The Liars

by Jennifer Mathieu

  The Callahans lasted longer than I thought they would, and I grew to resent the fantasy they became for my sister. I guess because while Elena used them to fake obedience to Mami, I did the opposite, unable to stay compliant for very long. Unable to keep my mouth closed, even when it would have been smarter in some ways to do so. And as each summer trudged onward, as each year rolled past, as each evening at home filled with tension and anticipation of the next bad thing to come, I discovered more and more evidence of the real, hard truth of our lives.

  And I stared into it like I was staring at the sun, until the pain of looking at it forced me to close my eyes and look away. But only for a moment.

  CARRIE

  1972

  Joaquin and Elena would never know it, but they had the hovering ladies at the apartment complex to thank for what remained of any stability in their lives, at least during those early years. The women raised money for Carrie and her children and told their churches about their sad situation. They got Carrie a job as a receptionist at a local doctor’s office—they even helped her find a babysitter for the kids. For a while, they made Carrie their little pet. And Carrie even enjoyed it. It had been so long since she’d been really taken care of.

  She tried to ignore their home dye jobs, their working-class roughness, the way so many of them seemed to think wearing one size smaller than their actual sizes made them look thinner instead of like overstuffed sausages. So she smiled when they came over unannounced, forced herself to attend their boring bunco dice games, nodded with enthusiasm at whatever drippy, dumb stories they told. She was indebted to them. She knew this. And they were not unkind. But Carrie wasn’t like them, and the more she spent time with them, the more she feared their commonness would rub off on her. Scrub away the last little bits of the part of her that she knew was special.

  After almost a year she saved up enough money to rent a house in what she hoped was a slightly better neighborhood. She told the women she needed a fresh start, that the apartment complex was full of too many bad memories. But really she felt she needed to break away from them before she found herself twenty pounds overweight, smoking in the courtyard, and screaming at her children in front of the entire neighborhood.

  On one of her last nights in the apartment, she forced herself to have the women over as a sort of thank-you and served them drinks and little cookies with dulce de leche. They thought the dessert was so exotic, and Carrie—warmed up a bit with a few rum and Cokes—regaled them with stories of Cuba and her perfect girlhood on a magical island. She felt like a princess with her ladies-in-waiting. It was almost fun. But when the last woman left, Carrie shut the door, exhausted, and later on, when the women would drop by her new house, Carrie would hustle the children into the bathroom. Turn out the lights. Pretend that no one was home until at last they left and, eventually, stopped trying to visit her altogether.

  On the morning she moved into her new home, Carrie examined it with a careful eye. Her first thought: it was better than the apartment. Cleaner and newer, with kitchen cabinets that had recently been painted and three bedrooms instead of two. That the two smaller bedrooms—the ones for Joaquin and Elena—were actually the result of one bedroom being divided in half was something she was willing to overlook. The house was a tiny, almost infinitesimal step, but at least it was a step in the right direction. Certainly things would continue to improve.

  Carrie even liked her job although she’d never thought she would like working. Dr. Sanders was an ophthalmologist and a serious, quiet man who expected a serious, quiet office. Carrie enjoyed keeping order and filing folders and using petty cash to buy fresh flowers and copies of Bon Appétit for the waiting room. She enjoyed the feel ing of being gatekeeper to an important man because it made her feel important, too. Years later when Dr. San ders retired and his son took over the practice, he changed Carrie’s title to “office manager,” which Carrie enjoyed writing down each year on her tax return. It had a weight to it, Carrie thought.

  Sometimes, but not often, she missed Frank. She mostly missed their earlier years, which, like all things bathed in the passage of time, seemed almost sweet to her now. But she knew as the children grew that they would begin to ask questions about their father. Questions she didn’t want to answer—she even thought Joaquin might have a few memories of him—so she was quick to hide photographs of Frank. To give away his clothes, shoes, knickknacks.

