Escape (5 page)

He probably came here every morning for coffee. Gaia, of course, would never know, as she avoided the Astor Place Starbucks morning rush
like the place was crawling with lepers.

Just take it as a sign, Gaia. That's all it is. Just a sign for you to get moving and find your father.

“Gaia?” Ed barked, waving his hand in Gaia's face. “Don't make me say your name again. And don't make me say ‘Earth to Gaia.' You have no idea how tired I am of saying ‘Earth to Gaia.'”

She glanced back at Ed and caught the surprising amount of sadness and defeat in his eyes. And for a moment, it hit her. Hadn't she just been in the middle of apologizing for ignoring him? Wasn't that the little bit of real life that had been happening here before Pock-mark had walked in? What a brilliant way to follow up an apology for ignoring Ed: Ignore him again.

“I'm sorry, Ed. I'm really sorry.”

Ed shook his head hopelessly. “Gaia, we really need to talk. Big time.”

“I know, I—”

Wait, did he just glance over here? Did I just imagine it?

Her eyes shot back to Pock-mark as he bit into his Rice Krispie Treat and dropped it back into the bag. She honestly wasn't sure. She could have sworn that, out of the corner of her eye, she'd just seen him glance over at her and Ed in their little private corner by the wall. But maybe she was making it up? She tried to make eye contact, but at that very moment, he rolled up his brown paper bag and shoved open the door, disappearing around the corner. Gaia felt an impulse to jump up off the floor and follow him, but Ed's hand grabbed onto her arm and pressed down firmly.

“Gaia, what the hell are you looking at? Are you even listening to me?”

She seemed to literally feel her brain rattling inside her skull. She was so mixed up at this point. What did she want to follow him for? Just to ream him out for his lousy bedside manner? Insult his choice of breakfast treats? Give him more evidence that she was completely deranged by asking him if he was one of
them?
No way. He was a cue, that's all. A cue to give up on this worthless Starbucks visit and get back to her search.

But you can't leave yet. For God's sake, look at Ed's eyes.

There was no other way to describe Ed's eyes but desperate. He was the least desperate person she knew, but she, and she alone, had managed to reduce him to a state of desperation. Why did he even bother trying to put up
with her? Why would anyone in his right mind actually continue to love her? The look in Ed's eyes was dead serious, and somehow Gaia knew that if she did not hold still and give him her full attention at this moment, she would be introduced to a whole new level of regret.

Five minutes. She had to give him at least five minutes of her full attention, and then it was back to search mode.

External Crap

“I'M SORRY, ED.” GAIA'S VOICE WAS
tinged with that same old ugly futility, and Ed was getting so tired of it.
He took her by the shoulders and tried to wake her out of her stupor with his eyes.

“Gaia. . . ,” he began, staring deep into her eyes. “We live in a very strange world. . . .”
Jesus, Fargo, get to the point.

“Yeah. . . ?” Gaia raised her eyebrow with confusion.

“Sorry, scratch that,” Ed said, letting go of her shoulders. He gave the wall one good head-bang of his own and slid closer to her. “Okay, look, what I'm about to say will not make any sense to you, but you have to understand. You have to believe what I'm
telling you even if you can't see it for the undeniable truth that it is right now. And you'll think it's pretty presumptuous, and you'll think that I'm way out of line, but—”

“Ed.
You're babbling.”

Ed cleared his throat. “Okay, here's the deal. I know that your life is in a total state of crisis basically twenty-four hours a day. I know that literally right this second, there is probably some incredibly urgent life-threatening thing you need to be doing. And I want you to deal with whatever that might be. And I want to
help
you deal with it. But the thing is this. . . Somehow, in the middle of all these crises, there is something that you
must
do tonight. Something just as essential to your survival as overcoming
all
those crises. Gaia. . . somehow. . . tonight. . . you and I must go out on a date.”

Gaia's face was blank with confusion. “What?” she uttered.

