The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett

by Chelsea Sedoti

  • • •

  I ended up eating lunch in the library instead of on the back steps. How that happened was, before I’d taken a single bite of my sandwich, Emily said, “How’d your paper turn out?”

  I almost asked Emily what she was talking about. Then I remembered.

  “You didn’t do it? Seriously?” Emily asked when she saw the look on my face.

  “I meant to,” I said. The paper was probably a great example of what my teachers meant when they said I was bright but didn’t apply myself.

  “You had plenty of time,” Emily said. “What have you been doing?” I didn’t like how she sounded like my mom.

  I gathered my stuff without answering. I hadn’t been doing anything important. I never did much of anything, which is probably why I was always bored.

  “I’m going to the library. I can skip fourth period and get something written.”

  “Good luck, I guess.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  I could feel Emily’s disapproval the whole time I walked away.

  • • •

  They were calling it a vigil, but it felt more like a funeral. Everyone was crying, and the whole event was totally awkward, and I wished I’d stayed home. It was even worse than it should have been, because I went with my mom. I’d been planning on asking Emily to go with me, but after the blowup about my paper, I decided it was maybe, probably, a bad idea. So there I was, at a vigil for a girl I hated with my hippie mom and surrounded by pretty much every single person I went to school with except for the one person who was actually my friend.

  Lizzie had been living in Layton, a town about fifteen minutes away. But her mom still lived in Griffin Mills, which I guess is why they chose to do the vigil here. It was at the biggest park in town, the one with a man-made lake and old-fashioned bandstand. Lizzie’s mom was on the bandstand with Mayor Thompson and some other people I didn’t know, though one was clearly a priest and another a police officer.

  A crowd of people surrounded the bandstand. My mom and I were in the middle of the mess. People crushed against us like we were at a concert, making the September evening seem warmer than it actually was. I saw kids from school, neighbors, and people who graduated the same year as Rush. There were a bunch of people I didn’t recognize though. Lizzie had lots of friends. Or, at least, a lot of people who wanted to be her friend.

  Volunteers from the middle school were weaving through the crowd, handing out white daisies and telling people they were Lizzie’s favorite flower.

  “Daisies? Aren’t we supposed to have candles?” I asked my mom.

  “I think the flowers are nice.”

  You could tell who the reporters were, even the ones who didn’t have camera crews with them or little notepads in their hands. They were dressed too professionally, watching everything too closely. I wished I were one of them, that I didn’t have anything to do with Griffin Mills and had only shown up because it was my job.

  “There’s your brother,” my mom said. She waved her hand above the crowd, trying to get his attention.

  Either Rush didn’t see her or he pretended not to. That’s what I would have done. He was with his best friend, Connor, and the two of them had the attention of some giggling middle school girls. That’s how it is for people who used to play football in the Mills, especially the guys who are still young and attractive. They’re minor celebrities young girls dare each other to talk to.

  “He doesn’t see us. Let’s go say hi.”

  “Mom, no. Just no.”

  “I’m not going to embarrass him, Hawthorn.”

  “You’re going to embarrass me.”

  Before my mom could respond, the mayor stepped up to the microphone, tapped it once to see if it was working, then launched into a speech about how in tragic times, it’s so important for a community to come together and blah, blah, blah. I shifted from foot to foot and looked around at the crowd, at all the people who loved Lizzie gathered in one place.

  Part of me wished something terrible would happen. Like maybe there was a fault line running through the park, and there’d be an earthquake, and the ground would split open, and we’d all be swallowed. Or a flash flood would wash away everyone at the vigil. Then the world would pretty much be free of anyone who cared about Lizzie. It would be like she never existed.

  Only she did exist. And she was probably out there somewhere watching the news coverage, laughing about how easily she’d tricked everyone. Then she’d go to a new town and start over. Make a whole new group of people love her. And maybe, if they were lucky, she’d deem a few of those people worthy enough to get her love in return.

  Lizzie’s mom took the microphone next. She was a tired-looking woman in wrinkled clothes. A woman whose appearance had clearly stopped mattering to her since her daughter disappeared.

  “I want to thank everyone for coming,” Ms. Lovett said. “I wish Elizabeth could see us gathered together like this.”

  She paused and blinked back tears, trying to stay composed while she pleaded with the crowd to find her only child.

  “I also want to thank everyone who’s been part of the search party and answering phones on the tip line we’ve set up. I know my daughter is out there, and I know we’ll bring her home.”

  Another pause. Ms. Lovett pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes.

  “Father Patrick is going to lead us in a prayer, but first, I wanted to say a few words about Elizabeth.”

  She reached into her pocket again and pulled out a piece of paper. She unfolded it and held it in a hand that shook as much as her voice.

  “Those who know Elizabeth know how full of life she is. Even as a baby, she was always smiling.”

  Ms. Lovett droned on and on about how great Lizzie is, as if everyone hadn’t heard it a million times already. Lizzie was the reason her squad had won the state cheerleading competition years ago. She was so friendly that she got Christmas cards from people she’d only met once. She was so selfless that she donated a third of every paycheck to some wildlife conservation society. Smart, pretty, talented, humble. Lizzie Lovett was perfect.

