The Comfort of Lies: A Novel

by Randy Susan Meyers

Why can’t you leave us alone?

  He loves me. You’re simply a diversion.

  The monkeys made Tia a dirty girl; they’d flung their monkey crap all over her until she reeked.

  Now, years later, new monkeys had appeared. Nuns who judged her from the corners of their eyes. Righteous mothers pushing strollers. Ogling men who knew she deserved no better than being their personal eye candy.

  Hey, baby, give Daddy some sugar.

  You know who gives away a child? Whores and bitches. Indulgent, selfish women.

  I think Honor’s crying for you, Tia. Hear her?

  Tia took out her cell phone and dialed Robin.

  “Geez, I just opened the door to the shop a second ago,” her friend answered. “What’s up?”

  “I need you,” Tia said. “Can’t you come home for a visit?”

  “I keep telling you, Tee, I am home. Why don’t you come here?”

  That Tia had never flown made her seem so insular and townie, she could tell nobody except Robin. Tia was certain flying would be like the one and only time she’d been on a roller coaster, when she might as well have been hurtled through space, but Robin pushed her, believing that Tia should grit her teeth and move through her fear.

  “I need you,” Tia repeated.

  “I’m here.” When Tia didn’t answer, Robin gave a soft sigh right into Tia’s ear. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t get anywhere,” Tia said. “No matter what I do, I’m standing in the same place.”

  “You’re being a little existential. Can you break the problem down?”

  Tia could weep from hearing a loving voice. From being honest. Sometimes she forgot the weight of constant pretence. “I don’t think anyone at work likes me.”

  “Do you like them?”

  “Not really.”

  “Have you considered that you’re in the wrong place? Maybe you think you’re standing still because you are. You’re the only one who can move yourself.”

  “Where can I go?”

  “Lots of places. There are many more spaces in this world to work than that agency of last hope.”

  “It’s a good place for me.”

  “No, Tia. It’s an easy place for you. Staying in Boston is your default choice.”

  “Living here is no bowl of ice cream.”

  “True. It’s a plate of white bread and mayo. You know exactly what you’re getting.”

  “There are reasons I can’t leave, and you know what they are.”

  “You keep your address on file with that adoption place. Nathan can find you as easily in California as Jamaica Plain. It’s a big small world. Does the word Google mean anything to you?”

  Tia didn’t answer.

  “Oh, Tee, he’s not looking for you anyway.”

  “You know there’s more.”

  “Actually, there’s not. The postal service works in California, you know. We get letters. And pictures.”

  “Forget it. We’ll talk later.”

  “Call me back,” Robin insisted. “Tonight. No matter how late.”

  Tia pressed End and then rubbed her thumb along the phone as though it were Robin’s shoulder.

  When she was ten years old, Tia and her mother moved from the D Street projects to a tiny house smack up against the sidewalk. The place had been renovated from an undersized one-family into two microscopic illegal apartments. Tia’s mother didn’t care about the size, because they’d finally moved to the Point, Southie’s good side, and Tia didn’t care because the move brought next-door Robin into her life.

  Robin’s parents spent most of their time screaming; she practically lived at Tia’s. The door to Tia’s bedroom opened onto the kitchen, one so small there was barely enough room for two people to eat. Tia ate all her meals in front of the television. Her mother let the girls take over most of the house, grateful that someone was around to keep Tia company, since her new job at Brandeis, as she always told Tia, took the starch right out of her, and all that was left were the wrinkles.

  • • •

  Tia rushed down Washington Street until she hit Doyle’s, a bar frequented by political types who pretended they went there for the company and not the whiskey; by granola guys who still liked a hamburger and beer; by JP natives; and by people like her, who just wanted to blend in with the mix.

  Tia opened the side door and entered the welcome murkiness. If you wanted a drink despite it only being two in the afternoon, the gloom was perfect. She looked around, afraid that some agency acquaintance might have come here for an afternoon meeting.

  High wooden booths crowded the worn-down room. Tia sat at the short bar scarred by years of beer mugs being banged on the counter. She faced a mirror clouded from decades of cigarette smoke. Tia was grateful the antismoking laws had passed. No way could she have stayed cigarette free if bumming were still possible.

  She’d stopped smoking when she learned she was pregnant. There weren’t many gifts she could offer her baby; at least she’d give her clear, clean oxygen in the womb.

  Few people sat at the bar. An old man the color of cigarette ash—both hair and skin—slumped on the stool to her right. Only his glass of ruby wine provided some relief of color. A middle-aged man drooped over a beer. Three green-splattered painters worked on platters of fries as they downed drinks.

  Closest to her, on the stool to the left, a boyish-looking man read a wrinkled newspaper as he sipped from a large ice-filled glass. The liquid was clear. Vodka? Gin? Water?

