Lies You Wanted to Hear

by James Whitfield Thomson

  He turned and smiled at me, eyes as blue as arctic snow, and handed me the joint. The first toke made my scalp tingle; the second one made me feel like I’d just stepped off a Tilt-A-Whirl.

  “I don’t have time for this, Russell.” His eyes never left mine. “Six-fifty for the whole stash. Take it or leave it. There’s a young lady standing here with a Mona Lisa smile who requires my attention.”

  He introduced himself simply as Griffin. It was Saturday, a cool afternoon in early May, my second year out of college. My mother, Amanda, had driven to Boston from Connecticut for the weekend and was staying at the Ritz. We were planning to go see the Renoir exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts and have dinner after. I’d gone out to do some errands and lost track of time, so I stopped to call her and say I was running late.

  “Plans change,” Griffin said, flicking the roach into the street. He asked if I wanted to go get something to eat.

  It didn’t take much convincing. I called my mother and told her I’d come down with a bug, was feverish, and could barely get out of bed. Amanda went on about how sorry she was, how she’d been looking forward to spending the day together, even mused about coming to Cambridge to make me tea and soup, but we both knew she didn’t mean it, no more than she believed my story about being ill. I had no qualms about standing her up; given the chance, she would have done the same.

  I was eleven or twelve when I realized my mother was a drunk. My younger brother Mark and I learned to watch her and adapt to her shifting moods. My father basically ignored her tirades and dark silences until she went completely off the rails, at which point he blamed it on “exhaustion” and carted her off to a sanatorium to dry out. In my junior year of high school, Amanda decamped on a three-day bender with the twenty-six-year-old assistant tennis pro from the country club—one of her more public transgressions, right up there with the time she drove into the beauty parlor. The scandal probably would have ended most marriages, but my dad had his own counterweight of peccadilloes: speeding tickets, bimbo secretaries, a pied-à-terre in Manhattan. The tennis pro, whom I had a crush on and would gladly have run off with myself, lost his job; Amanda spent a few weeks at a spa. Like all family disasters, we never discussed the incident at home, not openly anyway.

  Mark and I, who relied on each other for regular reality checks, learned early on that our parents’ foibles were an invaluable legacy, a bottomless trust fund of bad behavior. Amanda and Roger Thornhill—everyone, including my mother, called him “Thorny”—had no illusions about their children being perfect; they assumed Mark and I would screw up from time to time, just as they did. No matter what the misadventure—wrecking the car (a Thornhill family tradition), stealing pills from Amanda’s cache, getting caught in the TV room in flagrante delicto—the best defense was to pretend it hadn’t happened. Or lie about it.

  ***

  Griffin got a red Lord & Taylor shopping bag from the trunk of his BMW, which was parked on Mt. Auburn Street, and we walked up to the Hong Kong across from Lamont Library. The restaurant was empty except for an elderly couple near the window. We sat in a booth next to the tropical fish tank. The waiter brought us menus and we ordered drinks—Glenlivet for Griffin, a mai tai for me. When the drinks came, Griffin took the pink paper umbrella from my glass and spun it back and forth between his fingers; then he reached up and slipped the stem under my hair comb as if it were a flower, drew his head back, and gave me the once-over. He smiled his approval. I was half thrilled, half mortified, as if he’d put his hand up under my skirt.

  He asked what I did when I wasn’t picking up strangers in the Square. I told him I worked for the Harvard Class Report Office, editing the entries alumni sent in for their reunion books.

  “About half the stuff we get is nothing but bragging,” I said. “Guys crowing about themselves, their kids, grandkids. The Cliffies are almost as bad as the men. Not that some of these people don’t have reason to brag. We get responses from congressmen, Nobel Prize winners, businessmen with more money than God. Leonard Bernstein, Norman Mailer. That big tall actor…what’s his name? The one who plays Herman on The Munsters. Can you believe he went to Harvard?” Griffin had one elbow on the table, his chin in his hand and his eyes fixed on mine. “Some guys write in and they can be really thoughtful or funny or sad. I mean, sometimes we’ll get a submission from some guy who graduated thirty years ago, probably thinking he had it made; now he’s been divorced three times and is working in a shoe store in Schenectady. We get stuff from Hare Krishnas, Black Panthers, you name it. Harvard has this thing about trying to keep up with all their alumni no matter what.”

