Chapter 6 Chapter 6 Escape

As the wedding was about to begin, Valerie's mother walked up to Andrew, dusted him on the shoulder, and whispered into his ear: "My God, Ben! You are proof that you can achieve your goals if you persevere. I remember when you courted my daughter when you were sixteen...I don't think you had even a thousand chances of success. But today, we're all in church!" Now Andrew fully understood why his future wife wanted to leave their parents' house so much. Today Valerie is more beautiful than ever.She was wearing an elegant and low-key white dress, and her hair was coiled up under a small white hat.This looks a lot like how Pan Am flight attendants used to dress, although the hats are blue.Valerie's father led her to the altar, where Andrew was waiting for her.She smiled at Andrew lovingly.

The pastor gave a very wonderful testimony, and Andrew was very moved. They exchanged vows and rings, kissed each other long and walked out of the church to the applause of the bride's parents, Colette and Simon.Andrew couldn't help but look up at the sky, imagining his parents were looking at him too. The newlyweds walked along the park path outside St. Luke's Church with their relatives and friends.The rose bushes were blooming, the tulips were colorful, the weather was fine, Valerie was radiant, and Andrew was full of happiness. Yes, blissfully, until he got to Hudson Street and saw a woman's face through the window of a black 4x4 parked at a traffic light.A woman who he might not be able to recognize if he met again, this woman just came to the church to watch the service, and she was the one who chatted with Andrew inadvertently in the bar in Tribeca that night.

Andrew's throat tightened, and he suddenly wanted to have another glass of Fernet-Coke, even though it was just after noon. "Are you okay?" Valerie asked worriedly, "Your face turned pale all of a sudden." "Just a little excited," Andrew replied. Andrew felt his heart tighten. He was almost sure that the strange woman in Novi Sando had just smiled at him. "You hurt me," Valerie snorted. "You're holding my hand too hard." "Forgive me." Andrew let go of his hand after speaking. "If only the celebrations for the rest of the day were over, I just want to go home, just the two of us," she sighed.

"You are a woman full of surprises, Valerie Lancer." "Stillman!" she interjected, "Why am I a woman full of surprises?" "I don't know any other woman who wants her wedding day to go by as quickly as possible. When I proposed to you, I imagined you probably wanted a big wedding, surrounded by two hundred guests, and you toasted them one by one, Your cousins, cousins, uncles, aunts, everyone wants to share the memories of the past with you, and I don't know about it. I am afraid of this day. And now, we Just six people, standing on this sidewalk."

"You should have told me sooner, and I can assure you that I have always dreamed of a wedding that was limited to friends and family. I wanted to be your wife, not Cinderella at the ball." "Both are not incompatible..." "You regret it a little?" "No, not at all." Andrew said, looking far away on Hudson Street. The fourth lie. They had dinner at the best Chinese restaurant in New York.Mr. Zhou's restaurant dishes are exquisite and quite new among Asian restaurants.There was a great atmosphere during the dinner, as Colette and Simon chatted with Valerie's parents.Andrew rarely speaks, and his wife noticed that he seemed a little absent-minded today.

In the end Valerie declined her father's invitation to celebrate the day elsewhere.When her father complained about not being able to dance with his daughter, she apologized to him, explaining that she really wanted to be alone with her husband. Valerie's father put his arms around Andrew and hugged him tightly. "You'd better make her happy, my old friend," he whispered into Andrew's ear, "or I won't let you go," he added, half-jokingly. It was nearly midnight when the taxi took the couple back to Valerie's apartment downstairs.In order to wait for Andrew in the corridor, she left him far behind when she went up the stairs.

"Why, what happened?" Andrew asked while looking for the key in his pocket. "You have to hold me across the threshold with both hands, before I hit my head." She smiled slyly. "You see that you still value certain customs." Andrew replied while obeying. Valerie threw all her undressed clothes in the middle of the living room, and then she unbuttoned her bra and pulled her panties down her thighs.She slowly approached Andrew, completely naked, she loosened his tie for Andrew, unbuttoned his shirt, and put her hands on his chest. Clinging tightly to Andrew's body, she slid her fingers to the belt around her waist, loosened the loops of the belt, and opened the buckle.

