The Runaways

by Sonya Terjanian

  “Look, Mary, it happened, and I can tell you that because I’m here, dealing with it.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. I had no way of knowing—”

  “They took all the blame. Nobody else was sent home, even though Syd and Shel were buying for the whole team. Everyone chipped in and sent them to the store, and they’re the ones who got sent home.”

  “Well, Matt, they shouldn’t have done it. I mean, come on—”

  “Mary, it’s what you do. They’re teenagers on a ski trip. Christ.”

  “Don’t make excuses for them, Matt! They knew they were breaking the law. But you make it confusing for them, because you let them get away with this stuff, like it’s okay, and it’s not. And now look.”

  “You’re blaming me. You’re not even here.”

  “You’re just so easy on them, Matt. You let them get away with so much. And then when I try to stop it, they say, ‘Yeah, but Dad lets us.’ And now, oh my God.”

  “You’re acting like I went out and got them fake IDs.”

  “Well, did you?”

  “Jesus Christ, Mary.”

  “You’re the one who wanted to buy beer for the lacrosse team.”

  “Yeah, so they’d drink in our house, while we were home. Instead, they went to Dani Morrison’s house, and I can guarantee her parents weren’t there.”

  “What? When was this?” Mary Ellen pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “Never mind. Are you coming home?”

  Mary Ellen opened her mouth, then closed it. She couldn’t leave now, when things were beginning to go so well. She’d finally taken some pictures; she was just getting started. And Rose—what about her? “I just don’t see what good that would do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mary Ellen looked at the ceiling of the car. Well, of course they were her daughters. But the damage was done; they’d already been sent home. The whole situation was entirely Matt’s doing, and he could perfectly well deal with the aftermath. “I just mean there’s nothing I can do at this point.”

  “You could come here and talk to them about what happened. You know… Be their mother.”

  “I think you took over that job years ago,” Mary Ellen snapped. “I’m just the breadwinner, remember?”

  “Oh, come off it. You love your job. I made that possible for you.”

  “Except I don’t, Matt. I don’t love it. I just happen to be good at it.” Mary Ellen felt something surge in her chest. “What you need to understand is that I love what I’m doing now—creating something interesting and new. You should try it.”

  Matt was silent.

  “Look,” Mary Ellen said. “I’ll call the girls in a couple of hours. After I run some errands. Okay? Tell them I’ll call and…and…we’ll talk about what happened. But I’m not coming home. I’m staying a little longer. I have more to do here.”

  “What? But you said one week.”

  “Justine said I could stay longer if it was going well, and it’s going well.”

  “What are you going to tell Gallard?”

  “Would you stop worrying about my job? I’ve got plenty of vacation time, okay? The paychecks will continue to flow. God.”

  “You know that’s not what I mean.”

  “I know, I know. You just don’t like it when plans change. But that’s how life is, Matt. Things change. I’m sorry.”

  Inside the Price Chopper, Mary Ellen browsed the aisles impatiently. It was the worst of the worst—nothing remotely organic, just shelf after shelf of colored, processed, individually packaged GMO-tainted crap. Rose needed nutrients; she needed protein. She probably needed fiber. Mary Ellen hesitated in front of the meat case. The shrink-wrapped chicken breasts were grotesquely swollen, like the girls in the awful men’s magazines Matt kept in the bathroom. She chose some ground beef instead, remembering that Rose wanted to learn to make chili.

  Why did Sydney and Shelby always have to be so shortsighted? They only thought about what was right in front of their eyes: A game. A screen. A party. Of course it wasn’t all Matt’s fault, it was hers too; she hadn’t tried hard enough to get through to them. And now they were fully formed and leaving home. Completely out of her reach.

  Were they going to be okay? Mary Ellen picked up a can of beans and stared at the list of ingredients. She remembered the kids who partied too hard in college. Everybody laughed about the ones who passed out in the quad or threw up all over Frat Court. But nobody talked about the pledge who ended up in the emergency room with alcohol poisoning. No one ever mentioned the girls who stumbled back to their dorms with troubled looks on their faces…who withdrew into themselves, sleeping too much and missing classes. Where were those girls now?

