Rules of Lying (Jane Dough Series)

by Stephie Smith

  “Special? Special? Do you not read Forbes? Or Cosmopolitan, for that matter?”

  Hmmm, did Mom read Forbes or Cosmopolitan for that matter? I doubted it.

  “Bryan Rossi is one of the top bachelors in the country! His father is Senator Rossi from New Hampshire! His mother is a Vanderbilt! My goodness, his family has so much money that … Jane, are you there?”

  Yes, I was there, but I was about to pass out. The words Prince Charming had suddenly flashed before my eyes, pretty much in the manner that I expected something to flash before my eyes as I was about to meet Death. Prince Charming had come for me on his charging white Jaguar and I had turned him down because I was pretending to marry some unknown ad respondent? Yes, I had. I started to kick myself, but then I remembered I didn’t believe in Prince Charming.

  “Look, Mom, I turned Bryan down. He wasn’t applying for the husband-wanted job, and I don’t have time to fly up to Atlanta for concerts while I’m trying to save my property.”

  “What? Concerts? What are you talking about? I’m talking about Dr. Bryan Rossi. He could pay your fine with pocket change. You wouldn’t be living in your house anyway, because he lives on the Hill. Did you hear me? The Hill!”

  Yes, I heard her. The “Hill” was Island Hill, an exclusive island neighborhood built within the last five years. Ground had been broken on the island about one second after a news release that a gigantic state-of-the-future medical research facility was in the works. Neurosurgeons, oncologists, and bigtime research scientists snatched up the lots on Island Hill like Christmas shoppers snatched up the newest fad toy on Black Friday.

  The island was called the Hill because tons of dirt had been brought in to build up the island prior to construction, as a safeguard against flooding. The prospective homeowners had gone a step further and had the footprint of their homes built up even higher than the surrounding land. The result was that each mansion sat on a hill by itself, the overall effect being one of majesty when looking up from the wide, beautifully landscaped drive below.

  It’d be enough to make you snicker—there had been a ton of jokes about how the island was going to sink and take all those heavy egos with it—but so far the Hill had weathered the hurricanes quite well. I’d house-hunted there with Sue when I first moved back. Not because I could afford to buy in the neighborhood—I’d have to be number one on the New York Times bestseller list about sixty-two times before that could be a possibility—but because Sue had insisted. It was one of the few ways a non-resident could get past the guards at the gate for a look.

  “Dr. Rossi didn’t ask me to marry him, he asked for a date.”

  “But a date, Jane! All marriages start with a date!”

  “Not this one,” I said. “This one starts with a legal agreement where a man promises to work very hard to help fix up my lot the way I want it fixed up in return for getting his name on the deed. That’s the way this marriage starts. Bryan Rossi just wanted to have a good time and meanwhile, my time was going to run out. I don’t want to talk about it anymore and besides, I’ve gotta get ready for work.”

  As I was putting the phone down, I heard one last wail, “But Jane, he’s a doctor.”

  I sat there for a minute thinking about my life. I’d repeated the husband-wanted lie so many times that I was starting to believe it myself. Except I knew there was no way I could really marry a guy in exchange for his help in saving my property. I didn’t want to be rescued by a man.

  That was why I’d said no to Bryan. I hadn’t exactly understood at the time, nor later when I called Sue to tell her about the day’s surprising events and she was beyond astonished that I’d turned Bryan down. I could have gone out with him and maybe he’d have really liked me. Maybe he’d have offered to pay someone to fix up my property, thus solving all my problems. And that was what I was afraid of, Prince Charming to the rescue, which would only prove I couldn’t take care of myself. That was what my mother and sisters had been saying all along.

  I’d grown up believing in Prince Charming. Really. It seemed ridiculous but I had. I knew that one day my prince would come and whisk me away to my wonderful life, and I had planned on biding my time until he appeared.

