The Liars

by Jennifer Mathieu

  “That’s kind of fucked-up,” J.C. says, and blink like I had forgotten he was there. Like I thought I was alone.

  I finally glance over and make eye contact. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  J.C. ponders this for a moment, then he sits up. “I’m gonna make a drink,” he says. “Want one?”

  “Sure,” I say. He slides off the bed. I would have liked a quick kiss goodbye, but of course he’s just going to the kitchen. Soon I hear the familiar sounds of making cocktails—plink plunks of ice, glug glugs of alcohol, fizz pops of soda cans. I picture Mami in our kitchen back home, making her own drink, mixing it with her pinkie, taking that first sip. I picture Joaquin holed up in his bedroom listening to one of his moody bands, staring at a map of California. Dreaming of leaving us as soon as he can, even if he won’t admit it’s what he wants.

  And I even picture Mr. and Mrs. Callahan, the two of them more beautiful than beautiful, kinder than kind. I imagine them tucked together on their white leather couch, their own drinks in hand, smiling as they talk about Matthew and Jennifer and what silly and wonderful things they did on the beach that day. Mrs. Callahan sips white wine. Mr. Callahan kisses her neck just like J.C. kisses mine. Maybe he’s even a better kisser than J.C. After all, he’s older, so he’s had more experience.

  I realize I’m smiling as I think of them, of the Callahans, of the family I invented so carefully. So tenderly. I think of them so safe in their house on Point Isabel, tucked away like dolls in a dollhouse, always there for me whenever I need them, always ready to help me spread my wings and be free.

  JOAQUIN FINNEY

  Mariposa Island, Texas

  1986

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  AMY MITCHELL TASTES LIKE PEPPERMINT AND Parliaments, smells like Aqua Net and vanilla, and—even during her busiest shifts at El Mirador—she walks as slow as Christmas, her ass shifting left– right with every casual drag of her feet.

  When Carlos hired her at El Mirador in May, I couldn’t help but grab a peek every once in a while, and then I’d immediately feel like a creep for doing it. I’m not some sort of eunuch or whatever, but I sure as hell don’t like to think of myself as a creep.

  I kind of trained myself to stop it, but one time she walked past me while I was doing some side work at the bar and she spun around at the worst possible moment, like she just knew she would catch me in the act. I shifted my gaze back to the utensils I was wrapping up in bright red cloth napkins, but I was too late.

  “Looking is free but touching will cost you,” she said in a singsong voice, and loudly, too, so loud that even Miguel the busboy overheard and cracked up. I didn’t say anything—I just blushed. But I played that line over a few hundred times in my head, that’s for sure. Looking is free but touching will cost you. Just hearing it in my head turned me on.

  It wasn’t long after that when I got a mixtape slipped into my locker in the break room. Written on the spine was xoxoAmy, and it was filled with songs by Social Distortion and Black Flag and Really Red.

  Amy Mitchell is so fucking cool.

  The first time I kissed her was a week or so after she gave me the mixtape, when she invited me to her house after our afternoon shift. Her parents were at work, she said, and her little brother was at a friend’s house.

  I thought she’d be all aggressive and punk rock or whatever, but when we got to her place, we made scrambled eggs together and she was quieter than I expected. I actually thought she might be nervous from the way she kept twisting up her mouth and running her fingers through her short black hair. It didn’t seem possible that I was the one who was making her nervous, but maybe I was, and when I realized that all of a sudden, I became relaxed. Something about seeing her in her own house with the crappy, cracked linoleum floor and the avocado-green refrigerator covered in finger-paint pictures by her little brother made her less intimidating. And she wasn’t that good of a cook, either, as it turned out, so I had to help her.

  “Is it weird we’re making sad scrambled eggs when we could have had a Tex-Mex lunch for free?” she asked, sliding my eggs onto a plate from the frying pan.

  “I guess we’re rebels,” I said, my voice deadpan. “We live and die by our own rules.” And Amy had laughed so hard she’d snorted. That’s the other thing about Amy Mitchell. She thinks I’m funny. Maybe I am when I’m with her.