“A date,” he replied. “A
date
date. Like you see on TV. We pick a time, we put on unnecessarily nice clothes, I pay for numerous overpriced things, we make the occasional googly eyes, we discuss our dreams and life philosophies, we retire to one of our respective homes, and depending on how things go, we both get lucky.”

“Ed,” she began, with that same horrid futility in her voice. “Ed, I can't possibly take the time to—”

“
No
, Gaia, I
told
you. I
told
you that you wouldn't see
it at first. The importance of this date. The absolutely essential urgency of this date. So
listen
to me.” He dug himself deep into her ocean-blue eyes and glued himself there, unmoving and unblinking. He did not even want to say the words out loud, but he had to now.

“We are drifting apart,” he said, feeling a totally unexpected hitch in his throat as he said it. “We're drifting apart right now, Gaia, and to be honest with you, I don't even know
why.
But I know this: You do not want us to drift apart. You do not want that, Gaia. Do you not remember what it felt like for us to be apart? Like I said, I have no idea what's been going on the past couple of days, but you're dragging us
back,
Gaia. You're dragging us back into that torture chamber, and we
don't
want go there. Because the thing is. . . my life without you. . . absolutely, unequivocally
sucks.
And, Gaia. . . so does your life without
me.
Do you agree?” Ed was still finding wells of confidence he didn't even know he had. But these days, everything seemed to require the big guns. So
he had no choice but to puke his entire heart out on the table.

Finally, Ed saw a touch of surrender in her eyes. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I agree.”

Hearing this was such a relief that Ed finally surrendered a bit himself, relaxing his posture and lowering his voice to a more intimate volume. With that one simple response, Starbucks had finally faded away. It
was just the two of them again. At least for this moment. The way they were supposed to be. With none of that external crap clogging things up.

“It's a simple equation,” he said. “My life sucks without you, and your life sucks without me. We
need
each other, Gaia. That's it. That's the whole thing.”

“I know,” she said, practically croaking out her words at this point. “I know we do.”

“Then tonight? A date. An absolutely essential date. I pick you up at eight o'clock?”

“Ed. . .” Gaia began to look positively ill as she spoke. “I want to go on the date. But does it have to be tonight?”

Ed threw up his hands and laughed bitterly. “
Yes,
Gaia. Jesus, that's my entire point. Yes, it has to be tonight. Unless you're going out with your
other boyfriend,”
he chuckled. Gaia looked white as a sheet. “Sorry. I'm being a jerk. Yes,” he said sweetly. “Tonight, Gaia. Please.”

He searched her eyes for the right answer. . . .

“Okay,” she said, locking her eyes with his. “Tonight.”

Ed let out a long and happy breath and he smiled. “Eight o'clock.”

“Eight,” she agreed.

“Wear a dress.”

“Oh, God, don't do this to me, Ed.”

He grinned mischievously and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “Wear a dress.”

“Ed. . . if you're trying to scare me. . . it's working.”

School
was obviously a non-option for the day. Especially after the whole Starbucks debacle. Once I realized how totally useless Natasha and Tatiana were going to be, I knew that the burden of finding my father was now entirely on me, and I sure as hell wasn't going to find him at school. So I split Starbucks and went straight to the New York Science and Medical Library to do some research-see if I could possibly drum up any leads.

“Research.” “Leads.” What a freaking joke.

I spent hours at the library trying to dig up anything I could possibly find. I tried absolutely everything I could think of. I cross-referenced his name and his symptoms with every single research lab and hospital database I could log into. I pulled any article I could find on Swiss institutes specializing in everything from poisonous
substances to acute neurological trauma. I swear to God, I must have called almost half of them, trying to pull impossible information out of lowly paper-pushers about patients who'd been admitted in the last twenty-four hours.

Useless. All of it so utterly useless.

