Quiet Lies

by R. L. Griffin

  “I think so,” I answer. “Thanks for meeting me here, I wouldn’t have stopped.”

  I start walking to the back of the market and she follows me.

  “Well?” she asks expectantly.

  “Oh, it’s a three bedroom in the middle of the island. The back porch is amazing and is steps from the water.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “I saw one that I loved, but it was on the point and I thought Bash would like this location better. You know rougher waves and all that.” I gaze at all the different vendors around us. “The realtor told me where I could buy a golf cart so I’ll probably do that as soon as we get down here too.” As we walk, I look at all the faces of happy people; some are talking to others, some examining their creations and I decide I want to open a booth here when we move. I can sell my jewelry here and meet actual people.

  “Are you okay?” she says to my back and I don’t stop walking.

  I don’t say a word. Out of every single person in my life Samantha has never betrayed me and that’s saying something because most of the people I’ve chosen to be in my life have stabbed me in the heart in the worst way. It has made me very concerned about my own ability to judge people and keeps my balance of sanity right on the precipice. I cut her out anyway. I disowned my past for a future with the devil, the biggest regret of my life.

  I feel a friendly hand on my forearm.

  “Becs, I’m worried.” Concern takes over her features. Her blue eyes are covered by large black sunglasses, her hair cut in an edgy pixie cut, the ends dipped in a violet purple.

  “Don’t be.” I smile my fake smile.

  “That’s a fake fucking smile Rebecca.” She takes off her glasses and stops me with a hand on my bicep. “You forget I’ve known you since preschool. You may have been gone for over a decade, but I still know you and all I’ve seen from you since you’ve been here has been smoke and mirrors. You’re in trouble. The question is what kind of trouble.”

  “It’s not a fake smile,” I placate. She’s right though, I can’t be around her for long because she’ll know I’m full of shit.

  “Holy shit,” Samantha’s mother, Jill, calls from her tent as we approach. “As I fucking live and breathe.” As soon as I reach the edge of the tent, Jill pulls me into a bear hug that lasts a little too long for my comfort. “Girl, we’ve been waiting for you to come back home.” She’s got several new tattoos since the last time I saw her, the day after high school graduation when I was completely shattered. She was my savior back then, my soft place to fall.

  “Good to see you too,” I laugh and I step back from the woman I think of like a mother, or at least I used to.

  She pushes me out at arm’s length and examines me. “You look like you got a mess of trouble going on with your hair and all that.” Her hand circles in front of me.

  “And all that?” I ask, chuckling.

  “Girl, you know what I mean, don’t make me call you out in front of Sam,” she whispers in my ear as she pulls me into her again.

  I nod. She’s one of those people that knows everything just by looking at you.

  “So what are you guys up to?” Jill asks, finally releasing me.

  “Well, Becs was on the island today renting a house and she hasn’t been here in fifteen years, so I thought I’d bring her here.”

  “You rented a house?”

  I nod, another sneaky smile appears on my face.

  “The more things change…” Samantha shrugs her features showing her excitement.

  “The more things stay the same,” Jill finishes for Samantha. “You know, I followed your jewelry for a while, some of your pieces are so fucking amazing, heart breaking and brilliant. Then they stopped.”

  I smile and nod, not really hearing her words because memories come flying at me. Standing behind the table with all of Jill’s creams and soap memories, the smell even takes me back to high school and I duck as images rush at me from a time lost.

  I changed the website when I started selling under the new company’s name, hiding my identity. Then word of mouth gave me enough cash to start a new life.

  “They never stopped.”

  I run my hands through my long hair. It falls in brown ringlets, with just a twinge of blue that Samantha put in last night. The sun is just rising over the marsh and I throw my hand out the window of Jill’s Ford Explorer. All of her creams, candles and lotions on the seat next to me.

  “There are stars in the southern sky,” we all yell the words to the Eagles’ song in unison.

