Little Bitty Lies

by Mary Kay Andrews

  Charlie was openly staring at Nancye, grinning in appreciation. “Amazing. Yessir.”

  “You’re drooling,” Katharine said, dabbing at Charlie’s chin. “Anyway. They’re store-bought. You know, a boob job.”

  She had Matt looking too. “Is that right?” he asked. “Women still do that kind of thing? They go through that kind of thing, just to get bigger breasts?”

  “Pain is beauty,” Mary Bliss said, quoting the Spa Serenity slogan. “Anyway. It’s not nice to stare. And I should know.”

  People had been staring at Mary Bliss all evening, or it felt like it anyway.

  She’d made Charlie drive twice around the parking lot at the club, just trying to delay making an entrance at the dance. Still, heads had been turning and jaws had been jabbering since they’d walked in the door.

  “They’re staring because they don’t recognize you, and they’re trying to figure out who you are,” Charlie told Mary Bliss.

  “No, they’re staring at you because they can’t believe what a knockout blonde you are,” Matt said proudly.

  Katharine clutched Matt’s arm in a chummy gesture. “Or they saw the four of us come in together and they think I’m with Matt, and you’re Charlie’s new girlfriend.” She gave Matt a noisy kiss on the cheek.

  “Or they can’t believe you and Charlie are back together again,” Mary Bliss said, feeling better about things.

  “We’re just the biggest scandal in town.” Katharine giggled, loving the idea. “Nancye Bowden is yesterday’s news.”

  The deejay had slowed down all the southern frat party music and was playing a Johnny Mathis song, “The Twelfth of Never.”

  “Come on,” Katharine said, edging Charlie toward the dance floor. “This one is just our speed.”

  Matt looked expectantly at Mary Bliss. “Is dancing allowed? Was that part of our agreement?”

  Mary Bliss had been hoping for something a little more up-tempo for her first dance.

  “I guess,” she said, giving him a tentative smile.

  He led her onto the dance floor and put a chaste hand on her waist. “See?” he said, gliding her easily around the floor. “I’m not so bad, am I?”

  “No,” she said, smiling up at him. She remembered something Nina used to say. “Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.”

  It truly wasn’t awful. Matt was an easy, relaxed dancer. It was strange, though. Strange dancing with somebody who wasn’t Parker McGowan. Strange catching on to another man’s rhythm.

  They danced that dance and sat out a cartoonish Macarena, because Matt said he didn’t do the Macarena. Then the deejay started spinning “The Tennessee Waltz” and Matt nodded at her; she nodded back, and then she saw him.

  Randy Bowden hovered near the bar, sipping a bottle of beer and staring balefully in his estranged wife’s direction. He looked pitiful, his face pinched, his dinner jacket ill-fitting. He broke Mary Bliss’s heart.

  She kept seeing him over Matt’s shoulder as they waltzed around the waxed country club dance floor. She saw that he saw her too. She gave him a generous, beaming smile and an encouraging wave.

  When the dance was over, Randy materialized at her side.

  “Mary Bliss? Is that you?”

  She nodded. “All my life I’ve heard blondes have more fun. I decided to give it a shot.”

  “It’s wonderful,” Randy said. “You were beautiful before. But now…”

  She noticed Matt’s amused smirk.

  “Randy, this is Matt Hayslip,” she said, gesturing in his direction. “Matt lives in the Oaks. And Matt, this is Randy Bowden. He’s sort of the boy next door.”

  “Across the street, actually,” Randy said, taking a long swig of beer.

  “Randy’s son Josh is Erin’s boyfriend,” Mary Bliss explained. Randy gave her a funny look, then finished off his beer. Was it possible that he was tipsy? He was always so serious, it was hard to tell. “Josh is a great kid,” she added. “A talented musician.”

  The deejay was changing the tempo again. It was “Double Shot,” the old Swinging Medallions song, a country club anthem for middle-aged people who liked to think they could still party hearty like they had in college.

  Randy glanced over his shoulder toward Nancy, who was thrashing around the dance floor with a different man than she’d been dancing with earlier.