  I stopped listening and started looking around.

  That’s when I saw movement on the other side of the bandstand. People parted as someone pushed through the crowd. He climbed up the steps toward Lizzie’s mom. Shoulders slouched, hands shoved into the pockets of a wrinkled gray cardigan. His longish, dark hair hung in his eyes. Lorenzo Calvetti, late for his own girlfriend’s vigil.

  Even from where I was, I could see the head of police frowning at him. Ms. Lovett paused and motioned Lorenzo to her, wrapping an arm around his skinny shoulders.

  “Elizabeth’s absence has left a hole in many lives. She… I know my daughter. She didn’t run away. She’s out there in those woods, and she’s alone and scared. I just want her to come home safely. I need her to come home.”

  Ms. Lovett broke down. Lorenzo shifted his weight, like he knew he was supposed to comfort her but didn’t know how. Mayor Thompson ended up being the one to do it. He stepped forward and whispered some things in Ms. Lovett’s ear and pulled her back from the microphone.

  The police officer took over and talked about where the search parties would be meeting the next day and what people could do to help. Then the priest led the gathering in prayer. I watched the people on the bandstand. Ms. Lovett wiping her eyes. Lorenzo Calvetti running his hands through his hair. Lorenzo Calvetti looking down at his feet. Lorenzo Calvetti looking like he wanted to be anywhere else. Lizzie was missing, but Lorenzo was the one who seemed in need of rescue.

  It wasn’t until people started waving their daisies in the air that I pulled my attention away from the bandstand. It seemed spontaneous but probably was planned, because somehow, everyone else knew that’s what the flowers were for. People held them above their heads and swayed back and forth. Fat
her Patrick prayed, and hundreds of tiny white petals blew around in the breeze, making something beautiful out of something ugly.

  I didn’t wave my daisy. I felt small, the way an ant must feel looking up at a field of wildflowers. I was nothing. I was trapped below the flowers, buried under them, while girls like Lizzie Lovett danced overhead. That was life. We all have a place.

  I wondered where Lorenzo Calvetti belonged.

  Chapter 6

  Under the Light of the Moon

  I pretty much expected my parents to drop the whole part-time job idea, but they didn’t. That’s why, on the Saturday after the vigil, I spent the day driving around, pretending to look for work.

  Except at first, I wasn’t pretending. I went to the video rental place that had been on the verge of closing for, like, five years. They weren’t hiring. So I went to the trendy shoe store next door. It’s a place I’d always hated, not just because they call themselves a boutique, but also because all their shoes are ugly. I wanted to tell my parents I’d put in a lot of applications though, so I was about to fill out the paperwork when Mychelle Adler appeared from nowhere. She was all, “Oh my God, don’t tell me you’re actually applying to work here.” I put down the application and walked out.

  After that, I drove to the sporting goods store where the jock manager didn’t look interested in hiring me and looked super uninterested once I told him I didn’t have a cell phone where he could reach me. I do have a cell phone, but it usually sits on my desk or in the bottom of my backpack, uncharged. What did it matter? It’s not like people ever called me. There was a sign outside the fast-food taco shop saying they were hiring, but the greasy teenager behind the counter gave me a creepy look, so I walked right back out.

  That’s when I decided to spend the rest of my day driving around aimlessly and making up places I could tell my mom I’d applied.

  I ended up in Layton, and that made me think of Lizzie, and that made me think of how she’d worked at some diner. Since I was already in town, I decided to look for it.

  It was actually pretty easy. Layton only has a few major streets running through it, so there wasn’t a lot of area to cover, and I only saw one diner that fit the newspaper’s description of where Lizzie worked. The Sunshine Café. I pulled into a parking spot.

  The café was a sad brick building at the edge of an even sadder shopping center. It looked like it had been painted yellow a billion years before and never touched again. The name of the diner was written on the side of the building next to a big, orange, smiley-faced sun, and the specials sign in the window still said it was June.

  A bell jingled when I stepped in, and I was relieved to see the inside was a little more inviting. It was a small place, with a single row of booths along one wall and a counter along the other. The kitchen was behind the counter, and I could see into it through the window where food was set out to be delivered by the waitresses. Waitresses like Lizzie. I tried to picture the Lizzie Lovett I knew working there. It was sort of impossible to imagine.

  The only patron was an old man hunched over the far end of the counter, doing a crossword puzzle. I was deciding where to sit, or if I should even stay, when a girl came out of the kitchen. She was in her midtwenties and had bouncy curls and a big smile. She looked like the kind of person who’d been friends with everyone when she was in school, even the nerdy, weird kids no one else wanted to talk to. I smiled back at her, even though I’m not usually the type to smile at strangers.

  “Hi!” she said. “Let me grab you a menu.”

  “Uh, actually, I was wondering if you were hiring.”

  The girl seemed thrown off. I was too. The words had come out of my mouth without getting permission from my brain.

  “Well, I guess we are,” she laughed. “You have good timing. Let me tell the manager you’re here.”

