Little White Lies

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  “Ow!” He was lucky we were in plain view of at least five chaperones, including my grandmother, or I would have drilled my fist into his stomach. “Your definition of a present leaves something to be desired.”

  “There’s a plastic baggie in my left inside pocket,” he told me. “If you pull it out, we can bag the hair.”

  I did as he asked, careful to mask the action as best I could. The waltz carried on.

  “Your present,” Boone declared, “is a mail-in paternity test. I bought you a half dozen of them. The results take forever to come back, but I’ve already obtained a sample of my dad’s hair.” He tucked the baggie with my hair in it back into his tuxedo lapel. “We can send my dad’s test off tonight.”

  Given the obviousness of Boone’s suggestion, I had to question why I hadn’t thought of it first. The only progress I’d made on my search for my father in the past month involved using the internet to glean everything I could about the four men on my list.

  Deep down, I had to wonder how much of what had been holding me back was my mom. She didn’t want me here. She didn’t want me knowing the truth.

  “I am,” Boone confided, “upon occasion, just south of brilliant. And I wouldn’t mind having a sister.” Then, because the moment was a little too serious, a little too sweet, he added, “But my mom would be a real bitch of a stepmother.”

  Hearing any version of the phrase bitch stepmother had my gaze going automatically to Greer Waters. I was guessing she wouldn’t welcome any inquiries into whether or not her newly acquired husband had fathered an illegitimate child way back when.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Boone declared. He spun me in a circle. “How are you going to get genetic material on the other Who’s-Your-Daddy candidates?”

  I was still volunteering at the senator’s office. The renovation on Aunt Olivia and Uncle J.D.’s house showed no signs of ending, so we were still living under the same roof, and if I asked Sadie-Grace to show me her parents’ bathroom, she’d beam at me without asking too many questions about why I was rifling through her father’s hairbrush.

  “Getting the samples is doable,” I told Boone.

  As our dance came to its end, I caught sight of an Audrey ­Hepburn out of the corner of my eye: Sadie-Grace. As my good deed for the day, I used the last chords of the waltz to steer Boone toward her. A new song began, and I passed Boone off.

  Neither one of them seemed to register the fact that they were dancing with each other until they were several feet away.

  “Sawyer.” My grandmother pulled me discreetly to the side of the room. She wasn’t dressed in costume, unless stately and fashionable was a costume. She spoke in an understated murmur that I had to strain to hear. “Would you like to guess what the ever-enthusiastic Greer Waters has been impressing upon me in the last few minutes?”

  My mind was still on the hair in the envelope I’d left with Boone—and the other paternity tests he’d promised me.

  “Apparently, your scavenger hunt tape caused quite the stir.” My grandmother’s expression was pleasant, but we were in public. If there was one inviolable societal law in Lillian Taft’s circle, it was that one was always pleasant in public.

  “Some people get stirred up too easily,” I said.

  “There was some talk about whether or not what you five did was dangerous.”

  Five, I thought. As in the four of us, plus Campbell. She had her alibi now—ironclad and, thanks to my deviation from the plan, spreading through the gossip tree like wildfire.

  “When rich people say danger,” I told my grandmother, “they just mean poor.”

  I’d broken two cardinal rules: I wasn’t smiling, and I was talking about money.

  “Sawyer, you and your mother were never poor.”

  I had no idea what to make of that sentence or the tone with which Lillian had said it, but I also didn’t have time to wonder, because a moment later, Davis Ames descended the staircase, and my grandmother’s attention shifted fully to him.

  He wasn’t in costume. He wasn’t wearing a mask. Campbell was by his side. Had she gone to fetch him? Why?

  “I understand that there are prizes of some sort to be distributed,” he said, in a voice that carried with no need of artificial amplification. “For tonight’s costume contest and a rather legendary scavenger hunt.”

