The Write Escape

by Charish Reid

  Eddie stood up and walked around her desk, his arms outstretched. “Toni, everything is going to be okay.” She accepted his white lie as she stood and hugged him tightly.

  “I’m doing the right thing?”

  He returned her hug before pulling back to peer down at her. “Getting cold feet?”

  Antonia shrugged. “You like Derek, right?”

  Eddie gave a strained smile before replying. “Derek...is cool. We don’t exactly run in the same circles, but that won’t stop me from supporting you guys.”

  “I do love him.”

  “I know you do,” Eddie said quickly. “You two are great together. It’s just the wedding that’s stressing you out. And I’m sure I haven’t made it any better with my speculation and conspiracy theories.”

  She nodded. Wild Hare business bothered her, but this wedding, which took only four months to plan, bothered her more. She loved Derek, but something about the whole “affair” nagged at her. Antonia let her mother’s words settle in her brain.

  “It’s just a whole bunch of extraneous shit that’s coming at you,” Eddie assured her. “You’re due for another drinking night with me and Meg anyway. She’s the wedding expert who can talk you off the ledge.”

  He was right. His girlfriend had supplied Antonia with boxed wine and coaxed her into relaying all of the wedding plans in excruciating detail. Megan loved all the stuff that Antonia didn’t want to think about. Why don’t I want to think about the details?

  She released Eddie and glanced down at her watch. “I’ve got to get going,” she said in a tremulous voice. “I have a meeting with Derek and the wedding planner.” As she gathered up her things, her hands shook. Antonia closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose. Get a grip, Toni.

  “Make sure you save your document,” Eddie said, gesturing to her computer screen.

  “Oh! Yes, thank you.” She quickly saved and closed the browser.

  “By the way, when are you going to let me look at that?”

  Antonia shook her head as she stuffed her files in her satchel. “It’s really nothing.”

  “If you don’t share it with anyone, it won’t be. You’re an excellent writer, Toni. At least you were in college.”

  She scoffed as she flung her bag over her shoulder. “That was a long time ago, Ed.”

  He wasn’t swayed. “The stuff you write is far better than the stuff we’ve been publishing. I wish you believed that.”

  Antonia didn’t have time to think about her story. Her brain was already full of things that she couldn’t keep track of. One day, the storm in a teacup that was her life would settle long enough for her to breathe. If that day came, then she would give the manuscript more attention. Until then, she’d keep staring at the same miserable two chapters that had remained unchanged since Derek proposed to her. Later. I’ll work on it later.

  Chapter Two

  Aiden was late for his last class of the semester and tried not to look like he was speed walking the crowded hallways to get to his office. He had only ten minutes to get his teaching materials straight before he performed for the department chair. His mentor and the resident Medieval scholar, Robert Lewison, thought the last day of classes was an appropriate time to observe Aiden’s American Literature class. Of course, it wasn’t, but he wasn’t going to argue with the old man about bad timing. It wasn’t Robert’s fault that Aiden didn’t go to bed until 4 a.m. after completing rushed edits on a revise and resubmit journal article. Nor was it Robert’s fault that the traffic between Claddagh and the National University of Ireland, Galway was heavy with the early onslaught of tourists.

  As he mentally catalogued the key points of his last lecture on Invisible Man’s race issues and the review of the final take-home exam, Aiden mistook the young woman who stood at his office door for a student. “I can’t do office hours right now,” he said.

  When the woman turned around, he froze. With a glossy red smirk on her face, she cocked her head to the side. “Not even for an old colleague?” she asked.

  Pulling an all-nighter and sitting in terrible traffic were playful irritations compared to the kick in the balls of seeing his ex-girlfriend, Lisa Brennan, outside his office. Her empty office was across the hall. Was she here to take a stroll down memory lane? “Lisa,” he breathed. Anxiety and anger coursed through his body as he fished his keys out of his pocket to unlock his door. “What are you doing here?”

  When he opened his door, he fully expected her to stay on her side of the threshold, but she followed and took a seat in one of his chairs. “I’m visiting my Irish roots. Paris is lovely, but I do miss home.”

  Aiden tried not to look at her as he moved around his desk. He needed a safe barrier between them so he could keep his shit together. He wasn’t the one who bailed on the university and a relationship for sunnier pastures. After accusing him of not taking his career seriously and going on the job market in secret, Aiden had an entire year to get over her. And when he felt he was safely over the Lisa Hump, she came blowing back into town glowing with Sorbonne prestige.

  From the look of her, she was still the stiff professional who dumped him during an end of the year faculty banquet. She still wore her famous all-black skirt suit and her black bobbed haircut stayed in place, just like the rest of her. When they first met, he enjoyed how put-together she was. So sure and calculating in her mannerisms and speech. Lisa was the human manifestation of everything in its right place. Her stiffness was something he got used to over their two-year relationship. Now, as they faced each other in his office, she was foreign to him. She was more severe than ever. “It’s nice to know that humble old Galway still has a soft spot in your heart,” he muttered while gathering his textbook and handouts for the students.

  Lisa sighed. “I didn’t come here to make waves, Aiden.”

