Kaleidoscope: Escape From Reality Series, #10

By Rita Delude

Escape into the Beauty of Love

Kaleidoscopes are made of many faceted pieces of broken glass. Alice is broken like that glass, and Travis did the shattering.

She runs to Escape, Colorado for its healing vibes, the love of her aunts, and a new beginning. She invests everything she has left—time, money, sweat, and tears—into her new venture. She’s not counting on a man.

This time, Alice picks up her own pieces and becomes the creator of her own vision. With her determination, all things are possible.

Yet, it would be so much more like the beauty of a kaleidoscope if she could find the right man to share and support her dreams. Perhaps, she will in the charming town of Escape.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crazy Ink
• Release date: Feb 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386325154

Book preview

Dedication

My debut novella is dedicated to my husband, Ron, who supports my ventures with the right tools and the alone time I need to finish my work.

Ron, I want the world to know that I’d rather live in New Hampshire than anywhere else, and I’d rather be here with you than with anyone else. Thank you for your unwavering love.

Deepest Appreciation

Without the persistent encouragement of my talented daughter, Erin, who herself is an Escape from Reality author and author of more than two dozen novels under the name Erin Lee, this book would only be a dream. She is my inspiration, first reader, editor, cheerleader, cover design artist, and dear friend.

CHAPTER ONE

AS I STEP INTO TRAVIS’ campus office and lock the door as I always do, I lean over him where he’s sitting at his desk and give him a kiss since no one is around. Instead of returning my touch to his lips, he moves his head away. What’s up with that?

Alice, take a seat, he says looking and sounding very much like the professor and department chair he is. Not like my lover.

What’s with you? I ask as I slide into the seat across from his desk and wait for an answer.

He takes so long to respond that I look around. He’s surrounded by stacks of books overflowing the full wall of bookshelves, and there are piles placed randomly on the floor. On the far side of the room are a weaving loom, an antique Singer peddle sewing machine, and a myriad of clear boxes full of various fabric samples.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours in this space in the past three years, but have never felt the unease I’m experiencing now. I squirm in my seat.

I turn to stare at him. His dark hair, I notice, is graying just a speck at the temples. Distinguished. His green eyes are so brilliant and accented by thin, smile lines. He’s wearing a heavily starched pinstriped shirt that he’s rolled up to the elbows. After almost three years of being his student, his graduate assistant, his lover, and his confidante, he still makes my heart leap when I see him.

But, I’m still waiting. He’s leaning back in his huge desk chair with his arms behind his head, smiling at me. After his reaction when I tried to kiss him, I see nothing to smile about.

It’s been only a day since graduation. Aunt Lottie and Aunt Ellie have returned home after attending my commencement from the Rhode Island School of Design. Professor Millerton—Travis—asked me to meet him here today. I’m eager to hear what he has to say.

As Textile and Design Chairman, will he offer me an associate professorship? He knows I’m talented. He’s led me through the program as my mentor, and more, all these years. I earned my MFA in Textile Design. Better yet, will he offer me a ring? Ask me to be his wife? Tell me their divorce is final, and he wants only me? Maybe both?

I wait, breathless.

Alice, first I want to say it has been a pleasure getting to know you. You are talented, hard-working, and so fabulous to be around, he says as he leans his elbows on his desk and draws me into him with his determined stare.

Why am I feeling there’s a but

coming?

"But, here’s where we must part

ways," he says.

His words are delivered so softly and

suddenly that I’m not sure I heard him

correctly. Part ways. Did he just say part ways?

I explode from my chair. I hustle to his side of the desk. I slap him squarely on the face so hard his nose bleeds.

"What the hell, Travis, I thought you brought me here to offer me a position or a ring or both. Part ways? Are you freaking kidding me?"

My entire body is vibrating as I watch him take his sweet time to pull one of his signature cloth handkerchiefs, the kind my dad always used, and to wipe the blood from his nose. He folds it. Dabs at his nose, again, and checks to see if the bleeding has stopped. It has.

Now, hold on Alice. I never promised you a position. There aren’t any openings at this time, but I’ll keep you in mind.

Keep me in mind? Like you kept me in mind and in your arms every Monday night while your wife played bridge with the ladies? Like you kept me in mind at all those conferences we attended together, sharing the same hotel room? Are you kidding me? This is not a job interview with a stranger. This is us. You and me, I say as I point to him and then myself.

