The Great Escape: A Novel

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  But her stomach didn’t agree. As the churning got worse, she hurried into the woods and made it into the trees just in time to throw up. She hadn’t eaten in so long that it was painful.

  The spasms eventually stopped. He barely looked at her as she came out of the trees. She stumbled toward the river, her heels catching on rocks, then sinking into the sand. She knelt beside the water and splashed her face.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  She rested back on her calves, river water dripping down her cheeks. Her voice came from a place far away, a place she hadn’t inhabited since she was very young. “Did you leave many of your things in Wynette?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Clothes? Suitcase?” Your Mensa card?

  “I travel light. A pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts, and a box of condoms.”

  People were always on their best behavior with the president’s family. Hardly anyone other than Meg or one of her father’s seven sisters ever told her a dirty joke or made even a vaguely crude reference. People’s stiff courtesy had always annoyed her, but now she would have welcomed even a little of it, and she pretended she hadn’t heard. “So there’s nothing I couldn’t compensate you for leaving behind?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  Her family knew she was safe. Meg would have told them. “I really can’t go back to Wynette while the press is still there.” The press wasn’t her main concern, but she wasn’t telling him that. “I’m wondering what your immediate plans are.”

  “Getting rid of you.” He rubbed his stubbly jaw. “And getting laid.”

  She swallowed. “What if I make it worth your while?”

  He dipped his eyes to her breasts, which her extravagantly expensive French bridal bra had improved. “You aren’t my type.”

  Ignore him. “I meant, what if I make it worth your while not to do either?”

  “Not interested.” He whipped the blanket off the ground. “I’m on vacation, and I’m not spoiling another day. You’re going back to Wynette.”

  “I’d pay you,” she heard herself say. “Not today. I don’t have any money with me, but I’ll take care of that soon.” How? She’d have to figure that out. “I’ll cover gas, food, all your expenses. Plus … a hundred dollars a day. Agreed?”

  He balled up the blanket. “Too much hassle.”

  “I can’t go back now.” She unearthed a shred of the bravado she’d possessed in such abundance as a teen, before the weight of her responsibilities had straightened her out. “If you won’t take me with you, I’ll find someone who will.”

  Maybe he knew she was bluffing because he practically sneered at her. “Trust me. A chick like you isn’t cut out to spend eight hours a day on a bike.”

  “Maybe not. But I can manage it for a day.”

  “Forget it.”

  “A thousand dollars, plus expenses.”

  He carried the blanket over to the saddlebags and stuffed it in. “You think I’d trust you to pay up?”

  She twisted her hands in front of her. “I’ll pay. You have my word.”

  “Yeah, well, Ted had that, too, and it didn’t turn out to be worth much.”

  She cringed. “I’ll put it in writing.”

  “Too bad your fiancé didn’t think of that.” With a scowl, he snapped the saddlebags closed.

  ALTHOUGH PANDA DIDN’T TAKE HER up on the offer, he also didn’t ride off without her, which she took as a positive sign. She needed food, but more than that, she wanted comfortable shoes and a change of clothes. “Would you go back?” she shouted in Panda’s ear as he buzzed past a Walmart. “I’d like to get some things.”

  Either she hadn’t spoken loud enough or he didn’t hear her because he didn’t stop.

  As they rode, she let her mind drift and found herself remembering the day Mat Jorik had shown up at that ratty rental house in Harrisburg where she’d been hiding out with her baby sister during those terrible weeks after their mother’s death. He’d loomed at the front door, angry and impatient. She had a dead mother and a year-old baby sister to protect, so even though she’d been fourteen and scared to death, she didn’t let him see it.

  “We got nothing to talk about,” she’d said after he’d bullied his way inside.

  “Cut the crap … Unless you shoot straight with me, Child and Family Services will be here to pick you up in an hour.”

