Monday's Lie

by Jamie Mason

  Once my eyelids snapped open, the dark of my bedroom was immediately more solid than the bright nonsense reel I’d been playing in my sleep. I strained at the ears to hear the voices buried in the din of the rain on the roof. The runoff from the gutter spattered against the pane, and the wind hooting around the corner of the house snatched away the words, but the whispered whir of urgency slipped through the air. I picked out my mother’s voice and also a man’s, their conversation just a two-toned murmur under the sounds of the storm. At the top of the stairs, I heard her more clearly: “Nuh-unh. Not a chance. You’re not taking them anywhere. I’ll handle it.”

  Her usually light step was betrayed on the hardwood floor. I almost never heard her walking indoors. She was as silent as fog in the house, in her bare feet, missing every nail-rubbed spot in the boards without trying. She just seemed always to know where to step. Her strict policy was no shoes in the house, but that night she had her boots on. The clock read 1:12 a.m. It was just barely Friday.

  My heartbeat thrashed at my eardrums before she slipped into my bedroom, trailing no light behind her. She and the man had been talking in the dark.

  “I need you to do something for me, Plucky,” she said. “I need you to take Simon out the back door. Take the path to the stock pond. Sit under the dock and count to one hundred.” She laughed, a sound so disconnected from the scene it might as well have been another dream. But it was a real laugh, not a forced thing. Something in all of this was funny to her. “Then I want the both of you to sing ‘American Pie’—the whole thing, all the verses—very quietly.”

  “What? Why are you sending us down there now? I was sleeping. I don’t—Mama, it’s raining.”

  “I know, baby. But it’s not cold outside. You’ll get dirty, but that’s okay, and you’ll be fine. But I need you to go, now, quickly. Now when you get back, if that truck”—she pulled back the bedroom curtain and tipped her head to send my glance out to where the streetlight cast the long shadow of a boxy, black Suburban over the lawn—“is still in the driveway, don’t come in. If it’s gone, then come around back and come on inside. If it is there, or if any car for that matter is in the driveway, go to Mrs. Anderson’s house—the back door—and ring the bell.” She tapped her teeth with her thumbnail, thinking. “And here’s the second thing: if there aren’t towels for you two on the back bench under the awning, same thing, even if the truck is gone—go through the yards to Mrs. Anderson’s back door.”

  “You’re scaring me! What’s going on? Who is that out in the hall?”

  “Don’t worry, baby. He’s fine. He’s here to help. But it’s almost surely a mistake. Probably nothing that has to do with me. And certainly nothing that has to do with you and your brother. I just need you to take him and do as I ask while I sort this out.”

  “Mama, I can’t.”

  “You can’t what? Walk? You can’t count? You can’t sing? Plucky, all of those things are easy. So is being scared—it’s very easy. But being scared doesn’t nail your feet to the floor any more than happiness makes you fly out the window. So go on, baby, scared or no. ‘Can’t’ isn’t very useful to us just now.”

  “Will you tell me later?”

  “Not if you don’t do what I say. Be a good girl, a brave girl, and who knows?” Incredibly, she winked. “I just might.”

  Her fingers trembled as she reached for the bedroom doorknob. Knowing that my mother was frightened flipped a switch in my middle. Suddenly, I didn’t mind the thought of being far away from the house. Suddenly, it seemed like an excellent idea. I snatched Simon from a deep sleep and hustled him into his sneakers and raincoat, and we set out of the house as if the place were on fire.

  I ran over the slick carpet of grass with Simon’s hand in my grip, his sniffling sobs a high hum under the clamoring applause of the rain.

  We did what she asked. We hunkered down in the squelchy mud by the last landlocked post of the pier. The fast, dull clatter of rain on the planks sang with the hard drumroll of my heartbeat. The two strains of staccato pounding raced each other, one over my head and one inside it. It might have been easier to tame the fear if it had been quiet, but in the quiet I would have been bending every nerve back toward home, toward my mother and the stranger and whatever they were waiting on inside our house. Maybe this was better. Tonight, no sound could hurdle the blanketing hiss of the rain. But at least there were our instructions.

  The why of it was so far out of reach that we didn’t even question it or wonder over the task list laid out to distract us from what was happening inside our house. Counting seemed right, seemed solid. One, two, three, four . . . In the farthest reach of the streetlight, I could see the fear-shine of Simon’s eyes tamp down to just the glint of concentration as he tried not to lose track as we got into the higher numbers. Counting put the time of our return trip into focus. We were going home just on the far side of triple digits. Not far at all. Not long. We could do that. I could do it.

  The singing was stupid enough that we eventually ended up sputtering rain as we laughed, which was exactly to my mother’s plan. It put the heart back in us for the walk home. She knew we’d be scared.

  We came up to an empty driveway with the secret-message towels stacked on the bench on the back porch. Inside, my mother’s hair was curled with sweat and she was speaking low and fast into the telephone as we turned the corner of the living room. When she saw us, she tucked the phone against her shoulder and touched our faces with her hot hands. “I’ve got to go,” she said to her caller, and without allowing time for a reply dropped the phone back into its cradle.

