the escapist

“I’m worried about Tess,” said Janet, lacing a frying pan with melted shortening.

Her husband traced his finger along the line of newspaper print.

“I just…” She sighed, frustrated not with the effort to express herself, but with having to do so unsolicited. “I don’t think it’s natural for a girl her age to write stories about the devil.”

“The what?” Terence was still looking down at the newspaper, but his eyebrows came together encouragingly.
Janet continued,

“What if she brings up something of that nature in her school work? Can you imagine how Ms. Fusz will react?”

Terence looked up. The bags under his eyes distended with incredulity.

Janet moved toward him beseechingly. “You see what I mean?”

“Her teacher’s name is Fuzz?”

“F-u-s-z. Yes, that’s her name. You know, that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Terence sat back, contemplating the mystery. “I just can’t understand that.”

“Six is a tender age.”

“You’d think somewhere along the line, somebody would have wanted to change it.”

“A lot takes shape in these years, particularly in the thought life.”

“At least the pronunciation. It could rhyme with ‘fuse.’”

“What does that say about our parenting? That’s the real question they’ll be asking.”

Terence was silent, meditating. Janet looked at him, her face etched with concern.

“I know I’ve never talked to her about devils. No books, no TV." Her face puckered in consideration. "I don’t think she even has any red clothes,” she murmured.

Terence shook his head. “I mean, think of all the names they changed at Ellis Island. How could they let that slip by?”

With her fingers, Janet pulled apart a log of ground beef and let it drop, sizzling, into the pan.

“I’ve never heard her talk about anything like that, either.” She stared up dolefully at the wallpaper. “If there’s something hidden in her thought life, way deep down, that she broods on constantly but never mentions… But how could it get there?”
She looked at Terence. He had gone back to the newspaper.

The beef flung up juices onto the wallpaper, where it joined the greyed stains of other suppers of the same kind. Tess was six years old, younger than the rest of her first grade class. She was average for height and weight, but being intellectually advanced made her appear undersized. She played nicely when invited, but was alarmingly content to stand by the school wall or under a tree, muttering to herself.

Ms. Fusz had hinted tactfully at analysis. That was a number of weeks ago, before Janet found the devil story on Tess’ bed. It was four pages long, carefully scrawled in her best penmanship. At first, Janet thought it was a folktale that Tess copied from a book. Certain misspelled and unorthodox words made her approach Tess, which she did with all appearance of casual inquiry.

“Tess, what’s this?”

“It’s a story that I wrote.”

“Who wrote it?”

“I did.”

“Why is it about the devil?”

“Because that’s what I thought.”

“You thought about the devil?”

“No.” Tess was coloring a picture. “I thought about Margaret.”

“Margaret?” Janet paged through her mental index, finding no entry of any Margaret. Was it, she wondered, an imaginary friend? Was it the name of an ethereal fiend who whispered in her daughter’s ear?

“The girl in the story,” Tess murmured unwillingly.

Janet looked down at the page; indeed, “Margret” figured prominently. “Yes, okay. But why did you have Margaret talking to the devil?”

“Because that’s what happened.” Tess got up from the table.

“Where are you going?” Janet almost shrieked.

“I’m going to get my other crayons.”

Janet approached Terence.

“Ms. Fusz suggested that analysis might be…”

Terence looked up.

“Analysis?”

“Yes.”

“It might be what?”

“A good idea.”

“For Tess?”

At least, Janet thought, he had forgotten the newspaper. “She just hinted tactfully.”

“She was clear enough that you understood.”

“Of course I understood.”

“Tess writes one little story about the devil and Ms. Fusz thinks she needs a shrink.”

“Ms. Fusz hasn’t seen that story!” Janet cried. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Then what is she talking headshrinkers for?”

“Because Tess is different.”

Terence sat back on the barstool. He threw his hands in the air. “Of course she is! She’s always been.”

“No, Terry. She’s different.”

He looked at her helplessly.

“She’s not like the other kids her age.”

His eyes begged her like a dumb animal.



The next morning, he woke up at three-thirty. For once, he did not reach out for the snooze button; he was groomed, dressed and on the interstate by five. The sun was climbing sluggishly through a filter of clouds, grey and fibrous like the poly-fill that leaked from the corner of their sofa.