  It wasn’t long after the eggs that Amy asked me if I wanted to listen to music in her room. We sat cross-legged on her blue shag carpet and we played some Minor Threat and the Circle Jerks, and I started writing her a playlist of songs so I could make her a mixtape, and at one point during a 7 Seconds song we looked at each other and sort of leaned in and my hand slid up around the back of her neck and we were kissing and then we were on the carpet and then we were making out.

  The shag rug left red marks on our backs, but I didn’t care. Being with Amy Mitchell felt so fucking good.

  It still does, too, weeks later. On days like today, the two of us in Amy’s bedroom, in Amy’s bed, I’m still sort of in awe that it’s real, even though I know every detail of the space by now—the band posters tacked up above us and the rows of black nail polish on her nightstand and the stacks of paperback novels and spiral notebooks and cassette tapes taking up every inch of free space.

  “I have to get home,” I say eventually, and I roll over onto my back and slide on my jeans. I’ve dumped Mami on Elena all morning, making up some lie that I needed to help Carlos with something. Guilt saddles me. With a sigh, Amy sits up, her cheeks red. She pulls on her T-shirt. With supreme eff ort I sit up, too. If I don’t, I’ll never leave.

  “Wanna hang out after our shift tonight?” she asks, blinking hard, like she needs to remember exactly where she is.

  “Yeah, sure,” I say, running my fingers through my hair, my body on fire. Just then I hear a sound coming from the other side of Amy’s shut bedroom door, and Amy and I make eye contact. Her blue eyes are wide in panic.

  “Shit, my mom is home early,” she whispers.

  “The closet?” I manage, my heart thrumming hard.

  “The window!” she answers and shoves me in that general direction.

  “Amy!” comes a muffled woman’s voice from down the hall. Fuck fuck fuck.

  Struggling, Amy and I manage to jam open the beat-up aluminum frame, and I toss myself out, landing on my back into some bushes. Amy sticks her head out, her eyes still wide, but this time her bright red mouth open and laughing. She tosses my shoes out one at a time, and I dodge so they don’t hit my head. Then I grin back widely from the bushes, stand up, and dust myself off. Amy shuts the window above me. I take a deep, shaky breath. We pulled it off.

  I slip on my shoes and haul my bike from its hiding spot at the side of Amy’s house and head home, my mind full of Amy. Amy’s lips. Amy’s breasts. Amy’s body. The way Amy smells and laughs and how she knows the best bands and the weirdest books and how being with her makes me so happy. Happier than I’ve been maybe in my whole life.

  Not that the bar’s super high or anything. I’m not in such an Amy haze that I can’t objectively see that.

  “Watch it, asshole!” comes a voice behind me. I swerve to miss an old Dodge with a loose understanding of what it means to share the road with bicycles. I like the way the wind cuts through my hair and makes me feel wide-awake when I bike, but I sure as hell wouldn’t mind owning my own car. Even an old Dodge. It would get me out of this shitty Texas heat, for one thing.

  Elena is sitting on the porch steps when I roll into our driveway. She’s picking at her fingernails.

  “Don’t go inside,” she warns me, her face a scowl.

  “Why?” I say even though I can guess the answer. I look at my kid sister more carefully. She isn’t wearing any shoes and is dressed in a ratty red-and-white T-shirt that used to belong to me back when I was on the track team at LBJ. I hope that means she isn’t planning on going out with that idiot douchebag anytime soon.

  “Mami is being a bitch,” Ele
na mutters, leaning over to pick at a mosquito bite on her ankle.

  It must be bad for Elena to say that. She’s better at deflecting. Or ignoring. Or pretending, if you want to describe it most accurately.

  I lay my bike on its side right there in our joke of a front yard and sit down next to her. “What happened?” I peek over my shoulder to make sure we’re not being spied on. You never know. Mami’s so tiny she can creep up on you without a sound—even when she’s loaded. I slide a thumb into my mouth and chew on my thumbnail absentmindedly.

