The Write Escape

by Charish Reid

  “Where the hell do I start?” Antonia asked, her voice climbing. Tears threatened to return. “I’ve just lost my fiancé and apparently my job.”

  “Start from the beginning with Derek,” Octavia said in a soothing voice. “I can tell you that when he called me, he was almost hysterical.”

  Antonia frowned. “What did he say happened last night?”

  Her sister shook her head and shrugged. “I couldn’t get a clear picture; he didn’t make much sense. He was going on and on about you canceling the wedding, the money it was going to cost him, that sort of thing. I tried to ask him for details, but he was evasive.”

  “He left out a huge chunk of last night’s events,” she said through a clenched jaw. Antonia hugged her arms around her body and slowly relayed everything that she remembered from last night. She managed to get through the story without breaking down, which she considered her first win of the day. Progress. All throughout, Octavia remained quiet, nodding only once in a while. Had she her notepad, she probably would have been writing notes. When Antonia finished, she looked over at her sister. “What do I do?”

  Octavia drew a deep breath and asked, “What would you like to do?”

  “I’d like to kill Derek.”

  Her sister nodded with a smile. “That’s fair,” she said before adding, “It’s good that you’re being honest about your anger. I was worried that your first impulse was to turn inward.”

  “I did drink an entire bottle of wine.”

  “Yes, but you won’t do that again.” Octavia leaned forward in her seat. “Are you sure you didn’t know about Derek and his... Naomi?”

  “I had no idea. But the weird thing was how he handled the situation. He didn’t even bother to deny what he did and he barely apologized. It was like he turned into a completely different person.” She remembered being startled by the cool detachment in his voice. The easiness in his suggestion to continue as though nothing were wrong. He told her she would be a lonely woman in her thirties without him. Where did that chilling arrogance come from?

  “Was there anything about this relationship that made you suspect that Derek was unfaithful?”

  Antonia took a moment to think. She did wonder why they hadn’t been intimate in the last few weeks, but she figured that they were both tired. But how many times had she tried to initiate? He seemed more tired than she. “We haven’t had sex in about a month.”

  Her sister’s eyes flickered with discomfort. “Mmh.”

  “I’m just being honest.”

  “Yes, that was probably a sign, but I was talking about something more subtle.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her sister hesitated for an instant, her dark eyes full of regret. “Maybe I should have said something much earlier, Toni. Speaking as your sister and not a therapist, Derek is an asshole. I’ve thought so from the start. His cheating on you doesn’t surprise me in the least.”

  Antonia stared. “What?”

  “Oh honey...” Octavia said leaving her seat. She quickly knelt next to Antonia and clasped her face between her hands. “Please don’t give me those frightened bunny eyes. They’re hard to face.”

  “You’ve always hated him?”

  Her sister nodded. “Well, I hated him as a partner for you, but now I just hate him.”

  Antonia said nothing as she slid her arms around Octavia. They hugged tightly, Antonia’s tears and sniffles were the only sounds in the silent apartment. When they pulled apart, Octavia used the sleeve of her tunic to wipe Antonia’s eyes. “Mom gave me a lecture just yesterday. We fought about Derek on the phone and I defended him like an idiot. How could I not see it?”

  “Don’t feel too bad about a fight with Mom. When it comes to her, it’s easy to get defensive. She doesn’t always give her opinion with kid gloves...” Octavia trailed off, possibly remembering arguments she’d had with their mother. “As far as Derek is concerned, I think we see what we want to see. Things are always different when you’re on the inside actually living it.”

  “How did it look from the outside?”

  Octavia sat back on her heels and pursed her lips. “Remember that night I met up with you two and you announced your engagement?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You were so excited, showing off the ring. We all drank champagne. But he looked so vacant. Very handsome, very charming, but he just didn’t seem to have any real feelings.”

  Antonia stared at the engagement ring on her finger. She tugged it from her finger and set it on the coffee table.

  “I’d like to think I’m pretty good at spotting robotic people,” Octavia continued. “I remember congratulating the both of you and watching him hold your hand, but he held it like a stone. When I asked if you two were going to find a place together, he naturally assumed that you’d just move into his apartment. When I asked about your book project—”

  “—He laughed,” Antonia finished. Her face flushed as she evoked the memory of Derek’s chuckling. “He called it a ‘cute idea.’”

  “He said that if everything worked out at his firm, you wouldn’t have to work at all,” Octavia reminded her. “His mother didn’t have to work, why should you?”

  She’d been thoroughly embarrassed by his remark. Antonia came from a family of hard-working women. After their father died, Diane had worked three jobs so that Antonia and her sister could continue attending a private Catholic school. When Octavia graduated from high school, she’d been determined to get into the University of Chicago. She’d worked as a waitress and depended on her scholarships while commuting from their old Southside neighborhood. Even Antonia had worked as a bartender throughout her graduate degree. The Harper women knew how to hustle.

  “I think I ignored more than that,” Antonia said.

  “I think you might be right. The struggle with his mother over these wedding plans may have been another sign. Did you really want a wedding at Shedd Aquarium or were you just being stubborn?”

