The Good Lie

by Robin Brande

  Jason plopped down on the chair next to me and said, “Ready, Lizzie? You’re next.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “What do you mean, no thank you?” He popped back up and grabbed my hand, then waved to the DJ, who had no way of hearing him. “Maestro, a love song.”

  But the next one up was rap. I sat back down, relieved.

  “Fine, I’ll get us drinks,” Jason said, “but the next slow song . . .”

  I glanced at Posie, expecting her to help. She was fanning herself with a napkin, surveying the crowd.

  “I promised them all to Chris,” I lied.

  Dutiful Chris, in love with the wrong date, said, “That’s okay. I yield to the gentleman.” He did a little bow to back it up.

  Great. My date was flirting with Posie’s.

  I sat there nervously through choruses of Who’s got that? She’s got that. Who’s got what? She’s got what . . . wondering how many more songs there would be before I’d have to perform.

  The answer was none.

  “Come on.” Jason grabbed my hand again, and no excuses, we were on the floor.

  He smelled moist, earthy, not really sweaty. The tux gave off its own musty scent. Jason pulled me into his chest and wrapped his arms around me. My head barely reached his collar bone. We must have looked ridiculous, compared to Posie and him.

  “Having fun?” Jason asked.

  “Uh-huh.” My heart was doing this sort of rumba in my chest.

  “Chris stick his tongue in your ear?”

  “Not yet,” I said, horrified at the thought.

  “The night is young. I’ll put in a word if you want.” He dipped me like I’d seen him do with Posie, then cradled me close again.

  How could you not fall in love?

  His heartbeat pulsed against my cheek. So steady, almost in time with the music. I closed my eyes and let him lead me, one step, two step, swaying nice and slowly. I felt as weightless and relaxed as if I were floating on a raft.

  But then I felt him. There.

  It took me a moment to realize, but once I did, I pulled back, certain he’d be embarrassed if I knew.

  Jason scooped me in closer and pressed his body to mine. He rested his cheek against the top of my head. “You look beautiful tonight, Lizzie. Really.”

  “Thanks.” This was no time for small talk. The bulge in his pants was more prominent by the second. I had to give the poor guy a break. I pulled away again. “Don’t,” he said softly. “You’re fine.”

  I wasn’t fine.

  I could not dance with a guy in that condition. I just couldn’t. No matter who it was.

  “I have to—”

  “What?”

  The song was almost over anyway. “I have to stop. I’m tired.”

  And it was true. I felt bizarrely sleepy, like I’d been drugged. But I knew it was just me. My own personal defense mechanism. The only other time I had a crush like this on a guy, we went out for frozen yogurt, and he reached under the table and held my hand, and my teeth started chattering and he thought it was from the yogurt, but really it was just me falling apart. Next thing he knew I handed him my cone, crossed my arms on the table, laid my head down on top of them and fell asleep.

  Seriously wrong.

  Jason held me tight. He grazed his mouth against my ear and whispered, “You should get over that virginity thing.”

  “Huh?” I jerked back. My skin prickled with alarm.

  “Posie told me.”

  “Great.” I’m sure my white chest burned a lovely shade of pink.

  “It’s okay,” Jason assured me, “but I think you’re wrong.”

  I couldn’t even choke out an answer.

  “When you decide to get over it,” he said, “don’t come to anyone but me.” His breath was hot against my ear. “I’m very—very—good.”

  My teeth started to chatter. Where was a bed when I needed one? My body screamed for a nap.

  [3]

  At one o’clock the hotel crew descended, ignoring the protests of kids who wanted to linger. The lights went up, tablecloths flew off, chairs were stacked.

  “Where do you want to go now?” Posie asked us.

  “Your house,” Jason answered. And so we did.

  We sat on her living room floor. I had to hold down my hoop skirt to keep it from springing up and hitting me in the face. Chris sat beside me at a respectable distance because my hoop skirt created a force field around me, plus he wasn’t interested in me, and I know he and Posie and Jason were talking about something and no doubt speaking English, but I couldn’t comprehend a word of it and I didn’t care. All I could do was stare at Jason’s hands.

  They were all over her. Jason lay on his back between Posie’s legs, his head resting on her lap. And the whole time he was talking, acting like nothing was going on, his hands roamed up and down, like he was a blind man memorizing her shape. He stroked her thighs, her calves, her ankles. Pulled off her shoes and massaged her feet. Then upward to her hips, her waist, her chest—nope, too close. Posie gently reset his hands to her thighs and he began again, downward, then upward, reset, start over, and the whole time Posie continued their conversation as if everything were perfectly normal.

  I could see Jason’s erection. I tried not to look, but there it was. Almost as soon as I noticed it he changed positions, sitting up with his back against the couch. He pulled Posie to sit between his legs like they were playing train. He wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck.

  I thought I might throw up.

  What was my best friend doing? Had we not talked about Jason every day of every week for the past year? Had we not explored the depth and the breadth of my love and lust for him? Had she not warned me he was fine as a friend but a scoundrel as a man and I should stay far, far away?

  “I have to go,” I said, shocked I was still able to speak.

