The Great Escape (4 page)

Another grunt.

She’d never been comfortable in Wynette, although she’d pretended to love it as much as Ted did. But whenever she was there, she could feel everybody judging her. Even though she was the adopted daughter of the former president of the United States, they made her feel as if she weren’t good enough for him. Of course she’d proved them right, but they hadn’t known that when they met her.

Panda continued to stare at the river, his long body silhouetted against the limestone cliffs, his shirt a mass of wrinkles, the tail hanging out on one side, everything about him disreputable. Her shoes were torturous, but she wanted the punishment of pain, so she didn’t pull them off.

He abruptly abandoned his lookout duty to stalk toward her, the heels of his boots grinding into the dirt. “Are you ready to get back to your screwed-up life?”

More than ready. She was done with postponing her responsibilities. Even as a fourteen-year-old, she’d been responsible. How many times over the past seventeen years had Nealy and Mat told her they couldn’t do their jobs if she weren’t such a good caregiver to her siblings?

She’d worked hard at her own job, too. At first she’d used her bachelor’s degree in social work to counsel troubled teens while she got her master’s in public policy. But after a few years, she’d left the casework she loved and begun using her famous name for the less satisfying—but more impactful—task of lobbying. Thanks in part to her, important pieces of legislation had been passed that helped disadvantaged kids. She didn’t plan to give up her lobbying work after she was married either, no matter how tempting. She’d fly to Washington for a few days every month and do the rest of her job from her Texas base. It was long past time to face the consequences of what she’d done.

But her stomach didn’t agree. As the churning got worse, she hurried into the woods and made it into the trees just in time to throw up. She hadn’t eaten in so long that it was painful.

The spasms eventually stopped. He barely looked at her as she came out of the trees. She stumbled toward the river, her heels catching on rocks, then sinking into the sand. She knelt beside the water and splashed her face.

“Let’s go,” he said.

She rested back on her calves, river water dripping down her cheeks. Her voice came from a place far away, a place she hadn’t inhabited since she was very young. “Did you leave many of your things in Wynette?”

“What do you mean?”

“Clothes? Suitcase?”
Your Mensa card?

“I travel light. A pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts, and a box of condoms.”

People were always on their best behavior with the president’s family. Hardly anyone other than Meg or one of her father’s seven sisters ever told her a dirty joke or made even a vaguely crude reference. People’s stiff courtesy had always annoyed her, but now she would have welcomed even a little of it, and she pretended she hadn’t heard. “So there’s nothing I couldn’t compensate you for leaving behind?”

“What are you getting at?”

Her family knew she was safe. Meg would have told them. “I really can’t go back to Wynette while the press is still there.” The press wasn’t her main concern, but she wasn’t telling him that. “I’m wondering what your immediate plans are.”

“Getting rid of you.” He rubbed his stubbly jaw. “And getting laid.”

She swallowed. “What if I make it worth your while?”

He dipped his eyes to her breasts, which her extravagantly expensive French bridal bra had improved. “You aren’t my type.”

Ignore him.
“I meant, what if I make it worth your while not to do either?”

“Not interested.” He whipped the blanket off the ground. “I’m on vacation, and I’m not spoiling another day. You’re going back to Wynette.”

“I’d pay you,” she heard herself say. “Not today. I don’t have any money with me, but I’ll take care of that soon.” How? She’d have to figure that out. “I’ll cover gas, food, all your expenses. Plus … a hundred dollars a day. Agreed?”

He balled up the blanket. “Too much hassle.”

“I can’t go back now.” She unearthed a shred of the bravado she’d possessed in such abundance as a teen, before the weight of her responsibilities had straightened her out. “If you won’t take me with you, I’ll find someone who will.”

Maybe he knew she was bluffing because he practically sneered at her. “Trust me. A chick like you isn’t cut out to spend eight hours a day on a bike.”

“Maybe not. But I can manage it for a day.”

“Forget it.”

“A thousand dollars, plus expenses.”

He carried the blanket over to the saddlebags and stuffed it in. “You think I’d trust you to pay up?”

She twisted her hands in front of her. “I’ll pay. You have my word.”

