The Great Escape

Chapter Twenty-five

HIS CAR WAS GONE THE next morning, along with him. Lucy stumbled into the house, threw her clothes into the washer, and took a shower, but she had a splitting headache and she didn’t feel any better when she came out.

All she could find to wear was her black bathing suit and one of his T-shirts. She wandered through the empty house barefoot. He’d taken most of his clothes, his work folders, and the commuter coffee mug he carried around in the morning. So many emotions overwhelmed her, each one more painful than the last-her pity for what he’d been through; her anger at the universe, at herself, for falling in love with such a damaged man. And her anger at Panda.

Despite his words, he’d misled her. With every tender touch, every shared glance and intimate smile, she’d felt him telling her he loved her. Lots of men had been through traumatic experiences, but that didn’t mean they ran away.

Her anger made her feel better, and she nursed it. She couldn’t afford to pity him or herself. Far better to turn that pity into antagonism. Run, you coward. I don’t need you.

She decided to move back into his house that same day.

Despite her misery, she couldn’t forget her promise to help Bree clean up from last night’s vandalism, but before she could get to the cottage, Mike called and told her that he and Toby were handling the mess-no girls allowed. She didn’t protest.

She waited until afternoon to get her things from the cottage. She discovered a dreamy-eyed Bree sitting at the kitchen table with a notepad, an equally infatuated Mike at her side. The faint beard-burn on Bree’s neck and Mike’s tender, proprietary manner didn’t leave much doubt about what the two of them had been up to last night while Toby slept.

“You can’t leave,” Bree said when Lucy revealed her intention. “I’m working on a plan to save my business, and I’m going to need you more than ever.”

Mike tapped a legal pad covered with notes in Bree’s precise handwriting. “We don’t want you in that big house by yourself,” he said. “We’ll worry about you.”

But the two of them could barely take their eyes off each other long enough to talk to her, and Toby was no better. “Mike and Bree are getting married!” he announced when he came into the kitchen.

Bree smiled. “Settle down, Toby. Nobody’s getting married to anybody yet.”

The looks Mike and Toby exchanged suggested they had other ideas about that.

Lucy wouldn’t spoil their happiness with her own misery. She promised to come over the next afternoon and waved good-bye.

She continued to nourish her anger, but after a few days of furious, solitary walks and lengthy bike rides that still didn’t wear her out enough to sleep, she knew she had to do something else. Finally she opened the laptop Panda had left behind and got back to work. At first she couldn’t concentrate, but gradually she found the distraction she needed.

Maybe it was the pain from her breakup with Panda, but she found herself thinking more and more about the earlier pain she’d endured from spending the first fourteen years of her life with a biological mother who was a professional party girl.

“Lucy, I’m going out tonight. The door’s locked.”

“I’m scared. Stay here.”

“Don’t be a baby. You’re a big girl now.”

But she hadn’t been a big girl-she’d been eight-and over the next few years, she’d become the only responsible person in their dismal household.

“Lucy, damn it! Where’s that money I hid in the back of my drawer?”

“I used it to pay the damn rent! Do you want us to get kicked out again?”

She’d always believed her sense of responsibility had begun after Sandy had died, when she’d had to take care of Tracy on her own, but now she understood it had begun long before that.

She wrote until her muscles cramped, but she couldn’t write forever, and as soon as she stopped, heartache overwhelmed her. That was when she tightened her cloak of anger. With it firmly in place, she could keep breathing.

PANDA HAD BEEN LOOKING FORWARD to his new job managing security for a big-budget action film shooting in Chicago, but two days after he started, he got the flu. Instead of staying in bed where he belonged, he worked through the fever and chills only to end up with pneumonia. He worked through that, too, because going to bed with nothing to think about except Lucy Jorik wasn’t an option.

Be the best at what you’re good at… A great motto right up to the day he’d met her.

“You’re an ass,” Temple told him during one of her too-frequent phone calls. “You had a chance at happiness, and you ran from it. Now you’re trying to self-destruct.”

“Just because you think you’ve gotten your life together doesn’t mean everybody wants to,” he retorted, glad she couldn’t see how gaunt he looked, how tense he was.

