The Secret to Lying

by Todd Mitchell

  “But they called us,” she repeated.

  I scrambled to change the subject. “Look, about this weekend, I’ve got a lot of work to do. There’s a chemistry study group and I need to get notes.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather come home?”

  “I can’t.”

  Moms paused. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “You don’t sound right to me.”

  “What am I supposed to say to that?” I asked. “I mean, really, do I sound ‘right’ now?”

  “No. You don’t.” She addressed my dad: “Does he sound right to you?”

  “How about this, Mother? Is this better? It’s lovely weather out.”

  “Honestly, you don’t sound like yourself,” she said.

  “Too bad. This is me.”

  “Okay, okay,” Moms replied. “So when should we pick you up? Tomorrow night? That doesn’t make much sense. If you come home tomorrow night and leave Sunday afternoon, that’s hardly worth the drive.”

  “I can’t miss this study session,” I lied.

  “You want us to drive all the way out there and pick you up tomorrow night?”

  “No. I have to write a paper on Sunday.”

  “But . . .”

  “I can’t help it,” I said. “I have a ton of work to do. Lots of kids aren’t going home.”

  Moms fell silent. After a few seconds, Dad chimed in, giving it one more shot. “What your mom’s trying to say is that we’d like to see you this weekend.”

  “That’s right,” Moms exclaimed. “We want you to be with us.”

  “I know. I just can’t go home right now.”

  “You’re acting very strange,” Moms said, but the wind had gone out of her sails.

  “I have to go.”

  “I think they work you too hard. You need to take breaks.”

  “Bye.”

  “James . . .”

  I hung up before she could say “wait” or “I love you” or any of that stuff. A low buzzing filled my head. I should have felt guilty for being such a lousy son, yet I didn’t feel anything.

  Some guys laughed in the hallway outside my door. Since it was a Friday, we didn’t have to be in our rooms until midnight. Normally, I would have headed out to join them, but I wasn’t in the mood to deal with people anymore. Instead, I went to sleep.

  “SIT ANYWHERE, HONEY,” said a waitress in a powder-blue dress.

  I was in a diner. The comforting smell of coffee filled the air while voices murmured and silverware clanked. The place seemed crowded, but every table had an open seat, as if they were all waiting for someone to arrive.

  The waitress walked away, leaving me to choose a spot on my own.

  I wove between the tables toward the back. A man in a black coat hunched in the corner, playing with a lighter. The woman sitting next to him rubbed a butter knife against her shirt and checked her teeth in the reflection. I paused before their booth.

  “Well?” the man grumbled. “We won’t bite.”

  “Speak for yourself,” the woman said.

  I slid into the booth seat across from them, and the woman handed me a cup of coffee. “Three sugars, no cream.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Wild guess.”

  She introduced herself as Kiana and the man as Nick. I started to reply, but Nick cut me off. “We know who you are,” he said. “The question is, J.T., do you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Neither one of them answered. I took a sip of my coffee. It was cold and a little too sweet.

  “Drink up,” Nick said, standing. “There’s something we need to show you.”

  I took another sip before following them out through a back door into the alley. A nearby Dumpster overflowed with garbage, tainting the air with the smell of rotting fruit and coffee grounds. Kiana shut the door behind me. She leaned against the brick wall, crossing her arms.

  Nick drew a long samurai sword from beneath his coat. The blade flashed silver as he raised it before him. “You think you’re a tough guy, don’t you? A real fighter?”

  I glared at him, not saying anything.

  “If you’re a fighter, then this belongs to you.” He held out the sword, offering it to me. “Take it.”

  I reached for the hilt. Before I could grab it, Nick snapped his wrist, slashing the blade across my arm.

  The pain shocked me. I clenched my wrist. “I’m dreaming,” I said, surprised by how much it hurt.

  “Tell that to the judge,” Nick replied. He offered the sword to me again.

  I looked at Kiana. “Go on, J.T.,” she said. “Prove that it’s yours. If you master the pain, you master yourself.”

  I reached for it again, but Nick gave me another slash on the arm.

