Friends and Liars

by Kaela Coble

  “‘Ruby, you’re acting like a blocker,’” Ruby says, doing the same.

  “Well, you were,” Emmett says.

  Even I have to giggle at the way he stands with his arms crossed, in perfect Stern Dad posture.

  “And now you are!” she roars. It’s not really all that funny, but the laughter is needed after the day we’ve had. After the year Emmett and I have had.

  “Anyway,” Emmett says over the din, “Dan, of course, had to give me the same hard time you’re giving me—”

  “—Or he was concerned about you, because twenty-eight is a little old to start experimenting with drugs—” Ruby interrupts.

  “—And I lost my temper—”

  “—Shocker.”

  “—And I ended up telling him. Honestly, I didn’t think he would remember. Towards the end he was, you know, pretty out of it.”

  That sucks the laughter right out of the room.

  “All right. Your turn,” Emmett says, his arms still crossed. He looks straight at Murphy.

  “My turn for what?”

  “Your secret. I went. Your turn.”

  Murphy breathes a laugh out of his nose. “You didn’t exactly go; your girlfriend went for you.” Again, three years with these people and I’m still only the girlfriend.

  “Whatever. I don’t care. Out with it.”

  “We just talked about it, dude. Ruby and I knew about Danny and . . . the thing . . . with Roger.”

  I wonder if anyone else notices Ruby snap her head to Murphy.

  Emmett narrows his eyes at them, but he must decide it’s better not to press, considering that he’s lying, too. He turns on Ally. “And you?”

  Ally hesitates, looking at Murphy and Ruby as if she’s hoping they will take their turn again. “Mine is . . .” She looks at Aaron, who shrugs his shoulders. She’s on her own. Her face suddenly brightens, her posture straightening. “It’s nothing bad, and I’ll tell you guys, I just don’t want to say it today. Not after the day we’ve had. Okay?”

  She looks at each of us, waiting for us all to nod, which we do.

  Ally’s, Murphy’s, and Ruby’s envelopes all lie unopened, their hands clutched around them.

  When it comes to things that really matter, you guys barely even know each other.

  And how.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  RUBY

  Now

  “Remember when Emmett mixed up mayo and ketchup and hot sauce and Kool-Aid and dirt and all that shit, and then paid Danny a dollar to eat it, and when he didn’t pay up, Dan threw up on his shoes?”

  “Remember when Ruby drove us home from the homecoming party during that freak snowstorm, and when she started to skid, Murphy panicked and pulled the hand brake and we ended up in that ditch, facing the other way? And the cops brought us home?”

  “Remember when Ally’s bikini top popped off when she jumped into the quarry, and she was so shocked by the cold water she didn’t realize it for, like, five minutes?”

  The stories from fifteen years of friendship flow like a faucet that won’t turn off. Despite Aaron’s signature method of peer pressure (one hand clasped on my shoulder in what the crew lovingly calls “the claw,” the other holding a shot of bottom-shelf liquor), I have stood strong, shaking my head at each one-ounce parcel of liquid courage. The crew, who do not have my self-imposed three-drink limit, have partaken enough to get us to this point: the proverbial walk down Memory Lane.

  Adhering to our old customs, already I have gotten complete histories on two high-school classmates I only vaguely remember; I’ve debated the upcoming election with Emmett while the crew rolled their eyes in the background; and when he realized he was losing, he resorted to picking apart my outfit (Ally’s black top and dark-wash jeans passed inspection, but as I couldn’t squeeze my big feet into Ally’s dainty shoes, we fished out my cowboy boots from my high-school closet, which Ally had declared “classic”).

  But not everything is the same. A welcome addition to the night’s proceedings has been getting to know Steph. As well as siding with me while Emmett and I debated equal pay (Emmett refuses to acknowledge it’s a problem), Steph works at the Chatwick Community Library, which explains the instantaneous ease I felt with her earlier. She carries the scent of the musty stacks of my childhood—perhaps the only place in Chatwick I have ever felt truly comfortable.

  An unwelcome change is the way Murphy and I sit on opposite ends of the row of stools the crew occupies, although the scent he carries isn’t having any trouble infiltrating my nose from there.

