Read Online Escape by Barbara Delinsky - Free Book Online Page A

didn’t immediately answer, as if saying the words aloud would make them real. But they were real. At least, my worry was real. “He may be.”
    “Having one now?”
    “I don’t know for sure. There’s one woman. They work together all the time. Breakfast, lunch, everything in between. When they work late, it’s take-in dinner in the conference room.”
    “Aren’t other people there?”
    “Sometimes.”
    “Have you asked him about it?”
    “Indirectly, like a joke.” Unable to meet her eye, I pulled at the grass between my legs. “He laughs it off.” I straightened. “I really don’t think he is. He is not that kind of person.” I wanted to believe, oh, I did. “And I’m hypersensitive about it because of Jude.”
    “I’ll never forgive him for that.”
    “It’s done.”
    “So now you worry about James. Would you ever cheat on him?”
    “Never. Of course, he’d probably say I’m cheating on him now.”
    “By being here?”
    “By not telling him I’m here.”
    Vicki was silent. She would agree with James on that one.
    “Maybe it’s a power thing,” I suggested. “I’ve felt so
without
power for so long.”
    “He is your husband.”
    “But I don’t want him coming after me.” I shot a look at the guy in the car at the end of the green. For all I knew, he was a detective. James couldn’t have sent him so fast, but my father might have. More likely, he was the husband of a woman having her hair done in the shop behind the General Store.
    I sighed. “And that’s all I know, that I want time without James. Pathetic, isn’t it? I mean, I’m sitting here trying not to think. But ifI don’t think, I won’t figure out my life. And what do I do in the meanwhile?”
    Vicki’s smile was warm. “Whatever your heart desires. Isn’t that what Bell Valley’s about?”
    This time, it was me taking her hand. “You are such a good friend. I don’t have friends in New York. Well, I do, but it’s different.”
    “Different, how?”
    “Less personal. Less face-to-face. Mostly we text, and when we’re together, one of us is either typing or talking to someone else entirely. We’re all on all the time, so any one relationship is diluted by the others. It’s sad. I’m supposed to be a bridesmaid at Colleen Parker’s wedding, but we’re not even close. We met through book group, and since we’re both lawyers, we figured there ought to be a connection, but I wouldn’t call it strong. Book group meets once a month, and we relate the books to our own lives because we’re so hungry to talk about feelings. But there are ten of us in the group, so it isn’t intimate, and we only meet for an hour because that’s all we have. Colly and I used to meet for lunch, but even that stopped. No time.” I was working myself into a snit. “Maybe Colly defines friendship this way, but I don’t. I don’t know where she comes from, don’t know where she’s headed or what she dreams. I don’t know her family or her friends, and I don’t want to be in her wedding.”
    “Why did you tell her yes?”
    I had asked myself that dozens of times, kicking myself then and now for not having gently refused when she first asked. Explaining it to Vicki, I squirmed a little. “Because I want close friends, and this is what close friends do, and for whatever reason, Colly was desperate for it. Her specialty is patents, which I don’t understand, so it’s not like we even talk about work. Once the wedding’s over, we’ll probably only see each other at book group. We don’t have much in common”—I grabbed a breath—“which, in a nutshell, describes the friends I’ve made.”
    “Then you haven’t found the right ones.”
    “You’re right. But I’ve been in the city seven years. What’s the problem?”
    Vicki’s eyes spoke for her.
    “Okay. It’s me. I neglect friends, like I neglected you, so relationships never have a chance to develop, which would be fine if I didn’t want them, but I do.” I