  I was almost thirty before I realized no one was coming. I actually thought he had come, but Pete turned out to be a lying, selfish, self-centered son of a bitch who was only pretending to be Prince Charming for a few years until he started to worry about his age and his future and found a barely-old-enough-to-order-a-drink girlfriend who had no expectations of him, who made him feel like the rock superstar he never quite became, while he managed to steal most of the stuff I had purchased for our apartment.

  I would never be that kind of fool again. I’d finally grown up, and I knew now that no one was responsible for my happiness but me. There was no such thing as Prince Charming, and if there were, he wouldn’t be Bryan Rossi, who was probably a spoiled rich boy accustomed to getting what he wanted.

  I mourned the loss of my childhood dream, and then I let it go. I didn’t even want Prince Charming anymore. I only wanted a place to call my home, and I’d found it in this little two-acre piece of property. And no one was going to take it away from me now.

  Chapter 8

  I was mentally exhausted when I got home from work. Not because of the actual tasks I’d done but because my boss force-fed me snippet after snippet of purple prose and waited in eager anticipation for my response. What are you supposed to do when the guy signing your paycheck asks for your opinion of his writing? Respond with jubilant admiration, of course.

  All that praise got to be wearing on me, but it seemed to have an opposite effect on my boss. His everyday conversation took on a new life. A difficult, long-term project twisted and turned through tumultuous times, an obstinate customer became a recalcitrant rogue. By the end of the day my jaw ached from the fake smiles and forced laughs.

  When I got home I was too depressed to eat dinner. What I really wanted to do was lie around and read a good book, but I didn’t feel up to battling guilt. I also didn’t feel like tramping around in the brush, so I decided to take care of a flooding problem.

  A few months earlier, a heavy rain had come this close to flooding into my house at the eastern end of my patio, where sliding glass doors sat a quarter inch lower than the French doors I’d installed at the opposite end. I was lucky the rain subsided when it did, but I knew it was just a matter of time before my luck ran out. Since the tropical season was upon us, I figured the problem was something I should take care of. Adding those flexible, accordion-like extensions to the downspouts in order to lead the water away from the patio would fix the problem until I could afford to have grading done by a professional.

  The minute I started on the project, I had the creepy feeling I was being watched. I was wearing sunglasses and a big floppy sun hat, so I was able to look around nonchalantly, without being obvious. I didn’t see anything or anyone, but because the creepy feeling stayed with me, I shoved extensions together, rammed them onto the downspouts, used a motorized screwdriver and self-threading aluminum screws to secure the plastic extensions to the downspouts, and scuttled back inside.

  I showered, picked up the house, and decided to treat myself to some reading for what was left of the night. It took me fifteen minutes to choose—so many good books and so little time—but I settled on Midnight by Dean Koontz.

  Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. I was two-thirds of the way through a 450-page book when I noticed it was two a.m. Tomorrow was Saturday, and I had a 14-hour day of yard work hanging over my head, so I regretfully put the book aside and turned off the light.

  And then I heard it. A scratching coming from the dining room French doors.

  If I hadn’t been reading Dean Koontz, I might have shrugged it off, but not now, now that a strange, high-pitched, ululating call joined the scratching sound.

  I slid out of bed and crept to the doors. I just stood there, unable to breathe, too afraid to separate the cu
rtains and look out for fear of coming face to face with some unknown terror. I finally got a grip on myself and inched the draperies over enough for a glimpse outside. The moon was obscured by a blanket of dark clouds; I couldn’t see a thing. I was about to drop the curtain and return to bed when a loud thump and scraping nails on the glass startled me into a scream.

  Once my heart slowed to a pace that allowed me to actually think, I recognized Little Boy. He was standing on his hind legs, pawing at the door in a hysterical manner, if cats could be called hysterical. Now that he’d seen me, he was screeching. I twisted the deadbolt and opened the door, and he shot inside. He scooted under the coffee table where he remained half-hidden, eyes dark and huge. Concerned, I flipped on the floodlights in my backyard and scanned my property as best I could. Something must have scared him.