  I try to remain present, but every few minutes I find my eyes wandering to the Exit sign. I don’t want to be here. Not in Chatwick, and definitely not in Margie’s Pub, otherwise known as the congregation of Chatwick’s finest. Chatwick Town is made up of rednecks, who farm on the outskirts of Chatwick City (which is really a bunch of neighborhoods, a few blocks of shops, and the high school); white trash, who live below the tracks and off the government; and “richies,” a relative term that the other two camps invented to make people like me and my friends feel like snobs for living in the hill section of the city and having parents who own local businesses or commute to more affluent communities, like Drummond, to work. All three groups are fairly represented tonight, and they’ve all spent the evening staring at me, trying to decide exactly how to enter my description into the Chat tomorrow.

  But the biggest reason I am so uncomfortable at Margie’s is the memories. Memories I shouldn’t have, considering I left Chatwick when I was eighteen years old, well before I was legally allowed to be in a bar. The last time I was here was my sixteenth birthday, but I wasn’t here to celebrate. I was here responding to a courtesy call from Monty, the 400-pound bouncer, to warn me Nancy was approaching her cut-off point and I had best get down here before she pitched a fit and then hopped in her car. This was not an unusual occurrence, but on this special day Nancy told me she wished I’d never been born, so she could actually have a little fun. Happy Sweet Sixteen, right? That was the last time I tried to save her, and the day I stopped calling her Mom.

  I was surprised when Monty slapped my hand away as I tried to show him my driver’s license and pulled me into a hug instead, although we did have quite the special relationship back then. Besides the warning calls, there was the time a beer-bellied redneck got handsy with me as I pulled him off my mother. Monty dragged him into the alley and beat the shit out of him. So I guess Margie’s has produced one happy memory for me. Of course, that was followed up by two months of harassment at Chatwick High from the redneck’s kids, who were forced to pick up the slack around the farm for a week because their father was out of commission. So, bittersweet memory, I guess.

  Before I could even ask Monty how he was, he assured me Nancy wasn’t here tonight, that she hadn’t been in over ten years. Ally, who had her hand clamped on my elbow (I imagine more in an effort to prevent my escape than to stay linked as we navigated the crowd of smokers outside the bar), had to explain to Monty that I am here to be with friends tonight, not to drag my mother out by her hair so that she won’t drive home and wrap her car around a tree.

  By the time the crew was exhausted from the day’s drama, it had grown dark outside the basement windows. Ally and I were unsuccessful in our attempt to coax Charlene out of her bedroom, so we joined the crew in the driveway, where they were making plans to meet up here. I had nodded with my fingers crossed behind my back—my plan was to shut myself into my childhood bedroom, pretending to answer client emails but really refreshing my computer screen every thirty seconds to see if a flight back to New York became available. Because Vermont’s main airport in Drummond is so small, the seat I vacated today to attend Danny’s “private reception” was the last seat back to New York until Sunday night—three days away.

  But Ally was one step ahead of me. I had barely settled in and booted up my laptop, suddenly unsure if I could even connect to the Internet in this house, when she showed up. She waved Aaron off in his LJ Const
ruction truck as soon as her foot was in the door. “He has to go save our seats,” she said. “It gets rough down there.” As if I didn’t know that. “Plus, I thought it would be fun to ride down, just us girls. I know Nancy hasn’t gotten rid of Blue. I see her tooling around town in it sometimes.” She even brought an assortment of clothes with her, assuming—since I hadn’t planned on staying past the funeral—that I hadn’t packed an appropriate bar outfit.

  We really didn’t need to drive; Margie’s is only about six blocks from my parents’ house—an absurdly lucky walking distance in New York, but unheard of to walk here. Everyone drives everywhere in Chatwick. If you’re walking, you’re a blocker who can’t afford a car. The neighborhood had a conniption when Nancy quit drinking and started taking daily walks “to keep her centered.”

