Truth or Beard

by Penny Reid

  Cletus wiped his mouth with the corner of his napkin then placed the used paper towel on top of the plates stacked in front of Jethro.

  “You better get started on those dishes,” he said to Jethro. “It’s the least you can do given the trouble you’ve caused. And you,” he turned to me, “you need to call Tina and tell her we got it covered. We can’t have her messing things up or making complications.”

  I nodded.

  “What about me?” asked Beau, sitting back in his chair, looking mighty relaxed and pleased.

  “Well now, Beau. You and I,” Cletus clamped his hand on my twin’s shoulder, “we need to go find ourselves a turkey.”

  CHAPTER 25

  “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

  ― Mark Twain

  ~Jessica~

  Tina brought her new boyfriend to Thanksgiving dinner. He wanted us all to call him Twilight.

  This was an odd and difficult adjustment for our family because his real name was Isaac Sylvester and my brother had known him since kindergarten. His father, Kip, was my boss and his mother, Diane, ran the bakery in town and read poetry at the library on Thursday nights. His sister, Jennifer, was the baker of those infamous award-winning banana cakes.

  And he wanted us to call him Twilight.

  I was too tired and melancholy to truly feel the level of bafflement this request deserved. However, I did notice the initial exchange between my brother and Isaac/Twilight when they arrived with Tina’s momma. It went something like this:

  Jackson: “Tina. I didn’t know you were bringing Isaac. Good to see you, man.”

  Isaac/Twilight: “It’s Twilight.”

  Jackson (looking bemused): “No it ain’t, it’s not even noon yet.”

  Isaac/Twilight: “No. My name is Twilight.”

  Jackson (still looking bemused): “Say what?”

  Isaac/Twilight: “My name. Call me Twilight.”

  Jackson: “You mean like that My Little Pony character?”

  Tina: “Jackson! I didn’t know you were a My Little Pony fan.”

  Jackson (scowling then motioning to Isaac/Twilight): “Jessica was always watching it growing up, and I’m not a fan—not like Twilight Sparkle over here.”

  Isaac/Twilight: “The name is Twilight, not Twilight Sparkle.”

  Jackson (irritated): “If you want me to call you Twilight, then don’t be surprised if I slip up a few times and call you Pinky Pie.”

  A similar conversation ensued when Twilight was brought in to greet my dad, except my dad said, “That’s not a name, son. That’s a time of day.”

  It didn’t take long for us to realize that the Isaac Sylvester we used to know wasn’t this Twilight fella. Last I’d heard, Isaac had joined the army and was stationed in Afghanistan; that was six years ago. But now the leather jacket he wore covered with Iron Order patches quickly told us everything we needed to know.

  My father’s method of solving the inherent awkwardness was to put a beer in all empty hands and turn on the football game so loud no one could speak. Tina stayed with the men in the family room, basically sitting on Twilight’s lap.

  Meanwhile my momma, my daddy’s sister, and I made dinner. It was just as well. Mashing potatoes was a good outlet for my gloomy aggression, and neither my mother nor my aunt expected me to talk much.

  I was feeling hollowed out, like Duane had removed some essential part of me and had taken it with him. I had no way of getting it back.

  Therefore, Thanksgiving was spent in a distracted haze of sadness and self-doubt. My family attributed the depression to my mother’s death. Several times during the day my momma put her hand on my back and rubbed the space between my shoulders.

  Then she’d say, “I know. I know it hurts,” give me a quick hug, and walk away fighting her own tears. I’d watch her go, grimacing to myself, because I wasn’t preoccupied mourning the loss of Louisa. I mean, I mourned her. I was sad she’d died, but she’d spent all my life, especially while I was in college, keeping me at arm’s length.

  I guess now I knew why…but not really. Her actions still didn’t make sense to me and I was too exhausted to contemplate Louisa’s decisions. The reality of Louisa’s betrayal—because it was starting to feel like one—was too fresh.

