Tell Me Lies

by Carola Lovering

  No. I couldn’t go to France. I couldn’t miss Stephen’s party on June 14. I’d go to France another time, on my own agenda.

  My dad and CJ would be ecstatic if they knew I’d gotten into Writers on the Riviera; obviously I couldn’t tell them. I’d been raving about the course for years, and if I said I didn’t want to go, they’d know something was seriously wrong with me.

  Walking past Slug, I felt the usual pangs of anxiety. A part of me wanted to run inside and yell at the top of my lungs: I HAD SEX WITH STEPHEN DEMARCO IN THIS HOUSE AN HOUR AGO! I’VE BEEN HAVING SEX WITH STEPHEN DEMARCO IN THIS HOUSE SINCE JANUARY. SOMETIMES WE DO IT AT MY PLACE OR IN HIS CAR OR IN THE SHOWER IF NO ONE’S HOME, BUT IT’S MOSTLY RIGHT HERE IN HIS ROOM. DID YA KNOW THAT, DIANA?

  Except I didn’t have half the guts to do that and it would only ruin everything, so I hurried by the house, squinting in the hot sun, wishing I’d remembered sunglasses. I walked for much longer than I intended. I walked all the way down Carroll Street, into town, before I turned around, and it was dusk by the time I got back to Adler, the purple sky blending into pinks and blues behind the mountain. Showering made me feel calmer. I put on boxers and a T-shirt and climbed into bed with my stupid Toni Morrison book Beloved. I didn’t think Toni Morrison was anything special, but everyone else seemed to.

  A while later I heard the door to the suite open, followed by voices in the living area. They were back from our friend Ella’s birthday dinner. Ella was a year older, a junior on Jackie’s tennis team. I’d used my Toni Morrison paper as an excuse to get out of the dinner, even though it wasn’t due for another week. I braced myself for conversation. Lately I’d been wishing I lived in a single. Living with three other people—even my best friends—was exhausting.

  Jackie opened the door to our double, frowning when she saw me. “Bed already? It’s not even nine.”

  “It’s the Eighties party!” Pippa delved through Jackie’s closet, pulling out options and piling them on the floor. Bree was fidgeting with the speakers in the other room, and soon Michael Jackson flooded the suite, erasing any hope of finishing my reading, which I couldn’t focus on anyway.

  Jackie grabbed something neon pink from her dresser and looked at me. “You are coming, right?”

  Of course Slug was hosting the Eighties party. My stomach twisted into a knot at the thought of walking into that house, seeing him and Diana all over each other and knowing he’d been inside me that afternoon.

  “I’m so exhausted,” I said lamely. “And I really messed up my last paper. I need to do better on this one.”

  “Whatever.” Jackie looked so annoyed that for a second I thought she was going to hit me. She spun toward the door before jolting back around. “So it’s because of Stephen, just to clarify?”

  “No—”

  “So basically, you just go and fuck him whenever he texts you and then you don’t go to his parties so you don’t have to see him with his girlfriend?”

  “Jackie—”

  “Because that’s just ridiculous,” she continued, teetering in her stance. “Why do you even like him? He’s like, a con artist or something. How do you not see that? What’s happened to you? You’re like a different person than you were. All you do is work out and sit around and pretend to do homework and feel sorry for yourself.”

  She stumbled through the living area and crossed into Bree and Pippa’s room.

  “She had about six margaritas at dinner.” Pippa sat on the edge of my bed.

  “It’s fine.” I closed Beloved. I wished I could disappear.

  “But you should come, Luce,” Pippa said. “It’s gonna be fun. I know you hate seeing DeMarco at Slug parties but fuck that kid. He’s a dick. And his girlfriend is a bitch, and she dresses like a lesbian.”

  “It’s not about him, really. I honestly do have all this work. I’m sorry I’m being lame, Pip.”

  No way was I telling them about my afternoon at Stephen’s. I usually admitted it when I hooked up with him—when I disappeared during a party or wandered into the suite in the morning with knotty hair wearing the previous night’s clothes. I’d promised myself I wasn’t going to become the kind of girl who lied to her friends about boys—but something about the way Jackie had just looked at me felt worse than usual, and I just couldn’t tell them.

