Escape (7 page)

“Early December,” she confirmed with a look of terrified anticipation that was almost comical.

“Oh, Vicki Bell, I am so happy for you.”

“Are you really? You’re not just saying that?”

I knew what she meant. “Absolutely not. I’m thrilled. You’re obviously a great mom. You could have
five
kids and not be fazed. Children fit in your life. Maybe they don’t fit in mine.”

Charlotte had settled snugly into her mother, who said, “Is that what you’re running from?”

“Maybe. I’m discouraged, but if what we’re doing now doesn’t work, we do have options. It’s the rest that … that just clogs me up.”

“There have to be some good things.”

“There are. I have a job, a husband, and a great place to live. And I’m healthy.”

“But unhappy. So why are you in Bell Valley? It made you miserable ten years ago.”

“
Jude
made me miserable,” I said, “but I loved Bell Valley even before that summer. The weekends I visited with you were vacations, even when we had studying to do. I relax here. I can think. That’s what I need to do now.”

I thought of Jude. His brief letter had changed things. But maybe not. I figured I had maybe two weeks before he arrived.

I needed to tell Vicki about that.

But she was stuck on what I’d last said. “Think about where you want to go from here?”

“First, think about why I went where I did after I left here. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I was on the rebound from Jude and took it too far. Coming back here is like starting over.”

“How long will you stay?”

I felt a stab of hysteria. “My car may have a say in that.”

“No. It’s an electronics problem. Nestor says they’ll have it back by the end of the day. It’d be even sooner, if his boy wasn’t so enthralled. The kid’s sixteen and a total geek. It isn’t often he gets to play with a car like yours.”

“If he messes it up, James will never forgive me,” I warned.

“He won’t mess it up. Technology is his thing. He runs a repair shop out of the garage. Computers, cell phones, small appliances—we wouldn’t take them anywhere else.”

“Runs a repair shop? At sixteen? What about school?”

“He says he’s found his life’s work, and given how good he is, I believe him.”

I considered it. “Well, that says something. He’s a high school dropout and has a job he loves. I have three degrees and a job I hate.”

“Get another one,” Vicki said.

“I’m trying, but it isn’t easy. I don’t want to go from bad to worse, and it’s not like I can look for a clerkship in Oregon, if I’m married to someone who’s dead set on New York.” I returned to her earlier question. “I don’t know how long I’ll stay here, and that is totally unsettling.” I’d always been a directed sort of woman. “Have I ever winged anything before?”

“Your summer here. You came not knowing what you’d be doing.”

“Right. And I had the wildest, most spontaneous and passionate summer of my life. So is that who I really am? Or was it an aberration? I have to find out.” I glanced at my watch, which, of course, wasn’t there. No clock on the nightstand, or on the dresser, either.

“Our guests like to chill,” Vicki explained.

“I need to learn how.” I made a helpless little sound. “Old habits die hard. And now it’s Monday. If I don’t make a call within the next day or two, I won’t have a job to return to. Help me with this, Vicki. You were always so good at getting to the heart of the matter. What should I do?”

Charlotte whispered something to Vicki that I didn’t catch. I had assumed that our conversation would be over her head, and was wondering if I was wrong, when Vicki said, “O-kay. Potty time.” She rose, at which point Charlotte became a little monkey, four limbs clinging to her mom, which was good. Otherwise, she’d have fallen when Vicki bent forward and wrapped an arm around my neck.

“I want you here,” she whispered fiercely, and, straightening, held Charlotte with both arms and backed up. I was thinking that I needed
to tell her about Jude, but she was saying, “Make yourself at home. Books and puzzles are in the parlor, bikes are out back. If you want to drive somewhere, the keys to the van are on the board by the door. The kitchen’s yours. If you happen on a short, dark-haired woman there, that’s my baker, Lee. She has an interesting story.”

I was still obsessed with my own. “What about my boss? And what about James?”