  Mary Ellen threw the can into her cart and moved toward the checkout counter. It came down to trust, she supposed. She would just have to have faith that her daughters could take care of themselves…that their expensive education and proper upbringing had prepared them for whatever challenges lay ahead. And, of course, that she and Matt had been good role models. They’d done all right at that, hadn’t they? They were law-abiding, civilized people. She liked her evening cocktails, but it wasn’t like she was blacking out in the middle of the day or creating scenes at parties. She knew when to stop.

  She loaded the groceries into the trunk of the car, then took her laptop bag and walked to the edge of the lot to look down the street. A group of old brick buildings was clustered on the next block, like an antique bobbin around which the village was wound. She crossed the street, hands tucked under her armpits. A light snow was falling. She walked briskly toward the brick facades, hoping the library hadn’t been relocated to some flat, sprawling building on a parcel of land that would be hard to find.

  But no, it was right there, tucked between Village Hall and a stationery store. Mary Ellen looked in the store window, attracted to a display of leather-bound journals next to the more ordinary spiral-bound notebooks and three-ring binders. The journals looked handmade; she wondered if there was a bookbinder living in the woods nearby, turning deer hides into these pretty, floppy-looking books stamped with floral designs and closed with a loop and a wooden button. She pushed through the brass-trimmed door and asked to see them.

  “I don’t know where they’re made.” The teenage shopgirl shrugged as she handed a stack of the books to Mary Ellen. She ran her fingers over the designs, trying to decide which one would be the best addition to her collection. One of them, the simplest, was stamped with a single rose. She smiled at the coincidence and thought about her conversation with the girl the night before. Rose was clearly asking for her help—how could she ignore that? This was her chance, Mary Ellen thought, to make a difference for someone. To throw a little light back into the world for a change, instead of wallowing in the shadows.

  “I’ll take this one,” she said, putting it on the counter. She also chose a weighty black pen in a gift box. The girl rang them up, then shoved them briskly into a plastic shopping bag.

  It was snowing harder when Mary Ellen got back outside. She entered the library and inquired about Wi-Fi at the front desk, then settled into a worn armchair in a far corner of the high-ceilinged room. She opened up her photo software and began uploading her “accidental” photos to a file server where Justine could view them.

  She spent time on her email to Justine, wording it just right, trying not to sound too proud or excited, maintaining a tone of serious contemplation. “I see this as an exploration of postmodernism’s obsession with eradicating agency,” she wrote. “The images are as blurry, ephemeral, and meaningless as any individual’s sense of self.” That sounded good. She pushed Send, savoring the sense of accomplishment, and moved on to her work emails.

  Her department seemed to be in a state of chaos. The ad agency was pushing back on the need for focus groups; regulatory was giving them grief about the new tagline; bud
gets and timelines were being tossed overboard like bags of kittens. Mary Ellen rubbed her temples, wondering where to begin. She plumbed several email chains, trying to determine when, exactly, things had gone wrong, who needed a stern talking-to, and where she could even hope to make a difference. The more she read, though, the more her spirits sank. Everybody was so dug in, so invested in defending their tiny little corners in their tiny little world. They were acting as though lives were at stake. Where was the sense of perspective? She hit Reply All on one of the emails and wrote, It’s only advertising. Get a life. Then, half laughing to herself, she deleted the message and snapped her laptop shut.

  She got up and browsed the library stacks until she found some collections of plays. She skimmed through a few, looking for accessible texts, something Rose could read during the next few days while Mary Ellen explored her new approach to photography. She was absorbed in a collection of Stoppard plays when the librarian appeared beside her.

  “We’re closing early,” she said. “For the storm.”

