The Fine Art of Truth or Dare

by Melissa Jensen

  Nearby, one of the overexcited frat boys started wildly windmilling his arms. He had overbalanced and now tipped himself right over the wall. In a second, the diver with us had grabbed his ankle and hauled him back. The sharks, instead of being attracted by the flailing, like they are in every single scary underwater movie, took one sideways look and promptly turned tail, heading for the other side of the tank. They stayed there and didn’t come back.

  The culprit’s buddies pounded him when we climbed out of the water. “Smooth move, Ex-Lax,” one muttered. “Way to be a buzzkill.”

  “Hey” was the red-faced retort, “at least I can say I scared off a shark.”

  They went off to disturb some other sea life on their prize day. I was shivering a little, not entirely from cold, and the horror of a swimsuit had wedged itself firmly in my butt. I was ready to be dressed again. Of course, Alex had more planned.

  “Stingrays,” I said, almost resigned, as I looked into the shallow pool we were guided to next. “You’re putting me in a pond with”—I read the placard—“cownose stingrays.”

  “Look, no spikes.” Alex pointed. Then he shoved a cup of fish bits into my hands. “Come on.”

  Apparently, this was all familiar to the rays. They had Alex surrounded in a second, flapping their wings on the bottom of the pool and on him, as if to get attention. I could almost hear them calling, “Me, me, me!”

  Alex was laughing and lowering bits of fish into the water. They disappeared immediately. Some of the rays did little wiggles, like happy puppies. “Okay,” I admitted finally. “They’re kinda cute.”

  “They’re incredible,” he said, looking like a kid who’d just found said puppy under the Christmas tree, and held out his hand. I took it, fish guts and all, and got in with him.

  We went through our ray food pretty quickly. I flinched the first few time and ended up dropping the fish. But then I got used to the gentle nibbling on my fingers. “Kisses,” the guide said. He was the same one who’d called the nurse sharks “cuddlers.” This time I didn’t think he was entirely out of his mind.

  Once all the food was gone, Alex and I waded toward the edge of the pool, where we would be able to sit and watch. One large ray kept bumping my ankle. I tried to step out of its way. It followed, bumping me again. I changed direction; it did, too.

  “Sorry, dude,” I told it. “I’m all out.”

  “Oh, he doesn’t want food,” the guide informed me. “That’s Ferdinand.”

  I looked down at the surprisingly appealing head, with its wide-set eyes and curved snout. “Let me guess. He just likes to float and smell the seaweed.”

  “Actually, he just likes everyone. He’s a lover.”

  This was my day, surrounded by cuddlers, kissers, and lovers. And Alex. We sat with our feet in the water. The rest of the rays figured out pretty quickly that there was no more food forthcoming, and drifted gracefully around the lagoon. Ferdinand, however, stayed near my feet, flapping and nudging. I reached down and tentatively stroked his back. It felt kind of like a sandy flip-flop: firm and pliable and a little rough. Ferdinand gave what looked like an unmistakably happy wiggle and nudged for more.

  “He recognizes a sea goddess when he sees one,” Alex said, nudging me with his arm.

  “It’s a ray,” I retorted. “Its brain is the size of a peanut.” But I was secretly very, very pleased. I was genuinely sorry to climb out of the pool. The sharks . . . well, the sharks I could do without. But Ferdinand had charmed me.

  We talked about all the unimportant stuff on the drive back to the city: the flailing frat boys, the flapping rays, the smell of fish that the mediocre showers hadn’t quite gotten off our skin.

  The ride going home went so much faster than it had coming. Alex stopped in front of my house but didn’t turn off the car. “Come in?” I asked.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Alex. Please. Just for a few minutes.”

  He stared out the windshield for a long moment, hands tight around the bumpy steering wheel. Finally, he said, “I really can’t stay long. Dad’s home, and we’re all going out to see my grandmother.” We climbed out of the car and headed for the house. “Then it’s another family dinner night at another ‘Best of Philly’ pick: Patsas. Apparently it’s the ‘place to have something even Zorba couldn’t pronounce.’”