  For six weeks, she’d used all the resources a fourteen-year-old could muster to keep the authorities from finding out she was the only one caring for the baby she’d called Button, the baby who’d grown up to be Tracy. “We don’t need anybody taking care of us!” she’d shouted. “We’re doing great by ourselves. Why don’t you mind your own damn business?”

  But he hadn’t minded his business, and before long, he, Lucy, and Button were on the road, where they’d met up with Nealy and gone on a cross-country trip in Mabel, the beat-up Winnebago that still sat on her parents’ property in Virginia because none of them could bear getting rid of her. Mat was the only father she had ever known, and she couldn’t have found a better one. Or a better husband for Nealy, a love match Lucy’d had more than a small hand in bringing about. She’d been so courageous in those days. So fearless. She’d lost that part of herself so gradually she’d barely been aware of the change.

  Panda wheeled into a dirt lot in front of a white frame building with a sign over the door that read STOKEY’S COUNTRY STORE. The windows displayed everything from shotguns to mixing bowls to kids’ Crocs. A Coke machine sat near the door, along with a garden gnome and a postcard rack.

  “What size shoes d’you wear?” He sounded angry.

  “Seven and a half. And I’d like—”

  He was already taking the steps two at a time.

  She got off the bike and tucked herself behind a delivery truck, helmet firmly in place, while she waited. She wished she could pick out her own shoes, but going into the store looking like this was unthinkable. She prayed he wasn’t picking up more beer. Or condoms.

  He emerged with a plastic sack and thrust it at her. “You owe me.”

  GAS, GRASS, OR ASS. NOBODY RIDES FOR FREE.

  “I said I’d pay you.”

  He uttered another of his caveman grunts.

  She glanced inside the sack. Jeans, gray cotton T-shirt, cheap navy sneakers, and a ball cap. She carried it all behind the building, took off her helmet, and changed where she couldn’t be seen. The jeans were stiff and ugly, baggy in the hip and leg. The T-shirt had a University of Texas logo. He’d forgotten socks, but at least she could get rid of her heels. Unlike him, she didn’t litter, so she stuffed the choir robe and shoes back into the plastic sack and came out of the trees.

  He scratched his chest, his expression vacant. “The television was on in the store. You’re big news right now. They’re saying you’re staying with friends, but I wouldn’t count on not being recognized.”

  She clutched the plastic bag with the choir robe inside and pulled the helmet back on.

  Half an hour later, he was parking behind a Denny’s. She wanted a real bathroom with hot and cold running water, which outweighed her dread of anyone recognizing her. While he pocketed the ignition key and looked around, she took off the helmet and gathered her stiff, sprayed hair into a facsimile of a ponytail, which she pulled through the hole in the back of her ball cap.

  “If that’s your disguise,” he said, “you’re not gonna get far.”

  He was right. She yearned for the helmet. With a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching, she took her ruined shoes out of the plastic bag, leaving the wadded choir robe in it. She bunched up the bag and stuffed it under her roomy T-shirt, securing part of it in the waistband of her jeans so it wouldn’t fall out.

  This was the same disguise Nealy had used all those years ago when she’d fled the White House. Maybe it would work for Lucy. If she was lucky, no one would connect the former first daughter with a cheaply dressed pregnant girl walking into a Denny’s. She�
��d look like one more stupid female who’d fallen for the wrong guy.

  Panda gazed at her plastic-bag pregnancy. “Here I am, about to be a father, and the sex wasn’t even that good.”

  She fought the urge to apologize.

  He only seemed to have two expressions, vacant or scowling. Now it was a scowl. “You don’t even look legal.”

  She’d always appeared younger than her age, and her current outfit had to make her look even younger. I’m sure I’m not your first teenager. That’s what Meg would have said to him, but Lucy turned away, dumped her ruined stilettos in a trash bin, and headed cautiously into the restaurant.

  To her relief, no one paid any attention to her, not because of her bad clothes or pregnancy bump, but because everyone looked at Panda. He was like Ted in that way. They both had a big presence—Ted’s good, Panda’s not.