  “Just a dream, right, bud?” He rested the blade against his shoulder.

  I tried one last time to take the sword. Nick only had to move the slightest bit before I flinched.

  He shook his head, giving me the same dismissive look that people always had. “We’re wasting our time on this one,” he said. “He’s nothing special.”

  I STAYED IN BED the next morning, not wanting to sleep anymore and not wanting to get up. The dream had felt so real that I kept checking my arm for cuts. After lying awake awhile, hunger finally got the better of me. I hurried out to snag breakfast before the cafeteria closed.

  Campus appeared eerily empty. Most students who lived within a few hours of ASMA had probably gone home for the weekend. Even Dickie had left, dragging a sack of dirty laundry out early that morning.

  I ran into Sage on my way into the main building. “James!” she called. “Are you going to be here tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  Sage seemed so happy she could barely contain herself. “My dad’s coming to visit!” she said. “It’s his weekend to see me, and he wants to have a picnic. Will you come?”

  “To the picnic?”

  “He wants to meet my friends. You’ll like him.”

  “I don’t know,” I teased, thinking of the IM I’d gotten from ghost44. Was this what she meant by seeing me again? “Tomorrow is Tater Tot casserole day. I’d hate to miss those crispy, golden Tater Tots, dripping in creamy sauce with mushy carrots and gray peas.”

  She smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Sunday turned out to be a beautiful, blue-sky day. Sage’s dad burst into her dorm around one, bearing a large wicker picnic basket and a smile that crinkled his eyes. I’d seen him once before, on the day all the parents had helped their kids move in. He was older than most parents, but he didn’t act old. He looked like how I imagined Socrates would have — tan skin, a wild nest of white hair, scruffy face, and round belly — except instead of a toga, he wore faded blue jeans and a button-down shirt, open at the top.

  He dropped the basket as soon as he entered and gave Sage a hug, swinging her off her feet. I looked away, but neither Sage nor her dad seemed to care. Afterward, Sage introduced me. Her dad clamped my hand in both of his and studied my face. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Sage has told me about you.”

  I wanted to ask what she’d said, but Mr. Fisher had already moved on. “Who’s hungry?” he asked in a loud voice.

  A few students watching TV or doing homework in the commons glanced up, perplexed.

  “I brought plenty of food,” Mr. Fisher announced, raising the wicker basket. “Enough lunch for everyone.”

  He took Sage by the hand and headed for the door. Several students hung back, wondering if the invitation applied to them. “Come on,” he called to the stragglers. “It’s too beautiful to stay inside.”

  Mr. Fisher led us behind the dorms to the far side of the pond, stopping at a spot we called the cleavage since it lay between two small hills. He spread a blanket on the grass and gestured for everyone to sit.

  Sage sat next to her dad, practically glowing. The rest of the kids were an odd mix of Sage’s friends and students who’d happened to be in
the commons when Mr. Fisher had announced his promise of free food. Donald Smails, the chess master, came, along with Muppet, Tracy Lang, Katy Cameron, and the Ice Queen.

  Lately, pretending that Ellie didn’t exist had gotten to be more difficult. For the last week, all anyone talked about was how Mark Watson and her had split up. According to reports, Mark had been expelled for running across campus, swimming the pond, and punching out some guy simply because he was walking with Ellie. The incident had made Ellie a bit of a legend. Senior class officers even started taking orders for T-shirts commemorating the “Mark Watson Run, Swim, and Box for Ellie Triathlon.” Everyone wanted one.

  I’d learned to handle being in physics class with Ellie, but sitting next to her at a picnic made me nervous in an entirely new way. I kept worrying that my stomach might rumble or I’d sneeze or do something dumb. I couldn’t even figure out how to sit. After fidgeting for a few minutes, I tried crossing my legs, but I bumped Ellie’s knee.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  Ellie didn’t say anything. Fortunately, Mr. Fisher filled the silence. He pulled things out of the picnic basket like a magician conjuring objects from a hat.

  “Beaujolais Nouveau,” he said, lifting a large bottle of wine from the basket. “And Dixie cups.”