  My hands were shaking, but I got my key into the lock and the door open. As usual, he gestured me ahead of him. I had other things to say, but I started with “Order the moussaka. Grape leaves, spanakopita, and a salad with lots of feta.”

  “You sound like an expert on the place.”

  “Nope. Just a girl who knows restaurants. Trust me. Regulars have their faves; smart diners go for classic. People pleasers order the specials.”

  “Good advice. So . . . ?”

  “So.” I stood up a little straighter. “Come upstairs with me.”

  “Ella, I really can’t—”

  “It’ll just take a couple of minutes, I promise. I have something I want to show you.”

  I knew the house would be empty. Dad and Nonna would be at the restaurant. Mom was out with Sienna, having a final turn at torturing the flower people and the band and anyone else unlucky enough to be involved in the wedding day itself.

  I walked ahead of Alex into my room. I couldn’t look at him as I unwrapped my scarf and unbuttoned my coat. I kept my back to him as I pulled my sweater over my head. I left my jeans on, and the pale lace bra that I’d bought a few days after he first kissed me and that I’d never worn. I twisted my hair into a loose knot.

  I turned around.

  “This is me,” I told him. “This is who I am.”

  Then I closed my eyes. I couldn’t look at him while he was looking.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, hearing the thudding of my heartbeat in my ears and nothing else. A while. Then my floor creaked. I opened my eyes. Alex was a step closer to me, but still a lot closer to the door. “So . . .” I said shakily.

  “So.”

  I took a breath. “Are we okay?”

  What I wanted, all I wanted, was for him to take those few more steps and fold me into his coat like he’d done before. I wasn’t thinking much beyond that. Maybe because I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

  “I don’t even know what okay would mean,” he said. “‘Okay.’ We’ve never been okay. We’ve been kinda scrambling for it. I mean . . . crap . . . Thank you. For showing me. I know it cost you something. But Jesus, Ella, I really don’t want to feel like I have to constantly be reassuring you of things you should know for yourself. It’s exhausting and takes all the . . . I don’t know . . . satisfaction . . . out of saying what I feel.”

  When he was done, he stood there in the middle of the room, hunched and miserable looking. Neither of us said anything for a long time. Then, “Look, I have to leave. I . . . I’ll call you.”

  “Okay,” I said, and let him go.

  I heard his footsteps on the stairs and the thud of the door closing behind him. I picked up my sweater with numb fingers. I put it on, backward at first. Then I curled up on my bed and cried.

  33

  THE CANNOLI

  It was a toss-up which was worse: that I was sitting in Anthony’s Coffee Shop, renowned for its desserts, with a box full of Nonna’s cannoli in my bag on the floor, or that the cannoli on the plate in front of me was not Nonna’s. She would have scorched me with some choice words, despite the fact that I hadn’t touched it. It was part of a peace offering.

  Frankie was making me work for my forgiveness. It had taken several days, a thousand phone messages, and a seriously overpriced Vogue Hommes International shoved through his mail slot to get him even to speak to me. He was sitting across the table from me now, arms crossed over his chest (to be fair, he did that a lot when wearing that particular cashmere sweater; it covered the repaired moth hole at the point of the V-neck), glowering a little. I nudged the cannoli another millimeter toward him. It was chocolate chip,
his fave.

  “So I screwed up twice.” I was wrapping up my tale of guilt and woe. “Edward I don’t mind so much now. We just were too different for it to work out in the end . . .” I chanced a glance at Frankie’s sulky face to see if he found that at all humorous. Apparently not. I sighed and went for honesty. “Alex . . . That one has walloped me.”

  Frankie darted out a finger and scooped a little of the filling from the cannoli. I resisted the urge to fling myself across the table and hug him until he squeaked. “The sharks were good,” he acknowledged, and not even too reluctantly. “Insane but good.”

  “Yeah. And Ferdinand. I’ll introduce you sometime.”

  Frankie wrinkled his perfect nose. “I’ll take my stingray as a shagreen wallet, thank you.”

  I laughed. Not that I appreciated the thought of Ferdinand as an accessory, but I was just so happy to have my Frankie back.