He had more job offers than he could handle, so he hired two former cops to work for him. He sent one on an assignment in Dallas, the other to babysit a teen actor in L.A.

Temple called again. He dug into his pocket for a tissue to blow his nose and jumped in before she could harangue him about Lucy. “How’s filming the new season going?”

“Other than having the producers constantly screaming at Kristi and me,” she said, “it’s going great.”

“The two of you put them over a barrel. You’re lucky they didn’t have time to replace you or you’d both be looking for new jobs.”

“They’d have been sorry,” Temple retorted. “Audiences were getting bored with the old show, and they’re going to love this new approach. It’s got heart. Kristi still has to wear her red bikini, but she has a lot more screen time, and she’s using it brilliantly.” He heard her crunch into something. An apple? A piece of celery? The cookie she allowed herself each day? “I’ve made the workouts so much more fun,” she said. “And I actually cried today! Real tears. That’s going to be ratings gold.”

“I have a lump in my throat just thinking about it.” His drawl turned into a cough he quickly muffled.

“No, really,” she said. “This contestant-her name’s Abby-she was abused horribly as a child. It just… got to me. They all have stories. I don’t know why I didn’t take the time to listen more closely before.”

He knew why. Paying attention to other people’s fears and insecurities might have forced her to examine her own, and she hadn’t been ready to do that.

She went on, mouth full. “Usually after a couple of weeks filming, I’m hoarse from screaming at people, but listen to me.”

“I’m doing my best not to.” He took a slug of water to suppress another coughing fit.

“I thought Lucy was crazy when she talked about her ‘Good Enough’ approach to exercise, but she hit on something. I’m working on a long-term exercise program that’s more realistic. And… Get this… We have a great hidden-camera segment where we teach the audience how to read food labels by staging these phony fights in supermarket aisles.”

“That’ll get you an Emmy for sure.”

“Your bitterness isn’t attractive, Panda. Mock as much as you want, but we’re finally going to be able to help people long term.” And then, because she still wanted him to think she was as tough as ever, “Call Max back. She’s left three voice mails, and you haven’t returned any of them.”

“Because I don’t want to talk to her, either,” he grumbled.

“I phoned Lucy yesterday. She’s still at the house.”

Another call buzzed in, which gave him an excuse to hang up on her. Unfortunately, this call came from Kristi. “No time to talk,” he said.

She ignored him. “Temple was amazing in our interview. Completely raw and open.”

It took him a moment to figure out she was talking about the lengthy counseling session she and Temple had just finished filming. The producers planned to use it to kick off the new season, knowing Temple’s lesbian revelation would kick up a storm of extra publicity.

“We bring Max on toward the end,” Kristi said, “and watching the two of them together is enough to soften the hardest hearts. Audiences are going to love this new side of her. And I got to wear a dress.”

“A tight one, I’ll bet.”

“You can’t have everything.”

“I only want one thing,” he growled. “I want you and your she-devil friend to leave me the hell alone.”

A brief, censorious pause. “You could live a more authentic life, Panda, if you’d do what I’ve advised and stopped transferring your anger to other people.”

“I’m hanging up now so I can find a window high enough to jump out of.”

But as much as he complained about them, some days it felt as if their intruding phone calls were all that kept him anchored. These women cared about him. And they were his only fragile link to Lucy.

FALL CAME EARLY TO CHARITY Island. The tourists disappeared, the air grew crisp, and the maples began to display their first blush of crimson. The writing that had once been such a struggle for Lucy turned out to be her salvation, and she was finally able to send off her completed manuscript to her father.

She spent the next few days biking around the island and walking the empty beaches. She wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened, but through her pain and her anger, she’d somehow figured out how she intended to shape her future.

No more of the lobbying she detested. She was going to listen to her heart and once again work one-on-one with kids. But that couldn’t be all. Her conscience dictated that she keep using her secondhand fame to advocate on a larger scale. This time she intended to do that through something that truly fulfilled her-through her writing.

When her brutally honest newspaperman father read the manuscript and called her, he confirmed what she already knew. “Luce, you’re a real writer.”

