Two Truths and a Lie

by Meg Mitchell Moore

  In fact, here was one now. Her pulse picked up.

  Oh, never mind, it wasn’t a scary man; it wasn’t a member of a lesser-known crime family. It was someone her own age. It was Caitlin.

  “Hey, Alexa,” Caitlin said, hopping out of the SUV.

  “Hey,” said Alexa. Caitlin was coming toward her, blocking her view of the parking lot, so she moved to peer around her.

  “I’m glad I ran into you, actually,” said Caitlin.

  “You are?” Alexa couldn’t help it, her heart took a little optimistic, nostalgic skip. The light was seriously going now, and it occurred to Alexa that any old person could come off the rail trail and through the small section of parking lot, toward the picnic tables, before being discovered. You didn’t have to arrive by car to Haley’s; you could come by bike or on foot. You could even come by train and walk over from the station. Now that she’d realized that, she wasn’t sure which way to face. Behind her, Morgan and Katie were giggling about something or other. A mosquito landed on Alexa’s arm and she slapped at it.

  “Alexa,” Caitlin said. “I’m super sorry about what happened in March, that night at Destiny’s. That’s really what I wanted to get across to you at Popovers that day, but I didn’t. I messed up. I told you that thing about Tyler instead . . .” She looked down at her feet. She was wearing her Jack Rogers Palm Beach leather thong sandals in white; Alexa mostly approved, although personally she preferred the bone white.

  Here Alexa found herself facing two roads: the high and the low. It was a tough choice—each road looked attractive in its own way—but eventually high won out.

  “You know what, Caitlin? I’m sorry if I’ve been prickly or hard to be with or whatever. I’m sorry if I overreacted.” She took a deep breath and tried to put her complicated feelings into words. “But you and Destiny, your families are whole and complete, and they always have been. Mine’s been broken not once but twice. I don’t expect you to understand what that feels like. Honestly, I hope you never find out, or not for a long, long time. But you could have given me time to figure it out, you know? To figure out my own way to deal with it.”

  She thought she saw tears shining in Caitlin’s eyes.

  “Yeah, okay,” said Caitlin finally. “I get that. I do. I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job with that. I really am.” She touched her artfully messy bun. Caitlin, Alexa had to admit, had always been really good at a messy bun, which, like most things, was harder than it looked.

  “Thank you,” said Alexa.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something else too. About Tyler.” She ducked her head. “We’ve sort of been—talking. Hanging out.” She squinted at Alexa. “Does that bother you? Does that make you mad?” Her voice rose a little bit, pleading.

  “Well, it doesn’t surprise me,” said Alexa. “Let’s put it that way.” Caitlin had had her eye on Tyler since freshman year.

  “I mean,” continued Caitlin, “if you have to know . . .”

  “I don’t,” said Alexa. “I don’t have to know.”

  “All he wants to do is talk about you,” Caitlin continued anyway. “He’s pretty broken up about how things ended with the two of you.”

  Alexa rolled her eyes so hard she thought one might roll right out of her head. Bullshit, she thought. “I’m sure he is,” she said. Her voice sounded shaky. Another car rolled into the parking lot and she craned her neck to get a good view of it. She looked around for Morgan and Katie. They had finished their ice cream and were practicing cartwheels on the patch of grass.

  Caitlin had always been so transparent about what she was thinking: she had no poker face, only tells. For a slice of an instant, Alexa missed their friendship with an intensity that gripped at her core. She felt herself softening further.

  “Hey, listen. If you do start hanging out with Tyler, or whatever you want to call it—”

  “Yes? What?” For a split second Caitlin looked like the old Caitlin, the anxious middle school Caitlin, who was the same Caitlin who’d once laughed so hard at Alexa’s imitation of their algebra teacher during lunch in eighth grade that milk shot out of her nose.

  Alexa paused. Her heart was still hammering and her insides were jumbled but this felt important enough to force all of those parts to be quiet for a moment.

