“Smart girl,” Mac says with a laugh. “You’re absolutely right. They frown upon all relationships in there, but especially the ones between inmates and guards. I’m not really sure how they feel about same-sex relationships though. Tyler? What do you think?”
Tyler shrugs and glances over at me. “You know that he’s fucking with you, right?”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “Did this not happen?”
“No, it did,” Tyler says. “Mac just likes to make everything a little game.”
“Hey, you would, too, if you were in the slammer for as long as I was.”
That sentence strikes me as the most honest thing that Mac has said in my presence up until this point. The reality is that he has been in there for years and that changes people. It can’t not make an impact.
“Listen, I didn’t want to make it this whole serious thing,” Mac says. “I was just joking around. The truth is that Lindsey and I had a thing going for a while. I liked him. He was fine and had a dry sense of humor. He also had a wife and four children that were making his time at home quite miserable. I’m not sure whether there was anything really wrong with his family, but I think that they were just wrong for him.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I mumble.
“Don’t be,” Mac says. “Really, it’s a tale as old as time. He refused to acknowledge himself as he really was so he went overboard trying to live this perfect little suburban life, with a hefty mortgage and too many obligations. I’m not saying that four kids is too many, just that they were too many for him. Frankly, I don’t think Lindsey had the energy to deal even with one.”
“So, no one knew about you two?” I ask.
“Tyler and Lester did, but not many others.”
“So, did Lindsey help you get out?”
“He wasn’t fully aware of the plan,” Mac says, “but when I asked him for the power tools, he got them for me. Take that as you may.”
“So, what do you think is going on now?”
“What do you mean?” Tyler asks me.
“Well, with your escape, do you think people are interrogating him? Like the cops or the FBI?”
“It’s a strong possibility,” Mac says, “but I haven’t heard anything about anyone helping us escape. I don’t think Lindsey will go and volunteer that information because he was pretty much of an in the closet kind of a guy as I’ve ever met. If his wife had walked in on us having sex, he’d deny it.”
I go through my phone and search for any articles that mention a guard, Lindsey Broker, or power tools, but nothing comes up. I check the message boards as well, but again I see nothing.
“There isn’t anything?” Mac asks, glancing over my shoulder.
I shake my head no.
“Good,” he says, sitting back with a satisfied expression on his face. “That’s a surprise, but a good one. I guess Lindsey is better at keeping secrets than I thought he would be.”
13
Isabelle
When we get some alone time...
I like Mac, but despite that, I want some alone time with Tyler. I feel like I usually do and probably like so many other people do in the beginning of relationships, when they really can’t get enough of each other. Only our situation is vastly more complicated, made only stranger by the fact that we are now traveling with a fellow felon.
When Mac zones out in front of the television and his eyelids begin to grow heavy, I pull Tyler to the side and motion to him.
“What’s wrong?” Tyler asks.
“Nothing,” I say when we close the door behind us. I take his hand in mine.
He holds my hand tightly and we wander into the cornfield, following a path laid by an inconsiderate ATV user.
“I know that Mac can be a lot to handle,” Tyler says. “So, I just wanted to thank you for being so welcoming.”
“Yes, of course,” I say quickly. “I actually like him.”
“I know, but you’ll see what I mean in a little bit.”
I crunch my eyebrows together, unsure as to how to take this information in.
We walk toward the swing set and Tyler offers it to me since there’s only one. I haven’t sat in a swing in years.
The weightlessness is intoxicating. I swing lightly and then lift up my feet as Tyler stands slightly behind me and gives me a light push every time I come back to him.
“So, what’s the deal with Mac?”
“What do you mean?”
“Earlier he talked about his girlfriends and then he had the thing with the guard. Is he bi?”
Tyler laughs, shaking his head, and then says, “I don't think he identifies as any group in particular. I would just say that he is a very, very sexual being.”
“That’s cool,” I say absentmindedly.
Tyler shrugs, giving me another push.
“Things are very simple in prison. There are no women except for a few guards and the vast majority of them take their jobs very seriously.”
“What does that mean?”
“Any sort of sexual relationships are against the rules and most guards abide by that. That pretty much leaves us inmates to our own devices. Or vices.”
I give him a nod and ask, “What about you? Have you ever been with… A man?”
“No,” Tyler says, “but that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t have happened if I had been in there as long as Mac.”
There’s a frankness to his voice, a calmness actually. There’s no judgment, in fact there is just acceptance of the way things are.
The sky is blue, that sort of thing.
I appreciate the candor and the honesty.
I continue to swing and we don’t say anything for a long time. It’s just nice to be here all alone surrounded by only fireflies and birds.
“What did Mac do to get life in prison?” I ask.
“Sold drugs. He got caught with pounds of cocaine, I can’t remember exactly how much, but he had been a big trafficker. He killed someone from a rival gang and the judge threw the book at him.”
