The Escape Room

by Megan Goldin

  ‘Go on,’ said Vincent. It didn’t surprise him. Eric was a bullshit artist to the core. He’d survived purely on his family name. If he’d been anyone else, he’d have been fired on day one. Hell, he’d never have been hired in the first place.

  ‘I didn’t say anything. I figured that I’d clarify everything afterwards. I didn’t want to embarrass Eric publicly. But Lucy, she was incensed. I tried to signal to her to keep quiet. Well, you remember how she was with social cues. She corrected Eric. Publicly. In front of the executive team. She didn’t mean to tear him apart, but she basically showed him for what he was. A liar and …’

  ‘An idiot,’ said Vincent.

  ‘Lucy didn’t realise that she’d made an implacable enemy. True to form, Eric figured out a way to get back at her.’

  Jules and Sylvie were completely still as they waited for Sam to recount the rest of the story.

  ‘How did Eric get back at Lucy?’ Vincent asked quietly.

  Vincent always knew that Eric was a borderline psychopath. Not in the Wall Street sense of the word of a badass banker, someone who would burn everyone to get the deal done. A psychopath in the traditional sense; Eric was capable of hurting people purely because he got a kick out of it.

  Sam didn’t respond. His hands trembled as he remembered being told what had happened. It shocked him. Not enough to speak up, but enough that he had to numb his guilt with drugs. He always regretted hiding it – Vincent would have taken on Eric if he’d known. Vincent was at his peak in those days, and his ruthlessness was legendary.

  ‘Come on.’ Vincent thumped his fist against the wall. The elevator rocked. ‘Tell me exactly what happened. I want to hear every last detail.’

  ‘Eric invited two of the more desperate and dumb interns out for drinks one night. He got them plastered. Blind drunk. He had Lucy’s water bottle, the one she always kept at her desk, spiked with a date-rape drug.’

  ‘Eric raped Lucy?’ Vincent’s voice was hollow.

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Sam. ‘Eric is a coward. He didn’t do his own dirty work. He arranged for the drunk interns to get into the elevator with Lucy late at night. Eric fired them up while getting them drunk on vodka shots. Apparently he told them, “Penetration is not allowed, this isn’t a gang rape. Just have fun, kids.”’

  ‘So what exactly did they do to her?’

  ‘They touched her,’ Jules chimed in. ‘Honestly, it wasn’t that big a deal. One of them rubbed her face in his crotch. Another kissed her and felt her up. There was some dry humping. It wasn’t rape, Vincent, it was a practical joke.’

  ‘I’m sure Lucy thought it was hilarious,’ said Vincent quietly, ‘because two days later, she killed herself.’

  Jules was about to say something in his own defence, but he thought better of it. The rage radiating from Vincent suggested that, next time around, Vincent might not be satisfied with shoving him against a wall. He remembered how Vincent had put the glass shard to his neck. He didn’t want to find out what Vincent would do if he really lost control of his temper.

  ‘Sylvie, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard a version of this story.’ Vincent’s tone was scathing. ‘Several years ago, I was told you knew that Eric had molested Lucy and that you did nothing about it. Do you remember that?’ Sylvie shifted uncomfortably. She looked at her feet with studied fascination.

  ‘You lied to me,’ Vincent said. ‘You covered up what Eric had done.’

  ‘If I’d admitted it then Eric would have come after me next,’ said Sylvie, not particularly convincingly. Eric was a bully, he went after the weak and defenceless. Sylvie was hardly the type to allow herself to be pushed around.

  ‘I want the truth,’ said Vincent. ‘Sara Hall said that Lucy came to you for help. Is that true?’

  ‘Lucy called me,’ said Sylvie. ‘In the middle of the night. She’d fallen asleep and woken up confused. Her memory was fuzzy, she was in a blind panic. Hysterical, really. She asked me to come to her apartment, and so I went over there. She was barely coherent. She said she thought she’d been raped.’

  ‘And you did nothing to help her? You didn’t call the cops?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Sylvie. ‘I knew what had really happened.’

  ‘How did you know?’ Vincent asked in a voice so soft they had to strain to hear him.

