The Good Lie

by Robin Brande

  Oh, my Lord. Oh, my God my Lord.

  I sat shaking on Posie’s bed.

  “Well then,” Posie responded to the person on the other line, “can I make an appointment? It’s about a molestation.”

  Oh, my God. There was nothing I could do now. This was really happening.

  “No,” Posie said, “I have to work tomorrow. Can we make it Wednesday?”

  “Afternoon,” I mouthed. As if I’d be able to concentrate on summer school that morning anyway.

  “Yes, around three o’clock? Thank you.” Posie hung up. I started bawling again.

  “It’s going to be all right,” she assured me.

  “It’s not going to be all right!” My heart thudded in my chest. “Everyone’s going to know. He’s going to find out I told—”

  “Who, Mikey or your father?”

  “Both!”

  Posie eyed me sternly. “As well they should. This shouldn’t be a secret. It shouldn’t be happening at all. You’re saving your brother. I don’t care what it does to your father.”

  “They’ll take him away.”

  “They should.”

  It was sinking in. “They’re going to put my father in jail.”

  “Lizzie, he’s a bad, bad man. He deserves to go to prison. They all do.”

  Posie’s idealism sometimes separates her from reality. I spelled it out for her. “He supports us, Poz. My mother can’t. Mikey and I need groceries, a place to live—”

  “Your mother will take you in.”

  “What if she can’t?”

  “Then I will,” Posie said simply. “My mother will.”

  It was a solution I hadn’t considered, nor would I. To bring not only a teenager but also a little boy to the doorstep and beg for alms—I couldn’t see doing it, no matter how nice Mrs. Sherbern might be about it. And the truth was, I didn’t know if she would be nice about it or not. I liked Mrs. Sherbern, but I didn’t really know her all that well.

  They say everyone’s brain can be divided into a pie chart. Guys supposedly have a big slice for sports, and only a teeny tiny one for relationships. Mrs. Sherbern’s pie, like Posie’s, had a large slice devoted to all things Hollywood. She read voraciously—People, Us, Entertainment Weekly, Biography—anything having to do with television and movie stars past and present.

  She looked like a movie star herself with her tall slim build, square face, and soft wavy brown hair. She wore just a touch of makeup, just a touch of perfume, and was as comfortably feminine as Posie was, just in a taller, more womanly package. She liked that Posie wanted to be an actress. I think she saw herself at the Oscars beaming while Posie made her acceptance speech, then hobnobbing at the parties afterward with all the celebrities whose lives she kept careful track of.

  She sold real estate sometimes, but didn’t seem to work very hard at it. Posie’s father had left them some money, and I guess it was enough to get by on. Mrs. Sherbern had a good life with a daughter who was nearly grown. Why should she want to take on two more kids?

  “No,” I answered, “that won’t work.”

  “Why not? There’s plenty of room—”

  “Forget it,” I said. “Don’t even talk about it. Mikey is my responsibility, not yours. I’ll get a job and find someplace to live.”

  “Come on, Lizzie, don’t be ridiculous. You’re sixteen—you can’t support the two of you. You can move in with me. Honestly.”

  “I don’t think so. We’ll see. Let me figure it out.”

  [4]

  Angela Peligro’s office was downtown in an old house that had been converted to offices. The wood floors squeaked as we walked across them. The assistant looked up from her typing.

  “We’re here to see Ms. Peligro,” Posie announced with confidence. We had both dressed carefully for the part. Posie wore a navy dress with a crisp white collar, and blue pumps. It was a costume she had worn—along with tortoise shell glasses—to play the lead in a one-act play about a business woman having an affair with her gardener.

  I wore nice khakis, my black boots, and a black long-sleeved T-shirt. It was my Tough Girl look. I thought I would probably need it.

  Posie and I sat in the waiting room pretending to study the magazines. I sweated beneath my bra, a cold nervous sweat that reeked of indecision.