He had come to accept, over time, the unpredictable occurrence of whimsical thoughts such as this, and their indication that somewhere within him lurked a fragment of a poet's nature. He was glad to have it; for one thing, It allowed him to connect to his daughter in a way that, he recognized, Janet could not. Janet as he first met her would have, possibly, intuited something significant and philosophical about Tess' story.

He called to mind an image of her in former days, with long hair that fell in waves, the furrow in her brow so cute because it looked out of place on a young, smooth face. He remembered the fine angles of her collarbone that held shadows as if they were pools of water, in the hot afternoons when they sat on a blanket, their eyes desperately clinging to the vague white shapes practicing baseball, so to avoid being caught looking at the other.

The furrow was etched in Janet’s forehead now; the collarbone had effectively disappeared. He drove a truck now, to leave the confusing mutations at home, to hide from panic in nonspecific memories.



The school yard, even full of running children, looked brown and barren in the onset of summer. Janet stood in the parking lot, shielded by a car not her own, and tried to pick out Tess. It was not hard, she thought grimly, seeing the bare shoulders hunched slightly forward, the hair that grew too far over the face, no matter how she tried to keep it cut back. She cringed at the thought of Tess’ eyes staring out from under a curtain of bangs, like a waif in a crowded street. Every month she trimmed them back, chattering hard and bright to Tess about how everyone would now see her friendly smile, impelled by Tess’ grimace to go higher with the scissors; last time she might have cropped them to fuzz, before Terry stopped her. The fringe bristled out from Tess’ scalp for several days before barrettes or hair products could mend the damage.

Janet saw Mrs. Fusz come out from the building. A man joined her at the bottom of the steps. They stood with a manila folder between them, their faces solemn and their mouths tight. Mrs. Fusz stared out at the school yard, the man rifled through the folder on his own. They parted ways, Mrs. Fusz back into the building with the folder in her hands, the man toward the parking lot.

Janet intercepted him as he was unlocking a grey Nissan.

“Excuse me,” she said.

He looked up. His eyes were ringed with the shadows of sleep deprivation, and his moustache was stained with a recent consumption of mustard.

“I…” Janet felt choked by the parental ineptitude that, she was certain, her face must advertise. Nothing, she thought, could sink her any lower. “I saw you talking to Mrs. Fusz.”

The man’s eyes shifted toward the school, then back to her. “Yes?” he said noncommittally.

“I’m Tess’ mother,” Janet told him harshly. He did not blink. “I can’t say I’m surprised she spoke to you, though I’m a little…miffed that she did it without telling me first. Oh,” she felt near to wailing, “maybe it’s for the best. I’m going to be honest, I don’t know what to do. I mean, I’ve done everything I know, and I do know a lot. Believe me, I’ve read so many books; it’s not like I’ve just let this go. But you can’t deny that Tess is special. I mean, in some ways she’s far, far beyond other kids her age. But along with that comes some things that are…unusual. Difficult to handle. To know what to do with. There’s not a book for every single child, is there?”

He had not made a move to say anything back.

“I mean, God!” Janet flung her head back in frustration. “Can you people honestly read a folder of a teacher’s impressions and decide a child is in need of analysis? What if she’s just going through a stage? There’s so much we can’t know about anybody, let alone a child who’s only seven, who might have just had a funny dream or heard a chance remark…”

“Ma’am?” He laid a hand on her arm. The hard callous of his palm arrested her in mid-sentence. “I’m Roy Anistakis. I’m a private investigator.”

“A what?” Janet croaked, aghast.

“A private investigator,” he repeated patiently. “Meredith…Mrs. Fusz…is employing me on a personal matter. The folder we were looking at has to do with my investigation. I don’t know your daughter, if it’s your daughter you were talking about; Mrs. Fusz has never mentioned her to me.”

Janet was at last breathing regularly. She looked up at a lumpy cloud highlighted by the relentless sun, wishing she lived someplace where it rained more often. Somewhere like Seattle or Portland, where people went into coffee shops to wait out the weather and soft music played on the radio.

“Yes,” she said, “it’s my daughter I was talking about. Tess. She’s seven years old, and she’s very…” Janet looked at Roy Anistakis, into his nubilous grey eyes. “Different,” she finished. “She’s different from the other children.”

He smiled. “Well, what kid isn’t?” he said, tossing his hands up carefreely. Her arm felt cold where his hand had left it.

She shook her head, with a sad smile. “It’s not that simple,” she informed him.

“Oh, I don’t think that,” he responded. “I’m a private investigator. I know nothing’s simple.”

