All the Beautiful Lies

by Peter Swanson

  “But I trust you,” Gina was saying. “And that’s why I can’t lose you, Al. I can’t lose you, and I don’t care what you’re doing with your mom’s husband. That’s not my business and I should never have brought it up. I mean, do what you want, right?”

  “We’re not doing anything.”

  “Hey, I get it, Al. He’s hot. I’d do it with him.”

  For a brief moment Gina’s words provoked in Alice an urge to pick up the nearest rock and drive it into Gina’s face. Instead, she said, “Let’s go swimming.”

  Gina swiveled her head toward the black expanse of the ocean, almost as though she was just realizing that it was there. “Really?” she said.

  “Sure, why not?”

  “It’ll be freezing.”

  “It won’t be. You’re just scared. It’ll be amazing.”

  Gina stared toward the water for a moment, then said, “Sure. Okay.” She smiled, leaning in toward Alice. Her breath had an almost chemical smell to it, like rubbing alcohol. She stood. “Let’s go swimming. It can be symbolic, like our fresh start.” She pushed her jeans down her long legs, almost slipping on the rocks, then pulled her shirt and sweater over her head. Alice, still wearing just the pajama bottoms and the T-shirt, pulled them off, feeling awkward and exposed, but wanting to get into the water. Gina’s eyes quickly scanned Alice’s naked body, and Alice resisted the urge to cover her breasts, which suddenly seemed awkward and fleshy next to Gina’s flat chest and small, dark nipples.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Gina said. “It’s going to be freezing.” She pulled the bandage off her hand and tossed it on the sand.

  “The water’s probably warmer than the air right now,” Alice said, stepping from the rocks onto the hard-packed wet sand. As soon as she was ankle high in the water, she realized the water temperature was probably exactly the same temperature as the air. It felt like stepping into nothing. She waded out, as Gina flew past her, spinning her arms and screaming, crashing into the surf. “Chicken,” she yelled back at Alice.

  Alice kept wading forward. Everything was dark except for the foam of the breaking surf. A large wave was rolling toward her and Alice dove under it, swam underwater, then came up next to Gina. “This feels fucking amazing,” Gina said, tilting her head back so that her hair was in the water.

  Alice found herself annoyed to share the sentiment. She’d never swum naked before and the grasp of the ocean water on her skin made her feel incredibly alive. “Let’s see how far we can swim out,” she said.

  “Maybe we’ll get eaten by sharks,” Gina said, then laughed drunkenly, swallowing some water then coughing it out.

  Alice took a deep breath, filling her lungs, her feet planted on the dense, sandy bottom. The moon emerged from behind a cloud and shone silver on the water. “No, it will be great. Trust me.” Alice began to swim, Gina beside her. She went slow, not wanting Gina to fall behind. The water turned colder and calmer the farther out they went. She could hear Gina starting to breathe hard, snorting out water as she turned her head every other stroke. “You okay?” Alice asked.

  “Yeah. A little tired.” Gina spun onto her back, her breath sounding ragged.

  “If we go a little farther there’s a sandbar.”

  “Yeah, let’s keep going,” Gina said, spinning and beginning to swim again, her arms slapping the water. Alice remembered what Gina had been like at cross-country practices, always willing to slow down if Alice was behind, but always making sure that she would be first to finish. Alice swam by her side. She was beginning to breathe heavily, too, but her arms felt strong, slicing through the water, propelling her. She felt like she could swim forever. She sped a little ahead of Gina, steadily moving away from shore, the water now much colder.

  “Stop, hold up,” Gina yelled, her voice hoarse, and Alice stopped, spun, and swam back toward her. The lights along the shore seemed far away and insignificant. “I think I’m cramping,” Gina said, and there was some panic in her voice.

  “Just rest for a moment,” Alice said.

  “Have you felt the sandbar yet?”

  “I haven’t, but I remember it, unless it’s moved.” Doggy-paddling, Alice could feel the water tugging at her legs. She’d wondered if they’d hit a rip current, and it felt as though they had. There really had been a sandbar out this far from Kennewick Beach, but that had changed after the storm-filled winter the year after they graduated.

