The Exceptions

THREE


I keep my promise. I pull next to the rusty overhang at the front of the motel. But now I am fueled, less interested in strategy than in battle; Peter would be proud. A small part of me would love to get face-to-face with her marshal—Sean, the lethargic superhero—and put a finger to his chest and a fist to his head, command him to protect her life like his own.

I decide to in-your-face this entire scene: I park my car sideways and block anyone else from driving through the entryway, display the Audi like the only ripe tomato in a struggling Delmarva crop. Then I put the top down and my sunglasses on.

I keep the engine running and watch the path Melody would walk, my eyes so fixed on any movement near the corner of the building that I can’t even distract myself with lighting a smoke.

Of the five minutes I told her to wait, four have passed and my heart starts pounding harder. I can’t help but consider going back to her room, throwing her over my shoulder and tossing her in the car, taking her somewhere more suited to explaining the whole story; after all, of all the hardware in my toolbox, force has been a chrome Craftsman. But it would be so much more powerful if she makes the choice on her own.

And so I stare and hope and pray. If there are other sounds, other cars passing up and down Route 13, I don’t acknowledge them. A storm could be rising behind me: federal agents carefully slipping between parked cars and placing the back of my head in the crosshairs of their rifle scopes; the charge of another marshal as he winds up his arm in preparation to pistol-whip me; the surge of tires over gravel from an Impala with New York plates, then the sluggish exit of crew members, the tap on my shoulder and ruffling of my hair as someone mutters, “We’ll take it from here, Johnny.”

The fifth minute ends, departs like a train rolling down a dusty track, slowly vanishing out of sight. Can’t help but think it’s a real shame she didn’t make it to the station on time.

Though it appears her decision has been made, I refuse to give up. As much as common sense would suggest I throw the car in gear and return to New York, I’m stuck. In the sixth minute, I repeatedly think, C’mon, Melody. In the seventh minute, I start whispering it.

But in the eighth:

Melody walks around the corner, her hands in her pockets again, bottom lip tightly clenched between her teeth. She keeps looking back and around and over her shoulder like a kid about to make her first drug buy. As she slowly draws closer, I try to avoid smiling, but no amount of strength can prevent it; it feels silly when it happens. This must be how a man unsure of his lover’s affection feels when his offer of marriage is tearfully accepted. She chose me.

Melody approaches like a child having just been offered a piece of candy by a lurking stranger. The closer she gets the more confused she looks. She stops about ten feet away. Though I expect her first words to be you better not hurt me or I demand to know what’s going on, she pops this fly:

“Why not just paint a target on the back?”

The steadiness in her voice surprises me, suggests she’s been transported so many times under such terrifying conditions that I am nothing more than a new driver. I wave her closer.

“Meaning what?”

She doesn’t budge. “Meaning I cannot think of a more conspicuous way for you to get me out of here.” Read: You’re an amateur and we don’t stand a chance.

“What do I care?” I say. “I’ve committed no crime.” Except, of course, the breaking and entering thing. I clarify. “At least none that would concern the pukemeister back there. And let’s be clear: I’m not holding a gun to your head or a knife to your throat. You’re coming willingly.”

She chuckles as though my stab at wangling her with semantics pales in comparison to the manipulation she’s received from the government. “You kidding? The gun or knife is implied, Jonathan.”

“I specifically told you I would not hurt you.”

“And I specifically told you I perceive you to be a manipulative liar.”

Still going through the hatred phase, I see. Though I’m now getting the sense she’s forcing it. She may say I’m a liar, but as she finally steps a little closer, I can tell Melody wants to know what it is she’d be giving up. She inches toward the car, and once having finally reached it, places her hand on the frame of the passenger door, looks over the interior like a dieter staring down a hot fudge sundae.

“Besides,” she says, letting her eyes eventually make their way to mine, “you did have a knife to my throat not too long ago, remember?”

“You mean this?” I reach into my pocket and pull out the pen I’d put to her neck. She stares at the Montblanc, cocks her head as though thinking, It did sorta feel like a pen instead of a knife. When I was a middle schooler, Tommy Fingers taught me the art of staying fully armed without carrying a single weapon, achieved by way of everyday things that can cause immense damage—paper clips, pens, a roll of coins, even dental floss. You can wipe someone out, and when the cops arrive they find nothing incriminating on you. Should the marshal have surprised me last night, the last thing I’d have wanted him to shake out of my jacket was a traditional weapon.

I try to capitalize on her doubt. “Hop in,” I say, and smile a little, try to suggest that everything is going to be okay, except I’m thinking, C’mon-c’mon-c’mon-get-in-the-friggin’-car-let’s-go.