  A very young Brian Menary huffed through the front door, red-faced and panting. He started stacking my mother’s things in the foyer.

  13

  Patrick’s phone burred in its holster. I didn’t get the dinner plate that was in my hand set all the way into the dishwasher’s rack before my cell also came to life, shimmying a little half turn on the countertop and pinging a text alert. We looked at each other, questioning the synchronicity with only a shared look while we both reached for our phones.

  You deserve each other. 1 dog + 1 bitch. But when he turns you around next time, just know he’s probably thinking about this.

  Predictably, there was a photo attached. Angela’s name wasn’t tattooed on her forehead. It was, however, tattooed on her ass. The curly script underscored a delicate, impossibly beautiful, jewel-toned butterfly. I briefly wondered if the artist had regretted making a tacky name tag out of his nice work instead of letting the precision and color speak for itself.

  Patrick and I locked eyes across the kitchen island. People sometimes say that the color drained from someone’s face, but I’d never seen it in textbook presentation before. In this case, a distinct pale edge tumbled, forehead to chin, over the average shade of Tuesday on his face. The white drew down as his blood deserted his brain, where all the excuses and reasons lived. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

  “Pat—” I started.

  “She’s lying.”

  “Pat.”

  “I don’t know who this person is. I think it’s a wrong number. You know how they reassign numbers. This must be close to—I should call the telephone people. I—I’ve been getting these weird—these harassing messages—it’s gotta be.” The last three words made little sense, but he’d hit a sound stride and nodded his head as if it stood in for any kind of resolution.

  “Pat!”

  He froze. I mirrored his stance, chilled and stiff, bracing against the opening lines of this scene I’d hoped not to have to play out. There was no sloping into this one. A quick dive and a cold splash was all I had ahead of me.

  I sighed. “Angela called me four days ago. She told me what happened.”

  “She what?” Patrick’s pallor had curdled around flushed patches on his cheeks, as if he’d been slapped twice.

  “I didn’t know what to say to you.”

  “Four days? You didn’t say anything about this for four
days?”

  “I just didn’t—”

  “You acted— We’ve been— Nothing. Nothing at all. Like everything was fine,” he sputtered.

  “It’s not fine. I just didn’t want to overreact. With everything that’s happened . . .”

  “With everything that’s happened—what? What does that even mean?”

  “Hang on. Wait. You’re angry with me?” I asked.

  “I don’t know yet. Why haven’t you said anything or even hinted that there was something wrong—something this big on your mind?”

  “Why are you turning this around on me? I was trying to be understanding.”

  “You were trying? I dunno, you don’t exactly look all worn-out from four days of trying. In fact, you look a lot more like you don’t give a shit.”

  “This is ridiculous. I can’t win.”

  “What are you trying to win, Dee?”

  “So, you’d rather I throw dishes at your head? Is that what I’m supposed to get out of all of this?”

  “Unbelievable.” He got up from the table, the legs of his chair grinding across the tile. “You are truly unbelievable.”

  Patrick brushed by me, clearing the room in fast, angry strides before he’d have to offer one word in defense of being most literally bare-assed, blatantly caught.

  “How am I in trouble with you over this? It doesn’t make any sense. I was hoping that this was just a onetime thing, just a lapse, because you were mad at me. You know, getting back at me for the . . .” I left off, lost in the baffling indignation that billowed majestically around the statue of my husband as he loomed from the doorway.

  Patrick was all offense now on an unfathomable high ground. He leaned in, somehow righteous in his fury, withering me under his glare. “Well, if I had known I had a hall pass, I might have spent it differently.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

  “I can see that.” He stalked out of the room.

  Just a few weeks later, after a run of tense days warming through discussion and tears, rolling over to tentative makeup sex and stunningly odd urges in me to apologize, Patrick forgot his cell phone and I interrupted him giving directions to a man in a blue sedan who didn’t look lost at all.

  • • •

  Patrick was a man of preparation. Corporate presentations ended up looking effortless for all the effort he put into them, and he spent up to a quarter of an hour each workday morning in the driveway, admiring his shave in the rearview mirror and checking his voice mail and electronic messages for things to mull over on the way to work, psyching himself up with answers-at-the-ready for whatever he’d missed since he’d left the office on the previous afternoon.

  So I was a little surprised on my way to the shower, one morning, to see his cell phone still in its charging cradle on the dresser. He’d only left just moments earlier, so I hustled into my robe and slippers to catch him before he could drive off without it. I yanked open the front door, still struggling with the robe’s sash to stay decent. Patrick was bent at the hips, speaking into the open driver’s-side window of a blue sedan idling at the curb opposite our house.

  My flapping on the stoop drew the driver’s attention. That was normal in and of itself, but something in the unmistakable Oh, shit! of the look on this stranger’s face kicked my heart into double time. Patrick mirrored the man’s startle, his eyebrows flying for his hairline before he could stop them. He composed himself, nodded at the man, who then pulled away from the curb without another look my way. Patrick met me on the sidewalk.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “What?”