  He stopped and looked at her. “Then why are you here?”

  “We’ve got the Western Ireland Humanities Conference in a week and I’m staying with friends. You’re still presenting, right?”

  Aiden’s heart sank. He didn’t have time to think about the conference. The call for papers was a lifetime ago, back when he promised Lisa that he would try to pick up the pace on his scholarship. Now that he was struggling with his tenure checklist, a circle-wank event was just another distraction from his writing. “Yes, I’ll be there.”

  Lisa leaned forward in her seat, her fingers steepled at her pointed chin. Condescension threaded her voice as she chose her words carefully. “I simply wanted to meet with you with the hope that things were cordial between us.”

  Aiden checked his watch. Six minutes until class. “I can be cordial,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “It’s important that we not let our past relationship shadow the important work we’re to present to the university,” she said in a voice just as haughty as the Victorian literature she obsessed over. Since leaving Ireland, Lisa had buried her Dubliner accent in favor of something more continental.

  The corner of his lips curled. “You won’t have to worry about that, Dr. Brennan,” he said mocking her professionalism.

  Lisa sat back and clapped her hands. “Wonderful. I’m glad we could get that unpleasantness out of the way.”

  Collecting everything he needed for his class, Aiden stood up straight, slinging his bag over his chest. “Anything else you need?” he asked, smoothing down his neck tie. “I’ve got to get to class.”

  She quickly stood. “I wanted to say sorry.”

  Aiden swallowed and dropped his gaze to the floor. He didn’t have time to deal with this either. “Lisa...”

  “I should have apologized for the way I left things last year. I should have done it sooner,” she said in a hurried voice. “All of the things I told you about yourself were true. But I realize that I didn’t speak to you in a tactful way. We were just growing apart and I don’t know if either one
of us knew how to address it. So I decided to look for another job without telling you.”

  He rolled his eyes to the ceiling of his small office, wanting to be anywhere else but there in front of his ex-girlfriend. A year ago, she’d told him his laziness was holding her back. They may have been hired together, but she wasn’t going to toil her life away with him. “You don’t have to do this,” he said.

  “I do,” she said. A pleading expression in her eyes, made Aiden take pause. “When we stopped talking about our future, I needed to leave Galway and see what I could accomplish. Deep down, I wanted you to come with me, wherever we might end up, but I never saw the drive in you or your work. I felt like you were content drifting around here and wasting your potential. I’m sure you’re coming up on tenure review, right?”

  “Next year.”

  Lisa’s brows raised. “How’s it going?”

  “Not well,” he admitted. “I frittered away the last feckin’ year getting over you.”

  She winced. “I’m sorry.”

  Aiden shook his head. “No, no, don’t apologize for that. You’re not responsible for what I muck up. I’m just trying...” He trailed off and his shoulders slumped. “I’ve got a lot of things to publish. A journal made me change nearly everything in an article I sent them, so I stayed up all last night to make that deadline. I’ve got to get a book proposal ready by the end of the summer and I almost forgot about the conference.”

  She nodded. “So you’re doing the work.”

  “I am. It’s just hard,” he said. “But look, I appreciate your apology.” He was mature enough to know that adults came together and talked these awkward moments out. Anger slowly flowed from his body as he gazed at her. She was the same Lisa who he thought he loved, but he now felt nothing for her. When he had helped move her things out of his Claddagh house, he’d bitten down his anger while they worked in silence. Later that evening, when all traces of her had been wiped away, he remembered drinking away his pain in a local pub. He barely made it home afterward, but when he woke up the following morning in an empty bed, loneliness plagued him for several months.

  The woman who stood in his office made his heart pound. Not out of arousal or love, but as a reminder of his past mistakes. In his desperation to build a relationship that wasn’t there, he’d let the rest of his life slide into a comfortable numbness. He didn’t challenge himself, push himself, or hold himself accountable. Aiden was now fearful of the woman who reminded him of the time he skated through his tenure-track job on charm. Lisa Brennan was the ant and he was the grasshopper. Autumn was coming and if he didn’t get his shit together, Aiden was in for a world of trouble.

  “You can do it,” she said in a sincere voice, no malice or sarcasm in her expression. “You just have to have a plan. I know that’s not your nature, but you’re capable.”

  “Thanks, I needed to hear that.” He glanced at his watch again.

  “I won’t keep you,” Lisa said moving toward his door. “I’ll see you at the conference.”

  “You will,” Aiden said as she left his office. He gave a feeble wave and listened to the sturdy clack of her heels travel down the hallway. The tension of their conversation forced him to lean against his desk and close his eyes. She didn’t say anything vague like ‘see you later’ or ‘do you want to grab a drink?’ and he was glad of that. While he no longer wished her ill-will, Aiden didn’t want to pretend to be her friend. As far as he was concerned, their conversation, no matter how late it was, made for the closure he needed.

