The Good Liar

by Catherine McKenzie

  I took the slightly damp paper and unfolded it. It was a certificate attesting to the fact that some distant star in the universe was now named after me. Lily’s star was up there somewhere, apparently, though it wasn’t bright enough to be seen in New York.

  “You had a star named after me?”

  He gave me a soft grin. His eyes were not quite focusing. He looked so harmless, standing there. Not like a bomb that had gone off in my life, and yet he was.

  “I’d name them all after you if I could.”

  I started to laugh. A giggle at first, like we’d done at dinner, and then a full belly laugh, one that would hurt the next day if I kept at it too long.

  “What’s so funny?”

  I shook my head and kept laughing; I couldn’t control myself.

  “Are you . . . Lily? What’s going on?”

  I wasn’t making any sound anymore, but my body was shaking and tears were streaming down my face. I felt frantic, as if hysteria was setting in, but I didn’t know how to stop it.

  “Lily, you’re kind of freaking me out.”

  I looked at him through my tears, and all I could think was that my husband, the man I thought was my partner in life, had paid fifty dollars for a bullshit certificate naming some star we couldn’t even see after me while he was letting someone else . . . While he was touching someone else . . . While he was . . .

  I punched him in the arm.

  “What the hell?”

  I hit him again.

  I was still laughing, but I slugged him as hard as I could. Even though I was striking flesh, I felt the impact in my knuckles, my nails digging into my palms.

  Tom recoiled, rubbing at his shoulder, getting out of harm’s way.

  “Lily, it’s not—”

  “Is everything okay here, folks?”

  It was a beat cop. The buttons on his jacket sparkled under the street lamp.

  “It’s fine . . . We had a little too much to drink,” Tom said. “My wife was teasing me.”

  The cop spoke directly to me. His eyes were almost black, from what I could see of them under the peak of his cap, but they seemed kind.

  “Are you okay, ma’am?”

  I caught my breath and forced myself to speak. “I’m fine. It’s our anniversary. Twenty-two years! Since our first date, anyway. Only twenty married. Twenty.”

  The police officer looked from me to Tom. Tom was rubbing the spot where I’d hit him. I could feel the half-moon crescents I’d made in my palm.

  “Violence isn’t the answer, ma’am.”

  “We were only horsing around. Look,” I said, retrieving the certificate from the ground where I’d dropped it. “My husband named a star after me.”

  The officer took the paper. “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  We locked eyes, and for a second, I felt like he got it. As if with everything he must see day in and day out, all the worst of humanity but sometimes the best, too, he could figure out what was going on. Not the details, maybe, though how hard were those to guess? Infidelity is pervasive. It’s commonplace.

  “Will you be okay?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Yes,” Tom said. “We’ll be fine.”

  The police officer handed me back the paper. “You’ll want to keep this safe.” He turned to Tom. “And you should head home.”

  “Yes, of course. Thank you for your concern.”

  The officer tipped his cap to me and resumed his beat. We watched him go, the night full of all the things we were going to have to talk about now that it was out in the open.

  Tom reached out his hand. I took it reflexively, like I’d done everything that night. Impulses. History.

  After everything, my instinct was still to trust my husband, to take his hand, and to face the night together.

  • • •

  I was back to being late, which wasn’t the best way to start a new job.

  I’d been planning to go back to work for a while. Having spent my entire adulthood at the yoke of a restaurant, when Knife & Fork closed and our deal to buy it ourselves fell through, I found myself floating, aloft like a bud of pollen in the spring. I’d never had any other profession in mind, but it still felt too new, too raw, to start somewhere else, to learn a different menu and kitchen and staff and regulars.

  The story Tom and I told each other was that I was taking a moment to figure out the next chapter. But really, I was sleeping, literally and figuratively, restoring the bank of energy I’d expended over the previous fifteen years. I’d tumble to bed minutes after the kids went up, only to be woken by the annoying Top 40 hits my clock radio blared nine hours later. In the afternoon, I’d often sneak away for a nap, though I was never sure what, or who, I was sneaking away from. The paintings on the walls? The judgmental flowers I clipped from the garden?