  “If you do hang out with Tyler, just be really careful, okay? He wasn’t always that nice to me. Just—just watch yourself. Take care of yourself.”

  Caitlin nodded slowly. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks, Alexa. I’ll talk to you soon?”

  “Yeah. Okay. Soon.”

  Caitlin went through the side door into Haley’s, and as soon as she was gone the drumbeat started up in Alexa’s brain again.

  The bad men are coming. The bad men are looking for you. The bad men have found you. The bad men are coming. Are coming. Are coming. “Let’s go!” she called to Katie and Morgan, trying to delete the panic from her voice. “Time to go, girls. Now. Right now. Morgan? Katie? Right now.”

  Back in the Acura Alexa said, “Change of plans. We’re going back to our house, Morgs.” They had to be safer at their house than at the Griffins’. Right? Right? Especially with the Jeep gone.

  “But we had the movie paused at Katie’s house!” protested Morgan.

  The lie slid out. “Sorry. Katie’s mom texted to see if I could take you both back to our house. I guess the party might go later than they thought.”

  “I’m not surprised by that,” said Morgan philosophically. To Katie she said, “Brooke’s parties always go really late. Brooke’s parties are crazy.”

  “Why do you know that?” asked Alexa.

  Morgan shrugged. “People talk.”

  Understatement of the century, thought Alexa.

  “Katie, you’re spending the night,” said Alexa. She pulled out onto Route 1 and then took the traffic circle back toward town, looking in the rearview mirror every two seconds.

  “I am?” said Katie. “I didn’t bring my stuff. Can we go back to my house to get my stuff?”

  Before too long they were almost at Alexa and Morgan’s house. The traffic on High Street was moving normally, no black SUVs were stopped in front of the house, but all of Alexa’s organs felt like they were jumping. She said, “You can borrow some of Morgan’s things to sleep in. It’ll be more fun here, I promise. And maybe you guys can swim later.” Two truths, one lie. No way was she letting them outside, and certainly not in the pool.

  Katie looked dubious. Morgan was about three sizes smaller than Katie.

  “Or mine,” said Alexa, and in the rearview mirror she saw Katie brighten. Why the hell not? She pulled into the driveway, and said, “Everybody out.”

  Once the girls were inside Alexa locked the door, installed Morgan and Katie in front of the television and told them they could re-rent the movie and fast-forward until they got to the part where they’d left off. She said she’d make popcorn, and she was rummaging through the pantry for the jar when the doorbell rang.

  Never until that moment had she truly understood the meaning of the phrase “jumping out of your skin.”

  Shouldn’t she let someone know what was going on, in case something bad actually did happen? Shouldn’t she let Sherri know? Alexa was responsible for two young girls, and they were in danger.

  She typed out a text. She didn’t hit send, but she got it ready. Just in case. I think you should come back. After a second she added, I’m scared. I’m really sorry but I found out who you are.

  (Three truths, no lie.)

  “Alexa!” called Morgan. “Door!”

  The doorbell went another time. Whoever was ringing it was pressing down really hard, again and again, and the sounds were reverberating through Alexa’s whole body.

  “I know,” whispered Alexa, too quietly for Morgan to hear her. The bad man is coming, she thought. The bad man is coming. The doorbell rang again, again.

  The bad man is here.

  She sent the text.

  77.

  Sherrir />
  Sherri had laid her evening bag (also gold, also purchased at Bobbles and Lace) on one of the many cocktail tables scattered across the lawn. There were at least five people in the pool, and others hovering around, looking like they wanted to join in. Once the pool extravaganza was under way she slid the phone out of her evening bag and looked at it, and her heart jumped directly into her throat and nearly straight out of her body. The text was from Alexa.

  I think you should come back. I’m scared. I’m really sorry but I found out who you are.

  Sherri’s response to this text was visceral, immediate, physical. She left her shoes where they were, took her phone, and ran over to the side of the lawn, where she threw up into the bushes, just beyond where the outdoor lights reached. Her entire body was shaking. Her legs could scarcely hold her up.

  I’m coming home, she texted back. I’ll be right there.

