We Were Liars

by E. Lockhart

  “And snacks,” put in Mirren. “The Sinclair Center for Socialization and Snacks.”

  Granddad banged his hand on the table. “I like the ring of it. Not educational, but appreciated by everyone. I’m convinced. I’ll call Thatcher tomorrow. My name will be on every student’s favorite building.”

  “You’ll have to die before they build it,” I said.

  “True. But won’t you be proud to see my name up there when you’re a student?”

  “You’re not dying before we go to college,” said Mirren. “We won’t allow it.”

  “Oh, if you insist.” Granddad speared a bit of lobster tail off her plate and ate it.

  We were caught up easily, Mirren, Johnny, and I—feeling the power he conferred in picturing us at Harvard, the specialness of asking our opinions and laughing at our jokes. That was how Granddad had always treated us.

  “You’re not being funny, Dad,” Mummy snapped. “Drawing the children into it.”

  “We’re not children,” I told her. “We understand the conversation.”

  “No, you don’t,” she said, “or you wouldn’t be humoring him that way.”

  A chill went around the table. Even the littles quieted.

  Carrie lived with Ed. The two of them bought art that might or might not be valuable later. Johnny and Will went to private school. Carrie had started a jewelry boutique with her trust and ran it for a number of years until it failed. Ed earned money, and he supported her, but Carrie didn’t have an income of her own. And they weren’t married. He owned their apartment and she didn’t.

  Bess was raising four kids on her own. She had some money from her trust, like Mummy and Carrie did, but when she got divorced Brody kept the house. She hadn’t worked since she got married, and before that she’d only been an assistant in the offices of a magazine. Bess was living off the trust money and spending through it.

  And Mummy. The dog breeding business doesn’t pay much, and Dad wanted us to sell the Burlington house so he could take half. I knew Mummy was living off her trust.

  We.

  We were living off her trust.

  It wouldn’t last forever.

  So when Granddad said he might leave his money to build Harvard a student center and asked our advice, he wasn’t involving the family in his financial plans.

  He was making a threat.

  62

  A few evenings later. Clairmont cocktail hour. It began at six or six-thirty, depending on when people wandered up the hill to the big house. The cook was fixing supper and had set out salmon mousse with little floury crackers. I went past her and pulled a bottle of white wine from the fridge for the aunties.

  The littles, having been down at the big beach all afternoon, were being forced into showers and fresh clothes by Gat, Johnny, and Mirren at Red Gate, where there was an outdoor shower. Mummy, Bess, and Carrie sat around the Clairmont coffee table.

  I brought wineglasses for the aunts as Granddad entered. “So, Penny,” he said, pouring himself bourbon from the decanter on the sideboard, “how are you and Cady doing at Windemere this year, with the change of circumstances? Bess is worried you’re lonely.”

  “I didn’t say that,” said Bess.

  Carrie narrowed her eyes.

  “Yes, you did.” Granddad said to Bess. He motioned for me to sit down. “You talked about the five bedrooms. The renovated kitchen, and how Penny’s alone now and won’t need it.”

  “Did you, Bess?” Mummy drew breath.

  Bess didn’t reply. She bit her lip and looked out at the view.

  “We’re not lonely,” said Mummy told Granddad. “We adore Windemere, don’t we, Cady?”

  Granddad beamed at me. “You okay there, Cadence?”

  I knew what I was supposed to say. “I’m more than okay there, I’m fantastic. I love Windemere because you built it specially for Mummy. I want to raise my own children there and my children’s children. You are so excellent, Granddad. You are the patriarch and I revere you. I am so glad I am a Sinclair. This is the best family in America.”

  Not in those words. But I was meant to help Mummy keep the house by telling my grandfather that he was the big man, that he was the cause of all our happiness, and by reminding him that I was the future of the family. The all-American Sinclairs would perpetuate ourselves, tall and white and beautiful and rich, if only he let Mummy and me stay in Windemere.

  I was supposed to make Granddad feel in control when his world was spinning because Gran had died. I was to beg him by praising him—never acknowledging the aggression behind his question.

  My mother and her sisters were dependent on Granddad and his money. They had the best educations, a thousand chances, a thousand connections, and still they’d ended up unable to support themselves. None of them did anything useful in the world. Nothing necessary. Nothing brave. They were still little girls, trying to get in good with Daddy. He was their bread and butter, their cream and honey, too.

  “It’s too big for us,” I told Granddad.

  No one spoke as I left the room.

  63

  Mummy and I were silent on the walk back to Windemere after supper. Once the door shut behind us, she turned on me. “Why didn’t you back me with your grandfather? Do you want us to lose this house?”

  “Wee don’t need it.”

  “I picked the paint, the tiles. I hung the flag from the porch.”

  “It’s five bedrooms.”

  “We thought we’d have a bigger family.” Mummy’s face got tight. “But it didn’t work out that way. That doesn’t mean I don’t deserve the house.”

  “Mirren and those guys could use the room.”

  “This is my house. You can’t expect me to give it up because Bess had too many children and left her husband. You can’t think it’s okay for her to snatch it from me. This is our place, Cadence. We’ve got to look out for ourselves.”