  As our financial situation tightened, Tom encouraged me to put out some feelers. See what was out there, get back in the game, every cliché you can think of. I did, but my heart wasn’t in it. I’d show up for an interview and blow it. Sometimes I didn’t even go. Time and again I came away without the gig I should’ve had in an instant.

  Then the texts happened. Then New York. The fallout from that robbed any energy I’d restored.

  Then the world exploded.

  But after a year of funerals and fund-raisers, I need a change, more, something of my own. When I saw the ad for a day manager at a newer restaurant on Noyes, I e-mailed my CV without taking too much time to think about it. I put on my game face for the interview, and if the owners knew who I was, they didn’t let on. I got the job, and we set up a day for me to start.

  Today.

  “Cecily, hi,” Kim says as I walk into the back office of Prato, which means “plate” in Portuguese. “So glad you could make it.”

  “I’m glad to be here. Sorry I’m a bit late. It won’t happen again.”

  Kim leans back in her desk chair and stretches her arms above her head. About my age, Kim opened the restaurant two years ago. Her hands are callused and scarred like all chefs’. She’s got a stack of orders in front of her, the day to day of the restaurant. Most of the restaurant has been given over to customers or the kitchen, but she’s squared off a small space of her own.

  “It’s been a weird twenty-four hours,” I add, wondering how much she knows about me or if she cares.

  “You could start tomorrow, if you’d like.”

  “No. Please. I need the distraction.”

  Kim stands. She’s tall and angular, her hair cut almost boy short.

  “Great. So why don’t we meet with the chef and go over the menu for the day?”

  “That sounds perfect.”

  • • •

  I work through lunch and the early dinner sittings without a break other than to answer my mother’s anxious texts wanting to know how my first day is going. The deal I made with Kim is that I’ll switch out with the night manager at six. The kids are older now, and they can handle themselves until I get home. Maybe dinner will even be on the table.

  Hope springs eternal.

  I like being in the restaurant, interacting with the staff, watching Kim in the kitchen, moving efficiently among the stations, hurrying everyone along gently, rhythmically, to get the plates out on time. The menu is a mix of Portuguese and Spanish—lots of grilled meat and flavorful paellas, and there are blue-and-gold ceramic plates on the walls. The air is spiced with saffron and lemon and garlic, and the grilled Portuguese chicken salad I had for lunch was fantastic. It feels good to be in the thick of things, to be interacting with strangers who have no expectations of me other than that I’ll seat them at a good table and be attentive to their needs. If I get one or two odd glances, I ignore them.

  Franny comes in with Joshua and the kids right as I’m finishing my shift.

  “Is this where you’re working now?” Franny asks. She’s wearing a shift dress that suits her square frame, showing off the slimmer parts of her. She’s also taken care w
ith her makeup and hair. She looks poised, polished, secure. “I never made the connection.”

  “It’s my first day.”

  “Hey, Cessy,” Joshua says. He’s wearing a suit, but he’s taken off his tie. Not my type, Joshua, but forty-five looks good on him.

  “Aunt Cecily!” the girls cry in unison, running around the podium I’m standing at to hug either side of me.

  “We haven’t seen you in forever!” Emily says reproachfully. The girls are wearing matching dresses I don’t recognize. More appropriate for summer than fall, especially given the temperature outside.

  “I’m so sorry, my darlings—things have been busy. But I’m very glad to see you now.”

  I give them each a close hug. Julia’s is a little longer, since she’s always needed the most affection. I miss when my own kids were this size. When I could hug them as long as I wanted without an eye roll.

