Tell Me Lies

by Carola Lovering

  My phone vibrates on my lap.

  DANE: Come back, babe.

  Jesus. One of my best friends is getting married tomorrow, and I’m dating Dane: a surf-obsessed skater bro who thinks my name is Babe, consistently “forgets” his wallet, and has a tattoo that reads DON’T TALK ABOUT IT, BE ABOUT IT in block lettering on one of his beautiful, muscular shoulders. Such is the strange reality of life at twenty-five: the newfound threat that everything—jobs, people, decisions—matters in a way it never seemed to before. Wasted time is a luxury I’m worried I can no longer afford.

  I watch the city slink away from the window of the train. I close my eyes, still exhausted, but I know I won’t be able to sleep. I can never sleep on any form of transportation. I’m too frantic to read, so I listen to Fleetwood Mac in a nervous frenzy and pray that the bruise-colored bags under my eyes will magically disappear before we reach Tewksbury.

  Now that I’m on the train, actually going there, I’m too preoccupied to think about Melissa and the Departures article and what I’m going to do. Because Bree is marrying Evan. Bree is marrying Evan, and he is going to be there; we are going to be there, sans plus-ones, and I don’t know if I can stand that. The sickness in my stomach is growing worse by the minute, the familiarity of the pain creating a nauseating déjà vu. The same gut-wrenching dread I lived with for years.

  The rehearsal dinner is in a matter of hours, and even though Bree promised only the bridal party and family would be there, she could be wrong. She wasn’t looking at the actual list when she said that.

  I still can’t think about him without thinking about sex. Even after a lot of the emotional residue has cleared, the physical stuff continues to sneak up on me. I close my eyes and there I am, on my hands and knees with him behind me, and I picture the hungry expression on his face, and it has nothing to do with love or missing him, it’s just raw and animalistic and I like to think about it. There is something about that kind of sex that bites into me, that causes the memory to shoot up every once in a while, like something chronic. He’s not the only person who’s fucked me like that; he was just the first.

  My phone vibrates again. It’s my group text with Jackie and Pippa. Their flight got in from LAX this morning.

  PIP: I think we’re close, but our Uber driver is confused. How do you spell Tooksberry, Luce? Tooksbury? We can’t wait to squeeze you!!!

  Tewksbury, I text them. Underneath my anxiety I am ecstatic about seeing Jackie and Pip. I chug water from the liter I bought at Duane Reade and remember to cut myself some slack. If it was anyone other than Evan who Bree was marrying, none of this would be happening and I would be a good, normal friend and bridesmaid instead of a panicked, perspiring wreck busting out of a size 2 Self-Portrait dress. I’m not a size 2 anymore, and, after three years of therapy and numerous conversations with my nutritionist involving the potential harm to my fertility, I can live with that, but for this wedding, I had to make a size 2 work.

  Part of my panic is missing Bree, I know. Watching Bree pack up her half of our apartment after two years together, having Julie move in with her frilly couch pillows and loud food processor.

  The train rolls into the stop for Tewksbury, my head pounding harder with the brakes. Outside, the August air is hot but less humid than Manhattan, thank God. I haul my bags into the first cab I see and give the driver Evan’s parents’ address. They decided to have the wedding in Evan’s hometown in New Jersey instead of Darbydale, Ohio, where Bree was born and raised. A more convenient location—just outside the city—it’s easier for everyone, Bree had explained. And the unspoken: Evan is the one with the stunning, ivy-adorned mansion in one of the most expensive counties in suburban New Jersey. Or maybe it is spoken—it probably is. Bree doesn’t come from much money, and she’s open about it. Her grades won her a scholarship to Choate for high school and then a full ride to Baird College. But she’s the opposite of a gold digger—Bree wouldn’t marry Evan for his money. Since day one she’s been determined to become self-sufficient, and now she’s an associate at J.P. Morgan. She would be just fine without Evan, financially.