  “I shouldn’t have come out this far,” Gina said, her chin submerged in the water, the words sputtering.

  “No worries. We’ll rest a bit, then turn back.”

  “Okay.”

  Alice, staying afloat just by scissoring her legs, said, “I am having sex with him, you know. With that fucking creep.” The moon was back behind a cloud, and it was dark again.

  Gina took a breath, then said, “I don’t care,” the words sounding like exhalations.

  “You do care, Gina. You want me to stop.”

  “I don’t, really. Alice, I think I need help.”

  “Okay,” Alice said. She was starting to tire now, too, and began to swim in a crawl, her arms struggling to get out of the water, so she switched to the breaststroke. There was a definite pull in the water, a current tugging her away from the shore. Panic coursed through her, squeezing her chest, but she took a breath, and told herself to swim parallel to the shore for a while, till she was out of the current.

  “Alice, help,” Gina shouted, and Alice turned to see her wave a hand above the water, her head submerging then coming up again. She was drowning, her words sputtering.

  Alice felt a burst of strength and began to swim north, toward the lighthouse on the bluff, stopping occasionally until she no longer felt the pull of the current. Then she turned toward shore, her lungs burning, her arms as weak as jelly, and began to breaststroke home. After what felt like an eternity, the water began to swell again, and suddenly she was being pushed forward by a curling wave, her chest and thighs scraping the rock-strewn shore. She crawled forward and collapsed, her body shivering, her lungs pumping. When her breathing returned to normal, she stood, stumbling a little, then worked her way along the shore, making sure to walk near the waterline and not where the sand was dry. She didn’t want to leave footprints.

  The moon came out again and she was able to find the two small piles of clothes, Gina’s and hers, up near the rocks. She pulled her pajama bottoms and T-shirt back on over her damp, sandy skin. She was now shaking uncontrollably, her teeth starting to chatter. A car went by on Micmac Road; she crouched under the sweep of its headlights, seeing Gina’s clothes briefly illuminated. The tide was now going out, but the sand was smooth and wet right up to where her sandals lay. There were no footprints visible.

  Despite how cold she was, Alice crouched and watched the ocean for as long as she could, scanning its surface when the moon was out from under cloud cover. She knew that Gina had drowned—she must have gone under right after Alice had swum away from her—but still she watched, just to make sure. She tried to feel her way across the water, to sense Gina still struggling to stay alive, but there was nothing. The ocean had swallowed her.

  Alice took the cement steps back up to the road, crossed it, and jogged toward home. She pushed the door open, glad she’d remembered to leave it unlocked, and stepped into the quiet interior, lights still on in the kitchen and the living room. She turned them off, and went upstairs. Passing through the bedroom, she could hear the rhythmic staccato breathing of Jake that meant he was in a deep sleep. She undressed, bundling her clothes together and pushing them toward the bottom of the laundry basket, then got under the hot pulse of the shower, letting the water warm her up, soothe her muscles, and wash away the sand that ran off her body in dark rivulets. She shampooed and conditioned her hair and soaped herself completely with Jake’s Irish Spring twice. She stopped shivering, and the taste of salt in her mouth went away, but she turned the water off and stepped out of the shower only when her legs felt like they could
no longer support her.

  In a fresh set of pajamas she got under the covers quietly and lay on her back, and told herself she needed to make some decisions. When the police came to question her—and they would come—she’d tell them that Gina had come to her door, and that Alice had told her she was too tired to talk, and that Gina was very drunk, and maybe on drugs. She’d wanted to go swimming but Alice refused, and so she left. They couldn’t prove otherwise, not after Alice laundered the pajamas and took another shower to make sure there was no other evidence. She could do that early in the morning, before Jake woke. How soon would the police come? How soon would Gina be missed?

