“Is your hubby too busy to help you with your question?” asked Danielle in a patronizing tone.
“Shouldn’t someone be watching the front desk?” said Abby.
“I’ll hear if someone comes in,” Danielle said.
“I’m back. Sorry about that,” said Krissa.
“So,” said Abby, “would it affect anything if I worked more than eight hours a week? Do you know?”
“How much more?”
“Like, if I worked nine or so hours instead? Would that mess up Randall’s insurance thing?”
“No. That’s fine. I’ll let him know. Just don’t work less than eight hours.”
“Okay.”
“Is this happening today?”
“Yeah.”
“Will this be a permanent change in your schedule?” asked Krissa.
“I don’t think so.”
“Why the change? Randall will want to know.”
“I have to cover the front desk while our receptionist has an appointment.”
“Fine. Thanks for letting me know. Anything else to report?”
“Nope.”
“Okay. Have a nice day.”
“You too,” Abby said, hanging up.
Danielle stayed planted in the chair.
“As you heard, I’ll cover for your appointment. It’s fine.”
“Super,” said Danielle flatly, her head cocked to the side.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Abby asked.
“What’s your deal?”
“Nothing.”
“Why do you need to get permission to work one extra hour?”
“I really think you should get back up there. What if one of the partners walks in and you’re not sitting up there?”
“People like you make me want to start smoking again,” Danielle said, getting up and leaving.
Abby got up and closed her office door after her. She sat back down at her desk, and then rummaged through her purse until she found a bottle of aspirin. She swallowed three tablets along with a couple of swigs of coffee. If she could follow her own natural instincts, instead of having to run everything through the Randall-filter, life wouldn’t be this complicated.
Danielle was back a few minutes later, knocking loudly. She opened the door and stuck her head in before Abby had a chance to get up. “I’ll be leaving soon,” she told Abby. “Debbie or Sharlene in accounting will answer the phones if they ring. No clients are scheduled to show up until two o’clock, so you shouldn’t have to worry about that. If someone comes in unexpectedly, give them a bottle of water or a cup of coffee and have them sit in one of the chairs by the table with the magazines on it. Okay?”
“I guess,” said Abby.
“The only thing I need you to do is be here when the mail comes because there’s a pile of stuff that has to go out today, and I don’t want the mailman to miss it.”
“So I’ll sit at your desk up front then?”
“Obviously. Sit there, you don’t even have to fold stuff, just sit there. So come up front now.”
“Fine,” said Abby. She took her time straightening up her already-neat office. When she finally made her way out to the reception area, Danielle was on her feet, waiting for her.
“I have to go now. In fact, I’m probably going to be late. When the mailman shows up please make sure he takes these with him,” she said, patting a stack of letters on her desk.
“I can handle that.”
“You sure?”
“Yes!”
“Maybe I’ll even be back before he shows up. Let’s hope for that, okay?”
“Please go to your appointment. I’ll be fine.”
Danielle grabbed her knockoff purse and sauntered away. Abby took the stack of must-go mail and set it in an isolated pile away from everything else, confident she would somehow mess this up.
She suspected that Danielle had complained about her to Clark Lorbmeer and the rest of the office staff. She imagined Clark telling his wife Danna-Dee how awful she was doing, and the news getting passed along to Danna-Dee’s tennis friends and bunco lady pals.
General worries about her own shortcomings consumed her as she settled in at the front desk, but after several quiet minutes alone, Abby began to calm down and enjoy herself. It wasn’t often that she had free time she didn’t need to fill with some reportable task. She practiced some yoga breathing, trying to be present, wanting to make something of this brief moment of camera-less privacy.
Just as she’d begun to transfer into that elusive zen-zone of peace, the front door opened and she snapped back to attention. The man coming through the door looked like he was about her age. In his arms he carried a big white plastic bin.
“Hi there,” she said. “Can I help you?”
“Hi. You’re new here?”
“Yeah, sort of. I’m not normally up here. My office is in the back. Would you like a water or some coffee?”
“No. That’s okay. Thanks for asking me that. I can assure you, no one ever has before.” He laughed.
“Really?” she asked.
“Yeah. Anyhow, nice to meet you. I’m Charles. You can call me Charlie.”
“Hi, Charlie. I’m Abby,” she said. He set the bin off to the side and shook her hand. He was tall and muscular with dark eyes and dark hair. The opposite of Randall.
“Are you a lawyer?” he asked her.
“No,” she said. Unsure what her title was, she shrugged and smiled.
“Do you have anything for me today?” he asked
She tapped her fingertips against her lips and looked around her. Finally she said, “I guess not.”
“Okay. Well then, nice meeting you, Abby.”
“Nice meeting you too, Charlie.”
He smiled and waved on his way out. A moment after he was gone it occurred to her that he was the mailman.
“Shit,” she said. She grabbed the pile of letters and ran out the door, down the few steps into the lobby that Lorbmeer, Messdiem & Miller shared with other companies, and out onto the hot street. Charlie was already halfway down the block, about to go into another building. One more second and she wouldn’t have seen where he’d gone.