  She made her way to the restroom, cleaned up as best as she could, and rearranged her pregnancy bump. When she came out, she felt almost human.

  Panda stood by the door. He wore the same wrinkled shirt, but he smelled like soap. He studied her bump. “It’s not too realistic.”

  “As long as you’re around, I don’t think anybody will pay much attention to me.”

  “We’ll see.”

  She followed him back to the table. More than a few people in the room were watching as they slid into the booth across from each other. They ordered, and as they waited for their food to arrive, he studied the ball scores scrolling on a TV hanging in the corner.

  “While you were in the john, the news said your family’s back in Virginia.”

  She wasn’t surprised. Staying in Wynette would have been unbearably awkward for them. “They’re going to Barcelona tomorrow for a conference with the World Health Organization.”

  He didn’t look as though he knew what a conference was, let alone the World Health Organization. “When are you calling Ted to tell him you screwed up?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Running away’s not going to solve whatever problems a rich girl like you thinks you have.” His slight sneer said he didn’t believe anybody like her could have real problems.

  “I’m not running,” she retorted. “I’m … on vacation.”

  “Wrong. I’m on vacation.”

  “And I’ve offered to pay you a thousand dollars plus expenses to take me with you.”

  Right then, their food appeared. The waitress set a bacon cheeseburger, onion rings, and a garden salad in front of her. He shoved a fry into his mouth as she left. “What’re you going to do if I turn you down?”

  “I’ll find someone else,” she said, which was nonsense. There was no one else. “That guy over there.” She nodded toward a rough-looking man sitting in front of a platter of pancakes. “I’ll ask him. He looks like he could use the money.”

  “His mullet tell you that?”

  Panda was hardly the person to criticize another man’s hairstyle, although the other women in the restaurant didn’t appear as critical as she was.

  He didn’t seem to be able to do two things at once, and for a while, he chose thinking over eating. Finally he took a too-large bite and, mouth full of burger, said, “You’ll guarantee me a grand even if you don’t last through today?”

  She nodded, then picked up one of the crayons left on the table for kids. She wrote on a napkin and pushed it across the table to him. “There. We have a contract.”

  He studied it. Shoved it aside. “You screwed over a decent guy.”

  She blinked against the sting in her eyes. “Better now than later, right? Before he found out he might be a victim of false advertising.” She wished she’d kept silent, but he merely upended the ketchup bottle and slapped the bottom.

  The waitress returned with coffee and eyes for Panda. Lucy shifted position, and the plastic bag rustled under her T-shirt. The coffeepot stalled in midair as the waitress turned to look at her. Lucy ducked her head.

  He wadded up the napkin contract and swiped his mouth with it. “Kid doesn’t like it when she eats too fast.”

  “You girls get pregnant younger all the time,” the waitress said. “How old are you, honey?”

  “Legal,” he said before Lucy could answer.

  “Barely,” the waitress muttered. “When are you due?”

  “Uhm … August?” Lucy had made it sound like a question, not a declaration, and the waitress looked confused.

  “Or September.” Panda leaned back in the booth, eyelids at half-mast. “Depends on who’s the daddy.”

  The woman advised Panda to get himself a good lawyer and walked off.

  He pushed away his empty plate. “We can be at the Austin airport in a couple hours.”

  No plane. No airport. “I can’t fly,” she said. “I don’t have an ID.”

  “Call your old lady and let her take care of it. This jaunt has cost me enough.”

  “I told you. Keep track of your expenses. I’d pay you back. Plus a thousand dollars.”

  “Where are you getting the cash?”

  She had no idea. “I’ll figure it out.”

  LUCY HAD GONE TO THE party knowing there’d be drinking. She was almost seventeen, none of the kids was going to narc, and Mat and Nealy would never find out. What was the big deal?

