Tell Me Lies

by Carola Lovering

“Just be careful.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  She cocked a grass-skirted hip, and I wanted to kiss her red mouth.

  “It’s been too long, Diana. I miss you.”

  “That’s sorta why I wanted to talk to you.” She stepped in closer toward me. I looked down at her sandal-clad feet. Her toenails were painted flamingo pink. “I’ve been doing some thinking.”

  “Thinking, huh?” I slumped against the wall. The blow hadn’t given me much energy. It must’ve been the shitty stuff Wrigley got in LA.

  “The thing is, I’m still in love with you,” Diana said.

  I grinned, the extent of my relief almost surprising me. I hadn’t lost her. I’d been too quick to doubt myself. I’d never stopped having the upper hand. It was suddenly sort of funny hearing her make this grand declaration of love, as though she wanted it to appear as some sort of astonishing discovery. Of course Diana had never fallen out of love with me.

  “Don’t act all smug.” Diana folded her arms. “You’re in love with me, too.”

  “Am I?”

  She stepped in closer and I could smell her lotion. “I know you’ve been with that freshman. Lucy. I know you have, even though I told you not to, and you know what? It’s fine. I have to take responsibility for the position I put us in, too. I wasn’t ready, and it wasn’t fair of me to ask you to put your life on hold. But I’m ready now. That’s what I’m telling you. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I’m ready.”

  “Ready for what, Diana?” I was smiling. I knew I was driving her a little crazy with the brief, ambiguous answers, but I was drunker than I realized, and I wasn’t sure exactly how I wanted to handle this. I’d been sleeping with Lucy for what felt like a long time now. Too long, maybe. I’d just left her downstairs at the party, where she was drinking jungle juice and wearing a grass skirt that looked a whole lot like Diana’s.

  Diana kissed me instead of answering my question, and it was a familiar kiss, even though it had been months since that kiss had happened. It was a kiss reminding me that Diana was the girlfriend and Lucy was the freshman I screwed, and that for whatever reason that’s just how it was, and nothing was going to change it, not even time apart.

  “I’m ready to get back together, is what I’m saying,” Diana said when she pulled away from me. It was one of the things that had always drawn me to Diana—her unmerited confidence. She wasn’t the prettiest girl in the room, but she acted like she could be. She wasn’t scared of my opinion or anybody else’s.

  “Good.” I nodded. I felt so fucked up suddenly. “You know that’s what I’ve always wanted.”

  “So we’ll have the summer to work it out. I know you’ll be in Washington, DC, for the internship, right? Is that still happening?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So I’ll come visit you and we’ll make it work. I know that’s what I want now. I’m finally sure of it. Forgiveness has just taken me awhile, is all.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “You don’t sound that happy.”

  “I am happy. So happy. I’m drunk, Di. I’m feeling wasted. I’m sorry. Why did you want to have this conversation tonight? Can’t we discuss this when we’re sober?”

  “I’m not drunk.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t know.” She threw up her hands. “I know it’s not the ideal time to have this talk. I was going to call you tomorrow, but then I saw you here. With her.”

  “Right.” Lucy.

  “She’s pretty. I’m not sure how you pulled it off.”

  “She’s not you, though.”

  “But she’s too thin. It’s kind of gross.” Diana made a face.

  “I know.”

  “I love you, Stephen.”

  “I love you always, Princess Diana. Let’s get out of here. I’m too fucked up to be here.”

  “Okay.” She placed her palms on my chest. “Shouldn’t you talk to her first?”

  “I’m not gonna talk to her tonight. It can wait,” I yawned. “It’s more casual than you think. I just wanna go home and be alone with you.”

  “Okay, but we’re going to mine. I’m not sleeping in her sex sheets.”

  I didn’t argue. I listened to Diana whine about how far the walk was to her house, and I watched her dig out her cell and call Safety Van to come and pick us up.

  “It’ll be here in five minutes,” she whispered, pressing her mouth to my neck.