“Wait! Charlie! Wait,” Abby yelled.
He turned around and smiled, clearly pleased to see her running after him.
“I forgot to give you these,” she yelled, waving the letters so he’d see them.
“They look important,” he said when she’d caught up to him. He raised one eyebrow. “Are they?”
“I guess so,” she said.
“I’ll take good care of them.”
“Thanks.”
“Wait,” said Charlie.
“What is it?” asked Abby.
“It was really nice to meet you.”
“Okay? You too,” she said. She turned then and headed back, not wanting to leave the front desk vacant any longer than she had to.
Chapter 7
Abby never knew what was going to set off Randall. They’d have weeks or even months of even-keeled normalcy, and then something would happen and he’d turn into a monster. On the day she met Charlie, Randall came home from work earlier than normal, in a terrible mood.
“Nice to see you,” she said. She’d been swimming laps in their pool, but as soon as she saw that Randall was home she got out and toweled off. “Want something to drink?” she offered.
“Come on inside,” he said, holding the sliding door open. “Hurry up. I’m cooling off the whole neighborhood.”
She passed by him and went over to the refrigerator to get both of them some cold juice. He followed right behind her. Without speaking he pulled down her bikini bottoms and started fumbling with his belt and zipper. She did her best not to look as clenched up as she felt; what she was dreading most was that it wouldn’t work and he would then go ballistic.
“Suck it,” he told her.
“Could we go in the bedroom?” she asked. All the blinds were open; if anyone walked up to their h
ouse they’d see everything.
“Suck it,” he repeated, gritting his teeth. It started to firm up a little. She took her top off to try to help things along. Randall slapped at her breasts a little, glancing down at them and then squinting his eyes shut, clearly trying to draw on some sexier-than-her image in his head.
“I’m ready,” he hollered, spinning her around and bending her over the kitchen counter. He tried to slide it in but it was already starting to flop. So he jammed his flaccid penis, or more accurately as the minutes went by, his pelvis, against her butt crack for a while. Bloop bloop bloop. It felt like she was being slapped with a water weenie toy. She looked out at the pool, growing bored, hoping he’d give up soon.
“Rosa will be back from the grocery store anytime now,” she said eventually.
“Huhhh,” he grunted, giving it another try.
“Randall…” she tried again, concerned their housekeeper would walk in on them.
“Quiet,” he hissed.
It wasn’t simply a matter of telling him that she wanted a divorce. Several years earlier she had gotten up the nerve to tell him she wanted to leave, and he’d made it very clear that she’d be dead if she tried. Randall Greer was not the kind of man whose trophy wife divorced him.
After taking the conversation there, Abby’s life got much worse. She saw no point in ever bringing a hint of her unhappiness to light again. It could only hurt her.
Now he was zipping up his pants, rebuckling his belt. He spun Abby around and looked at her with repulsion. That was the funny part about being raped: (She considered it rape, even if it didn’t really work, even if she didn’t call him out on it.) It made him hate her a little extra.
He put his hands on her neck and squeezed. She felt like her eyes were going to pop out of her head. His eyes bulged out at her. They stood there, bulgy eyes locked into bulgy eyes, until he loosened his grip and went outside. She watched him get in his car. She scrambled to put her bikini back on, just as Rosa’s rusty Toyota Corolla began coming up the driveway. Randall nodded cordially at Rosa as she pulled over to the shoulder of the driveway to let him by.
Abby checked herself in the mirror. There were giant handprints on her neck so she went into the bathroom to hide until either they or Rosa went away. Staring at herself in the bathroom mirror, all she could think, over and over, was that she had to get out of this.
Chapter 8
Within a few months of her family’s accident, Abby’s grandmothers, both of them widows, had passed away, further cementing her status as an orphan. Her parents had both been only children. This was when Randall still had something to prove. He took care of all the arrangements for her grandmothers since Abby was their only living descendant. She wouldn’t have had a clue how to handle any of it; She was only twenty-two and had turned to her parents for advice on dilemmas big and small. How to deal with roommate problems, boyfriend problems, professor problems? Her parents had effectually made all her decisions. Their wisdom and experience influenced all her actions, and following their advice gave her the outward appearance of being very mature and pulled together. It was the exact opposite, however; She had barely any inner barometer of logic. With all the answers a phone call away, she’d never needed one.
Abby’s mom’s good friend Sharon had taken care of Abby’s parents’ and sisters’ funeral arrangements and the settling of their estate, and she’d let her, gladly signing over all the rights and responsibilities to her. She trusted people at this time. She believed that pretty much anyone could to do a better job than she could do. She was glad for people like Sharon, glad for people like Randall. She assumed they all knew more than she knew, and that deferring to them was the responsible thing to do.
During that summer, Randall was simply there. Everyone else was gone or busy or afraid of what to do with all of Abby’s sadness. But not Randall.
