Hello, I Lied

by M. E. Kerr

  I’d never heard “Pop’s Rap.”

  The only song of Cog Wheeler’s that I really knew was his big hit “Heard About You.”

  Every time you turned on a radio that summer, you heard that fragile, reedy voice singing:

  Heard about you,

  Heard you couldn’t be true,

  Heard you did it with Sue,

  Heard about you,

  We’ve all heard about you.

  It was about a guy whose girlfriend had ditched him for another girl. When Alex had heard it, he’d said he doubted there’d be a hit song about a girl losing her boyfriend to another boy. The public wouldn’t go for that.

  When we got to the gates at Roundelay, I said, “Let me off here.”

  The rottweilers were in good form, and McCaffery had to shout above them to be heard. “You come up to Roundelay with me, Lang.”

  “He’s not expecting me.”

  “Just introduce me, okay?”

  “He won’t like it, Mr. McCaffery.”

  “Just introduce me and then leave!”

  He didn’t wait for any more protests from me. The gates opened and we went through them.

  There were about a dozen cars parked outside.

  I said, “I’m not going in.”

  “You work for me from five to ten,” McCaffery said. “It’s only nine twenty now.”

  He pulled in behind a Lexus, and we ran through the rain to the side door.

  Nevada was right there waiting.

  “Hello, Penner.”

  I said, “Mr. Nevada, this is Kevin McCaffery.”

  “I know who he is,” he growled. “Hang your coats here on the rack.”

  “I’m not staying, sir,” I said.

  “Yes you are, Penner,” he said.

  McCaffery hung up his raincoat, and I put my jacket next to it.

  “Come along,” said Nevada.

  I wondered why he’d given Franklin the night off when he was entertaining.

  After we walked down the long hall, up two steps, down another hall, and into the living room, I knew why.

  “Happy Birthday!” everyone shouted.

  I just stood there.

  While everyone sang, I looked around that huge yellow-and-green room with the three sofas, two settees, ten chairs, six benches, and four potted trees.

  Some of the guests I knew. My mother and Franklin. Nick Ball and Allie Perez. And Huguette, of course, all smiles, hugging herself and laughing hard.

  I didn’t know the guy next to her, but I’d seen him before. He wasn’t wearing the Red Dog beer cap, but he still had on the mirrored glasses.

  When they’d finished singing “Happy Birthday,” Huguette took him by the hand and brought him across to me.

  “You remember the serial murderer,” she said. “Lang, this is Cog Wheeler.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE FAILURES WERE THERE in full force, young girls with long hair, long legs, and short skirts following after them. Except for Cog Wheeler, the band had that grungy Seattle look.

  He didn’t. With his cap off there was the trademark shock of fire-red, spiky hair. But he wore no jewelry, only a watch. He had on a khaki T-shirt, black jeans, and black high-top sneakers. Despite a minor case of neck acne he looked clean and wholesome. I couldn’t see his eyes, only my own staring back from the lenses of his dark glasses. He was skinny and taller than I was. After we were introduced, he led Huguette away.

  “Heard About You” was blaring from the speakers.

  I went over to my mother, who seemed uncomfortable sitting on one of the settees beside Franklin. I leaned down and gave her a kiss and whispered, “Whose idea was this?”

  “Not mine, honey. Huguette planned this at the last minute, after she heard Alex couldn’t come out. All I did was give her Nick’s number.”

  I don’t think Franklin had ever sat down in that room. He looked uncomfortable, too.

  He got up and disappeared for a while, then returned wheeling in a cart with a huge cake on it.

  There was another round of “Happy Birthday,” and before I cut the cake, Allie Perez said, “Make a wish!”

  “I wish we all get our wishes this summer,” I said.

  “Now we won’t,” Nick said, laughing, “because you told your wish.”

  I cut the cake, and my mother helped Franklin pass it around on plates.

  While Cog Wheeler was getting two plates for Huguette and himself, I went over to her.

  “I want to talk to you,” I said.

  “Talk to me.” She smiled.

  “Somewhere we can be alone for a second.”

  “Come on,” she said.

  She took my hand and we walked through the living room to the hall. She had on this very sheer, short black dress and violet kickers with a silver ankle bracelet strapped to the left one.

  “Thanks for this,” I said, “and thanks for the key ring.”

  “That will remind you of all our picnics.”

  “Or it’ll remind me that I don’t have a car.”

  “You can take the Aurora anytime.”

  “I don’t want to drive his car.”

  “Why do you resist Uncle Ben so, Lang? He likes you. He calls you Penner.”

  “I know.” I could smell Joop.

  I could see Cog Wheeler watching us from the living room. I said, “I think I was right. You do have a fan.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him. “He’s very talented, isn’t he?”

  “Is he? I wouldn’t know.”

  “Of course he is, Lang! He writes those songs.”

  “You can’t hear the words when he sings them.”

  “You can if you listen hard.”

  I imitated him. “’eard bout ew, ’eard youcoulden ee ew.’”

  She laughed and tugged at my shirt. “You don’t want me to like him? Is that it?”

  I thought, That is it, isn’t it?