  The chill of the spring morning air kisses my cheeks and the sun winks at me as we drive the main drag on Johns Island.

  “Hey Jill, do we have time to stop at the angel? I want a picture of me and Sam there.”

  “Sure baby girl,” Jill answered and pulled off the dirt road.

  The Angel tree is a 1,400 year old live oak on the island and once you get used to it, it’s not as awing as when you first see it, but there’s no denying God when you see the massive tree.

  Samantha and I bound out of the SUV and run to the tree. Throwing our hands around each other we smile and wait for Jill to take our picture.

  “Come on, Mom,” Samantha yells to her mother.

  “Whatever weirdos.” Samantha’s mother jogs to the tree in her maxi dress and sandals. She wraps her arms around both of us, attempting to get all of us with her digital camera. We all look at the picture to make sure it’s turned out. The sun’s rays just peeking through the branches that are so plentiful it’s hard to believe they are real, frame us like we’re angels. Our heads are cut off.

  “Well, I tried,” she laughs and walks back a few steps to take a picture of me and Samantha. Samantha let me dye her hair with pink last night, it made her white blonde hair pop in contrast.

  “If you don’t hurry, I won’t be able to tell anyone how awesome your body cream is. I’ll tell them it sucks and makes me break out in hives.”

  “You’re not a liar girl,” Jill answers the threat looking around her camera.

  “Oh, but I can be,” Samantha chides.

  “We don’t lie,” I nudge Samantha with my shoulder. It’s something that we’ve always had in common; we’re both brutally honest. It’s off putting to some, but we get each other. We always have.

  “I’m just kidding,” Samantha nudges me back after Jill takes the picture. Samantha knows everything about me. That’s rare, to find the person who can see all of you and still love you, still be your friend without judgment.

  “You know what they say about lies, right?” Jill asks. We just stare at her as we start walking back toward the road. “If you lie once people will question everything you say.”

  Samantha and I shrug her off and grab hands as we run the rest of the way to the SUV. I jump into the back seat. I eat the rest of my biscuit with country ham on the way to the market while we chat about school, what we plan on doing the summer before our senior year and Jill’s latest boyfriend.

  My hair blows in the wind, my smile so enormous it hurts my face and I’m happy. The kind of happy that I don’t realize is fleeting. A feeling of lightness that is only real before you have any real responsibility. There is a tingling in my belly that tells me the future is bright. I take out my fabric sack full of necklaces and bracelets I’ve made. A warm wave of jubilance washes over me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The Brink is Beautiful

  My rental house is deep blue with white trim and sits on the edge of the ocean. Bash and I pull underneath the house and an eerie feeling of peace passes over me. It doesn’t stay and I watch it flit and flip in the sky like a kite caught in the wind.

  “It looks cool,” Bash says as we get out of the car and walk up the white stairs to the expansive screened-in porch that overlooks the road. There is a three foot metal octopus wrapped around an anchor that adorns a space next to the front door. Bash runs his finger over it and looks toward the rocking chairs.

  “The ocean is our
backyard,” I comment.

  “Pretty awesome.”

  I push the door and let Bash in, it opens into a huge open space with the den and kitchen in one big room. The back of the house is all windows so that you can always see the ocean. That’s why I rented this house, I want to see the ocean wherever I am in the house, to remind me that I am small in the grand scheme of things. I need it to help me remember that I’m alive. That what I’ve been through hasn’t killed me. I hope that it will somehow give me the strength to know that what I’m about to do won’t kill me, but set me free. How I’ve longed to be free…

  The waves batter the shore ten feet away from the back porch, it must be high tide. There are plastic white rocking chairs made to look like wood adorning the wraparound porch. The ocean used to be grounding for me and I hope it can pull me back from the brink now.

  I’ve sold all of my jewelry. Every single piece. People are actually wearing something I made. My day couldn’t get any better. Then it does.

  “Hey beautiful,” Seaver says as he walks into Jill’s tent around noon and makes my entire day better, if that is even possible. Everything feels possible.