  My momma seemed to think I was feeling a great deal more despair about Louisa than I was, and contradicting her assumption felt wrong. It felt heartless, especially in the face of her genuine pain. So I kept my mouth shut and accepted her sympathy, offering my shoulder as a safe place for her to cry.

  Meanwhile, the focus of my conscious desolation was of the red-bearded man-troubles variety.

  Matters were not helped when Tina sauntered into the kitchen after dinner. I’d offered to do all the dishes. All of them. All. On my own, with no help, because I really just needed to be by myself. I didn’t hear her come in because I was scrubbing the roasting pan and trying not to cry.

  “Hey, Jess. Want company?” she asked right before her arm wrapped around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “I am so sorry about your aunt.”

  I stiffened, then sighed, relaxing and giving an odd sideways lean into her embrace. I couldn’t hug her without drying off my hands and that just felt like too much effort. She obviously didn’t know the truth yet. I made a mental note to talk to my parents about the plan going forward, how they wanted to proceed, if they wanted people to know I’d been adopted.

  “Thanks, Tina.” I acknowledged her sympathy with a head nod. “But no need to keep me company in here. I imagine your boyfriend can’t be feeling too comfortable with Jackson poking fun at his new name.”

  Tina leaned against the counter at my side and giggled. “Twilight isn’t my boyfriend. We’ve been hooking up a lot lately, is all. I brought him to ease my momma’s mind. She thinks I’m some kind of biker whore, so I figured bringing a familiar face from the Order would make her feel better.”

  I slid my eyes to the side and scrutinized my cousin. “What do you do with the Order anyhow? When you’re there at the Dragon Biker Bar?”

  She shrugged. “We play pool. Get drunk. Have fun, fool around. Sometimes I put on a show.”

  “Do you ever feel like you’re in danger? I mean, the Order doesn’t have the best reputation.”

  She shrugged again and this time when she giggled it sounded nervous. “Well…not in danger exactly. I mean, things can get pretty intense and scary—like some of the guys can be really rough—but I think I like it, most of the time. I really like it when they fight over me, I like that part a lot.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. I was trying not to judge. Trying really hard. Because watching two men fight over who would be having sex with me didn’t sound all that appealing. And I didn’t know how to ask the questions I suddenly wanted to ask, but knew would be imprudent, not to mention impolite. What Tina did, and who she did it with, and why in tarnation she did it was none of my business.

  I felt her eyes on me; apparently, she misinterpreted my struggle, because she said, “Duane and I aren’t back together.”

  I stiffened with surprise and dropped the roasting pan I’d been holding, splashing water on my apron. “What? What did you say?”

  “I said, Duane and I aren’t back together. Despite what you may have heard, we aren’t. He came to see me on Friday, at the Pink Pony, and I know how some people like to gossip. I’m sure you heard about it.”

  I felt many things at that moment and all of them were of the ugly, jealous variety. I recognized something about myself just then: I wasn’t enlightened or open-minded. Not even a little.

  I didn’t want Duane going to the Pink Pony, watching and admiring naked women, and I didn’t want him seeking out Tina. Just the thought of it made me angry. And feeling more and more like a woman scorned—in the Shakespearean sense. And lots of crazy-woman scorned thoughts bounced around my brain making me dizzy. The room tilted and I gripped the edge of the sink.

  Maybe Duan
e didn’t want to leave Green Valley because he didn’t want to leave Tina and all the dancers at the Pink Pony. Maybe I wasn’t enough for him. Maybe he’d been expecting me to conform to some role, where he raced cars and got lap dances on the weekends while I stayed home, knitted him socks, and folded his laundry.

  But that wasn’t right. That wasn’t the Duane Winston I knew and fell in love with. That wasn’t even the Duane I grew up with. Reason raised its hand and suggested I doubt my cousin, or doubt her version of events at least.

  Reason had a calming effect, and that’s when I realized she was still speaking.

  “…so just because he’d been texting and calling me like crazy for the last three weeks didn’t mean I was open to restarting anything between us. Like I said, I’ve moved on and so should he. I told him—”

  She stopped talking abruptly, frowning as she pulled her phone from her pocket. Helplessly, I watched as she smirked at the screen of her cell.

