THE ESCAPE OF HER

By Natalie Walsh

CHAPTER ONE

 “All extremes of feeling are allied with madness.” 

― Virginia Woolf, Orlando 

The stale fluorescent lights buzzed like a swarm of flies overhead. The train car rocked back and forth, ever so often suggesting to topple over to one side when there was a turn in the tracks or the wind blew just so. This minute allusion to the possibility of danger was the only excitement on the morning train to New York City, offering a break in the mundane routine of the commuters.

Edward Lufkin was one of those countless commuters who took passage on the 7:14 train into Manhattan Monday through Friday. And every weekend he sat in the uncomfortable upholstered chairs his wife insisted they buy and wished he was sitting in the train car instead. He thought that if he was to be bored with life entirely, at least he should do it moving from one place to another, instead of in the discomfort of his own home. Today he sat by the window, watching the trees pass by at rapid speed, making the world appear to be in watercolor, each image fading into the next. He restlessly moved his gaze from the window to around the train car, an almost identical scene he had witnessed hundreds of times before. He noticed, however, that across the aisle and in a seat facing the opposite direction sat a woman in a slim black dress and perfectly-lined red lipstick. Her long legs were crossed in such a manner that they appeared even longer as she sat upright with pristine posture, taut calves outstretched. She fixed an expression that showed neither disdain nor delight. In fact, it showed nothing at all. A thick book sat perched in her lap, whose title was obstructed from his view. She turned her head ever so slightly to the right so that her gaze was even with Edward’s and looked straight into his eyes. Sheepishly, he wondered whether or not he should look away, but her long, fixed stare seemed to almost challenge him to keep his gaze. As the car bumped along over the patchy ground, he observed the shadow of a grin form at the edges of her lips before returning her attention back to the pages of her book. In that moment he felt an unfamiliar fizzle within his chest. Quite possibly it was the temptation of excitement pulling at him, a feeling he had abandoned long ago when he accepted that his life was and always would be exasperatingly average.

The train skidded to a shrieking halt, and as the muffled voice echoed above, announcing the arrival to Grand Central Terminal, passengers began to thrust their way to the exit. Edward craned his neck to find the woman again, but the bodies, all moving with great determination to the platform, clouded his view. As he stumbled off of the train, he caught a glimpse of stilettos clicking on the cement. His feet seemed to move without any indication to his mind as he trailed behind her, conjuring once more the image of her mischievous red smirk. The stifling hot air of the underground made it hard for him to breathe, or quite possibly it was instead the thrill of her figure moving through the space that made his breath catch in his throat. He followed her into the open air of the morning. His accounting firm required his presence in twenty minutes, yet he continued down the street behind her, weaving in and out of the crowds. 

Vibrant yet colorless the city was in Edward’s eyes; to him, it was simply a place filled with a conglomeration of people moving in different directions with no real purpose or definition, a single mass of rapid migration with no clear outline or shape. But today was the beginning of a different ideation. For today he was not an unidentifiable speck moving like a bee in dedication to its homogenized hive; he was a singular man, with the singular purpose of admiring a woman in a tight black dress who seemed to move through the streets with her own exquisite grace. She was a statuesque beauty juxtaposed against the flushed grey of buildings and faceless people whose characteristics were stone in comparison. He moved down the sidewalk with the utmost determination, yet his mind was in a state of subconsciousness, turning wherever his body carried him. He strode in direction with her, keeping a respectable distance, but not too far so as not to lose her. Suddenly, a man yelling into his cell phone undistinguishable words that made it sound as if he was screaming from underwater walked right in front of Edward to hail a cab. As he awkwardly sidestepped past him, fumbling over his own shoes, Edward saw no trace of the woman, eyes running low to the sidewalk, trying to pick out her honeyed calves amidst the tailored suit trousers. Her absence rustled a moment of alertness, and Edward realized that he was walking up West 68th Street and Columbus, an entire twenty-six blocks and six avenues away from Grand Central with no recollection of how he had gotten there. The chaos of the city had quieted to a steady hum as the hordes of pedestrians seemed to have dispersed all at once and the car horns faded into the trees of the Upper West Side. He spotted her once more, far ahead. He nearly leapt up the sidewalk trying to reach her as she turned right towards the park, stopping after a few buildings, where she was ushered by a doorman and trotted delicately inside. 

“How did it happen?” booming and thick, the voice jolted him back to the frigid metal seat beneath him and the faces staring expectantly. 

The words vibrated off of the walls. He stiffened his posture and drew in a hot, sharp breath. 

“How did what happen?” Edward asked, matching his gaze with that of the man before 

him. 