  “Yeah,” Chris said, jumping to his feet, “me, too.”

  Posie and Jason remained on the floor. Her eyes slowly closed and her lips curved into a smile. Jason whispered something to her and stroked her arm.

  “No, no, don’t see us out,” Chris called as we headed for the door, “No need. Doing fine...”

  Posie murmured, “’Night.”

  I plodded to the car like a robot. Got in. Stared at the palm trees in Posie’s front yard. Stared at the stars above them.

  Knew my life had just crashed from the heavens into the earth. Kaboom. No survivors.

  Posie had betrayed me—betrayed me. There was no other way to see it. It felt like someone had sucked out my insides with an industrial pump. And what about Jason? What was all that seduction on the dance floor, if it were really Posie he was after?

  “Might as well get this over with,” Chris said. Before I could register what he was doing, he leaned over and kissed me truly awfully, his lips smudging to the side, his tongue stabbing between my teeth like a stick.

  My first kiss. As gentle and sensuous as a dental exam.

  “There,” Chris said, obviously quite pleased with himself. He started the ignition.

  For the first time in my life I didn’t bother with my seatbelt. Who cared if I went hurtling through the windshield? It might just be a blessing.

  He pulled up in front of my house and I stumbled out of the car.

  “Good night,” Chris called sweetly. I grunted in return.

  I fled inside to the warmth and safety of my house. Oh, my Lord. Wait until my mother heard about this. It might take hours before we talked it all out.

  I saw a light at the end of the hallway, coming from their room. “Mom?”

  “Lizzie,” my father answered, “I need to talk to you.”

  Whither Thou Goest

  [1]

  The Book of Ruth has one of the best speeches in the entire Bible.

  There’s this old woman, Naomi, and her husband and sons are all dead, and the only people left to care for her are her two daughters-in-law. They both set out with Naomi on he
r long journey back to her old country. But then Naomi comes to her senses and realizes she is asking too much. She tells the two women to go back to their own country, to their own families. One daughter-in-law says, “Great! See ya,” but the other—Ruth—says this instead:

  Entreat me not to leave thee. For whither thou goest, I will go. Where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried. Naught but death shall part thee and me.

  It’s the most beautiful declaration of loyalty I’ve ever heard.

  I hope some day someone feels that way about me.

  “Where’s Mom?” I asked.

  “Sit down.” My father swiveled his chair, leaving his Bible open on his desk. Never a good sign. Some people read the Bible for pleasure, like I do. Others read it for comfort. And others, like my father, read it to find justification for the things they already want to do. Like the polygamists pointing out how many wives King David had.

  I stayed where I was in the doorway. “Where’s Mom? I have to talk to her.”

  “She’s gone.”

  “Where?”

  “Lizzie . . .” My father sighed. He took off his reading glasses and pinched his fingers against his eyelids. He looked awful—his brown and gray hair all askew, skin pale and tight, eyes rimmed in red. “Your mother left us tonight.”

  “What do you mean, left?”

  “Left. I mean gone. Moved out.”

  I almost laughed, it was so outrageous. “Dad, I’m serious. I need to talk to her.”

  My father passed a hand over his forehead. His mouth contorted, like he might cry. “Your mother is a whore, Lizzie. She left us for another man.”

  The words entered my brain, but I didn’t believe them. “A man? Who?”

  “Don’t act like you don’t know. All those nights you’ve been up talking—”

  “Dad, I swear—she didn’t tell me anything.” A lump swelled in my throat. Please don’t let any of this be true.

  My father’s chapped hand rasped over the stubble on his face. “You understand? She just packed up and went.”

  “When? How?”

  “Right after you left. She took Mikey over to a friend’s, and—” My father slapped his hands up and down, like he was dusting them off. “Done. Gone. Seventeen years of marriage.” His mouth gave way and he let out a cry. He dropped his head into his hands.

  My heart melted to my shoes. I felt a hundred years old. My voice seemed to come from somewhere in the next room. “Who is it, Dad? The man?”

  My father lifted his head. “Charles Gray. Heard of him?”

  “No.”

  “I sold him a house two months ago. Your mother,” he sneered, “was decorating it for him.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh. Whore.”

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t cry because then it would seem too real. Maybe it was all an accident.

  “Is she coming back?” I asked stupidly.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well what did she say?”

  “Apparently she’s unhappy. She prefers the life of a whore—”

  “Stop saying that!”

  “It’s a word in the Bible. I can use it.”

  I was starting to panic now. He was taking this joke too far. “Where is she? Where’d she go?”

  “She said she has an apartment, but who’s paying for that? She probably moved in with him. He has that nice new house—”

  “Just stop for a second.” I was too tired to stand anymore. I sank to the floor. My hoop skirt popped into my face. I pushed it down with the weary sense that I’d be pushing it down for all eternity.

  My father sighed dramatically. A part of me heard that and cringed. Something was wrong. My father was overplaying his part. He sounded too fake—like he didn’t know how a man in his position was supposed to act.

  “We’re on our own now,” he proclaimed in that same melodramatic voice. “It’s just you and me and your brother.”