“You think it will be, when you’re young,” Janet said, her eyes straying again to locate Tess. “You think you’ve got yourself all ready to handle whatever comes along.”

“It’s the one thing you haven’t thought of that you end up having to handle,” said Roy. “I know. Whatever you get ready for, you never have to deal with.”

“It’s true!” Janet gawked earnestly at him. “I read all about investments when I was in college. I thought, when the time is right, and we’ve saved a little money, I’ll keep my eye on the market, and we’ll buy some savings bonds and get ahead a little. Maybe get into real estate.”

“But you haven’t.”

“No! Just the opposite. My husband drives a truck.”

“Does he.”

“And look around here. There’s no real estate. ConAgra owns all the land. What is there to invest in? But my daughter…” Janet laughed bitterly. “She writes stories about the devil.”

“Does she.”

“Look!” Janet thrust the scrawled pages at him. “She wrote this and my husband doesn’t think it’s anything to worry about. She’s seven years old!” Janet insisted to Roy Anistakis’ impassive face. She was satisfied to see him raise his eyebrows appropriately—not enough to signal a judgment on Tess, whom he did not know, but to indicate recognition of the situation’s distinctiveness.

He ran his eyes down the first page. “Seven years old,” he repeated.

Janet laughed incredulously. “I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that’s normal for a wholesomely raised seven year old girl. And believe me, there are few kids around here who could boast of a better childhood than Tess. I was reading to her when she was six months old. We did flashcards.”

He was nodding intently. Janet saw over his shoulder that the school yard was thinning out. Mothers were departing with their children into the parking lot.

“I have to get Tess,” she sighed.

“Wait.”

He put out a hand to stop her. They stood side by side, facing opposite directions, his hand pressed against the ball of her shoulder. She looked down, finding stiff black hairs on his hand.

“I have to go,” said Janet in monotone.

“I’ll give you a ride,” he said.

“No,” she answered.

“You’ll be okay,” he told her.

“It’s all wrong.” She shook her head impatiently. His hand lingered on her shoulder until she moved beyond his reach.



Terence sat at a counter, tracing his finger in the grease. His coffee was cold, but summoning the waitress would bring an end to the story she was confiding to the line cook through the order window, a story Terence was enjoying, mostly because he was not meant to.

When he was dating Janet, she would have sudden imperative urges that he thrilled to fulfill. One such was a craving for waffle house food: coffee from a Pyrex urn, ketchup on an order of hash browns, English muffins with ancient grape jelly. Terence thought of watching her eat, every bite a lunge that sent her hair swinging across her forehead, while he was completely ignored. It was her and the fork on those occasions; he was there to pay and to record it in memory. When he mentioned that was how it felt, she laughed and began calling him Alice B., though she never explained why.

Occasions like those convinced him that Janet loved him. She would unreservedly expound her ideas to anyone; it was only in front of him that she ate like a hog. Had he ever learned that she was being accompanied to Pizza Heaven by some other guy, he might have gone and bought a gun.

He tried to remember when she had changed. He supposed other men would blame the child as the organ of change, but Terence dismissed that with a smile. When Tess came, Janet was ready with an itemized schedule for the next twenty years. That was her way; he was not surprised by it.

That left him with the consideration that it was he who had changed, but that idea was no more illuminating than the first. He loved her no less. He understood her no more than when they sat side by side at other greasy counters, long ago.

The difference was that he did not long for her, as he used, to be sitting beside him now. He had discovered that it would be no help.

The realization came with no great feeling.

The waitress was going strong still with her story; Terence had kept apprised of it, despite his private reflections. He swallowed the dregs of his coffee.

His cellular phone buzzed against his thigh. The number was not one he recognized.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Tess?”

The waitress and the line cook looked up at him indignantly. Terence slid away from the counter and ambled toward the door, apologetically ducking his head at them.

“What’s up, honey? Where are you?”

“In the principal’s office.”

“Really? What are you doing there?”

“Mommy’s not here yet.”

“She’s not? What…is everything all right? Are you in trouble, honey?”

“No. I’m not in trouble.”

“Then what’s going on?”

“Mommy’s not here, and school’s out.”

Terence looked at his watch. “School’s out. How long have you been waiting?”

“Um…an hour and sixteen minutes.”

Terence pushed through the glass door into the restaurant foyer. He leaned a hand against the window.

“Did they call Mommy?”

“Yes. They called lots of times. Mrs. Fusz already went home. Mrs. Pullman is calling again.”

