You know that moment when you bite into a hot piece of apple pie and your mouth waters and you think the only thing missing is a scoop of vanilla bean then you bite down and discover the apples are hard and the bottom crust is soggy and it makes you think of boarding school and the cafeteria that smelled like fried potatoes and gym socks and you remember the first time the two of you locked eyes over green peas swimming in gravy and you both knew you hated this place with the same intensity and the only things getting you through choir practice and work assignments and boys’ beach and girls’ beach regulations were your lookout friends and the sound of waves and the breeze tickling your earlobes on moonlit runs to the beach and somehow you knew the two of you would never be caught as you dug in your heels and looked for uncracked sand dollars and planned runs into town for soda and cool ranch chips and macadamia nut cookies having their way with ice cream like the two of you when the wind picked up and you pulled your blue hoodies over your heads and leaned in and pretended you were praying for the staff patrolling the walking paths and rustling the trees as you waited for wings to sprout in your backs so you could lift off together and get the hell out and if you got busted you’d sneak out again in search of more sand dollars and breathe the salt air as cold as the apple pie you’re splitting now in this desert dive off Route 66 while you practice your new names and pretend this is more thrilling than the previous escapes and try to forget your marriage right out of high school which wasn’t enough to fend off the boarding school brainwash so you both caved and impressed everyone with your two story house and three car garage and oversized pool and overly animated child who starred in every newsletter leaving out the long stays at his grandmother’s while you drove to beach towns without cul-de-sacs and had margaritas and sped past the town where one of you had an affair but it was only one night so it doesn’t count and the other one did the same back so it doesn’t count because it was the only escape you didn’t plan together and you know it’s your fault your kid doesn’t speak to you anymore because slipping and telling a grown man he was an accident is worse than letting him think he was an accident so you make doubly sure he doesn’t know anything more and doesn’t know about the racetracks or casinos or cars idling in the middle of the night or the fact that you blame everything on that boarding school even though it has nothing to do with this and you’ve slipped so far and gotten in so deep the sound of water is impossible to recall so you try on new names like Coco and Jerome and stare at the plastic wall clock as checkered as your past and pretend this is the greatest escape you’ve ever attempted as the round-shouldered server with the sideways name tag arrives with a sweating tub of ice cream and a chipped nail hovering over the scoop and asks you where you want it and you look across the table and your eyes meet over the collapsed pie and you have to go for it because vanilla bean always makes things better and somehow in spite of the parched exhausted landscape and lack of water at the table you know the two of you will never be caught.
Darlene Eliot lives in California. Her work has appeared in New Flash Fiction Review, Cleaver, Fatal Flaw Lit, Heavy Feather Review, and elsewhere.
