The Escape Collection: (The Escape Collection) (3 page)

When I was a sophomore in high school, I had a momentary lapse of judgement where I fancied myself a poet and entered some of my writing in a contest. I was so sure that the emotions I spilled onto the page would be enough to win. I got second place. I was devastated. When I came home from school, Grams took one look at my face and grabbed that poem out of my hand. She read it aloud and for the next three days wouldn’t stop oohing and ahhing over it.

“You have a gift, Whitney,” she’d say. “You owe it to the world to share your beautiful words with everyone because they make every day a little brighter for someone like me.”

“What do you mean, like you,” I’d say.

Every time ,Grams would throw her head back and laugh like nobody was listening. I loved that laugh. “Whitney, darling. Not everyone sees the world in bright, crystal clear colors the way you write about. Some of us only know the world the way it is, not the way it could be.”

I’d laugh along with her, but it took me years to understand what she really meant. And I never entered another contest. My words were for me. Just an easy way to let everything out. So much of the time, I pretended to be something I wasn’t. Or at least it felt that way. But when I had a blank piece of paper and a pen, I could be or say anything. No pretending.
 

Sitting there, I re-read the words I’d already written and tried to force all outside thoughts from my head and focus on the paper in front of me. Pen in hand, I tried to forget about Grams in her new home, and Mom, who for some reason needed money despite her role as the Lusty Lady’s favorite lady. All of it was out of my control, but what I put on the page, that was completely in my hands.
 

I concentrated on letting the words flow from me and it took all of my attention. I couldn’t let any other thoughts in. Like thoughts of my Grams alone in her new home, scared about what might be happening to her body, needing answers.
 

Damn.
 

My hand slipped and the pen scrawled across the page. I stared at the mark. My concentration shot, I knew I was done. Once the spell was broken, it couldn’t be regained. I tucked the pen inside the notebook and closed it without bothering to take a second look at what I’d written.

The sun was still high in the sky when I emerged from my treehouse. It was tucked away on the backside of the yard across from the house I grew up in. And the house where I still lived. I considered it mine, but it was Grams’ house really. I’d moved in with her again about eighteen months ago, right after I graduated from college. Buried under student loan debt, and only able to secure occasional substitute teaching jobs, there was no way I could afford my own place. Besides, there was something comfortable about living in your childhood home. At least there had been, until Grams moved out a year later. Ever since that day, it just felt empty. No, more than empty; it was a total shell. Eerie almost. But Grams was adamant. She wanted to live with people her own age who would play cards with her and she kept telling me she was cramping my style, like I had a style. It didn’t matter how much I protested; she insisted it wasn’t healthy for a young girl to live with her grandma. When a spot came available at Blissful Orchards, she’d been ecstatic, but after five months, I still wasn’t sold. I’d liked our living arrangement and I’d never get used to walking in the door and not having Grams greet me with a smile and a cup of tea. Besides that, with her new rent payment at Blissful Orchards, the responsibility of the bills for the old house was left entirely to me. And I was sinking under the weight of it.

I crossed the yard and ducked inside the house long enough to grab a sweater and my car keys. I’d told Grams I’d stop by for a visit. I might as well go early.
 

***

Twenty minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of Blissful Orchards and let my gaze sweep over the grounds. I had to admit it was a nice place. They’d done a good job making it look less like a place where people went to die, and more like a home. There were flowers and trees surrounding the property. Well, there were plants with what would be flowers in the spring. Most of the greenery was dead or dying, with the cooling temperatures giving a tired, used look to Blissful Orchards, which was probably the exact opposite of what they were trying for. Despite the autumn chill in the air, there were a few residents walking along the pathways that webbed through the grounds. And I had to admit, the paths were a nice touch for the residents to walk around and enjoy the fresh air. As long as they were mobile enough, I thought with a twinge, my mind going straight to Grams.

