She was, Nathan thinks, but still took her calls during dinner. When Shelley started dating and painting and discovering and visualizing the self (“I allow myself to love myself,” “I allow myself to feel beautiful”), Marion said she was disgusted. Her friend’s self-absorption nauseated her, but she wouldn’t tell Shelley how she felt. Marion said to admit that anger would demand a scene, and the scene was impossible, because it would require from her more involvement, more patience, more listening. She said she would end up comforting Shelley, and it would still be only about Shelley, thereby giving Shelley exactly what she wanted: attention. Better to fade angrily away. Nathan feels women are more burdened by obligation than men. So Marion may be, at last, doing her duty by visiting, then confronting, then comforting. But though this is all possible, Nathan still believes his wife has left him.
The last time he saw Marion was their encounter this morning. The girls had left for school. He was reading the Times at the kitchen counter and drinking coffee. He looked to his left, and there was Marion in her nightgown, standing in the door frame. Bare feet. She stared at him and let her fingers curl up. Nathan looked at his wife’s feet; her toes curled down. She must be angry, Nathan thought at the time, and before he fully investigated that thought, considered what could have made his wife angry, he said, “I’ve got a thing in Dumbo today,” and Marion didn’t say, “Fine.” Didn’t say, “Till when?” She said none of the things she usually said when he said he had a thing to do. Instead she stood in the door frame and made and unmade fists.
He’ll avoid talking about Marion to his daughters until he receives verification that he’s been left. He won’t bring her up until he has some idea how long this punishment will last. He’ll pretend that this is normal.
Poor girls, he thinks. Poor women.
Midwestern City
The departure will draw attention, but Marion decided when she began embezzling that she would not be waiting for the police when caught. She prizes her own ability to coordinate, once wasted on PTA functions and her husband’s literary readings. Now she is coordinating her own getaway and she is and will continue to be magnificent.
Marion Palm hoists the $40,000 up and takes her new driver’s license from the front pocket of her knapsack. She sent away for the fake ID and it cost her $300. She bought this fake ID after purchasing a previous one on West Eighth for $70. She’d overheard the high schoolers discussing the operation. However, once she was in the basement of the store, which sold skateboards and bongs, she realized it was a scam for the underaged of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and New Jersey. The lamination of the West Eighth Street ID curled up and the watermark too boldly announced itself. Marion won’t make that mistake again. When it comes to a new identity, it’s best not to go with the bargain.
She still needs to buy her ticket to the midwestern city. She estimates it will be a fifty-hour trip. She chose where she would run away to as she would choose a destination for a family vacation. She read articles in The New York Times travel section and pictured herself at various restaurants, museums, and landmarks. She felt she made a good decision, and she made it sitting at her desk at work.
Marion remembers a movie as she approaches the ticket counter. Cary Grant tries to buy a train ticket from New York to Chicago, and the man behind the counter hesitates to look at a HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? photo of Cary Grant. He’s twisted charmingly to the camera and holds a long knife with an odd grip. Cary Grant must flee the ticket counter and stow himself away on a train, and lucky him, because he gets to have dinner with Eva Marie Saint.
Hitchcock shot the scene at Grand Central. Marion would much prefer to make her escape from that location. She wants to be romantic about it. She wants to wear tortoiseshell sunglasses like Cary Grant and have that be, as a disguise, both sufficient and necessary. Alas, this is not a movie; Grand Central serves only the commuter rail now and so Marion must spend her time in Penn Station. Low-ceilinged, fast-food-smelling, spirit-crushing. It’s a structure seemingly built to make its current occupants question their significant life decisions.
There’s no line at the ticket counter, and only one barred window is marked as open for business. Marion looks into the office behind the window. Two women and a man chat in swivel chairs facing inward. Marion must knock on the Plexiglas behind the bars with her knuckles to get their attention. They all swivel to look at her, and stare. Eventually one of the women rises.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
“Yes, I need to buy a train ticket,” Marion says.
“You can do that at the ticket machine,” the woman says, gesturing vaguely to the great beyond behind Marion.
“Yes, but I’d like to use cash,” Marion says.
“Cash,” the woman says.
“Yes, cash,” Marion says. She pauses. “I left my credit cards at home. By accident.”
“Okay, fine. Hang on.” The woman taps the keyboard next to her and waits, eyes focused on the monitor. Marion believes she’s turning the computer on for the first time that day. The two other Amtrak employees are staring at the interaction in wonder. There is no WANTED picture of Marion; she has not maybe killed a diplomat like Cary Grant. Detectives in fedoras may never ask questions about her whereabouts, but what if they do? There is a whole lot of other people’s money resting between Marion’s calves and ankles. She’s making an impression on the woman behind the counter as well as her friends in the back. She interrupted them, demanded something of them that was unusual. She imagines them describing to the police a nervous, frumpy woman who had $500 in cash but no credit cards, no bank cards, and a dubious ID. They would give a good description of her; there might even be security footage, and a computer record of her destination. The police would be waiting for her train at the midwestern station, ready to read her her rights, put her in handcuffs, and return her to New York City for prosecution, possibly on the same train she came in on. This ticket would be a waste of money.
“Wait,” Marion says. “I just found my card. It was in my pocket.” The woman stops looking at the computer. “I can buy my ticket at the machine.”
The woman throws up her hands in annoyance and returns to her swivel-chair group. Marion stands with her hands flat on the grimy white counter, then looks for her daughters on either side of her. She remembers that they are in Brooklyn while she is in Manhattan. She removes her hands from the counter.
Just Play
Nathan orders a pizza when he notices the hours have passed and Marion still hasn’t called or texted. When Jane asks in the middle of dinner if she can play outside—a request frequently made at this time and usually denied—Nathan says yes, fine, and she leaves with her half-eaten slice in hand; Ginny, surprisingly, follows. Jane works on her slice of pizza, then forgets she holds the slice and carries it like a sheet of paper. Ginny reminds her sister that the slice is her dinner, but Jane is not hungry. The day is now gray and wet, the yellow and orange leaves slick, vibrant, and flat. The leaves adhere to the girls’ shoes and socks. The tree that deposited the leaves stands in the far corner of the backyard, which is long and rectangular and filled with strange unkempt vegetation. When parents and babysitters aren’t looking, the Palm girls climb the tree to peer into their neighbors’ yards for stray cats and other children.
They haven’t climbed the tree today because it’s damp and their father could be watching from the kitchen.