  Antonia detected laughter in her sister’s eyes. Her heart lifted as she let out a startled laugh. “What are you talking about? I love the ocean.”

  “The underexplored bastion of our world?”

  Antonia wiped tears from her face while she giggled. “I didn’t say it like that.”

  “Yeah, well, I saw Vivian Rogers’s face when you said it. I thought she would fall off her chair.”

  “I was serious about the aquarium, though,” Antonia said. “It would have been a nice ceremony.”

  “And were you serious about your honeymoon?” Octavia asked, arching a brow. “Where on earth were you guys going?”

  Antonia tried to stifle her disappointment. “Derek wanted to go to Bali or something. I wanted us to go to Ireland.”

  “What’s in Ireland?”

  “I don’t know,” Antonia admitted. “I’ve always wanted to go there. I booked a place on the west coast, right on the ocean. Oh my god, you should see the pictures.” She scooted off the couch to retrieve her laptop. “I found this little town called Clifden. It’s got these beautiful green grass hills dotted white with sheep. Craggy gray cliffs that kind of tumble into the Atlantic. There, look at that B&B, isn’t it adorable?”

  Octavia peered at the screen. “Are those three pubs sitting right next to one another?”

  “Romantic, huh?”

  “This is the whitest thing I’ve ever heard of.”

  Antonia frowned. “I thought it would be nice. Not that it matters...”

  Octavia went quiet, her eyes darting between the computer screen and her sister. “Mmh.”

  “What?” She knew the wheels were turning rapidly in her sister’s brain.

  “It’s just that...well, what if you could still kiss your Blarney Stone?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How much money have you saved?”

&
nbsp; Antonia shook her head. “Octavia, I just lost my job. I have a million wedding things I need to cancel. Even then, I’ll have to pay for the cancellations.”

  “Yes, but how much have you saved? Enough for a rainy day?”

  Antonia knew what she meant. The sisters took after their mother when it came to preparing for emergencies. For Diane, a rainy day meant your husband could up-and-die, leaving you with two growing daughters. They grew up learning how to be incredibly shrewd with money. Everything in Antonia’s apartment was bought secondhand or given to her from her mother. She accumulated her work wardrobe during well-timed, end of the season sales. Even Derek was excited to learn that she would come to the marriage with a significant savings and no student loan debt. Was this disaster her rainy day?

  She met her sister’s gaze with a tremulous smile. “Should I just go?”

  “What would your girl-character, Augusta, do?”

  Maybe there is a chance. Antonia was buoyant with hope. Perhaps this was the time she needed to become reacquainted with the characters of her book. She could get Augusta through the next chapter of her life. If she was lucky, she could figure out how to get through the next chapter of her own life. But reality quickly crept back in. How could she leave with so many loose ends? There was a huge guest list waiting on a wedding that would never happen. She had to find another job. So many things needed to be handled.

  “Look, if the answer is, yes, Augusta would go to Ireland by herself and write a book, then I will personally make sure that things here are in order.”

  “It feels like I’m just running away from my problems.”

  “Running away is different from running toward,” Octavia explained. “If you’re finally willing to make yourself happy, I would call this running toward something. Let’s face it, Wild Hare was on shaky ground for a while. Eddie was upset when I spoke to him this morning, but he wasn’t terribly shocked.”

  “No, I suppose you’re right.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with licking your wounds, Toni.”

  “What about Mom? I don’t think I can talk to her right now.”

  Octavia scoffed. “I’ll take care of her.”

  She rolled her eyes before giving a small smile. Hope was inching its way back into her heart. “Are you sure you can handle the wedding stuff? Derek’s mom, all of it?”

  “I’ve treated women like Derek’s mother for years. She suffers from narcissism just like her son,” Octavia said with a grin. “And if it makes you feel better, I’ll employ Eddie’s girlfriend. She’s got a type A personality that’s good for planning and dismantling weddings.”

  “Yeah? You’ll do it?”

  Octavia gave her a solemn stare. “I’ll only give you this non-wedding gift on two conditions.”

  “What?”

  “First, I need you to figure out what drew you to someone like Derek. You can give me the short answer, but you need to think about what you believe you’re lacking.”

  Antonia groaned. There was a short answer and a long one, but she didn’t want to dig too deep so quickly after the destruction of her relationship. “I guess... I just thought I was punching above my weight. Derek was the kind of guy who would never look at me when I was in college and now that I’m thirty-three.” She rolled her eyes. “I thought someone like him wouldn’t wait for me much longer.”

  Octavia let her mask slip and grimaced. “What the hell does that even mean?”

  “I don’t know, I just thought that I was a homely nerd.”

  “Jesus Christ, Toni. You need to seriously work on this self-image business. You’re young, brilliant, and beautiful. Derek is just a pretty face with no real substance. Why would you want to fit yourself into his tiny box?”

  Antonia gave a tired shrug. She didn’t have an answer for that.

  “Well I need you to figure that shit out,” her sister said in a stern tone that reminded Antonia of their mother. “My second condition is that you have to take your book with you. Whatever it was, it seemed like the one thing that made you happy. Can you do those two things?”

