Escape (3 page)

The last would have been a lie, but how to explain what I was feeling when the tentacles were all tangled up? I might have said that it went beyond work, that it covered my entire life, that it had been building for months and had nothing to do with impulse. Only it did. Survival was an impulse. I had repressed it for so long that it was weak, but it must have been beating somewhere in me, because when the elevator opened, I walked out.

Even at 9:57, Fifth Avenue buzzed. Though I had never minded before, now the sound grated. I turned right for the bus and stood for an excruciating minute in traffic exhaust, before giving up and fleeing on foot, but pedestrian traffic was heavy, too. I walked quickly, dodging others, dashing to make it over the cross street before a light changed. When I accidentally jostled a woman, I turned with an apology, but she had continued on without looking back.

I had loved the crowds when I first came here. They made me feel part of something big and important. Now I felt part of nothing. If I wasn’t at work, others would be. If I bumped into people, they walked on.

So that’s what I did myself, just walked on, block after block. I passed a hot dog stand but smelled only exhaust fumes from a bus. My watch read 10:21, then 10:34, then 10:50. If my legs grew tired,
I didn’t notice. The choking feeling had passed, but I felt little relief. My thoughts were in turmoil, barely touched by the blare of a horn or the rattle of the tailgate of a truck at the curb.

Nearing our neighborhood, I stopped for my husband’s suit and shirts, and picked up his prescription, then entered the tiny branch office of our bank. The teller knew me. But this was New York. If she wondered why I withdrew more money than usual, she didn’t ask.

The bank clock stood at 11:02 when I hit the air again. Three minutes later I turned down the street where we lived and, for a hysterical second, wondered which brownstone was ours. Through my disenchanted eyes, they all looked the same. But no; one had a brown door, another a gray one, and there was my window box, in which primrose and sweet pea were struggling to survive.

Running up the steps, I let myself in, emptied my arms just inside, and dashed straight up the next flight and into the bedroom. I pulled my bag from the closet floor, but paused only when I set it on the bed. What to bring? That depended on where I was going, and I didn’t have a clue.

Chapter 2
 

Where I was going depended on what I wanted, and that part was easy. I wanted to have fun.

Picturing the beach, I pulled out a bathing suit. And a sundress.

But I also liked antiquing. I used to tag along with a high school friend and her mom, and though I knew little about antiques, I remembered the smell of history and the quiet. Both appealed to me now. So I pulled out a peasant blouse and shorts, jeans and T-shirts and sandals.

But I also liked hiking. At least, I had liked it that one college summer. Jude had known the forests—every tree, every stream, every creature—and had taught me well. Mountaintops were cold. I added a sweater and a fleece to the pile. Having tossed out my hiking boots long ago, I added sneakers. And heavy socks. And underwear, nightshirt, and hairbrush.

Did I want my laptop? Kindle? iPod? No. I didn’t even want my BlackBerry, but it was my phone, which, in an emergency, was a good thing to have.

Makeup? I didn’t want it, but didn’t have the courage to leave it at home. That said, I didn’t need purple eye shadow, navy liner, or two spare blushers. Leaving these on the bathroom counter, I put the makeup case on top of the pile.

It was a big pile. No way would everything fit in my bag. I thought of taking a second one, but vetoed the idea. A second bag meant clutter. If I was running away from a tangled life, simplicity was key.

I changed my blue shirt and black slacks for one of those T-shirts and jeans, switched diamond studs for gold ones, and glanced at my watch. It was 11:23.

I turned away, then back. This was no digital watch. Yet I knew it was 11:23—now 11:24—because in this life that I’d made for myself, every minute had to be accounted for.

Defiant, I removed the watch and left it with the earrings, then packed what I could and returned the excess to a drawer. Only when I lifted the closed bag did I notice the unmade bed beneath—beige sheets rumpled on a black platform bed, all sleek and minimalistic, like the rest of the place.

The bed went unmade often, a concession to the rush of our lives, but I made it now as a small gesture to James. Quickly done, I ran down a flight to our beige-and-black front hall, dropped my bag there, ran down another flight to our beige-and-black kitchen. Grabbing granola bars (colorfully wrapped) and bottled water (not Eagle River), I ran back up to the front door.

The mail had just arrived and was strewn under the slot in a way that previewed its contents. Resigned, I singled out my credit card bill. The company had notified me that I was maxed out, and I knew the offending charge wasn’t mine. Seeing it on the bill, though, rubbed salt on the wound.

I was returning it to the fanned-out mail, feeling discouraged, when another letter caught my eye. It was from Jude.

I didn’t have time to read it. I had to leave.

But I couldn’t
not
read it.

Like its predecessors, it was postmarked Alaska. Jude was fishing for crab on the Bering Sea, and he wrote remarkably well for a man who had thumbed his nose at every teacher he’d ever had in school. His lengthy descriptions of his boat, the sea, the nets spilling their
jumble of bodies and legs on the deck, even the other men aboard, were riveting.

This letter was a single sheet.

Pleased? Jude had nearly killed me once.
Pleased?

I was in the middle of my own personal crisis. I couldn’t process this now.

Tucking the letter in my back pocket, I called the garage where we kept our car. I would be there in five minutes, I said, and yes, I would like the tank filled with gas, put the charge on our tab, please. That was poetic.

Another poetic thought? If I had kids, I wouldn’t have been able to do this. No way could I leave kids. But then, if I was a mom, I wouldn’t want to leave. So maybe it was good I hadn’t conceived. Maybe there was a reason.