  Evan’s house is at the end of a long, curved driveway, nestled into a green hillside. It’s gorgeous, and at least twice the size of my family’s house in Cold Spring Harbor. I let the driver swipe my Visa and then haul all my crap out of the cab like a crazy bag lady. A butler, or someone who seems like a butler, rushes to help me. The foyer is giant and airy and extends to the back of the house, where I can make out Bree’s profile on the terrace. She is chatting with Evan’s parents, who I met at the engagement party at the Pierre. Her white-blond hair is swept back in a low bun and she’s wearing dark, stylish sunglasses that must be a recent purchase.

  As I watch this new, sophisticated version of Bree talking closely with her soon-to-be in-laws, I can’t help but feel nostalgic for the girl I met the first night of freshman year seven years ago—the scrappy, never-done-drugs, never-had-sex Bree.

  I don’t miss college—I basically took my diploma and beelined for my packed U-Haul. Still, nostalgia has my stomach in knots, because I remember that first night by heart.

  * * *

  My mother stood in the doorway of my dorm room, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, glancing around as though something had been forgotten. My dad was calmer, smiling his usual I’m comfortable anywhere grin. I sat on my freshly made twin bed, because the room was tiny and there was no place else to sit. My roommate, a tennis player named Jackie Harper from Wilton, Connecticut, sat across from me on her own bed. Her parents had left hours earlier, and I wished mine would take a hint and do the same.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” CJ said. She pulled a liter of Diet Coke and a handle of Absolut vodka out of her oversize purse and placed them on one of the desks. She looked at me with annoyingly pleased eyes—it was her parting gift, her attempt to keep the peace between us and say to the world: I’m a cool mom.

  Jackie looked impressed. A flash across my dad’s face told me he didn’t agree with his wife on this one. But my dad never crossed CJ.

  “If you’re going to drink, you should drink your own stuff,” CJ said. “Don’t ever drink from a cup that’s been sitting out at a party. That’s how people get roofied. And if you’re going to try drugs, call me with questions. I’m not a dinosaur. I know that college is about experimenting.”

  My father’s mouth formed a straight line, and he looked at his watch. I hadn’t heard this side of CJ in ages—she was usually a warden when it came to my drinking—but deciphering her unpredictable personality was like trying to order dinner from a menu written in foreign characters. She was probably just trying to impress Jackie because she thought Jackie was pretty, and because Jackie’s mother had been wearing Gucci loafers.

  “Lucy.” CJ crossed her thin, tanned arms, her aqua eyes wide. “Last chance. Are you sure about Baird? You don’t have to go to college all the way out in California, you know. If you went to college on the East Coast, you’d still be away at school, but you could see your friends and sister whenever you wanted. Isn’t that worth considering?”

  CJ always asked questions like this, illogical ones with no answers. I’d already unpacked; she’d already made up my bed with her lid-tight hospital corners. Freshman orientation had already started. CJ wasn’t done being pissed that I’d turned down Dartmouth for Baird (a lot of people seemed shocked by that), but what she didn’t understand was that if I didn’t get as far away from her and the tri-state area as soon as possible, I was going to implode.

  “CJ . . . ,” my father started. I could tell he was getting antsy. It had been a long day.

  “Okay, okay. Ugh.” She looked at me. “I’m just going to miss her too much. Fuck, Ben. We’re empty nesters now.”

  CJ swore a lot, which was kind of nice because, growing up, my older sister, Georgia, and I could swear as much as we wanted. Whenever we went out, Georgia and I knew to tame our speech, but CJ didn’t, and her swearing could be embarrassing.
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  Jackie was sitting on her bed chewing gum and pretending to read from the orientation packet, but I could tell she was listening.

  “One more thing.” CJ pulled out a small white box and handed it to me. Inside were two tiny gold studs—one letter L and one letter A, my initials.

  “For your second holes,” CJ explained. CJ had flipped her shit when I got my second holes pierced over the summer. She’d said they were “extremely tacky,” but now, apparently, she had decided to support them.

  “Thanks, CJ. I love them.”

  CJ flinched. She’s used to the fact that I don’t call her Mom anymore—I haven’t in years—but she still hates it, especially when we’re around new people. “They’re going to think I’m your stepmom,” she once said, and I’d shrugged, because after she did the Unforgivable Thing, I stopped caring what she thought.

  “I’m so glad. Here, try them on.”