“Yeah, well, Ted had that, too, and it didn’t turn out to be worth much.”

She cringed. “I’ll put it in writing.”

“Too bad your fiancé didn’t think of that.” With a scowl, he snapped the saddlebags closed.

A
LTHOUGH
P
ANDA DIDN
’
T TAKE HER
up on the offer, he also didn’t ride off without her, which she took as a positive sign. She needed food, but more than that, she wanted comfortable shoes and a change of clothes. “Would you go back?” she shouted in Panda’s ear as he buzzed past a Walmart. “I’d like to get some things.”

Either she hadn’t spoken loud enough or he didn’t hear her because he didn’t stop.

As they rode, she let her mind drift and found herself remembering the day Mat Jorik had shown up at that ratty rental house in Harrisburg where she’d been hiding out with her baby sister during those terrible weeks after their mother’s death. He’d loomed at the front door, angry and impatient. She had a dead mother and a year-old baby sister to protect, so even though she’d been fourteen and scared to death, she didn’t let him see it.

“We got nothing to talk about,”
she’d said after he’d bullied his way inside.

“Cut the crap … Unless you shoot straight with me, Child and Family Services will be here to pick you up in an hour.”

For six weeks, she’d used all the resources a fourteen-year-old could muster to keep the authorities from finding out she was the only one caring for the baby she’d called Button, the baby who’d grown up to be Tracy. “
We don’t need anybody taking care of us!
” she’d shouted.
“We’re doing great by ourselves. Why don’t you mind your own damn business?”

But he hadn’t minded his business, and before long, he, Lucy, and Button were on the road, where they’d met up with Nealy and gone on a cross-country trip in Mabel, the beat-up Winnebago that still sat on her parents’ property in Virginia because none of them could bear getting rid of her. Mat was the only father she had ever known, and she couldn’t have found a better one. Or a better husband for Nealy, a love match Lucy’d had more than a small hand in bringing about. She’d been so courageous in those days. So fearless. She’d lost that part of herself so gradually she’d barely been aware of the change.

Panda wheeled into a dirt lot in front of a white frame building with a sign over the door that read
STOKEY’S COUNTRY STORE
. The windows displayed everything from shotguns to mixing bowls to kids’ Crocs. A Coke machine sat near the door, along with a garden gnome and a postcard rack.

“What size shoes d’you wear?” He sounded angry.

“Seven and a half. And I’d like—”

He was already taking the steps two at a time.

She got off the bike and tucked herself behind a delivery truck, helmet firmly in place, while she waited. She wished she could pick out her own shoes, but going into the store looking like this was unthinkable. She prayed he wasn’t picking up more beer. Or condoms.

He emerged with a plastic sack and thrust it at her. “You owe me.”

GAS, GRASS, OR ASS. NOBODY RIDES FOR FREE.

“I said I’d pay you.”

He uttered another of his caveman grunts.

She glanced inside the sack. Jeans, gray cotton T-shirt, cheap navy sneakers, and a ball cap. She carried it all behind the building, took off her helmet, and changed where she couldn’t be seen. The jeans were stiff and ugly, baggy in the hip and leg. The T-shirt had a University of Texas logo. He’d forgotten socks, but at least she could get rid of her heels. Unlike him, she didn’t litter, so she stuffed the choir robe and shoes back into the plastic sack and came out of the trees.

He scratched his chest, his expression vacant. “The television was on in the store. You’re big news right now. They’re saying you’re staying with friends, but I wouldn’t count on not being recognized.”

She clutched the plastic bag with the choir robe inside and pulled the helmet back on.

Half an hour later, he was parking behind a Denny’s. She wanted a real bathroom with hot and cold running water, which outweighed her dread of anyone recognizing her. While he pocketed the ignition key and looked around, she took off the helmet and gathered her stiff, sprayed hair into a facsimile of a ponytail, which she pulled through the hole in the back of her ball cap.

“If that’s your disguise,” he said, “you’re not gonna get far.”

He was right. She yearned for the helmet. With a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching, she took her ruined shoes out of the plastic bag, leaving the wadded choir robe in it. She bunched up the bag and stuffed it under her roomy T-shirt, securing part of it in the waistband of her jeans so it wouldn’t fall out.