  She closed her eyes, and she was back in the cold, deep water, Gina asking for help. Alice told herself there was no way she would have been able to save her, even if she’d wanted to. She’d barely saved herself from the tide. And Gina was incapacitated. She’d gotten what she wanted—all the beautiful lies about fame and money and the world telling her how special she was—and it had clearly been killing her. And maybe because her own life was such a shit show, she’d decided to mess with Alice’s life, to pass judgment, because Alice had actually found someone to love who loved her back.

  No, she couldn’t have saved Gina even if she’d wanted to. She’d be dead now, too, if she’d tried to save them both. Gina would have dragged them both under the water. There was nothing Alice could have done.

  Satisfied with these thoughts, Alice turned over onto her stomach and fell happily asleep.

  Chapter 16

  Now

  Harry slept late again the following day, coming down to find a note from Alice saying she had gone out to do errands and wouldn’t be back till noon. Harry suddenly relished the idea of some time alone in the house, some time to think some more about what had happened to his father, and his strange date the evening before with Grace. He called John at the store and let him know that he wasn’t feeling great, and could he just come in during the afternoon.

  “You don’t have to come in at all, Harry,” John said. “I can handle things here.”

  “Okay, but I’d like to come in. If I feel better I’ll drop by, and if I don’t feel better, I guess you won’t see me.”

  “Okay. Take care, son.”

  There was half a pot of lukewarm coffee left and Harry poured himself a mug, adding milk, then heating it up in the microwave. He brought the coffee back up to his room and logged on to his laptop. He was hoping to find out something more about Grace; he knew she had lied about her relationship with his father. Were they having an affair? And if so, was that why she had come to Maine from New York? For the funeral? Then why was she sticking around?

  He realized he didn’t know her last name, so he Googled “Grace” and everything she’d mentioned to him the night before. “Ann Arbor, Michigan.” “New York University.” He even tried “Ackerson’s Rare Books.” Nothing came up, and it made him realize how little he’d learned about her. On a whim, he decided to call the Ackerson’s in New York and see if Ron Krakowski was there. He got the number from their website and called on his cell phone.

  “Ackerson’s Rare Books.” It was a female voice.

  “Is Ron available?”

  “Let me check. Can I ask who’s calling?”

  Harry gave his name, knowing that Ron, phobic sometimes about talking on the telephone, would take the call.

  A half minute passed before Ron’s voice said, “Jesus, Harry, I can’t fucking believe it.”

  “I know,” Harry said, suddenly happy to hear Ron’s voice. He was a prickly presence, but a constant one. Harry had known him his whole life.

  “I left a message for Alice, but I haven’t heard back. You in Maine now? Of course you are. What are they saying? He just slipped and fell and died, just like that?”

  “Actually, no. Now they’re saying that maybe he was hit first. That’s what killed him.”

  “Like someone killed him? Jesus H. Christ. How do they know all this? Maine CSI, I guess, right? They know who did it?”

  Harry told him they didn’t, and that the police had been by to ask him if he knew anyone who might have had a grudge against his father.

  “You told them no, I hope. I like to say that your father had few friends but no enemies. I would have said that at the funeral if I’d, if I’d . . .”

  “Don’t worry about it. I understand. It was a long way to come.”

  “Yeah. Older I get, anything farther than ten blocks seems a long way to go.” Ron was no older than sixty years old, Harry thought, but let it go.

  They talked some more. About Alice, and about what might happen to the store up in Maine, then Harry said, “I’ve got a strange question, Ron. Do you know someone named Grace? I don’t know her last name but she knew my dad, and she said she met him down in New York at your—”

  “Irish girl with pretty eyes? Her last name’s McGowan. You know the apartment on Third that Jim Mills sold to me for a thousand dollars in 1978? She’s renting that from me.”

  “Still?”

  “Far as I know. She’s paid up on rent. She’s a nice girl, helped us clear books from the basement when Sandy hit. She did know your dad ’cause he was down here then, as well.”

  “Were they close?”

  “Were they close? Who? Your father and Grace? I didn’t particularly think so, but it’s not like I was paying attention. Why? Does she say they were?”

  “No, no. It’s just that she came to the funeral.”

  “No shit. That is a little strange.”

