The Lies That Bind

by Emily Giffin

  I roll my eyes because I know he is full of it—Scottie’s idea of outdoorsy is sitting on a dock with his toes in the water, whereas I actually like camping and hiking and swimming. If anything, he’s the one who should be living in the city, and I should be out in the woods, writing in solitude.

  “Just visit soon,” I say. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you more.”

  * * *

  —

  That night, I have trouble falling asleep, feeling unusually contemplative even for a Sunday night. I think about Matthew and Grant, of course, but also my friendship with Scottie, going all the way back to elementary school. I think of how we used to hang out in my bedroom, listening to our favorite records while we flipped through Tiger Beat and Teen Beat magazines. That was before I knew Scottie was gay—before he knew he was gay, for that matter—although his obsession with Andrew McCarthy should have been a tip-off. (St. Elmo’s Fire and Pretty in Pink were his two favorite movies.)

  I think about our transition from childhood to early adolescence, when we stopped calling our time together “playing” and started referring to it as “hanging.” Incidentally this coincided with our parents’ collective and awkward decree that it was no longer “appropriate” for us to be in each other’s bedrooms, all four of them convinced that a physical relationship was inevitable.

  Technically, they turned out to be right: Scottie and I briefly “went out” in the spring of the eighth grade and shared an awkward half-second kiss that, to this day, nobody but us knows about. By the time we got to high school, we were slightly less exclusive with our bond, becoming part of a circle of friends that was part preppy, part nerd, part new wave. Our group got good grades, but didn’t overachieve or do much “joining”—aside from the school newspaper for me.

  We found the same sort of niche in college, when Scottie and I went off to the University of Wisconsin together and remained inseparable. We were a package deal, and everyone knew it, including whomever I was dating at the time. I had only one boyfriend in college—a guy with the unfortunate name Bart Simpson—who was ridiculously jealous of Scottie. By that time, I knew Scottie was gay, but nobody else did, and I certainly wasn’t going to share the secret with Bart just to soothe his fragile ego. And anyway, that should have been utterly beside the point. Gay, straight, bi, whatever, Scottie was my best friend, end of story.

  Even after I moved to New York (which remains the hardest day of our friendship; you would have thought one of us had been given a fatal diagnosis, the way we carried on), we continued to talk multiple times a day, whether by phone or email or IM. When things got serious with Matthew, my contact with Scottie lessened a little, but he stayed first in the pecking order. When something bad happened, I called Scottie. When something good happened, I called Scottie. Perhaps more significant, during my entire relationship with Matthew, from the very early days to the happy middle parts to the unsatisfying, heartbreaking end, I never stopped consulting and analyzing and strategizing with Scottie. I told him everything—every happening, every emotion, all unfiltered. It felt perfectly normal and healthy to me—something best friends simply did. But I remember my sister, who has a really ideal marriage, once making a reference to our “umbilical cord” and suggesting that it might be time to cut it. I felt defensive, but also a bit sorry for her, as my sister was always one of those girls who put her boyfriend ahead of her friends. As a result, she’s never had a really close friendship like the one I share with Scottie.

  But now, as I lie here in bed, it occurs to me for the first time that in a weird way, maybe my dynamic with Scottie really should have been a red flag that Matthew wasn’t giving me everything I needed. He was wonderful in so many ways, and I really did—do still—love him. But maybe I wanted the comfort and security of having found “the one” more than I really wanted Matthew himself. And maybe—just maybe—something deeper exists.

  I don’t know what that might be, but I fall asleep thinking about Grant.

  I don’t hear from Grant on Monday. Or Tuesday.

  And now it’s Wednesday afternoon, and I’m wedged into my cramped, dingy cubicle on the twenty-first floor of a nondescript office building on Avenue of the Americas, writing a scintillating six-hundred-word story on mad cow disease and its impact on a local blood bank. And I still haven’t heard from him.

  The whole thing is starting to feel like a dream—a bizarre, wonderful dream—and although I’m holding out hope, I’m also aware that we are rapidly approaching Scottie’s deadline. According to his long-standing rule, if you meet a guy at any point over the weekend and you don’t hear from him by nightfall on the following Wednesday, he isn’t interested. And even if he likes you enough to eventually call you, chances are that the relationship won’t ever amount to much because he doesn’t like you enough to call sooner.

  At first blush, the rule seems pretty arbitrary (and also counterintuitive given that Scottie advocates all sorts of playing hard to get, especially when I really like someone). But I have to admit that based on years of experience and data, his guidance on the subject remains eerily dead-on. So I’m decidedly worried as I do an Internet search for “sunset today New York City,” discovering that night will officially fall at 8:14 P.M. This means that Grant has four hours and nine minutes to deliver.

  I spin in my desk chair to face Jasmine, my closest work friend and the only person I can see without standing to peer over the fabric-covered partitions of my cube. To be honest, I think our proximity is the main reason we became such good friends in the first place, sort of like those college roommates who are opposites but end up being the best of friends. I’m from Wisconsin; she’s from the Bronx. I’m pretty vanilla on paper, with traditional Catholic parents; her parents are academics and activists. I tend to be a little too passive and neurotic, whereas she’s the most calmly assertive, well-adjusted person I know.