  And that’s when I snapped out of it. Of course it was all fake. My mother would never leave Mikey and me—not like this, not just sneaking out while we were gone. Never in a million years. My father had misunderstood. He had overreacted. None of this was real.

  I lurched to my feet. “You’re crazy. I’m going to go find Mom.”

  “Lizzie—”

  I took a step forward to untangle my skirt, and that’s when I saw it: my parents’ open closet.

  It was half empty. Half full. The only clothes on my mother’s side were a few old dresses she never wore anymore. All her shoes were gone.

  This was real.

  The tears finally started to flow. “Did she leave me a note?” I croaked.

  “Why would the whore leave a note?”

  [2]

  I lay in bed staring at the dark wondering how I had been so fooled.

  It all made sense now. I could see it. Like clues in a mystery novel that finally come together once you know the ending.

  It must have started about a month before the prom.

  My mother did have a new client—I remembered that. She loved his house—so many possibilities, she said—two-story, Roman columns, three different terraces, a wave pool in back.

  My mother’s business was more of a hobby. She needed something to do once Mikey started school, so my father set her up. Decorating was a natural fit—my mother’s always had good taste. And she looks the part—designer clothes, designer body, hair and makeup always perfect. A real trophy for my father, and a good Christian woman to boot.

  Which was important, since my father advertised himself as the Christian Real Estate King. Believe me, I’ve tried to live that down.

  I was up late, doing my homework in the kitchen. Mikey and my dad were asleep. I heard the front door open. A few seconds later my mother crept into the kitchen holding her shoes so they wouldn’t click on the tile.

  “Where have you been?” I looked at the clock. It was already past eleven.

  She held her finger to her lips, then kissed my cheek. “Let’s go sit in the family room,” she whispered. She poured herself a hefty glass of white wine before following me to the other end of the house.

  She plopped onto the couch beside me and propped her feet up on the coffee table. “Whew,” she sighed. “What a night.” She took a gulp of wine.

  She smelled . . . odd. Like musk or mildew or mothballs. Her blouse and skirt were wrinkled, her makeup all washed out.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  My mother cleared her throat. “Remember Sheila? From church?”

  “Not really.” I hadn’t been to church in quite a while.

  My mother downed the rest of her wine, then set the glass on the coffee table. “Here,” she said, twisting my shoulders away so she could braid my hair. She knows I’m a sucker for that. I realize now she didn’t want to look me in the eye.

  “Well, Sheila’s been going through a hard time lately. Problems with her family—you know.” It came so easily she must have rehearsed it. “She called tonight, and begged me to come over. I couldn’t say no.”

  “I thought you were at a church thing.”

  “That’s what I told your father. He doesn’t approve of Sheila. Don’t tell him, all right?”

  “Sure.”

  “So what about you?” She knew how to distract me. “How was Jason today?”

  “Good. Awful. Wonderful.”

  “Poor Lizzie.” My mother has always been sympathetic to young love. She was thirteen when she fell for my father. He was twenty-five.

  “He decided today he’s going with us to the prom,” I said.

  “With who? You and Posie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, that’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

  “We’re just going as friends.”

  My mother braided another section. Her long nails felt so good scratching against my scalp.

  “Well, start as friends a
nd build from there. That’s always the best way.”

  She hummed a little, then caught herself.

  “Jason doesn’t want a girlfriend,” I said. “Posie says he’s weird about that. There are girls he has sex with, but he doesn’t actually like them. Posie says he prefers us.”

  “But you’re not going to have sex with him.”

  “Of course not.” I drew an imaginary halo over my head.

  “And not Posie?”

  “Never.”

  My mother braided in silence for a moment, then chose her words carefully. “I think . . . it’s good to save yourself. For the right man. It’s good that you are. But if you really love someone, I think maybe—”

  I would have loved to hear the rest of it. Was it possible she was about to change her whole stance on pre-marital sex? Or maybe it was just her policy on adultery. But the door opened just then, so that was the end of that.

  My father stood in the doorway looking fairly pathetic in his brown paisley pajamas and bare feet. Not at all the majestic real estate broker who went off to work each day in his expensive suits.

  “Jenna,” he commanded my mother, “come to bed.”

  “Not yet,” she answered. “Lizzie and I are talking.”

  I started to get up. “That’s okay. I’m tired.”

  Too subtly for my father to see, my mother held me down. “I’ll be in in a while.” She turned back to me. “So, how is the search for the perfect prom dress going?”

  “Um . . . okay, I guess.” What dress? Posie and I hadn’t even started looking yet.

  My mother was acting weird. Things didn’t feel right. I’m sure I looked perplexed. She widened her eyes at me and kept smiling.

  “Jenna—” my father tried again.

  “In a while, Richard. We’re talking. Please shut the door.”

  He hesitated a moment, then took a step back from the door and slammed it.

  The walls shook. My mother and I both stiffened.

  “Well,” my mother said once the room had settled down, “that was mature.”

  She put the finishing touches on my braid. “There.”

  I reached behind and felt it. “I wish I could do that on myself,” I told her. “It always comes out so sloppy.”