She was going to write her own book, not about herself or her family, but about real kids in peril. It wouldn’t be some dry, academic tome, but a page-turner full of personal stories from kids, from counselors, all with the goal of shining a brighter spotlight on the welfare of the most vulnerable. Her name on the spine would guarantee plenty of publicity. That meant thousands of people-maybe hundreds of thousands-who knew nothing about disadvantaged kids would gain real insight into the issues they faced.

But having a clearer direction didn’t bring her the peace she craved. How could she have let herself fall in love with him? A bitter knot burned so fiercely in the center of her chest that she sometimes felt as though she’d burst into flames.

With the manuscript mailed off and October fast approaching, she called her mother’s press secretary, who hooked her up with a reporter from the Washington Post. On the next-to-last day of September, Lucy sat in the sunroom, her phone pressed to her ear, and gave the interview she’d been avoiding.

It was humiliating… I panicked… Ted is one of the finest men I’ve ever met… spent the last few months working on my father’s book and trying to get my bearings back… going to be writing my own book… advocate for kids who have no voice…

She didn’t mention Panda.

After the interview, she called Ted and had the conversation she couldn’t have had with him before. Then she began to pack.

Bree had been to her old vacation house several times since Lucy had moved back in, and she came over the day after the interview to help her close up. In only a few months, she, Toby, and Mike had become woven into the fabric of Lucy’s life, and she knew she’d miss them. But as close as she felt to Bree, Lucy couldn’t talk to her about Panda, couldn’t talk to anybody, not even Meg.

Bree perched on the counter, watching Lucy clean out the big stainless steel refrigerator. “It’s funny,” she said. “I thought coming inside this house would destroy me, but all it does is make me nostalgic. My mother fixed so many bad dinners in this kitchen, and Dad’s grilling didn’t help. He burned everything.”

Bree’s father had done a lot worse than burn hamburgers, but that wasn’t Lucy’s story to tell. She held up a barely used jar of mustard. “Want this?”

Bree nodded, and Lucy set the mustard in a cardboard box, along with the other leftover groceries she was sending to the cottage.

Bree pushed the sleeves up on the heavy sweater she was wearing against the early fall chill. “I feel like a woman of leisure not having to spend all day at the farm stand.”

“Some leisure. You’ve been working like crazy.” Bree had lost a third of next year’s honey to the vandals, a group of punks who’d been caught as they drove onto the ferry. But thanks to the summer’s dry weather and warm days, she’d still managed to harvest more than a thousand pounds.

“I’ll love Pastor Sanders forever,” she said.

The Heart of Charity minister had arranged a meeting for Bree with a wholesaler on the mainland who supplied a chain of Midwest gift shops. The woman had loved Bree’s samples: the flavored honeys, lotions, candles, and note cards, the beeswax furniture polish, and the one hand-painted Christmas ornament that had survived the vandals.

“The new carousel labels sealed the deal,” Bree said. “She loves them. Said they give all the products a whimsical elegance. But I still didn’t expect such a big order.”

“She has good taste.”

“I don’t know what I’d have done if she hadn’t ordered. Well, I do know, but I’m glad I didn’t have to.” She nodded again as Lucy held up an unopened bag of carrots. “I can’t abide the idea of being financially dependent on Mike. Been there, done that, not doing it again.”

“Poor Mike. All he wants is to take care of you, and all you want is to take care of yourself. You’re going to have to marry him soon.”

“I know. But the thing about Mike Moody…” A dreamy smile came over her. “He’s steadfast. That man is not going anywhere.”

Lucy swallowed her pain. “Other than in and out of your bedroom window every night.”

Bree actually blushed. “I told you about that in confidence.”

“The same way you told me what a lusty lover he is. Something I could have gone to my grave not knowing.”

Bree paid no attention to Lucy’s objections. “I really believed Scott when he said I was the one with the problem, but now all I feel is pity for his poor little nineteen-year-old.” The dreamy smile was back. “Who would have thought a straitlaced, religious guy like Mike could be so-”

“Lusty,” Lucy said, cutting her off.

Bree’s face clouded. “If Toby catches us…”

“Which he’s bound to do sooner or later.” Lucy added a block of Parmesan cheese and-resisting the urge to shatter it against the wall-an unopened jar of Panda’s orange marmalade.

“Mike’s getting more nervous about sneaking around. He actually threatened to withdraw his, uhm, services… until I agree to set a date. Blackmail. Can you imagine?”