“How did she die?” He spat. 

The elevator ding woke him from his infatuation for a fleeting moment. He entered through the colossal door into his office that had, from the day he was first given the room, smelled of musty wood and the lingerings of scotch, though he had never himself opened a bottle. It always made him wonder about the man before him that inhabited the space, casting ideas into the air of who he had been, each theory more outlandish than the last. Perhaps he had fancied himself a part-time pilot and perished in a crash, or maybe he fell in love with a woman he met on holiday in Spain and fled his life in New York to be with her. The phone rang with a loud persistence, but Edward could not bring himself to focus on anything but the woman from the train. 

He stared blankly into space, hands moving idly, hours passing him by. The thought of her itched at his brain. Energy built up in his chest, in his arms, his thighs, as if threatening to explode from the inside out. It was a feeling so foreign to his tired body he could hardly sit still. Restlessly, he paced back and forth, shoes marking up the otherwise pristine carpet. Then he sat in his chair rustling through papers without ever attempting to complete any work. Work. A strange thought at a time like this. For nothing in the world seemed to matter to Edward anymore save for the delicate woman with electric red lipstick and silky hair. Nothing in the world seemed to matter save for the feeling that pulsed through his veins at that very moment. The light tick of clock hands sounded like a perpetual scream in the silent office. 

Her sitting there, light streaming in through the window and dancing on the edges of her face--

Train rattling, but she sat still, engulfed in the words on the page--

What could they have said--

These thoughts bounced around in his head until he could take not one more second. Frantically, he stood and rushed out the door, his body so hysterical that his delirious mind was tripping trying to catch up. He thrust himself out of the cab and took up post in front of the building she had gone inside earlier, longing for a glimpse of her to rekindle what she had ignited within him. He watched impatiently people passing by, but no one with thick red lips and sultry eyes came into view. Time seemed to slip away, ticking off the day with each nameless stranger that wasn’t her. Hesitantly, he left his place on the sidewalk and ambled over to the nearest bodega and purchased a pack of cigarettes, a habit from his college days he had sworn off over a decade ago. As he rounded the corner, he nearly collapsed on the pavement when a thin figure passed him swiftly, bumping into his shoulder as they went. 

“Oh, sorry,” the female voice said without so much as a glance in his direction.

He could hear the faintest trace of an accent in her speech before she turned down the street and was gone. She had on the same red lipstick as before, but now wore a navy skirt and white blouse. But it was definitely her, and his skin grew hot as he raced behind, breath shallow in his chest. But she was nowhere to be found, swallowed up by the city. His mind raced as he jerked his head in all directions, certain that he would find her, every fiber in his being screaming that he needed to find her. For when she was not there, when he could not see her, the feeling in his chest, the excitement, the drive, was replaced by a gaping hole that dug its way into the deepest part of him.     

He wandered the streets until the sun dipped below the horizon and the only motion was that of leaves in the wind, dancing under the lamplight. He had never realized, until then, how quiet those streets became on a Wednesday evening. After dusk had settled over the city, he returned to linger outside of her apartment building, his muscles shivering in the crisp air of fall, loneliness biting at the nape of his neck. But he was not alone, no, for he knew she was in there, that building of limestone and brick, a fortress encasing her. She was cooking dinner, he told himself, the television echoing from the living room. The voices of made-up characters and talk show hosts made her not feel so alone. But she was not alone, no, for he was down there, waiting for her in the cold.

“We know that you followed her, Edward,” said the detective, his thick hands spread over the table between them. A ring was stained into the wood on the right side, a mug of overspilled coffee. 

The other man pressed himself nonchalantly against the eggshell wall, arms crossed over his chest. Black wirey hairs stuck out from his pushed-up sleeves like protruding spider legs.  

“We have multiple witnesses who saw you stalking her---”

“Stalk? I didn’t stalk her,” began Edward, the air conditioner humming overhead. 

“You followed her for five days. You waited outside of her apartment building for her. But she didn’t want to talk to you, did she? She didn’t want to know you. So you got angry and---” 

“Why are you home so late?” His wife asked from the sofa across the room, a strange look flashing over her face. 

“I got hungry and stopped for dinner,” he mumbled before sluggishly making his way down the hall, retiring to his bedroom for the rest of the night. 

He lay awake, staring up at the blank ceiling, the silence eating him alive. He conjured the image of her face in the dead air of his room, the curve of her neck, and purse of her lips. With a smile, he wondered what she smelled like, her voice whispering to him, telling him how much she loved him. After hours of fighting off the hand of sleep he finally let it take him, gently closing his eyes, for when he fell into slumber, he knew, he would dream of her.