  I had her back. I had Diana, just like that, after months of not having her and months of trying. She hadn’t gotten away with ending the relationship on her terms. I felt both glad and strangely disappointed as I let her take my hand and lead me outside. I stared at her utterly familiar face, the pink flower hanging limply from her ear. She appeared less cute and seductive than she had during the beginning of our conversation. It’s funny—when you get what you want, it almost automatically decreases in value.

  17

  LUCY

  MAY 2011

  He held my hand underneath the fake palm trees. Our bare feet stood on actual sand, which covered the entire first floor of Sigma Chi for Hawaiian Luau, the last party of the year. Instead of keg beer, the Solo cups were filled with jungle juice; instead of house music, Bob Marley pulsated through the speakers.

  “You want another key bump?” His fingers brushed my bare stomach. I was wearing my black bikini top and a grass skirt over jean shorts, and I could feel the judgment from the junior girls who were friends with Diana. I could feel them hating me for looking this thin and flaunting it, because half of me hated myself for the same reason. Some dominant, semiconscious part of me had forced myself to go hungry, to whittle down to nothing, and now I couldn’t stop. I wasn’t even trying to hide it.

  Stephen and I went into the bathroom and I let him feed the coke up my nose, even though I really didn’t need more at all. Just an excuse to be alone with him. He hoisted me up on the sink and started to wedge my knees apart with his, and I wanted time to freeze because everything felt so perfect.

  “We shouldn’t . . . ,” he whispered, when someone started banging on the door. There was a line outside the bathroom. There’s always a line.

  “We shouldn’t,” I agreed. My whole body had gone pleasantly numb.

  “You’re so beautiful, Lucy. Fuck.” His fingers played with the edges of my underwear, and the knocking continued.

  “Stephen . . .”

  “Okay, okay. Fuck, Luce.” He kissed my forehead. “I guess I’ll have to wait till later.”

  He led me back out into the open rush of the party, and I swallowed the bitter drip of drugs down the back of my throat. Bob Marley had morphed into Calvin Harris, and the dance floor was beginning to fill.

  “I’m gonna go mingle,” Stephen whispered in my ear, our cue to separate. “I’ll find you soon.”

  I wanted to stay by his side all night, but I knew I couldn’t. It didn’t work that way with him. His undivided attention wasn’t a given, the way it had been with Parker. But that was a good thing—having someone’s undivided attention is the worst, I had to remind myself.

  I found my friends sitting on the makeshift bar, doing key bumps in plain sight. Everyone everywhere was doing coke. I watched Jackie do a bump right next to Stuart, who rolled his eyes.

  “You could quit being a baby and try it, Stu,” Jackie said too loudly, holding out the tiny clear bag. “Or you could just keep judging me all the fucking time.”

  I overheard Stuart say something about not dealing with her shit tonight. He slid off the bar and disappeared into the crowd. Even though I was wasted I could tell Jackie had taken it too far. Lately she’d been being a total bitch to Stuart when she was drunk, then sulking about it the next day when he was pissed at her.

  I took Stuart’s spot on the bar, propping myself between Jackie and Bree. I dangled my legs over the bar above the packed dance floor, relieved to be sitting. That key bump was my third, or maybe fourth, and it had gone straight to my head. Br
ee handed me her cup of jungle juice and I took a sip. On coke nights I never ate, so I could afford to have some sugary jungle juice. With all the sugar I barely tasted the alcohol.

  “What was that all about?” I glanced at Jackie.

  “Stuart acting like my fucking father again. I don’t want to get into it.” She knew I was going to tell her she should apologize, and she turned to talk to the girl on her other side—a tennis teammate—before I could respond.

  Bree leaned her head against my shoulder. “I can’t believe this is the last party. I’m sad.”

  “It’s not the last party, B. We’ll be back.”

  “Yeah, but still.”

  “Are you going to miss Walter?” I grinned. Bree had finally lost her v-card to a sophomore named Walter. They were semidating.