  Pippa acted disappointed, but she quickly moved on to picking out an outfit, and I could almost feel her exhilaration. She was hooking up with someone new who she “really, really liked,” a junior named Nick, and he would be at the party. She was telling me the details of their most recent text conversation, and I half listened.

  “I’ll close this so you can focus,” Pippa said when she was done raiding Jackie’s closet.

  I pretended to read while I listened to them pregame in the other room. I heard the boys come in; I heard Jackie yell “Stuuuu!” and pictured her sinking down onto Stuart’s lap on the couch, drunk and thrilled that he was there. Someone was probably cutting up lines on the big mirror. The music switched from Michael Jackson to Pretty Lights, and I heard everyone do a round of shots, and when they left I put on Marilyn’s sweater, turned off the lights, and lay in the dark. I stuck my headphones in and turned on Fleetwood Mac. I played “Gypsy” as loud as it would go.

  Lightning strikes . . . maybe once, maybe twice.

  I closed my eyes and let the darkness consume me. The images all blurred in my mind again: Stephen’s emerald eyes locked to mine and CJ’s voice reading me bedtime stories and Gabe’s hands pressed to CJ’s sweat-slicked back and filet mignon lying on the counter and Gabe’s lips against mine and the way Stephen fucks me and Mr. Levy’s enthusiasm and the trip to France that I would never go on and the smell of Stephen’s aftershave and the dip in the back of his neck and his arms around Diana’s waist and June 14 and Jackie’s judgmental glower and the glittery look in Macy’s eyes the night she crashed her car and Georgia and me in matching pajamas and my father kissing CJ over the kitchen sink, her hands held hostage, wet with dish soap. All of it fighting for right and wrong; all of it so unclear that I wanted to laugh at the same time the hot tears rolled down my cheeks in the dark as the next track on the playlist began, and Stevie Nicks sang on.

  Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.

  26

  STEPHEN

  MAY 2012

  I had to decline Diana’s invitation to her family’s cabin on Lake Winnebago the week after graduation. Doug Richter turned out to be my savior—BR3 Group hired me as an equity research analyst to start May 30, with a salary of $60K. Relatively shitty compensation, but it was a job, and my relief was palpable.

  Saying goodbye to Diana was semiawkward, because her parents were right there, and I had to leave for the airport in order to make my flight home.

  It was the day after our own graduation, and I’d just finished a picnic lunch on Adler Quad with the Bunns. My dad and siblings had left the night before, so lunch was just the Bunns and me.

  “I’m really sorry I can’t make it to Winnebago,” I was saying to Mrs. Bunn on the grassy quad, the almost-summer sun strong on our faces.

  “Oh don’t you worry about it, Stephen. We’ll miss you but it’s just so impressive that you’ve gotten yourself a job, the economy being what it is.”

  I nodded. People were always blaming everything on the economy. Why’s it so hard to get a job? The economy. Where’s my holiday bonus? The economy is bad this year. Why am I paying $6 for a container of yogurt? Because of the economy. Why won’t my wife suck my dick? The economy sucks.

  “Thank you. I sure will miss this one, though.” I squeezed Diana lightly on the shoulder. Mrs. Bunn beamed. The woman had always worshipped me.

  “Well, I’ll let you two say goodbye. Diana, we’ll be at the hotel.” Mrs. Bunn gave me a big fat kiss on the cheek and Mr. Bunn shook my hand. I high-fived her younger brothers.

  “I can’t believe you have to go right this second, Stephen.” Diana’s expression fell.

  “I kn
ow. But my flight’s at five thirty.”

  “This all just . . . came to an end so fast, I guess.”

  “School?”

  “School. Graduation. Us.” She looked up at me, her eyes caramel saucers.

  “I know.” I nodded.

  “I mean, did we think this through? We’ve just . . . come so far. Maybe I could try New York.”

  “Di, you’ve already been accepted at Wash U in Saint Louis. You’re set on getting your master’s.”

  “I know, but I’m sure there are lots of great programs for social work in New York.”