  “Can you hear yourself?” I snapped. “You have a trust fund!”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “Some people have nothing. We have everything. The only person who used the family money for charity was Gran. Now she’s gone and all anyone’s worried about is her pearls and her ornaments and her real estate. Nobody is trying to use their money for good. Nobody is trying to make the world any better.”

  Mummy stood up. “You’re filled with superiority, aren’t you? You think you understand the world so much better than I do. I’ve heard Gat talking. I’ve seen you eating up his words like ice cream off a spoon. But you haven’t paid bills, you haven’t had a family, owned property, seen the world. You have no idea what you’re talking about, and yet you do nothing but pass judgment.”

  “You are ripping up this family because you think you deserve the prettiest house.”

  Mummy walked to the foot of the stairs. “You go back to Clairmont tomorrow. You tell Granddad how much you love Windemere. Tell him you want to raise your own kids spending summers here. You tell him.”

  “No. You should stand up to him. Tell him to stop manipulating all of you. He’s only acting like this because he’s sad about Gran, can’t you tell? Can’t you help him? Or get a job so his money doesn’t matter? Or give the house to Bess?”

  “Listen to me, young lady.” Mummy’s voice was steely. “You go and talk to Granddad about Windemere or I will send you to Colorado with your father for the rest of the summer. I’ll do it tomorrow. I swear, I’ll take you to the airport first thing. You won’t see that precious boyfriend of yours again. Understand?”

  She had me there.

  She knew about me and Gat. And she could take him away.

  Would take him away.

  I was in love.

  I promised whatever she asked.

  When I told Granddad how much I adored the house, he smiled and said he knew someday I’d have beaut
iful children. Then he said Bess was a grasping wench and he had no intention of giving her my house. But later, Mirren told me he’d promised Windemere to Bess.

  “I’ll take care of you,” he’d said. “Just give me a little time to get Penny out.”

  64

  Gat and I went out on the tennis court in the twilight a couple nights after I fought with Mummy. We tossed balls for Fatima and Prince Philip in silence.

  Finally he said, “Have you noticed Harris never calls me by my name?”

  “No.”

  “He calls me young man. Like, How was your school year, young man?”

  “Why?”

  “It’s like, if he called me Gat he’d be really saying, How was your school year, Indian boy whose Indian uncle lives in sin with my pure white daughter? Indian boy I caught kissing my precious Cadence?”

  “You believe that’s what he’s thinking?”

  “He can’t stomach me,” said Gat. “Not really. He might like me as a person, might even like Ed, but he can’t say my name or look me in the eye.”

  It was true. Now that he said it, I could see.

  “I’m not saying he wants to be the guy who only likes white people,” Gat went on. “He knows he’s not supposed to be that guy. He’s a Democrat, he voted for Obama—but that doesn’t mean he’s comfortable having people of color in his beautiful family.” Gat shook his head. “He’s fake with us. He doesn’t like the idea of Carrie with us. He doesn’t call Ed Ed. He calls him sir. And he makes sure I know I’m an outsider, every chance he gets.” Gat stroked Fatima’s soft doggy ears. “You saw him in the attic. He wants me to stay the hell away from you.”

  I hadn’t seen Granddad’s interruption that way. I’d imagined he was embarrassed at walking in on us.

  But now, suddenly, I understood what had happened.

  Watch yourself, young man, Granddad had said. Your head. You could get hurt.

  It was another threat.

  “Did you know my uncle proposed to Carrie, back in the fall?” Gat asked.

  I shook my head.

  “They’ve been together almost nine years. He acts as a dad to Johnny and Will. He got down on his knees and proposed, Cady. He had the three of us boys there, and my mom. He’d decorated the apartment with candles and roses. We all dressed in white, and we’d brought this big meal in from this Italian place Carrie loves. He put Mozart on the stereo.

  “Johnny and I were all, Ed, what’s the big deal? She lives with you, dude. But the man was nervous. He’d bought a diamond ring. Anyway, she came home, and the four of us left them alone and hid in Will’s room. We were supposed to all rush out with congratulations—but Carrie said no.”

  “I thought they didn’t see a point to getting married.”

  “Ed sees a point. Carrie doesn’t want to risk her stupid inheritance,” Gat said.

  “She didn’t even ask Granddad?”

  “That’s the thing,” said Gat. “Everyone’s always asking Harris about everything. Why should a grown woman have to ask her father to approve her wedding?”

  “Granddad wouldn’t stop her.”

  “No,” said Gat. “But back when Carrie first moved in with Ed, Harris made it clear that all the money earmarked for her would disappear if she married him.

  “The point is, Harris doesn’t like Ed’s color. He’s a racist bastard, and so was Tipper. Yes, I like them both for a lot of reasons, and they have been more than generous letting me come here every summer. I’m willing to think that Harris doesn’t even realize why he doesn’t like my uncle, but he dislikes him enough to disinherit his eldest daughter.”

  Gat sighed. I loved the curve of his jaw, the hole in his T-shirt, the notes he wrote me, the way his mind worked, the way he moved his hands when he talked. I imagined, then, that I knew him completely.

