Little Lies

by Cherie Bennett

  Still, I found my lyrics notebook. Shep had said to me once that the best songs came from the deepest emotions. Well, I was as raw, fragile, and humble as I’d ever been. I didn’t know if I could write, but I didn’t know that I couldn’t, either.

  All the songs that I hear in church

  Where Jesus comes to save you

  What of those moments you’re so low

  That saving cannot save you

  I broke a heart

  I lost a love

  I shamed myself and others

  Some were strangers, some were friends

  Some were sons and brothers

  The doorbell rang downstairs. I ignored it. It rang again. I ignored it again, trying to stay in the zone of my lyrics. I wasn’t thinking about adding music. I wasn’t hoping that I’d write something good enough to give to the music supervisor at Brett’s show. All I hoped to do was capture words that seemed as fleeting as the green flash I’d never seen. If I didn’t grab them now, I never would.

  Again and again the doorbell rang. It couldn’t be my friends. They’d call first. Had to be either Jehovah’s Witnesses or political canvassers, though how they’d gotten through the security gate was a mystery.

  One more time, it sounded. I realized it could be well be Sean. No way, after the previous night, would I simply leave him there. Reluctantly, I closed my lyrics notebook and went downstairs in my stocking feet. “I’m coming!” I called.

  I opened the door. It wasn’t Sean. It wasn’t any of my friends. It was Brooke Summers. She wore white shorts, flip-flops, and a men’s white sleeveless undershirt.

  “How’d you get past the gate?” I demanded with no preliminaries.

  “Parked below and hopped the fence. I hear you had a rough night,” she declared.

  Notice I didn’t ask Brooke how she knew about the night before. This was Los Angeles. Bad news traveled fast.

  “Go away,” I told her, and swung the door shut.

  She blocked the door with her right hand. “Give me two minutes. Then I’ll leave.”

  “No.”

  I pushed the door. She pushed back with surprising force. Standoff. Finally, I relented.

  “Thank you,” she acknowledged. “I have two things to say. One: I had nothing to do with what happened at your church last night. Two: I had nothing to do with you getting canned from Whitehall.”

  “Ha!” I exclaimed. “Like I believe that.”

  Brooke raised her eyebrows. “Natalie. Please. This is me you’re talking to. Do you really think that if I was involved, I’d deny it? No way! I’d be taking credit for my brilliance.”

  She had a point. Not that I was in the mood to concede anything to her.

  “I admit my friends and I were having some fun with you at the restaurant. But we had nothing to do with your getting fired,” she maintained. The sun was in her face. She squinted at me.

  “Prove it,” I demanded.

  “Last night? You can’t prove a negative. But the truth will come out, and the truth will tell. And you’ll see it wasn’t me. Whitehall? Well … have you talked to Brett today?”

  I shook my head. “Nope.”

  She edged a little to the left to get her eyes out of the sun. “I have. And you should. I think he has some information for you.”

  “That is a load of crap.”

  “Unh-uh.” Brooke leaned into my personal space, dropping her voice. “It’s not crap. What’s crap is what happened last night. I admit it, Natalie. You had me—us, everyone—totally fooled, with that white-bread Virginator thing. At first, when I heard about last night, I was pissed at you even more. Then I thought about it. Know what? You are way cool. In fact, you’re a friggin’ rock star. I applaud you.”

  She literally did a slow clap like in a John Hughes teen movie from the 1980s.

  You have got to be kidding me.

  “Thanks for sharing,” I said, cutting her off mid-clap. “Bye.”

  I swung the door shut. She neatly stuck out her right foot and blocked it with the base of her flip-flop. “Not so fast, rock star. You still owe me a minute. In that minute, I want you to think about something. You see, Natalie, I don’t judge you. I don’t judge that you boffed your old boyfriend, I don’t judge that you said you didn’t, I don’t judge that you dumped him three seconds after you met Brett. I don’t judge that you acted like the Virginator, and I don’t judge that—from what I hear—you and the ex could both use a course in remedial sex. I’m not judging you. None of my friends is judging you. In fact, we all think you’re way cool.”