  “Uh, Mr. Fisher,” Muppet squeaked, “isn’t that against ASMA policy?”

  “Call me Liam,” he replied while opening the bottle. He filled the Dixie cups and passed them around. “What’s bread and cheese without a little wine?”

  Next Liam pulled food out of the baskets. “French bread!” he announced, holding up two halves of a baguette. He smelled the bread, then handed it to Sage. She tore off a hunk and passed it on, smiling at me.

  “Brie!” Liam said, holding up a wheel of cheese. He passed the cheese around with his pocketknife. Everyone cut off a sliver. I ate the cheese and some bread. The rich, buttery flavor blended well with the wine. “Camembert!” he said, holding up another wheel of cheese once everyone had finished the Brie. Then, “Chèvre!” which tasted delicious.

  After the cheeses, Liam pulled out a single nectarine and cut it into slices. “Food of the gods,” he said, raising his bushy white eyebrows.

  We all took a slice. It was the sweetest, most perfectly ripened nectarine I’d ever tasted. Juice dribbled down my chin. I wiped my face with my sleeve, hoping the Ice Queen hadn’t seen.

  Then came mango and pear. Grapes. Gouda. Swiss cheese. Cucumber slices. Prosciutto. Melon. Orange slices. Oregon cherries. Zucchini bread. Liam named each item before passing it around.

  I watched Ellie take tiny, delicate bites of things, chewing slowly and leaving perfectly arranged uneaten remains on her napkin. Compared to how she ate, I was an ogre. I tried to focus on savoring each bite like she did, but she must have noticed me looking at her. She glanced at me, then folded up her napkin and hid it away.

  Between rounds, Liam filled our Dixie cups and told us stories.

  “You know what Inuit children eat in the fall?” he said, tearing off a hunk of French bread. Crumbs sprinkled his belly. “In the fall, the arctic ptarmigan feeds almost exclusively on blueberries. It’s a very well-camouflaged bird, and its instinct is to freeze when a predator approaches. So if the children spot a bird, they grab it and snap its neck.” Liam made a motion with his hands, as if opening a bottle. “Then they cut out the bird’s stomach, which is packed with blueberries, roast it over a fire, and eat it like a blueberry tart.”

  He told other stories about the Arctic, too. Sage had mentioned that her dad was a geologist, and I guess he traveled to some remote places. In one story, he talked about a starving polar bear that lumbered into his camp. “At first I thought the bear might eat our dog,” he said. “Until I noticed the dog’s tail wagging. For hours, the two of them played like old friends, before the bear lumbered off.” He looked around the circle, eyeing us. “Loneliness,” he said, “is worse than hunger.”

  After we finished the food, Liam rummaged around his basket again. “Dessert,” he said, pulling out three large strawberries.

  He held each strawberry in the waning sunlight and studied them carefully. Finally, he selected one, took a small bite, and passed it on. We each took a tiny bite. None of us spoke as the strawberries were passed. Perhaps it was the wine. Normally, I never would have shared a strawberry with Donald Smails or Muppet, but at the time the whole thing seemed perfectly natural.

  The first strawberry tasted tangy and sharp, the second swelled with sweetness, and the third looked like a deep red heart with golden stars speckling the skin. I watched the Ice Queen take a bite. When she passed the strawberry to me, I bit in the same place she had, tasting the half-moon left by her teeth.

  Liam placed his hands on his knees and surveyed the campus. “This is a good place,” he said.

  I nodded. In that moment, I felt like all was right with the world.

  Most students returned to campus later that evening. People filtered back to their normal groups, as if the picnic had never happened. Sage giggled with the drama girls, Muppet huddled with the gamer geeks, and Ellie was probably off holding court with the Barbie wannabes. All the usual social barriers were back in place.

  I wandered away from the square and thought about some of the things that Liam had said. He’d talked about fish who changed gender when they reached a certain age and an island in the tropics where a percentage of the populace didn’t become male or female until their late teens. “Of course, we’re all part man and part woman,” he’d said. According to Liam, we all had a missing half somewhere — a person who was us but not us, and if only we found them, we’d be whole. Maybe he was full of crap, but the way Liam talked made me yearn to find my missing half. Except it couldn’t be that easy. There must have been something messing it up and keeping people apart, because I’d never known anyone who wasn’t still searching for something.