  “Oh!” Mary Ellen said, blinking at the window, which was busy with clumped snowflakes tumbling fast and heavy. When had it gotten so bad? She gathered her books and checked them out with the library card Justine had given her.

  “Careful out there,” the librarian said as she locked the front door. “It’s a big one.”

  The Price Chopper parking lot was empty now; the few cars still on the main road drove slowly, their tires spitting slush, wipers frantically waving. Mary Ellen got into her car and started the engine, holding her hands in front of the heat vents. She couldn’t believe she’d blown off work like that. Was she crazy? It was only going to be harder to fix things when she got back. Still, there was a hum of excitement in her bones, mixed with self-satisfaction. Her photos… They’d been launched into the world! She couldn’t wait to hear what Justine thought of them. She’d have to come back to town in a few days to check her email again.

  Mary Ellen took the journal and pen out of the bag from the stationery store. She opened the book to the first page and sat thinking for a few minutes, watching the snowflakes rapidly darken her windshield. She started writing, slowly and carefully, not wanting to mar the beautiful book with any mistakes.

  Dear Rose,

  When I saw this journal, I thought of you, not just because of the rose on the cover, but because of all the potential contained in these empty pages. Your life is a story waiting to be written, and I can tell, having spent this time with you, that you are going to create something wonderful. Just remember to pay attention to the things that make you happy, and never let anyone tell you they’re not worth doing.

  She stopped writing, looked something up on her phone, then continued.

  “Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees.” —Marcel Proust

  I wish you much success with your writing, your education, and your future career.

  Your friend,

  Mary Ellen

  She waited until the ink was dry, then placed the journal and pen in her purse. By that time, the windshield was packed with snow too heavy for the wipers to clear, so she got out of the car and used the scraper. Finally, she rolled slowly out of the parking lot, squinting into the whirling torrent. A guardrail appeared on the right side of the road, so she focused on keeping it in sight, following it up the mountain. Normally Mary Ellen would have been terrified to drive in these conditions, but she felt a thrill as she plunged through the storm. She was doing this. She was totally doing this. It was a new feeling, this invincibility, and the novelty itself was exhilarating. Most of all, though, she enjoyed the feeling that she was in charge: of her art, her protégé, her car.

  The GPS told her the turnoff was coming up, so she slowed to a crawl. At the gap in the woods, she bumped over the edge of the road onto the driveway. The snow was falling a little less heavily under the trees, so she was just able to make out the switchbacks ahead of her, and then, down the slope, a glimpse of rust-colored walls. Mary Ellen downshifted and urged the car around the bend, its engine protesting against the low gear. She could feel the snow brushing against the underside of the little car, so even when the drive steepened on the next switchback, the car descended sluggishly. “Come on,” Mary Ellen growled, impatiently shifting back up to third, letting the snow do the braking for her. At the bottom of the drive, where the trees cleared away, was a small rise, and Mary Ellen, eager to go inside and give Rose her gift, accelerated confidently to climb over it. But instead of going up and over the little hill, the front of the car plunged straight into it, lifted upward slightly, and stuck there with a crunching jolt.

  “Shit,” Mary Ellen said, touching her forehead to the steering wheel.

  She’d forgotten to call the girls.

  15

  Nice going, lady, Ivy thought, watching Mary Ellen spin her tires deeper and deeper into the snowdrift. Even if she managed to get the car out—which wasn’t looking too likely—Ivy could tell they wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. It was snowing the way it did sometimes in Good Hope—lake-effect snow, they called it. It was the kind of snow that meant you were going to be stuck inside for three or four days, so you’d better be prepared to spend some serious quality time with your antsy, not-making-any-money relatives. The last time it happened, Colin spent so much time doing curls in the basement that his bicep popped and balled up in his arm. It took the ambulance forever to show up, so he ended up walking to the emergency room.

  Why did she have to sneak off like that, without giving Ivy a chance to go into town with her? Ivy would’ve appreciated a change of scenery, and maybe a chance to have a say in the grocery selection. She also could’ve dropped a few more hints about college tuition, and maybe helped the lady find a branch of her bank.