  “Good to know, Brooke,” I said guardedly. “Now go home.”

  Brooke looked at me with neither a proton of snark nor a neutron of snide. “Thirty seconds. I want you to think about who is judging you. Those girls from church, right? Your parents, I’m sure. All those people who were there last night. What happened to Christian love? You guys are supposed to be Christians, right? So I’m asking you, Natalie. Who are the real Christians here?”

  She stepped closer to me. “Ten seconds. I mean it, Natalie. Tell me. Who are the real Christians?”

  I had no answer. Which was an answer, in its own way.

  “That’s what I figured,” Brooke commented. “Anyway, my time’s up. Call me if you’d like to hang out with people who don’t judge you. If you don’t feel like partying, I won’t push you. And as a special favor? Just to prove I’m sincere? I won’t push Alex, either.”

  I found my voice. “Are you kidding, Brooke? You’ve been a total beeyotch to me for weeks. You got me fired!”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “Sorry about the beeyotchiness. I was testing you. And drop the ‘you got me fired’ crap. Talk to Brett. You’re on my good side now. Bye, Natalie.”

  Brooke turned away, her flip-flops clicking on the bricks of our parking area.

  I watched her start down the driveway. Then I headed upstairs. There was no denying that Brooke’s words had an impact on me. More than I’d thought they would. So much so, in fact, that there was something I felt I needed to do.

  My song would have to wait.

  Ever read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer?

  The best scene in the book—in my humble opinion—is when Tom and his friends disrupt their own funeral.

  If you know the book, you now have an idea of what’s coming. If you don’t, fasten your seat belt.

  They say God works in mysterious ways. If he had a hand in Brooke’s coming to my doorstep that morning, I wouldn’t call it mysterious. I’d call it a bizarre choice of messenger. Nonetheless, the message got through.

  It wasn’t easy to dress. I put on the same green sleeveless knee-length dress from the Target in Mankato I’d worn to my very first service at the Church of Beverly Hills, and brushed my hair into a ponytail and dabbed on some lip gloss. Nor was it easy to pull into the church parking structure. It was crowded; it took forever to find an empty spot. It wasn’t easy to step into the parking structure elevator to the church vestibule..

  What happened when the elevator opened was biblical. The second service had started ten minutes before, but the vestibule still held plenty of late arrivals chatting and getting caught up. Also no doubt talking about what had happened the night before at Wait/Great.

  When these people spotted me, conversations froze. Silent stares followed me like targeting lasers as I headed for the sanctuary. Knots of people parted like the Red Sea to give me maximum room, as if being near me could be morally contagious.

  Brooke’s words came back: “Tell me. Who are the real Christians?”

  Still, eyes front and unblinking, I moved like a specter toward the sanctuary, wondering if I had lost my mind. What did I think would happen five minutes from now? If I had to show up, why didn’t I have the decency to wait a week? Things might blow over by then, or they might be worse, but at least there’d be the passage of time. Instead, here I was, back at the scene of the crime. What could I possibly have been thinking?

  I stopped just
outside the main sanctuary doors and listened over the loudspeaker system as Mr. Bienvenu finished his homily. He got to preach once a month and was talking about the second chapter of Matthew’s gospel. He spoke of Joseph’s obedience when the angel told Joseph and Mary to flee to Egypt.

  “Let us not forget that throughout the Old and New Testaments,” Mr. Bienvenu declared, “God speaks early, God speaks often, and God speaks to the many. He spoke to Adam, Eve, and Noah. He spoke to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He spoke to Balaam, he spoke to Joseph, he spoke through our Lord Jesus Christ, and he spoke to his disciples. He speaks still, I believe, to every single one of us. As his children, we must filter his voice from the voices of each other. Not so easy. I like to think that’s why so many of us come here on Sunday. Here, in this holy place, it’s a little easier to listen. Amen.”

  “Amen,” the congregation responded.

  Amen, I thought. That’s why I’m here.