  “Hey.” I blush and tuck brown waves behind my ear. I love him. He doesn’t know it, but we’ll get married and have lots of babies. It’s something I feel in my bones.

  “When are you done here? Can I take you home?” He raises his eyebrows suggestively.

  I look at Jill. She ignores me. She doesn’t like him, at all. Says I can do better, but he is my world. He is my better.

  “What’re you doing until later?” I ask.

  “I’m going to walk around the market and think about touching you,” he whispers in my ear.

  Samantha giggles. She must’ve heard him. “Mom, you and I can handle the rest of today, right?”

  “Rebecca, you call your mom and get an okay before you leave.” Jill hands me her phone with a disapproving look.

  I stare at it. My mother loves that Bryson Seaver is interested in me. His family owns a substantial amount of property in Charleston County. I honestly don’t know why he is interested in me out of all the girls in my school, but he captivated my heart as soon as I learned that he wanted to be a teacher instead of following his dad’s footsteps by getting into real estate. He had his own thoughts, his own dreams, that are different from his family’s. His family was a little scary to me, I try to stay away.

  We met at the weight room. I tried out for cheerleading and made the junior varsity team, which meant I had to spend a few weeks in the weight room before school. I’d never lifted weights before and it was pretty hilarious. Seaver helped me. He showed me which weights and machines I had to use according to my sheet from the coach. I was floundering until he and his bright eyes and soft smile offered to help.

  I took the phone and walked to the back of the tent. The phone rang and rang, she wasn’t home.

  “Mom,” I say into the phone. “Is it cool if I go with Seaver to hang at the beach?”

  I pause. “Okay, thanks.” The phone is still ringing. I disconnect the phone and hand it back to Jill. “It’s cool.”

  “Alrighty,” Jill responds giving me a look.

  Seaver takes my hand and I pull against him. I wrap an arm around Sam. “See you later,” I say into her hair. “Your hair looks hot. Her hair looks hot, doesn’t it Seaver?”

  “I like it,” Seaver obliges me then pulls me into him. He smells like salt water and suntan lotion.

  “Okay, be safe,” she calls as Seaver and I walk toward where the cars are located, our fingers entwined. I laugh as we leave her with her worry, but we weren’t safe and it changed everything.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Dreams Turn to Dust

  Sitting at the old diner we used to visit in high school, I’m transported back in time, to where I was carefree, naïve and sane. My dreams were singular. They included the love of my life and being happy. That was it...happiness was my goal. My mom made me apply to colleges, but I was planning on staying at the College of Charleston with Seaver.

  The plastic booth squeaks and sticks to my legs. As I lean to the side I pull my skirt down and separate my legs from the booth and pluck the paper menu out of the holder. It is exactly like I remembered.

  “Rebecca, you look so different,” Samantha comments softly as she looks down at the menu. It’s obvious she doesn’t need to look down because the menu hasn’t changed in fifteen years. Stains pepper the menu and the comfort it gives me is asinine. Can I get back here?

  “I know, right?” Jessica agreed cheerfully. I hate her.

  “It’s just the blonde,” I said flipping the long tresses off my right shoulder. I’ve already had this conversation with Samantha and don’t know why she’s bringing it up again. I dress differently because I’m not eighteen anymore. I’m an adult.

  “No, you had the color in college. I mean I guess it’s a little different too, but it’s your eyes. I don’t know.” Her voice drifts off pressing against the ceiling tile staining it.

  My brow furrows on its own, even though I was trying to keep my mask in place.

  “She looks so...classy.” Jessica’s words drip with condescension.

  I turn, examining her from my spot in the booth.

  “Classy,” I repeat. I turn the word over in my mind and know it’s a dig from her in a way that I don’t want to think about. “I’m not really sure what you mean by that.” My voice is clipped and calm.

