Run Away Baby (8 page)

“Those classes you were telling me about,” Abby whispered hurriedly to Charlie, “where do you teach them?”

It was a week and a half after the boat ride with the Lorbmeers, and the first time Abby had gotten to speak to Charlie without Clark Lorbmeer or some other person from her office happening to be nearby. She suspected she’d better jump on this opportunity before Randall changed his mind.

Charlie shifted his mailbag and wiped at his forehead. “Classes?”

“Shhh!” she hissed. “Yeah, classes. Survival classes. Please, keep it down.” She kept glancing at Clark’s door. He was in his office meeting with a client. They’d be done any moment.

“Oh. Okay. I can whisper. The classes I teach are more like private lessons. One on one.”

“One on one?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” She felt herself turning red.

“Can you handle that?”

“Well, sure. If they seem legit. Like, will I have homework and stuff? Will I be graded?”

“No, not at all.”

“Well, I need to be.”

“What do you mean you need to be?”

“I don’t know how to put this.” She glanced at Clark’s closed door again. “I’m just going to say it. My husband is going to need to see some kind of evidence that I’m taking a class. A real class.”

“Okaaaay.”

“I can’t really talk about this now. Clark Lorbmeer, one of the lawyers here, is really good friends with my husband. I can’t have it getting back to him that the classes I want to take are with you, our mailman.”

“Okay,” said Charlie. “I think I’m starting to understand.” Abby tried to read the expression on his face. Bemusement, perhaps. A slight cast of
This girl is a basket case
.

“Could we meet at the college? Do you think we can meet in some classroom there? I mean, do they let people walk right in without checking their IDs?” she asked.

“Maybe,” he said.

“Well, if they do, I’d like to take a class there with you.”

“I can’t teach you to start a fire or build a shelter in a classroom. Why don’t you meet me at the south side entrance by the bike racks at four o’clock tomorrow? I’ll be done with work by then. Here’s my number if you can’t make it.” He took one of Clark Lorbmeer’s business cards from the leather tray in front of Abby and wrote his number on the back of it.

“South entrance. Which entrance is that?” she asked.

“Figuring that out is your first assignment.”

“I don’t feel good,” Randall said. He turned off his alarm clock and coughed a couple of times into his pillow.

“What’s the matter?” Abby asked. Randall never called in sick. She was coming out of the fog of sleep into instant high-alert.

“Get me a glass of orange juice, Sugartitties.”

“Sure,” she said, sliding out of bed and going to the kitchen. She heard him calling Krissa, telling her that he wouldn’t be in, instructing her to reschedule appointments.

“Thanks,” he said to Abby when she returned with his juice. He was sitting up in bed now. He took the glass from her, drank it all in one long swallow, and handed the empty glass back to her. She set it on top of some magazines by her side of the bed.

“Do you have a sore throat?”

He nodded and made a small gurgling noise to prove it.

“That’s too bad. Do you want me to get you some medicine or something?”

“I’ve got medicine in the bathroom. I’ll take it later. I just need a little more sleep right now.”

“Okay,” she said. She got back into bed.

“Rub my back,” he whimpered.

“Sure.” Before long he was snoring. Abby kept her hand moving in circles across his vast, sticky back. His snoring turned softer, becoming the wheezing mew of a cat. With his mouth hanging open and his brow unfurrowed, he was entering the portal that turned him into the child version of himself. It happened only when he was sick. He morphed into that sad, pudgy boy Abby had seen in old photographs. An unsmiling child looking up from stickball games on the streets of Chicago or holding a small fish he’d caught. These pictures reminded Abby of scenes from
The Little Rascals
or
My Dog Skip
. How could that pathetic but loveable child have grown up to be Randall?

He’d thought he was an only child. Then one day when he was seven years old, two women showed up at his parents’ apartment, each carrying babies, telling his mother that they were sisters and these babies both belonged to Randall’s father, and somebody had better help them take care of them.

These women and their babies moved into the alcove off the dining room that Randall’s mother had once used for sewing. The women stayed with them, like aunts, or sisterwives. One of them had two more babies with Randall’s father.

