We all stared at the spurting wound. Who would have thought a foot contained that much blood? The redhead threw up, Kip collapsed into a deck chair, looking stunned, and everyone else just stood there, goggling at Kip’s gushing foot as though they’d never seen blood before. I was the only one who seemed capable of action. Snatching a beach towel, I wrapped it around Kip’s foot. Then, when no one else volunteered, I drove him to the emergency room.
After Kip was stitched up, he was ordered to rest in a cubicle. I sat with him while we waited for his doctor to okay his release. “Do you want me to call someone?” I asked, handing Kip a glass of water, recalling that he’d told me his mother lived in a Milwaukee suburb. “Your mom, maybe?”
“God, no. My rule is never tell my mother anything.” He sipped the water. “You’ll understand when you meet her.” He squeezed my hand. “Sorry I spoiled your evening.”
“You didn’t.” Truth: at the moment I would rather have been sitting in a disinfectant-smelling emergency room with Kip Vonnerjohn than anywhere else in the world. He was pale beneath his beach tan, his hair was plastered sweatily against his forehead, and his hands shook slightly as the local anaesthetic began to wear off. He rubbed his eye sockets with his fists like a young kid.
That was the moment I fell in love.
Females are not all that impressed when males flex their biceps, fan out their tails, or pound their chests. What makes us take leave of our senses is seeing a guy clumsily holding a baby in his arms or sucking his thumb after he’s blasted it with a hammer or squirming in embarrassment because he’s just discovered his girlfriend is allergic to the bouquet of daisies he’s brought her. We can’t resist a guy making an adorable dope of himself.
Kip and I shared our first kiss on that emergency room cot.
We saw each other nearly every day for the rest of the summer. Dates with Kip were always adventures. We went sailing in his boat. Golfed on elaborate, expensive courses. Walked on the beach and played catch-me-if-you-can with the surf. Hiked in state parks. Took the train to Chicago and toured the Shedd Aquarium. Went to a lot of parties.
We never discussed money. Although I assumed that Kip was well-off, I didn’t associate Kip with the Vonnerjohns. It wasn’t until our ninth date that I learned Kip’s great-grandfather had been Yost Vonnerjohn, the Dutch immigrant who’d started the plumbing company now known around the world for bathroom fixtures. It wasn’t until our twelfth date that he told me that he was first cousin to Stanford Brenner, who was running for United States Senate.
We went to the zoo on our fourteenth date. Kip produced a box of animal crackers from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. The box was already open and I figured he’d been nibbling on the crackers, which seemed odd; Kip wasn’t the animal crackers type. We stopped to watch the giraffes while I munched on the crackers, Kip watching me from the corners of his eyes. I ate a bear with a broken leg, a headless zebra, and a blob that was either a horse or a hippo. Then my scrabbling fingers touched a piece of paper. I pulled it out and saw that it was a note in Kip’s handwriting. It said: I’m crackers about you. Will you marry me? Taped to the back of the paper was a ten-carat diamond ring.
Who could have resisted a setup like that? Not schmaltzy, love-starved Mazie Maguire. For the first time in my life I wasn’t being cautious and timid. I was being wild and adventurous. I was following my heart. That’s what I told myself and that’s what I allowed myself to believe. Of course I said yes. I wanted to marry Kip Vonnerjohn; I wanted to share his life and toothbrush and head colds; I wanted to have his babies. I was head over heels, giddy-gaga-dumbass in love with him.
If my parents had been there, they would have warned me that fourteen dates is not enough time to get to know someone. Kip and I knew each other’s favorite songs, most embarrassing moment from junior high school, and favorite sexual positions, but we hadn’t asked the big questions. Such as: Does this person keep his promises? Nor had we delved into the smaller questions: joint accounts or separate? Open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas day? Who controls the air-conditioning? We didn’t delve into them because we were too busy delving into each other. Kip, nearly nine years older than I, was the first guy I’d been with who knew his way around a woman’s body. As sexually inexperienced as I was, I equated orgasms with love.
I should have seen the warning signs. They were there, as clear as a ragged-edge mole exhibiting the seven warning signs of melanoma: the fact that Kip kept putting off introducing me to his mother. That he took off work whenever he felt like it and spent money like a sailor on shore leave. That his eyes glazed over when I brought up politics or social issues or anything more complicated than the latest celebrity scandal.
