The Escape Artist

A Short Story

THE ESCAPE ARTIST

Wendy Dewar Hughes

Just a little bit more. If Laura could stretch just a little bit farther, she wouldn’t have to get down off the ladder and move the thing. One more flick of the brush on the inside of this window would do it, she thought, leaning far out over the top of the stepladder, and then she could go home.

At the same moment Laura twisted her wrist to put the final curlicue on the end of a sprig of holly, a figure appeared in the window. That’s all it took to make her lose her concentration . . . and her balance. The ladder teetered and tilted. The jar of paint slid off the ladder’s shelf and crashed to the floor spraying Christmas green in a goopy fan on the store’s pale floor tiles. Laura’s arms windmilled backwards but it didn’t help. She was going over and in about a half second would land face first in a bulk bin of dog food.

Suddenly, the door flew open and a figure leapt through it, lunging into the line of Laura’s descent. He threw his arms open wide, catching her in mid-air but the paint on the floor was his undoing. As her weight hit his body, his feet slipped out from beneath him and the two of them crashed to the floor in the pool of sticky, green paint. The ladder clattered to the floor beside them.

“Umph!” Laura grunted when she had stopped flying. She lay on top of the stranger who stared up at her with the brownest eyes she had ever seen. His thick brown hair had already begun soaking up green paint.

“Ouch,” he said, blinking. “I think I’ve broken my head.”

Laura tried to push away from him but started to laugh. Her hand slipped in the paint and she rolled away, ending up on her back in the paint puddle, her long chestnut hair sticking in the paint.

“Are you sure?” she said, looking sideways at him. “It doesn’t look broken to me. It is beginning to look a little green, though.”

“I didn’t expect you to be so heavy,” the man said, pushing up to a sitting position. “Oh, wait. Wrong thing to say. What I meant was, gosh, I’m getting weak. I have got to eat more protein.” 

“I was thinking the same thing,” she said scrambling to her feet and gingerly stepping out of the paint puddle. Her shoes left green tracks on the pale grey tiles. She stretched out a hand to help him up. “Laura Dunsmore. Thanks for breaking my fall.”

The man gripped her paint-slicked hand and leapt to his feet. “Pleased to meet you. Gareth McTavish, the gallant, obviously.”

“Gallant and green, I’d say,” Laura observed. “You’re a mess.”

Gareth bent in an extravagant bow, sweeping his fingertips through the paint at his feet and dragging them across his cheeks. “There! A gentleman and a highlander,” he said. “Why don’t you let me clean this mess up?”

Store manager Fred Morgan walked up the aisle between the rows of bale twine and the sacks of water softener salt. “What on earth happened here?” he said, scowling at the mess of paint splashed across the front of the store.

“Sorry, Fred,” Laura said. “I fell off the ladder and this man charged through the door just in time to keep me from nose-diving into the dog food. If you’ll point me toward a mop and bucket, I’ll get it cleaned up before you’re ready to close.”

Without a word, Fred twisted his torso and pointed a meaty finger toward the back of the store. “You might as well help too, Gareth. I won’t say that stunts like this happen every day but often enough. If you’re going to manage this place you might as well jump in at the deep end.”