“Calling Mommy at home?”

“Yes. They said I should call you to come get me.”

“Oh. Oh, honey, I’m in Wyoming.”

“Really? Yeah, I told them you were on a trip. But they said call anyway.”

“Oh, honey.”

“Where are you going? California?”

“No. Oregon, this time.”

“Where?”

“Salem.”

“That’s the capital.”

“Is that right?” Terence caught his fingers drumming on the window. He stopped them. Irritably, he let them start again. Then he put his hand in his mouth and bit down on it.

“Mrs. Pullman hung up. I guess Mommy’s not there still.”

“Do you know where she might be?” Terence waited. “Honey? Tess? Are you still…?”

She came back into his sentence. “Mrs. Dipple says ask if you know any phone numbers of neighbors or friends they should call.”

Who were all these women? Terence thought wildly, and why didn’t they know what to do? He was in Wyoming, and they were there in the same state as his daughter, and his wife.

A cold little thought coursed like a lone goose through his head.

“Let me think.” The neighbors closest down the road were old people; the wife he suspected of alcoholism, and he wouldn’t trust the old man with a female puppy, let alone his daughter. He had no idea who Janet’s friends might be. “Do you have a friend at school you could go home with?”

“All the kids have already…”

“That’s right, that’s right. Let’s see.” He shook his head to clear its gathering storm. “Honey? Tess? I’m going to do this: I’m going to hang up with you for just a minute, and go through my cell phone to find someone who can help. Okay? You can call me back in ten minutes. Okay?”

“Okay. I love you.”



Janet rolled over on the pillow. The black hairs tickled her nose.

“There’s a beautiful irony at work here,” she informed Roy.

He lifted the cigarette from his lips, smiling.

“Do you see it?” she persisted. “You see what I mean?”

He turned his head halfway toward her; his eyes rolled the rest of the way. “You talk too much. You know that?”

She should have been accustomed to his lazy causticism by that time. It still made her wriggle with pleasure, the suppressed discourse knocking about inside her for release.

Roy blew smoke at the ceiling. “Did you see that?” he said, pleased. “I can do rings. Watch.” He did it again.

Janet willed herself to keep silent, fascinated by each moment that she found she could endure without speaking her mind.

“But I can only do it on my back anymore. It used to be part of my act…I was a magician.” He looked for her full attention. “Before the whole private eye thing, I was.”

“Really?” she encouraged him hoarsely.

He passed her the cigarette. “Sure was,” he said. “I played conventions and some Vegas hotels.”

He took the smoke back from Janet, who had held onto it out of courtesy.

“You always think about getting a little farther than you do,” he said. “I kept thinking how was I going to learn escaping. I practiced putting shivs in my heels. That’s what Houdini did. Lock picks in his mouth, wire in his hair. Friend who went to prison showed me how to do it.” He looked over at her again. “You know what I’m talking about? Tanks of water, getting tied up in a trunk.”

Janet nodded vigorously.

“Yeah.” He poised the glowing butt against his lips. “You need money for that.”



Terence sat on the foyer banquette, his elbows on his knees. A group of five elderly people squeezed past him, intent on entering the restaurant abreast. Tess had called him twice; each time he anxiously signed off for another ten-minute interval. There was no one in his address book to call.

It occurred to him very little to wonder where Janet was, after the first shock of her delinquency. If she wasn’t dead or hurt somewhere, then she was all right, and there was, in any case, nothing he could do. It was that incapability he mused on, and on the strange pleasure it gave him. Though he agreed with the office women that the predicament lay on his hands, he found himself foolishly smiling at the thousand miles that separated them.

Who am I? Terence thought incredulously, pulling at the unkempt hair around his ears. What kind of father? What kind of man? But the words, like the responsibility, were impalpable.

It was unthinkable to go back to the motel and watch Nick at Nite, as he had vaguely thought of doing before Tess had called. He could no more do that now than he could, on any other work night, find himself a hooker. Yet he knew many fathers who did so, men who would have twenty numbers to call if their daughters phoned from school to say that their mothers were mysteriously absent.

The cell phone jangled again, twice, before he answered it.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Hi, honey.”

She was quiet, waiting for him to say something.

“How’s it going?” he asked, trying to sound bright.

He heard her sigh with wry good humor. “Mrs. Pullman went home. Mrs. Dipple keeps asking questions about Sesame Street.”

“Sesame Street?”