  He read my mind and waved a cannoli-tipped finger at me. “Ah. You are not forgiven yet, madam.”

  I subsided in my chair. “I’m sorry,” I told him quietly. “I’m really really sorry. If I could go back and do any of it differently, the very first thing would be to tell you everything as it was happening.”

  “Hmph.” Frankie took a bite of cannoli, delicately wiped his mouth, had a sip of espresso, wiped his mouth. And examined the painted tin ceiling. Then the rows of wooden shelves. Most was bagged coffee; you could smell it from the street. There was a ribbon-and-candy display next to us that was part holiday (red and white and green stripes) and mostly Italy (red and white and green stripes). I waited.

  Meeting someplace other than one of our regular hangouts had seemed like a good idea. Sadie was already gone, on her way to London with her father. They were having Christmas at some castle. “I’ll freeze,” she said as she hugged me fiercely good-bye (she’d listened to my abridged tale of larceny and heartbreak, hugged me fiercely, and told me to return the papers to the Sheridan-Brown), “but at least I’ll get to eat real food.” The stick- insect girlfriend was gone, and until he found a replacement, Sadie’s dad would behave like a normal fifty-year-old with a teenage daughter.

  I’d bought her a belt for Christmas. It was black leather cut to look like filigree. She’d put it on then and there. She vowed to wear it in London.

  In front of me now, Frankie had turned his attention to the street outside. It was warmer than it had been recently—enough that people were out shopping on foot, bundled but cheerful. There were three shopping days left until Christmas, about twenty-six hours until Sienna’s wedding. She was at a spa with Mom, hoping to have that last two pounds steamed and pummeled off. I’d had to take extreme measures to get out of being dragged along. As far as I was concerned, meeting with Frankie was about a zillion times more important, even if it turned out to be just as painful. Nothing had swayed Sienna or Mom until I brandished Nonna’s sewing scissors and threatened to cut my own hair. I’d even pulled my magazine file out to show them.

  “Don’t push it,” I’d warned. “I won’t be the first bridesmaid with a chop job.”

  They left without me.

  Frankie was looking at me now. I’d barely touched my hair that morning; I hadn’t even washed it. Second shower at midnight notwithstanding, I wondered if I still smelled like shark tank from days earlier.

  “You know when I said I didn’t need you?” I asked. He lifted one brow. “I was so wrong. I can’t find words to express quite how wrong I was.”

  “Try.”

  “Dramatically wrong,” I said. “Terribly.”

  “Please.”

  “Okay, terrifically. Horrifically. Catastrophically.” I gave him my best meek smile. “Forgivably?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I should have bought you a thesaurus for Christmas.”

  I had his present in my bag (a bow tie that may or may not have once belonged to Dean Martin, courtesy of eBay) and had a vague suspicion that the big lump in his coat pocket was a multicolored scarf I’d drooled over at Urban Outfitters.

  “I still think Bainbridge is an ass,” he added. “I’ve been there, y’know. On the edge of where they live, wanting in.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re better than that.”

  “I know that, too.” Kinda, anyway. I thought Frankie was pretty amazingly brave in about a hundred ways.

  He leaned forward then, and pancaked my hands between his. “I am here for youse, Marino. Forevah and evah.”

  “No matter how stupidly I behave?”

  “Don’t push it. And don’t lie to me again. Now, what are you going to do about the Edward stuff?”

  • • •

  “I didn’t want to show it to you until I’d done a little research . . .” I slid the Russian dictionary across the desk to Maxine. The letters and photo were tucked neatly inside the cover, like they’d never been out. I’d gone into the archive to make everything tidy, then come back to the office. “But I’m pretty sure there’s an article there I can write.”

  Maxine did her switchblade-reading-glasses thing and read the three partial letters. Then she scanned my skeleton outline for what would be my honors thesis and, I hoped, an art journal article. She studied the photograph, then looked at my outline again.

  “I can’t even imagine why anyone would care about something like Edward Willing’s sex life, but . . .” She shrugged. “People do. Clever research, Ella. Compelling, even if intrinsically based on a shaky framework of supposition.” She got to her feet, all of the papers in hand. “Wait here.”