  “No.” She elbowed me in the ribs. “I just don’t really want to be home for three months.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said, even though, for once in my life, I was almost looking forward to being home. Stephen would be home in Bayville for the month of June—only twenty minutes from Cold Spring Harbor—before he started his internship in Washington, DC. He was going to take me out on his friend’s boat on Long Island Sound, and he’d mentioned that I should visit him in DC over the Fourth of July. We’d started making real plans, like a real couple. I smiled just thinking about it.

  “Where’s your lover?” Bree asked, reading my mind.

  “Mingling.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Diana standing in line for jungle juice. I noticed her at every party and absorbed every detail of her, from her curly hair to her slim calves to the self-important air with which she carried herself. I was fixated on her, on trying to pin down exactly what it was about her that had drawn him in. She was wearing eye makeup and a grass skirt and a white crop top. I watched her talking to someone else in line, her arms crossed above her stomach. Her bare abs bothered me—her stomach was slimmer and more toned than I’d expected. Even though Jackie and Pippa thought Diana was only average looking, I knew she was pretty—she had to be pretty. She had big brown eyes and that athletic-but-cute look working for her, and she just seemed fearless, like she didn’t give a shit. I’d caught her staring at me too many times, shamelessly staring, her hatred transparent and justified. If I were her, I’d hate me, too.

  I watched Stephen emerge from the kitchen and maneuver his way through the crowd, brushing past Diana in the drink line, subtly but unmistakably grazing her lower back with his hand. My stomach lurched, and I blinked, and then Stephen was rounding the stairs with Wrigley, and Diana was refilling her red plastic cup. I was drunk and maybe the back grazing had been a figment of my imagination. Or maybe it hadn’t. Maybe Stephen thought Diana was everything, and she sort of was beautiful and captivating, and of course he was still in love with her. Or maybe the back grazing had been a casual, inadvertent movement due to the overcrowded party. I scanned the room, and people seemed to be bumping into one another all over the place.

  I watched Stephen disappear at the top of the stairs, and when I looked at Diana I saw that her eyes were following him, too, and I hated that we were both watching him. I hated that I shared that with her.

  Someone was passing a handle of Fireball across the bar, and when it was my turn I chugged it, because Fireball was too easy to drink, and then someone was taking pictures of us all sitting with our legs dangling off the bar, and I tried to suck in my stomach and crossed my fingers that my thighs wouldn’t look fat, pressed together in shorts, because whoever was taking the pictures would definitely post them on Facebook. And then the Fireball made its way down the bar and back again and down and back and then senior girls kicked us off because the bar top was their domain, and then someone started a game of jungle juice flip cup.

  Time was passing and I was feeling wholly fucked up. I waited for Stephen to reappear, but he wasn’t reappearing.

  “Have you seen Stephen?” I asked anyone at the flip-cup table who was listening, which turned out to be no one. I looked at my watch and it was two in the morning and I shamelessly abandoned the flip-cup game, scanning the downstairs rooms for him in his bright red Hawaiian button-down, my insides knotted. But everyone seemed to be wearing bright, tropical colors and he was nowhere, and then in my drunken blunder I remembered that he had gone upstairs.

  “Hey, Lucy.” Topher Rigby stopped me at the base of the staircase and offered to refill my drink. Jackie and Topher had grown up together in Connecticut and she’d told me eighty times that he liked me, but he was way too short, and besides, I was with Stephen. It annoyed me how Jackie was always telling me to go for Topher when clearly I was with Stephen.

  Topher grabbed my empty cup before I could answer. He started talking about lacrosse. Topher was always bragging about being on the “lax” team, probably to compensate for his, literal, shortcomings. I watched him as he talked, the top of his frizzy dark hair barely clearing my forehead. His face was decent; if he were taller he might’ve been hot.

  “I gotta go,” I said, cutting him off. “Good to see ya, Topher.”

  I practically sprinted up the stairs. I was on a mission. I placed my jungle juice down on the ground because I knew if I had another sip, I’d be sick.

  I checked the bedrooms until I found one with people in it, and there was Wrigley’s blond head bent over a textbook covered with coke. I scanned the rest of the room—if it contained Wrigley and blow it would contain Stephen. But my eyes found every face and none of them belonged to him. I did a double take, squinted harder. And Wrigley was asking me if I wanted a line and I was shaking my head, asking him if he’d seen Stephen, and he was shrugging.