  I said, “What about Marten?”

  “Oh, you’re worried about Martin, hmmm?”

  “What about him?” I said.

  “You’re not worried about that. You just think nobody here can be with me but you.”

  “Is that it?” I said. I poked her arm with my finger. I could see her small breasts through her dress.

  It was one of those dippy conversations that didn’t make much sense but didn’t need to. Later, she told me she’d had two glasses of champagne before I’d come there, but I never drank, so why was I so giddy?

  We were standing there teasing each other, touching each other, when she suddenly grabbed me and put her lips against mine, these soft, wet lips.

  “Hey,” I said, “what’re you doing?”

  “Putting on a show for your friends,” she said.

  Nick and Allie had come out into the hall on their way to the bathrooms. They’d glanced at us but kept right on walking.

  Huguette grinned up at me. “Did we shock them?”

  “Is that what we want to do?”

  “Why not? It’s your birthday. Do you go to school with them?”

  “With her. He’s my best friend.”

  “And Alex is what?”

  “I haven’t known Alex as long as I’ve known Nick.”

  “Oh. Alex is a new friend, then.”

  “Huguette?” Cog Wheeler had come out into the hall, sunglasses on his head, brown eyes fixed on her.

  “If you say my name Yougette,” she told him, “you get nothing!”

  He liked that.

  He laughed, his eyes shining, his hair fire red.

  “How about joining the party?” he said to her.

  “Are you the party?”

  He crooked his arm for her to take and she took it.

  I watched her go.

  The bathrooms in Roundelay were like the enormous ones in hotels. There was a men’s and across the hall a women’s.

  I’d forgotten Nick was headed there. We hadn’t really talked since I’d arrived, just small talk. I didn’t feel at al
l like talking, either, but there he was.

  “Hi, Nick.”

  “I can’t believe I’m in the same house with The Failures! This is big-time, buddy! How come you rate?”

  “I’m as surprised as you are.”

  He was drying his hands. I went over to the urinal and unzipped.

  “Don’t you return calls anymore, Lang?”

  “I was going to call you tomorrow.” I could still feel her lips on mine, and I remembered how warm her breath was near my mouth.

  He was combing his hair although it was already combed.

  He said, “Was that some kind of a joke…what you told Brittany?”

  “No.”

  “Because it really upset her, Lang.”

  “We weren’t a couple. I kept trying to tell her that.”

  “She said you told her you and Alex were a couple.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you and that French girl aren’t?”

  “No.”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “She has a guy back in France.”

  “Lots of luck to him.”

  I zipped up and went over to wash my hands. I’d been planning this moment for a long time, but now that it was here, I couldn’t remember anything I’d intended to say.

  I said, “Maybe we can talk tomorrow?”

  “I’m going out to Montauk. Let’s talk now. If what you told my sister is really true, when did you plan to let me in on the news?”

  “I wanted to tell you.” I took one of the linen towels piled by the washbasin and began drying my hands.

  “I don’t give a damn if you really are gay Lang, but I just wonder how come you’ve never mentioned it to me.”

  “It’s not an easy thing to tell someone.”

  “Am I just someone? Geezus, we’ve known each other since we were kids!”

  “I know.”

  I wanted to get out of there and go back to the party. There was only one person I wanted to get back to and I knew it. I didn’t even care that what we were talking about and what I was feeling were like two and two making five. I could feel the small blue Tiffany box in my pants pocket.

  “Why lie to me?” Nick asked me.

  “I never have.”

  “There are lies of omission, you know. If you act one way but are really another way, you’re lying.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I lied. I’m sorry!”

  “So you’re going to leave it at that?”

  “This isn’t the last chance we’ll ever have to talk, is it?”

  “What are you mad at?” he said. “I’m the one who should be mad! My sister comes home and springs this thing on me. You don’t return my calls. The next thing I know I see you kissing this nearly naked girl out in the hall! Really going at it! Was that an act for my benefit?”

  One of the guitarists with The Failures came banging through the door.

  I said, “It wasn’t an act.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “I mean, it wasn’t for your benefit.”

  I knew I wasn’t making sense.

  The guitarist stared at his reflection in the mirror and said, “Here sucks!”

  He had baggy clothes on a skinny frame, Lyle Lovett hair, and a purple dragon tattooed around his biceps.

  Nick said to him, “Hey, you’re Lennie Allen!”

  “Am I?” was his spacey answer. He was wearing a black Failures T-shirt, splashed with a huge white circle and the word zero underneath it.

  Nick laughed hard and said, “You’re great, man, just great!”

  I left.

  I couldn’t find her.

  Then I saw the three of them sitting out on the deck, under a beach umbrella, in the rain. Cog Wheeler, Nevada, and Huguette.

  Some little girl with raccoon eyes and breadstick legs cornered me.

  She asked me what my instrument was, what my sign was, what song of The Failures was my favorite.

  She asked me who was out on the porch I kept staring at.

  TWENTY-THREE

  WE WERE THE LAST ones left.

  The Failures had roared away in their cars, as had Nick, Kevin McCaffery, and the rest. My mother had left with Franklin. Nevada was upstairs in bed.