  CJ placed one stud in each second earhole. Then she hugged me so hard I could barely breathe. For such a small woman she’s freakishly strong—it’s all the Pilates. I inhaled the scent of her Fekkai shampoo and swallowed over the lump lodged in my throat. I couldn’t see her face, but I could tell from her short, uneven breathing that she was crying. I bit the inside of my cheeks so I wouldn’t cry, too.

  My dad is less complicated. He hugged me like he always did—lifting me off the ground and giving me a butterfly kiss with his eyelashes. As usual, his face smelled like Noxzema. He placed me back down and I took in the sight of him—kind blue-gray eyes, dark hair sprinkled with gray. I felt grateful for him in a way I no longer could for CJ.

  “Be good, Sass.” He winked. My parents have called me Sass since I was two and used to parade around the house wearing sunglasses and a feather boa.

  When my parents finally left, Jackie and I looked at each other. Our dorm room was small, but it was all ours. I felt a stir in the base of my stomach at the knowledge that I could finally do whatever I wanted. No curfew, no sneaking around, no asking permission. The expression on Jackie’s face revealed a mutual feeling. We were exhilarated and terrified, all at once.

  We decided to put CJ’s vodka to use immediately. Jackie mixed the drinks in a couple of mugs she’d brought and accidentally tipped one over, spilling the spiked Diet Coke all over my bed. The soda hissed and I watched as the tar-colored liquid soaked my new white sheets and duvet. CJ bought all my bedding at Saks—it was some European designer she loved. CJ always spent way too much on stuff like bedding. My father never seemed to mind.

  Jackie covered her mouth. “Shit! I’m an idiot. Sorry, Lucy.”

  I shrugged, barely caring. I kind of liked seeing CJ’s efforts unexpectedly negate each other. “It’ll come out in the laundry.”

  “We should wash them now, to be sure. I’m an idiot,” Jackie repeated.

  “You’re really not.”

  Jackie stripped the sheets. The hospital corners would never be as perfect again—I don’t even tuck in my top sheet when I make the bed, which CJ hates.

  I could tell Jackie felt really bad, and I wished that she didn’t. I watched her rub a Tide stain stick over the ruined part of my sheets. She was beautiful in that idyllic way—the effortless blond, blue-eyed, stops-you-in-your-tracks beautiful like CJ and Georgia. My sister looks much more like CJ than I do. I have brown hair and my dad’s eyes, a darker, grayer blue than CJ’s and Georgia’s translucent, shocking aqua ones. People tell me I’m pretty, but I’m not Georgia pretty. People tell me I look like the brunette version of Georgia, but nobody ever says that Georgia looks like the blond version of me.

  Jackie insisted on washing my bedding (blue-blood manners—I could tell), and I mixed us new drinks while she ran down to the laundry room. When she got back we sat on our beds, talking, playing the do-you-know-this-person? game for a good half hour, because Wilton, Connecticut, isn’t that far from my hometown in Cold Spring Harbor, on Long Island. The vodka made us chat faster and deeper, until we were both stretched out on our beds, the last of the light spilling through our single window. We had a view of palm trees and in the distance the San Gabriel Mountains, a purple ridge in the dusk. Mountains were still so new to me then, and I shivered at their potential, at whatever it was they would promise.

  Talking to Jackie was almost as easy as talking to Lydia, my best friend from home. I knew I’d lucked out on the roommate front. Georgia’s freshman-year roommate at Yale had been from a farm in Kansas, and she said they’d never had anything to talk about besides chickens and organic fruit.

  “Your mom is awesome,” Jackie said, gesturing toward the half-empty bottle of vodka.

  As usual, I hated hearing this. But I didn’t hold it against Jackie, because if I didn’t know CJ, I’d probably say she was awesome, too.

  Jackie opened her laptop and turned on “Rhiannon.” I felt even surer about her.

  “You like Fleetwood Mac?” she said when I smiled.

  “If I could have lunch with one person in the world, it would be Stevie Nicks.” I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, hoping my answer didn’t sound too rehearsed. It had been the personal-essay question on my application to Dartmouth (I was surprised they’d accepted me based on that answer—Stevie isn’t close to being intellectual enough for Dartmouth). I grew up listening to Fleetwood Mac like it was a religion, especially that really bad year, the year that followed the Unforgivable Thing. Lydia and I used to play Rumours from start to finish and smoke cigarettes out her bedroom window. Well, I smoked. Lydia never smokes.