Shouldering the bag, I was halfway out the door when I had a last thought. James would hardly miss me; he was too busy. But he was my husband.

Returning to the hall console, I pulled paper and pen from the drawer.
I’m fine
, I wrote.
Need a break. Will be in touch
.

Leaving the note in clear view on top of the bills, I grabbed the car keys and was through the door without a backward glance. The rising humidity worsened my mood, making my need to escape stronger than ever.

Escape. The word was perfect. I didn’t want to arrange a party that my mother would hate. Didn’t want to be a bridesmaid at the wedding of a woman I barely knew. Didn’t want to tell a client that her deformed fetus was worth $21,530. Didn’t want to smile through one minute of my firm dinner, with my husband or without.

An ambulance sped through the intersection ahead, its siren just one more everyday ho-hum. Crossing the street, I hurried to the end of the next block, where the nose of my car edged out. As getaway cars went, it was high-end—and largely responsible for my maxxed-out credit card—but James loved this car. Me, I wanted reliability, so his high-end car would do.

Stowing my bag in the trunk, I slipped behind the wheel, blasted the AC, and headed for FDR Drive, but crosstown traffic was thick. A single truck, stopped for a delivery, was enough to slow everything down. As I watched the light ahead turn green, then red, then green again, I tried to relax, but I was out of practice. When I consciously slackened my limbs, it worked. As soon as my mind wandered, though, my muscles tightened right up.

Tension was my body’s default, and it did follow, in a sense. A trial lawyer had to be alert to hear every nuance of every argument, so that on a second’s notice she could argue in defense of her client’s rights.

Only I wasn’t in a courtroom. I hadn’t been in one since being a summer associate at Lane Lavash, when I’d been wined and dined and shown what it would be like if I joined the firm. No one had mentioned a cubicle. The tension in a cubicle was bad, but for different reasons.

Relax
,
Emily. Do not think about this
.

What to think about then? Handsome, irrepressible, unattainable Jude?

Not a good idea. This was my escape—from
everything
.

On the Bruckner now, I turned the radio on, then off. I needed silence, but I also needed food, since I was starting to shake. The console said it was 1:08. What had breakfast been? A donut. Had I eaten it? I couldn’t recall.

Driving one-handed, I scarfed down a granola bar and crumpled the empty wrapper. Then I uncrumpled it and held it up beside the wheel. Chocolate peanut butter. That sounded good. Had it tasted good? I had no idea. I had eaten it too quickly to know.

At least I was making progress. Hitting the Hutchinson heading north, I followed the signs for New England. The route was familiar; I had driven it dozens of times to visit my mother in Maine.

Thinking of Mom, I reached for my BlackBerry, then thought twice. Turning it on meant hearing the
ding
of messages that were waiting, but I didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to text. Besides, no one would worry. Walter Burbridge would be annoyed when I wasn’t at the firm dinner, but James and I were maybe two of eighty. My sister would be annoyed when I didn’t call her back with a party update, but I was used to her scolding. No one would miss me at yoga, what with different classes at different times. And book group wasn’t meeting for another two weeks.

My mother would be fine. She was the most undemanding of the people in my world. We had talked on Thursday. If she didn’t hear from me over the weekend, she would wait.

My father might not. Once, when I was in college and he couldn’t reach me, he had called a cop friend, who had called the campus police, who had personally tracked me down at a weekend retreat for my sorority. Talk about embarrassing? But Mom knew how to handle him now. She had wised up after the divorce, coming into her own enough to tell him when she thought he was wrong. They actually had a great relationship. I’ve often thought they should remarry, but Mom insists that the key to their friendship is distance.

And my husband? Would James worry when he got my note? Probably. I had never before been even remotely flighty. But he
would be busy at work, surrounded by associates with whom he spent far more time than he did with me. One of those associates was a new hire I had met at James’s last firm dinner. She was single and strikingly attractive, and she had been cool and disinterested in me to the point of rudeness. When I told James that she had her eye on him, he had given me a quick hug and laughed.

I didn’t find it funny. Jude had cheated on me, so I knew what it felt like to have the bottom drop out of your world. I didn’t think I could bear it with James. But we rarely saw each other. Rarely talked the way we used to. Rarely shared dreams as we had once.

Feeling the impact of something tragic, I cracked open the window and let the fresh air brush my face. If this trip was my escape, I had to relax.

Thankfully, the farther I got from New York, the easier it was. Out of sight, out of mind? Partly. The rest was pure denial. Had I not been so good at it, I might have left the Big Apple months ago. Was that ironic or what? Denial had kept me in a bad place. Now it would help me escape.

Once I passed the haze of Bridgeport, my shoulders began to unknot. With fewer trucks after New Haven, I grew light-headed. Approaching Providence, I actually felt wisps of euphoria. I was free! No work, no family, no demands. I was on my own, and I was headed for the beach.

Unfortunately, so was everyone else, to judge from the traffic in Massachusetts. As I shot toward Cape Cod, there were slowdowns with no cause other than the sheer volume of cars. As I inched over the Sagamore Bridge, I looked at my watch. The bare spot on my wrist was a reminder that I was in no rush.

I headed for Chatham because I had heard it was charming, and once I reached trees, shingled houses weathered by sea salt, and June gardens, it was. I found a vacancy at a modest motel not far from the beach, two levels of rooms shaped in a U around a pool. Leaving my bag, I walked into town. The air off the Atlantic was salty and cool,
and moving felt good. In time, growing hungry, I sat on the outside deck of a restaurant and ordered a cod salad. It looked amazing, I was famished, and it was gone in minutes.