Andrew grabbed her hands, stroked her cheeks tenderly, and led her to the sofa bed.Then he knelt in front of her, put his head on her lap, and started sobbing. "What's wrong with you?" Valerie asked, "You look so strange today." "I'm sorry." Andrew said looking up. "If something is not going well, if you have financial or work problems, you should tell me, you can tell me anything." Andrew took a deep breath. "You made me swear to never lie to you, never betray you, remember? You made me swear not to talk to you in a roundabout way, if one day something changes."

Tears welled up in Valerie's eyes, and she looked at Andrew without saying a word. "You are my best friend, my best friend, the woman I feel closest to..." "We... we got married today, Andrew," sobbed Valerie. "I sincerely beg you to forgive me for doing the worst thing a man can do to a woman." "You have someone else?" "Yes, no, just a phantom...but it's something I've never felt before." "Have you been waiting for us to get married before confirming that you are in love with someone else?" "I love you, I know I love you, but not that kind of love. I'm a coward to admit it to myself, to tell you. I don't have the guts to call off the wedding. Your parents have come from Florida, Your best friend is coming from New Orleans, and the investigation I've put so much energy into for months has finally become an obsession. I can't think of anything else, I'm lost on the road. I think Chase away my doubts, which I would love to do."

"Stop it," Valerie murmured. She closed her eyes, and Andrew's gaze was drawn to her twisting hands, the nails of which had turned white. "I beg you, stop talking. Go. Go to your own house, or wherever you want to go, but don't stay here. Get out of my apartment." Andrew wanted to take a step closer to her, and Valerie took a step back.She stepped back into her bedroom, closing the door softly behind her. A sad night with a drizzle.Andrew Steelman turned up the collar of his groom's gown as he headed home across Manhattan from east to west. Ten times he felt tempted to call Simon and tell him that he had made an irreparable mistake when it backfired.But this gentleman, who thought he was fearless, was afraid to call him again because he was afraid of hearing his best friend judge him.