She bites her lip again, looks over her shoulder, makes one last attempt to find that fence upon which to perch herself, hoping to size up the other option and what it might have to offer. But she exhales long and hard, like she’s uncertain as to the quality of either product. Then, without seeing her hand, I hear the latch of the passenger door quietly click as she opens it. And though she’s still looking over her shoulder, I’m hoping it’s because she wants to make sure we can make a clean getaway.

She slides down onto the passenger seat slowly, wiggles her lower body into place like she’s trying to slip into a pair of tight pants. She reaches over and gently closes the door, rolls her shoulders and rubs her bare arms.

“I’m not really dressed for riding with the top down.” She turns to look at me. “I mean, you’re wearing a sweater and a jacket.”

Her words are phrased in such a way that she is not asking me to put the top back up. Maybe she thinks having the top down will preserve the possibility of being seen and rescued by the feds. Or maybe she just wants to feel the freedom of riding out in the open, of feeling the wind whip around her, of not being protected.

“Wait,” I say, reaching behind her seat and nodding toward the bridge-tunnel, “I crossed over that monster last night, picked up some clothes for you. I figured you weren’t going to have much.” I hand her a shopping bag—three more are in the trunk—and she peeks inside before she accepts it.

I know I need to get us away from this motel—the urgency is still buried in my gut—but with her by my side, I am foolishly pulled from concern, feel like I am adrift on the water like a castaway. Melody gently places the bag in her lap, turns to me and stares.

She’s the first woman to corner me like this, to make me feel like I need to fill the gap in silence. “I hope these are your style.” How do you like that clever gift of conversation? She says nothing, glances in the bag again. “I was guessing you were maybe a size six?” Yes, nicely played—especially if it turns out she’s now smaller than a six and I’ve implied she’s heavier. Apparently, I do not have the magnetism that Sean has, am missing the gravity that might bring a kiss to my cheek.

She looks inside the bag as though a dead fish were at the bottom, does not pull anything out. “You… bought me clothes?”

Happy to have her in the conversation, I quickly respond with a flood of useless information: “Yeah, Norfolk’s right on the other side, maybe an hour or so from here. I did a little power-shopping last night. For you, I mean. To get you clothes. And stuff.”

She widens the opening of the bag, and as she studies its contents, she does that thing: She reaches up and runs her fingers around the edge of her hairline, as though trying to tuck imaginary hair behind her ears—the hair was there hours ago, so recently removed it must feel like a phantom limb—and it looks like she’s doing nothing more than tracing the outline of her ears. I hate that there is nothing for her to tuck; I fear she may one day stop doing it. I find her delicate motion a selfish, if not guilty, pleasure.

And with that, she slowly reaches in, selects the dark green sweater, stares at it for what feels like a time longer than if she’d seen it in the store herself. Then she brings it to her face, closes her eyes, rubs it against her cheek and inhales a breath of cotton.

Maybe it’s the lack of sleep or the torrent of action over the last couple days, maybe it’s my fear of Melody being hurt or my narrow capacity to prevent it, but somehow emotion slips inside me, possesses my body like a demon. We should be long gone, but I can’t take my eyes off of her, can’t move. I’m staring to the point of rudeness. And then I make the ultimate mistake by saying what I’m thinking.

“It matches your eyes.”

The problem is this: Her eyes are still closed. She would never imagine how I have them memorized like a poem. The color was what made them memorable, but not in the way you’d notice someone with “bright blue” or “wild green” or “rich brown” eyes; hers are a vague composite, a mixture crafted from a painter’s palette. But the intensity of her irises, the dark circle at the edges, the marbled swirl of color, had me forever lost in them. Sometimes the most beautiful and breathtaking objects are those lacking vibrant colors at all, like a fresh snow-covered landscape; not everyone has eyes of autumn leaves and Caribbean waters. And so it is here my words betrayed me. True, anyone could have—would have—noticed the glow and hue within moments of meeting her, but I have revealed something more. She and I both detect the oddness of my words the second they pass my lips.

She pulls the sweater from her face, opens her eyes but avoids eye contact. “You’ve seen me for just a few minutes of my life and you know my dress size and the color of my eyes?”

I can’t read her words, can’t determine if she is flattered or creeped out. In either case, it wakes me up, has me shoving the car in gear and the wheels in motion at a speed high enough that precludes jumping out. “I got you a bunch more stuff in the trunk, but we gotta get out of here.”