  The church orchestra struck up “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and a thousand people began to sing.

  It was time. I opened the sanctuary door.

  Unbelievable. I saw God waiting in the back row.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Well, maybe not God himself. But four people who had to be heavenly emissaries. I’ll list them in descending order of the likelihood of their attending the late Sunday-morning service at the Church of Beverly Hills.

  Mia. Expected.

  Brett. Jewish. Obviously, not a big churchgoer.

  Sean. Unlikely, considering the events of the night before.

  Alex Samuels. No further commentary necessary.

  All of them, including my ex-boyfriend from Minnesota, were here for me, on the off chance that I would be doing exactly what I was doing. That is, showing up.

  Mia and Alex got to me first. Their faces were so kind, so understanding, so accepting, and so supportive that I started to weep. Sean and Brett joined them a moment later. Together, as word of my arrival swept through the congregation like a Santa Ana gale, they walked me to their pew and placed me in the center, as if they were my bodyguards.

  In the movie version of this story, we five would have sat in defiance and solidarity as the song petered out and the congregation turned to stare at us. With my peers beside me, I would gaze with growing confidence at my mother on the chancel. At first, she wouldn’t meet my eyes, but then she would acknowledge my presence with grudging respect. So would my dad, somewhere toward the front. So would my brother and sister. Finally, so would Courtney, Gisela, Charma, and the rest of the church girls.

  In actuality, I don’t know what happened, because I didn’t dare look up. Instead, I found a Bible and opened it at random.

  Don’t tell me that God lacks a sense of humor.

  I found myself reading the book of Job, that unlikable prophet who refused God when God wanted him to go on a mission to Nineveh. Job fought the Almighty all the way. His unwillingness landed him at the bottom of the sea, in the belly of a giant fish.

  I read. And read. And read.

  My mother was still in her black church vestments when she opened her office door. “Come in, Natalie,” she said, beckoning.

  I did. The experience felt eerily like the movie Groundhog Day. No wonder. I had been in this exact location, in practically the exact situation, exactly twelve hours earlier. That is, outside my mom’s office, waiting for her, sick to my stomach with fantasies of what might transpire.

  It was twenty minutes after the service had ended. The rest of the congregation was partaking of refreshments in the church courtyard. As soon as I stepped inside my mom’s office, I saw that things were different.

  First, the condition of her office. It was neat and organized, not the aggressive mess that was the usual state of Marsha Shelton’s workplace. Someone had done some serious cleaning in here. But why?

  Second, I was greeted by my family, not just my mom. My dad sat behind my mom’s desk, while my siblings were on a green love seat that had previously been piled high with books and papers. There were two brown folding chairs set up across from them. Obviously, one was for my mom; the other was for me.

  Family meeting.

  “We cleaned up,” my mother said simply, referring to her neat office. “I didn’t want it to remind you of last night.”

  She sat on one of the folding chairs. I took the other one. Uncomfortable silence filled her office.

  “I’m very sorry,” I said softly. “I know that must sound incredibly lame, but I’m sorry.”

  “Are you sorry for what you did, or sorry that it got out?” My father challenged me.

  “Both,” I admitted. “What happened with Sean was between Sean and me, and us and God. That’s bad. What happened with the group, and the newspaper, and the meeting is between me and everyone. In some ways, that’s worse.”

  “Which is kind of ironic, when you think about it,” my mother declared. “You just said that things between you and other people are worse than between you and God.”

  I looked at my brother and sister. Both looked sad, yet at the same time and on another level, they seemed liberated. It was as if my troubles allowed them to accept their own difficulties.

  “I guess that’s how I feel right now,” I admitted.

  “If it’s any consolation, Natalie, I’m sorry, too,” my mother said suddenly.

  “What for? You have nothing to be sorry about,” I told her.

  “That’s not true.” She directed her words to my brother and sister. “Last night, I was as angry as I’d ever been. I said things a parent should never say to a child. I’m sorry for that.”