  “You think they were having an affair?”

  The line was silent for half a second, and Harry could almost hear Ron’s shrug. “Uh, I would say no, but what do I know? Your father and I didn’t talk about that stuff.”

  “But do you think it’s a possibility?”

  “Harry, I don’t know. Your father seemed like a happy man, but he did come down to New York a lot. She’s a pretty girl, Grace, but she’s no Alice, I’d say.”

  Harry wondered for a moment if Ron had ever met Alice, then remembered the time that she’d come down to New York to visit.

  “Thanks, Ron,” Harry said.

  “You need money, Harry?”

  “No, no, I’m fine. But I might need some help dealing with this store.”

  “Call me anytime, okay? Let me give you my home number, too.”

  After writing it down—not surprised that Ron didn’t have a cell phone—Harry asked if Ron knew how to spell Grace’s last name. He wrote that down as well.

  After ending the call, he Googled “Grace McGowan.” There were quite a few, but none that seemed to match the person he was looking for. There were still people—even young people—who didn’t have online profiles. He was one of them. Alice was another. His father didn’t have much of one, but he had been profiled years earlier in a New York Times article about selling books in the age of the Internet. He looked him up now, reread the article, and studied the accompanying picture of his father, looking distinguished and handsome in front of a cluttered shelf of books. Like a young Ted Hughes, all strong chin and thick hair. He killed the screen, not wanting to look anymore, but he kept thinking of his father.

  Would he have had an affair with a much younger woman in New York? Maybe Harry was biased, but he would have said no if his mother had never died. But maybe his relationship with Alice had soured, or maybe Grace had thrown herself at his father, and he’d simply been unable to resist.

  And if he had had an affair, what if Alice had found out about it? How would she react? Would she have followed him on his afternoon walk, waited for him to reach a secluded spot, and hit him with something? It seemed ridiculous, but someone had killed him. Why not Alice? Or for that matter, why not Grace McGowan? Maybe his father had broken off the affair, and she’d followed him to Maine to get her revenge? Harry wondered if there might be some answers to these questions in the house. If Alice had suspected Bill of cheating, she might have hired a private detective to follow him in New Y
ork. And if so, there might be some record of it.

  Grey Lady was a big house. Before Bill bought it, it had been a bed-and-breakfast, started by a couple that got lonely when their six children all left home. On the second floor alone there were five bedrooms and three bathrooms. The first floor had been renovated at some point so that the modernized kitchen flowed into the dining room, and French doors led into the large front living room with its bay windows. At the back of the house was a wide sunroom, clearly an addition, with views of the barn and down toward the marsh. The two other major rooms on the first floor were Bill’s office and Alice’s office. Bill’s looked more like a storage area than a functioning room; the walls were lined with bookshelves, all filled, and stacks of books covered the floor, creating a strange cityscape in miniature. Bill had left a narrow path through the books that led to the only furniture in the room, a large oak desk, and a faded leather swivel chair that Bill had owned since college. The other office was all Alice, a sunny corner room dominated by a craft table with a sewing machine and stacks of fabric. But there was also a desk in the room, ridiculously neat compared to Bill’s, and that was where Harry decided to look first.

  The desk, painted a robin’s-egg blue, was practically child sized compared to the monstrosity in Bill’s office. On top of it was Alice’s laptop computer, closed, and cool to the touch. She had a short stack of mail that hadn’t been opened. Harry riffled through the envelopes, nothing immediately catching his eye. There were credit card applications, what looked like a bill from Macy’s, an alumni letter addressed to William Ackerson from Columbia University.

  Harry pulled open the only drawer. He expected it to be as neat and organized as the desk, but inside was a jumbled mess of papers, photographs, a half-filled perfume bottle, a box of thank-you cards. The house made one of its sounds, a wall settling somewhere, and Harry jumped. What would happen if Alice returned home early and found him looking through her things? He cocked his head and listened. The house was quiet again. He told himself that he’d just quickly look through the items in the desk, see if there was a letter from a private investigator, anything that would suggest she had information about his father’s affair.