  He took a long slow breath through his nose and exhaled from his mouth before standing and exiting his office. For the next hour and a half, teaching had to be his priority. Getting his students prepared for a final exam and out the door with enough confidence wouldn’t have been a challenge last year. Not while his only job was being a fun literature professor who reveled in making his students laugh and didn’t slave over lesson prep. Now that he was hard-nosed Dr. Aiden Byrnes, pushing the importance of Walt Whitman, he felt the pressure mounting in his aching shoulders. They were often tense when he taught, when he attended departmental meetings, even when he lay in bed at night. Regardless of how productive he was, the school year was killing him. One way or another, this goddamn semester needs to end. If he had the summer to decompress from the arduous semester, Aiden might summon the strength to tackle another year of teaching.

  Chapter Three

  Derek sat across from Antonia on the train, thoroughly engrossed in the blue light of his iPhone screen. The soft glow shined against his handsome face, making his gray eyes dull and vacant. After leaving the aquarium, a quiet distance had grown between the two. Truth be told, he’d been distant throughout the entire walking tour of the facilities. He’d nodded occasionally, murmured how lovely the space was, but ultimately returned to his phone. The incessant buzzing had embarrassed Antonia. While Derek was distracted, she was nailing down plans with their wedding planner.

  Now, as they sat opposite from one another on the “L,” Derek remained silent about what was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives. “Derek?”

  “Yes, babe?”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  His eyes never left his phone. “Where are you right now?”

  “Mm?”

  “Derek,” Antonia said louder.

  His head snapped up. “Yeah?”

  Antonia’s face warmed with embarrassment. “I’m trying to talk to you.”

  Derek flashed her the smile that attracted her a year ago in a sports bar. His dimples creased at both cheeks, extinguishing her flare of anger. It was difficult to stay frustrated at him when he gave her that smile. She suspected he knew that. “And I’m listening, Toni.” He put on a show of slipping his phone in his suit jacket and holding up his empty hands. “See? It’s gone.”

  “Who have you been texting all evening?”

  His smile was stuck in place. “Kevin sent me some files for a new account and I wanted to look them over.”

  Antonia nodded. Her frustration eventually faded, but her loneliness remained. She needed this train to go faster. The small window of time she had alone with him, before dinner, made her desire something more meaningful. She missed being intimate with him. Antonia flashed him her own smile. “We’ve got about an hour before we see your folks.”

  “Yep,” he said checking his large gold-faced watch. “That gives me enough time to shower and change.”

  Antonia frowned. That wasn’t what she had in mind. What would Augusta do? It was the question she asked whenever she found herself in a pickle. Augusta was the intrepid young heroine of her novel, who always kept her shit together. Augusta would know why she hadn’t slept with her boyfriend in a month. Oh lord, has it been a month? Antonia quickly did the math in her head. You don’t slow-down in sex a month before your wedding, do you? “I was thinking we could make a little time for us,” she blurted out just as the train slowed to a stop.

  Derek gathered his briefcase and stood, offering her his hand. “What was that?”

  “Some time for us,” she said again in a whisper. She could have sworn that his body tensed as they stepped off the train.

  “Oh, babe, we’ll see,” he said. “I need to get ready for Mom and Dad.”

  Antonia squeezed his hand. “I’m not asking for a long passionate night,” she said forcing a chuckle. “You know, a quickie or something?”

  “Is something wrong?” he asked, guiding her from the platform. She walked fast to keep up with his long stride. Derek was nearly a foot taller than her and much more active. Every time she walked with him, it was like she was chasing him to stay underfoot. The symbolism didn’t escape her notice. Augusta would not chase her boyfriend down Roosevelt St. Her gutsy heroine wouldn’t go straight from work in her rumpled business attire to meet with her boyfriend’s parents at an incredibly fancy r
estaurant. Antonia never got the chance to touch up her makeup or smooth out her curls. She was running; trotting behind Derek as he led them back to his apartment. Never mind Augusta, if Antonia’s mother were watching this scene, she’d say: “I told you so.”

  “I don’t know.”

  * * *

  Derek’s home was a stylish and modern two-bedroom apartment on the fourteenth floor of a high-rise. Every time Antonia walked across the threshold, an uneasiness settled in her stomach.

  She would have to live here.

  Not that she didn’t love the clean Scandinavian decor or its location on the South Loop; not too far from everything that was popular in Chicago. If she wanted to, she could walk only five minutes to Grant Park from Derek’s apartment. She enjoyed shuffling around in her socks on his wooden floors and running her hand over the exposed brick walls. His furniture was lovely and modern, arranged with extreme care. Everything was perfect in Derek’s apartment. But he assumed that when they got married, she would just move here. The apartment, after all, was closer to both of their jobs...

  She wondered what, in her eclectic apartment, she could make fit into Derek’s orderly life. Would she bring her favorite old reading chair, the one with the sunken cushion and worn spots on the arms? Where would she put all of her books? Derek didn’t exactly have the bookshelf space for her immense library. As Derek set his briefcase on the same vestibule bench, she was reminded of the phrase: everything in its right place. Antonia stepped out of her high heels and let the cool wood floor relax her aching feet. My god, I have to say something.

  “Derek, we need to talk.”

  He had already disappeared around the corner and into the master bedroom, leaving her in the living room. “What’s that?” he called out.