  This was what we’d been waiting for. What Campbell had been waiting for. I still wasn’t clear on why this was the turning point for her. Was she just biding her time until word of “our” hijinks on scavenger hunt night had spread far and wide, to solidify her alibi?

  Or was she up to something?

  I barely paid attention to the names that were called as the prizes were announced. Ours were, obviously, not among them—not for last month’s event and not for tonight. It went without saying that behavior such as ours was not to be rewarded.

  Actually, it didn’t, because Greer had literally said as much to Sadie-Grace the week before.

  I didn’t care about the prizes, or whatever subtle disgrace came our way. All I cared about was getting that tablet from Campbell and putting this whole thing to rest.

  Once I did, Project Paternity Test could begin.

  A smattering of applause marked the final prize. In the lull that followed, the doorbell rang, which seemed odd, because Mr. Ames had brought in a valet company to park the cars out front, and one of the valets had been tending the door when I’d arrived.

  As I watched, Campbell’s grandfather excused himself. Campbell followed, and I trailed her and snagged her by the arm.

  “The tablet,” I insisted.

  “It’s upstairs,” Campbell said, her voice surprisingly thin, almost reedy. “If you take the back staircase from the kitchen, no one will see you. First bedroom on your left. I left the tablet on the desk.”

  This didn’t feel right. Something was off, and I didn’t like that I couldn’t pinpoint what that something was. I pushed back through the crowd, to the kitchen, and up the stairs, waiting for the other shoe to fall.

  It didn’t.

  The tablet was exactly where Campbell had said it would be. I turned it on. The security footage was there. I deleted it, then checked the sent mail to verify that no files had been emailed out. Finally, I pulled up the photo reel and began scrolling.

  It didn’t look like Campbell had deleted or modified a single picture.

  As I came to the last two photos, I stopped. One contained a naked girl, curled into a ball, her arms wrapped around her knees, her chest and privates obscured. The other was a screencap of the Secrets blog, taken only minutes before.

  What did Campbell do? My mouth went dry, and I pulled up the site. There was, indeed, a new post—the second-to-last picture from the reel. I took in the details: the lighting, the angle, the careful handwriting in which a single sentence had been scripted onto the model’s naked back.

  He made me hurt you.

  Slowly, I processed the obvious: the picture was black and white, so the model’s hair color wasn’t visible, but neither the length nor the texture fit Lily’s, and there was a birthmark of some kind, barely visible at the very bottom of the frame.

  This isn’t Lily.

  “Campbell.” I couldn’t believe that she’d given us this. Even if Campbell had kept copies of Lily’s pictures, Lily now had the exact same thing on her.

  Why would she do that? The gesture stuck with me like food between my teeth. We hadn’t asked Campbell for this. Why would she make us wait an entire month and then give us more than we’d bargained for?

  Unsettled, I walked back toward the main stairs. I paused at the top of the spiral staircase, aware that I probably should have snuck down the way I’d come, but not caring overly much. There was a bay window to my right, facing out the front of the house.

  Outside, I caught sight of Davis Ames, Campbell, and a police car.

  As soon as the scavenger hunt winners are announced and I have what I need, Campbell had told me, I’ll
give you what I promised.

  Tearing my eyes from the police car, I made my way back toward the kitchen stairs. If I could get through the party without drawing attention, I could figure out why the police were here.

  What Campbell was telling them.

  What I was missing.

  But when I got to the kitchen, the police were already there. There were two officers, and they had one person between them—a boy, cuffed, being read his rights.

  Nick.

  omehow, the police—and Davis Ames—managed to keep the arrest quiet. The officers took Nick out the back, and the party wore on. I tried to object, tried to ask what was going on, but neither the police nor Campbell’s grandfather paid attention to the girl in the beaded ball gown.

  What just happened? My mind was a mess of memories—images and phrases and moments that hadn’t meant anything to me at the time.

  You’re not still mad about last month, are you? Campbell had asked.

  Of course not, Nick had replied stiffly. I’m just not masochistic enough to let you stand me up twice.