  Jackie grinned. “Stevie’s the queen.”

  The Absolut was making my limbs pleasantly heavy, and I felt as though I could stay there talking to Jackie forever. She asked me about boys, if I had a boyfriend, so I told her about the Parker part of my past, making sure it sounded like I cared more than I did. It actually bored me to talk about Parker—I’m much more interested in other people’s love lives—so I quickly moved on to ask Jackie about her own love life. She’d broken up with a high school boyfriend over the summer, she said. He was going to college in Virginia and they didn’t want to do long-distance, so it was mutual.

  I wanted to ask more questions, but our door swung open and a tall girl with long, glistening black hair walked in, followed by a skinny girl with white-blond hair, the color of saltine crackers.

  The dark-haired girl’s eyes were so crystal blue they looked fake.

  “Finally, Bree,” she said. “I think we found normal people.” She ran her fingers through her dark hair and looked at Jackie and me. “I thought I heard ‘Rhiannon.’ Have you guys noticed that everyone in our hall is either international or a dreadlocked lesbian?”

  “Pippa, you can’t talk like that,” the blond girl said. She shifted her weight to one foot and placed her pale, pin-thin arms on her nonexistent hips.

  “Why not? I have nothing against lesbians. My cousin is a lesbian. For a while I thought I was a lesbian. I’m just saying that I don’t have anything in common with someone who chooses to do that to their hair.”

  “Not all lesbians have dreadlocks,” the blonde said.

  “I know that, Bree.”

  The dark-haired girl looked at us and rolled her enormous eyes. “I’m Pippa McAllister. And this is Bree Benson.”

  Jackie and I introduced ourselves.

  “Are you roommates?” Jackie asked.

  “No,” Bree said. “I have a single in Pitney. I wish I were in Kaplan, though. This dorm is so much nicer. But I met Pippa last week. We were on the same Orientation Adventure.”

  I nodded. Orientation Adventure was part of Baird’s freshman orientation program—camping trips that took place the week before the semester began. They were optional, though, so I opted out. I hate camping. Turns out Jackie did, too.

  “My dad made me go,” Pippa sighed. “It was kind of brutal. Two of the girls on our trip didn’t shave their armpits. Thank God I found Bree.”

  The way she carried herself, I could tell Pippa had been popular in high
school. She seemed like someone who did whatever she wanted without worrying too much about the consequences. I liked her instantly—probably because I’ve always lacked that I don’t give a fuck quality in myself. Even if I don’t want to give a fuck, even if I convince myself I don’t, I always do.

  “And I live on this hall,” Pippa continued. “My roommate is from Seattle, and she and her boyfriend came here together, so she’s like, off with him somewhere. He came to the room earlier, and they were basically making out in front of me; it was disgusting. He’s one of those dudes with the big holes in his ears.”

  “Gauges,” Bree corrected. She sat down in my desk chair and crossed one of her chopstick legs over the other. She was so thin she looked like a thirteen-year-old boy. “Have you guys eaten? Maybe we should order a pizza? I’m starving.”

  “I cannot eat pizza,” Pippa whined. “I’ve already eaten a muffin today and a sandwich. I refuse to gain the freshman fifteen.”

  “Pippa, you had a gluten-free muffin this morning and like, one bite of my sandwich. You’re fine.”

  “Easy for you to say, you can eat whatever you want and not gain weight.”

  I eyed Pippa, who wore a black cotton dress. She wasn’t fat by any means, but she wasn’t super skinny like Bree. It’s how I would’ve described my own body, until Pippa turned to Jackie and me and said, “But you’re both rails, too. Ugh! Not fair. My metabolism is failing me with age.”

  I looked down at the tops of my thighs, tanned from the summer but suddenly fleshy-looking. Fleshier than Jackie’s, and definitely fleshier than Bree’s. It hadn’t even occurred to me to think about the freshman fifteen. I’d heard Georgia mention it, but only in passing—the inevitable fifteen pounds everyone gains their freshman year because of all the beer and pizza.