  I leaned in and kissed him. It still seemed so magical that I could do that, and that he would kiss me back. So magical that we showed our weaknesses to one another, our fears and our fragility.“Why didn’t we ever talk about this?” I whispered.

  Gat kissed me again. “I love it here,” he said. “The island. Johnny and Mirren. The houses and the sound of the ocean. You.”

  “You too.”

  “Part of me doesn’t want to ruin it. Doesn’t want to even imagine that it isn’t perfect.”

  I understood how he felt.

  Or thought I did.

  Gat and I went down to the perimeter then, and walked until we got to a wide, flat rock that looked over the harbor. The water crashed against the foot of the island. We held each other and got halfway naked and forgot, for as long as we could, every horrid detail of the beautiful Sinclair family.

  65

  Once upon a time there was a wealthy merchant who had three beautiful daughters. He spoiled them so much that the younger two girls did little all day but sit before the mirror, gazing at their own beauty and pinching their cheeks to make them red.

  One day the merchant had to leave on a journey. “What shall I bring you when I return?” he asked.

  The youngest daughter requested gowns of silk and lace.

  The middle daughter requested rubies and emeralds.

  The eldest daughter requested only a rose.

  The merchant was gone several months. For his youngest daughter, he filled a trunk with gowns of many colors. For his middle daughter, he scoured the markets for jewels. But only when he found himself close to home did he remember his promise of a rose for his eldest child.

  He came upon a large iron fence that stretched along the road. In the distance was a dark mansion and he was pleased to see a rosebush near the fence bursting with red blooms. Several roses were easily within reach.

  It was the work of a minute to cut a flower. The merchant was tucking the blossom into his saddlebag when an angry growl stopped him.

  A cloaked figure stood where the merchant was certain no one had been a moment earlier. He was enormous and spoke with a deep rumble. “You take from me with no thought of payment?”

  “Who are you?” the merchant asked, quaking.

  “Suffice it to say I am one from whom you steal.”

  The merchant explained that he had promised his daughter a rose after a long journey.

  “You may keep your stolen rose,” said the figure, “but in exchange, give me the first of your possessions you see upon your return.” He then pushed back his hood to reveal the face of a hideous beast, all teeth and snout. A wild boar combined with a jackal.

  “You have crossed me,” said the beast. “You will die if you cross me again.”

  The merchant rode home as fast as his horse would carry him. He was still a mile away when he saw his eldest daughter waiting for him on the road. “We got word you would arrive this evening!” she cried, rushing into his arms.

  She was the first of his possessions he saw upon his return. He now knew what price the beast had truly asked of him.

  Then what?

  We all know that Beauty grows to love the beast. She grows to love him, despite what her family might think—for his charm and education, his knowledge of art and his sensitive heart.

  Indeed, he is a human and always was one. He was never a wild boar/jackal at all. It was only a hideous illusion.

  Trouble is, it’s awfully hard to convince her father of that.

  Her father sees the jaws and the snout, he hears the hideous growl, whenever Beauty brings her new husband home for a visit. It doesn’t matter how civilized and erudite the husband is. It doesn’t matter how kind.

  The father sees a jungle animal, and his repugnance will never leave him.

  66

  One night, summer fifteen, Gat tossed pebbles at my bedroom window. I put out my head to see him standing among the trees, moonlight glinting off his skin, eyes flashing.

  He was waiting for me at th
e foot of the porch steps. “I have a dire need for chocolate,” he whispered, “so I’m raiding the Clairmont pantry. You coming?”

  I nodded and we walked together up the narrow path, our fingers entwined. We stepped around to the side entrance of Clairmont, the one that led to the mudroom filled with tennis racquets and beach towels. With one hand on the screen door, Gat turned and pulled me close.

  His warm lips were on mine,

  our hands were still together,

  there, at the door to the house.

  For a moment, the two of us were alone on the planet,

  with all the vastness of the sky and the future and the past spreading out around us.

  We tiptoed through the mudroom and into the large pantry that opened off the kitchen. The room was old-fashioned, with heavy wooden drawers and shelves for holding jams and pickles, back when the house was built. Now it stored cookies, cases of wine, potato chips, root vegetables, seltzer. We left the light off, in case someone came into the kitchen, but we were sure Granddad was the only one sleeping at Clairmont. He was never going to hear anything in the night. He wore a hearing aid by day.

  We were rummaging when we heard voices. It was the aunts coming into the kitchen, their speech slurred and hysterical. “This is why people kill each other,” said Bess bitterly. “I should walk out of this room before I do something I regret.”

  “You don’t mean that,” said Carrie.

  “Don’t tell me what I mean!” shouted Bess. “You have Ed. You don’t need money like I do.”

  “You’ve already dug your claws into the Boston house,” said Mummy. “Leave the island alone.”

  “Who did the funeral arrangements for Mother?” snapped Bess. “Who stayed by Dad’s side for weeks, who went through the papers, talked to the mourners, wrote the thank-you notes?”

  “You live near him,” said Mummy. “You were right there.”