  When I stand up, Joshua and Franny are smiling at us. Joshua’s gotten a haircut since the last time I saw him. His hair is thinning out on top, and I can see through to his skull. He looks relaxed, though, which he hasn’t in a long time. In truth, Kaitlyn and Joshua were one of those couples I never quite got. Not because they fought or disliked each other but because they never seemed to have anything in common other than their kids. Though who am I to judge? Tom and I were the couple everyone always said was perfect for each other, and look what happened to us.

  “I’m so happy for you!” Franny untucks her arm from Joshua’s and gives me a hard hug. “Teo,” she whispers in my ear, then giggles. I’m struck, as I’ve been the last couple times I’ve been near her, with how closely she smells like Kaitlyn. Maybe it’s just that she’s living in Kaitlyn’s house now, using the same soap or shampoo, surrounded by Kaitlyn’s things.

  “What are you guys doing here?” I ask.

  “We’re celebrating.”

  “What?”

  Franny laughs. “I guess you didn’t hear with everything going on today . . . but the Supra Board decided to confirm our decision. Josh and the girls are getting their compensation.”

  “Oh, that’s fantastic! I’m so happy to hear that.”

  I reach out and take Joshua’s hand, giving it a squeeze. It makes sense that he’s relaxed now. He wasn’t desperate for money, like I was, but a future with one income and two girls was something that was wearing on him. Joshua’s a planner—another divergence with Kaitlyn—and his spreadsheets weren’t balancing.

  “Do you have a reservation?” I ask.

  “We do.”

  I check the computer, and there it is, a reservation for four for the Rings. I check them off and grab some menus.

  “Do you have time to join us?” Joshua asks. “For a drink?”

  “Let me call the kids and deal with a few things here. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

  I seat them at their table and fill in the night manager on the transition issues. Then I call the kids to make sure they’re home for the night. Henry answers and tells me that Cassie “has a boy over.” I ask him to pass the phone to her.

  “A boy?”

  “It’s just Kevin.”

  “Just Kevin the boy you had dinner with last night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You made up?”

  “I guess?”

  “He can’t go into your bedroom.”

  “Mom!”

  “I’m serious, Cass, or I’ll call Grandma and have her chaperone you.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “Don’t test me. Downstairs only, and you know Henry will rat you out. I’ll be home in an hour.”

  “Okay, whatever.”

  I hang up and go to Joshua’s table. I sat them at a six-top so there’s plenty of room for me. The bottle of champagne I ordered arrives a moment later.

  “What’s this?” Joshua asks, smiling.

  “It’s on me.”

  Franny giggles again. The waiter pops the cork, an explosion that gets the attention of everyone around us. I make eye contact with one of the patrons who was eyeing me earlier. Seeing me sitting with Joshua, he’s certain he knows who I am now. I turn pointedly away.

  “Can we have some, Aunt Cecily?” Emily asks shyly.

  “You can have the kids’ version.”

  I signal for the waiter and order a bottle of nonalcoholic sparkling cider. When we all have our drinks, I propose a toast.

  “To the Rings. My second-favorite family.”

  “Second?” Emily asks.

  “After my family, honey.”

  “Right! Cassie and Henry and Uncle—” She stops and looks at Franny. Franny pats her on the head. Emily looks pleased.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I forget sometimes, too.”

  “I’d like to propose a toast as well,” Franny says. She has a serious look on her face now, as if she has an important task to do.

  “Please, go ahead,” Joshua says, looking at her fondly. She touches his forearm, quickly, then pulls her hand back.

  “I wanted to propose a toast to Kaitlyn.”

  The girls look grave, but I put a big smile on my face and raise my glass high. “To Kaitlyn.”

  And because it’s been that kind of day, month, year, that’s when the flash goes off.

  22

  FIRST, KNOW THYSELF

  KATE

  Though it came later than expected, Kate had spent a year getting ready for Andrea’s question.

  “Interesting coincidence,” she said, her heart beating so loudly her own voice sounded odd to her, like something aquatic, swallowed by waves. “She even looks a bit like me, don’t you think?”

