The Escape Collection: (The Escape Collection) (11 page)

“You have to ask?”
 

Duncan easily caught the can Reid tossed his way and popped the top. “That’s the best part of this working for yourself gig,” he said after taking a long pull. “The boss is totally okay with drinking in the middle of the afternoon. What a life.”

“I don’t know about that,” Reid said. He sank into the chair across from his friend and picked up his pencil again.
 

“About drinking in the middle of the afternoon? Or working for yourself? Because right now, I’m thinking that both of those things are pretty awesome.”

Reid shook his head and drew lines through the lyrics he’d written. It had only been three months since he quit his full-time job at the ad agency to go freelance. The idea was it would give him more time to write his own music and break into the songwriting world while still making enough money to pay the bills. But that was before Lizzy took a nose dive, crash landing on his couch desperately needing an expensive stint in rehab. After draining his bank account, Reid was strongly considering going back to the agency full-time. Sometimes dreams were better off as just that—dreams.

“Don’t say it, man.” Duncan slammed his can down on the table and beer splashed over Reid’s papers. “Quitting the agency was the best thing you ever did. Don’t stress about money. It’ll happen.
You’ll
happen.”

“I’ll happen?”

“You have it, man. You have what it takes to make it big. Don’t let the corporate machine get you down.”

Reid tilted his head and examined his friend. “Have you been smoking something?”

“Nope,” Duncan said. “Just high on life.” He raised his beer in the air. “And this, of course.” Duncan laughed and Reid threw a crumpled paper at his head.
 

“You’re ridiculous,” Reid said. “Besides, it’s easy for you to say. Money isn’t an issue for you. It’s a little different, don’t you think?”

Duncan smoothed out the ball of paper he’d caught and laid it on the table. “Sure, I don’t have family to worry about.” He raised his eyebrow at Reid but didn’t ask about Lizzy. They’d been friends for a long time and Reid was thankful that Duncan knew if he wanted to talk, he would. “But hey,” Duncan continued, “you have this great place to live and you said yourself that rent is less than half what you paid before. That’s gotta help. So stop stressing out. It’s not good for the creative process.”

“Right, and this great place to live also comes with a roommate, so get your feet off the table.” Reid reached across the table and shoved Duncan’s feet down.

“Oh yes. The roommate.” Duncan recovered, but didn’t put his feet back on the table. Instead, he crossed one leg over his knee and tilted the chair back on two legs. “You haven’t said much about her. What’s she like?”

Reid fiddled with his pencil, but didn’t look up. He hadn’t said much about Whitney because he didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t figure her out. One minute she seemed strong and independent, but the next she was like a little girl, talking about her grandma and how she would have done things around the house. She reminded Reid of a bird that was trapped in a box and had forgotten how to fly. And the boyfriend. For the life of him, Reid could not figure that out. She was still hanging onto some residual hostility regarding their living situation, but under all that, Reid could see the playful side just waiting to get out, and that guy he’d met the other night was the exact opposite of fun. The truth was, Reid still didn’t know much about her, but one of the few things he did know was when she smiled, he never wanted her to stop. “She’s cool,” he said after a moment.
 

“Cool? That’s all you got?”
 

Reid knew Duncan wanted details about what she looked like. He wanted to know if she was single and stacked. For Duncan, they were the only details that mattered, and usually Reid would oblige. But for some reason, Reid didn’t want to share any part of Whitney with his friend.

He shrugged and was about to make up an excuse when the phone rang. Instinctively, he jumped up to answer it and it wasn’t until he’d already said hello that he realized he probably shouldn’t be answering Whitney’s phone.
 

“Who’s this?” the voice on the other line asked sharply. Loud music pulsed in the background.

“This is Reid. I’m—”

“Oh, you must be Whitney’s boyfriend. I’m her mom, but you can call me Patty. I know I don’t sound old enough to be anyone’s mother, but not to worry. I don’t act like one, anyway.” Patty laughed but Reid was still distracted by the word “mom.” Whitney had said her parents were dead. He cleared his throat and turned away from Duncan, who was watching him with one eyebrow raised.