I pull onto Route 13, whip an illegal U-turn, and within seconds we’re driving northbound at sixty miles an hour. Melody shifts lower in the seat and drags the sweater across her torso like a blanket. She covers her face with her hands and shakes her head, a series of motions that could only be translated as what am I doing? I’m glad she’s taken the risk to trust me, and though she might be fearing what the feds will infer if they find out she willingly left with me, it would have to be slight compared to their finding out how she manipulated the program for her personal benefit.

The sound of the concrete under my racing wheels acts as a buffer to our talking. The air is still moist and thick, will have us feeling dirty when we finally stop. We drive for a few miles before Melody assembles the confidence or curiosity to glance at me, and even then it is only for a second before she looks away. A mile later, she glances again, her eyes lingering longer. She repeats this as I drive, each time her gaze staying upon me with greater time, greater boldness. We are no more than ten miles north of Cape Charles and she is now officially staring at me.

I try not to look her way, but the harder I try the more impossible it becomes. I meet her eyes and smile, take my hand off the stick and wipe my forehead, reach under the seat and pull out my CD case, hand it to her. “Pick anything you can listen to at top volume,” I say, hoping to avoid the silence, the space between us that can only be filled with explanation; I want her to relax before I unload.

But as she unzips the pouch, I realize I’ve made a second critical mistake. She says, “What do we have here? Bach? Mozart?”

Hardly. It’s like the friggin’ Melody Grace McCartney funpack. How freaked will she be when she sees a collection of her favorites? Tipped off to her purchases at Best Buy so long ago, I moved from one band to another, inadvertently associated similar artists, likely mirrored her library.

She flips through the collection, studies each disc, slows with each one. “You’re a… pretty mellow guy.”

I shrug, need a cig. “I have my moments.”

She frowns, keeps turning the pages. “We have surprisingly similar tastes.”

Just one of many surprises to come. She pulls out Hot Fuss by the Killers and waves it in front of me. “Funny,” I say as I jam it in the CD player.

The car screams up the road, a perfect line to the north, and when I tell her of my plan, I hope it’s the only thing screaming. Mr. Brightside I’m not.

Miles pass and so do the tracks. By the time “Somebody Told Me” finishes, it feels like I should be talking myself, that enlightenment on her situation should be forthcoming, that the clean getaway has been achieved and it’s time to move on. “All These Things That I’ve Done” ends and Melody stares into the distance, appears lost in disbelief. I know my delay in explaining is going to create a forest of doubt I’ll spend the remainder of this journey axing down. Her imagination is likely producing more terrifying tales than what the future actually holds.

I think.

Even though awkwardness is present, like a passenger in the backseat, I waste tracks six, seven, and eight. Melody seems lost now, props her elbow on the edge of the door and rests her head on it.

I edit the formulated words in my head—a succinct retelling of why I am here, how I have watched over her, how I am watching over her now, how I will set her free to live her life by her own design. “Believe Me, Natalie” begins. And as I drop my speed, turn to her now that we’re well distanced from Cape Charles, all deep-breathed and ready to tell her everything, I see she’s fallen asleep.

And now it’s my turn to stare. I spend more time looking at her than I do the road before me. Her head rests back and to the side, her hands positioned across her chest holding the sweater in place, her feet tucked together under the dash and her legs cocked sideways. It feels like I’ve taken a girlfriend for a country ride. I get a flash of her and me at the ages our lives first became entangled, me at ten and she at six, imagine for a moment that we’d grown up down the street from one another, the girl and boy next door, realized we’d been in love all our lives, and now we’re making a far more innocent escape together.

I turn the music down, even though so many other things might have brought her out of sleep—stoplights, sirens, loud trucks; she’s out cold. “Everything Will Be Alright” ends, and so does the disc. I turn the stereo off.

I merge back onto Route 50, begin driving west toward Annapolis, where shortly thereafter I will wind my way to I-95 and begin the journey to New York. The clean, smooth pavement and stretches of highway deliver a constant white noise that helps keep Melody asleep. When I’m not noticing her I’m practicing my words, getting it down to a rhythm, sharpening their meaning and effectiveness. I run through the routine a few times before I get lost in looking at Melody again. With her hair so short, all choppy-edged and irregularly colored, I take in the entire shape of her face. Her smoothly chiseled jawline, the delicate shape of her ears, the lonely empty hole at the bottom of her lobe, the widow’s peak at the top of her hairline, a face so soft and appealing and blemish-free it could hardly matter what happened to her hair. Someday far from this moment, after I have set her free to be herself and she has opened her life to another person, some man will get lost in her, look in her eyes and hear not a single word she is saying, he will pull her to his chest in bed and lightly stroke the skin of her face and wonder, What could I have done to deserve her, and he will whisper in her ear, I will never leave you. I will love you forever.

Until then, I have to open her cage and shake it a little or she’s never going to fly.