“How long has he been in there?” I ask.
“Seven years. A day in there is like two months on the outside, just for perspective.”
I nod and shuffle my feet.
“I should’ve told you about him earlier and our pact about meeting up. I know that was a surprise for you and I really shouldn’t have sprung it on you.”
I turn around in my swing and face him. He kneels down pulling me closer into his arms.
“I had to keep that promise to Mac about meeting up even if it was futile, even if there was a possibility of him setting me up. It was a distant possibility, but I guess it was a possibility.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, internalizing what he is saying to me.
“Mac saved my life in prison. These two guys, big beefy ones, kind of like the ones they always show on all those prison shows, attacked me in the shower. They tried to rape me. They would have if it weren’t for Mac. He fought them off. Everyone in there was divided into factions. I didn’t really have one. I was what they called unaffiliated. Those guys saw that as a weakness and they tried to take something from me. Mac fought them off, putting a mark on his head. We had only been friends for a couple of weeks leading up to that and I wasn’t expecting him to do anything close to that to help me. The fact that he did…” Tyler’s voice trails off, still for the appreciation of what his friend did for him.
I wrap my arms around him and hold him tightly.
“I’m so sorry that you went through all of that,” I say. “I wish there was something I could do to help.”
“You are already doing it,” Tyler says, pulling away from me. There’s a small tear forming in the corner of his eye, but he wipes it off before it has a chance to roll down his cheek.
14
Isabelle
When I have a meeting...
The following day, we stop driving at noon and pull over to a diner to get some food and some gas. It’s a little out-of-the-way place and it’s i
n a dusty little town. I’m nervous about having the guys eat there, but Mac keeps insisting.
“It’s going to be fine,” he says. “You’ll see.”
“Why even take the chance?” I ask as Tyler cuts the engine. “We have enough food here. We can stop at a rest stop and have a sandwich. We can even get some drive-thru. I just don’t see the point of going inside an establishment.”
I glance over at Tyler and wait for him to agree with me. Much to my surprise he doesn’t.
“It’s going to be fine, Isabelle,” he says, optimistically.
After Mac gets out of the car, I reach over and take Tyler by the arm.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask in a low quiet voice. “Why take an unnecessary risk? What if someone recognizes you?”
“They won’t,” he insists.
“You have no idea what’s going to happen.”
I don’t know if I’m overreacting, I really hope that I am, but I just don’t see the point. It’s like wearing a seat belt.
You don’t know if you’re going to get in a car accident and you probably won’t, but why not take the extra precaution, which might save your life?
Tyler, however, refuses to listen to me.
“Are you coming?” he asks, walking to the front door.
I shake my head.
“Are you kidding?”
I shake my head and say, “I have an appointment anyway but even if I didn’t, I still think this is a terrible idea.”
“Oh, is that today? With your therapist?”
I nod.
“Can you get out of it?”
“Yes, of course, but it’s something that I typically do every week and my life has already been quite predictable . I don’t want to draw any more attention to myself than necessary.”
“Of course. Well, just come on in when you’re done or let me know what you want me to order for you.”
Angry and pissed off, I shake my head and say, “I don’t want you to order anything for me.”
I turn on the heel of my shoe and walk away from him with a huff.
India Brownstein is a beautiful woman in her 50s. She has smooth skin, deep black eyes, and dark hair that’s illuminated by strands of silver.
She’s located in Nantucket and we have never met in person. I contacted her after I realized that I needed someone to talk to after my last breakup and didn’t want to go into an office every week. I feel more comfortable talking online and she has been more than accommodating.
As it turns out, India has clients all over the United States and Canada as well as Dubai, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. She rarely talks about herself, but when I looked her up online, I saw articles about her practice in Nantucket Magazine, LA Magazine, and the New York Times.
I have no idea what prompted her to take me on as a client, but a part of me suspects that she just felt sorry for me. I pay way more than I can really afford and that’s about half her usual rate. Over this last year, she has become something of a mother figure to me. My own mother is drastically different and she’s completely impossible to speak with.
India is not like that.
She listens.
She understands.
Occasionally, she gives advice, but mainly she asks questions.
Her goal is to help me figure out the right thing to do by not telling me what should or shouldn’t be done.
I have opened up to her more than I have opened up to anyone else.
She knows practically everything, all the good and the bad.
Somehow, that’s okay.
My phone connects with her computer and I see her face on the screen. There’s a quiet and calmness to her that immediately puts me at ease.
She sits close enough to the screen that I can actually see her face, every reaction. I’ve noticed how important that is when talking to people through teleconference. If people are too far away it feels like you’re giving a speech in a room.
It’s like they’re there but they’re not there.