I even tried calling hospitals and
pretending
to be a nurse calling for Dr. Sullivan, just so I could get some more specific information on all their recently admitted patients. But that just turned into a long, fruitless acting exercise that left me with yet another big fat zero in the information department. I don't know why I kept kidding myself for the entire day. I was just spinning my wheels. I had nothing to go on.
Nothing.

I got so desperate, I even called to check in with Natasha again, just to see if she'd made any of the “few calls” she'd promised me she would make. But
I couldn't even reach her. If she was looking into it at all, she wasn't letting me know a damn thing about it.

In fact, I was so focused on my useless research, I didn't even notice the day draining away. I didn't even notice when the sun had set. It was like I had looked up at the library windows once and seen a sunny and depressing New York morning and then looked up again and seen a black and depressing New York night.

And just like that, I had run out of research time. Thanks to my insane agreement to go out on that date with Ed.

But I have to go. No matter how much I might want to stick with this useless research, I have to go. Because Ed's right. Piece by little piece, and day by day, I've been doing it again. Thanks to my very own specific brand of misguided idiocy, I've been starting to push him away again, and I'm not
going to let that happen this time. I'm not going to back away from him for his own “protection” again (a plan that has never done anything but backfire on us both completely). And I'm not going to take him for granted just because my life is in its usual state of pre-apocalyptic chaos. There has to be a way to keep him
in
the loop and
out
of danger at the same time, and I'll be damned if I can't figure out what that way is. I know that step one is to go on that date.

Which also means that the time has come. The time has come to face that inevitable drama queen's disaster I've created. The time has come to tell Sam about Ed. He's obviously going to want to know why I can't meet with him as planned. And I'm going to tell him. I have to tell him sooner or later. I have to. I'll just have to walk right into his room and detonate my own stupid land mine.

I'm just praying that the injuries in that tiny room won't be too severe.

But who am I kidding? The injuries are going to be disastrous.

Visual Jackpot

IT HAD CUT THROUGH HER LINE OF
sight so quickly, she'd almost missed it. Like an irritating mosquito or a black mouse scurrying into a dark corner. Only it was so much bigger. It meant so much more. A black bag. Gaia knew it instantly. She was sure of it. All thoughts of broken hearts and obligatory dates had disappeared. Suddenly Gaia's attention had zeroed in on that bag like a high-powered telephoto lens. A few seconds later she had crouched stealthily behind a bookcase, peering through the available space between two huge red encyclopedic volumes. It was only a few moments more before she hit the
visual jackpot.

There he was. The pock-marked EMT slob. In his white shirt and his grimy corduroys. The coincidence that never was.

Gaia's eyes narrowed as she watched him step over to his wooden table and glance furtively back toward the spot she had just been sitting in for hours. The spot that was now empty.

He'd stepped away. The idiot had stepped away from what was now quite obviously his little surveillance post, perhaps to stuff his face with more Rice Krispie Treats. Whatever the reason, the moment he had stepped away just happened to have been the moment that Gaia had shot up from her seat and
walked out. And now, it seemed, the poor bastard had lost his mark.

Gaia watched him scan the entire floor of the hushed library from left to right, searching for her. She watched him take a few steps out into the main aisle of the room, scanning a little more obviously now—a little more anxiously.

I'm over here, you idiot. Behind the bookcase.

But Gaia's pleasure in his utter ineptitude at surveillance quickly fell away. Because her mind had just come around to the full implications of this vision.

The worst-case scenario had quite suddenly revealed itself. All her most far-fetched thoughts while sitting in the corner of Starbucks had suddenly turned from ludicrous paranoid speculation to probable fact. He hadn't been just a random sighting. He wasn't just an off-duty EMT worker getting his morning coffee. A sighting at a downtown coffeehouse, she could chalk up to coincidence. But a second sighting, on the same day, at the library on East Fortieth Street? With him surveying the entire floor like the world's worst spy? It changed everything. It proved everything. Yet it explained absolutely nothing.