  I couldn’t stop babbling. The waiter brought mountains of food I didn’t remember us ordering. Griffin wielded his chopsticks like a grasshopper; I wished I had a fork but was embarrassed to ask. A boy in a ratty Army jacket approached the table.

  “Hey, Russell,” Griffin said, “have a seat. This is Lucy. Will you join us?”

  “Can’t, man. I got to run.”

  Griffin sighed and looked at me. “The death of manners. He used to beg me to play catch with him when he was a kid.” He slid the shopping bag out from under the table with his foot. The boy took the bag and handed him a wad of bills, which Griffin slipped into his pocket without bothering to count. It didn’t occur to me that I was witnessing a felony, that a narc might walk in the door and arrest us. I suppose I could attribute my lack of concern to the times—dealing drugs in Harvard Square was as common as selling used textbooks—or to the fact that I was stoned, but it was more than that. Nothing mattered but Griffin. Maybe it was those blue eyes, the way he seemed to hang on every word when I talked. I couldn’t explain the feeling; I just wanted it to last.

  The waiter brought the check and a brown bag with the leftovers. Outside it was clear and chilly. I put on the sweater I’d brought in a canvas shoulder bag. Griffin and I both lit cigarettes, and we walked down to the river and sat on the grassy bank. A man in a filthy hooded sweatshirt was throwing a Frisbee to a brindled mutt with a blue bandana tied around its neck. The dog was swift and agile with an uncanny sense of timing, his body arching and twisting as he leaped to make the catch. Sometimes the Frisbee would sail into the river and the dog would swim out and get it. Griffin went over and spoke to the guy, then came back for the leftovers. He took the bag to the water’s edge where the dog and the man shared the food. I stretched out on the grass and rested on one elbow. Griffin slipped off his blazer, and he and the man started taking turns throwing the Frisbee to the dog, the disc hovering at the top of its arc like a prop in a low-budget sci-fi movie, interplanetary orange with a purple outer ring. I lay back with my shoulder bag under my head. There was a drowsy hum of car wheels on Memorial Drive as I closed my eyes and thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t slogging through the museum with Amanda.

  When I awoke, the sun was sinking behind the stadium on the other side of the river. The man and his dog were gone, and so was Griffin. I stood up and brushed myself off, scouring the ground and my shoulder bag, hoping to find a note. A gust of wind made me shiver. As I reached up to refasten my hair comb, I felt the paper umbrella and removed it gingerly, careful not to tear the paper or break the fragile spokes. The umbrella was pink with a pattern of pale green bamboo shoots. I held the stem between my fingers, spinning it clockwise and counterclockwise as Griffin had done, trying to convince myself he’d gone off for a few minutes to make a phone call or buy a pack of cigarettes, but I knew he wasn’t coming back.

  Chapter 4

  Matt

  Sandor spotted me talking to the maître d’ in the foyer of the restaurant.

  “Matyas!” He rushed over and wrapped me in a bear hug. “Where have you been, my friend? Every day I am thinking, Where is Matyas? Maybe I should call police.” He roared with laughter at his own joke. “Now, tell me, who is beautiful lady?”

  “Sandor, this is Lucy Thornhill. Lucy, Sandor Toth.”

 
“Enchanté.” He took her hands and kissed her on both cheeks. “Welcome to Café Budapest.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to be here.”

  “You have known Matyas long time?” He put his arm around me.

  She smiled. “About fifteen minutes.”

  “Ah, let me tell you, this man, he save my life. Without him, I am lapcsánka.” Sandor laughed and slapped his palms together. “Potato pancake.”