  Through the closed door we could hear Angela Peligro bellowing into the phone. “Yeah, keep talking, Jim—you guys really want to take this to trial? You think I don’t know what I’ve got? Every one of those jurors is gonna look at your guy and puke. When I play that video for them—”

  Posie and I locked eyes. I could see she was beyond impressed.

  “Yeah, right,” Angela Peligro sneered. “And when I tell them he was going down on her when she was ten—I don’t care if you are sick of it, you’re going to hear it a lot more! Why don’t you find someone to associate on this case who’s got a brain out of his ass who can tell you you’re going take a bath on this, then call me when you’re ready to talk numbers!”

  We heard the phone slam down. A split second later, the assistant’s phone buzzed. She clicked on her headphone and continued typing. Angela barked out instructions we could hear clearly through the wooden door. The assistant tapped out a few more lines, then mentioned, “Your three o’clock is here.”

  The door to Angela’s office burst open. She stood there, all five-feet-two of her, wiry black hair bunching messily at her shoulders, cigarette burning between her fingers. She wore a wrinkled white blouse and stout black pants and I wasn’t expecting that smile—genuine, warm, and halfway smug. “Well! That was a good day’s work. Love to make the defense lawyers sweat. Hello, ladies.”

  Posie rose with dignity, playing the part of a woman accustomed to meeting with her solicitors. “Hello, Ms. Peligro,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m a great admirer of your work. I’m Posie Sherbern, and this is my friend Lizzie Aimes.”

  Posie always brings such flair to her parts. Angela nodded approvingly.

  “Hi,” I croaked. As usual my own entrance was underwhelming. I stumbled to my feet and knocked over a stack of magazines on the little table by my chair. Angela Peligro closed my hand in her iron grip.

  “Call me Angela,” she told us both. “Which one of you is here to see me?”

  “Both of us,” Posie answered.

  “You both being molested?”

  I stammered an “uh,” but Posie held her composure. “No, I’m just here for moral support. It’s Lizzie.”

  “Sorry—Posie, was it?—moral support has to happen from the lobby. I can only talk to Lizzie.”

  “Why?” I asked in alarm. This was already out of control.

  “It destroys the privilege—you know about attorney-client privilege? Whatever you tell me is private. That means no one else in the room, unless it’s another lawyer on the case. Understand?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Angela smiled at me. “Don’t worry, Lizzie. I only bite my opponents.”

  “It’s okay,” Posie told me, “I’ll be right out here.” She nudged me forward. “Here, take this.” She handed me her neatly-organized manila folder of articles she had accumulated about Angela Peligro.

  Reluctantly I entered Angela’s smoky chamber.

  “Sorry,” Angela said as she closed the door behind us. “I get that all the time—boyfriends wanting to be in here with their girlfriends—”

  “Posie’s not my—”

  “—friends wanting to give moral support. I get it, believe me, I just can’t do it. Not allowed. Have a seat—Lizzie, right?”

  A sign above Angela’s desk reminded everyone NO SMOKING. A cape of smoke hung over the room. A butt fizzled in the overburdened ash tray. Angela’s husky, gruff voice gave independent proof that she was a chain smoker. Her teeth and fingernails were the color of margarine.

  Angela plopped into her chair and took a last drag off the cigarette between her fingers before smudging it out. She leaned back, the picture of relaxation. “So
, Lizzie, why don’t you give me the short and sweet?”

  It was too abrupt. I was hoping to ease into it, let Posie do most of the talking, add a few details of my own here and there. I had prepared for a supporting role, now suddenly I had the lead.

  As soon as Angela realized she had stunned me into silence, she guided me along with baby steps. “It says in your message, ‘Dad screwing the kid.’ That you or somebody else?”

  “I didn’t say that—”

  “No, I’m sorry, that’s just how Georgia puts it. She’s used to me. You tell me in your own words. Are you the one being molested?”

  “Uh, my brother, mostly.” I had pictured this whole thing completely differently—where were the euphemisms and the anatomical dolls?

  “Well, tell me about it,” Angela prompted.