Only a few months after we’d moved Grams in, she’d found a lump in her right breast. It took forever to get results back and almost ten days after the latest tests, we were still waiting to hear from the specialists. Waiting for information was the frustrating part and of course my mind always went to the worst-case scenario. How long would it be before Grams wouldn’t be able to walk around the pathways? Would the treatment make her bedridden? Would it cause her to lose her short-term memory? Was it cancer? Would she die?

I shook my head clear of the thoughts; it wouldn’t do any good dwelling on what might be. And I didn’t like to consider the thought that’d been niggling at me since her diagnosis—that Grams had known about the lump before the move. And what if, like Mom said, Grams wanted to move into Blissful Orchards to die?
 

I parked my car under the shade of a maple tree starting to drop its leaves, and made my way into the building. There was only one reason Grams would choose such a dreary pastel colored place over living with me, and even if I didn’t want to admit it, I knew it.
 
As I wandered down the hallway, smiling at the few residents I recognized, I knew I wouldn’t ask her. It was best not to ask questions when you didn’t want to hear the answers.

“Grams,” I said, as I knocked and pushed the door open. “It’s a beautiful day. Maybe we could—”

Her room was empty.
 

“Grams?” I turned towards the bathroom but there really wasn’t anywhere for her to go. The room was large enough for a bed, a dresser, a chair, and a television. It’s not like she was hiding in the closet or anything. “Are you in there?” I knocked on the bathroom door, but I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t answer.
 

If she wasn’t in her room, there was only one other place she’d be. Grams liked to be where the action was, and in a place like Blissful Orchards, that would be the main room. I tucked my purse in the closet and headed off in search of her.
 

As I got closer to the main room, I could hear the sounds of a keyboardist and the combined voices of a dozen or so seniors belting out the refrain of “When The Saints Go Marching In.” I stepped through the doorway, and there was Grams, sitting at a table, surrounded by a group of ladies, holding a songbook. Her voice was the loudest. A smile stretched across her face and reached her eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her so happy. Apparently watching movies with her twenty-three-year old granddaughter on Friday nights wasn’t nearly as exciting as sing-a-longs.

She noticed me before I could sneak back down the hall and wait in her room. “Whitney,” she called, unconcerned with the fact that she was in the middle of a song. All eyes were on me, and when she waved me over, I was left with little choice.

I dutifully crossed the room, keeping my head down to avoid attracting any more attention, if that was possible, and slid into the chair Grams pulled out for me.

There was no help for it. I took control of the songbook and started in on the chorus of “My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean.” Grams wasn’t the only one with an impressive singing voice.
 

Three songs later and the keyboardist still didn’t show any signs of slowing down. I couldn’t get a good look at him from where I sat, but if it wasn’t for his occasional commentary on the mic, I would have been totally convinced that he was a machine.
 

“Okay, everyone,” the keyboardist said, “this is the last song for today and then I’ve got to get going.”

I swallowed my urge to cheer, especially because the group of seniors I was sitting with, including Grams, looked pretty disappointed.
 

“So, let’s make it a good one,” our enthusiastic song leader said. “How about, ‘Love Me Tender’?”

This announcement was met with a few nods and grunts of approval from the crowd. They really were easy to win over. I mean, who didn’t like early Elvis?

“Okay, page twenty-three,” keyboard guy said.
 

We dutifully flipped our books to the appropriate page and started singing along. I had to admit, keyboard guy had a nice voice. And he certainly didn’t sound like he was eighty-three. In fact, he sounded a lot like young Elvis himself, singing the classic song. I closed my eyes and sang along with Grams and her friends for the last few choruses.
 

When the song finished, keyboard guy played a fancy run of notes, and said, “Thank you, thank you very much.” His terrible impression was met with a smattering of applause. “Seriously,” he said sans the Elvis voice. “Thank you everybody for coming out today. You’re the best audience I’ve had all week. Don’t forget to turn in your songbooks. How else am I going to remember the words every week?”

I looked around the table as all the ladies handed me their books. “Would you mind, dear?” Grams asked.

