The Good Liar

by Catherine McKenzie

  “I did, too, but . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I feel bad about saying this, especially given the day you’ve had, but I think . . . I think we can’t see each other again. Not like that, anyway. Not as more than friends.”

  There are two bright spots of color on his cheeks, as if he’s embarrassed to be adding anything negative to my day. My own face feels hot.

  “Why?”

  “It’s the film.”

  “The film?”

  “It’s wrong of me to get close to you. It hurts my objectivity.” He looks at the floor. “I feel terrible. But . . . right now, no one knows who was in that picture with you, but if it came out . . .”

  “The Initiative might cut your funding?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. But that’s not the point. It was . . . wrong of me to take advantage of you like that.”

  “I don’t think you were.”

  “What I do, it makes people vulnerable. It creates a false intimacy. Kind of like therapy.”

  “Teo, what are you talking about? Where’s this coming from?”

  “I know it seems sudden. I know I was the one who suggested we go out.”

  “Yes, you did. But that doesn’t mean you took advantage of me. If you’re not interested, you can say so.”

  “I promise you that’s not it.”

  “I’d almost rather it was,” I say. “It’s better than being passed over for the sake of a stupid documentary.”

  He grimaces. I’ve hurt him, but it feels justified.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “We seem to have spent a lot of time apologizing to each other today.”

  I pick up my wine and drain the rest of it. At this point, there’s only one day that rivals this for awfulness, and that involved Teo, too.

  “I hope this doesn’t mean that you’ll—”

  “Pull out of the film? Honestly, Teo?”

  He looks ashamed. “I should go.”

  “I—”

  My front doorbell rings insistently.

  “Mom?” Henry’s voice calls down the stairs. “I think the police are here.”

  “What?”

  I drop my glass as I stand. It bumps against the thick carpet. As I pass through the hall to the front of the house, I can see the police lights rotating blue and red through the front windows.

  I open the door. Two uniformed officers are standing there, looks of concern on their faces.

  “Mrs. Grayson?”

  “Yes?”

  “We’ve had a report that there might be an intruder in your house.”

  “What? Who—?”

  “On the ground. On the ground, now!”

  24

  A PICTURE WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

  KATE

  The next day, the twins woke from their nap the way they always did. Singing. Kate thought she was hearing things the first time one of their voices cracked through the baby monitor. “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain” it was that time, perfectly on key with the words half pronounced. How had Andrea kept this from her? When she’d brought it up, Andrea had smiled and said she always left it as a surprise, because wasn’t it “lovely”?

  It was lovely. These two little boys who could sing One Direction songs in perfect harmony. That day, it was “Story of My Life,” an apt choice if ever there was one. Kate got to their room as they were breaking into the chorus, standing up in their beds, swinging their hips.

  “Sing, Aunt Kwait!”

  Kate sang the rest of the song with them, but she still couldn’t get the picture of her family out of her mind. She’d barely slept after she’d seen it. Something about it was getting to her in a way she couldn’t explain. Franny was a part of it. That was for sure. The fact that she was sitting at a table with Joshua and the girls. How her hand was draped over Josh’s arm as if it belonged there . . .

  Why did she suddenly care? She’d left. Left all of them behind without so much as a backward glance. That was the truth. She’d run away from them to end up looking after someone else’s children. To live on the fringes of someone else’s life.

  “What next?” Steven asked. “What song next?”

  “How about . . . ‘Little Things’?”

  “I. Won’t. Let. These. Little. Things . . .”

  Willie swung his hips. “Slip out. Of my mouth . . .”

  If she was done with that life, if she’d actually moved on, then she shouldn’t care that Josh looked happy in the photo. That the camera had caught him with a soft expression on his face. An indulgent look, which Kate knew too well. She shouldn’t care that Cecily appeared ferocious, as if she were protecting one of her own children. And she shouldn’t care about Franny Maycombe. Certainly not about her, most of all.

  “Kate? Where are you?”

  Kate could’ve sworn that she actually saw Willie roll his eyes as Steven called, “Up here, Mommy. Having a dance party!”

  Willie launched himself at Kate, landing half on her back and half on her head. And so went the next five hours. Being the boys’ personal jungle gym, while she did her best to wipe that picture from her mind.

  Kate didn’t sleep that night. Instead, she watched a spider crawl across her ceiling. She counted a thousand sheep. She repeated all the reasons she’d left Chicago. She tallied up all the hurt she’d cause if she went back.

  When her alarm pushed her from bed, she wasn’t any closer to an answer. She’d made one fateful decision. One. But it seemed undoable. It seemed permanent.

  Later, she was sitting at the kitchen table with the iPad when Steven padded in.

  “Aunt Kwait!”

  “What’s up, muffin?”

  He held his hands up over his head. Kate reached down and brought him onto her lap.

  “You have an iPad.”

  “Mommy said I could use it.”

  “It’s not iPad time.”

  “There are different rules for grown-ups.”

  Steven cocked his head to the side. “That not fair.”

  “Nope.”

  “You are funny, Aunt Kwait.”

