Escape

Simon swiftly descended the thick-carpeted stairs of his apartment building. Just before his foot hit the last step, his wife thrust her head out the door.

“Simon!” she called in a tone that was both jury and executioner.

He hesitated on the last step, muttered under his breath: “Damn. Just when I was about to make a clean break.”

Simon turned on his heels and nearly collided with a young woman on the stairs behind him. He had never seen her in the building before. She was pretty, sort of young for him but a nice smile. She laughed.

“A clean break, huh? Where were you headed off to?”

“A bar,” Simon mumbled, eager to get back up the stairs before his wife’s beak screeched for him once more. “More like an escape than a clean break.”

“Well,” she said with an appraising gaze as Simon squeezed his way past her. “Maybe I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

“What for?”

She smiled again. “Don’t you want someone to escape to?”