Ten times he wanted to tell his father all this, wanted to go straight to his parents' house and tell them everything.He would have liked to hear his mother tell him that everything would be fine, that it was better to admit that marriage was a mistake than to live a lie, cruel as it was.Valerie might hate him for years to come, but she'd forget him eventually.A good woman will not stay single forever.If Valerie isn't the one in his life, it's because he probably shouldn't be her husband.He was still young, and although everything he had experienced just now seemed like a hurdle, it was just a bad memory afterwards.Andrew longed for his mother's hand on his cheek, for his father's hand on his shoulder, for their voices.But Andrew's parents were no longer in this world, and on his wedding night he felt lonelier than ever. "When things go wrong, it's not so easy to close." This is a favorite saying of his office colleague Freddie Olsen.Andrew spent Sunday re-checking his story.In the early hours of the morning, he received an email from his immediate boss, who was generous with his praise for this report.Olivia Stein assured him that it was a good report she hadn't read in a long time, and that she was proud to be his boss.But at the same time, the reports she sent back to him were full of annotations and bullet points, and she questioned the reliability of some sources and the veracity of things.The issues addressed by Andrew in his reporting are not trivial, and no doubt the Justice Department will demand to ensure that it is all based on solid facts. But if the report is fictitious, does he still need to take such a big risk?Still need to spend half a month's salary to get reliable information from that poor waitress in the hotel?If it wasn't for getting rid of the guys who had been with him for two days, would he have almost been beaten up in the empty suburbs of Buenos Aires?Would he risk going to jail and sacrificing his personal life if he was just an amateur reporter?Andrew spent the whole day complaining while sorting out the materials in his hand. Olivia Stein concluded the text of the email by congratulating Andrew again and telling him that she hoped to have lunch with him tomorrow.This is the first time she invited Andrew.Normally, such an invitation would make Andrew believe that another promotion is not far away, or a new award, but now he is in a very bad mood, and he feels that what is waiting for him is not a good thing. As night fell, someone frantically knocked on the door of Andrew's house.Andrew guessed that it might be Valerie's father who was coming to beat him up, he opened the door, almost relaxed; he thought that the softened tone might make him feel less guilty. Simon gave him a rough push before he could enter the door. "Tell me you didn't do this!" he yelled, rushing to the window. "She called you?" "No, I was the one who called. I wanted to give you the wedding present, but I was afraid that it would delay your Spring Festival. I never thought that things would turn out like this. " "What did she say to you?" "What do you think? Her heart is broken, and she doesn't understand a thing, except that you abandoned her and you don't love her anymore. Why marry her, can't you tell her before you marry ? You're such a jerk." "But that's because you all told me to say nothing, do nothing, and pretend it didn't happen! Because all of you explained to me that everything I felt was just a figment of my imagination !" "What do you mean 'everyone'? Did you tell anyone else about it? You fell in love with another new best friend? Even me, you're leaving too? " "You're a fool, Simon. I just spoke to my tailor about it." "It's getting better and better... Can't you just be on your own, take a few months, and give yourself at least one more chance? What the hell happened last night that's going to screw you up ?” "I can't have sex with Valerie, she's sensitive, she'll feel the slightest thing wrong, if you must." "No, if I had a choice, I don't want to know this at all." Simon fell on the sofa and continued, "Look at what we are now!" "us?" "Yeah, ok, ok, I always sympathize with you every time you're in trouble, and anyway this time I'm the best man in your impossibly short marriage." "Do you want a copy of the Guinness Book of Records?" "Do you think it's totally unworkable to go and apologize to Valerie and tell her you're completely wrong and that you just had a spur of the moment yesterday?" "I don't know what's wrong with me now, other than feeling like I've never been so unlucky." Simon stood up and went into the kitchen.He came back from the kitchen with two glasses of beer and handed one to Andrew. "I'm sorry for you, my old friend, for her too, and for both of you. You can stay with me for a week if you want." "do what?" "Prevent you from thinking wildly at home alone." Andrew thanked Simon, but after thinking about it carefully, he felt that he probably needed to be alone for a while to think about it.The punishment was nothing compared to what he had caused Valerie to suffer. Simon put his hand on his friend's shoulder. "You know the story of the man who was tried by the court for killing his parents, and when he was sentenced, he asked the judge to forgive himself, and he said to the judge, please don't forget that he is sentencing an orphan..." Andrew looked at Simon.Two friends parted over laughter, and now only friendship can make them laugh at the worst of times. On Monday, Andrew had lunch with his boss.The boss chose a restaurant away from the newspaper office. Olivia Stein had never shown such intense interest in any of his reports.She had never asked Andrew that seriously about his sources, about the interviews, about his investigative methods.She didn't even touch her own plate throughout the meal, listening to Andrew's story of his travels in Argentina as a child listens to a grown-up story with its twists and turns.On two occasions during Andrew's telling, he believed he saw Olivia Stein's eyes welling up. At the end of lunch, she shook Andrew's hand, thanked him for his hard work, and suggested that he might write a book on the subject someday.It wasn't until she left the dinner table that she told Andrew that she planned to postpone the publication of the report for another week, of course, just to help him win the front page and two full-page pages in the newspaper.Published on the front page of the "New York Times", plus two full-page pages, even if he can't win the Pulitzer Prize, it is something worth celebrating in the industry. For him, it can gain him a certain prestige.So, when Olivia asked him if he still had materials on hand to try to get his story on the front page, Andrew assured her without hesitation that he would start work right away, and her question could not allow the slightest doubt . That's what Andrew was determined to do for the next week.He arrives at his office early, eats a sandwich for lunch, and works well into the night, save for the occasional dinner with Simon. On the surface, Andrew took the plan very seriously, or almost respected it.On Wednesday, when he walked out of the newspaper office, he suddenly felt a familiar tingling.Just around the corner on 40th Street, he believed he saw for the second time, through the window of the 4WD parked in front of the building, the face of the strange woman in Novi Sando.He ran towards the woman.In his haste, his folder slipped from his hands, and the pages of the story littered the pavement.During the time he bent down to pick up the manuscript paper and stood up again, the car had disappeared without a trace. From this day on, Andrew generally spends his nights in Novi Sando, hoping to see the woman who has been dreaming of him again. Every night he waited in vain, and when he got home he was often disappointed and exhausted. On Saturday, he found a letter in the mail, and he recognized the handwriting on the envelope immediately.He put the letter on his desk and vowed not to touch it until he finished the report Olivia Stein had requested the night before. After sending the final draft to his boss, Andrew called Simon and excused that he still had work to do and wanted to cancel the appointment that night. Then he sat down by the window sill in the living room, took a deep breath of the night air, and finally opened the letter Valerie had given him.