  ‘Because …’ She stopped talking as she realised the damage the information she’d already let slip had done.

  ‘Go on,’ snapped Vincent. ‘How did you know what happened to Lucy in the elevator?’

  ‘Because Jules was there. He told me what happened. There was no rape,’ said Sylvie. ‘Look, Eric made us promises about promotions, but of course he never kept them. We were stupid to listen to him. I agreed to slip the roofie into Lucy’s drink, Jules went in the elevator to make sure things didn’t get out of hand. We didn’t want anyone to get hurt and that’s why he was there.’

  ‘It didn’t get out of hand,’ Jules added. ‘I made sure of that. It was hazing. Pretty tame stuff, really. That’s all. It’s ancient history.’

  ‘No,’ said Vincent. ‘It’s not ancient history. If it was ancient history, then we wouldn’t be locked up in here.’

  For weeks after Kevin returned from Silicon Valley, I kept up a frenetic pretence that nothing had changed. That my career hadn’t gone down the toilet. That I hadn’t been fired.

  On nights that Kevin slept over, I woke at 5 a.m. and went to the fitness centre that I couldn’t afford anymore, for a workout that I didn’t want to do. I’d return home while Kevin was eating breakfast to shower and change into one of my suits while talking to him about whatever made-up story from work came to mind. ‘Vincent may want me to fly to Hong Kong again in a couple of weeks,’ that sort of thing.

  When I met Kevin after work for drinks or dinner, I peppered my conversation with bubbly anecdotes of whatever fictional event happened that day at work. What I’d really been doing was sitting home all day in my sweats, watching daytime talk shows and trying to forget that not only was I unemployed but, based on the response I’d received so far to job applications, I was unemployable.

  I was so devastated and humiliated by that final day at Stanhope, I just couldn’t bring myself to tell Kevin. It was the modern-day equivalent of being put in stocks while the townspeople threw rotten tomatoes at my face. I’d lost my self-worth, my friends, my good name, my career and my livelihood. It seemed easier to pretend it didn’t happen.

  If truth be told, my lies were more deep-seated than merely covering up my humiliation. I lied to Kevin because, deep down, I knew that Kevin was in love with the woman I’d been. Not the woman I now was. He was marrying an up-and-coming female investment banker at one of the most prestigious firms in the business. I was a foil for his own success. He would have no interest in being engaged to Sara Hall, unemployed corporate reject whose career was in shambles. Sara Hall, fired for incompetence without a single reference. Or Sara Hall whose bank account was dwindling on a daily basis. Sara Hall who would be bankrupt within six months if she didn’t find work. Sara Hall who no matter how hard she tried simply could not get a job.

  Success was an integral part of Kevin’s image. His mother was a judge, his brother and sisters were all ridiculously accomplished, his dad had been a partner at a large law firm before he died. Everyone in Kevin’s orbit was successful. Failure was an alien concept. I was certain that if Kevin found out that I had been fired then it would kill whatever passion he felt for me. It would destroy us.

  That’s why I pretended that my life hadn’t changed in any way once he got back from California. I kept my apartment, despite not being able to afford the rent, to prevent Kevin from finding out that I’d lost my job. I stupidly fooled myself into thinking that I’d quickly find another job. Then I’d tell Kevin that I’d decided to move to a new firm. I hoped to swing things so that he never found out the truth.

  That was pure fantasy, of course. It was impossible to get a job without a professiona
l reference. Nobody would look at me. Headhunters didn’t answer my calls once they knew that I’d left Stanhope without a new job in hand. It was a sure-fire indication that I’d been kicked out. Recruiters pulled me from interviews they’d set up once I had to admit that my only referee was an old college professor.

  ‘But you’ve been working for several years. Where are your references?’

  ‘My former boss is now in Shanghai, and I haven’t been able to get hold of him,’ I’d tell them, unable to meet their eyes. It was like saying the dog ate my homework.

  I tried repeatedly to contact Vincent by phone and by email to request – to beg, really – that he give me a letter of recommendation. Surely there was something positive that he could say about my work after all those years. He never responded. He put a block on my emails and declined my calls.