  “He just can’t stop calling me,” she tsked then showed me the incoming number.

  It was Duane’s number. And he was calling her.

  I watched her send it to voicemail. I felt her eyes on me, though mine were affixed to the phone. Duane was calling her, he’d left her messages. Now maybe I was being willfully blind, but I could not swallow the notion that Duane cheated with Tina, or with anyone for that matter.

  He loved me. He did. I knew it. And no one could convince me otherwise. And he wasn’t a cheater. I knew him. Therefore, with cold conviction, I turned my tired gaze back to Tina.

  “You’re lying.”

  Her full lips parted, like she was offended, and she stuttered for a bit before managing, “What? You just saw his number flash on my phone. You just saw him call me.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not doubting the calls or the messages, Tina. But you’re still lying. This smells like a skunk in a perfume shop. First of all, you come in here on Thanksgiving, the day after I come back from my…Louisa’s funeral, and tell me how Duane has been visiting you at the Pink Pony, waving that phone in my face, wanting to stir shit up. I don’t buy it. You’re trying too hard.”

  Tina was giving me her angry bitch face, which was actually pretty scary, but I was too numb to feel fear or intimidation.

  After an intense and drawn-out staring contest, Tina rolled her eyes, flipped her hair, and snorted. “Whatever. You believe what you want. But that don’t change the fact—”

  “That’s right, nothing you can do or show me will change the fact that I know Duane Winston, and he is a good man. He’s not his father. He’s not a cheater. He wouldn’t do that to me or to anyone. And I know he loves me, I know it. I trust him, and I love him and…” And, now I was crying.

  I didn’t know why she was doing this, why she wanted to make me believe that Duane had been running around behind my back, but I didn’t care to know her reasons.

  Using still wet hands, I turned from Tina and grabbed a paper towel, using it to wipe my eyes and nose.

  I could feel her stare, feel her intense dislike, as she pressed, “I thought you weren’t together. Isn’t that what you told me at dinner a few weeks ago? Or were you lying?”

  I shook my head, sniffled, and squared my shoulders as I faced her. “Not that it’s any of your business, but we weren’t together when you and I had dinner. Then we worked things out a few weeks ago.”

  “So why are you crying now?” she spat, pursing her lips, her eyes narrowed slits.

  Suddenly, I was too tired for this conversation, for her brand of crazy, so I said, “That’s also none of your business.”

  I turned away from my cousin and the remainder of the dishes, needing the solace of my dark room and softer tissues.

  “Hey! Wait, we’re not done here.”

  I turned and walked backward, shaking my head at her nasty audacity. “You are my cousin, Tina. I will always love you, notwithstanding your spitefulness. I will. If you ever need my help, I’ll be there for you. But we’re not friends. I don’t like being lied to, and I don’t like you trying to cast aspersions on Duane’s good character. So, we are done here. I’m finished, and now I’m leaving.”

  ***

  Duane,

  I think you’ve broken my heart. I’ve never had my heart broken before, but I’m pretty sure this sick sadness is it. I didn’t sleep after you left. I cried for a long time though. I feel like I kept trying to give myself to you and you kept withholding yourself from me, and now I guess I know why.

  I’m not so good at letting go. Once I get an idea in my head I hold on to it with both hands, so you’ll have to pardon my inability to just walk away now without saying my peace. You said a few things on Wednesday night/Thursday morning that weren’t true, so now I want to set the record straight.

  I meant it when I said I have no immediate plans to leave Green Valley. I still have the rest of the school year to finish and there’s no one to who can fill in or take my place. I may have the wanderlust, my soul may long to see and live in the world, to explore and have adventures, but that doesn’t make me a flake. That doesn’t mean I don’t take my obligations and promises seriously.

  Tina came to Thanksgiving at the house yesterday and told me you’ve been chasing after her for the last three weeks. She showed me text messages that you’d sent and then you called her phone, left her a message while I was standing there with her. Just so you know, I don’t believe her. I know you, Duane. You’re not anything like your father. You’re not a cheater.

