monkey and all, from her arms so quickly that Kim felt a second of panic before realizing that the woman meant no harm.

“I’m Cherise, honey,” the woman said. “And you’re…?”

“Kim.”

Cherise waved at someone leaving the gallery. “Take care of that woman, now, Kenny!” She returned her attention to the little boy in her arms. Cody was fascinated by her long dangling beaded earrings, and Kim feared he might tug on one of them any second.

“And what’s your name?”

“Cody,” Kim answered. “Don’t pull her earring, Cody.” She reached out to brush Cody’s hand away.

The woman didn’t seem to share her concern.

“Cody,” she repeated. “He’s just like my sister’s little boy. Well, not the same color, but he’s the same age. Just about a year, right?”

“Close to it,” Kim said.

“And just as handsome as my nephew. Well, almost, aren’t you?” She suddenly grabbed the arm of a woman who was walking past her. “You get yourself another glass of wine, honey,” she said to the woman. “You’re going to need it with the night you’ve got ahead of you.”

Kim found herself smiling. There was something comforting in the gallery owner’s electric chatter and her easy, unpretentious hospitality. She wanted to ask Cherise how she’d come by her invitation, but decided against it.