“She’s not here right now,” Reid said cautiously. All of a sudden, he was wary of how much he should say. What if she was really a phone scammer? “But I’ll tell her you called if you like. Is there a message?”

“I was just calling to chat and catch up and of course that I’d love to see her. If she’s not too busy, that is.”

“No, I’m sure she won’t be too busy,” Reid said, trying to sound natural. “I assume she has your number, Patty?” He laid out the test. If the woman really was someone Whitney knew, surely she’d have the number.

“You’d assume wrong,” Patty said. “But she knows where to find me. Oh,” she exclaimed like she’d just thought of something. “Is she out teaching? She probably is, isn’t she? I always forget that she does that now. It was easier to talk to her when she was still taking classes. What did you say your name was?” Reid struggled to keep up with Patty’s train of thought, but when he did, he realized that whoever Patty was, she really did know Whitney.

“Reid,” he answered, confident now that she wasn’t trying to scam anyone out of anything.

“Reid? I thought Whitney’s boyfriend was Walter or something.”
 

“William,” Reid said. “Her boyfriend’s name is William.”

“That’s right.” Patty let out a whoop. “Little Willy,” she said. “She hasn’t brought him around to introduce me yet. But he doesn’t sound like much fun. But you, your name’s Reid?”
 

Reid couldn’t help but smile because not only was she right about William being no fun, but considering Whitney told him her parents were dead, there didn’t seem to be a very good chance that Patty would be meeting him soon. “That’s me,” Reid said.

“And who are you?” she asked, as if it just occurred to her that a strange man who was not her boyfriend shouldn’t be answering Whitney’s phone, which it likely had.
 

“I’m Whitney’s new roommate,” he said. “And I promise, I’m a lot of fun.”
 

She laughed at that. “Roommate, huh? Well, I suppose that’s a good thing. Whit needs some fun in her life. She’s too young to be so serious. And on second thought, don’t tell her I called. She’ll only get all worked up. I’ll try her another time.”

“You’re sure you don’t want me to tell her?”

“Of course I’m sure. I don’t say things I’m not—hold on.”
 

There was a voice in the background, yelling and a rustle on the other end of the phone before Patty came back on. “Gotta go,” she said. Before Reid could say another word, the dial tone rang loud in his ear.
 

He hung the phone up with a smile and a shake of his head. It took him a minute to process what had just happened.
 

“Dude,” Duncan called over. “Who was that?”

Reid went back to the table where Duncan was watching him. “Whitney’s mom,” was all he offered.
 

“You’re not going to—”

“Nope.” Reid picked up a new pencil. “Let’s get to work.” He needed to distract himself long enough to work out a way to tell Whitney that he’d just spoken to her long-dead mother.

Chapter 6

I was sitting right next to her, but I’d never felt further away from her. Since we’d left the doctor’s office, we’d barely said anything to each other. At least, I hadn’t said anything. Grams did a lot of talking. A lot of telling me what I didn’t want to hear. A lot of repeating what the doctor had told us, as if his words weren’t already burned into my brain.
 

I’m not sure how I drove the car back to Blissful Orchards. The entire trip was a blur, my brain subconsciously telling my body what to do, what turns to take, when to stop, when to go. Somehow we made it back. I put the car in park and turned to her, finally ready for answers.

There was so much I needed to know, needed to talk about. But first, I needed the answer to a simple question. “How long?” I asked.
 

She shook her head, her soft white curls bouncing with the movement. “I don’t—”

“How long have you known, Grams?”
 

She looked at me, and I could see the pain in her eyes that the question caused her. The hurt she didn’t want to cause me in return. The pain she’d tried to protect me from. But it was too late. I already knew the answer. I knew because Dr. Abbott spoke about previous test results and past appointments—none of which I’d known about. But I had to hear it from her.
 

“Whitney, I—”

“Grams,” I cut her off. “Please. How long?”

She took a breath and exhaled in a soft puff. “Six months.”

For a moment, time stopped. Six months. Six.
 

“Whitney?” Grams put her hand on my arm and with a lurch, time resumed.