“She thinks I watch it.”

He gave a wry chuckle. Tess said nothing.

“They still haven’t found Mommy yet, huh?”

“No. I guess you’re pretty far away, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Yeah, sweetie, I’m a long ways away. I can’t come and get you.”

“Yeah. I know.”

They were both quiet for several moments. Terence listened to Tess’ breathing, wondering desperately what she was thinking, unable to say anything more himself. I’m sorry, he thought, hoping it would transmit from his adult mind to the one she would have someday. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Being far away changes love. You don’t know what it’s like, far away, where no one sees you.

She spoke again, this time in an undertone.

“Mrs. Dipple wants to go home,” she said.

“Yeah,” he hoarsely croaked.

“Well,” said Tess, “she makes good brownies. She brings them to all the classes on Valentine’s Day.” She paused for several moments. “’Cause I guess I’ll go to her house, if Mommy doesn’t get here.”

“You will? I mean, you think she’ll…”

“I don’t know. She took Greg Hoffmann to the hospital when his mom got in a car crash.”

A designated collector for the school strays, Terence thought. He pictured himself spreading his hands in helpless apology before a woman wielding a chocolate-stained spatula.

“They asked if our neighbors could help,” said Tess, “but I’m not going over there.”

“What? Why not?”

“I don’t like them. Mrs. Baxter is mean and Mr. Baxter is funny. I decided if they try to take me there I’ll throw a fit.”

“Tess,” said Terence admiringly, “you’re the smartest girl I know.”

“Mommy’s friend said that, too. Do you think I should be a doctor?”

“Sure. You should be anything you want.”

A gang of flannelled truckers barreled into the foyer, pushing each other and barking laughter.

“What’s that noise? Where are you?”

“I’m in a restaurant. I was having some coffee when you called.”

“In Wyoming?”

“Yes. It’s dinner time now so everyone is coming in.”

“Is it a trucker stop?”

“A…yes, it’s a truck stop. How did you know that?”

“I just guessed. We were shopping last night, and we drove past a restaurant, and it said they had French toast special, and I wanted to eat dinner there, but Mommy said no, it was a trucker stop, and you can’t have French toast for dinner, only for breakfast.”

“Well, Mommy was wrong,” said Terence, watching through the glass as the truckers bandied with the waitress. “You can have anything you want any time of day.”

“Really?”

“If you were here,” he said, “eating dinner with me, you could have French toast.”

“What would you have?”

“Chicken soup and meatloaf.”

“I’m hungry,” said Tess.

“Well, soon you’ll be having delicious brownies.” He immediately hated himself for saying it.

“Do you think Mommy’s okay?”

He could not speak.

“They were whispering before Mrs. Pullman left, and they called the hospital.”

“Really? Did it sound like...” He stopped, wondering how he could think of asking his daughter to gauge the likelihood that her mother was to be found in the hospital. “I’m sure she’s fine.” There was simply no alternative to offer.

“Do you think I could be a magician?”

“What?”

“You have to be smart for that too, don’t you?”

“Sure. Really smart.”

“I learned a magic trick. I can show you when you come home.”

“How did you learn that?”

“Mommy’s friend showed it to me. When are you…”

He heard a muffle of commotion on her end of the line. Her voice came back after a moment.

“Mommy’s here!” she crowed. “Oh, I gotta go. Wait. Do you want to talk to her?”

Terence found his voice. “Does she look okay?”

“Yeah. I think so. Mrs. Dipple’s talking to her now.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “That’s okay. I’ll talk to her after you get home. I’m glad you’re okay now, honey.”

“Yeah. I love you. Whoa, Mrs. Dipple just yelled. Okay, I love you, Daddy. Bye.”

Dark had fallen around the glass walls of the foyer. Dion and the Belmonts issued plaintively from the jukebox against the far wall. Terence bought a pack of Kool Lights from the vending machine and, when he returned to the motel, changed to a smoking room. He burned determinedly through the pack, one by one, staring at the shades of grey on the silent television screen--Rob Petrie shouted with muted fury as Laura flung her skinny arms about. He ought to break one of those skinny arms, Terence thought, snap it like a matchstick, it would be so easy, and then no need to shout anymore. He smiled at his own assurance, stabbing the cigarette into the ashtray. He ought to have taken the phone to Janet when Mrs. Dipple was through with her. A man's home should not be compromised while he was away, providing for it. Clearly, it was time he commanded her full attention.