  She disappeared into the back, and I sat down on a stool at the opposite end of the counter from the old man. I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t know why I’d said anything about a job. I’d only wanted to see where Lizzie worked. I wanted to prove to myself that she did work, since Lizzie seemed like someone who could go her entire life without having responsibilities.

  I was thinking about jetting out the door, but I hesitated too long. The waitress bounced over, saying Mr. Walczak would be out in a second, and he’d act really stern, but he was totally laid-back, and I should just be myself, and then the job would likely be mine.

  “I’m Christa, by the way.”

  “Hawthorn Creely.”

  “Hawthorn. That’s an interesting name.”

  I made a face, and she laughed.

  “Do you live in Layton?”

  “No, Griffin Mills. No one’s hiring there though.”

  Christa rolled her eyes. “There’s no one hiring anywhere. I got lucky. Half my friends have to drive all the way to Pittsburgh for work.”

  “There’s an opening here though, huh?” I said, as if I didn’t know why there was an opening. I patted myself on the back for casually working that into conversation. I told myself I was awesomely sneaky and maybe, probably, had what it took to be a secret agent.

  Christa got a look on her face, which I was super familiar with from my time at Griffin Mills High School. Her eyes went wide, and she cast furtive glances around the dining room. It was the look of someone who wanted to gossip. She lowered her voice and leaned over the counter. “You know about Lizzie Lovett, right? The girl who’s missing?”

  I tried to keep my face neutral, as if Lizzie was just a name from a newspaper article.

  “Sure,” I said. “Everyone knows about her.”

  “Well, she worked here.”

  “Really?”

  Christa nodded. “At first, Mr. Walczak was holding Lizzie’s job for her, ’cause we all thought she’d come back. Then yesterday, he started talking about putting a listing in the newspaper just in case.”

  “Wow. That’s crazy. So you think she’s gone for good?”

  Christa lowered her voice even more. “I don’t know for sure, but I think her disappearance has something to do with her boyfriend. I always thought he was a weirdo.”

  I wanted to tell her weirdo and killer aren’t always the same thing, but that would likely blow my slick super-spy cover, so I didn’t.

  “You think he killed her?” I asked.

  “I’m not saying he killed her. Not for sure, anyway. I just think it’s all a little suspicious.”

  “Like her being in the woods in the first place,” I said. “She doesn’t seem like the outdoorsy type.”

  “Oh, no.” Christa shook her head. “That part isn’t suspicious. Lizzie is totally into camping and hiking. She went out in the woods all the time. Looking for wolves or something.”

  Well, that wasn’t what I expected to hear.

  “Wolves?” I asked.

  “Weird, right?”

  It was weird.

  “Personally, the last thing I’d do is go looking for a wild animal,” Christa said. “I don’t even like domesticated ones. My sister has a dog, and her entire house is covered with fur.”

  Before I could pump Christa for more information about Lizzie, a nervous-looking man with a ruddy complexion came out of the kitchen and told me to follow him to his office. I hadn’t planned on taking the charade that far. I wasn’t ready for another mini golf experience, especially when I’d probably get fired as soon as Lizzie decided to come back.

  But I sat down in the manager’s office. I answered his questions and told him I thought I’d be a really, really great waitress. At the end of the interview, when he shook my hand and said I’d be a welcome addition to their staff, I knew I’d reached the point of no return.

  • • •

  I couldn’t sleep that night. It was close to midnight, and I was lying on the swing on the front porch. Maybe my insomnia wouldn’t ha
ve been a big deal if I had Saturday night plans like everyone else in the entire school. Everyone else was probably at parties. Everyone else was enjoying what some people would call the “best years of life.” Not me. I was hanging out alone on my front porch.

  Sometimes, when it’s late at night and I’m feeling especially lonely, I think about middle school me. Eighth-grade Hawthorn knew what high school was supposed to be like. I’d watched movies, read books, attended high school football games, and heard stories from Rush. I knew exactly what to expect.

  And then I got there, and it was all wrong.

  Actually, my expectations weren’t wrong. I was. High school was full of crazy adventures and friendships and dating and stuff. It’s just, it was wrong for me. I didn’t know how to be a part of all that or even if I really wanted to be.

  Which made it impossible to get excited about applying to college. Because I had certain expectations of that too. And if they were as spectacularly misguided as my expectations for high school, I had another string of disappointments waiting right around the corner.

  I closed my eyes and tried to clear my head. Tried not to think of next year and how dissatisfying it would probably be. I tried not to think of anything at all. I just wanted the night to end. The whole week, really.

  But I couldn’t turn off my brain. Even though I was tired, I couldn’t stop thinking of high school and college and everything that came after. Sometimes, it felt like I’d already missed my chance to become something awesome. I was too old to find out I was a musical prodigy or a child genius or a superhero. I wasn’t even awesome in an ordinary way. Like Lizzie.

  I bet she was never alone on a Saturday night. Not in high school for sure. A party wasn’t a party unless Lizzie Lovett showed up. My brother was at those parties. Him and all the other jocks. He was probably at a party that very minute, drinking beer with his friends while they discussed their old friend who was lost in the woods.