  “Come on,” he said, grabbing Mary Bliss’s hand. “How ’bout a dance with the boy next door?”

  They had to fight their way onto the dance floor. Along the way Randy picked up a fresh bottle of beer.

  “Woke up this morning, had a headache so bad,” he shouted, off-key, moving his arms but not his feet to the music.

  Mary Bliss sang along, too, laughing. Randy really was tipsy. He was adorable. He apparently hadn’t learned any new dance steps since seventh-grade cotillion, because he was gyrating his arms in something approximating a dance Mary Bliss had always called “The Robot.”

  “It wasn’t Budweiser that I had too much of,” Randy hollered, waving the Budweiser bottle over his head.

  “It was a double shot of tequila!” everybody screamed in unison.

  They went on like that, screaming the words to the song, adding silly improvised verses, until Mary Bliss was laughing so hard that she could hardly dance.

  She was standing still, trying to catch her breath, when the deejay switched tempo again.

  His choice brought howls of approval: “With this Ring,” another southern frat house standard.

  Randy caught her up in his arms and they were dancing again, this time not so frenetically, and much closer.

  He was tall, much taller than Parker, taller even than Matt. And the beer had given him the courage to hold her tight against his dinner jacket.

  He was very sweet, Mary Bliss decided, much better at slow dancing. But she worried about the words to the song, which promised “I’ll always love you,” over and over again. He had probably danced to this song with Nancye a hundred times, sung the words, promised the promise. And she had probably promised back, the little liar. How humiliating to have her here, flaunting herself and those silicone boobs with every man in the room. Randy Bowden was a wounded bird, and she felt an urge to bandage him up and put him in a shoe box and feed him milk through an eyedropper.

  He didn’t smell bad either. She inhaled and had a sudden sensory overload.

  “Brut!” she said, surprised.

  He stepped back a little. “I’m sorry. Did I step on your feet? I haven’t slow-danced in a long time.”

  “No,” Mary Bliss said, patting his sleeve. “It’s all right. I meant Brut, the aftershave. Aren’t you wearing Brut?”

  “A little,” he said apologetically. “The kids made me wear it. They gave it to me for Father’s Day. The little guys put it on me. I guess they overdid it.”

  “I like Brut,” Mary Bliss said dreamily. “The first boy I ever dated wore Brut aftershave.”

  The song ended then, and Randy gave her a deep, courtly bow.

  “Thank you,” he said, kissing the back of her hand. “For the dances. And for everything.”

  “You’re welcome,” Mary Bliss said. “Anytime at all.”

  He drifted away then, and later in the evening Mary Bliss saw him, standing by the bar, drinking another beer. She smiled, he waved. Then Matt and Katharine and Charlie dragged her off to the midnight supper being served in the men’s grill, and before she knew it, the deejay was breaking down his sound system and the dance was over.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Matt asked. They were sitting in the plush backseat of Charlie’s Lincoln, Matt’s arm thrown casually across her shoulders. Katharine was up front, driving, because she claimed Charlie had disgraced himself with one too many Manhattans.

  “It wasn’t bad,” Mary Bliss said. “But it was an adjustment.”

  They were two blocks away from Mary Bliss’s street, and Katharine was laughing wildly and driving way too fast, careening around corners, going up
over the curbs, actually trenching old man Kirby’s grass at one point.

  Matt saw Mary Bliss’s alarm. “Hey, Katharine,” he called. “Why don’t you just let us off here? It’s cooled off a lot. I’ll walk Mary Bliss home and then walk home from there.”

  Katharine slammed on the Lincoln’s brakes, sending Mary Bliss nearly airborne. “Sure,” she cried gaily. “We get it, don’t we, Charlie?”

  Charlie’s head was slumped to the side. He snored loudly.

  “You guys want to be alone,” Katharine said. “I can take a hint.”

  Mary Bliss still had one leg in the car when Katharine screeched off.

  “Charlie wasn’t the only one dipping into the Manhattans tonight,” Matt said. “Think she’ll make it home all right?” he asked, watching the Lincoln’s taillights disappear.