  Could she drive with the alcohol in her system? Should she? No, she shouldn’t, but did she have a choice? Would she be faster running home?

  No. She couldn’t run in this outfit, and walking would take too long. She’d have to drive. The fear had sobered her up. She’d be fine.

  But when Sherri got out to the driveway she saw that her car was blocked in by all the partygoers who had arrived after her. It would take some serious maneuvering to get it out. She saw Melanie wandering around the driveway too. “I’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Melanie said. “I’m looking for Rebecca’s Acura. But I can’t find it.”

  “I’ve got to get out of here too,” said Sherri.

  78.

  Alexa

  The person on the other side of the door had given up on the bell and was now pounding directly on the door. Hard, again and again and again. Then the person was shouting her name. “Alexa! Are you in there? Alexa. Alexa. Alexa!” Alexa realized, as she disentangled herself from the net of her fear, that she recognized the voice.

  It was Tyler. It was just Tyler. She opened the door and leaned against the doorjamb for support.

  “Tyler! What the hell? You scared me.” Her knees were shaking but the rattling of her heart began to subside. “What are you doing here?”

  Tyler was wearing a Newburyport Clippers Lacrosse T-shirt, jeans, and a Red Sox baseball hat. Under the glow of the porch lights—she had decided to keep them on, after much internal debate—his eyes were bloodshot and at half-mast. Pot eyes. “I just wanted to talk to you,” he said. “Can I come in?”

  Alexa thought about Caitlin. He’s pretty broken up about how things ended with the two of you. She looked in the driveway, and out on the street. She didn’t see his car. She stepped aside, and Tyler entered the house. She closed and locked the door behind him. “How’d you get here?”

  “I walked. I was downtown.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I was with some of the guys. But they all stayed down there.” He leaned in, too close. “So what’s really going on with you and that golfer kid?”

  She stiffened. There was something she didn’t like in Tyler’s voice. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her—it was more of a sneer, actually.

  “Nothing,” she said. “We just hang out sometimes.” The sneer deepened, and Tyler stepped toward her. She backed away.

  “I know you’re lying. I know where he lives too. Off Turkey Hill. I’m going to go talk to him.”

  “Talk to Cam? About what?”

  “About you.”

  “How’re you going to talk to him? You walked here. Are you going to walk all the way out to Turkey Hill? That’s like three miles.” She crossed her arms and she was briefly so irritated that she almost forgot to be scared.

  “Can I take your car?”

  “No. Of course not. No way. Anyway, mine has a flat. I’m driving my mom’s.”

  “Can I take your mom’s car?”

  “Definitely not.”

  And here was where things got complicated. Tyler had known Alexa and her family for a long time. He’d been in this house, what, zillions of times. He knew where they kept the extra toilet paper and the backup pool towels and the Cap’n Crunch her mother bought for Tyler to have as a snack, dry, by the handful. He knew that you had to pull up on the handle of the door that led to the back patio to lock it and that the window screen in Alexa’s bedroom fell out when a stiff wind blew. He knew that car keys went inside the small blue bowl on the hall table that came from Fireside Pottery in Maine, and that was where he reached, before Alexa could stop him.

  “Tyler. Give me the keys. You can’t just take my mom’s car.”

  But it was too late. He was already out the front door, and she saw that past the porch lights it was fully dark, with no moon to speak of. Blacker than the inside of a cow, as Peter used to say, until the motion-sensor driveway lights went on. With her eyes she swept the driveway and then the slice of High Street she could see. No black SUVs.

  Then she remembered. She’d sent that text to Sherri. Except she hadn’t told Sherri that she had moved the girls to her own house, so if Sherri was on her way anywhere it was to her own house.

  “I’ll bring it back safe, don’t you worry,” Tyler was saying from the driveway. “I just want to talk to the guy. Cam. See what I can do about getting my girl back.”

  “Ugh. Tyler, I’m not your girl. I was never your girl. I’m not anyone’s girl.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said Tyler.

