A Good Marriage(23)

Amanda





FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE PARTY


The whole walk to the Gate for girls’ night out, Amanda thought she was being followed. The calls were one thing, but she’d never believed there was somebody actually there, in the flesh. And yet from the second she left the house, she swore she could feel someone lurking behind her in the quiet pockets of Park Slope darkness. Not someone: him. Yes, the neighborhood was safe, very safe. But a deserted block was a deserted block. Anything could happen, and no one would be there to stop it.

It didn’t help matters that Amanda had been on edge from the moment she woke up. It was that same stupid, awful dream about Case—running in the gown again, barefoot and covered in blood, the haunted diner, sirens wailing, warning her about her son. Carolyn even had a cameo at the beginning this time, before the dark and the running and her burning bare feet. Amanda and Carolyn were giggling and whispering, eating pizza cross-legged on her bed. Both of them in pastel tulle dresses now—Amanda’s peach, Carolyn’s seafoam blue. Why the dresses every time? Was it Amanda’s guilt about her ridiculously over-the-top wardrobe? Her sleeping mind did have a way of making everything menacing.

If only this—the dark block, him maybe there, behind her—were a dream. How had he even found her? Yes, Amanda was living closer now to St. Colomb Falls than she had since she left all those years ago. But New York City was six long hours away by car. It wasn’t as if he could have spotted the moving van.

Amanda checked over her shoulder again as she made her way down the rest of Third Street. She didn’t actually see anything. But when she tried to take a deep breath, her lungs were stiff and her skin was prickling in that way it always had back then. Right before.

She knew exactly what Carolyn would say: tell Zach. For her part, Sarah would insist it was a husband’s job to protect his wife, and vice versa as a matter of fact. But what of the problems you’d brought upon yourself? Was it fair to foist those on your spouse? And Amanda was supposed to reduce Zach’s stress, not add to it. He was already under so much pressure. The least she could do was hold up her end of their bargain.

Amanda had been seventeen that night eleven years ago when Zach stepped inside the Bishop Motel. He was nothing like the men who usually stayed the night at the motel—which by then was not only where Amanda worked, but also where she lived. First of all, Zach was half the size of the truckers and loggers, and so much softer. A man who would live his life without ever dirtying his hands. Not exactly masculine either, but there were worse things. Much worse things. And anyway, he had such a nice smile.

But more than anything, it was that way Zach had looked at her when they met that most caught Amanda’s attention. Like an explorer who’d just discovered a rare species in his own backyard—exhilarated, nervous. Amanda had been told her whole life that she was beautiful, but up until that precise moment it had always felt like a liability.

Zach was already so accomplished, too. Amanda learned all about that when they ran into each other again, late the next afternoon. Zach was just back from a long hike, looking fit and strong and sure in his muddy hiking boots and even more handsome with a little shadow of a beard. He’d just graduated from law school and business school—both at once!—and was taking some time to himself, hiking in the Adirondacks to celebrate before going west to work in California. Zach had such direction and focus. He knew exactly where he was headed.

“Wow, California,” Amanda had said, feeling a little tug of envy. “All that sunshine. I’ve never been anywhere outside St. Colomb Falls.”

“Come with me then,” Zach had said with a shrug. So direct and simple and crazy. “Whatever is out there has got to be better than this. Forget what I think you should do, forget about me—don’t you owe it to yourself to find out?”

Like he knew. Though he didn’t, of course. Not the details of Amanda’s miscalculations. Those he would never know. All these years later, Zach had never cared to fill in any of the very obvious holes in Amanda’s past. She’d realized this was one of her husband’s greatest skills: focusing only on what mattered to him. It was probably the secret to his success.

But back then, at the Bishop Motel, Zach was holding out a sunshiny, golden ticket: California. Away. Far away. Finally, an actual destination. All Amanda had to do was reach out and grab it. And so Amanda had asked herself: What would Carolyn do? The answer was obvious. Carolyn would take a flying leap.

That was how Amanda found herself waiting by Zach’s rental car when he checked out that night. He’d acted surprised to see her there. But she was pretty sure he wasn’t. Not really.

He’d smiled in this little boy way that made her feel so good inside, and said: “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Soon they’d stuffed her three boxes of belongings into his trunk and were hurtling west—top down, wind in their hair. Safe. Alive. Free. Overhead there was only darkness and all those stars. Amanda knew then: she’d do whatever she had to never to return to St. Colomb Falls.

What she hadn’t ever counted on—what she’d never even considered—was St. Colomb Falls coming after her.

Amanda picked up her pace until the Gate was finally within view, brightly lit on the corner of Fifth Avenue. The old-fashioned pub was where Sarah and Maude, and occasionally some other moms, met once every other week for drinks. It had a delightful outdoor area, one of the places where the young and child-free of Park Slope congregated—or so Sarah liked to say, her tone steeped equally in envy and disdain.