  He led us to a table in back and pulled out a chair for Lucy. A busboy filled our water glasses and lit the candles. There was a single red rose in a slender vase on the table. I had never been to Europe, but the restaurant had an Old World feel to it. Not lavish, more about class than money. The kind of place you see in the movies where Ingrid Bergman walks in and spies an old lover across the room. Two waiters in tuxedos came to the table. One brought a plate of bread crusts and feta cheese spread. The other had a bottle of Dom Pérignon and three glasses. The waiter popped the cork and poured the champagne.

  Sandor held up his glass for a toast. “To good friends—and love.”

  When he left to attend to other customers, Lucy gave me a sly smile. “Jill didn’t tell me you were the lost dauphin of Hungary.”

  I made a face. “It’s embarrassing. He goes a little overboard sometimes.”

  “Is your real name Matyas?”

  “No, just Sandor’s way of pretending I’m Hungarian. He calls me ‘nephew’ sometimes, like I’m part of his family.”

  “How did you meet him? He said you saved his life.”

  “That’s debatable.”

  “Tell me. I love stories.”

  “Sandor was down in the theater district, picking up tickets for some show. The guy has a million connections. He’s always offering me seats to the Red Sox, Celtics, concerts, you name it. He parked his new Mercedes in an alley near the Wilbur and ran in to see the manager.”

  The waiter came with the menus.

  Lucy finished her champagne. “If this stuff were eight bucks a bottle,” she said, grinning, “the whole world would be drunk all the time.”

  I refilled her glass.

  “Anyway, the place where Sandor parked was illegal, but he figured no big deal, he’d be back in five minutes. When he came out of the theater, he heard the Mercedes starting and knew immediately what was happening.” I told her the car was a 450SL red sports coupe. The salesman at the dealership had warned Sandor the car was on top of the wish list for thieves.

  Lucy spread some feta on a bread crust, tasted it, and nodded her approval. The waiter asked if we were ready to order our appetizers.

  “You pick,” she said. “I’m sure everything’s marvelous.”

  I asked for foie gras and cabbage rolls.

  “Sandor didn’t stop to think. Just heard the car engine and charged down the alley. He’s incredibly strong, like a little bull. He grabbed the thief who was getting in the car on the passenger’s side and smashed his face down on the top of the door. The guy in the driver’s seat threw the car in reverse and knocked Sandor down and jumped out of the car to help his friend. Sandor tried to get up, but the driver kicked him and broke his jaw. The other thief was dazed, blood spurting from his eye socket. His friend was trying to get him in the car when I walked by the alley.”

  Lucy’s face was rapt. It was hard to look at her and keep my train of thought. She wasn’t beautiful exactly, but incredibly sexy. Bewitching. Like she could twitch her nose and turn you into an armadillo.

  “I saw Sandor writhing on the ground. It wasn’t clear what the situation was, but something bad was obviously going down. I drew my gun and yelled at the thieves to put their hands on top of the car, which they did. Believe it or not, that’s the first and only time since I joined the police force I’ve ever pointed my gun at someone.”

  “God, I can’t imagine. Were you scared? Your adrenaline level must have been off the charts.”

  “It was definitely a rush. I don’t think I had time to be scared. More like I was super aware, trying to put all the pieces together. In the back of my mind, I kept wondering if the thieves had an accomplice, somebody about to come around the corner and shoot me in the back. Meanwhile, the guy lying on the ground looked like the victim, but I couldn’t be sure. Luckily, everything turned out fine.”

  “Fascinating.” She leaned forward. “I can see why Sandor’s so grateful to you.”

  “I don’t know. I tried to tell him I was just doing my job, but he’s convinced the driver was about to back up the car and run over him.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” the waiter said. He put our appetizers on the table. “Mr. Toth is recommending an excellent Chateauneuf-du-pape with your dinner this evening.”

  “Sure, why not.” I looked at Lucy and shrugged again. “So I get treated like the lost dauphin.”

  The waiter brought our entrées and we savored our food. I’d been to the restaurant with a date three or four times and always brought my mother when she came for a visit. I didn’t know how much it cost and didn’t want to know. The menus at my table never had prices on them.