  She heard him peel out of the driveway in the Acura. If anything happened to her mother’s car, her mother was going to freak out. She’d just gotten that dent fixed.

  Once again, she closed and locked the door. She peeked in on the girls—they were off the couch, and doing their own dance to Freedom along with Anna Kendrick and the rest of the Bellas. Katie had decent rhythm.

  Okay. Deep breath. In, out. Everyone was safe.

  She sent another text to Sherri. So sorry. False alarm.

  79.

  Cam

  Cam’s parents were at the lake; he had the house to himself. Before it got dark he and the dog, Sammy, had walked all the way around the Artichoke reservoir—five solid miles, with hills—and they were both tired and content. He was waiting to hear from Alexa. She said she’d call him when she was finished babysitting. Cam had thought at first that he might be invited to go over while she was babysitting, but in the end he was glad, in a self-preserving way, that he hadn’t been. He didn’t want to compromise her babysitting reputation.

  Cam was so attracted to Alexa. He couldn’t even believe it. He understood in a way he never had before why people did crazy things for love: why they killed for it, died for it, ruined their lives or the lives of other people over it. Why they fought wars! He had never comprehended, when they were assigned The Illiad in high school, just how it was that Helen of Troy’s beauty could have caused such havoc between the Trojans and the Achaeans. Now, though? If some guy named Paris of Newburyport tried to make Alexa fall in love with him and take her away from Cam forever . . . yeah, he’d put up a fight. He’d start a war.

  Cam showered and settled on the couch with the Golf Channel on, Sammy’s head resting on his bare feet. Some people liked to put on golf to sleep but to Cam there was nothing peaceful about it—golf, to Cam, represented edge-of-your-seat drama. In what other sport was utter concentration so necessary that even a small noise from the crowd, even a puff of wind moving in an unexpected direction, could change the entire course of the game?

  The Golf Channel was showing a tape of Phil Mickelson’s 2004 Masters win, one of the all-time bests. Even though Cam knew exactly how this would play out, even though he’d watched it dozens of times, maybe more, he watched, tense, as Mickelson and DiMarco strode toward the eighteenth hole. He listened to the tweeting of the birds and the whispered commentary of the announcers. The quiet of the spectators was so very quiet that it was almost a sound unto itself.

  DiMarco putted, missed. With Mickelson gearing up for his final, tournament-winning, history-mak
ing putt, Cam’s phone rang.

  When he’d first started hanging out with Alexa, his friend Dex had said, “That girl? Bro! She is so far out of your league I don’t even think your two leagues are in the same universe.”

  “I know,” said Cam. “I know.”

  “Dude,” Dex went on. “One day that girl is going to wake up, and she’s going to look in the mirror, and then she’s gonna look at you, and she’s going to come to her senses. And that will be the last you see of her. You ugly bastard.” Dex laughed and punched Cam on the arm—this was a habit he’d taken up after pledging Alpha Sigma Phi at Boston University.

  “Okay, Dex,” said Cam. “I get it.”

  Deep down, Cam wondered if Dex was right. Cam’s parents raised him and his two older brothers to be respectful of girls and women, to be good Catholics, to undertake at least one service project a season, to work hard and play sports fairly, and to have some idea of the direction they wanted their lives to take so they were always marching along on a plane that was straight and sure. He could not believe that someone like Alexa Thornhill had ever given him the time of day, much less spent the better part of the summer with him.

  Cam wasn’t completely green when it came to the opposite sex, obvs. But he had heretofore dated girls like Shelby McIntyre: sincere, smart, pretty-but-not-so-pretty-you-couldn’t-concentrate-on-anything-else girls, girls who took their sports and their grades as seriously as he took golf and his own grades. AP Bio girls, girls who made his mother sigh with happiness and say things like, “I like her, Cameron. You hang on to that one.”

  And then Alexa Thornhill came hurtling into his world, with her contemptuous smirk and her YouTube channel and her perfect, perfect body, and her skin that smelled like lavender, and her way of looking at him from underneath her lashes.