Recent studies have shown that the human brain doesn’t fully develop until age twenty-eight. I had just turned twenty-four. That’s as good an explanation as any to explain the stupidity of my decision. Driven by lust, blinded by hero worship, and too immature to know better, I plunged into matrimony.
Escape tip #6:
If it’s crazy but it works,
it ain’t crazy.
Wanda’s van came with all the bells and whistles. It had satellite radio, GPS, and television sets mounted above the front and back seats. Given the hyperactivity level of Wanda’s kids, it seemed a good idea to have some brain-numbing entertainment available in the rear seats, but the driver-mounted set was worrisome. Do you want Wanda Kronenwetter watching Dancing with the Stars while she’s hurtling toward you at seventy miles an hour?
Wanda’s pimped-out van, with its Kung Fu Panda suction-cupped to the windows, wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. She’d probably reported the van stolen by now. I’d been driving it for more than an hour and was already pushing my luck. I needed to ditch it, and soon.
A road sign loomed. SHEBOYGAN 16 MILES. VONNERJOHN 4 MILES.
Vonnerjohn?
Of course! This was where Atticus had been guiding me all along. Suddenly I knew exactly where I could dump the van and pick up a new set of wheels. Taking the next exit, I turned onto a secondary road and drove into the town of Vonnerjohn, hoping nothing had changed since I’d last been here about five years ago.
Three guesses who the town is named for. This is the holy of holies—the site where the first Vonnerjohn plumbing factory was erected over a century ago. The small brick cottages that were once workers’ housing have been converted to shops, galleries, and restaurants, but the town’s main attraction is the old plumbing factory. It’s now the Vonnerjohn Design Center, a showroom for company products. Weird as it sounds, the place is a tourist mecca, drawing thousands of visitors a week.
I drove into the center’s parking lot, a sea of expensive vans and SUVs, perfect protective coloration for Wanda’s van. With luck it would remain unnoticed here among the other oversized gas hogs until the lot emptied late that afternoon. Meanwhile, I needed to borrow another car.
Borrow sounds so much more polite than steal.
Ransacking the litter on the floor of the van, I dredged up a pair of cheap sunglasses, two plastic barrettes, three Band-Aids, a lipstick—not in my shade, but soothing on my gnawed-to-shreds lips—and a packet of Easy-pleasy condoms in glow-in-the-dark colors. Why, Wanda Kronenwetter, you vixen! I jammed everything into my pants pockets, promising Atticus that I was keeping track and would someday repay Wanda for everything I’d stolen.
Leaving the keys in the ignition, I eased out of my French fry–smelling cave of safety. I left the doors unlocked, debating whether to lipstick a Please Steal Me note on the window to attract the attention of car thieves, thus sending Marshal Katz on a wild goose chase while I tootled off in a . . .
In a what? Slinking around the parking lot, trying to appear to be a rich ditz who couldn’t remember whether she’d driven the Porsche or the Lexus today, I wrenched at door after door. No go—every vehicle was locked up tight and nobody had left their keys in the ignition. People ought to be more trusting.
A silver BMW with Illinois plates zi
pped into a nearby parking space. Two women and a boy emerged. The women looked like sisters—both tall, thin, and blond, wearing designer jeans. The boy, about nine, was in his own world, earbuds clamped to ears, jiving to music the rest of us couldn’t hear.
Leave the keys in the ignition, I silently willed the driver. She didn’t. She took them out and chirped the doors locked with her remote. Maybe I could pull another Wanda—filch the keys from the woman’s purse. I followed the trio into the building, keeping a few lengths behind, hoping the tourists would be too engrossed in toilet fixings to recognize the escaped felon in their midst.
The Vonnerjohn Design Center is a cross between a plumbing fixtures store and Potty World: The Adventure. Hundreds of mock-up bathrooms are displayed on the wide balconies surrounding the ground floor. These are bathrooms that have taken a header off the Architectural Digest diving board of reality. These are bathrooms that don’t have panty hose hanging over towel racks, scummy shower doors, nostril clippings in the sinks, toothpaste-spattered mirrors; nappies soaking in diaper pails, plug-in room deodorizers, or dog-eared copies of Jokes for the John sitting on the tank tops.