Meanwhile, when they are right next to you, and their face fills up the whole screen of your phone, there’s an immediacy and a presence to that experience that is difficult to describe.
“Well, hello there,” India says, giving me a slight wave of the hand.
Her new nails are polished, but not overdone, just like the rest of her. Her shoulders are draped in some sort of shawl, embroidered with the pleasant colors of the ocean.
There is a thin necklace around her neck with a little crescent moon that buries itself right in between her collarbones.
The stud earrings, at least a carat each, in each earlobe, make her eyes sparkle.
“Hi,” I say nervously, touching my hair and adjusting the way it looks in the little screen.
“How are you? What’s new?”
I have emailed her about my trip and she knows the broad strokes. Basically, it’s the same story that I told my coworkers.
“Well, I’m on this little road trip. I just decided to take a chance and go.”
“That’s very unlike you,” India says, “but I’m glad to hear it. How is your anxiety?”
“I try not to think about it. I’m not really obsessing about going into the rest areas or in the convenience stores. I’ve been listening to a lot of music and audiobooks.”
“So, what has spurred all of this?” she asks.
She doesn’t sound like she’s interrogating me, more like she’s just curious.
“It’s silly actually,” I admit. “I watched this movie, Crossroads. It’s with Britney Spears and it’s about twenty years old. It’s about three friends who take a road trip together and I sort of felt like if they could do it, then why couldn’t I?”
“That’s very true. Staying in one place for a long time, especially not having much social contact like you do, outside of work, it can be a little difficult on your mental health. I’m actually very proud of you for taking this initiative.”
“I don’t think I would’ve done it if I had given it much thought.”
“That’s a good thing. For you, anyway. For some people who have problems with impulse control, we try to suggest other coping strategies. For you, I’m glad that you jumped at the chance to embrace this opportunity.”
We talk for a little bit more and I feel like my thoughts start to clear.
I stop worrying about what I should or shouldn’t be doing and instead focus on being more intuitive. We make plans to talk again next week and I promise to contact her if I start to feel anxious or out of control again.
“Call me anytime,” she says.
“Yes, of course,” I say.
“Isabelle, I mean it. Please call me if you start to feel strange or anything unusual. I want this to be a good experience and I hope it pushes you forward and doesn’t set you back.”
I thank her, hang up the phone, and stare out at the empty parking lot behind the diner.
I have made at least ten loops around here while talking to her but never really looked at it.
The asphalt is worn and tired, beaten down after years of winter storms and summer humidity.
There’s another field to the left, stretching far into the distance. The sky is bright blue and entirely cloudless.
There’s something very relaxing about being out here. It’s almost as if this sky gets very big and stays that way. With the hills and the low hanging clouds back home, it always felt like someone was encroaching on my thoughts.
Watching me.
Bearing down on me.
Perhaps even suffocating me.
Out here, where the Earth is flat and the sky is big enough to swallow up the whole world, I feel the kind of freedom that I haven’t felt in a long time.
“So, what did you tell her?” Mac asks.
I spin around as his voice startles me.
“Nothing,” I say with a shrug.
I don’t like his accusatory question but I decide to let it go.
“We are running away f
rom the FBI and you take half an hour to talk to your therapist?”
“I’m not running away. I didn’t tell her anything about you or Tyler. She doesn’t even know that I’m here. No one does.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes, of course I’m sure. I had the appointment set up before I took the days off work. She knows that I have certain anxieties about traveling. I’m doing everything in my power to make sure that we don’t get caught. I can’t really say the same about you.”
He narrows his eyes and smiles out of the corner of his mouth.
“Everything was fine and the food was delicious,” he says, mocking me.
“I didn’t say that it wouldn’t be. There’s just a good chance that someone could recognize you both and I don’t see the point of taking the risk.”
“Well, there was a good chance that we couldn’t have gotten away from that prison and now look at us. Free men.”
“You won’t be free men for long if you keep it up. Your faces are everywhere. There’s a big reward for your arrest or capture. You may not care about that, but I care about Tyler and I don’t want anything like that happening to him.”
“I care about Tyler, too, and I promise you nothing will.”
“You can’t make that promise. You can promise it, but you can’t keep it.”
“You know,” Mac says, leaning on the car and narrowing his eyes like James Dean, "you would be a lot more fun if you loosened up.”
I clench my jaw. That’s the kind of thing that men say when you don’t agree with them and when they’re losing an argument.
When I get back in the car, I don’t mention any of this to Tyler.
We drive for hours into Texas. A big part of me wants to bring it up, but the moment passes.
I can’t wait to get to the room and to talk to Tyler in private, but then it dawns on me that Mac will probably be there tonight as well.
It’s difficult for me to rent two rooms without looking very suspicious but after that little exchange in the parking lot, the last thing I want to do is share a room with him again.
The Perfect Cover Page 6