Lucy closed the refrigerator door. “What’s holding you back, Bree? Really?”

“I’m just so happy.” She swung her legs, thought it over. “I know I have to get over my aversion to marriage, and I will. Just not yet.” She slid off the counter. “You’ll come back to the island to see us, won’t you?”

Lucy never wanted to come back to the island again. “Sure,” she said. “Now let’s get this stuff over to the cottage. And no long-drawn-out good-byes, okay?”

“Absolutely not.”

But they both knew it wouldn’t be that easy to hold back tears. And it wasn’t.

EVENTUALLY PANDA STOPPED COUGHING AND his energy began to return, but he felt as if he had a limb missing. His reflexes were no longer sharp-not bad enough for anyone else to notice, but he knew. At the shooting range, his aim wasn’t as true, and if he went for a run, he lost his rhythm for no reason. He knocked over his coffee mug, dropped his car keys.

He read Lucy’s interview with the Washington Post. No mention of him, and why should there be? But he didn’t like the way her face was all over the news again.

He noticed a couple threads of gray in his hair. As if that weren’t depressing enough, his job wasn’t going well. The actress who played the secondary lead in the film had started hitting on him and wasn’t taking no for an answer. She was out-of-this-world beautiful, with a body that almost rivaled Dr. Kristi’s, and tumbling in bed with a new female would be the best way to wipe out memories of the last one, but he couldn’t even think about it. He told her he was in love with someone else.

That night he got drunk for the first time in years. He awoke in a panic. Despite all his care, the ghosts he’d been able to keep at bay for so long were coming back. He called the only person he could think of who might be able to help.

“Kristi, it’s me…”

LUCY FOUND AN APARTMENT AND a job in Boston while Nealy’s press secretary dodged an avalanche of calls from the media. Ms. Jorik is beginning a new job soon and too busy for additional interviews. Lucy intended to stay too busy until her first book tour.

On her last night at home in Virginia, she sat with her parents on the patio of the estate where she’d grown up. Nealy wore one of Lucy’s old college sweatshirts to keep warm but still managed to look patrician as she sipped from a mug of hot tea, her normally neat honey-brown hair rumpled from the early October breeze.

Her mother’s fair complexion and Mayflower lineage provided a marked contrast to her father’s darker good looks and steel-town toughness. Mat put a log on the fire in the new fire pit. “We took advantage of you,” he said bluntly.

Nealy cuddled her warm tea mug. “It happened so gradually, and you were always so cheerful about stepping in, that we were oblivious. Reading what you wrote… It was clearheaded and heart-wrenching.”

“I’m glad you’re going to keep writing,” her father said. “You know I’ll help however I can.”

“Thanks,” Lucy replied. “I’m going to take you up on that.”

Out of nowhere, her mother hit Lucy with one of the roundhouse punches that were her political specialty. “Are you ready to tell us about him?”

Lucy tightened her grip on her wineglass. “Who?”

Nealy didn’t hesitate. “The man who’s taken the sparkle out of your eyes.”

“It’s… not that bad,” she lied.

Mat’s voice dropped to an ominous rumble. “I’ll tell you one thing… If I ever see the son of a bitch, I’m going to kick his ass.”

Nealy lifted an eyebrow at him. “One more reminder of how grateful we all are as a country that I was elected president instead of you.”

PANDA WALKED AROUND THE BLOCK twice before he worked up the nerve to go inside the three-story brown brick building. Pilsen had once been home to Chicago’s Polish immigrants but now served as the heartbeat of the city’s Mexican community. The narrow hallway was covered in bright graffiti, or maybe they were murals-hard to tell in a neighborhood where bold public art figured so prominently.

He found the door at the end of the hallway. A hand-lettered sign read:

I’M ARMED AND PISSED OFF

WALK IN ANYWAY

Where the hell had Kristi sent him? He pushed open the door and stepped into a room decorated in early Salvation Army with a cracked leather couch, a couple of unmatched easy chairs, a blond wood coffee table, and a chain-saw-carved eagle sitting beneath a poster that read:

U.S. MARINES

Helping bad guys die since 1775

The man who emerged from an adjoining room was about Panda’s age, rumpled and beginning to bald, with a big nose and Fu Manchu mustache. “Shade?”