  I laughed for his benefit. Granting Patrick a sliver of time gave me one as well. Composure cuts both ways, and we’d been riding rough waters of late. Our peace was bruised and seasick. I’d made a second career of being careful not to upend a nice day without good cause.

  I shielded the early sun out of my eyes with a sheltering hand across my brow. The blur of golden light receded under my shade so I could see his face clearly. “Do you know that guy?” I asked.

  Patrick’s color was high in bright circles over his cheekbones. “That guy? No, I don’t know that guy.” Parroting. A small giveaway that the statement is a lie.

  “Well, what did he want?”

  “Directions.”

  “To where?”

  Patrick’s eyes danced right and left. “The freeway.”

  “Oh. You forgot your phone.”

  Patrick took it and kissed my cheek. “Thanks. Gotta run. Love you.” But his mouth turned down at the corners as he said it.

  I went back into the house and pushed the whole scene from my mind and nearly convinced myself I hadn’t memorized the license plate of the blue sedan.

  14

  My membership dues covered eight yoga classes per month, and my resolution to hit all ninety-six opportunities in a year was an achievement I had yet to celebrate. Still, some yoga was better than none, and I’d been a good girl, doing the diligent downward dog regularly of late. The studio was an addition to the instructor’s home, a shoehorned-in upgrade stapled to the side of a funky, little house in a run-down quarter of town. The yard had been graveled over all the way to the chain-link fence for parking, but all the incongruence was forgotten over the threshold. The transition struck a mood of antiseptic reverence with spotless blond-wood floors, tall, gleaming mirrors, and gorgeous silk wall hangings in honor of the cascade of chakras we stretched and twisted our bodies to improve.

  Offense was only my second reaction to the burglary at the studio. The first was mistrust. Of the four handbags that were upended from the nineteen full cubbies in the entryway, mine was the most thoroughly spread over the floor. Even the inside zipper compartments had been opened and emptied, and mine had been the only one with any cash in it at all, albeit only a few dollars. Beyond maybe enough money from my wallet to buy a Red Bull and a Slim Jim at the bodega a block and a half away, no one at the yoga studio, a little too conveniently, was out anything.

  A wad of pink aerosol string had blocked the studio’s mostly-for-show security camera, and the police arrived at the reasonable and completely unsatisfying conclusion that a selection of local punk-asses had been scared off their thievery before they could make off with anything valuable.

  That might have been a good enough explanation, except for the niggling timing of it, wedged in as it was into my newly complicated life. I couldn’t help but notice that, despite a rain shower’s having stirred the dust into mud at the bottom of the steps leading into the studio, a hoodlum, or a gaggle of them even, had not tracked in any muck during a grab and dash.

  The convenience mart down the street had a mounted camera as well, but that hadn’t interested the police. It didn’t point at the yoga instructor’s house. My argument—that it covered the intersection closest to the scene—was met with the practical rebuttal that there would be no way to tie activity at the busy crossroads with the next-to-nothing that had happened down the street at the studio.

  Undeterred, I resorted to forced tears to persuade the convenience-store owner to check the camera, only to find to his surprise, but eerily not mine, that it had suffered a fatal malfunction on the afternoon of the incident and that it hadn’t worked ever since.

  • • •

  If my mother was ever followed while we were with her, I never knew about it. She wouldn’t have made a game of it, anyway. There’s no entertaining spin to put on a chase. I don’t know that even she, with all her confidence and infinite stock of truisms, could have given me a mental talisman against the burn of being prey. Tag was always my least favorite school-yard game. Nothing stripped me of all cleverness, grace, and every coherent thought in my head like being hunted. Not even for fun. I heard the delighted squeals of the other children on the playground, but between my own ears was always loud white panic and little else. When the game was done, I kept my face turned from the group until I could tame my wild eyes and coax back my happy mask, showing tha
t I knew, just like everyone else did, that it was only a game.

  I checked the rearview mirror again. I was being dramatic. Angela’s fire raid on our cell phones coming right on the heels of having seen Brian Menary at the mall and the dustup at the yoga studio had put me on buzzing alert for days. This was surely still part of that hangover. It had to be. The blue sedan I saw now looked very much like the one that had been outside my house that morning the week before. (Then I’d seen it again three rows over in the supermarket parking lot the very next day.) But it was a common enough model, and like getting a new one myself, as soon as any particular car imprinted on my attention, I saw it everywhere.

  The other drivers in their not-blue-sedans rolled past me as I plied the brakes. The rest of the cars behaved just as they should have, their images sliding predictably into my mirrors when I ran down the gas pedal. But not this guy. I towed this single blue car as if it were on a peculiar hitch, fifty feet long and one lane crooked. I had just made up my mind to draw him out with a more decisive maneuver, zooming into the clear road ahead, when my nemesis (or probably just fellow commuter) ticked on his turn signal and banked innocently out of sight on the exit ramp.

  The steering wheel showed the damp ghost of my grip, and the air wicked it away once I peeled my hands off their ten-and-two position to scan the radio channels for something better than the noise in my head.

  • • •