And then one day when Randall was twelve his mother had simply disappeared. He came home from school and saw her sewing machine, long delegated to a closet, now out on the curb by the garbage cans. Some of her other belongings were there too. The things she liked that no one else cared for. She was gone and they were removing all traces of her.

“I knew when I saw her sewing machine,” he told Abby. “I just knew.”

“Did she run away?” she asked him.

“No. She wouldn’t have done that to me,” Randall said.

“She probably couldn’t take living in that tiny place with those other women and their babies. Who could handle that?”

“She wouldn’t have left me. Ever.”

“Well then, what could have happened to her? You don’t think your dad did something to her, do you?”

He could never say.

The mystery of Randall’s missing mother didn’t erase all loyalty between him and his father. Randall still paid for his father’s nursing home, and sent him a box of cheese and sausage every Christmas. Now and then he’d even visited him, once with Abby along.

“Why do you bother with him?” she wanted to know.

“We’re family. You’ll take care of me when I’m old, right Sugartitties?”

“Yeah. Of course, Randall,” she said. “Of course I will.”

Once when he was drunk he’d asked her that, out of the blue. They’d been on vacation, which sometimes turned him, temporarily, into someone almost human. His eyes were scared, and for a moment their relationship felt strangely naked and balanced. Abby had looked away, unable to lie to him that time, and for once Randall had had nothing more to say.

Luckily, he’d been too drunk to remember this.

Randall’s snoring had gotten louder again – Abby decided from the sound of him that he was actually sick and this wasn’t some elaborate trap – and he woke himself up with a start.

“Shh. Go back to sleep,” she whispered. He turned over and she started rubbing his back again.

She had no way to let Charlie know she wouldn’t be meeting him. He’d figure it out when she never showed up.

“Hi,” Abby said.

“You made it! I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to, after being a no-show last time.”

“I told you, something came up.”

“Well, you hurt my feelings.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You know, I gave you my phone number in case something came up.”

“I didn’t want to call it.”

“I get it. I forgive you. I’m glad you’re here now.”

“And I even found the south entrance.”

“Nice job.”

“Look at this,” she said, holding up a printed receipt.

“What is it?” Charlie asked, taking it from her hand to have a closer look. He read the key points on it aloud: “Abby Greer. $1280 paid in full. Not for Credit, Non-transferrable: Call of the Wild; Wilderness Basics with Prof. Robert Stenslie.”

“That’s right!” She’d realized that the only way she could take Charlie’s classes without arousing Randall’s suspicion was to sign up for the classes Danna-Dee had mentioned. And since she was signed up anyway, she’d decided she might as well go to them.

“Did you sign up for these recently?”

“Yeah. About ten minutes ago.”

“Okay. So you’re actually enrolled in these other classes?”

“Yeah. Do you know Bob Stenslie?” she asked.

“Uh, no, I don’t. I thought you wanted to have
me
teach you?”

“I do! I guess I thought the more I could learn, the better, you know?”

“Sure. I guess so.”

“I’m not sure how I’m going to pay you. I mean, I have plenty of money, but not always access to it.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to pay me anything,” he said.

“I will though. I just… I’m not sure yet how I’m going to do it. But at some point I definitely will.”

“It’s fine if you can’t.”

“These classes I just signed up for don’t start for a couple weeks, so I probably can’t hang out until then.”

“Well, that’s disappointing. You can’t start classes with me until these start?”

“Well, I was thinking, if it works for you, these classes end at 3:30 each day, so if you come by here we can do your classes afterwards and it will work out perfectly. Randall has no idea how long the real classes go. They’re only forty-five minutes. He won’t know that, and he’s at work until six or so most nights. So as long as I’m home by then and have all this legitimate stuff from Wilderness Bob’s class to show him, this should all be fine. I think this is actually going to work.”

Charlie looked down at the receipt in his hand and then gave it back to Abby. “So what’s happening right now?” he asked her.

“I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.”

“Wanna go for a ride with me?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“You could say enrolling took longer than it did.”

“I don’t know.”

“So what exactly are you looking for?” asked Charlie. He ran his rough finger along her jawline.