  Antonia missed her writing terribly. The thrill she got when she sorted out the puzzles of her plot was euphoric. But she’d put it on the backburner for so long that she wondered if she could possibly return to it. There was a chance that she could. If she took advantage of this rainy day in her life, she could write her next chapter. She could also put in the hard work of understanding how she lost herself for a full year. Maybe she could find Augusta and herself in Ireland.

  “I can do it,” she said with resolve. “I’ll go.”

  Chapter Six

  “I read an article saying people can’t drive and talk on the phone at the same time, did you know that?” Aiden’s mother said, her concerned face filling the screen of his phone. “It just can’t be done.”

  It was a cloudy Thursday afternoon when he decided to take off for Tully Cross, but made the mistake of answering his mother’s phone call. Clare Hannigan, who was still figuring out the intricacies of her new iPhone, had discovered FaceTime. “I’ve heard that, Mam.”

  “People think they can multitask and it just can’t be done,” she repeated. Her phone was tilted upward, showing more of her neck and chin than her eyes.

  “Mam, go ahead and hold the phone up. At your face.”

  “M’dear, what do you think I’m doing? Anyway, how are you feeling?”

  “Well, I’m on my way to Tully Cross,” he said, leaning against the steering wheel. “And I don’t want to talk and drive.”

  “You can talk to your poor mother for just a moment, can’t you?” She moved the phone to her jade green eyes and peered at him. “It’s not too far to the peninsula anyway. Also you didn’t answer my question: How are you feeling?”

  Aiden rubbed his temples. “I feel fine, Mam.”

  “You’re a worse liar than your da, you know that? And you look an awful mess, Aiden. Have y’even shaved?”

  He glanced at his rearview mirror before answering her. No, he had not followed Robert’s orders and shaved his beard. In the past semester, the black stubble he usually sported had grown much fuller. He tilted his face slightly and frowned. The small patch of gray near his jaw was becoming more noticeable. “I’ll shave when I get to the cottage,” he promised.

  The phone dipped back to her pursed lips. “Please do, you look like a wild man. Have you gotten any sleep? Your eyes are a bit dark.”

  “I’ve slept.”

  “Out of all of my boys, you’re the chattiest one, you know that? I could always tell when you were worn-out. You’d close right up like a little clam. When you were small, you were so loud and boisterous, performing for the family. Dancing and singin’ in your tap shoes. But as soon as you got tired, you stuck out your lip and furrowed your black brow until I made you take a nap.”

  Her rambling made Aiden smile in spite of himself. “I didn’t perform...”

  “You did,” his mother insisted. “You’re the theatrical one.”

  He was reminded of his talk with Robert last week. He liked entertaining and charming people. Though it didn’t work on everyone, he tried nonetheless. Aiden’s mind drifted back to Lisa and their last interaction. Looking back on it, he felt his performance with her was less than stellar. “I saw Lisa last week,” he told his mother. He didn’t know what he wanted Clare to say, but he needed to tell her. “She came back to town because of that damn Western Ireland Humanities Conference and it threw me off my game.”

  “Mmh.” Clare raised a brow. “Why do you think that is?”

  “Because I was trying my best to forget her,” he finally told his mother.

  Clare took him into her kitchen where she pulled the kettle off the stove. “Dear, do you mind if I put you on the counter while I make tea? We can’t multi-task, you know.”

  Aiden chuckled. His mother alwa
ys had a way of cheering him up. She’d even managed to maintain a jovial spirit during the tougher times. Being a school teacher and a single mother of four sons was no easy feat, but Clare had pulled it off. Aiden now looked at his mother’s ceiling, listening to her clatter dishes. “You certainly don’t need to forget the girl. You remember her so you don’t make the same mistake again,” she said over the noise.

  “I want to forget her for this week,” he said. “Is that an appropriate amount of time?”

  “Don’t sass, Aiden. You do what you want for a week, but you must see her again before she leaves, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well then,” she said, pouring her tea. “Spend this time getting some rest and working on your paper. You’ll feel better when you’ve finished it.”

  Her advice sounded vague, like she couldn’t remember which son she was talking to. Whenever one of her children had a problem, she offered sage advice that could have applied to any of them. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right,” his mother said. The phone was back at her face. “When you’re there you can work in peace and quiet; nothing but the sheep to keep you company. You’ll come back a different man.”

  A different man. “I’m sure I’ll be the same. Morose and irritable.”

  Clare ignored that. “Well, you’ll at least have a visitor next Friday,” she said in a bright tone. “Soircha is coming to Galway.”

  Aiden’s head fell back against his headrest. He couldn’t handle a visit from his twelve-year-old niece. “Oh god, I forgot about that.”

  “I’m thinking of taking the trip with her. It would be nice to see you.”

  “Oh Mam...” His brother Sean was still sending his daughter to the Irish-language immersion program, about twenty minutes from Galway. Aiden’s place made for a good pit-stop for the girl. While he now remembered the conversation, he did not recall his mother wanting to come along for the ride. Aiden suspected she wanted to baby him.

  “She loves her uncle Aiden. You’re her favorite, you know that?”