  I wait for her to finish typing before saying, “Hey, Jasmine? Can I ask you something?”

  “You just did,” she says, doing a half turn in her chair and inspecting me through her bold cat-eye glasses, which prompted one colleague to compare her to a “hot librarian”—a so-called compliment that did not go over very well and ended in a meeting with HR.

  I know her well enough to know that she’s not as annoyed as she’s pretending to be, so I press on. “Do you think he’s going to call?”

  “Are we talking about old dude?” she says. “Or new dude?”

  “New dude,” I say, feeling sheepish that she has to ask. That I’ve gone from one obsession to the next virtually overnight.

  “I have no idea,” she says, completely missing the point of such questions—that of course she has no idea. Nobody does. Which is why I’m asking her to speculate. I fill her in on Scottie’s sunset rule.

  She listens, but makes all sorts of disapproving faces before waving his theory off as “patently ridiculous,” illustrating a huge difference between my two confidants. Scottie will analyze things to death but never judges me, whereas Jasmine has no patience for relationship drama and calls me out on any and all bullshit.

  “Maybe he’s really busy this week. You know, focused on his job…his stuff….Maybe you should do the same?” She gestures toward her computer monitor and says, “You don’t want to end up like Nicole here, do you?”

  “Kidman?” I say, knowing she’s been working on a piece about her divorce from Tom Cruise. The assignment is such a total waste on her; she has no appetite for celebrity gossip.

  “Yeah,” she says.

  “Why? What’s going on now?” I ask, wondering what kind of parallel she could possibly be drawing between Nicole Kidman’s life and mine.

  “Oh, just more Scientology bullshit…She was a prisoner. So glad she broke free of that crazy town. She’s way too good for him.”

  “So you’re saying I’m a prisoner because I want Grant to call me?
” I ask with a laugh.

  “I’m just saying—get on your own damn path,” Jasmine says. “He either calls or he doesn’t. And if he doesn’t? His loss.”

  I nod and say okay, but still can’t resist glancing down at my cellphone, then trying to slyly flip it open.

  Jasmine busts me and says, “Jeez, Cecily. Put that down.”

  “I was just checking.”

  “Well, stop checking. Everyone knows that a watched phone never rings,” she says, grabbing her purse from a desk drawer and bolting up out of her chair. “Now, c’mon. Let’s go get some coffee.”

  * * *

  —

  Later that night, after Scottie’s artificial deadline has passed, I find myself thinking about my afternoon coffee chat with Jasmine. Specifically, I think of how she said my encounter with Grant proves that there’s a silver lining to my breakup with Matthew. I now can take full advantage of my dwindling twenties and early thirties, which she views as the time to experience life freely, with little responsibility to anyone else.

  “You have your whole life to be married,” she said. “What’s the rush? Besides, it kind of seems like marriage is overrated, when fifty percent of them end in divorce.”

  “Well, I’m banking on being in the other fifty percent,” I said with a smile. “And where’s the shame in wanting a traditional life? I want to be married. I want a husband—a permanent partnership—and my own family. Nothing is more important than family….”

  “Fine. But don’t you want to marry the right person?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I mean, obviously.”

  “Okay. But what if you had been married to Matthew when you met what’s-his-name? What would you have done then?”

  I told her that was an easy question. That I would never have progressed past pleasantries with him—or anyone. That no matter how much chemistry we shared, my mind would not have been open to the idea.

  “And that’s a good thing?” she asked.

  “Uh, yeah, that’s a good thing. It’s also the right thing,” I said.

  “Really? Is it?” she pressed. “It’s a good thing to be walled off to possibilities? And new experiences? In your twenties? The time when you should be exploring who you are?”

  “You can have new experiences that don’t include sex,” I said.

  “True,” Jasmine said. “But you can’t have new sexual experiences that don’t include sex.”

  I laughed—it was a fair point—but told her I thought it more than a little depressing to suggest that at any given point in time, you could be perfectly willing to switch out your partner for a new one. Wasn’t there something to be said for loyalty and fidelity and monogamy, even in the face of temptation? You know, loving the one you were with?

  Our conversation went on like that for a while, as we discussed all sorts of things, including her view of feminism, which is all about empowerment and independence from men, whereas my view of feminism has more to do with choice. Women in the twenty-first century (which still sounds so funny to my ears) have options. We can marry or not marry; have children or not have children; be stay-at-home mothers or have careers. So yes, I told her, I want to get married, and yes, I want to find a life mate sooner rather than later, but that didn’t make me a bad feminist. It just made me determined to have it all—one of the reasons I came to New York in the first place.

  As I mull all this over and climb into bed, my phone finally rings. I answer it, my heart pounding.

  “Hi, there,” I hear in my ear. “It’s me. Grant.”

  Speechless for a second, I grin, then blurt out a statement that Scottie would never approve. “I was starting to think I wasn’t going to hear from you.”

  “Wow,” he says, and I can tell he’s grinning back at me. “So little faith.”