  She stalked out of the room. Between her sky-high boot heels and sleek topknot, she only just cleared the doorframe. I’d meant to ask if she’d gotten the Man Ray photograph. I thought it was probably a rhetorical question. I couldn’t imagine anyone not giving her exactly what she wanted, as soon as possible.

  I waited a little nervously. It was a distinct possibility she knew I wasn’t telling the whole truth, but then, somehow, I thought it wouldn’t bother her all that much. She seemed like an ends-justifies-the-means kinda person.

  It was the first time I’d been in her office without her there, intimidating me into immobility. I took the opportunity to have a glance around. There wasn’t much there: one tall wooden bookshelf, the desk, the two uncomfortable guest chairs that faced it.

  I dared to leave my seat for a better look at the framed photograph on the bookshelf. I barely recognized Maxine. She was wearing a white shirt and smiling. She was outside, too; it looked like she was standing on a wooden deck in the woods. On one side of her was a tall, gaunt man with crazy eyebrows and brilliantly blue eyes. On the other was a younger man, maybe a couple of years older than me. He had his father’s electric eyes and one crazy eyebrow. The other one had stripes shaved through it. Much of his face was covered by spiky blue- and-black hair. He had a ring going through his lower lip. The three had their arms around each other. They all had big goofy grins on their faces.

  “Labor Day last year in the Poconos,” Maxine said from behind me. “God, the mosquitoes.”

  “You look like . . . a really good family.” I meant it.

  “We are. Now . . .”

  She fanned a bunch of papers over the desk. I saw the photo and letters, now each encased in its own plastic archival sleeve. The rest were photocopies, and my notes. Maxine separated the outline and a set of copies, one of each letter and the photograph. On that, she wrote something, then slid the pages to me.

  Found by Ella Marino, she’d written, along with the name of the dictionary, the current date (close enough, I thought), and her signature. “Hang on to that,” she told me. “I’ll put the original, in the department safe for the time being, but in case anyone ever tries to argue provenance . . .”

  “Thanks.” I had two more things to do, then I was outta there for the next two weeks. I sat up very straight. “Um. Will you mentor me? On the article? I know you probably have way too much to do already, but I think it might really make a difference for me.”

&nbs
p; “Oh, Ella, I don’t do that sort of thing—”

  “Okay, I totally understand,” I said quickly, and hopped to my feet. The last order of business was on the second chair. I put it on the desk in front of her. “Happy holidays.”

  She peeked inside the box, then slapped the top back down and glared at me. For a second I wondered if I’d broken some rule of business or cultural propriety. “Homemade?” she demanded.

  “My grandmother.”

  She peeked again, and groaned softly. “I don’t know whether I love you or hate you right at this moment.” She closed the box firmly. “Of course I’ll supervise your article.”

  “The cannoli weren’t meant to be a bribe. I just . . . thought you might like them.”

  “I’m sure I will,” she said crisply, “a great deal. Just as much as I will not like the extra twelve hours on the treadmill.” Then her face softened. “Thank you. What a treat. What I started to say about mentoring is that I don’t normally do it. Apparently, I scare students. But I would be happy to help you however I can.”

  It was my turn to thank her. I added, “You don’t scare me.”

  “Really?” She stared at me over the sharp frame of her glasses.

  “Well, maybe a little,” I admitted. “Sometimes.”

  “Excellent. Now skedaddle. I have a dinner to prepare. My son is bringing home his new girlfriend.” For the first time, I saw her look something less than supremely confident. “I don’t suppose you know anything about cooking with vegan cheese substitutes?”

  We shuddered together. “Google recipes?” I suggested.

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “Maybe we’ll take them out to dinner.”

  “Good plan,” I agreed, and skedaddled. I had my own dinner out to contend with. I wondered if I could get away with jeans. Probably not.

  The first thing I did when I got home was to tack my labeled copy of the Edward-Marina photograph over my desk. Then I took down the postcard of Ravaged Man.”Well, that all worked out nicely,” Edward said from my hand.