  The short ride down to the bar was quiet, and not in the comfortable, peaceful way our rides around the back roads of Chatwick used to be. The air was thick with questions we were both too afraid to ask, for fear of them being turned around back to ourselves. Now that doesn’t seem to be a problem. It only took a dead friend, a threatening letter, and three hours at Margie’s to catapult us from awkward estrangement to our new sense of normalcy. The one where we are all together without Danny.

  In an effort to fit in, I pipe up with my favorite story from our high-school years. “Remember when Emmett ate the mushroom pizza?” I ask, eyeing him.

  “Oh. My. God. The mushroom pizza!” Ally cries. Murphy and Aaron throw their heads back in laughter.

  “What pizza?” Steph asks.

  I cock my head, not taking my eyes off Emmett while I ask, “Oh, you mean he never told you that story?”

  “Ruby—” he warns.

  “So we’re all at Danny’s, about to try mushrooms for the first time,” I start, ignoring Emmett to the rest of the crew’s utter delight. “Emmett, of course, is all bent out of shape about it, because he was all ‘Just Say No’ about everything but booze. Back then, anyway.” We giggle, thinking about his recent dalliance with marijuana a good half-life after the rest of us. “So when Danny goes to dole them out, Emmett slaps the bottom of Danny’s hand and the mushrooms go flying everywhere. Now, we’re out in the woods behind Danny’s house, and it’s dark out, so we can’t see where they land. So Danny goes to get the flashlight Charlene always kept in the kitchen junk drawer, but it’s not there, so we have no choice but to give up the search until the next morning.”

  The others are hanging on my every word, Ally and Murphy and Aaron clutching at each other, knowing where the story is going but in suspense for the punchline nonetheless. Emmett crosses his arms and purses his lips, shaking his head, his face the color of Pepto-Bismol.

  “So we’re all pissed at Emmett, even though he swears up and down he didn’t mean to lose the ’shrooms; that he was even thinking about trying some—like we believed that! So we spend the night drinking instead, but what Emmett doesn’t know is that before we went into the woods, Danny had cut up a couple of the ’shroom stems and spread them over the leftover pizza in his fridge—Charlene always had leftover pizza, and Emmett always ate it late night when things started winding down. You could almost set your watch by it: when Emmett started eating pizza, it was twenty minutes before everyone went to bed.”

  “He still does that,” Steph says, glancing lovingly at her boyfriend before seeing his now fuchsia face and darting her eyes back to me, tucking her lips in to stifle a laugh.

  “So we all go to bed: Danny in his room with Jenny or Heather, or whoever he was dating at the time; Aaron and Ally in the spare; Emmett in the basement, or so we thought”—I leave Tara out of the sleeping-arrangement discussion, because Emmett’s pissed enough at me already—“and Murphy and I on the trampoline in the backyard, where we always slept in the summer because the couples always claimed all the beds. Well, the next thing I know, I feel like someone’s staring at me and when I roll over there’s Emmett, standing by the trampoline, his eyes so alert and wide open they practically glow in the dark, and he just says, ‘Hi,’ with this big dopey grin on his face.” I pause, giggling at the image of how cheerful he was, blissfully unaware of what was happening to him.

  “Then he starts babbling at the speed of light about how drugs are bad and we don’t need them and didn’t we have a great time just drinking and hanging out”—Ally points out here how ironic this is—“and then he gets distracted by something and starts running around the yard mumbling something about ‘the goddamn fairies.’” This gets big laughs, although I remember being completely freaked out about it at the time. “I wake up Murphy, to help me get him under control, but he of course makes it worse, pointing out things in the woods that aren’t really there and then pretending like he never said it.” I give Murphy, who’s moved closer to me now, a playful punch on the arm, and Emmett does the same.

  “Dude, I was sixteen!” Murphy says, laughing. “I was an asshole.” At least he admits it.

  “So Emmett takes off into the woods, and Murphy the hero passes right back out and I can’t wake him up again, so I have to go inside and wake Danny and Aaron to go out and find Emmett—with no flashlights, mind you—while Ally and I argue over how long to wait before we wake up Charlene or call the police.”

  “I still feel like we should have woken her up right away,” Ally says. She also doesn’t mention Tara’s role in the story, which was to cry and wail, convinced her boyfriend had been abducted.