Panda nodded.

“I’m Jerry Evers.” He moved forward, arm extended, his gait slightly uneven. Panda’s gaze inadvertently strayed to his leg. Evers shook his head, then tugged up the leg of his baggy jeans to reveal a prosthesis. “Sangin. I was with the Three-Five.”

Panda already knew Evers had been in Afghanistan, and he nodded. The Marines in the Fifth Regiment had been hit hard in Sangin.

Evers waved the file he was holding in the general direction of an upholstered chair and laughed. “You were in Kandahar and Fallujah? How’d you get to be such a lucky son of a bitch?”

Panda pointed out the obvious. “Others had it worse.”

Evers snorted and slumped down on the couch. “Fuck that. We’re here to talk about you.”

Panda felt himself being to relax…

BY THE FIRST OF NOVEMBER, Lucy had settled into life in Boston and the apartment she’d sublet in Jamaica Plain. When she wasn’t writing, she was at work, and even though she was tired all the time, she’d never been more grateful for her new job and busy schedule.

“What do you care?” The seventeen-year-old sitting on the couch across from her sneered. “You don’t know nothin’ ’bout me.”

The spicy scent of tacos wafted into the counseling room from the kitchen where, each day, the Roxbury drop-in center served dinner to fifty or so homeless teens. They also offered showers, a small laundry area, a weekly medical clinic, and six counselors who helped the runaways, couch hoppers, and street kids as young as fourteen find shelter, get to school, work on their GEDs, secure Social Security cards, and look for jobs. Some of their clients had substance abuse problems. Others, like this girl with the beautiful cheekbones and tragic eyes, had fled terrible physical abuse. The counselors at the drop-in center dealt with mental health issues, medical issues, pregnancy, prostitution, and everything in between.

“And whose problem is it that I don’t know anything about you?” Lucy said.

“Nobody’s problem.” Shauna sank deeper into the couch, her expression sullen. Through the window in the door, Lucy could see some of the kids pulling down the Halloween decorations: flying bats, black cardboard witches, and skeletons with red glitter eye sockets.

Shauna took in Lucy’s short black leather skirt, hot pink tights, and funky boots. “I want my old social worker back. She was a lot nicer than you.”

Lucy smiled. “That’s because she didn’t adore you like I do.”

“Now you’re just being sarcastic.”

“Nope.” Lucy gently laid her hand on the teenager’s arm and spoke softly, meaning every word. “You are one of the universe’s great creations, Shauna. Brave as a lion, cunning as a fox. You’re smart and you’re a survivor. What’s not to love?”

Shauna whipped her arm away and eyed her warily. “You’re crazy, lady.”

“I know. The point is, you’re a real champion. We all think so. And whenever you want to get serious about keeping a job, I know you’ll figure out how to do it. Now go away.”

That outraged her. “What do you mean, go away? You’re supposed to be helping me get my job back.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“By telling me what to do.”

“I have no idea.”

“What do you mean, you don’t have no idea? I’m turning you in to the director. She’ll fire your ass. You don’t know nothin’.”

“Well, since I’ve been here less than a month, that might be true. How can I do better?”

“Tell me the things I have to do to keep a job. Like showing up on time every day and not disrespecting the boss…” For the next few minutes, Shauna lectured Lucy, repeating the advice she’d received from other counselors.

When she finally wound down, Lucy nodded in admiration. “Wow. You should be the counselor instead of me. You’re good at it.”

Her hostility vanished. “You really think so?”

“Definitely. Once you get your GED, I think you could excel at a lot of jobs.”

By the time Shauna left, Lucy been able to solve at least one of the teen’s problems. It was such a small thing, but it posed a monumental barrier to a homeless kid. Shauna didn’t own an alarm clock.

Lucy gazed around at the empty counseling room with its worn, comfortable couch, cozy armchair, and graffiti-inspired mural. This was the work she was meant to do.

She left the center later than usual that night for her apartment. As she headed for her car, she popped open her umbrella against the chilly evening drizzle and thought about the writing she still needed to do before she could collapse into bed that evening. No more haunting the halls of Congress; no more banging on corporate doors to see big shots who wanted to meet her only so they could brag that they knew President Jorik’s daughter. Turning a book into her public platform was far more satisfying.