  Then Courtney Barnes passed out behind the couch, and they couldn’t wake her up. Somebody called 911. The cops showed up and took IDs. When they found out who Lucy was, one of them drove her home while the rest of the kids got hauled into the police station.

  She’d never forgotten what the officer had said to her. “Everybody knows what Senator Jorik and Mr. Jorik did for you. Is this how you pay them back?”

  Mat and Nealy refused preferential treatment for her and hauled her back to the police station to sit with the others. The press covered the whole thing, complete with op-ed pieces about the wild children of Washingon’s pols, but her parents never threw that in her face. Instead they talked to her about alcohol poisoning and drunk driving, about how much they loved her and wanted her to make smart choices. Their love shamed her and changed her in a way their anger never could have. She’d promised herself never again to let them down, and until yesterday, she hadn’t.

  Now she stood in a small-town discount store that smelled of rubber and popcorn. She’d adjusted the plastic bag under her shirt so it didn’t rustle, but she looked so mangy after hours on the road that no one was giving her a second glance, although Panda was attracting the same wary attention he’d garnered in the restaurant. A young mother even pulled her toddler into the next aisle to avoid him.

  Lucy glanced at him from under the brim of her ball cap. “I’ll meet you at the register.”

  He held up a cheap pink training bra. “This looks about your size.”

  She gave him a tight smile. “Really. I don’t need any help. You can do your own shopping now. It’s on me.”

  He tossed down the bra. “Damn right it’s on you. I’m keeping the receipts.”

  But he still didn’t move. She added some ugly white granny panties to her shopping basket because she wasn’t going to let him watch her choose anything else.

  He pulled out the granny panties and tossed in some neon-colored nothings. “I like these better.”

  Of course you do. But since you’ll never see them, you don’t get a vote.

  He slipped his hand under his T-shirt and scratched his stomach. “Hurry up. I’m hungry.”

  She needed him, so she left the trashy nothings in the shopping basket and let him steer her to the single aisle that served as the store’s men’s department.

  “I like to get input from the ladies when I shop.” He grabbed a navy T-shirt and studied the illustration, a cartoon drawing of a woman with enormous breasts and a rocket launcher between her legs.

  “That would be a definite no,” she said.

  “I like it.” He tossed it over his shoulder and began thumbing through a stack of jeans.

  “I thought you wanted my input.�
�

  He stared at her blankly. “Why’d you think that?”

  She gave up.

  A few minutes later as she set her meager purchases by the register, she experienced a stab of yearning for her pearls and headbands, her slim summer dresses and neat little sandals. They were the objects that anchored her. In her ballet flats and cashmere sweaters, a cell phone tucked to her ear, she knew who she was, not only the adopted daughter of the former president of the United States but a crackerjack lobbyist and first-rate fund-raiser for important causes that help children. Her stomach started to hurt again.

  Panda shot her a sullen look as he paid for their purchases. Once they were outside, he shoved everything into the cheap gray nylon duffel he’d bought, wadding up her neon panties with his charcoal gray boxer briefs, and secured the duffel to the Yamaha with a bungee.

  Panda didn’t like interstate highways, she’d discovered, and they rode east on dusty secondary roads that ran through dying towns and past run-down ranches. She didn’t know where they were going. Didn’t care. As evening began to fall, he stopped at a twelve-unit motel next to an abandoned driving range. The first thing she spotted when he came out of the motel’s tiny office was the single key dangling from his big hand. “I’d like my own room,” she said.

  “Then you pay for it.” He tossed his leg over the bike and, without waiting for her, rode toward the last motel unit. She walked, her legs wobbly. At least straddling that big leather vibrating seat had made her feel nominally alive—right up to the moment she remembered those broad shoulders she was forced to stare at all day belonged to a man who communicated with grunts, ate with his mouth open, and was only putting up with her for the money. A man she was about to share a seedy motel room with.

  All she had to do was make a phone call. One phone call and this insanity would be over.