Seven Ways We Lie

by Riley Redgate

  As Valentine takes the empty buckets up front, I head to one of the windows and look down at the junior lot. It’s a pleasant surprise—Juniper’s car is still sitting there. I shoot my sister a text. Hey, missed the bus. Can you wait for me? Be down soon.

  Valentine stops by the window, shrugging his backpack on. He breathes on the glass and draws an indifferent-looking face in the fog. “Is something out there?”

  “Just, my sister’s still here. So I have a ride.” I point out through the drizzle at the silver Mercedes. “That’s her.”

  Valentine’s finger freezes over the fogged-up glass. “Oh,” he says, packing more meaning into that one syllable than I would’ve thought possible.

  “Oh?” I repeat.

  “Nothing. Just, oh.” He seems to have lost the ability to blink, staring down at Juniper’s car. “The blonde, I assume?”

  “Nah, my sister’s the brunette. The blonde is Juniper Kipling. She’s a friend. Why?”

  “No reason,” he says too quickly.

  I lean against the wall. “What, you have a crush on one of them or something?”

  “I don’t do those.”

  “Do what? Crushes?”

  “Yes, those,” he says. “And no. I don’t.”

  “What are you, one of those love-is-a-social-construct people?”

  “I don’t know about that. I just don’t get crushes.” He gives me a flash of his laser eyes again. “What, do you think it’s a construct?”

  “Spare me,” I say. “Don’t change the subject. What’s your deal with Juni and my sister?”

  His lips form a thin line. “No deal. Nothing.” He shoves his hands into his jacket, turning away. “I have to go. Bye.” He walks out fast, head down, staring deliberately at the ground.

  As he shuts the door, I lean against a desk, drained by the interaction. I wish I were one of those androids from Electric Forces VI. I could stick a plug into myself to recharge.

  I slouch out of the room, steeling myself for a weird drive home.

  THE SIGHT OF OLIVIA AT THE STOVE THAT EVENING gives me a strange, sinking feeling. Most days, I move to my room the second she walks into the kitchen. Today, though, something keeps me at the table as I play Mass Effect. I glance at her every so often. She stands with one hip shifted out, her hair tied back in a messy stream. She hums a tune that sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it.

  Dad opens the door at a little past seven, his glasses spattered with beads of water. His usual five-o’clock shadow has grown out to a layer of gray-black stubble, making the gaunt peaks and valleys of his face seem rockier than usual. Dad’s all bones, a six-foot-five skeleton man with kind eyes.

  “Hi,” he says, shutting the door. He shrugs off his raincoat, revealing the plastic name tag on his button-down, emblazoned with the Golden Arches.

  I lift a hand, and Olivia says, “Hey, how was work?”

  Dad doesn’t seem to hear. As he meanders toward the stairs, all he says is, “Horrible weather.” His voice barely makes it to my ears, quiet and reedy.

  “Yeah, it’s gross out,” Olivia says. “Dinner’s going to be ready in about ten, okay?”

  “Thanks.” He vanishes up to the second floor, leaving silence except for the simmering hiss of hot water. As I look after him, Valentine Simmons’s miserable Four Hundred and Ten Days of Eating Alone statistic scratches at the back of my mind.

  “You want me to set the table?” I ask, pausing Mass Effect.

  Olivia turns, her eyebrows raised. “Yeah, that—that’d be awesome,” she says. “You eating with us, Kat?”

  I nod. “Smells nice.”

  A big smile lifts her cheeks. Two words, and she lights up like a lantern—I forgot how transparent Olivia can be. “Great!” she says. “Dad’ll be really happy.”

  If he is, though, I can’t tell. When the three of us sit down, he eats slack-faced and quiet, despite Olivia’s attempts to draw conversation out of him.

  I sneak glances at my sister and my dad throughout dinner. Their presence crushes me in. How do I talk to them? They feel so far away, like distant island countries. God knows what’s going on inside Dad’s head, and I hardly know anything about Olivia anymore. She, Juniper, and Claire are as inseparable as always, and she goes out every weekend. That’s all I know, besides the music she listens to in her room.

  “What’s new, Kat?” Olivia says, meeting my eyes.