  Huguette sat beside me on a green-and-yellow sofa, holding a glass of champagne. “My third” she said, “so am I a little tipsy?”

  “Are you?”

  “But I want you to hear ‘Paint Over It.’ I turned off all the speakers but this one. It’ll play next.”

  “Heart in My Mouth” was playing softly. I remembered the day Brittany had sat up so straight down on the beach and sung the words.

  I was trying not to think about Nick. He’d left without saying good night.

  “Did you like your party?” Huguette asked me.

  “Yes. Thanks again.”

  “Cog calls you Cloud. He says when you walk into a room, you look like a sudden dark cloud on a good beach day.”

  “Cog could use some Clearasil.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Pimple lotion. For his neck.”

  Huguette threw her head back and laughed. “You have a vendetta for him, hmmm?”

  “He thinks he can have any girl he wants. They all do, those rockers. There’s stuff out in your refrigerator that lasts longer than their relationships.”

  “How long do yours last?” she said.

  I shrugged.

  “Do you have one?”

  I didn’t answer.

  This was the time to tell her the truth, but the truth was like some porch light on a windy, foggy night: Now you see it shining, now you don’t see it at all.

  “Hey, here it is now. Listen, Lang. This is Cali.”

  She had this soft, breathy voice with a sweet ache in it, not bad, not good.

  Paint over it.

  Paint over it will

  Never look like new again

  Will never get you through again,

  But you can still get use from it,

  You can just get used to it,

  Pick a darker color, too,

  So nothing of the old comes through

  Paint over it.

  Paint over it.

  Nothing of the old comes through,

  Pick a darker color, too,

  Paint over it.

  “She’s not great,” said Huguette.

  “I like the song, though.”

  We were sitting there with the huge portrait of Nevada glaring down at us, the lights low in the enormous room, the ocean roaring outside, and the rain riddling the windows.

  She put her hand on my knee. “I wanted you to hear it. When I’m gone back to Aniane, and you have your car keys”—she giggled—“without having a car”—and then looked into my eyes very gently—“you’ll remember sitting here on this kind of wet night out, hearing it for the first time.”

  “I’ll remember this night, anyway.”

  “So will I, Lang. We’ve become good friends.”

  “Maybe more.”

  “More than friends?”

  “Something besides just friends.”

  She shook her head. “Friends is enough.”

  I said, “Are you going to see Cog again?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “You will?”

  “Of course, because Uncle Ben is giving the party tomorrow.”

  “I thought that was just a ruse to get me here.”

  “And besides, I really like Cog.”

  We sat there silently a moment.

  She said, “You don’t really care about that, do you?”

  “Honestly? I think I do.”

  She said, “If you’re speaking honestly, I don’t think you do. Not that way. Not a jealous way. Back in the hall when I kissed you? I was putting on an act for your friends…. You knew that.”

  She took my hand.

  I could feel my heart beat faster. I could feel a way I’d never felt with any girl.

  She said,
“If we’re true friends, you don’t have to pretend feelings with me just to flatter me.”

  “I’m not pretending.”

  “I think you are, Lang.”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  She let out a hoot. “You wouldn’t lie? Oh, Lang. From the very first hello you’ve lied.” She let go of my hand. “I told you everything about Martin. And I was waiting for you to tell me about you and Alex.”

  I couldn’t look her in the eye. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Plato had come downstairs, and he was standing in the doorway staring at us, wagging his tail.

  She said, “Uncle Ben told me all about it, Lang. He said you’d tell me yourself sometime, and I waited.”

  And punctuating that, with perfect timing, Nevada’s voice came from the staircase around the corner. “Penner? Your birthday was over an hour ago! Go home! Plato! Get back up here!”

  Huguette stood up. “Yes, go home now, Lang.”

  I went.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  FOURTH OF JULY MORNING, Franklin’s voice came over the intercom in the cottage. “Lang. Fed Ex has a package for you down at the gate. You have to sign for it.”

  I threw on the top to my pajamas.

  “Are you going down there like that?” Mom said.

  “Who’s going to see me? Franklin’s the only one around.”

  I slipped into my loafers and headed down the road.

  The rottweilers had been fed about an hour earlier. I’d heard them barking the way they did when the Range Rover pulled up. I’d heard Nevada take off down Ocean Road after.

  I knew the package was probably from Alex.

  I was signing for it when the sleek white Porsche pulled into the driveway, top down.

  “Hi, Lang,” said Cog Wheeler.

  I mumbled a hello.

  He had on a silk shirt that matched his hair color perfectly. He was waiting for the gate to open, and I imagined the scene Huguette was probably viewing right that moment on the TV.

  Cog with success written all over him; me with my hair still tangled from sleep, in pajamas that cried out, “Attention, Kmart shoppers!”

  The gate opened, and with a wave of his hand he went up to Roundelay.

  I trudged back to the cottage, looking at my watch as I went, wondering what that was all about. A breakfast date?

  I sat down on the couch and opened the package.

  I’ll call you at 11:30, Happy Birthday. I love you, Spartacus. A.