Vicki paused at the door. “That depends on what you want, and you’re the only one who knows.”

But I didn’t know, which was why I was here. I didn’t even know how to go about finding out.

I did know that what had started as an act of impulse—rebellion, perhaps—was growing more grave by the minute. Much longer, and there’d be no going back.

Frightened, I slipped lower on the pillow and pulled the comforter to my ears, hoping to bury reality under the billowy down. But the smell of flower-fresh Vicki and her powder-soft child lingered in my psyche, making me feel grubby. Getting out of bed, I showered, put on jeans and a sweater to look as much like Vicki as possible—inconspicuousness being the goal—and pulled my damp hair through the back of my hat.

I finished my tea as I stood at the window, looking out over the backyard. There were benches there, and Adirondack chairs scattered in pairs. Beyond lay the woods.

I knew these woods. They held pine and hemlock, fir, spruce, and birch, and their foliage varied greatly. With the sun blindingly bright in the foreground, the colors behind bled into the deepest, darkest forest green.

In my dreams, that green was nearly black. My dreams took place at night.

I needed to visit those woods. But not yet. At a time when I was feeling weak, that took more courage than I had.

Chapter 5
 

Sunglasses in hand, I tiptoed from my room, but the caution was unnecessary. I made it to the first floor without seeing a soul. Loath to trust my luck, I went straight to the kitchen, which was empty as well, and slipped quietly through the screen door and down the back steps.

As Vicki had promised, there were bikes. I spotted one that was my size and imagined myself pedaling hard through the Bell Valley roads, because pedaling hard was like spinning at my gym in New York. But the thought of it now made my legs hurt, surely emotions at play, because I had never been afraid of a workout.

But I did need to learn how to chill.

So I walked down the parking lot to the street. There were a few cars in front of the stores and one parked at the end of the green. Crossing the grass, I sank down beside a bench. The sun soothed. Sounds wafted about—the burr of a mower on the church lawn, the murmur of a couple emerging now from the Red Fox, the su
-weet
of a goldfinch on a nearby oak. I took one slow breath, then a second deeper one, aware of the novelty as my lungs filled and stretched. It struck me that other than during yoga class, I’d been breathing shallowly—running everywhere, stressing about everything, always connected to machines—for ten years. Just thinking about it quickened my breath.

Drawing in another lungful, I was thinking how peaceful Bell
Valley was in contrast to Lane Lavash, where by rights I should be at this moment with my cubicle, computer, and headset, when I saw Vicki striding over from the Red Fox.

“Going incognito today?” she asked, coming down to the grass beside me. I had done right dressing like her. Jeans, sweater, sunglasses—we looked like sisters, which made me feel like I belonged.

I smiled and made a sound of assent. No more was needed with Vicki Bell.

“Did you meet my baker?” she asked.

“No. She wasn’t in the kitchen.”

“Later then.” Removing the sunglasses, she studied my face. “What’re you thinking?”

I felt a catch in my throat. “That I’ve missed you. Seeing you makes me realize how much. Call me disloyal to Kelly, but you were always the sister I would have chosen to have. Even the question you just asked. You always cared what I thought.” In case she was still even the tiniest bit annoyed with me, I added, “We have a history together. That counts for something.”

“Uh-huh. Getting older.” She grew speculative. “Do birthdays bother you?”

Dropping my sunglasses to the grass, I turned my face to the sun. The warmth felt wonderful, cleaner than New York’s, friendlier than Chatham’s. Eyes closed, I considered. “Thirty was something. James thought we should celebrate, only we never had time.” I righted my head. My eyes sought hers. “Is that what this is about? Am I having an early-life crisis?”

Vicki smiled crookedly. “I did. Kind of.”

“You? No way.” Vicki was the most stable person I knew.

“Way. Rob and I grew up together, and I adore him. But I’ve never known anything else. Four years away at college was all. Then it was back here, same guy, same town.”