  I look down at my lap and scramble for words. “Nothing much. Um . . . Dr. Norman made fun of me in chemistry today.”

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cause he’s a dick.”

  “Language,” Dad mumbles. I’ve never heard a more half-assed chastisement.

  “No, he is, though,” Olivia says. “All last year, he used to make fun of my height. And I was, like, yeah, I know I’m tall—thanks for the constant reminders.” She takes a swig of orange juice. “What’d he say to you?”

  “I was asleep. So he, you know. Made an example.”

  “Oh,” Olivia says. I wait for some preachy Maybe stay awake next time remark, but she just shrugs and says, “Yeah, dude’s voice could put a dolphin to sleep. Amazing.”

  “What, is that impressive?”

  “Dolphins—fun fact—actually don’t sleep,” Olivia says through a mouthful of noodles. “They only rest part of their brains at a time, so they’re always sorta conscious. Also, they’re evil. They, like, kidnap people and drag them off to their dolphin lairs.”

  I laugh before I can help it. Olivia looks at me with this mixture of astonishment and delight, as if I’ve handed her a winning lottery ticket. Dad glances between the two of us, looking confused, which is fair—I’m a little confused, too. I forgot Olivia made jokes and offered people sympathy. I forgot she did anything but tell me to deal with my responsibilities.

  When we finish dinner, Dad stands. “I’m exhausted, girls. Might call it an early night.”

  “Sure,” Olivia says. “I’ll wash up. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Thanks, Olly.” He gives her an absent-looking smile before trudging upstairs.

  “Shit, he’s quiet,” I say, looking after him. Dad was never loud, but back when we were in elementary school, he and Mom would bounce jokes off each other at dinner until they both teared up from laughter. Mom coaxed a gregarious side out of him. Around her, he acted out. Trying to impress her, maybe—or keep a hold of her. Maybe he knew the whole time that trying to hold on to her was like trying to hold on to ice—a wasted effort that was only going to leave him cold.

  Olivia gathers our plates, looking grim. “Yeah, work wears him down so much, there’s not much he can do but crash when he gets home.”

  I trace a stain on the table. God knows I understand that feeling, not that I have the right to. A thousand kids at our school do the same thing I do every day, and they still have energy and motivation. I’ve got no excuse. Sick of the feeling of self-pity, I stand. “Night,” I say, and I head for the stairs. My sister gives me a smile, but it hardly registers.

  ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON, MATT PICKS ME UP, ALONG with my bundle of project supplies. His car smells like he’s growing marijuana plants in the trunk. The space in front of the passenger seat is so filled with paper, bottles, and trash, it’s like a handy cushion for me to prop up my feet.

  “Sorry about the mess,” he says, not sounding in any way sorry about the mess.

  “All good,” I say, glancing into the backseat, which is even worse. It looks as if somebody mistook it for a landfill.

  Matt doesn’t turn the radio down, so I hum along with various bad pop songs all the way to his house. At one point I think I hear him singing along to Avril Lavigne, but when I glance over at him, his mouth is firmly shut.

  My eyes linger on him for a second. As if he’s trying to look like as much of a stoner as possible, he’s wearing a maroon beanie pulled low over his forehead, tufts of hair sticking out from beneath. He drives one-handed, relaxed and silent, but his expression gives me the sense th
at something’s brewing under the surface.

  We didn’t talk in English yesterday. Didn’t even look at each other, in spite of our phone conversation Thursday night, or maybe because of it. Sitting two feet from him now, I can’t help imagining his mother, a discontented scientist frustrated by small-town Paloma, and his father, resentful and underappreciated. But as for Matt himself . . . after Thursday night, I don’t know what to think about him. He changed over the phone, showed me a new face.

  I look out the window, up at the flat blue sky. The way my sister acted last night at dinner—giving me a glimpse of how she used to be—made me think that maybe she can change, too. I hadn’t heard her laugh in so long. Hearing it pulled up a well of memories, even nostalgia, like hearing a song I might have had on repeat during a bittersweet summer.

  “Here’s me,” Matt says, turning down the radio. We pull up outside a small white house with black shutters. He parks at the curb.