  “She’s super drunk, and I didn’t clean the baseboards right,” Elena says glumly, staring at the street in front of us. “She cursed me out in Spanish and made me scrub the same spot for, like, five minutes.”

  “What are baseboards?” I ask. I wish I had a beer right now. Maybe I could grab one from the fridge really fast without being noticed. I imagine a slippery cold can in my hand and how good it would taste while we’re trapped outside in this ninety-something-degree weather.

  “What are baseboards?” Elena answers, her voice incredulous. She turns her dark eyes toward me like missiles. “See, that’s what I’m talking about. You think I would be able to do whatever I want if I spoke my mind, but you’re not stuck cleaning baseboards, because she doesn’t think that’s a boy’s job! You’re off boning your girlfriend or whatever.”

  “Jesus, Elena, please,” I say. “Enough.” I don’t want to discuss Amy with my sister. I want to keep all that separate. Just mine. But Elena rolls her eyes and exhales. “Tell me I’m wrong, then,” she mutters. “Tell me you’re not boning your girlfriend.”

  “Elena.”

  “Fine,” she says, giving in and dropping her chin into her hands. “But you’re still not here cleaning baseboards.” The thin white scar just under her mouth is visible through her splayed fingers. I push down the fear and guilt that percolates whenever I get a good look at it.

  “You’re right,” I pause. Elena doesn’t look at me, but I can see her shoulders soften a little with my apology, so I continue. “You have it harder than I do. I’m sorry.”

  “We just have to wait a while for her to pass out,” she says. “Then I’m off babysitting anyway.”

  I lean back against our porch steps. I have to be careful not to push things, given her mood. But I also can’t say nothing because I worry about her. She’s my baby sister.

  “Where is he taking you?” I ask.

  Elena shrugs. “I don’t know. Just out somewhere. Probably the movies.”

  “Okay,” I say, even though I know she’s lying. Even though I know this guy probably considers a six-pack and the couch in his crummy apartment a date. Even though I use my hard-earned El Mirador money to take Amy out to the movies or to Putt-Putt once in a while because it’s what you do if you’re a fucking halfway decent guy. I wish I could say all this to Elena, but she’s on edge and anyway, she’s not going to listen.

  The two of us sit out there for a while, not talking. Just sitting. When it feels like it’s been long enough, I climb the steps to the screened-in porch and slide my head inside the house to survey the den and kitchen. The lights are dimmed. It’s sticky inside because the air isn’t working well—it never does during the peak of the summer. The kitchen clock plods on, the ticktock the only sound to be heard over the hum of the fridge.

  My breathing tightens. My senses sharpen. But there’s no dark lump on the couch. There’s no scowling face staring out from the recliner. I spot Elena’s beat-up pink flip-flops in the corner and snatch them up quickly, like a kid on an Easter egg hunt.

  “She must be passed out in her room,” I say, turning back and heading out toward the land of the living. I toss the flip-flops in Elena’s direction.

  “Well then, it’s our lucky day,” she tells me, standing up and stretching her arms out wide. Her answer is laughable and we both know it, but the truth is that when it comes to luck, we take it where we can get it.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” I say, motioning toward the flip-flops.

  Elena gives me a look. “Okay, but no heavy-duty conversations, okay? I’m not in the mood.”

  “We’ll just talk about the weather, I swear.”

  We head off down the sidewalk, past other clapboard homes in varying stages of disrepair. When we were tiny kids in grade school and Mami got irritated with us and made us leave the house so she wouldn’t have to look at us, Elena and I would take walks around the block, estimating how many rotations we would need to make before we could safely venture back inside. Once we guessed too early and were greeted with a shoe flying at our heads. After that, we always added on one more round, just to be safe.

  “No heavy-duty conversations like I promised,” I start, “but do you need money for tonight?”

  Elena scowls a little, embarrassed. She wants to say yes but is ashamed to. I should have just slipped her the money like I normally do.

  “Only if you have some to spare,” she says at last, quietly.

  “Okay,” I say.