  Kate pretended to study the iPad for a moment, looking at the picture of herself with Cecily from two years ago. She was heavier then, carrying pregnancy weight she hadn’t lost. She’d still had twenty pounds of it in her face and around her middle when she met Andrea. But that was before life robbed her of her appetite and she ran around after two little boys all day. The thirty pounds she’d lost in the last year had made a world of difference. Sometimes, when she caught a glimpse of her face in a mirror, she almost didn’t recognize herself. And her hair in the photo was that sun-kissed color she’d been dyeing it then, not the dark-brown shot with gray it was now.

  She handed the iPad back to Andrea. “See?”

  Andrea gave the picture a cursory glance. She’d already discounted the possibility that it could be Kate.

  “You’re much more attractive than this woman.”

  “Thank you. They say everyone has a twin out there somewhere.”

  “I’ve heard that.” Andrea flicked her finger, and the next news story loaded. “I don’t think that’s true. I mean, I’ve never seen anyone who looks enough like me to confuse someone. Though this one time, in the grocery store, a woman came up to me and was convinced I was Trisha Smith. Can you believe it?”

  Trisha was a Westmount mommy who lived one block over. Her hair was the exact same shade as Andrea’s, as was her spray tan, and since they shared a trainer, their bodies had the same emaciated shape. Kate had mistaken them from a distance more than once.

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Right? It’s like all mothers look alike or something.”

  “Right. Anyway, I should get that laundry on . . .”

  Andrea had already lost focus, peering at her iPad with a squint because she refused to accept that she needed reading glasses. Kate went down to the basement, the location of the laundry room, and promptly threw up in the bathroom. Then she washed her face and put on a load of laundry in case Andrea thought to check.

  Kate spent the rest of the day until the boys went to bed on autopilot. She’d spent the last year with her head in the sand. She needed to correct that.

  When the boys were firmly asleep, she asked Andrea if she could borrow the spare iPad and went to the basement. Her new friends on IKWYDLS.com were right. It was time to explore more than TMZ. Time to see what the rest of the world had seen since she’d stopped watc
hing a year ago.

  Back then, after three days of nonstop coverage, Kate had worked up the courage to leave her depressing hotel room. She’d spent a week getting to know her new city. Listening to its sounds. Reviving the French she’d learned more than twenty years ago. She still thought of herself as Kaitlyn Ring then. A persona she tried to shed as she walked. Up to Mount Royal. Down to the Old Port and the Saint Lawrence River. Along the Lachine Canal for hours. Letting the cold October wind whip against her skin until it felt baby soft.

  Montreal was full of churches. At the end of the week, she lit a candle for the dead in one of the cathedrals. And then another for her family. She thought of them every day. Not less as time went by but more. As she walked and slept and spent time alone, certain things became clear. Everything that had happened since the fog of her second bout of postpartum had lifted was a lie. She wasn’t better. The things she clung to as evidence that she was were just the gasoline she was dousing herself in. Waiting for it to spark, catch fire, and consume her.

  So when she was faced with an actual fire, when her life had actually blown up, she’d taken the opportunity to run as far and as fast as she could. Thinking this would save her, finally, and for good. But it hadn’t. She was still who she was. The things that had dragged her down were still inside her. Everywhere she went, there she was. And now, added on to that was the pile of lies and deceit and regret. So much of it she was afraid she’d be dragged fully under this time.

  She had to live with her choices or end it all. And even that she couldn’t do because it would lead to her being identified. Which would be even worse for her children. To learn that she’d run away, and then taken her life anyway? No. She’d built this prison, and she had to live in it. She had to make the best of it. Because she had no one to blame but herself.

  She upped her efforts to get a job, to find a better place to live, to start eating three square meals a day. A list that felt more and more desperate as her money dwindled and none of the jobs she applied for ever showed any interest. And then one did.