  Lucy was wearing a thin silver chain with a turquoise pendant and matching turquoise earrings. She had a small brown birthmark shaped like an acorn just below her right collarbone that I couldn’t stop staring at. It made me think of the term “beauty mark,” which I had never really considered before. It was uncanny the way that tiny imperfection made her seem even more attractive. I tried to squelch my fantasies about seeing her naked and actually touching her smooth, tanned skin. Who was the idiot who let this woman go? Two old-fashioned silver combs held her long hair back from her face.

  I said, “Are your hair combs antique?”

  “Yes.” She touched one then the other as if she had forgotten they were there.

  “They’re extraordinary.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled, knowing I meant her. “They were my grandmother’s.”

  I asked where she worked, where she’d gone to college. Her answers were short. She didn’t want to talk about herself, though she mentioned that she had recently taken two courses at the Cambridge Adult Education Center—pottery and conversational French.

  “I’m trying to find my grande passion.” She pushed her food around with her fork, then muttered under her breath, “Something besides falling in love with assholes.”

  I let that one go, a conversation for another time.

  “So what happened today?” she said.

  “What?”

  “At work? The thing that almost made you late.”

  I told her the story.

  “The man was the girl’s stepfather,” I said. “Turns out he’d been molesting her for years. The girl was like a firecracker with the fuse lit. She seemed angrier at her mother than she was at him. And the mother…it was almost like she thought it was the girl’s fault.”

  “I can see that. The girl blames her mother for letting it happen. A mother is supposed to protect her daughter, not let some pervert rape her. Meanwhile, the mother knows she failed—she’s the one who brought that monster into the house—but she can’t face it, so she turns on the kid.”

  “Huh? You seem to know a lot about this stuff. Are you a therapist or something?”

  “No, no, I would make a really bad therapist.” She laughed. “Just ask mine.”

  The waiter came by and refilled Lucy’s glass. She was drinking much more than I was but didn’t seem to notice me holding back. The last thing I wanted was to get drunk and do something stupid.

  “Enough,” she said. “This food is too good.” She pushed her plate away. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  “No, not at all.” I didn’t smoke myself. I picked up the candle from the table and held it out for her. She touched my hand as a gesture of thanks and a little jolt of electricity went through me.

  She said, “I
read a book about sex abuse a few years ago. Turns out it happens everywhere. Rich people, poor people, black, white. One of those clubs without any restrictions. Like beating the shit out of your wife. Any two-fisted son-of-a-bitch can join.”

  Her face was flushed. She’d only taken a few drags on her cigarette, but she ground it into a crooked stub in the ashtray. Here was that edge Jill had mentioned, her anger so intense I got the feeling she might have been smacked around by some shithead herself.

  She asked me how I’d decided to become a cop. I told her it was something I’d always been interested in. I went to community college near my home in Butler, Pennsylvania, and majored in criminology.

  “I thought about going on for a four-year degree,” I said, “but I felt a little burned out on school. Luckily, I had a high lottery number and didn’t have to worry about the draft. I told my mom I wanted to do a little traveling and she was great about it. I’m an only child. My father died in a mining accident when I was a baby, and my mom raised me herself. We’re real close, but she never tried to smother me. She told me to go see the country. She said she wished she could have done it herself.” Lucy took out another cigarette. “The farthest I’d ever been away from home was a field trip to Washington, D.C. I had an old Rambler with a stick on the floor and headed west. I got a job in Minneapolis loading freight cars. When the weather got chilly, I headed south. The car gave out in Missouri, so I got on a bus and kept on going.”

  “Sounds neat.”

  “Yeah, it was. I worked odd jobs, bummed around for a year and a half. Got to see some interesting places, met some terrific people.”

  Lucy said, “So, in all your travels, what was your favorite place?”

  I didn’t have to think. “Puerto Rico.”

  “Really?” She narrowed her eyes. “Aww, that’s where you fell in love.”

  “Fell in love with surfing,” I said, not wanting to talk about my Puerto Rican girlfriend. “You can’t believe how blue the water is.”