He stands and tries to pull me into his arms, but I flick his advance away by slipping my arms through his outstretched ones and pushing his from me. Perhaps my self-defense classes have paid off.

Alice, I’ve tried. Gloria won’t give me a divorce. She says she’ll take the kids, and I’ll never see them. You know how much they mean to me, he pleads as he drops back into his leather chair.

You have promised me for three years. Three long years, that you and Gloria were separated, were working on mediation of a divorce to make it amicable for the sake of the kids. You said that by the time I was finished here, I wave my arms to take in the whole room, you and I could be married. You played me.

I stamp my feet, pick up a paper weight from his desk that’s made of old-fashioned mill factory bobbins and throw it across the room. It smashes into my target, a photo of him with his wife and two kids, and it falls in pieces to the floor."

I’ve been such a fool. Freshman year I heard rumors about Professor Millerton having special students, but believed what I wanted to, that special meant talented. Not this.

He grabs at my arms, slides his hands down them and holds on. My hands are in fists, so I don’t respond to his touch. Normally, a touch from him lights up my universe sending tingles everywhere I have skin. Not today.

Hold on, Alice, don’t make a scene. I picked my office as our place to meet because I know how much you respect the university and wouldn’t want any of this to get out.

I jerk myself away from his grasp. I want to destroy everything in this place. I want the mementos of his past ruined as he is now ruining mine. I want to call his wife and tell her what a lying, cheating, fake her husband is. I want to storm into the university president’s office and report him for sexual harassment and abuse. I want to die.

Instead, shoulders slumped, tears streaming down my cheeks, I leave his office and know I’ll never return.

As I open the large mahogany door, I nearly collide with a small, blonde student who’s about to knock on Travis’ door. She’s grinning, bouncing on her tip toes. I want to warn her, to tell her not to enter this lion’s den.

But, instead, I return to my apartment, which is jam packed with boxes waiting to be delivered somewhere. My dad’s house? A new apartment when I find a job? I don’t even know or care.

Wrapping myself under a quilt I made first semester, I cry into my pillow until I’ve faded off to sleep. When I wake, I pull out my journal and write:

Trust no man.

CHAPTER TWO

I THROW THE ESSENTIALS into my suitcase: makeup, jeans, sweat pants, underwear, T-shirts, and pajamas. After locking up my off-campus apartment, I throw my bag into my Subaru Legacy and start the long drive back to Troy, New York, my old hometown, my dad’s place, my roots.

Along the way, I stop often to vomit by the side of the road.

Over and over, I run through the last few years. Transferring from Pratt Institute in New York, I moved on to Rhode Island to specialize in textile design and was enamored by the famous Travis Millerton, whose textile art hung in museums and homes of the rich and famous worldwide.

To think that Travis, one of the most famous in the field, would give individual attention to me left me blinded. How naive I was. How stupid. How foolish. I had no idea that he was a user. I thought I was the only one—the one he’d leave his wife for. I thought we had a future.

What future do I have now? No job placement. Nothing but messes to clean up. Mostly, messes I’ve made for myself. A broken heart. Dire prospects for professional employment. No significant other in my life. Problems I created.

One problem I didn’t create myself was Dad’s lung cancer. He caused that himself with his chain smoking. He suffered so much in the end. I would have done anything to take the pain away. Eventually, Hospice helped us do that—remove his pain.

When I get to my dad’s home, I let myself in, drop my keys on the kitchen counter, rush to the bathroom and vomit until dry heaves replace the mess that retches from my stomach. I slide to the floor and weep. I wish Dad was here to comfort me. He’s not. No one is.

I’m alone. Black hole alone.

CHAPTER THREE

HOURS LATER, I DRAG myself into the shower and stay there until the hot water turns as cold as Travis’ heart.

Dressed in my sweats and a T-shirt, I wobble through the house that’s nearly empty. Dad’s been gone four months after his gruesome battle, and I’ve been preparing

Reviews for Kaleidoscope

[Mélisande Vosdaeis · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

“Tyron puts his big black arm around me.” I truly do not understand why this lacked so much description. Is that truly how we describe characters now? Not only that, the main character Alice at her age, living in a small town where the entire community welcomes her back instead of encouraging her to live a grand life with a new booming business in a big city? She the other woman, runs to a small town but we fault the antiquated thinking man in wanting a housewife? It truly feels like this author didn’t know her audience. It lacks so much and I find it hard to find any real standout moments.