  I’d have more money earning interest at the credit union if I wasn’t bankrolling my sister all summer, but there’s no other way for her to have spending money, so it doesn’t bug me too much. I once overheard Elena casually explaining to Mami that Mr. Callahan was investing most of her babysitting money in a special fund to pay for nursing school. This impressed Mami and stopped her from asking too many questions. I don’t think it’s occurred to Elena that this lie will catch up with her eventually. Or, if it has, she’s chosen to ignore it along with so much else.

  After a few circles around in silence, we reach our front door again. Elena steps back, lets me go in first like when we were kids.

  “She’s still out cold,” I report back, like a soldier on reconnaissance.

  Elena nods and follows me inside. As we step into the kitchen, I remember the money and I slip her a five-dollar bill. She folds it carefully and shoves it in her back pocket, then shoots me a grateful smile.

  “If I don’t need it, I’ll give it back,” she promises.

  “Keep it,” I tell her. “You might need it later on.”

  Elena may have made up her job, but I have a real one to go to. Mami is still dead to the world when I head out for my shift. Elena is in the bathroom putting on makeup to hang out with J.C. The faucet is dripping again, and I make a mental note to take a look at it before Mami gets on me about it.

  I hate thinking of Elena spending time with that idiot douchebag from the beach. It was easier when she was just using the Callahans to spend time with that ditz Michelle and go to lame keggers. Just normal teenage girl stuff that she’s never allowed to do. But now it’s this J.C. creep. I know I’ve never really met him, but I just don’t like the guy.

  On the bike ride to work, I think about Elena and J.C. and Mami and the baseboards and Amy and California and the hazy, unknown future ahead of me.

  I pedal harder down Esperanza Boulevard. I can’t wait to get to work to take my mind off shit. I should ask Carlos for some extra shifts.

  But that means leaving Elena home alone more often with Mami.

  But if I move to California, then Elena will be home alone with Mami all the time.

  And if I leave for California, I won’t see Amy anymore, either.

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  By the time I make it to the restaurant I could really use a beer, but when I walk in, the smell of queso and enchiladas verdes and warm tortillas takes over my senses, and I calm down a little. The tiny white Christmas lights hanging low over the bar twinkle at me as if saying hello. Antonio Aguilar is playing on the stereo, his voice trembling over the swell of trumpets.

  “Hey, man,” says Carlos from the bar, where he’s mixing a drink for one of our regulars. “Good to see you.”

  “Good to see you, too,” I say, heading toward the employee break room for my apron.

  “Hey!” shouts a familiar voice behind me. Amy.

  “Hey,” I say, smiling before I even turn around to find h
er coming out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She leans in and gives me a peck on the cheek. “I still can’t believe we didn’t get caught this afternoon,” she whispers into my ear. Her warm breath tickles. I feel an ache in my chest.

  “I know,” I say. “My stealth moves saved the day.”

  She pulls back and her face cracks wide open into a beautiful smile, and we’re standing there staring at each other like idiots until Carlos coughs a little too loudly and says, “Okay, you two, break it up over there, there’s work to be done.”

  “Okay, Dad,” Amy answers, sneering for good measure. Carlos laughs at that and so does the regular at the bar and so does Amy and so do I, and even after I’ve made my way into the staff room and I’m all alone and sliding on my apron, I realize I’m still grinning so hard my face hurts.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WE STILL GO TO MASS. I DON’T THINK OF MAMI AS particularly religious or anything. Sometimes we pray before meals but only when she feels like it. She has a small picture of the Virgin Mary that Elena bought her at a church bazaar hanging in her room, but that’s it in terms of religious stuff around the house. She doesn’t correct us if we say “Oh my God!” but she’ll be all over us for any other curse, unless she’s the one who decides to curse, of course.

  I asked her once when we were kids why we went to church at all.

  “I went to Mass when I was a little girl in Cuba, and I’ll go to Mass now,” she told me. That didn’t really explain to me why Elena and I had to go, but that’s how Mami is. It’s her world. We’re just living in it.