  “Di, I love the idea, but we’ve had this conversation. Wash U has one of the best programs in the country, plus you hate New York. You don’t even like visiting. Imagine how much you’d hate living there.”

  “But, I just—” Her face collapsed, and I braced myself for the tears. “I just want to be with you. Don’t you want to be with me?”

  “Of course I want to be with you.” It was a half-lie. I reached for her hand, felt her tenseness diminish in my grip. I’m good at reading people. I saw Diana’s future in her unplucked eyebrows and knotty hair, in the way she kicked back with the boys with her brazen, wide-mouthed laugh, pretty enough, but oblivious to anything that was wrong with her. It had made her intimidating as a Baird senior; it would make her marginal and even confusing in a city like New York. Diana would move back to the Midwest. She’d get her master’s in Saint Louis, and after grad school she’d migrate to another city, like Chicago or perhaps back home to Milwaukee—somewhere west of Cincinnati, close enough to her family. She’d buy $4 pints of locally brewed beer with her social worker’s salary and spend her life merely existing on the perimeter of the financial and cultural world, and that would be enough for her.

  “I mean, I’m not saying I’m going to move to New York tomorrow,” Diana continued. “I’m already enrolled in classes at Wash U this fall, and I have my summer internship in Milwaukee starting the first week in June. I’m just saying . . .”

  “What?” I stepped in closer toward her.

  “I just . . . I love you, Stephen.”

  “I love you, too, Princess Diana.”

  “So do you want to try to stay together or what? Just say something.” She sounded annoyed suddenly.

  “Why are you mad?”

  “I’m not. I just think we need to be really honest right now.”

  “So let’s be honest.” I took her hands in mine and looked into her wet eyes.

  “Maybe we should leave things open-ended and not make any rash decisions, at least for the summer? I’ll come visit in August after my internship ends, before I move down to Saint Louis. And then we can reevaluate.”

  I considered this. It wasn’t the worst idea. It would be nice to know that I could see Diana at the end of the summer before saying goodbye forever. Plus, it wasn’t like she’d be in New York holding me back from anything or anyone. Diana was right; it wasn’t mandatory to make any final declarations that very second.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said, leaning down to kiss her.

  * * *

  Two weeks later I began my job on Liberty Street in downtown New York. I love Manhattan, right down to the pavement, the sheer tonnage of the structures that comprise it. Every scent and noise of the city evokes power and propulsion, the religion of its trade.

  BR3 Group’s offices were cramped and disorganized. My cubicle was barely that—it was more like a tiny desk with walls, smashed in a row of other cubes just like it. My boss was an overweight fortysomething moron named Gary Kubina who’d been made a VP at BR3 Group without having spent a day in graduate school. He had graying temples and a framed Pace University Bachelor of Business Administration diploma hanging on the wall of his office that made me cringe every time I saw it.

  I moved into Luke’s spare bedroom in Chelsea in an apartment he also shared with his buddy Geoff. I wasn’t too keen on sharing an apartment with my brother; he’s really very anal, especially with Kathleen around all the livelong day. But his place was affordable and not a terrible commute from work.

  On Friday after my first full week at the office, I got home and ended up drinking a six-pack and watching Family Guy by myself. Geoff worked brutal hours for a hedge fund and was never home, and Luke and Kathleen had gone to Bed Bath & Beyond to look at curtain rods—I’m not joking.

  I felt lonely as shit, actually. I needed to reconnect with my friends from high school; I hadn’t been great at keeping in touch during college. Some of them were coming to my graduation party, but that wasn’t for another couple of weeks. I tried calling Carl, but it rang and went to voice mail.

  I turned off Family Guy and took a shower. I tried whacking off, but my head was all fuzzy from the beers. After toweling off I climbed into bed and took out my phone. I hadn’t talked to Lucy since I’d been back in New York, and I realized I didn’t even know if she had definitely come back east for the summer. I had invited her to my graduation party, which I doubted she’d forgotten. I typed a new text.

  STEPHEN: Luce, you back in New York? Hoping you can still make it to my grad party on the 14th . . . but I don’t think I can wait another two weeks to see you. If you’re around, dinner this weekend? It’s been way too long.