  “It’s all a show,” Mary Bliss said. “I was watching her. She sipped the same club soda all night. I think she wanted you to do something like this.”

  “So we’d be alone?” he asked, reaching out to take her hand. “Isn’t that against the rules?”

  “I forgot to tell her the rules,” Mary Bliss said.

  64

  They walked back to Mary Bliss’s house hand in hand. It had rained sometime earlier, and steam still rose up off the cooling pavement. She could smell wet earth and flowers, and off in the distance she heard the fleeting hoot of a train whistle. It was only a little past midnight, but most of the lights of Fair Oaks were dimmed. The town had gone to bed.

  “It’s a nice place,” Matt said, stopping to admire a neat white brick cottage on the corner of Mary Bliss’s street. “I can see why you like it so much. How long have you been here?”

  “Eighteen years,” Mary Bliss said. “We bought the house when we were newlyweds and spent years fixing it up. How long have you been in the Oaks?”

  “Seven, eight months,” Matt said. “It’s not like here. It’s just a bunch of houses. Not a community, like Fair Oaks. I would have preferred to buy a house over here, but I couldn’t find one in my price range.”

  “We could never afford our house now,” Mary Bliss agreed.

  “Parker managed to take out a whopping new mortgage on your house. Somebody must have thought it was worth that.”

  Mary Bliss felt her face warm. “I still can’t believe any of this has happened. I can’t believe he was capable of any of this. It’s all like a really vivid bad dream.”

  “You had no idea he was planning any of it? The marriage wasn’t in trouble?”

  “I was blind and stupid,” Mary Bliss said, her voice dull. “Running around, worrying about Charlie and Katharine’s marriage, and Randy and Nancye’s. I was obsessed with divorce. You know, I even plotted a map, of all the marriages in the neighborhood that had broken up. I didn’t have a clue in the world that my own marriage was dissolving.”

  “He was a sneaky bastard,” Matt said. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

  “Who else can I blame?” she said lightly.

  They had arrived at Mary Bliss’s doorstep. They walked up onto the porch, and Matt pulled her into the shadows and kissed her. She kissed him back, long and deep. Full of regrets, she pulled away. From the corner of her eye she saw a flicker of movement. Heard the faint hiss of water running.

  Across the street, Randy Bowden stood in his front yard, a hose trained on his shrubbery. He was staring in her direction. Mary Bliss waved. He turned away, pretending not to notice her.

  “I can’t ask you in,” Mary Bliss told Matt. “Erin had a fit when I told her I was going out tonight. She called me awful names. She says my mother-in-law told her Parker really isn’t dead. Erin says Meemaw told her her daddy is living on a beach somewhere, with a girlfriend and a boat. And that he’s going to send for her.”

  “Is that right?” Matt asked, his interest piqued. “Do you think the old lady is telling the truth?”

  “I don’t know,” Mary Bliss said. “She’s gotten kind of senile. She claims the CIA is sending her coded messages through the fillings in her molars.”

  “Was Parker close to his mother?”

  “Very,” Mary Bliss said. “The only decent thing he did before he took off was to pay up her nursing home bill in advance.”

  “Meemaw won’t tell you anything?”

  “Not a word,” Mary Bliss said, sighing.

  He kissed her again, briefly. “Can I call you?”

  She sighed again. “Better not. I’ve got to patch things up with my daughter. I can’t stand living like this, with her hating me.”

  “You could call me.”

  “Maybe.”

  She went inside and locked the front door behind her. The house was quiet. Erin’s room was empty. It was past curfew.

  Enough, Mary Bliss thought. She dialed Jessica’s house. The phone rang several times before a sleepy female voice picked up.

  “Jessica? It’s Mrs. McGowan. Is Erin there?”

  The teenager yawned loudly. “No, Mrs. Mac.”

  “Was she there earlier?”

  The girl hesitated.

  “Jessica, I really need to know where Erin is,” Mary Bliss said. “It’s after midnight and I’m worried about her.” She paused. “We had a bad fight. She ran off and I haven’t seen her since.”

  “She came over around eight,” Jessica said finally. “But I had a date tonight, so she left.”

  “Where was she going? Was she planning on coming back to spend the night with you again?”