  Kate put her face into his hair. How she loved that little-boy smell. These little boys.

  “Those girls look sad,” Steven said.

  She’d been staring at the picture again. Franny with Josh and the girls. JJ and Em. Her special names for them. She wondered if anyone called them that anymore. She’d been so fixated on the adults that she hadn’t spent as much time looking at them. Not in the way she should’ve. She could see it now. JJ wasn’t looking right at the camera. Her eyes were cast sideways. And though it was hard to tell, it seemed as if she was looking at Franny’s fingers, gripping Josh’s arm. Her lip seemed to be quivering. There was a slight blur to the photo on the lower part of her face.

  “Maybe they’re sad.”

  “I don’t like being sad.”

  “Me, neither.”

  Steven looked at her, and then back at the iPad. “That other girl looks like you.”

  His fat finger pointed at Em. No one ever said that she and Emily looked alike, but that was back then. When her hair was a different color and her face had a different shape. Now there was a resemblance. It was like looking at a memory of herself as a child.

  “She kind of does.”

  “Are you a mommy, Aunt Kwait?”

  And that was the question, wasn’t it?

  The real question she’d been asking herself this whole time.

  INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

  TJ: Why would you say that, Franny? That this documentary isn’t about your family?

  FM: Because it’s supposed to be about . . . You said it was about three families and how the compensation process affected them. Three families a year after October tenth.

  TJ: That’s right.

  FM: So who’s the third family? I mean, you’ve got the Graysons and the Rings, but who else are you talking to besides me?

  TJ: That’s it.

  FM: I’m not
part of a family?

  TJ: I didn’t say that. Of course you are.

  FM: And that’s why you keep asking me questions about my adopted family?

  TJ: That’s part of it, yes. It’s also to get a better sense of who you are as a person.

  FM: I don’t want to talk about them.

  TJ: I understand that, Franny, but I’ve explained to you how this works. We shoot several long interviews, and then the narrative will be shaped from that. We’re asking these questions about all the participants.

  FM: They’re not my family.

  TJ: I’m sorry you feel that way.

  FM: I have a new family now.

  TJ: Did you want to elaborate on that?

  FM: Elaborate?

  TJ: Expand. Tell me more about it.

  FM: No, I don’t think so. You’ll see.

  TJ: What am I going to see?

  FM: Now that would be ruining the surprise, wouldn’t it?

  25

  WHERE DOES THE TIME GO?

  CECILY

  Two years ago, there was a story floating around our neighborhood. A man—a black man or a brown man, some people would say, lowering their voices—was walking around at night, peering into windows. Someone’s dog had kept him from entering a house, went one story. Two teenage lovers had scared him away another time. Other rumors had less detail, but the point was always the same—something had to be done about this before something bad happened. The police were called and the cameras were checked and nothing could be found. There were no fingerprints on the windowsill the dog had supposedly defended. No footprints beneath the window where the man had supposedly been seen.

  “A ghost,” Tom called him (if it was a him). “Our very own Halloween ghost.”

  “But Halloween’s not for forever,” Henry said.

  “And Halloween is for losers,” Cassie said.

  “I’ve always loved Halloween,” I said.

  Cassie rolled her eyes, and Henry, who was on the cusp of maybe not trick-or-treating though I knew he wanted to, gave me a smile, and Tom shook his head at all of us.

  “You’re not scared?”

  “Tom!”

  “It’s nothing, Lil. A bunch of overhyped, hysterical people who think too much.”

  “Are you speaking of me?”

  “Of course not.” He winked at me. “You know what they’re like, that playground crowd. One black guy takes a walk and . . .”

  “Tom.”

  “You know it’s true.”

  “What’s true, Dad? Are you talking about racists? We learned all about that during Black History Month.”

  Henry started hopping on one foot and patting the top of his head at the same time—a coordination exercise his baseball coach had introduced him to that he continued doing after the season was over because it drove Cassie nuts.

  “Dad! He’s doing it again.”

  “Henry, you know that makes your sister crazy.”

  Henry stopped jumping.

  “So, is that what it is, Dad? Racism?” Henry was speaking as if he were in a museum. Like he was looking at a diorama meant to explain what it was. A kid in a hoodie, a man stopped for “driving while black,” another senseless police shooting.

  “Yes, son. That’s exactly what it is.”

  “Why are people racist?”

  “People are afraid,” I said. “If something’s different or they haven’t experienced it before.”

  “But everyone’s different,” Henry said. “I’m different.”

  Tom and I smiled at each other. Our little blond boy who had every advantage in life was special and different, and how could we tell him otherwise? Once when he was seven, we tried to explain to him why the autistic boy in his class couldn’t help it when he said “hi” twenty times a day. “Some people are different,” I said. “I’m different,” Henry responded. “Some people are special,” Tom tried. “I’m special,” Henry said emphatically.

  “Everyone’s different, and no one’s better than anyone else,” Tom said. “Some people are luckier, and some people have bad luck, and some people work hard and get things, and some people work very hard and don’t get things. We’re all entitled to the same respect.”