  I sling my backpack on and follow him up a weed-trimmed path. The porch paint is flaking off, and bugs have gnawed holes in the window screens. I shiver, waiting as he unlocks the door with a stained silver key.

  Finally, Matt wedges the door open. We enter his living room, a nest of warmth and color. A squashy-looking couch is upholstered in red, scattered with stitched pillows. Above it, a magnificent painting of the sun stretches across the wall, its orange rays lighting the ridges of a mountain range. A deeply scored mantel holds three different cuckoo clocks and a row of intricate crucifixes, and a television sits on an end table. Quilts and blankets and clutter cover every surface. The Jackson household clearly does not go for the whole minimalism thing.

  “We can work in here or the kitchen—whatever,” Matt says, giving the door a firm shove with his shoulder. It slides back into its ill-fitting frame with a muffled bang.

  I look around. The coffee table, like the rest of the room, is overflowing, filled with magazines and half-melted candles. “Do you have a kitchen table we could use?”

  “Sure.” He heads down the hall. I follow, peering through the doors to the left and right: a whirring laundry room, a tiny bathroom with a stained mirror, and another small hall ending in a staircase. An indistinct smell hangs around—the new air of an unfamiliar house. Different-smelling detergent, maybe, mixed with a few types of scented air fresheners.

  His kitchen, bigger than the living room, fits in a long counter, an island, and a fat wooden table with six chairs. Beside the table, three plates hang on the wall, painted dappled blue. Delicate green and orange floral designs blossom out from their center.

  “Those are gorgeous.” I wave at the plates, setting the poster materials on the table.

  “They’re my grandma’s.” Matt draws out a chair and sits. “They’re, like, sixty years old.”

  “Did she make them?”

  “Nah. Mom’s side of the family is from Puebla. There’s this special ceramic style, regional, called Talavera, and those are from the city.”

  I sit across from him, unzipping my backpack. “Puebla. Is that in . . .”

  “Mexico. South-Central Mexico.”

  “You still have family there?” I ask.

  “Yeah, a few great-aunts, but my grandparents moved to St. Louis in the seventies, so all my closer family is up here. Except my uncle. He’s, like, a stock market guy in London.”

  “Fancy.” I unroll the poster, flattening its edges under a pair of textbooks. “Man, I want to go to London. Mexico’s on my to-visit list, too. I’ve never been out of the country, so.”

  “Yeah?” Matt says. “I’ve visited Mexico a few times, for, like, two weeks at a go, but I always feel so fake-Mexican, ’cause I’m only half. I haven’t lived there or anything, so all my Mexican relatives think of me as white-bread American.”

  “Do you speak Spanish?”

  “Claro que sí.”

  “Aha,” I say. “Yo también, sort of.”

  Matt smiles, pulling off his beanie. His messy hair falls across his forehead. “So, this poster thing. Should—”

  “Matt?” says a voice.

  I look over my shoulder. The cutest child in the world, probably, stands in the doorway. A mop of dark hair tops his tan little face, and unlike Matt’s, his eyes are bright blue. When he sees me, his mouth shuts, and he takes a step back.

  “Hey, Russ,” Matt says, standing. “You came down the stairs by yourself?”

  “I can climb down stairs,” Russ says, the picture of three-year-old indignation.

  I grin. Matt lifts his hands. “Right, obviously, my bad.” He points to me. “This is Olivia. Want to wave hi?”

  Russell flaps a hand frantically at me. “Hi. My name is Russell.”

  “Hey, Russell,” I say. “Nice to meet you. I like your house.”

  He doesn’t reply, looking back to Matt with pleading eyes.

  “What’s the matter, Russ?” Matt says.

  “I want car. The car was . . . the car was too high. I tried to climb.”

  “Oh jeez, don’t climb your shelves,” Matt says. “I’ll get it for you.” He glances at me. “Give me a sec?”

  “Sure,” I say. “I’ll start this.”

  “Thanks.”

  As he vanishes into the hall, I start writing INFERNO across the top of the poster. I know perfectly well how to spell inferno, but I catch myself starting to draw the wrong letter twice. Something about these giant, red, unsubtle letters makes the word stop looking like a word.

  Matt returns before I finish the N. “Sorry,” he says, sitting down. “I gave him a bunch of stuff to keep him busy, but three-year-olds are sort of, you know. Attention-thirsty.”