“Come out to dinner with me,” he’d tell her.
“I don’t have anything to talk about,” she’d warn him.
“So look pretty and keep me company.”
For months they had attended classical concerts, eating at places with outside seating where Abby could be shown off. These dates, or whatever they were, consisted of Randall talking about his day and Abby propping herself upright, picking at her food, nodding at the appropriate moments.
As time went by, her college wardrobe began to get in the way. He started bringing her the right clothes to wear. “Here. Why don’t you wear this nice dress?” he’d suggest when he came to pick her up.
“Oh, sure. It’s pretty,” she’d tell him. And she’d put it on, feeling like it made no difference to her, and if it made him happy, why not.
Months of this went by before he kissed her goodbye on the cheek a few times, and once awkwardly on the mouth. And then he invited her on a trip to the south of France. Abby’s friend Celeste recognized the enormity of this even if Abby did not.
“The south of France” she’d said on the day when Abby had phoned her to get her opinion on it. “Oh my God, Abby! That sounds amazing. You’re so lucky. But do you even like him?”
“Does it matter?” Abby had asked.
She had just come back from Orlando, having made a special trip there to drive past her old house. A new family lived there now and she’d had a sick need to see what the house looked like with someone else in it. There was an American flag flying beside her old front door and a long, ugly plastic bench on the porch. A white truck was in the driveway. She’d worn sunglasses and had hoped that none of her old neighbors recognized her. She hated how their houses all seemed exactly the same. It felt like a betrayal.
It had been a five-hour drive, roundtrip, and she had cried the whole way back.
“But Abby, are you seriously considering going with him?” Celeste had continued.
“Maybe.”
“You’ll have to have sex. He’s obviously expecting this to be a romantic getaway.”
“I won’t have to have sex. He’s not like that. He’s not pushy. He’s really nice. Not like guys our age. He understands I lost my entire family and that I can’t even think about stuff like sex right now.”
“It’s been months and he probably thinks you’re ready to move on.”
“I’m not though. And why would I want to with him?”
“I don’t think you should go if you don’t like him.”
“I like him well enough to go on a trip.”
“You shouldn’t go if you don’t love him, I mean.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever love anyone again.”
“You will too.” Celeste had sounded exasperated, like Abby was being overly dramatic. It was fall now, going on six months since she had lost her family, and the few friends still lingering on wanted the old Abby back. The fun Abby.
Abby wasn’t being dramatic, though. She was telling the truth. “I need to get away from here,” she told Celeste.
“Why don’t you go somewhere with me then? We could drive someplace and go camping.”
“I don’t know.” Abby thought about it for a second. Camping sounded terrible.
“How are you going to afford it? Is he going to pay for everything for you?”
Abby didn’t say that now that her parents and grandmothers had all died within a few months of one another, she had close to a million dollars in the bank. Lawyers told her it wasn’t as much as it sounded like, and that she should get help figuring out how to take care of it so it lasted. On the other hand they said, it’s a lot of money, protect it.
Randall had helped her invest it and she had been glad for his help. She’d given him complete control of how it was invested, but it was still hers. That was another thing no one would have believed: that she hadn’t married Randall for his money.
“He’s so generous. He’s paying for everything,” Abby told her friend. It was the simplest answer, and true.
“Suit yourself,” said Celeste.
“It’s only a trip. He even said we’d have a
suite with separate bedrooms if that’s what I wanted.”
“Then do it.”
Abby hung up feeling like Celeste wasn’t being very nice, all things considered. Resentment over the material abundance within her reach was affecting her friends’ opinions of her. Despite what she had lost, they had their opinions and jealousies over her getting free trips and presents while they ate toast and ramen noodles and worried whether they had enough money for the gas required to get to work.
On the second night of the trip Randall came into Abby’s room. He started rubbing her back and she was too tired to fight it. She let him have sex with her. He proposed to her on the last night of their trip. She felt guilty about letting him take her on such a nice vacation so she said yes.
Part of her had died with her family. She’d been numb ever since. Whatever, who cares, she thought. She’d had this idea that she didn’t have much time left and what difference did it make if she finished her remaining days with him. She was glad that she was able to make anyone happy, since she couldn’t make herself happy. Now, years later, she wondered how she hadn’t realized that each day was still going to take twenty-four hours, and that she’d had her whole life ahead of her. At that time, back when she was a hundred million years old and half dead, it hadn’t felt like that.
Chapter 9
“I suppose I can stick around today if you need me to,” Abby told Danielle.
“Thank you. I’m having lunch with a friend from college and we couldn’t schedule it any other time. Thank you so much.” She actually looked like she meant it.
“Really, it’s nothing.”
Randall had been surprisingly indifferent to Abby going from eight to ten hours per week, so she’d begun covering for Danielle’s lunch almost every time she worked. These two hours, when the office was empty and Danielle was not around to hover and criticize, were becoming Abby’s favorite time of the week.
Run Away Baby Page 3