This was the same disguise Nealy had used all those years ago when she’d fled the White House. Maybe it would work for Lucy. If she was lucky, no one would connect the former first daughter with a cheaply dressed pregnant girl walking into a Denny’s. She’d look like one more stupid female who’d fallen for the wrong guy.

Panda gazed at her plastic-bag pregnancy. “Here I am, about to be a father, and the sex wasn’t even that good.”

She fought the urge to apologize.

He only seemed to have two expressions, vacant or scowling. Now it was a scowl. “You don’t even look legal.”

She’d always appeared younger than her age, and her current outfit had to make her look even younger.
I’m sure I’m not your first teenager.
That’s what Meg would have said to him, but Lucy turned away, dumped her ruined stilettos in a trash bin, and headed cautiously into the restaurant.

To her relief, no one paid any attention to her, not because of her bad clothes or pregnancy bump, but because everyone looked at Panda. He was like Ted in that way. They both had a big presence—Ted’s good, Panda’s not.

She made her way to the restroom, cleaned up as best as she could, and rearranged her pregnancy bump. When she came out, she felt almost human.

Panda stood by the door. He wore the same wrinkled shirt, but he smelled like soap. He studied her bump. “It’s not too realistic.”

“As long as you’re around, I don’t think anybody will pay much attention to me.”

“We’ll see.”

She followed him back to the table. More than a few people in the room were watching as they slid into the booth across from each other. They ordered, and as they waited for their food to arrive, he studied the ball scores scrolling on a TV hanging in the corner.

“While you were in the john, the news said your family’s back in Virginia.”

She wasn’t surprised. Staying in Wynette would have been unbearably awkward for them. “They’re going to Barcelona tomorrow for a conference with the World Health Organization.”

He didn’t look as though he knew what a conference was, let alone the World Health Organization. “When are you calling Ted to tell him you screwed up?”

“I don’t know.”

“Running away’s not going to solve whatever problems a rich girl like you thinks you have.” His slight sneer said he didn’t believe anybody like her could have real problems.

“I’m not running,” she retorted. “I’m … on vacation.”

“Wrong. I’m on vacation.”

“And I’ve offered to pay you a thousand dollars plus expenses to take me with you.”

Right then, their food appeared. The waitress set a bacon cheeseburger, onion rings, and a garden salad in front of her. He shoved a fry into his mouth as she left. “What’re you going to do if I turn you down?”

“I’ll find someone else,” she said, which was nonsense. There was no one else. “That guy over there.” She nodded toward a rough-looking man sitting in front of a platter of pancakes. “I’ll ask him. He looks like he could use the money.”

“His mullet tell you that?”

Panda was hardly the person to criticize another man’s hairstyle, although the other women in the restaurant didn’t appear as critical as she was.

He didn’t seem to be able to do two things at once, and for a while, he chose thinking over eating. Finally he took a too-large bite and, mouth full of burger, said, “You’ll guarantee me a grand even if you don’t last through today?”

She nodded, then picked up one of the crayons left on the table for kids. She wrote on a napkin and pushed it across the table to him. “There. We have a contract.”

He studied it. Shoved it aside. “You screwed over a decent guy.”

She blinked against the sting in her eyes. “Better now than later, right? Before he found out he might be a victim of false advertising.” She wished she’d kept silent, but he merely upended the ketchup bottle and slapped the bottom.

The waitress returned with coffee and eyes for Panda. Lucy shifted position, and the plastic bag rustled under her T-shirt. The coffeepot stalled in midair as the waitress turned to look at her. Lucy ducked her head.

He wadded up the napkin contract and swiped his mouth with it. “Kid doesn’t like it when she eats too fast.”

“You girls get pregnant younger all the time,” the waitress said. “How old are you, honey?”

“Legal,” he said before Lucy could answer.

“Barely,” the waitress muttered. “When are you due?”

“Uhm … August?” Lucy had made it sound like a question, not a declaration, and the waitress looked confused.

“Or September.” Panda leaned back in the booth, eyelids at half-mast. “Depends on who’s the daddy.”

The woman advised Panda to get himself a good lawyer and walked off.