  “No,” Jessica said. “My mom kinda kicked her out. She told Erin she can’t stay here anymore until you guys make up.”

  “Your mom is a smart lady,” Mary Bliss said gratefully. “Tell her I said thank you for putting up with us. Do you have any idea where Erin might have gone?”

  Mary Bliss peered out the window at the Bowdens’ house. All the lights were out.

  “Could she be with Josh?”

  “Josh? I don’t know.”

  “Another girlfriend’s house, maybe?”

  “She didn’t say,” Jessica said. “Most of the kids we hang out with went down to the beach this weekend. The only reason I didn’t go was that I had to work today.”

  “All right,” Mary Bliss said. “Thanks.”

  “Wait. Mrs. Mac?”

  “I’m still here. What is it?”

  “Sometimes, Erin stays with her grandmother.”

  “Meemaw?” Mary Bliss was stunned. “You think she spends the night in the nursing home with Meemaw? In her room?”

  “She sneaks in through the window,” Jessica said. “She says she sleeps in a chair, and then she leaves in the morning, before the nurses come in to give her grandmother her medicine.”

  “Good heavens,” Mary Bliss said.

  65

  Mary Bliss waited until nine Sunday morning before depositing herself at the Bowdens’ front door. She’d been up since six, drunk a pot of coffee, washed and folded laundry, and started looking at her lesson plans for the coming year. She had to report back to school in two weeks.

  Randy answered the front door, wearing loose pajama bottoms and a washed-out cotton undershirt. His hair hadn’t been combed, and his eyes were slightly red-rimmed.

  “Oh,” he said, taken aback. “Come on in.”

  She followed him inside the house. The front hall was strewn with toys and books and magazines. Josh’s guitar was laid across a living room chair, and there was a greasy pizza box on the coffee table.

  “Coffee?” Randy asked when they got to the kitchen.

  “No thanks, I’ve already had six cups this morning. I’m about to jump out of my skin.”

  Randy blinked. “What’s up? You look kind of upset.”

  “It’s Erin,” she said. “We got into it again last night, and she took off and never came back home. I was wondering if she spent the night over here?”

  “Here?” Randy looked around the room, as if he expected to find Erin McGowan hiding under the kitchen table. “Why would she spend the ni
ght here?”

  “With Josh,” she said firmly. “I know they’ve become really close. Inseparable.”

  “I was at the dance last night,” Randy said. “You saw me there. Josh stayed home with the little guys.”

  “Was Erin here when you got home?” Mary Bliss asked.

  “No,” Randy said. “Everybody was asleep. I think they sent out for pizza and watched videos ’til late.”

  “Where’s Josh?” she asked.

  Randy ran his fingers through his hair. It didn’t improve things. “Upstairs. He’s still asleep.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “You want me to wake him up?” Randy asked.

  “I’ll wake him up,” Mary Bliss volunteered. “If you don’t mind.”

  “Okay,” Randy said reluctantly. “But he’s kind of a bear in the morning. He usually doesn’t get up ’til noon on weekends.”

  “I’ll risk it,” Mary Bliss said.

  Upstairs, she pounded purposely on Josh’s bedroom door. “Josh? Wake up, Josh.”

  She heard a muffled noise. “What the…? Who’s that?”

  “It’s Mary Bliss McGowan,” she called. “I’m coming in. All right?”

  “Huh?”

  She pushed the door open. Josh’s room looked remarkably like a male version of Erin’s. The walls were covered with posters of race cars, rock groups, and half-naked women. The floor and every piece of furniture in the room was covered with clothes. Josh lay swaddled in a green plaid sleeping bag that lay on top of his bedspread. A large orange pillow covered his head.

  “Mrs. Mac?” Josh slid the pillow off his head. “What’s up?” he said groggily. He was wearing a set of earphones. He took them off and tossed them on the floor.

  “I’m looking for Erin. She never came home last night.”

  “Oh.”

  He didn’t sound surprised. Or concerned.

  “Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

  Josh half sat up, pulling the sleeping bag over his bare chest in a touching display of modesty. “No.”