“Six months?” I whispered. “But why?” Unshed tears blurred my vision. “Why did you lie? You said you just found the lump. That it was nothing. You said—” I broke off and stared at her, realization hitting me. “That’s why you wanted to move into Blissful Orchards.”

“I’m sorry, dear. I am. I didn’t want to lie to you, but I didn’t want to worry you until I knew for sure,” she said. “There was no point getting everyone worked up over nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. It’s cancer.”

She shook her head sadly. “No, dear. It’s not nothing.” She reached across the seat and took my hand in hers the way she had countless times before. This time, it felt different. She felt different. Fragile, like if I squeezed too tightly, she’d crack and break in front of me.
 

We sat in silence for a few minutes, each of us lost in our own thoughts. My mind swirled with the options and treatment plans Dr. Abbott had laid out. I couldn’t do anything about the fact Grams had kept the truth from me, but I could do something about her decision.

“Grams,” I said, trying for confidence I didn’t feel. “We need to talk about treatment.”

She pulled her hand away from mine. “There’s nothing to talk about. I already told you and Dr. Abbott what I wanted to do.”

 
“But, Grams. You’re being—”

The look on Grams’ face was enough to shut my mouth.

I let out a big breath and tried a different approach. “Okay,” I said as calmly as I could manage. “We won’t talk about it. Not now.” Maybe if I gave it some time, she would come to her senses and talk realistically about it with me.

Grams opened her mouth to protest again, but I stopped her.
 

“But we will have to tell Mom about your decision, whatever it is. And you know she’ll have questions, too. Maybe then you can explain it to both of us in a way that we understand. Because I don’t, Grams.” I shook my head and blinked hard. “I don’t understand it at all.”
 

She put her hand on my leg and squeezed. “I know, dear. But please try.”
 

I looked up at her. At the same sweet face I’d always looked to when I needed comforting. Who would I turn to for comfort if she wasn’t there? When she wasn’t there. The thought slammed into me and I had to look away.
 

“I should get going, Grams,” I said out the window.
 

“You don’t want to come in? We could have some tea, maybe…”

I shook my head. I knew if I looked at her I would totally lose it. And I couldn’t afford tears, not yet. “I’m actually subbing this afternoon. I really only have an hour before I have to be there I should go.”

Grams squeezed my leg again. “I love you, Whitney.”
 

I put my hand over hers and held it there, willing everything to be okay. Still, I couldn’t turn. “I love you, too, Grams. So much.”
 

***

Every time I walked into the staff room at Glenmore Academy, I had the same feeling. Like I was an interloper, an intruder in a private club. William told me once the substitute teachers didn’t always use the staff room, that they usually just went to their classroom. I couldn’t be sure if he was giving me some sort of warning to leave their private club alone or if he was proud of me for unabashedly entering their inner sanctum. That was the problem with William: more often than not, I had trouble reading him.
 

But even with William’s warning about the sanctity of the room, I still stopped in before heading to the grade two art class I was supposed to be teaching. I had a few minutes and I needed to decompress after the appointment with Grams. I couldn’t face a room full of seven-year-olds when there was a good chance I would burst into tears at a moment’s notice. Because the one thing I knew about kids for sure, you couldn’t show any signs of weakness. Not if you wanted to make it out alive.

The staff room was mercifully almost empty. There was only a male teacher who I recognized as one of the junior high faculty, lounging on the couch with headphones on. I waved in his direction and hoped it was my imagination that saw him raise his nose a little higher in the air and turn away. Maybe the same rule applied for the adults, too. Don’t show weakness. I made a beeline for the coffee pot to fortify myself. It didn’t matter if the coffee was stale and only lukewarm. It tasted heavenly and I closed my eyes while I sipped it, letting the moment of solitude relax me.
 

“Miss Monroe.”

I choked on the mouthful of coffee and fought hard to swallow it instead of the mortifying alternative. I partly succeeded as only a dribble escaped my mouth. It ran down my chin and landed in the middle of my white blouse, leaving a most unfortunate brown spot on my left breast. I bit my tongue against a choice word and dabbed uselessly at the spot with a napkin before looking up and straight into the eyes of Principal Brantford.