  “Wait,” I stalled, remembering how Posie and I had rehearsed it. I opened the manila folder in my sweaty hands and started thumbing through its contents. “Posie saved all your clippings…”

  “All of them? Wow—can’t even say that myself. Didn’t know I had groupies. I like that.”

  “Posie’s not a groupie she just—” I paused when I saw Angela’s amused smile. “She just admires you, that’s all. She thinks you do important work.”

  “Well, that’s nice of Posie, but let’s talk about you, huh? What brings you to me, Lizzie? What are you hoping to see happen here?”

  I was suddenly aware of her clock. Was this like a counseling session where the doctor’s watching the clock the whole time, and you’re just in the middle of your breakdown and he says, “Oh, I’m sorry, time’s up”?

  I rested my forehead in my hand. “I’m sorry. I just don’t . . . this is hard to do.”

  Angela smiled. “I know it. Take your time, Lizzie. I’ve got all afternoon.” As if to prove it, she picked up a magazine—The Vigorous Lawyer—and began flipping through it.

  I could breathe again.

  I shouldn’t have liked her—she wasn’t my kind of person at all—but I did. Something about her brusqueness and throaty rasp relaxed me. I liked how plain she was—the cheap clothes, hair in need of a good cut and a dye job to cover up the gray, the lumpy, comfortable body—it was a standard I could live up to. Before coming there I had pictured a prim, small-mouthed woman with a high collar and her hair in a tight bun. I couldn’t tell my story to someone like that—she’d make me feel like I was showing her porn. But this woman in front of me was as worn in and practical as an old wooden spoon. She had seen it all. She had seen it and could name it, and I knew suddenly I could tell her anything.

  I fished out one of Posie’s articles and turned it toward Angela. “Remember this one?”

  Angela squinted at the headline. “Of course.”

  “It says you got thirteen million in settlement.”

  “I’m not allowed to disclose the real amount, but yeah, that’s pretty close.”

  “For twenty-six men.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s five hundred thousand per person.”

  “Minus my fee, but yes, it was a lot.”

  “Your fee?” Somehow Posie and I hadn’t factored that in.

  Angela smiled. “Why don’t we talk about your case first? Then we can talk about business.”

  Your case. It sounded so final. So real. So out of my hands.

  “I don’t know if I have a case yet,” I hurried, “I just wanted to talk to you—”

  Angela waved her hand. “I know, I know, that’s all right. We’re just talking, right? I’m going to take some notes, but it’s only because my memory is for shit—you don’t mind that, do you?”

  I wasn’t sure if she was referring to note taking or cussing. I shook my head.

  “Okay, so Lizzie, why don’t you tell everything that’s on your mind, and let’s see what we can do.”

  I was barely a sentence into it when Angela interrupted to ask my father’s name. I told her. Angela’s wide mouth shifted to one side while she pondered it. “Why do I know that name?”

  “I don’t know, he’s kind of a big wheeler-dealer. He owns a real—”

  “—estate firm,” Angela finished. “Okay, right.” Angela noticed my story had stalled. “Go on, sorry to butt in.”

  She let me get a few more lines into it, then asked, “Isn’t he the big Christian?”

  “What? Oh, yeah, I guess.”

  “No, I mean Big Christian,” Angela repeated, her hands flashing with the words. “Didn’t he have that ad on TV?”

  I blushed. How embarrassing she remembered.

  AIMES REALTY, the promo went—YOUR GATEWAY TO HEAVENLY HOMES. Hi, folks, I’m Richard Aimes, owner of Aimes Realty, and I’m here to tell you that Noah wasn’t the only one charged with keeping all God’s little critters safe from the storms outside. Here at Aimes Realty we take seriously our mission to put you into the home of your dreams. Remember, all creatures great and small, the Lord our God, He made them all, and He made Aimes Realty the number one broker four years running so we could find you that Garden of Eden you’re looking for . . .

  Who wrote that drivel? Although my father denied it, I’m guessing he did. The ad didn’t last too long. It didn’t bring in any new business, and in fact may have cost my father some of his secular clients. Suddenly all of his customers were afraid he would talk Jesus to them.

