The Escape

“Why are you wearing these ugly shoes?”
“What other shoes should I wear? You picked them out yourself for my 52nd birthday.”
Margaux Belford is a middle-aged woman. Nothing delights her more than criticizing the quotidian habits of her family.
“All I’m saying is…you wear the same shoes every day.”
“What’s wrong with my shoes?” Does she simply lack anything else to say?
Margaux lives comfortably. Her daily routine is the same as of every other Mrs. in her neighborhood and entails exercising in the gym, coffee with friends, and attending the occasional charity event. No, these are not the people with vacation homes in the Hamptons but those whose life achievement is to pay off a reasonably looking Dutch colonial in a decent neighborhood and the private school tuition of three kids. It’s a matter of Vineyard Vines versus Ralph Lauren.
On November 2, 2008, Margaux gave birth to beautiful twins, Jennie and Michael. With her duties preformed, Margaux retired to a lifestyle of leggings and power jogs, leaving the rest to her nanny. Her greatest pleasures in life -- the rack of Jimmy Choos in her walk-in closet, lunch, and “social catch-up” with her friends, and, of course, the Parents Association.
John Belford, her husband, works in a law firm. In his prime, he had a full head of sandy blond hair. Currently, he sports a bald spot and an above-average BMW. Margaux rarely gets to see him. He leaves the house early in the morning and comes home at 11 p.m. The only trace of his existence are the money that appear in their bank account every year. Nothing special, but he was Margaux’s best bet. She attended a well-thought-of private school growing up. However, achieving mediocre grades, her most impressive college offer came from a second-tier college. Her husband went to Berkley as a member of their lacrosse team. He wasn’t really an exceptional student either but being pressured by the expectations for men of his circle, he was able to scrape something together.
John woke up this morning at 5:05 a.m., after having slept only five hours. He was probably ruminating over how to pay the two million dollar loan of a house he can’t afford. Strangely, Margaux was up too.
“Not an hour of peace in this house,” he retorted to her question about the shoes.
“Why are you being so defensive? I just want to know.”
“Listen, I don’t’ have time for this. Make sure you drop the kids off at school.”
She didn’t respond. “Disgusting,” she thought, defensively. She felt like a balloon, suddenly deflated by a blithe toddler. Her husband had a point. Though how could she admit it? Margaux was like a fruit fly loitering from apple to banana, sucking out the sugar of fruits that somebody else left out.
Margaux positioned her sunglasses, opened the rear door of the BMW and thrust the children inside.
“This old man is nothing like the man I married,” she explained to them. “He’s so boring, the same wretched shoes every day. Drop off the kids. Go on a jog. That’s all I ever do. Drop off the kids and go on jogs.”
With her foot gently pressing on the gas pedal, the car moved steadily along the interminable 22nd Street. She stared at the rapidly moving road line segments. One after the other, they darted under the belly of the car. Only to be regurgitated back onto the black tar, into the everlasting cycle of centerlines. What purpose do they serve anyway? “Why isn't the whole road painted black?” she thought. On May 18, 2014 at exactly 8:01 A.M., Margaux Belford dropped the kids off at school. However, this time she will not be returning to pick them up.
Margaux stamped on the pedal of the BMW, awakening the 525 horsepower beast of an engine. She hit the highway. How the ladies who lunch would react if they caught word of her caper, what her husband would say, what the neighbors would think? None of these questions really concerned her. It was just Margaux and the open road. She cruised along I 495. Windows down. Prada off, she stared bluntly into the naked sun.
Margaux took a breath. Above her, a gaggle of geese, travelling in a perfect delta, obstructed the watchful eye of the sun for an instant. Geese always reach their destination on time. Their uniform, slender bodies scathe the sky with seamless grace. Every year, from Canada to the U.S., the gaggle undertakes its continental voyage. Never alone, always together, always on time, in a flawless delta, a herd. Eight puny little brains solely programmed for survival.
The lack of individuality irritated Margaux. However, strangely enough, she felt comforted by the geese’s organized existence and ability to survive. She pulled down the sun visor.
Up ahead, she descried a man sitting in the arm of the highway. He thrust a soiled thumbs-up in hopes for a ride. She examined his rags: a torn, white polo shirt underneath a worn-out brown parka, a pair of jeans once fitting perfectly, now two sizes too big. His wrinkled face showing traces of misery and destitution. As the car rolled by, she gazed into his green eyes. No trace of regret. Margaux’s mind drifted back to her college years. He looked like someone who had been a decent boy from a good family but who never focused in college. Indulging himself at wild frat parties, chasing after all the girls, only to be passed out for half his lectures the next morning. Heedless to anything but the palpitations of his heart, he had neither a wife nor a job offer at graduation. Suddenly, the atmosphere in the car felt lighter and chillier.
“What a wasted life,” she thought, shuddering. The life of a pampered, party-centric college boy was all too familiar to her. She knew she had dodged a bullet.
Regaining consciousness of the road, Margaux suddenly became aware of the lane she was in. She was driving amidst a pack of bikers on Harleys,  middle-aged men accelerating their bikes with levelheaded finesse. Not even a glance. They concentrated their darkly-spectacled eyes solely on the road ahead. There was a distinctive taste forming in Margaux’s mouth, a juicy New York strip. Something about the bikers felt so delicious…and liberating. “Enough,” she thought. The kids, the husband, the geese. She was only certain of her ineluctable need to leave.  VVVVVVV. Without the slightest hesitation, the left driver’s window of the BMW disappeared into the body of the car.
“Hey, give me your bike!” She cried. The motorcyclist slowly twisted his head towards her. His stolid visage addressed her directly.
“I’ll give you my car!” She screamed. He pulled over and so did the rest of the gang. The wordless exchange complete, Margaux mounted the Harley, kick-started the engine, and the gang was off.
She had never felt so furiously free. Margaux pronated the clutch, accelerating the motorcycle to full speed; she left the gang behind her. The highway was empty. It was just her and the open road.
“Good riddance,” Margaux thought. She had finally detached herself from her boring life. A sharp sensation suddenly coursed through her veins -- pain, a silky bullet straight in the heart.
Where was she going? She was still Margaux Belford, a mediocre person, with the independence and worth of a goose…and her meaningless existence. Was she about to become another homeless person on the side of the road? After all, she had no money under her name. Sacrifice, sacrifice…all for the stupid demi-mansion and the ladies who lunch. “But am I really capable of more?” Somehow, Margaux was not able to reconcile her feelings of emptiness and miniaturization. Were the ladies who lunch and her husband to blame? Margaux rode somberly through a mist of nothingness.