  Tom wasn’t usually one to give speeches or lessons, but this was something he’d always felt passionate about. I was proud of him that day, knowing, as I looked at our children, that the force of his conviction would erase any doubts they might have in their minds, any hate they might have in their hearts.

  Was he fucking her then? Was that moment false, too? Is it possible to be both a terrific father and a terrible man at the same time?

  A man to admire and a man to hate?

  • • •

  I’m thinking of Tom now as the cops charge past me and shove Teo to the ground. Tom would know what to do. Tom would take charge.

  Of course, if Tom were here, this wouldn’t be happening in the first place.

  “What the hell is going on?” I ask.

  “Ma’am, step back, ma’am.”

  “This is my friend. This is my friend Teo.”

  “You know this man?” There are two cops in my house now, both white men in their midtwenties, stiff-necked. I can smell the scent of fear coming off the one closest to me, who looks too young to have this much responsibility. His gun’s in his holster, but his hand is resting above it, twitching.

  “Of course I do. Let him up. What the hell are you doing?”

  The other cop has his knee in Teo’s back.

  “Shut that door!”

  I reflexively kick it closed with my foot, nicking the side of it on the frame. My skin splits, and I can feel the blood start to flow.

  “What’s going on?”

  It’s Henry, eyes round and hair wild, standing in the stairwell.

  “Get upstairs, Henry. Right now. Go to your sister’s room, and close the door until I tell you it’s okay. Now! Go now.”

  He turns and scampers up the stairs.

  “Let him up. Why are you sitting on him like that? Teo, are you okay?”

  “I’m okay,” Teo says, his voice muffled.

  “Get off him. Right this minute.”

  I’m using the same tone I used with Henry, my voice of authority, when I’ve had enough and they know I mean business. This twentysomething kid who hasn’t been on the job that long responds to it like I’m his mother. He looks up with a guilty expression on his face and lets the pressure off Teo’s back.

  “Ma’am . . .”

  “I mean it. I don’t know why this is happening, but this needs to stop right now. Get up. Get up!”

  The officer gets up. I race to Teo, my tears falling onto the back of his sweater. I help him turn over. There’s a bruise forming under his right eye.

  “Are you okay?”

  “It’s fine, Cecily. Just leave it, all right?”

  He pushes my hand away.

  “Let me at least get some ice.”

  Teo stands up slowly. The police officers back away, looking a bit confused, even though they’re the cause of this scene.

  “How did this happen?” Teo asks one of the officers. “What are you doing here?”

  “We got a call from one of Mrs. Grayson’s neighbors about a break-in.”

  “And you saw him in my house and assumed—”

  “Please let me handle this.”

  I take a step back. I’ve done enough.

  “I’m going to go check on my kids,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”

  I turn to the stairs. My feet feel like weights, exhaustion overcoming me. I learned a while ago that when you woke up in the morning, there was no accounting for how long the day would take, because not all days are created equal. The day I got Tom’s texts, that day started out normally but then slowed down until it took up the space of a week. October tenth took no time to pass in comparison. Both changed my life irrevocably, and it feels like today will, too.

  26

 
LIFE IN REVERSE

  KATE

  Growing up, Kate’s father had an irrational hatred for the Kennedys. That’s what her mother always called it, “Your father’s irrational hatred.” Kate never understood what it was that drove his ire, but it had the opposite effect than intended. Kate was secretly obsessed with Jackie Kennedy, Jackie O. She kept a scrapbook of images of her between her mattress and the box spring. Read the books she edited. Took the French option at school. When she was seventeen, she entered a contest run by Vogue to spend a year in their Paris office as an intern. Feeling petulant, Kate wrote her essay about her father. How his anger had taught her to look again. To look more closely. To see the flaws and the good parts, too. What it must’ve been like to be Jackie, starting out in the world. Full of ambition. Full of limits.

  Kate sent off her manila envelope with no hope of winning anything. But she did win. She convinced her parents to let her postpone her entrance to college. She waved goodbye to them at the airport and landed a bad night’s sleep later in the early morning of Paris.

  How free she felt. How naive she’d been.

  • • •

  “What’s that doggie, Aunt Kwait?” Willie asked as he climbed onto Kate’s lap on the morning of October twenty-ninth. A few small flakes were floating down outside. The forecast was calling for a couple inches.

  “It’s a greyhound.”

  “Is that a real doggie?” Willie pointed to the image of a dog that scampered across his fleecy pajamas. “Like this one?”

  “Well, not that one. That’s a drawing. But yes, there are real greyhounds. Here, look.” Kate opened a new browser window and Googled “images of greyhounds.” “See?”

  “That’s a big doggie.”

  “It is. Sometimes they race them.”

  “Like horses?”

  “No, not exactly. No one rides the dogs.”

  “I like riding doggies.”

  “Whose dog have you ridden?”

  “Stu.”

  “Who’s Stu?”

  “He lives across the street! You know.”

  The door from the garage opened and closed.

  “Mommy, Mommy, guess what?”

  “What’s up, Willie?”

  “Aunt Kwait is going to ride a greyhound!”