  Still she worried. If she told the children Frank had died, and so tragically, too, they might want to know more about him. Maybe even more about his horrid family that had treated her like the hired help. If she told the children that Frank was gone forever, they might lionize him. Dream up a magical father so wonderful and good and perfect—how could she compete with a ghost?

  As the children grew, she discovered it was easy for her to tell them Frank had abandoned them. And anyway, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he taken off, left her barely any cash for food, and never returned? She chose California as his destination—it was a place people ran off to, Carrie decided—and she was careful to offer up just the right pained expression to Joaquin and Elena whenever they pestered her about what had happened to their father. If she teared up when they questioned her, if she told them just how much he had hurt her, hurt them, they might stop asking. So she was sure to cry a little when talking about him. Sniffle and excuse herself. The crying was real, although it wasn’t really over Frank. Soon Joaquin and Elena stopped asking about him altogether.

  At night she would bathe the children and put them to bed and pour herself a drink and then sometimes another, and if she drank too much, she would let herself think about Cuba. About her mother and father and Juanita, too. She would pull out her old photographs. She would whisper old songs. She would conjure up an ending to her disastrous quince that involved kissing her neighbor Ricardo in the dusk next to the orchids that grew outside her home. And sometimes she could almost convince herself that this was really how it happened. And she would think of the sweet, sweet smell of agua de violetas and remember Varadero Beach and the blue, blue ocean.

  Still tipsy from her drinking, Carrie liked to check on her children before she went to bed. She loved padding into their rooms late at night, adjusting their covers, pushing back soft hair from their sweaty heads. Joaquin always fell asleep with a book or a Lego piece clutched in his hand. Elena always ended up with her rear stuck in the air. Sometimes Carrie would simply stand there and stare at them until hot tears pricked at her eyes and a lump built inside her throat. Because of them she wasn’t alone and she never would be. They would always be with her. They would never leave her. They were hers and hers alone. And as they grew they would come to trust her and love her and they would know—they would have to know—that she had done her best for them despite all the horrible things that had happened to her in her life.

  And she promised herself this one thing. She would be a good mother.

  JOAQUIN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  IN THE WEEKS FOLLOWING MY DRIVE OUT TO HEALY, Elena and I observe a frosty peace. I stay out of her way and she stays out of mine. I go to work at El Mirador. I spend time with Amy when she has the house to herself, and we take refuge in her bedroom and have sex and listen to music and in general block out the rest of the world. I tell Amy everything. She listens and kisses me and then tells me to hang in there. One more year. Technically it’s less than a year, if we move to Austin next May. She spins dreams about the two of us heading up to New York City after college, of her becoming a famous novelist and both of us going to all the best punk shows. It’s a beautiful vision, but I don’t ask her what I’m supposed to be doing in New York besides going with her to hear bands play. I don’t want to disrupt the illusion.

  Is it enough to live your life as part of someone else’s dreams, if the dreams belong to someone like Amy? I don’t know.

  Elena schedules babysitting jobs and stays out too late and comes home tipsy and smelling of smoke. Not just cigarette smoke but weed
sometimes, too. No more acid trips that I’m aware of, at least. August drones on. The days get shorter. The summer is saying goodbye.

  Mami knows nothing about my trip to Healy. I find myself staring at her as she watches evening game shows or made-for-TV movies. I picture her in that yellow room off the kitchen. I imagine Deirdre’s big smile. I recall my grandfather’s hands clutching his stuffed puppy. I picture an entire parallel life for me and Elena playing out hours away in Healy.

  One Saturday morning, Mami tells Elena and me to go to the grocery store. She’s in a vicious mood for no reason I can figure, and I’m pretty sure she just wants to be alone. I don’t fight it, instead taking the keys and sliding into the driver’s seat of the Honda. Elena gets in next to me, Mami’s list in her hand.

  Halfway down Esperanza Boulevard, Elena says, “Joaquin, don’t be mad at me anymore.”

  I glance over at her. How do I tell her that I’m not mad now? Not really. Only worried. I’m always worried about her.

  “Okay,” I say. “Just don’t be mad at me.”