  I waited, already imagining Lucy’s sexy bare body on top of mine. But she didn’t respond all night, and I fell asleep with my phone in my hand. She hadn’t replied by the time I woke up the next morning, either. It started to make me a little nervous—and I hated to feel nervous because of Lucy—but I told myself it was only a matter of time before she answered. I knew the way her mind worked; it was led by the mental weight of her emotions. The heart. Lucy had fallen for me; I’d watched her sacrifice so much of herself on my behalf, even though I’d never given her what I knew she wanted.

  But that was about to change. It was summer in New York, Baird College was old news, and it was time to reward Lucy for waiting so patiently.

  27

  LUCY

  JUNE 2012

  I lay by the Montgomerys’ pool on the first day of June, listening to Helen and Lydia gossip about some scandal at Trinity. I wished Helen would leave so I could be alone with Lydia, but despite their clashing personalities she and Lydia had grown even closer over the first two years of college, because Lydia was dating a Trinity golf player and their lives had become intertwined in the NESCAC bubble.

  I’d already been back in Long Island for two weeks without a word from Stephen, and despite the ever-widening pit in my stomach, I was channeling all my willpower into not texting him, because if things were really going to change, then he needed to be the one to change them. That’s what Lydia said, at least, and she was usually sensible about those matters.

  I’d pulled every string my parents had to get myself an internship at Vanity Fair so that I actually had something to do for the summer, but it didn’t start for another three weeks and I was going out of my mind with boredom and frustration, staring at my cell phone as if it might sprout wings and fly.

  I almost texted him so many times, the message perfectly crafted, my thumb hovering over the send button. But I willed myself to wait, or to take his silence at face value. He’d said things were going to change. If he hadn’t meant it then why would I want to be with a manipulative liar? That was Lydia’s argument, and I forced myself to get behind it.

  So when my phone chimed that day in June and I looked down to see that the name on the screen read Stephen, the relief that flooded my body was so immeasurably wonderful that I felt I had floated up into the air on a pillow of clouds. I relaxed into the Montgomerys’ plush poolside chaise and felt an easy smile spread across my cheeks—the kind of smile I’d forgotten because it had been so long.

  STEPHEN: Luce, you back in New York? Hoping you can still make it to my grad party on the 14th . . . but I don’t think I can wait another two weeks to see you. If you’re around, dinner this weekend? It’s been way too long.

  My heart flutt
ered inside my chest with the alleviating knowledge that everything was going to be okay. Stephen hadn’t forgotten about inviting me to his grad party. Stephen hadn’t forgotten me.

  “What are you smiling about?” Helen peered over at me from her chaise.

  I showed them the text. One good thing about Helen and Lydia was that they didn’t give me a hard time about Stephen the way that Jackie and my friends from Baird did. They didn’t know him, and they didn’t know all the things that had happened in detail, so it was easy for them to be more forgiving, but still—it was nice to be able to show friends his text messages without receiving looks that were equal in judgment and pity.

  “Okay,” Helen said, sitting up straighter. “This is positive, but you have to wait at least twenty-four hours to respond.” She adjusted her Ray-Bans.

  “Agree,” Lydia said, her mouth full of Lay’s potato chips. She’d gained at least ten pounds since the start of college, but it didn’t seem to bother her. “And if you do get dinner with him, you have to address the past and make sure that your relationship is actually going to evolve going forward. Because if it’s not, what’s the point?”

  “I agree. But why do I have to wait twenty-four hours to respond?”

  “Because, Lucy,” Helen explained using her I’m in Ivy Society so I know everything voice. “He’s been MIA for, what, a month now? It’s just good sense to keep boys on their toes, otherwise he’ll think you’re desperate.”

  “I slept with him in secret for four months while he had a girlfriend. I think he’s seen my desperate side.” I gazed at the Montgomerys’ turquoise swimming pool, which glistened in the sun.

  “True.” Helen lay back on her chaise and examined her manicured nails. “That was sort of pathetic of you.”

  “But we’ve all been there, Helen,” Lydia said. “Remember when you chased Connor Steadman around for a year while he was obsessed with Emily Novak?”