“Nothing. A friend,” Abby said. She didn’t pull away from him though.

“A short little ride. Come on. We’ll get some coffee.”

“I don’t think I should do that.”

“Just say yes.”

“I don’t know.”

“Stop worrying so much.”

“We’d be gone for just a few minutes?” she asked him.

“Sure,” he said.

“Okay. I’ll do it. But then we’d better leave my phone in my car.”

“Why?”

“Randall tracks it, so I need to keep it here by the college.”

“What?”

“He’s a little crazy.”

“I’m seeing that.”

“I’m used to it. That sounds bad, doesn’t it?”

“What if he calls you? Isn’t it worse not to have it with you?”

“If I’m lucky, he won’t call. If he does I’ll say I had it on silent since I was meeting with people about my classes.”

They stopped at Abby’s BMW and she tossed her phone beneath the seat.

“You must live a very complicated life,” Charlie said.

“It’s the opposite, I’m afraid.”

“Won’t your husband notice that you’re not moving?”

“What do you mean?”

“Won’t his little tracking screen show a red dot that is sitting in one place?”

“I don’t think it’s that specific. I guess I thought it showed kind of the general area where I was, from reading cellphone towers or something. Plus, I’m supposedly in a meeting, so it’ll be fine.”

“And what happens if you get caught lying to him?”

“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”

“Well, as long as you’re comfortable with the plan.”

“I’m never comfortable.”

Charlie shook his head. “This is me,” he said, leading Abby to a rusty truck. He opened the passenger door for her and brushed a Taco Phil’s wrapper onto the floor.

After a quick look around at her surroundings, and feeling fairly certain that no one she knew was in the vicinity, she got in. She put on her sunglasses and pulled back her hair into a ponytail, doing her best to disguise herself. She slinked down in her seat a bit. Meanwhile, Charlie dawdled, checking a small chip in his windshield. Abby scratched at her neck, looking to her left and right, waiting for Randall or Krissa to pull up alongside her.

After a minute she opened her door a crack. “Are you coming?” she asked Charlie. He nodded. Now her arms were getting scratchy, too. He didn’t seem to pick up on her state of panic.

Forget it,
she decided.
This was a mistake.

She opened her door and got out.

“Hey! Where you going?” Charlie met her on her way to her car. “Come back with me,” he said, taking her arm and leading her back to his truck. He opened the passenger door again and patted the seat. It made her think of her dad and their family dog. That was fifteen years ago. “Hop in. Let’s go,” he said.

“I’m not sure what I’m doing here,” she said.

“Relax. Get in. We’ll get on our way.”

“I’m sorry. I’m having second thoughts. I feel really funny about all of this.”

“Hop in,” he said again. He patted the seat some more. “I won’t bite.”

She got back in.

“I’m going to have to get it fixed or my whole windshield will break,” he said when they were pulling out of the parking lot.

“Too bad,” said Abby. “Maybe it’s been there a while?”

“No, it’s new.”

“I guess that’s what insurance is for, right?”

“I guess. Okay,” he said, trying to turn his mood around. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve got, what, maybe an hour before you have to be back?”

“I was thinking fifteen minutes,” said Abby.

“Let’s split the difference. How about forty-five minutes?”

“Maybe I could do a half hour.”

“Do you want to get some coffee?”

“Maybe not. I’d hate to be seen by anyone. I mean, no offense. You understand.”

Charlie took a turn and headed down to a street full of student housing. Sofas and recliners littered front porches. People not much younger than Abby were playing Frisbee in the middle of the street.

“These coffee shops down here where all the students go are probably pretty safe. Right?” he said.

Abby shrugged. “I don’t know. You never know who you might see.”

“I’m guessing this Randall is a little older. Right?”

“Uh, yeah, a little,” she said. Twenty-five years or so.

“And he and his friends are not exactly hanging out in areas like this anymore?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Relax. You’ll be safe. He’s not going to find you here.”

“I guess you’re probably right,” she said, though she didn’t feel so sure about that. The Bigger Burger was one thing – she could explain that away by saying she’d been shopping downtown, stopped for lunch, and he’d just shown up. But how would she explain this? She didn’t even have her car nearby.