  Elena traces her index finger along the passenger-side window. She doesn’t look at me when she says, “I’ve never been mad at you a minute in my entire life.”

  I take my eyes off the road for a moment to look at her, and when she looks back at me, it’s like once again we are coconspirators. Just my little sister and me.

  At the store, we toss groceries into our cart. Elena chides me for picking overripe fruit. I roll my eyes at her choice of Frosted Flakes.

  “Mami won’t like that,” I say.

  “I’ll put the bag of Frosted Flakes inside that old box of Cheerios, which she never eats,” Elena answers. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Clever, clever,” I tell her. She laughs.

  We anticipate each other’s words. Choices. Gestures.

  Is there anyone who knows you more than your own flesh and blood?

  In the car on the way home, Elena lets me play my cassette of the Jesus and Mary Chain. She doesn’t even make fun of it.

  We get back to our house, and Elena and I haul as many bags out of the car as we can. When we get to the front door we find Mami standing there, leaning against the doorframe. She’s watching us with narrow eyes. Sizing us up.

  My stomach knots.

  I pass her and go into the kitchen, but she stays focused on Elena, who approaches the house with a smile on her pretty, youthful face. Mami stares her down, the crow’s feet around her eyes deepening as she scowls.

  “We got everything on the list,” Elena says, following me into the kitchen. She starts carefully taking a carton of eggs out of one of the bags and sliding it into the refrigerator. I go back outside and grab the last of the groceries. Just as I’m heading into the kitchen, Mami says, “I know you weren’t babysitting last night, Elena.”

  My nerves turn electric. In my mind’s eye I see the story Elena and I have built crashing down around us. I ease a paper bag onto the counter and stand next to my sister. Elena slowly hauls a plastic sack full of potatoes out of a bag.

  “What are you talking about?” Elena says, not turning to look at Mami. Her voice is even. Relaxed. “Of course I was babysitting.”

  “You’re a liar.” I peer over my shoulder. Mami’s eyes are hard and on Elena like a scope on a target. “I just got off the phone with Mrs. Callahan. She said you were supposed to babysit this morning and you didn’t show up.”

  I can’t move. Mami just got off the phone with Mrs. Callahan. But Elena turns around and leans against the kitchen counter. She absentmindedly touches the scar on her chin. The thin, rubbery line of white skin just as straight as the edge of the counter she now rests against.

  “Oh, Mami, really?” she says. A smile slides onto her face. “Mrs. Callahan called?”

  Mami bristles. She looks straight at Elena, and Elena stares straight back. “Yes, she called,” Mami says, but some of the fight is out of her voice.

  Elena says nothing, her eyes bright, cold, and steady. I don’t move a muscle.

  A beat or two later Mami opens her mouth again. “At least, I think it was her.”

  The stillness in the room shatters. I take two cans of baked beans out of the bag and walk toward the cabinets over the counter to put them away, trying to look nonchalant, but my heart is beating hard. My throat is dry.

  Out of the side of my eye I watch as Elena drags her hands through her hair. She ties her dark locks into a lazy knot. “Mami,” she says at last, patiently but firmly, like she’s talking to a child. “I was babysitting last night. Where else would I be?” Then her voice turns playful. Light. “Don’t be silly.”

  And at this she walks toward Mami and kisses her on the cheek. A simple peck. One fluid motion. Not a hint of anxiety. Not a flush of uncertainty. Elena has won the liars’ showdown, hands down. She disappears into her bedroom, leaving me with the rest of the groceries.

  Mami is frowning. She narrows her heavy-lidded eyes at Elena’s door and mutters something under her breath that I can’t catch. Then she turns toward me.

  “Why are you just standing there, Joaquin?” she snaps. “Finish up in here.”

  “I’m almost done,” I say, jumping into action. And as I put spaghetti boxes away, I watch as Mami heads into her bedroom, drink in hand.

  The house is silent as I line up the cans. Stack the fruit in the bowl. In my mind’s eye, the future rolls out before me like an endless sea: Elena’s and Mami’s lies go on forever and ever—each one manipulating the other until neither knows where the truth ends and the lies begin. They can’t see any other way to be.