“Of course not.” How could I? I had at least fifty years on almost everyone in the room. And both of my hips were still my own. I stood and gathered the photocopied books.
 

“And then you can meet Reid.” Grams’ eyes twinkled and she didn’t even try to hide her grin.
 

“Reid?”
 

Grams nodded.
 

“Right.” So that was her angle. Perfect.
 

There was no point protesting so I turned with the stack of books in my arms and went to the front of the room where keyboard guy, or Reid, was bent over unplugging his equipment.
 

“Where can I put these?”
 

The man that stood up and smiled at me was definitely not the middle-aged keyboard man I’d assumed he’d be. Far from it. He was gorgeous in that musician-without-a-real-job type of way. A total bad boy type mixed with just the right amount of boy next door. His sandy blond hair was the right amount of too long and flopped over his face. When he reached up to brush it back, I noticed his faded Led Zeppelin t-shirt had clearly seen better days. And the way it hugged his chest and arms, it was at least two sizes too small. Not that I was complaining. But I wasn’t staring either. I’d been around my fair share of musician types, and I knew enough to know I shouldn’t even look. Nothing good would come of it.
 

“Hello?”
 

Keyboard guy was waving a hand in front of my face and I realized a second too late I hadn’t heard his response. “Sorry,” I muttered. I cleared my throat and made a point to look him in the eyes. His very bright, very blue eyes. I didn’t embarrass easily, which was definitely one of the positive traits I’d inherited from my mother.

He chuckled and ran a hand through his unruly hair, which only had the effect of flopping back over his forehead. “I said you could put the books over there.” He pointed to the table where a few other songbooks were haphazardly piled.
 

I did as requested and turned to head back to Grams.
 

“I’m Reid by the way,” he said. His voice was deep, but not in a tortured-musician type of way. There was a lightness to him, like he knew about some inside joke I wasn’t aware of.
 

I didn’t turn around right away. Instead, I took a look at Grams, who was talking to a table full of ladies. She was the center of conversation, and since I knew I’d never be able to get her to leave before she was ready, I turned back to Reid. “I know your name,” I said.
 

“You do?” He tilted his head and smiled like I’d said the best thing he’d heard all day. “I’m flattered. And you’re under seventy-five. This must be my lucky day.”

I couldn’t help it. I returned his smile and let myself relax. “I’m Whitney, by the way.”

“I know.”
 

It was my turn to be surprised. “You do?”
 

While I watched, he lifted his keyboard from the stand and tucked it into a padded case on the floor. “Your grandmother likes to talk.” He gestured with his shoulder in Grams’ direction.

“That she does,” I said with a laugh. “What else did she tell you?”

Reid straightened and I had to tilt my head to look him in the eyes. “She told me you were beautiful, and she was right.”

I shook my head. Typical Grams. If there was an available man within a five-mile radius, she’d find him and start listing all of my attributes. It didn’t seem to matter that I was dating someone. In fact, my relationship with William only fueled her search for someone she felt was more appropriate for me.

“Did she also tell you that I don’t date musicians?” I asked Reid. Might as well nip it in the bud, whatever
it
was.

Reid stuffed the songbooks into his case and hefted it up, pulling the shoulder strap up with his free hand. “It’s a good thing I’m not asking you on a date then.” He winked and I shook my head. “It was nice to meet you, Whitney. I’ve gotta run, but I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.”

“Another retirement home gig?”

“Something like that.”
 

I watched as he walked through the room, stopping to say goodbye to the residents who were still lingering at their tables. When he got to Grams’ table, he kissed her on the cheek and I saw her blush. They exchanged a few words I couldn’t hear and Grams laughed before Reid moved on.
 

When he reached the front door, he turned and busted me watching him. He smiled and lifted two fingers in a wave. I waved back, tucked my hands in the back pockets of my jeans and headed over to Grams, who no doubt had seen the exchange and was already planning the wedding.