  “He was in here earlier.”

  I flew back into the hallway and felt all those Fireball pulls and jungle juices hit me, absorbing into nothing in my empty stomach, and for a moment I wished to God I could let myself eat something because then maybe I wouldn’t get so sickeningly drunk on top of coked out, and I drifted farther down the hall, determined, and stopped in my tracks when I turned the corner, because there he was in his red button-down at the end of the hall. His arms were wrapped around the waist of a curly-haired girl in a crop top and a grass skirt. He was holding her too close, and then he was kissing her. In the same perfect way he’d kissed me, hours earlier.

  My vision went foggy like it had when I was eight and I fell out of the big hickory tree in our backyard. I’d landed hard on my back, in one even thump, and for a full minute I’d stared up at the blue sky through the branches and hadn’t been able to breathe. Georgia, who was still in the tree, had started screaming, and CJ sprinted out of the house in her bathrobe. She’d yelled for my father to call an ambulance, but then a miraculous burst of air had whooshed into my lungs while CJ knelt next to me, her hands squeezing mine, her tears splashing my forehead.

  All my life I’ve felt like a gutsy person—someone with a reasonable amount of guts—but when I opened my mouth to say something to Stephen, to yell, to object, nothing came out. My vocal cords were tied up like the end of a balloon. And then I was tiptoeing backward down the hallway and down the stairs, my heart frozen inside my chest, and the déjà vu hit me like an oncoming train: I was watching CJ straddle Gabe Petersen and his hands pressed to the curve of her sweaty back, and I felt so immobilized by pain, the cut deep in my gut and the knife twisting, my feet backtracking silently along the carpet and down the stairs, except these stairs weren’t covered in overpriced Italian wool, they were creaky hardwood, and my bare feet were slipping over the steps and I knew I was falling before I felt myself sliding, my body thumping over each step like a bumpy ski run until I landed in a crumpled mess at the base. I heard the volume in the room drop, I felt people staring at me, and I didn’t think I would be able to stand.

  And then some guy’s arm was hoisting me up—Stuart’s, I think—and Pippa was saying, “I’ve got her, thanks,” and adjusting my stupid bikini top.

  “Lucy, where are your shoes?”
<
br />   I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. I knew I would be sick. I tried to tell Pippa about Stephen and Diana, though I knew I wasn’t making much sense.

  “I’m taking you home. We’re going home and we can talk about this there.”

  “I’m gonna be sick, Pip.”

  “It’s okay. Let’s just get home first.”

  I shook my head, my legs wobbly under me. I couldn’t stop seeing Stephen and Diana’s kiss, just moments before, and I really was going to be so sick . . . .

  Pippa held my hair while I puked into the bushes outside Sigma Chi.

  “Do you feel better?” she asked afterward.

  I nodded. “I think so.”

  “I called Safety Van. It’ll be here soon.”

  “But we’re close to the dorm.”

  “You can barely walk, Lucy. And I ordered pizza.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “The only thing that just came out of you was jungle juice. You are eating some motherfucking food.”

  “I just can’t believe it, Pip.”

  “What can’t you believe?”

  “Stephen and Diana.”

  “They were actually kissing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit.

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe he was really drunk. Like out-of-his-mind drunk.”

  “Maybe. What am I gonna do?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.” Pippa handed me a bottle of water. She looked especially pretty in a flowy white dress, her dark hair loose down her back. She was such a good friend; it made me feel worse.

  “You don’t have to leave the party, Pip. Stay. I’ll be fine.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, I’m taking you home. It’s late anyway. And Wrigley is wasted and like, trying to bitch me out.”

  I stared down at the uneven cracks in the pavement and felt the coke wearing off, felt a massive headache looming as the serotonin drained from my synapses.

  It seemed like hours later when Safety Van finally pulled up in front of Sigma Chi. Pippa and I got in the back seat. The smell of pine-scented air freshener was making me nauseated all over again. Suddenly, the side door flung open.