“What about Mikayla’s Coffee House?” Charlie suggested.

“That place sounds familiar,” Abby said.

“Familiar how?”

“I don’t know.”

“They have a nice area in the back where we could sit and talk.”

“That sounds nice, but Randall and I met years ago when I worked at a coffee shop. I really don’t think he hangs out at places like that anymore, but I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

“But he’s at work right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on,” Charlie said, parking his truck in an empty spot on the street. “You need to learn to loosen up a little bit.”

“I’ll try,” Abby said.

Charlie jumped out and came around to her side. He opened her door, extending his hand to her, taking her hand in his own. They walked like that, hand in hand, into the coffee shop. Abby’s heart was racing over his touch and her own boldness. She felt a little like she was having an out of body experience.

Inside the shop it was cool and dark.

“You go and sit down in the back and I’ll get our drinks. What do you want?” he asked her.

“An iced tea.”

“Okay. I’ll be right there.”

She found the area he was talking about. The shop wound back and back like a many-chambered cavern. Four rooms in all. By the time she got to the farthest room and settled onto the yellow velvet sofa she felt pretty safe. An old Beth Orton song played up in the front section of the shop, but back here she could barely hear it. There had been a few students reading and working on their laptops, but in this far corner it was deserted. She breathed in the smell of mustiness and coffee. It was like being on another planet.

“Here you go,” Charlie said, returning and setting her iced tea in front of her. He had a regular cup of coffee. He sat right next to her. Very close. Very bold. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of banana bread wrapped in plastic wrap. It looked homemade.

“Did you bring that from home?” Abby asked, an unexpected falling feeling taking over her stomach. If he had, it meant he had a girlfriend.

“They always wrap everything in the day-old basket in plastic wrap,” he said.

“So it’s from here?” she asked, far too relieved.

“Yeah.” He unwrapped it. “Want a bite?”

“Sure.”

He broke off a corner of the banana bread and popped it into her mouth, letting his fingers linger on her lips. “You like that?” he whispered.

She nodded, deciding to take a short break from worry and common sense.

“Here,” he said, sliding another crumbling morsel between her lips. After she swallowed it, he leaned in and kissed her lips. She pulled away, shocked, ecstatic; horrified at the situation she was getting herself into.

“No?” he whispered.

“I don’t know if I should be doing this.”

“Here,” he said, feeding her more of the banana bread. After a couple of tiny pieces she couldn’t take it; she caught his hand in her own and brought it back to her lips, taking a moment to kiss his fingertips. They continued playing this game until the entire piece was gone.

“Not bad for day old bread,” he said.

She laughed a little at that. She wanted him to kiss her again. This time she wasn’t going to stop him.

“Back to your captor,” Charlie said abruptly, wadding the plastic wrap into a ball and tossing it on the table in front of them. “Let me guess: He was your boss.”

“He’s not exactly my
captor.
You know, I think I’d rather not talk about him right now. I’m having a good time forgetting he exists.”

“I feel
really
bad for you,” Charlie said softly. He put his hand on Abby’s arm.

“I don’t want you to feel bad for me, like I’m some kind of victim or something. That’s what you probably think, right?”

Charlie pulled his hand back away from her and took a sip of his coffee. “Don’t try to guess what I think of you.”

“I wasn’t. I just meant that that’s probably what everyone who really knows me thinks. That I’m pathetic.”

“I don’t think that. I actually thought you seemed like the kind of girl who had it all going for her.”

“That’s assumption one that most people make, until they know me better and go straight to assumption two,” said Abby.

“Maybe I’m not the kind of person who makes assumptions.”

“Okay,” she said.

“You assumed that I assume, but I know better than to assume anything.”

“Okay,” she said again. There was the nagging suspicion that her thirty minutes were up.

Charlie put his hand back on her arm and began rubbing from her elbow up to her shoulder. She felt her toes involuntarily pressing against the soles of her sandals. She tried to look unfazed by his touch. “Want to come to my place sometime for a movie night? I’ll make you dinner,” he said.