  I close my eyes as panic swells up in my chest. I head outside onto the screened-in porch to get some air, but it’s not enough. I go straight out onto the sidewalk. I resist the urge to run, to head nowhere in particular, and I force myself to just stand there for a minute. The humidity drapes itself over me like a wet, heavy blanket. In the background I hear the honk of a car horn. The sigh and shudder of a city bus coming to a stop. The shout of children in some neighboring backyard, playing tag.

  I can hardly breathe.

  “You’re it!” a little boy’s voice announces, victorious. “I got you! You’re it!”

  It takes me three days to work up the nerve to tell them.

  After a dinner of chicken and rice, Elena clears the table and dumps the dishes into the sink.

  “Joaquin, can you wash them?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. My throat is dry. I look over at Mami, who is tracing the tip of her pinkie finger in her drink. “I need to tell you something though. I need to tell you both something.”

  Elena turns to look at me. Mami takes a sip of her cocktail, her eyes trained on the wall opposite her.

  Do it, Joaquin.

  “I’ve decided I’m moving to California,” I say. “By the end of the summer.”

  My eyes are on Mami, but I hear Elena gasp. I can’t look at her. I stare at Mami. Finally she turns her gaze toward me and squints her eyes. Peers at me.

  “Is this because you think you’ll find your father?” she says, her voice even. Cold.

  She could tell me now. She could. She could admit the truth if she thought it might mean I’d stay in Mariposa Island. But that would mean admitting that she lied, admitting that she was wrong.

  “Because I honestly doubt you’ll ever track him down,” she continues. “I can almost promise you that you won’t.”

  It dawns on me that maybe she really believes Frank Finney is alive and living in Los Angeles.

  “This isn’t about my father,” I say. “I just … I want to see what it’s like. Before I figure out school or whatever comes next.” It sounds stupid when I say it out loud. But what’s the point of trying to explain? Mami and I could sit in this room talking for the rest of our lives and I could never make her understand.

  She nods once, frowns slightly. Sips her drink. Turns her gaze to the window.

  “Juanita had a saying,” Mami announces, and she almost
smiles. “Ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente,” she says. “Perhaps I will understand that in the months to come.”

  Then she stands up, snatching her drink. “Good luck, Joaquin,” she says coldly as she walks toward her room, her back to me. “I hope it all works out for you there.”

  I look over toward my sister. Her face is red, splotchy, her neck is covered in hives. I open my mouth to speak, but Elena holds up her hand to stop me.

  “No,” she says, barely able to get the word out. I think she’ll storm off, but she just sits there, making me take it. Making me witness her tears and her red eyes and her sobs.

  “Elena, can’t we talk about it?” I ask, moving toward her.

  “No,” she says again, pulling back. And then, “No, we cannot.”

  “Okay,” I say, backing up. “Okay.”

  At last she gives up and walks out of the kitchen, slamming her bedroom door hard. I stand there listening to her muffled cries through the walls.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE DAY AFTER I TELL MAMI AND ELENA ABOUT MY decision to move to California, I get ready to go in and work the lunch shift, but my stomach knots up at the thought of it. El Mirador is usually an escape, but not today.

  Because today I know I’ll have to tell Amy.

  I go through the motions. Smile and nod at the families trying to get in one last week of vacation. Babies and toddlers with sand in between their rolls of fat. Moms with tired expressions. Dads with sunburned noses.

  “What can I get you to drink?”

  “You need a minute? Take your time.”

  “Ready for the check?”

  Amy has the later shift. Any minute she’ll be here, and I’ll have to tell her the truth. I think about the warmth of her body. Her kindness. Her dreams that aren’t my dreams.

  When she walks in she spots me by the bar. She comes over and hugs me, but she can tell something’s wrong. When she asks what’s up, I nod toward the employee break room. We head inside, and she shuts the door behind her and looks at me, her face full of concern.