  When I got to the far end of campus, I saw Ellie sitting on a bench outside her dorm. I thought of how my lips had touched the strawberry where hers had been. In a way, she seemed lonely like me. I imagined saying hello, and her smiling and laughing as we fell into a deep, witty conversation. After all, if polar bears and dogs could play together and fish could change gender, why not this?

  “Hey,” I said, strolling up to the bench where she sat.

  Ellie gave me a surprised, wary look.

  “That was weird, wasn’t it?” I asked.

  “What was?”

  “The picnic today.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I liked it. I didn’t think it was weird at all.”

  I shrugged, afraid that I was blowing my chance. “I’m James, by the way — the roommate slayer. You know, from the cafeteria thing.”

  “I know.” Ellie looked away. “I wasn’t impressed.”

  Before I could say anything else, Amber Lane came out of the dorm behind us. “Ellie!” she called. “I’ve been searching everywhere for you. There’s free pizza in the boys’ dorm.”

  Ellie smiled at Amber with something close to relief.

  “Everyone’s over there,” Amber said, taking Ellie’s hand. “We have to go.”

  “Sure,” Ellie replied. She gave me a sidelong glance as she left. “See you later.”

  I wanted to kick myself for thinking that she’d ever want to talk to me.

  ghost44: “I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody too?”

  johnnyrotten: Apparently. Why do you ask?

  ghost44: It’s from an Emily Dickinson poem.

  johnnyrotten: I don’t know it.

  ghost44: Did you know she spent a large part of her life secluded in her house, talking to guests through a door?

  johnnyrotten: That’s creepy.

  ghost44: I don’t think so. I think it’s beautiful. She lived through her words.

  johnnyrotten: Did she have cats?

  ghost44: I believe she was a dog person.

  johnnyrotten: Poor dog. Do you have cats?

  ghost44: No.
I tried having a goldfish once, but it jumped out a window and killed itself.

  johnnyrotten: No kidding?

  ghost44: No kidding. It was sitting in a bowl near my bedroom window, and it launched itself out one day. I found it on the sidewalk, baking in the sun.

  johnnyrotten: Ick.

  ghost44: I know. It didn’t even leave a note.

  johnnyrotten: How selfish.

  ghost44: Anyway, I’m not like Emily Dickinson, if that’s what you’re wondering. I couldn’t live my life secluded in a house. I’m just saying, I can understand why she did it.

  johnnyrotten: So what are you like?

  ghost44: Hmmm . . . The main thing about me is I’m shy.

  johnnyrotten: You don’t seem shy.

  ghost44: That’s because there are many types of shy. There’s the type where someone can’t talk with people, and this other type, where you might talk all the time, but you can’t say what matters. Except to you. I can confess things to you.

  johnnyrotten: Because I’m a ghost too?

  ghost44: Bravo! I knew you’d catch on.

  johnnyrotten: Did I see you this weekend?

  ghost44: That depends. Can you see ghosts?

  johnnyrotten: Maybe.

  ghost44: Your turn. I told you something about myself. Now tell me something.

  johnnyrotten: Like what? Like I secretly fantasize about sheep in tutus?

  ghost44: Tell me something real. What’s your bumper sticker?

  johnnyrotten: I don’t have a car.

  ghost44: It’s not that type of bumper sticker. Didn’t you read Ordinary People?

  johnnyrotten: I think that book was banned at my old school.

  ghost44: Tragic. You’d expect they’d get a little more up-to-date with their book bannings. Anyhow, a bumper sticker is a quote that defines you. Something that explains the way you look at the world.

  johnnyrotten: Uh . . . how about “Hang in There!”

  ghost44: Really?

  johnnyrotten: Yeah. I’m a big fan of that poster with the little kitten dangling off a branch.

  ghost44: Ha, ha. Seriously, what quote would you choose?

  johnnyrotten: Give me a minute.