  Campbell had stood Nick up. Last month. What were the chances she’d been referring to a very specific evening? One where a set of legendary pearls had gone missing? Had Campbell promised to meet him somewhere? After ensuring her own alibi, had she made sure that he wouldn’t have one?

  That seemed beyond cold, beyond heartless—even for her. I was probably being paranoid, seeing connections where there were none. I had no way of knowing what Nick had been arrested for. I had no reason to think that it had anything to do with the pearls.

  And yet…

  I am sorry, Campbell had told him, that this is the way it had to be.

  The senator’s daughter had held on to her leverage over us for the past month—long enough for her alibi to become rock solid, long enough to ensure that none of us were going to the police. Why had she insisted on ending the game tonight?

  What had she been planning?

  I told myself to stop. I told myself—again—that I had no idea what Nick had been arrested for, or why Campbell and her grandfather had been outside talking to the police.

  The authorities must have evidence. No matter what Campbell did or did not tell them, no matter what Nick was arrested for—they don’t just barge into fancy parties and slap cuffs on people out of nowhere.

  My thoughts flicked to the stolen key that Campbell had insisted I return. Was it the key to her grandfather’s safe? And if it was, what had she done with it once she’d stolen the pearls?

  Stop. I forced myself to slow down. But as I pushed my way through angels and devils, princesses and knights, all I could think of was Campbell’s entry on Secrets on My Skin.

  He made me hurt you.

  That night, I stood in front of my vanity scrubbing viciously at the makeup on my face.

  “Sawyer.”

  I’d caught Lily up on what had happened. Nick was arrested. Campbell might have had something to do with it.

  “Sawyer,” Lily said again. She caught my wrists. “You’re going to take the skin right off your face.”

  “So?”

  She nudged me toward the edge of my bathtub, pushing me to a sitting position. “Stay.” She removed the cloth from my hand and went back to the sink. When she returned, there was a container of makeup remover in her hand.

  My cousin didn’t say anything as she swabbed a damp cotton ball gently over my eyes, my cheeks.

  This is our fault. If what happened tonight has anything to do with the pearls—it’s our fault.

  I’d known better than to trust Campbell. I’d known that something was off.

  “We’ll figure out what happened,” Lily said softly. My eyes were still closed. She was still removing mascara. “No matter how quietly the arrest was handled, word will get out. People will talk—at the club, at school. We’ll corner Campbell. We’ll figure this out, Sawyer.”

  The problem was that every instinct I had—every probability I’d learned growing up bar-adjacent, the sixth sense that let me keep an eye out for trouble customers at Big Jim’s—said that figuring this out wouldn’t solve the problem.

  At most, figuring it out would confirm what the problem was.

  “What if she framed him?” I asked. “What if Campbell Ames framed that poor guy for stealing the pearls, and we helped?”

  Was it too late to go to the cops? We could tell them that we’d falsified Campbell’s alibi, claim that we’d thought she wanted to sneak off for run-of-the-mill teenage hijinks, not to commit a major crime.

  Then why, I could hear someone asking, didn’t you come clean when the pearls went missing?

  “I have something that might cheer you up.” Lily ducked into the bedroom and came back up with a gift bag: black, with glittery orange tissue paper. “You forgot your favor from tonight’s event.”

  If Lily thought a Symphony Ball keepsake could put a dent in my current mood, she had mistaken me for someone with no conscience and a fondness for the saccharine and overpriced.

  “Just open it,” Lily prodded. She was using her I am the granddaughter of Lillian Taft voice, genteel and bossy in equal parts.

  Shooting her a dark look, I tossed the tissue paper aside a little harder than necessary. Sitting at the bottom of the bag, in a clear plastic case with the words Symphony Ball engraved on it, was a USB drive.

  “The scavenger hunt footage,” Lily told me. “I understand there was some debate about what to do with ours, but ultimately, it was decided that the best tack to take was ignoring our little side trip. A professional videographer put together a highlight video of each group—and one of the whole event. Plus, we each get a copy of our own raw footage.”