  I finally saw it. A white van crawling along behind my property on the dirt road parallel to my fence. If the van hadn’t been white, I wouldn’t have seen it at all.

  Goose bumps rose up all over my body, always a bad sign. I didn’t get goose bumps often, so when I did, I paid attention. But what did the goose bumps mean?

  That road was used only by the county; no trespassing signs were posted along it. Come to think of it, the van looked like a county van, but why would a county worker be out there in the middle of the night? Behind the road lay thick woods more than a quarter mile wide. The county had recently carved out a narrow dirt road that ran through those woods to a secluded lake.

  It didn’t seem likely that the sound of the van’s motor had terrified the cat. It must have been something else, but I couldn’t imagine what. I continued to survey the area for a couple of minutes but after seeing nothing, I decided the mystery would have to wait.

  I hated to leave Little Boy in the house since he probably had fleas, but I didn’t have a choice. I put out bowls of dry food and water and threw some kitty litter, which I’d had the foresight to buy in case I was ever able to catch the cat, into a plastic tub. Then I fell into bed.

  *****

  I awoke to the sound of Niagara Falls. Confused, since I didn’t live anywhere near a falls, I rolled out of bed and staggered to the French doors, from where the sound seemed to emanate. Five seconds later I was wide awake.

  Forecasted rain had hit early and was falling in thick, white sheets that rippled every few seconds from the gusty winds. But that wasn’t the shock that woke me up.

  The green, plastic, accordion-like downspout extension wasn’t connected to the end of the downspout, carrying the water away from the patio, the way I’d left it. Instead, it was hanging directly from the gutter in place of the aluminum downspout, and it was only a few feet long because someone had cut it off. The force of the gushing rainwater whipped the flexible extension around like a fire hose gone amuck. Water shot out of the hanging extension in bursts and was flung first in one direction, then another.

  What the hell?

  A torrent of water slapped the glass I’d pressed my nose against, causing me to stumble backwards into the dining room table. As the stream of liquid flooded down the glass, my gaze went with it, checking the bottom of the door to make sure the water wasn’t coming inside. Thank goodness I’d replaced the sliding glass doors with French doors. Otherwise the water would have run down to the tracks and into the house.

  Oh, no! The sliding glass doors in the family room were directly across from the other downspout. I raced through the kitchen to the family room. The tracks were half filled with water. Crap! It would only be a matter of minutes before my expensive wood floor—which Mark and I had spent a week installing—was ruined.

  I jerked into action, sprinting to the garage, planning to grab up the screwdriver and screws, and then realized I’d left them on the patio. I flung open the garage’s side door and dashed around to the backyard. I didn’t spare a single fearful thought for the thunder and lightning, though under normal circumstances I would have been scared to death. If my floor was ruined, I was going to wish I was dead anyway.

  By the time I got to the patio, I was soaked, though that didn’t lessen the annoyance of being smacked in the face by a deluge of water, which happened the moment I was close enough to the makeshift downspout to be a successful target.

  I snatched up the second extension from the ground. For two brief seconds I considered removing the dangling extension so I could fit the aluminum downspout, which was now lying in the backyard, back into the gutter, but the force of the water hurtling out of the extension told me it would be a losing battle. Instead, I tried to slip the second extension over the end of the dangling one, but I couldn’t get the pieces to twist together.

  I shook the streaming water from my face so I could get a good look at the problem. No wonder! I had grabbed the wrong end when I picked up the second extension from the ground. I had no choice but to let go of the “fire hose” so I could flip the second extension around, and I was immediately rewarded by another slap in the face.

  After a few tries I managed to shove the two extensions together, and at that very moment it occurred to me that the screwdriver and screws were lying on the patio out of reach. I would either have to let go and run through the entire exercise a third time or I’d have to stand there and hold the pieces together until the rain let up enough that I could do the job properly.

  That did it. I had reached the end of my rope. I let out a scream, which made me feel better even though I knew I’d be standing there for a good while.