  I waited outside the Stanhope building several nights in a row, until one evening I saw Jules walking onto the street through the revolving glass doors.

  ‘Hi Jules,’ I said, approaching him. ‘How’s everything going with you?’ He looked up in surprise.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said, hailing a taxi. ‘Vincent won’t like it.’

  ‘I need a reference, Jules. Nobody will hire me.’

  ‘It’s not going to happen, Sara,’ he said, as he stepped into his cab and closed the door.

  Two days later a courier delivered a cease-and-desist letter from Stanhope’s lawyers, threatening that they’d take out a restraining order against me if I contacted anyone from the firm again.

  Between paying my rent, my mother’s retirement home fees and my dad’s medical bills, my savings were disappearing fast. I was well on my way to being flat broke.

  My biggest mistake was that I’d forgotten that while I lived in a city of eight million people, there were at most three degrees of separation between Kevin and my colleagues.

  One night, a few weeks into this charade, Kevin had arranged for us to meet for a drink after work at a place called Clancy’s. As my taxi turned the corner, I could already see Kevin standing outside the bar. It was a cold night and the yellow glow of street lights were reflected on a sidewalk slick with rain.

  The driver pulled over and I opened the door to get out. My heels were unsteady on the slippery sidewalk. I had to watch my footing, so I didn’t see the expression on Kevin’s face until I was standing on the kerb, the taxi still waiting behind me.

  ‘Sorry, hon. Vincent’s meeting dragged on and on tonight.’ I spoke with the polished tone of a practised liar.

  I was wearing one of my best suits and still acting as if I’d come straight from work. In reality, I’d spent the afternoon interviewing with second-rate recruiters, all of whom immediately cut me off when I told them that I couldn’t provide them with a reference from my previous employer.

  Kevin stared at me with a strange expression. Then he asked me the question that I’d been dreading.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were fired?’

  I didn’t know what to say. I just stared at him, wide-eyed, my heart slowly breaking.

  ‘Why?’ he insisted. I could hear the disgust in his voice.

  ‘I don’t know.’ It was the most truthful thing that I’d said to him in weeks.

  He said something else. I couldn’t hear the words, though I saw his lips move. All I could hear was the rapid beat of my heart as my world fell apart. The taxi driver broke through my trance by honking his horn and sticking his head out of the window. ‘Lady, I’m a taxi driver, not your dad. Where’s my money?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I leaned through the window and handed him cash. I wasn’t sure whether my words were directed at the driver or at Kevin. It didn’t much matter. By the time I turned around again, Kevin had gone.

  I don’t know how long I stood on that sidewalk, soaked by the rain, listening to raucous laughter coming from the bar where we were supposed to meet. The dark street had a soft yellow glow. My life was irretrievably broken.

  The truth is Kevin was bound to find out. On the night we’d arranged to meet at Clancy’s, he had come from an alumni event at his law school. It was the same law school that Jules had graduated from a few years ahead of Kevin. When I remembered that connection, I realised what had probably happened. They’d seen each other there and, knowing how Jules liked to throw a cat among the pigeons, he’d almost certainly beelined to Kevin and asked him something along the lines of: ‘How’s Sara doing with her job search?’

  Jules would have said it with some delight, enjoying Kevin’s shocked reaction. After that night, I imagined that scene a thousand times in a thousand ways. Each more excruciating than the last.

  Kevin sent me an email the morning after he’d abandoned me outside Clancy’s. He told me that the wedding was off, and that he wanted the ring back. He wrote it in polite legal language that suggested I’d find myself in court if I refused. I had no intention of refusing. I went to his office to return the ring, but Kevin wouldn’t come down to see me. He sent his personal assistant to the foyer and I put the ring in her manicured hand.

  I never saw Kevin again.

  That day, after our engagement was officially broken off, I gave notice to my landlord and began packing. Among the things to pack were Lucy’s sketchpads and her journal. For the first time since the day I raised the allegations against Eric Miles with Vincent, I was curious to look at them again. I was certain those notebooks had something to do with my dismissal.