She sidestepped a puddle. A floodlight illuminated her car, one of only two vehicles still left in the parking lot. She’d nearly finished her book proposal, and half a dozen publishing houses had already asked to see it. Considering how many writers struggled to get published, maybe she should feel guilty about that, but she didn’t. The publishers knew that her name on the spine of a book would guarantee big press and big sales.

She’d decided to tell the personal stories of homeless teens through their eyes-why they’d fled their families, how they lived, their hopes and dreams. Not only disadvantaged kids like Shauna, but the less publicized suburban teens living a nomad’s existence in affluent communities.

As long as she focused only on her work, she was energized, but the moment she let her guard down, her anger returned. She refused to let it go. When she was bone tired, when her stomach refused to accept the food it needed, when tears sprang to her eyes for no reason… Anger was what got her through.

She’d nearly reached her car when she heard the sound of someone running. She spun around.

The kid came out of nowhere. Wiry, hollow eyed, in dirty, torn jeans and a rain-soaked dark hoodie. He grabbed her purse and shoved her to the ground.

Her umbrella flew, pain shot through her body, and all the fury she’d been holding inside her found a target. She screamed something unintelligible, pushed herself off the wet asphalt, and chased after him.

He hit the sidewalk, passed under a streetlight, and glanced back at her. He hadn’t expected her to give chase, and he ran faster.

“Drop it!” she shouted in a rush of adrenaline-fed rage.

But he kept running, and so did she.

He was small and fast. She didn’t care. She was juiced on vengeance. She raced down the sidewalk, her boots slapping the pavement. He swerved into the alley between the drop-in center and an office building. She went right after him.

A wooden fence and a Dumpster blocked the exit, but she didn’t retreat, didn’t think about what she’d do if he had a gun. “Give that back!”

With an audible grunt, he pulled himself on top of a Dumpster. Her purse snagged on a sharp corner. He dropped it and threw himself over the fence.

She was so rage-crazed that she tried to climb the Dumpster after him. Her boots slipped on the wet metal, and she scraped her leg.

Sanity slowly returned. She gulped in air, her fury finally spent.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

She retrieved her purse and limped back toward the sidewalk. Her leather skirt had offered some protection when she fell, but she’d torn her hot pink tights, scraped her leg, skinned both knees and hands. Still, despite the ringing in her ears, nothing seemed to be broken.

She reached the sidewalk. Stupid. If Panda had seen her run into that alley, he’d have gone ballistic. But if Panda had been nearby, the kid wouldn’t have gotten close to her.

Because Panda protected people.

An awful dizziness swept through her.

Panda protected people.

She barely made it to the curb before she collapsed, her boots sinking into the rushing gutter, her stomach heaving, the words he’d spoken coming back to her.

“… out of nowhere, he slammed her into the wall. Broke her collarbone. Do you want that to happen to you?”

She cradled her forehead into her hands.

“I don’t love you, Lucy… I don’t love you.”

A lie. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her. It was that he loved her too much.

With a clap of thunder, the sky opened. Drenching rain pounded her shoulders through her trench coat, stung her scalp like sharp pebbles. The soldier who tried to strangle his wife… The man who’d beaten up his girlfriend… Panda saw himself as a potential danger to her just like them, another enemy she needed to be protected from. And he intended to do exactly that.

Her teeth began to chatter. She considered the possibility that she was making this up, but her heart knew the truth. If it hadn’t been for the steadfast anger she’d so carefully nurtured, she would have seen through him earlier.

A white van slowed and stopped. She looked up as the driver’s window came down and a middle-aged man with a grizzle of gray hair stuck his head out. “You okay, lady?”

“I’m… fine.” She struggled to her feet. The van moved on.

A flash of lightning split the night, and with it, she saw the anguish in Panda’s eyes, heard the phony belligerence in his voice. Panda didn’t trust himself not to hurt her.

She turned her face into the grimy, rain-soaked sky. He would lay down his life to protect her even from himself. How could she fight an iron will like that? She could see only one way. With an iron will of her own.

And a plan…