These are bathrooms from a planet where humans do not dwell. On this planet, sofas, lamps, and bookcases all coexist happily in the bathroom, which is the size of a two-car garage.
On this planet there is a geisha house bathroom with a gushing waterfall for a shower, polished pebble floors, and a grove of live bamboo trees.
There is an Aztec temple bathroom with a tub like an altar perched atop a marble platform and where, instead of a priest slicing your heart out of your chest, vibrating water jets massage your vertebrae.
There is a men’s gym bathroom with a weight bag suspended from the ceiling and boxing gloves strung up on the wall.
There is a Jetsons-style bathroom with a television in the ceiling and a shower cubicle with nozzles in places that would come in handy if you ever had to bathe a giant squid.
Today being a Saturday, the design center was swarming with sightseers. I spied my prey near a display of whirlpool baths that arced jets of spray like dueling water pistols. The woman’s expensive handbag was carelessly slung over her shoulder, with her cellphone nearly falling out of a side pocket. This dame wouldn’t last a day in prison.
Feeling like a stalker, I prowled closer until I was near enough to Ms. Illinois Plates to smell her expensive perfume. She and Sis moved to the edge of the balcony, with its dramatic view of the center’s most famous feature—The Great Wall of Potties.
Two stories high, floor to ceiling, row upon row, column upon column, hung toilets in a rainbow of blush pinks, dusty blues, sea-foam greens, and harvest golds. Bizarre yet strangely compelling; this display gave new meaning to the expression off the wall. It was the Kodak moment of the tour; everyone wanted their picture taken with the Great Wall as backdrop.
Illinois Plates was fumbling with her camera. She didn’t notice as I bumped against her purse, pretending to be checking out the Great Wall. My right hand spidered toward her cellphone pocket, where she’d stuffed her car keys.
“Hey!” Her kid suddenly wheeled around and eyeballed me. Two thousand dollars’ worth of orthodontic wire on his teeth and he was decked out like a street thug, his pants artfully ripped, his shoes unlaced, his T-shirt sagging to his knees. He held up the electronic gadget he’d been playing with, which appeared capable of sending e-mail, running television programs, and launching the Space Shuttle. I didn’t know what it was. Spend a few years locked away and you come out feeling like Rip Van Winkle. The gizmo was tuned to a local news station running the ever-popular escaped convict story.
“It’s her,” the kid shrilled. “The serial killer! The axe murderer!”
Everyone on the balcony swiveled around to gape. I stood there frozen, forcing a smile and trying to look like an innocent tourist.
“The escaped convict!” The little twerp jabbed his finger at me. “Mazie Maguire.”
“I am not!” I snapped.
The kid’s mother whirled around. “It is her.” She gasped, yanking the boy to her bosom.
He wrenched away, twitching with excitement. “She was sneaking up on us!” he screeched. “I saw her. I bet she was going to stab us.” He eyed me with greedy curiosity. “How many people did you kill?” he asked.
More people swarmed around, jostling for position. “Ohmygod!” shrieked a woman. “It’s her! The one who shot a guard and broke out of prison!” She thrust a pen and a ripped-out bank deposit slip at me. “Quick—sign it—before they throw you back in the can!”
A gray-haired woman with a walker elbowed her. “Wait your turn, toots. I was here first. Now sign this to Junior and don’t forget to date it—”
I felt a sharp tug at the back of my neck. Spinning around, I caught the little creep hacking at my hair with a Swiss Army knife.
“I’m gonna sell it on eBay!” he crowed, holding up a swatch of my hair. “Bet I get a million bucks.”
I grabbed for the knife, but he danced away. “When they catch you, you’re gonna get the electric chair. Z-z-z-zt!”
“Wisconsin doesn’t have the electric chair!” I was itching to smack that smirk off his self-satisfied little face.
“Then they’ll hang you!” He mimed a noose, bugging his eyes and lolling his tongue.
I jerked my head around, trying to find an escape route, but the crowd was edging in on me, cellphones held up like villagers brandishing crosses at a vampire.
