“How about this one?” Dr. Vincent asked. She wrote the word “escape” in capital letters.
“Escape?” Wendy asked.
“Work equals escape,” Dr. Vincent said, writing this on the pad.
“Well, that’s true,” Shane said, crossing his
arms.
“It is not!” Wendy said, looking from Shane to Dr. Vincent in dismay. “People have to work,” she insisted, realizing her blunder the second the words were out of her mouth. What was she saying? Shane didn’t work. What did it all mean? It was so confusing.
“Work is an Escape,” Dr. Vincent reiterated. “But when you put the letters together, what do you have?”
“E-W. Ew?” Wendy asked.
“We,” Shane said, looking at her like she was stupid.
“That’s right. WE,” Dr. Vincent said. “You don’t want Work to become an Escape from the WE.”
“But it isn’t,” Wendy protested. “Shane and I have rules, and I stick to them. I’m not allowed to be away for more than two weeks. And I never am. I should have stayed in Romania—I shouldn’t even be here right now—but I came back. I did. Didn’t I, Shane? I was only gone for ten days . . .”
“You said you’d be away for three. Max,” Shane said.
Wendy looked to Dr. Vincent for help. “I had to fire the director and hire a new one, and then I had to . . .” She sank into her chair, defeated. How could she possibly explain the whole harrowing process of having to get a new director and work with him? And then the producer had quit in protest, and now she had to go back to take over that position until the new producer (who was finishing another film) could wrap that and show up on their location in, exactly, if everything went according to schedule, four days.
“Just don’t go. I dare you, Wendy,” Shane said the next day, when she was preparing to leave again.
“I have to.”
“Didn’t you hear what Dr. Vincent said? You’re escaping. You’re using your movies—fantasies—to escape from life.”
She could have killed Dr. Vincent then. There was nothing more dangerous, she decided, than a man with a little bit of psychological knowledge, because he would only use it against you. Maybe women were better off before, when men were like Neanderthals, with no understanding of why they did what they did, and no comprehension of why women did things either.
In her defense, she said, “People need fantasies, Shane. If we all looked at the world exactly the way it really is, no one would get out of bed in the morning.”
“That’s just you, Wendy. I can see the world the way it really is. And deal with it.”
This was such an offensive falsehood that Wendy lost it. “That’s only because you don’t have to, Shane. Because my hard work makes it possible for you to live in a little bubble where you never have to do anything you don’t want to do!”
That was it then—it was finally out in the open. This was, Wendy thought, probably the most wounding argument they’d had in their twelve years of marriage. But only because, for once, she hadn’t walked away or lied to him to soothe his ego. Dr. Vincent was right. She had been using work to escape—from Shane!
Jeez. Did she even love him anymore?
How could she? Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t, not after what he was trying to do to her and their family. It was so unbelievable, so low, she could barely allow herself to think about it. And now, sitting in the taxi and looking out the window at the bleak cement landscape (the taxi was just coming out of the Lincoln tunnel into New Jersey), she felt herself flush at the shame and anger of it.
She had known that something was wrong when she was in the airport in Paris on her way home from Romania. It was a tradition that she always came back from a trip with presents, and it was the one part of the journey that she actually looked forward to—buying stuff for the kids because it meant she’d be seeing them soon. She had bought a small canvas rollerboard suitcase to fill with gifts, and wandering around the duty-free shops, she’d tried to call Shane repeatedly. He didn’t answer anywhere—not on his cell phone or at home or even at his parents’ apartment. She tried the kids’ cell phones, but they didn’t answer either. It was four p.m. in Paris, ten a.m. in New York. There was probably some logical explanation—they had gone somewhere. Shopping maybe. Was it possible that Shane didn’t know she was going to be back on Saturday evening? She was quite sure she had told him, but maybe he hadn’t believed her. She had made it a point to phone Shane and the kids at least once a day. Her conversations with Shane were stiff and strained, but that was to be expected; even if they hadn’t had a fight, transatlantic phone calls were impossible, and she’d long ago learned not to read into them—if you did, you made yourself crazy. But when she couldn’t get Shane from the Paris airport, she panicked, dialing him and the kids every ten minutes for the next two hours, right up until she got on the plane and the flight attendant asked her to turn her cell phone off. A sense of dread set in—a fear that stayed with her for the entire seven-hour flight. There had been an accident. Maybe a fire. Perhaps Shane was dead. But something told her it was worse.
(The only thing that could be worse was if something happened to the kids. Please, God. Not that.)
She started dialing their numbers again as soon as the wheels hit the runway at JFK at 8:03 p.m.
Still no answer. Not anywhere.
This was really wrong. She began hyperventilating, lugging her valise and the suitcase down the Jetway and along the frustratingly long, winding passageway that led to the customs area. All she could think about was how she had to get home.
“Anything to declare?” the customs agent asked, looking through her passport.
She smiled hopefully. “No.” Please let me get out of here quickly, she prayed.