  “I didn’t want to get Danny in trouble!” I say. I’m momentarily knocked off-course when I hear myself say the words I’ve said too many times before.

  “So what happened?” Steph asks, prompting me back on track after a minute of staring into space.

  “Right. So just as we’re about to go wake up Charlene, Danny and Aaron drag Emmett in, dirt all over his face, and he’s holding . . .” I pause here for dramatic effect, and Steph leans in, her eyes wide, “. . . the missing flashlight!”

  We all laugh at this, including Steph, but not Emmett. When I come up for air I add, “He purposely hid it under the porch before we went out in the woods. He planned to ruin our night all along. Serves him right!”

  As the laughter dies down, Emmett starts nodding his head, slowly, and with a sadistic smile on his face. I know I’m in for it.

  “I could tell some stories about Ruby, too,” he says, not taking his eyes off me.

  I ignore the tingling in my gut and put a challenging look into my eye. “Oh yeah? Try me.” I take a sip of my last allotted beer for the evening and wait. Emmett and I go way back, but we’ve never been the type of friends to confide in each other. I’m reasonably confident my secret is safe.

  “Remember the time when Ruby finally got drunk, and she gave up her vir—”

  “Hey, let’s dance!” Murphy cuts in, his voice louder than Emmett’s and the hubbub of the crowd and the band combined. At the same time, he practically shoves me out to the dance floor, leaving no time for Emmett to finish his sentence or for me to respond. The band plays “Folsom Prison Blues,” to which everyone roars approval and starts stomping around, clapping their hands. I stand stock still, too stunned at what Emmett was about to say to move my body in any kind of rhythmic fashion. I open my mouth to protest at what just happened, but Murphy holds his finger to his lips and takes my hand, spinning me under his raised arm. Soon Ally and Aaron join us, and I feel the sensations return to my feet. I look over to the bar, where it seems like Emmett is getting a dressing down from Steph before she leaves him there to join us on the dance floor.

  I like her. I really like her.

  After a few minutes, Emmett makes his way over to us. He clasps onto my arm—to prevent me from leaving or socking him one, I’m not sure—and mouths, “I’m sorry.” It’s so surprising that he’s apologizing, I instantly forgive him. I remember now. This is what it’s like, what it was always like, the constant ebbs and flows of being with the crew.

  The song changes to “I Love This Bar,” which my frien
ds seem to know every word to. They couple off and, as always, leave Murphy and I standing alone. He pulls me to him, and when I instinctively stiffen and try to pull back, he clutches me so tightly I can’t help but laugh. “No running away,” he says into my ear. “No more running away.” I keep the smile plastered on my face, but my eyes water, and I’m grateful we’re dancing the grade school way—my arms around his neck, his encircling my waist, my head safely looking over his shoulder. If we were dancing the traditional way, he would be able to see my tears and feel my sweaty palms.

  We turn slowly around the dance floor, every muscle in my body on high alert. His smell overwhelms me. Since I can’t seem to get away physically, I try to detach myself from this moment mentally by scanning the room as we spin. I notice at least four beams of hatred trained on me, and wonder if the last dance with Murphy Leblanc is a coveted privilege. I think about asking him but find myself breathless, and not just because he’s holding me so tight. We’ve danced together like this a million times, always the ones left out together. The last time was senior prom. I can’t think about senior prom.

  “You’re welcome,” he says into my hair.

  “Oh,” I say, “thanks for the save, Emmett’s such an assh—”

  “I’m not talking about Emmett.”

  I look at him now. Murphy’s eyes shine with the familiar spark of something only we know, a spark we’ve shared ever since the night Roger died. But this has nothing to do with Roger, just like our secrets don’t. I wasn’t sure before whether he was covering for us or not, but now I know.

  When finally, blessedly, the song ends, the bright overhead lights turn on and bathe the bar with a shocking reminder that there is life outside Margie’s. I hug everyone goodbye, thinking as I do that I’ve actually made it through this rollercoaster of a day. More importantly, I’ve made it through without my secret being outed. Now all I have to do is hide in my room for the rest of the weekend.