  I flipped through the pages of the journal repeatedly. I couldn’t find the red-ink drawing of Lucy being attacked in the elevator, nor could I find Lucy’s mirror writing on the page alongside it. At first I thought that I’d flipped the pages too fast. I started back at the beginning and slowly went through every single page in the journal. The red-ink pages weren’t there. It was as if they’d never been there.

  I went through that journal a dozen times, and all of Lucy’s other sketchpads. There was no trace of the red-ink drawing. It made me question my own sanity, until I found Lucy’s drawing of the team in the meeting room with Vincent’s face drawn as the devil. Etched into the round table, Lucy had written ‘The Circle Inc.’ I still had no idea what that meant.

  Though I was disturbed by the disappearance of the journal entries, I was overwhelmed by my sudden change in circumstances and the stressful task of moving back to Chicago, especially under such painful circumstances. I had to get rid of the bulk of my stuff virtually overnight. I reduced my apartment to two dozen boxes and sold all my furniture and TV for some extra cash.

  Ten days after breaking up with Kevin, I was back in Chicago, living much the way that I had before starting at Stanhope. Except it was worse, because now I had no prospects and no expectations.

  I rented a small room on a short-term lease in a dingy apartment above a burger joint. During the evening rush, the whole apartment smelled of grease. When I went to job interviews, I had to spray myself with perfume so that my clothes wouldn’t smell like a grill.

  My roommate, Fiona, was a college dropout whose deadbeat friends hung out in the living room on a semi-permanent basis, watching television on full volume.

  I’d wake up in the morning to an apartment smelling of stale cigarette smoke as well as grease, and littered with dozens of empty beer cans. Dirty plates filled with cigarette butts were scattered around the room. The toilet stank like a public urinal, filled with the stench of sour urine from guests too drunk to aim properly.

  I took sleeping pills to get through the nights, and sometimes to get through the more difficult days as well. They left me in a haze so that I lost track of time and stood up job interviews, or arrived late, or looking ill-kempt and exhausted. Often both.

  I searched for work by every means possible. I answered job ads, went to agencies to speak to recruiters and tried to leverage my old college network. I couldn’t find a job in the financial industry without a reference. Nobody wanted to touch me. They treated me as if I had the plague.

 
I lowered my expectations. Instead of applying for top-tier firms, I applied to smaller ones. When nothing came of that I applied for low-level jobs at family-run firms, at a fraction of my previous salary. They’d ask me why I wanted to move from a high-flying job at the top of my profession to a two-bit outfit on a strip mall. It was a reasonable question. I’d tell them it was to be near my mother. They’d almost believe me – until they found out I couldn’t offer them a single reference from my old job.

  I lowered my sights again. Eventually, I found a job as a bookkeeper at a sleazy debt collection agency run by a small-time loan shark, Rudi. It was in a part of town filled with car yards and rundown office buildings offering cheap rent to dodgy fly-by-night businesses. Like the one I was now employed by. They didn’t care that I had no references, they were happy to milk my experience at minimum wage.

  I couldn’t cover my mother’s retirement village fees beyond the next two months. I was pulling my courage together to tell my mom that I’d have to move her when I received a call from the facility. My mom had a massive stroke while sitting out in the garden. They’d found her collapsed on the grass. ‘She wouldn’t have felt a thing,’ they told me.

  It almost broke me having to bury my mother so soon after my father. I was more alone than I’d ever imagined it was possible to be. There was nobody left for me. Nobody who gave a damn if I lived or died.

  I stood at my parents’ graves with an ache in my heart for a long time after my mother’s funeral had finished. Perhaps it was better this way, I thought to myself. It would have devastated my mom and dad to have known that my life had fallen apart. Mom’s funeral expenses took up the last of my savings. I was broke and my life was shattered.

  After that, the months passed in a blur of depression and pills. I’d drifted apart from my best friends Jill and Lisa, as well as my closest friends from college. Working at Stanhope was so all-consuming that it was hard keeping up with anyone outside work. They were hurt that I never made much effort, and eventually they stopped reaching out. I was too proud to contact them with my life in ruins.