  “And I’m sorry for how I acted, too,” my father agreed. He leaned forward on my mom’s desk and rested his chin in his hands. “I could have handled it better, too.”

  “You didn’t do anything,” I protested.

  “That’s my whole point,” he said to me. “I was absent. I shouldn’t have been. I left you alone at the church while you were waiting for your mom, and I didn’t even stay up for you to come home. I’m disgusted with myself for that.”

  My mom stood and took in her now-neat office. “I don’t know how I can keep it like this.”

  “I loved your mess. It proved you aren’t perfect,” Chad declared. He reached over to one of the bookcases and pushed in a tome that was sticking out from the others. “Missed this one, Mom.”

  “Thank you, Chad.” My mother flushed a little. “I’m a long way from perfect.”

  “Can I say something?” Gemma raised her hand, almost like she was in school.

  “Go ahead.” My dad prompted her.

  Gemma looked hugely uncomfortable. “I think—I think maybe you guys are apologizing for the wrong things. You’re all upset that Natalie kept what happened with Sean a secret. But it’s not like you’ve given her a lot of chances to tell you, Mom. You’re all wrapped up in the church, and your radio show, and Wait/Great, and being Minister Marsha. It wasn’t like you even really gave Nat a choice with Wait/Great. It was just like, ‘I’m doing this group and I want you to help lead it.’ Right?”

  “Not exactly,” my mother responded. “I asked her whether she would help.”

  “Come on,” Gemma said, pushing. “What if she’d said no? What if she’d refused, but didn’t want to say why right then and there? Maybe she wasn’t ready yet. There would have been hell for her to pay, and you know it! Everything you’re thinking and doing has to do with your being the great Minister Marsha. It has nothing to do with your being our mother!”

  My mother’s hand flew to her mouth. She sat like that for a full ten seconds, struck. My father’s Adam’s apple bobbed like a cork on a raging river, but he couldn’t seem to muster words. I was blown away that Gemma had stepped up on my behalf. I had kind of done it for her, talking to my folks about her need for a driver. This was vastly more important.

  “Hey. Don’t just blame your mother,” my father said. “I’m part of this, too.”

  “I’ll say.” C
had jumped into the fray. “You let her do it.”

  My mother rested her head in her right hand. I could see that she was peering into the past few weeks, looking at herself and how she’d acted, testing her own conduct against Gemma’s words, all the way from her asking me to help start Wait/Great to this very moment.

  From the lack of color in her face, her trembling fingertips, I could tell she didn’t like what she was seeing.

  “It doesn’t make what I did less wrong,” I told my mother. “The fact is, I had plenty of chances to speak up. I didn’t. It ruined the meeting last night, it ruined the group, it ruined everything.”

  Chad glared at me. “Why don’t you stop the bullshit pity party?”

  “Chad! Watch your language!” My father admonished him.

  “Fine. Nat, stop the bullschlitz pity party!” My brother shifted from real profanity to the near profanity he’d used when we’d first arrived in Beverly Hills. “Nat’s right. She had sex with Sean? That’s between her and Sean and her and God. It has nothing to do with what happened last night.”

  He jumped to his feet, thundering with the same kind of passion my mother often brought to her sermons. For the briefest instant, I wondered if he’d be the next preacher in the Shelton family. “You want someone to get pissed at? Get pissed at whoever put that recording in the projector! That’s who fu—flucked everything up!”

  He sat and folded his arms defiantly, as if he knew he’d just set himself up for a punishment that would make his long grounding seem like a trip to the candy counter. My parents could accept a lot of things, but they would not accept disrespect.

  There was terrible silence again as we kids waited to see how my mom and dad would react. I felt so many emotions. I still felt embarrassed, shamed, and disgraced by what had happened at the Wait/Great meeting, and for my part in it. But I also felt tremendous gratitude to my sister and brother. They’d said what I couldn’t say, and maybe wouldn’t even allow myself to think, under the circumstances. The fact was—if I let myself admit it—I did feel used by my mother. She’d been Minister Marsha with me a lot more than she’d been Mom.