  “Need some help?” came a shout through the pounding rain a minute later.

  I twisted my head around to see Hank striding toward me, drenched but not seeming to care. I was so happy to see him, I wasn’t one bit embarrassed by my display of temper.

  “No, thanks,” I yelled back. “Today seemed like a good day to stand in the rain and hold together a downspout.”

  He grinned, and I jerked my head in the direction of the screwdriver and screws lying on the patio.

  Hank screwed the pieces together while I held them tight, and then we did the same for the other downspout. The rain eased off to a drizzle just as we were finishing. Of course.

  “I could hear you scream from my driveway. Why didn’t you wait until the storm passed?”

  “Because of the floor.” The floor! Without another word, I took off for the garage since I’d never unlocked the sliding glass doors. Hank trailed behind me. I grabbed towels from the linen closet and began soaking up the water in the tracks.

  “We better dry ourselves off too,” Hank said. “We’re drippin’ all over the place.”

  And we were. We quickly finished with the floor and exited through the sliding doors to the patio, where we could dry off without consequence. Hank removed our makeshift downspouts and replaced them with the aluminum ones while I explained what had happened. Neither of us could figure out how the downspout switch had occurred. Who would have done it and why?

  We’d just finished screwing the extensions back into place when an unearthly sound that was half screech, half growl came from about thirty feet away. I scanned the yard and saw nothing. Then …

  At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me because it appeared that the plastic edging that separated what had once been a butterfly garden from the yard was sliding along the grass. But that couldn’t be right. How could edging pull itself up out of the ground and start moving along by itself?

  I squeezed my eyes shut and then opened them again, and that was when I realized that the thing moving across my yard was a brown-patterned thing, not black like the edging. “What the …”

  “Holy shit!” yelled Hank. “That’s a python!”

  I screamed, and a wincing Hank clapped his hands over his ears. I couldn’t help it. The snake was more than twice as long as I was tall.

  “Little Boy!” Newly frantic, I hurled myself in the direction of the earlier howls, shouting, “Little Boy! I gotta get Little Boy!”

  Hank was running too, but he was running at me. He
grabbed me and swept me off my feet, twirling me back toward the patio.

  “No!” I said, struggling against his grip. “I’ve gotta get Little Boy!”

  “Calm down. He’s up there,” Hank said. He pointed to the top of a pine tree. A rain-soaked Little Boy was on a branch about twenty feet up. Thank God.

  I tried to get a deep breath, one that would help out with the hyperventilation thing I had going. “I’m calling Animal Control,” I said. “Don’t take your eyes off that thing.”

  I ran into the house for my cellphone. I already had Animal Control’s number programmed in because I’d had a confrontation with a hissing opossum once. They hadn’t wanted to come out until I told them it was hissing in my kitchen. The entire event had required several phone calls to Animal Control, mostly to see how close they were to my house.

  I ran back out as I finished the call. “They’re on their way. I’m worried Little Boy will come down from the tree.”

  “I’d be more worried the python will go up it.”

  “They climb trees?” I shrieked. The panicky feeling welled up again.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” Hank said. “I need somethin’ I can use to fend him off. I’ll be right back.”

  The mental image of Hank trying to fend off a giant python as it slowly climbed the tree toward poor Little Boy left me horrified but not senseless. I stood watch, ready to scream my lungs out if the python headed toward the tree. The snake seemed to be of a mind to follow along the fence that stretched across the back of my property, causing another fear—that when he came to the end of the fence he would go around it and head into the woods. They’d never find him, and I’d live in terror forever. If that happened, I’d take the deal from Carlson. I couldn’t live with a python as a neighbor for the rest of my life.

  But wait …

  Could Carlson have had something to do with the python showing up? I cast the idea aside. I was probably losing it over the thought of cohabitating with a 12-foot-long snake. I was still watching said snake, afraid to blink lest he disappeared from my vision. It only slithered a little ways and then turned back in my direction. Another howl came from Little Boy, and my heart started to pound again.