  “He’s adorable.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Matt says. “And he’s super smart for his age. I couldn’t do actual sentences until I was five or some shit, but Russ already knows words like—what did he say the other day?—‘effective’ or something. And ‘philosophy.’ It’s crazy th—” He cuts himself off. Something in his eyes happens, like shutters closing, hiding away the fondness. “Anyway.”

  I fight back a smile, returning to the poster. “You’re a good brother.”

  “What?”

  “You are. You’re, like, enthusiastic about him. It’s cute.” I glance at him, but he avoids my eyes. “Um,” he says.

  We sit in silence for a second. I examine him—his narrow brown eyes, his thick, heavy brows—and our phone conversation swims back to the forefront of my mind. I want to tell him how Kat acted last night—progress!—but he could so easily turn back into the kid from English class, the too-cool-to-care guy. He could say, Oh, I was high on Thursday, and dismiss it.

  “So,” he says carefully. I tense up. I don’t know why or what I’m expecting him to say.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  After a second, he picks up one of the sheets of paper strewn across the poster. “I—nothing,” he mumbles. “Nothing. I, uh, I didn’t finish reading Inferno.”

  “Oh. Right. Me neither.” I cap my marker. “I’m a slow reader.”

  “Really?”

  “You surprised?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I guess I am, a little. ’Cause you’re smart.”

  I grin. “Hey, thanks, but I’m also slower than a slug in quicksand. Anyway, I got a bunch of themes and stuff off SparkNotes, so we can put the important bits on here.”

  “I did start it, though,” he says. “I swear, I read like fifteen cantos.” He sounds so urgent, you’d think his Inferno progress was the only thing standing between us and Tartarus. A hint of intensity shows in his face, too, the corners of his thin mouth tightening.

  I tilt my head. “I mean, I believe you.”

  “Right.” He flaps the sheet in his hand. “Right, I . . . yeah.”

  I look down at the poster for a long second, not thinking about the project at all. “Hey, um,” I say.

  Matt meets my eyes. I’ve never seen a brown that clear. Like dark honey, or amber, with something bright crystallized d
eep in the center. The tightness in my chest winds up.

  “I wanted to thank you, I guess,” I say. “For talking on Thursday. I . . . yeah.”

  He sits quiet and still. I hold my breath, praying he won’t shrug it off. Talking with him felt like it meant something, late at night like that, quiet and unexpected. I don’t know why I mentioned Mom like that, in retaliation, but he didn’t throw it back at me. He traded me a little piece of his life, instead, and that deserves a thank-you, in my eyes.

  “It’s . . .” he says, a crease forming between his straight eyebrows. “I . . . it was a good . . .”

  He doesn’t finish.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It was a good.”

  Matt smiles. His cheeks press his eyes up into half-moons.

  “All right.” I clear my throat. “We should probably work on this thing.”

  And for two hours, we do, cutting orange paper into tongues of flame, writing quotes, collecting characters from each circle, listing sins and virtues.

  It’s quiet except for the occasional rumble from the refrigerator, and sometimes we lean close enough above the poster that the light sound of his breathing distracts me. The sight of his dark forearms folded on the table catches me, too, his knobby wrists and the thin hair leading up to his elbows. It feels weirdly intimate, the two of us tucked into a corner of his kitchen, working in silence that’s more comfortable than it has the right to be.

  I WAKE UP AT 11:30 PM TO MY RINGTONE BLARING. Instantly alert, I grab my phone, squinting at the screen. The blue light makes my eyes ache in the dark.

  I pick up. “Juniper? What’s going on? What’s happening?”

  “Claire,” she sings. “Claire fair, Claire bear. Claire Clah-Claire, Claire, Claaaire. We’re hanging out, and we miss youuu.”

  I shut my eyes, settling back under my covers. So nothing’s wrong—just a drunk dial. I’m not sure whether I’m more relieved or irritated. “Juniper, I need to sleep,” I say. And I don’t need a reminder of how much fun they’re having without me. Is a little consideration too much to ask?

  “Oh no,” Juniper says. The phone rustles. I hear her talking to Olivia. “I woke her up.”