  “My best friend gave you an eight P.M. deadline. Today.”

  “Well, then I’m only an hour late,” he says. “Fashionably late.”

  “An hour late in my world means a story won’t go to print.”

  “Touché,” he says. “So…does this mean you’re not going to buzz me up?”

  “Wait. What?” I say, bolting out of bed, raising my blinds, and looking out, even though I know I can’t see the building entrance from my window. “Are you here now?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Just passing by…and I was starting to forget what you look like.”

  “That’s not a good sign,” I say, as I start frantically straightening up, throwing clothes in my closet and in the hamper.

  “Well, how about this for a sign?” he says. “I’ve been thinking about you nonstop since Sunday afternoon.”

  “You have?” I say.

  “I have,” he says. “So…you gonna let me up or what?”

  I smile and press my buzzer.

  * * *

  —

  A moment later, Grant is standing in my doorway in a navy suit, a light blue dress shirt, and a red striped tie. I had a cute, clever remark all planned, but I forget it the second I see him. He steps forward to hug me, and I fall into his arms. Our height difference makes the embrace a little awkward at first—at least physically—but we make the requisite adjustments. I stand on my toes, clasping my hands around his neck as he bends at his knees, his arms around my waist, both of us inhaling, exhaling. Several thrilling seconds pass before he lets go, straightens, and beams down at me.

  “You really forgot my face?” I say, gazing up at him.

  “No,” he says. “But you were starting to seem like a dream. I was afraid I’d imagined you….”

  I don’t admit that the same was true for me. Instead I pinch him and say, “Well. Here I am. Real.”

  “Yep,” he says, smiling. “Here you are.”

  I smile back at him, then ask if he’d like a drink, maybe something to eat.

  He shakes his head and says he’s fine, as we walk over to my sofa. He looks around at my sparsely decorated living room, his eyes resting on a framed poster from Summerfest 1993.

  “Were you there?”

  “Yeah,” I say, then tell him that Bon Jovi headlined that year.

  We sit down, chatting about music and concerts for a few seconds before he says, “So tell me about your week so far. What’s been going on?”

  “Nothing too exciting,” I say.

  “Tell me anyway.”

  I shrug, then tell him I filed a story on mad cow disease, and I’m currently working on a feature about a Brooklyn bowling alley closing. “Thrilling stuff, huh?”

  He ignores my self-deprecation and says, “Which alley?”

  “Bedford Bowl. A neighborhood institution. Very old-school. No psychedelic lights or center consoles. The scoring is all done by hand. Anyway, Medgar Evers College is right across the street, and they need more classrooms for the student body, which is expected to double by 2004.” I stop abruptly, realizing I’m babbling.

  But Grant pretends to be intrigued. Or maybe he actually is. “Oh, so they’re knocking it down?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. “On June sixth. After four decades. I interviewed this guy yesterday—Clarence—who’s gone there every day for the past thirty-eight years.”

  Grant whistles and says, “Wow. A bowling alley every day of the week?…Is that quaint or pathetic?”

  “A little of both,” I say with a laugh. “So what about you? How’s your week so far?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual…”

  “What’s the usual?” I say, craving details about his life.

  “The usual grind,” he says. “But I did make a big decision…I’m taking some time off work….” His voice trails off as he looks a little uneasy.

  “Oh,” I say. “Like a vacation?”

  “No. More like a…sabbatical.”

  “Cool,” I say. “How much time are y
ou taking?”

  “I’m not sure. Probably just the summer.”

  “Cool,” I say again. “Starting when?”

  “I leave in a few weeks.”

  “Oh,” I say, a little deflated. “So you’re traveling?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to London—and then traveling a bit from there.”

  “Alone?” I ask, concerned that this will be the part where he tells me he has a girlfriend.

  “No. I’m going with my brother.”

  Relieved, I say, “Nice. Like a brother bonding trip?”

  “Yeah…I guess…something like that,” he says. “It’s kind of a long story.”

  I stare at him, waiting for more, remembering what one of my favorite journalism professors once taught me—that sometimes it’s better not to ask questions. That most people will fill the void with words. Information. But this tactic doesn’t work with Grant, so I say, “Why so mysterious?”

  His brow furrows as he says, “I’m really not mysterious…at least I don’t mean to be.”

  “It wasn’t a criticism,” I say. “You don’t have to be an open book.”

  “But I usually am,” he says. “I’m just going through some things right now…and I don’t want to bring you down or chase you away….I mean, don’t they say timing is everything?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “But I disagree. I think that’s a cop-out people use when they don’t want something to work.”

  “You do?”

  I nod. “Yeah. I think when two people are meant to be together, they will be. No matter what it is they’re going through,” I say, then quickly add, “Not that that applies to us or anything. I just mean—you don’t have to tell me what’s going on. Just know that I’m here if you want to talk….You know…as a friend.”

  “A friend, huh?” he says, angling his body to get a better look at me.

  “Yeah,” I say, now completely flustered and starting to sweat. I force myself to make eye contact with him. “Isn’t that what we are?”