“Not really,” I reminded her. “You got married. That was big. Then Rob’s parents retired, and you guys took over the inn. The place looks great, Vicki Bell.”

She sputtered a laugh. “Anything would, by comparison. His parents had let things go. And yeah, it’s nice to spruce things up, but that’s not the same as doing something completely, entirely, way-out-there different.” She was pensive for a minute, then resigned. “Each birthday that passes makes me realize it ain’t gonna happen. I went into a blue funk for a little while.”

“Hence, the new baby?”

“Oh no. I didn’t even try to conceive until I was sure I was okay with my life here. Which isn’t to say I don’t sometimes wonder what might have been.”

“It’s the Jude gene,” I remarked, to which she snorted her disagreement.

“Jude was about rebellion.”

“Adventure,” I insisted.

“Emmie, he was a
bad boy
,” she argued, impatient with me now. “Do you honestly think he would have married you? Yes, I know he asked you to, but he had asked three women before you, the last of whom was Jenna Frye, who took it really hard when he dumped her for you, and then he dumped you for
her
. Jude was all about the chase. Commitment terrified him. If you hadn’t come along, he’d have found another way to break up with Jenna, and if she hadn’t loved him enough to forgive him, he’d have found another way to break up with
you.
”

I wanted to argue. But Vicki had known Jude a lot longer than I had. What she said did make sense.

“He’s coming back,” I said quietly.

She frowned, skeptical. “Jude? Here? How do you know?”

“I got a letter from him Friday. He’ll be here at the end of the month.”

Suddenly, she was barely breathing. “Here?
Seriously?
”

“He’s been crab fishing in the Bering Sea.”

“And he just … just wrote you out of the blue?”

“He does it sometimes,” I said, feeling more than a little guilt.

“And you didn’t
tell
us?”

“I assumed you knew where he was. The letter Friday said he hadn’t told anyone else he was coming back, which is why I’m telling you now. For what it’s worth, I’ve never answered his letters.”

But Vicki was pressing a hand to her chest. “Omigod. What do we do? Who do we tell? No one,” she decided, erasing the news with both hands. “We can’t tell anyone. Jude is the most irresponsible, unpredictable person I know. He may say he’s coming and then chicken out and go somewhere more exciting. Mom is used to the idea of his being gone. If I tell her he’s coming back and he doesn’t show, she’ll be destroyed.”

I couldn’t imagine Amelia being destroyed by much, and might have asked more, if Vicki hadn’t narrowed her eyes.

“
That’s
why you’re here? Not to see me, but because
he’s
coming back?”

“No.
No
. I’m here because I need you and I need the peace of this town. Maybe I’m even here because I needed to give you this news, but I am not here for Jude. I’m here for me. Call me selfish. I am.”

“You’re not,” she muttered grudgingly. “If you were, your life wouldn’t be in this mess. You’d have stood up for yourself and your needs before this.” She slouched against my side. “Why is he coming back? He won’t stay. He’ll just stir things up and leave. His idea of hell is being stuck here.”

“Maybe he’s grown up—you know, seen other kinds of hell.”

But Vicki was shaking her head, seeming more sad now than annoyed. “He’s a Bell. Bells have lived here for generations. He may fight the pull, but it’s strong.
That’s
what’s in our genes.” She reached for my hand. “I could never have walked away from my life, certainly not the way you’ve done. But your doing it doesn’t surprise me. You were always the bolder of us. Like the semester abroad. I wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for you. Wouldn’t have had the courage to go so far for so long. You were my more spirited half.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d held a friend’s hand, but with Vicki Bell, it was the most natural thing in the world—the great connector, not to mention a ticket to confession. “And you my saner
half.” I had a qualifying thought. “Except for Jude. You didn’t stop me there.”

“How could I? He was my brother. I was hoping you’d be a good influence on him. Besides, there was no stopping what you two had. It was like wildfire—
poof
, hot as hell in an instant, pure animal magnetism.”