  “Yeah,” I said, “that was him.”

  Angela gave a husky chuckle. “Excellent. Go on.”

  She let me finish this time. I waited while she caught up on her notes.

  “But you’ve never seen them,” she said, “directly, I mean.”

  “No, unless you count wrestling in their underwear.”

  “He’s said in front of you they were going to take a shower together?”

  “Yes.”

  “But your brother never said if anything happened.”

  “Well . . . he implied it.”

  Angela looked over the top of her reading glasses. “That’s not good enough. You see that, don’t you?”

  “No . . .”

  She removed the glasses and leaned back in her chair. She intertwined her fingers over her lumpy belly, then thought better of it. “You mind if I smoke?”

  I shook my head even though I preferred she didn’t. But I didn’t feel I could refuse this woman anything, not when she was just about to tell me what my future held.

  “You see . . .” She paused to take a drag. “The reason why those cases you have in your file have worked so well is those men were willing to testify about what happened to them. It wasn’t someone saying what they saw happen to someone else—you get it?”

  “Yes.” Already my soul was shriveling. Bad news was on the way.

  “It takes a boy, or a girl, or a grown man or woman saying, ‘This is what he did to me. He did it this time and this time, and here’s where we were, and—you get the picture.”

  I stared at my hands. “Yeah.”

  “But,” Angela said cheerily, “let’s talk about the rest of this. You said he touched you too, right?”

  “Yeah, but not like Mikey—”

  Angela held up her hand. “I don’t want to hear about Mikey right now. Mikey isn’t a fact yet—not unless he comes in here and tells me so.”

  “No, I can’t ask him—”

  “Okay, so let’s put him aside for now.” She pointed her cigarette at me. “You, I want to talk to. Are you sure he only touched you that one time?”

  “When he ran his hands over me? Yeah, that was it. I mean, there was this other time when he just stroked my back—”

  “Okay, tell me about that.”

  I did.

  “Did he ever say anything to you?” she asked. “Suggest anything?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Were those the only times? You think maybe he ever touched you when you were younger?”

  I hadn’t thought about that. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

  Angela inhaled and nodded and stud
ied her notes. Then she sat back and considered me. “So what would you like to see happen?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “I mean,” Angela added, “if you could have anything in the world happen right now—if you could say to me, ‘Angela, make this thing better’—what would you want me to do?”

  It was a serious question asked of a sixteen-year-old girl, and I appreciated it. I reciprocated by giving the question long, serious thought before answering.

  “Here’s what I want.”

  I leaned forward in anticipation of what I might say, but Angela slouched back and put her feet up on the chair beside her and lit another cigarette off her half-finished one. It was her way of telling me I had plenty of time.

  I didn’t answer with childish fantasies about crushing my father’s groin or seeing him hauled off in chains. The truth was, I didn’t care so much about hurting him anymore. What mattered to me was Mikey crying in the doorway to the kitchen. What mattered was the image of his sweet little body being split apart by the vile filthy instrument of my father. What mattered was getting Mikey free, and making the freedom stick so he could live the right life from now on.

  “I want my brother out of the house and enough money for all of us to live on and I want my father never to see either one of us unless we decide we want to.”

  Angela nodded thoughtfully. “Seems fair.”

  “But I don’t want him to go to jail.”

  “That’s not really in your control.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because of what you’ve told me—now I know.”

  “Then forget what I told you.”

  “See, I can’t do that, either.” Angela stubbed out her cigarette, removed another from the packet, then changed her mind and slid it back into place. “Let me explain something about the law. What you told me today is confidential. You understand attorney-client privilege?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s like priest-penitent.”

  If Posie had been there she would have scowled at the mere mention of the word.

  “Whatever you’ve told me today, I can’t say unless you give me permission. But—and this is a big but—if I have reason to believe a crime is about to be committed, I have an independent duty to inform the police so they can stop it. Do you understand that?”