  Footage of us at the lot, the library, The Holler.

  “Why would this cheer me up?” I asked Lily. This was ­Campbell’s alibi. The alibi we had given her, even after we knew what she’d done with it.

  “Sawyer Ann Taft.” Lily pulled herself up to an impressive height. “Do you think that you’re the only one whose stomach is twisted up in veritable knots of dread right now? The only reason we’re in this mess is because you stuck up for me. Sadie-Grace did the same. I am, by all views and possible accounts, the common denominator here, but am I moping?” In that moment, she was a dead ringer for her mother. “No. No, I am not. I will cross the moping bridge when I come to it, once we know exactly what happened tonight and not before. And this?” Lily held up the USB drive. “This should interest you.”

  I could not, for the life of me, see a lick of sense in that declaration.

  “Why?” I said.

  Lily gave me a look that strongly implied that I was being either very stubborn or very dumb. “Why did you come here?” she prodded.

  “Because our grandmother offered me half a million dollars.”

  Lily didn’t so much as blink at that assertion. “What are you looking for?” she elaborated. “Or, to be more precise: Who?”

  In the entire time I’d been living here, I hadn’t said a word to Lily about the fact that I was searching for my biological father. I had a lot of free time while she was at school. I thought I’d done at least a passable job of keeping my intentions a secret.

  “Oh, please, Sawyer.” Lily waved a dismissive hand in my general direction. “I am perfectly capable of putting two and two together. Your mama left in disgrace in the middle of her Debutante year. You’re either here to redeem her…”

  I snorted.

  “Or you’re here to find out who she was… close to… before she left.”

  Lily Taft Easterling did not use phrases like knocked up. Producer of sperm and bastard child were also out.

  “You knew?” I asked.

  “Have you ever been under the impression that you were subtle?” Lily didn’t wait for an answer. “You should have learned by now that Symphony Ball is all about tradition. If we had a video scavenger hunt, you can bet your mother’s year did as well, and if we were given copies of our videos…” She trai
led off meaningfully.

  Operation Paternity Test was already under way. Assuming my father was indeed one of the four faces my mother had scratched out of that photograph, I would get my answer eventually.

  But eventually wasn’t now.

  Eventually wouldn’t get me to morning and answers about Nick’s arrest.

  “This would be an appropriate time to ask me if I know where Mim keeps your mama’s old things,” Lily prompted.

  I looked down at the USB drive. It was late. There was nothing I could do about Campbell or Nick right now.

  But this, I could do. “Where does Mim keep my mother’s old things?”

  Lily gathered the used cotton balls, dumped them in the trash, then pivoted toward the doorway. “The attic.”

  shouldn’t have been surprised that Lillian Taft’s attic was insulated, air-conditioned, and neat as a pin. It ran the entire length of the house, a third floor that was only accessible through a staircase tucked away behind a door that I’d assumed led to yet another linen closet.

  This definitely wasn’t a closet.

  “Mim isn’t what one would call organized,” Lily said, staring over the sea of boxes laid out in a labyrinth that criss-crossed the room. “Luckily, however, my mother is, and she got it in her head to organize Mim’s attic a few summers back. I don’t know where your mama’s things are, but it’s a good bet that they’re all together.”

  It took a half hour for me to find a framed portrait, quite possibly the one that had once hung downstairs: Eleanor Elisabeth Taft, in all her debutante finery. I’d never thought that my mom and I looked alike, but at seventeen, she’d been freckled and slight, with hair several shades darker than mine and eyes at least two sizes too big for her face. There was something about the set of her lips and the tilt of her chin that was utterly familiar.

  As Aunt Olivia had once pointed out, we had the same cheekbones.

  The portrait hit me harder than I expected. The white gloves. The up-do. The bouquet of white roses in her lap. This girl? She didn’t look anything like my mother. She looked…