  I love you and want to be with you all the time, so, yes, I asked you to come with me when the time comes. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. Maybe that’s asking too much. But I want you to belong to me and I want to belong to you.

  I wish you would ask me to stay, or help me try to find a compromise. Compromise isn’t dishonorable. Asking me to stay isn’t either. Please ask me to stay.

  Love always, -Jess

  I read then re-read the seventeenth iteration of my letter.

  Presently, it was the day after Thanksgiving. I’d been working on the letter all day, and had discarded the other sixteen because, after getting past the part where I told him how much I loved him, my mind invariably returned to the moment when he’d left the cabin.

  He’d left me standing in that sheet, with a dead fire and a cold bed. He’d just walked away from me. So I would become spitting mad. I was still mad now, but I recognized calling him insulting names in the letter—like shit-for-brains—might be counterproductive to the letter’s purpose. I needed him to read it. It was a way for me to monologue and share my thoughts without the unhelpful shit-for-brains comments slipping out.

  Plus name calling wasn’t likely to inspire affection and an open heart.

  I set the letter back on my desk and rubbed my eyes, reflecting on how complicated life had become over the last month. Likely it was the ghost of J.R.R. Tolkien making me crazy as retribution for the blasphemy of my sexy Gandalf costume.

  “Knock-knock.”

  I turned from my desk and found Claire poking her head in my bedroom door, her mouth was flattened in sympathy.

  “Hey. How are you holding up?”

  I sighed, twisting to my desk and quickly flipping the letter over. “Come in and shut the door.”

  She did, moving to sit on the edge of my bed nearest my location. I turned fully in my seat to face her.

  “I’m so sorry about your aunt. Your momma says you two were really close.”

  I stared at Claire for a beat, then shook my head. “That’s not true. We weren’t close.”

  “Didn’t you work for her? Live with her over the summer during college?”

  “Yes, but we weren’t close. When I lived with her she had me stay in one of the maid’s rooms, and we never took meals together unless Momma was visiting.”

  Claire’s face screwed up with confusion. “Well, that’s a strange way to treat family.”

  It must’ve been strange for Claire to label it as such, especially co
nsidering Claire’s experience with her own extremely dysfunctional family.

  “I organized her house and schedule. When she had visitors, she’d tell people I was on staff. She never once referred to me by my name, let alone admit I was related. I just figured she was embarrassed by me.” I shrugged, shrugging off the twinge of hurt feelings I’d long ago set aside, but now felt remarkably fresh given the fact she’d given birth to me.

  At first, during the early days of my employment, my feelings had been hurt. I’d thought working for Louisa would bring us closer together. Ironically, in retrospect, I’d thought she’d be like a second mother. I’d thought we’d talk to each other about topics other than hiring a new driver, replacing the tile in the blue damask bedroom, and her various nail and hair appointments.

  But working for my aunt had only served to segregate us into the roles of employer and employee. I’d never grown attached to Aunt Louisa because she didn’t want me to be attached. She’d distanced me in a way that had felt purposeful.

  “Huh…” Claire sat back on the bed, crossing her arms. “That is so bizarre. The way your momma spoke just now she made it sound like your aunt loved you most in the world.”

  I sighed again. I was doing a lot of sighing. I wasn’t ready to tell Claire that my aunt was actually my birth mother. I wasn’t ready to talk about Louisa because I didn’t know how to feel about her. So, once again, I pushed my feelings away.

  I decided to tell Claire the truth minus the maternity reveal. “I never figured her out.”

  “But she left you all that money.”

  “Yeah. She left me everything.”

  Claire tilted her head to the side, her bright eyes assessing my face. “Is that why you look so forlorn? Don’t tell me you’re feeling guilty about your aunt’s money?”

  I shook my head, biting my lip so I wouldn’t speak the truth about my mood. If I’d learned anything from this disaster it was to be considerably more guarded with my heart. I’d always thought that if I were open to love, then love would find me. As it turns out, if you’re open to love, then heartbreak finds you and leaves you naked in a cabin with no electricity or indoor plumbing.