  “I got some more food,” Mary Ellen announced, bursting in the front door with a bundle of grocery bags and a gust of freezing air. “Which is good, considering I got the car stuck.” She heaved the bags onto the kitchen table and shrugged off her coat. “I left early…didn’t want to wake you. I hope you weren’t worried.”

  “I would’ve liked to go.”

  “Oh.” Mary Ellen pulled out a can of beans and set it on the counter. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d rather sleep. I had to do some work stuff, make some phone calls.” Her face clouded, and she continued putting away groceries. “Oh, and! Don’t worry… I remembered what you said last night.”

  “You did?”

  Mary Ellen pulled a package of ground beef out of a bag. “Chili! I’m going to show you how to make it.”

  “Oh.” Ivy went over to the sofa and sat down.

  “No better time than a snowstorm, right? Snow always makes me want to cook something in a big pot. Chili…beef burgundy…coq au vin.” The lady started humming. Ivy didn’t know what she had to be so cheerful about.

  “Is anyone going to come plow the driveway?” Ivy asked.

  “Um.” The lady had her head in a cabinet. She stayed that way for a moment, tapping the door with her fingers. “I think I have that set up, yes. They’re supposed to come after a big snow. But they’re a little flaky, so we’ll see.” She slammed the cabinet shut and started folding paper bags.

  “’Cause if they don’t, you know, we’re going to be here till March.”

  “Don’t worry. My car can get up that hill. We just have to dig it out of that drift is all.”

  We? Mario Andretti here buried her car up to its tailpipe, and now Ivy was supposed to dig it out? With her hands? “There’s no shovel, you know.”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure I have one around here—”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t come here in the winter. Remember?”

  Mary Ellen stared at Ivy for a second, working her jaw back and forth, then pressed her mouth into a smile. “We’ll figure something out. Are you worried? We have plenty of food.”

>   “No.” Ivy sighed. “I just don’t like feeling trapped.”

  “Well, I think it’s kind of cozy. When you’re nice and warm inside, watching the snow fall, good smells coming out of the kitchen. You don’t have to go anywhere or do anything because, well, you can’t.”

  Don’t roll your eyes, Ivy commanded herself. Do not. Roll. Your eyes.

  Mary Ellen picked up her purse and a pile of books and came to sit on the sofa opposite Ivy. “So,” she said.

  “So.”

  “I was thinking about what you said last night.”

  “About the chili?”

  “No.” Mary Ellen smiled, crinkling her eyes. “About how everyone needs help along the way as they go after what they want. Especially if they’re taking the, you know, less-traveled path. It’s hard to do it all on your own. I realize that.” She clapped her hands on the tops of her thighs. “So if it’s all right with you, I’d like to be there for you. As a mentor. Not just now, but later. While you’re in college, and maybe afterward too? I’d like to stay in touch and, you know, offer my help along the way.”

  “Oh,” Ivy said, feeling a dumb, surprised smile tug at her mouth. “Wow. Thank you. That would be amazing.”

  Mary Ellen opened her purse. “Wonderful.” She put her hand inside her purse and drew a deep breath like she was nervous or excited or something. “So I have something for you.”

  Ivy sat up. Okay. Maybe she’d have to endure another couple of days imprisoned with a crazy lady, but it would be easier knowing she had enough money to get to Montana when she finally got out. Way easier.

  Mary Ellen pulled something out and laid it on the coffee table in front of Ivy. Ivy leaned forward. It was a leather book and a black box. She waited for the lady to pull out an envelope too, but that didn’t happen, so she picked up the black box and opened it. A pen. She picked up the book and flipped through the pages, but there was nothing tucked inside.

  “Aren’t you going to read it?”

  Ivy went back to the first page and skimmed the inscription, then closed the book and set it down on the table. “Was there…anything else?”