“Yeah. Yeah, sorry, Mom, I’m here.”
My parents often called to catch up after their workday ended. I’d stepped outside the office to take the call, pacing for warmth in the chilly November night. Until I noticed a dark figure sitting in the front seat of a car parked down the block. Just sitting there, unmoving. He’d been there for at least fifteen minutes. Watching me.
“I said, how was your weekend? It was Julia’s birthday, right?”
“Yeah. Um, it was good.”
“I hope you two did something nice.”
I hadn’t told them I’d gone to Las Vegas. It felt like a jinx, telling them even that, spreading any aspect of the story further than it needed to go. A family of tourists was walking down the block in an unwieldy amoeba, arguing about the best way to get back to their hotel. I ducked behind them, trying to blend in and get a better look at the figure in the car without his seeing me. We got closer and closer, and finally I could see clear through the window. It was a chauffeur, his cap pulled low over his forehead. Asleep.
“Hey!” One of the kids glared at me. I’d stepped on his heel.
“Shit. Sorry,” I said.
“What?”
“Nothing, Mom. I should go.”
The same thing kept happening all week. The towel hanging crooked when I was sure I’d left it straight. My desk chair spinning in slow circles when I returned from lunch. And a hot flare of panic until I eventually realized the explanation. Julia wiping the toothpaste from her mouth in the morning, leaving the towel askew. Roger pushing past my chair on his way to the bathroom. Chan and his colleagues were businessmen, not thugs. They weren’t going to corner me and press a gun to my head in some dark alley. Whatever they did was going to be more subtle than that.
*
We got to the airport in Las Vegas on Sunday evening for the red-eye home. I stood in front of the departures board. The destination cities were organized alphabetically, and near the end of the list was Vancouver. The flight was leaving a few minutes after ours.
I could do it. I could afford the ticket. I had my passport with me as ID—my British Columbia license had expired a few months earlier—and I had my duffel bag in hand. I’d arrive near midnight, get a room in an airport motel. There was a Greyhound that headed east out of Vancouver in the morning. My hometown sat near the end of the line. I imagined walking into the grocery store, near where the bus dropped me off. Finding my parents in the back, doing inventory or reviewing the accounts at the end of the day. They would be surprised to see me, but maybe not that surprised. I could sleep in my own bed, with the familiar rush of wind through the tall pine trees outside. I could be doing all that tomorrow. It was right within my reach—a chance to run away and pretend this never happened.
“Evan?” Chuck emerged from the airline’s first-class lounge and caught me staring at the board. “They’re calling our flight. Come on, let’s go.”
*
“I’m sorry, hon,” Wanda said. It was Monday morning. I’d gone home to change after the flight, then went straight to Michael’s office. Wanda could probably tell that I was underslept and in desperate need of a shower. I hadn’t had time to wait for Julia to finish hers. “He’s completely jammed today. I can’t fit you in anywhere. You want me to get him a message?”
“You can just tell him that I’d like to see him. Need to see him.”
“What’s it regarding?”
I shook my head. “He’ll know.”
I tried again on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on Thursday. It was the same story. Door shut. Wanda shaking her head. It had been almost a full week since I’d found out, and the knowledge was starting to solidify within me. Telling Julia had done no good. I knew I owed her the truth—I couldn’t just flee to Canada, if only for that reason: the thought of telling her what I’d done over the phone or in an e-mail had made me too sick to go through with it—but she seemed utterly uninterested in it. The sting of her cold reaction only lasted for a few moments. So Julia was in a bitchy mood—I still had bigger problems. I decided to try to use this mess to my advantage. There was more than one way that I could have theoretically discovered the truth. Maybe Chan had let something slip, and I’d put two and two together. I’d show Michael that I knew exactly what he was up to. Show him that I wasn’t so easily duped after all.
Late on Friday afternoon, I tried one more time. Wanda sighed. “I’m sorry, Evan, but you’ll have to wait until Monday. Mr. Casey is about to leave for the weekend.”
“Who is that?” Michael strode into the hallway, pulling on his coat. “Oh, Evan. Wanda, you know you can always send Evan straight in.”
“That’s okay.” I stepped back. “I don’t want to interrupt.”