  “I mean, yeah, whatever, but it’s something else. I can’t put my finger on it.” Samantha, Jessica and I were joined at the hip when we were younger. We did everything together. It surprised everyone that three females could stay friends for so long, we didn’t get jealous of each other, but simply supported each other, loved each other. Samantha and I were always closer, but then Jessica and I went to college together, we lived with each other all four years. Samantha went to a junior college in Walterboro, which was within driving distance from her mom’s house. She and her mom worked hard, but they couldn’t afford a four year college and she didn’t want to take out loans like I did.

  She started cutting hair in college. Now she owns her own salon in Charleston and does really well for herself. She married a man that loves and respects her. She’s happy. She’s living my old dream, the one that I chased. The dream that went to hell and sucked me in with it.

  “Oh, you think I look classy Sam?” I joke trying to lighten the mood a bit.

  A woman approaches the table wearing a red polyester uniform that looked as if it was passed down from employee to employee year after year for two decades. The uniform is threadbare. The threads are holding onto each other like they are playing a really good game of Red Rover.

  “Well, look who the cat dragged in,” Samantha commented, her gaze focused on the door, behind Jessica and me.

  “I’d like a coffee and chili cheese fries,” I order.

  Jessica glares at me.

  “What? That’s what I want,” I answer her look.

  “You cannot eat like that and look the way you do,” Jessica responds.

  “You have no idea what I can do.” There is an underlying threat in my statement and we both know it.

  “I’ll have shrimp and grits please,” Samantha orders breaking Jessica’s glare at me.

  Our server taps her pen on her pad, waiting on Jessica to order.

  “Um,” Jessica says running her finger down the page. “Grilled cheese with fried pickles. Can I get a side of ranch too, please?”

  This is our exact order from high school after we’d go out and come here before our curfew.

  “Okay, I’ll put that in ladies.”

  “Bryson Seaver is the most useless piece of ass I’ve ever seen,” Samantha comments and then takes a sip of her water. Her eyes find mine over the rim of the glass in a searching way and a million different conversations pass through them. That name used to mean something to me.

  “Whoa, talk about a walk down memory lane,�
� Jessica comments as she turns to face the door. Jessica lives in Charleston now and we’re on Johns Island, an island a little south of the city.

  I don’t turn, but sip my coffee. My mug is the typical white ceramic and I put it back on the table in front of me, my crimson lips stain the side perfectly. There are oak trees lining the street outside the diner. They make me long for my life when I saw these trees every day. I close my eyes, my life incinerating behind my lids.

  “Hey ladies, I haven’t seen you two together in years. Are you having some sort of half a reunion? The best one is missing.”

  The best one. Who’s the best one? His voice is the same, lazy and full of grit.

  “Bryson,” Jessica’s mouth spits his name out like it tastes bad.

  He nods and then looks at me. A glimmer of recognition sparkles in his eyes then disappears. I never called him Bryson. He used to hate that name.

  “You ladies look gorgeous as ever, not a day over thirty-five.” He’s staring, but I’m still not sure he recognizes me.

  “Fuck off Seaver.” Samantha still has a mouth like a sailor, just like her mom.

  “Aw, now you know I’m just fucking with you Sam.” He finally looks away from me to her. “You know I love you.”

  “You don’t know what love is,” she spits.

  I sneak a look at him through the shield of my blonde hair. His smile is easy, his caramel colored hair unruly. It’s pulled back in a bun, but a mane of lackadaisical curls escapes. It is naturally highlighted by the sun and it gives him the look of a coastal bum, a look complete with his brown leather flip flops and faded red shorts.

  He looks so different from when I knew him that I wouldn’t have recognized him. I’m the same way, I guess. His all American face is covered with a haphazardly grown beard. We both changed everything about ourselves. Maybe time does this to everyone and I only think I’m special, that I’ve changed more than anyone. After the wearing away of the years our bodies, our personalities, are like the shore and erode over time.

  We all look different, smell different, feel different. I run my hand through my long tresses and unconsciously flip a lock through my manicured nails.