“What’s going on?”
A security guard shouldered his way through the crowd, his shoulder patch identifying him as a member of the Safe’n’Sound Security Squad. Blond, clean-cut, and butt-chinned, here was Dudley Do-Right, keeping the toilets of America safe for democracy.
“That there is Mazie Maguire,” the elderly woman informed him. “The one who machine-gunned two guards and busted out of prison in an armored truck.”
The guard stared at me, flinty-eyed. “Hold it right there, lady. Let’s see some identification.” His hand twitched toward his weapon, which was the size of an elephant gun. Why would you need a gun that size in this place? To keep the little kids from peeing in the pretend toilets? I edged away as he advanced, but the autograph hounds hemmed me in. Couldn’t go forward. Couldn’t go left or right.
Trapped! This was where it all ended. I could almost feel the cold metal cuffs clamping onto my wrists.
But something odd was happening. The crowd wasn’t parting to let the guard through. If I hadn’t known better I would have sworn they were deliberately obstructing him, the gray-haired woman whomping her walker down on his foot, another woman tugging on his arm, asking him to show her the way to the ladies’ room. Nudging the knife-wielding brat aside, I forced my way to the balcony rail, looked over, and saw that there was a twelve-foot drop to the floor below.
I put one leg over the railing, then froze in place, assailed once again by the height virus: clammy palms, queasy stomach, the sensation of being needled by a million wasps. My brothers had attempted to cure my fear of heights the way the Navy cures water-phobics: by dumping them in a pool, sink or swim. My brothers dumped me off roofs. There was an art to it: I would cling to the roof edge by my fingertips, crying and whining, until my brothers stomped on my knuckles. If I survived the jump, my brothers rewarded me with bubble gum.
The therapy didn’t take. Heights still literally made me sick.
I put the other leg over the railing, teetering on tiptoes on the narrow lip of ledge. The guard dived at me. I jumped.
She lands! She scores a perfect two-point landing without breaking either ankle!
Above, Mr. Law and Order jerked his gun out of its holster and ripped off a shot. Twitchy with nerves, he shot high. A huge chip of porcelain zinged off a toilet seat attached to the Great Wall and razored across my upper arm.
Jesus! This guy was nuts. What was he using for ammo—cannonballs? Luckily he couldn’t shoot for shit; his next shot hit a pink toilet on the top row. I
t tore loose from its anchor bolts and plummeted into the toilet below, which ripped loose in turn, knocking against the bowls next to it. The goon kept blasting away as though he was saving the fake bathrooms from raving hordes of Taliban.
Suddenly there was an ominous creak, followed by the sound of a million bolts ripping loose. And then the entire wall of toilets avalanched down, the higher ones knocking into the lower ones in a thunderous chain reaction of shattering porcelain. The toilets smashed to the floor and exploded, jagged chunks of china spraying through the air like shrapnel. A black toilet bowl thumped down behind me like a bomb as I hurtled toward the fire exit.
Every tourist in the building had the same idea. Screaming and hysterical, they stampeded through the doors and scrambled out into the parking lot. I ran along with them, zigzagging between careening cars. The lot was fenced in by hedges and there were only two exits. I sprinted for the closest one, but just as I reached it, a patrol car squealed to a halt directly in my path. Two local cops heaved themselves out and eyeballed the scene. This was where the cops bellowed The jig is up, Maguire! and made me flatten myself against a car.
Then I remembered a scene in The Fugitive. Pursued through a building by the marshal, Richard Kimble is halted by security guards. He yells to them that there’s a guy with a drawn gun behind him. The guards tackle the marshal while Richard Kimble once again skips away, leaving a thick layer of egg over the faces of his pursuers.
“There’s a man with a gun!” I yelled, pointing toward the building.
The cops’ heads swiveled toward the design center. At that moment Mr. Safe’n’Sound burst out, waving his weapon.
“Stop her!” he bellowed at the cops, but he might as well have yelled Columbine! The cops, in an act of stupendous courage or courageous stupidity, launched themselves at him. The last I saw they were going at it hand-to-hand, writhing around on the blacktop, all of them cursing at the tops of their lungs.
The Escape Diaries: Life and Love on the Lam Page 5