  “What can I get you?” The bartender wiped the wood in front of Tia and then put down a worn cardboard coaster meant to blot up a drinker’s sloppiness.

  “Coffee.” For a moment, Tia hoped she’d stop there, but she couldn’t dredge up the will. “With a shot of Jameson.”

  “On the side or in?” The woman’s youth and clear skin made Tia want to show off her best side, but she’d lost her chance. Ordering the Jameson put her in a league with her neighbors Ashy and Droopy.

  “Is the coffee fresh?” Right, as though Tia were some coffee connoisseur whose decision whether to put her two o’clock whiskey in or out depended on the coffee’s pedigree, not on Tia’s wanting her caffeine hit spun with whiskey.

  “Fresh and hot.” The bartender’s red hair was long and curly. She looked like an art student who’d be sketching unflattering portraits of her customers later that night. Tia was probably destined to be in an obscure Jamaica Plain art show that Christmas. Woman Under the Influence selling for sixty dollars.

  “In the coffee, then.” Tia forced a grin. She worried about falling further and further away from her dreams of success. Her mother had pushed to get Tia out of the working class. She’d dreamed of seeing her daughter in a life where people bought new cars instead of old clunkers. She’d wanted Tia to own a home. Tia wanted to own a place in the world where she used her mind and heart together.

  At least Tia had pushed Honor over the class line.

  • • •

  The boyish newspaper reader came home with Tia.

  His hair was fair, his eyes were blue, and he looked like spring. That’s how Tia tried to see him as they sat in the high-backed booth they shared in Doyle’s back room.

  However, his flaxen hair needed washing, his glasses were smudged, and he smelled like Tia’s punishment. The clear liquid that suggested purity at the bar turned out to be vodka. She continued with Jameson’s, dropping the charade of the coffee, and picked at a hamburger. He wolfed down a veggie burger and fries, eyeing her meat the whole time.

  They discussed whiskey-fueled things that seemed vital in a haze of attraction and alcohol. His backpack trip through Greece. His plan to teach literature to immigrants. Her plan to return to school for her master’s degree, so she could implement legislative cures for elder hatred, a dream she’d been unaware of until her fourth whiskey. She finished with a soapbox lecture on how poorly the world treated old folks.

  Then they went to her house.

  He pulled her close the m
oment the door shut.

  She couldn’t remember his name.

  He slobbered all over her mouth.

  Patrick?

  Paul?

  Jeremy.

  “Hey, baby,” she said. “Take it easy.”

  “Mmm?”

  “Slow down, buddy.” Tia hated how numb her lips were, making it difficult to form words.

  In answer to Tia’s request, he clutched her so tight that she felt every inch of his hard-on through both their jeans. Then he grabbed her hand and brought it between them. He pushed it down, urging her to press on him. She did nothing. He pressed her hand harder.

  Tia pulled away and then shoved him off her. “I said, slow down.”

  “Can’t help it,” he said. “You drive me nuts. You’re fucking gorgeous.”

  Tia had stared at herself in the restaurant’s bathroom mirror. During the afternoon and evening, she’d unwittingly spiked her hair up and out with her nervous fingers. She’d rubbed her eyes so often that now she resembled a raccoon. The makeup she’d applied that morning had gone from enhancing to slovenly.

  “Listen, baby.” She tried not to slur. “I hope I didn’t lead you on.”

  Bullshit. Of course she’d led him on. They’d sat side by side in the restaurant. She’d enjoyed it when he ran his hand so far up her thigh that it took everything she had not to press against him. Now the whiskey was wearing off, and his hands felt like an invasion.

  He backed away. He ran a thumb across the top of each of her cheekbones. Tia was a sucker for a new move. Hell, they were all new moves now. It had been so long since she’d made love that she didn’t even remember where or when it had last happened, only that it had been with Nathan.

  He tucked a curled finger under her chin and tipped it up. “You look like some sort of actress, you know.”

  Tia hungered for admiration, approbation from someone safely anonymous, someone who wouldn’t ask her for jack the next day, the next minute. No one who’d wonder if she had a baby hidden away.

  He backed her into the corner of the kitchen, against the washing machine. Pressing-pressing-pressing. He put a too-warm hand—Nathan’s hands were always cool and dry—under her shirt and went straight to the breast. Where had the finesse of thumbs to cheekbones gone? He palmed her breast. He pumped against her.

  Unexpected wanting shot straight down from her stomach.

  He leaned down and covered her mouth with his lips. He tasted of vodka and coffee and the peppery black beans from his veggie burger. His beard grated her skin.

  • • •

  When they’d finished, she wanted to shower.

  This was why she’d stayed on the pill since giving birth, because she’d known something exactly like this would happen. Tia couldn’t trust herself, and she couldn’t trust anyone else.

  He sprawled out in her bed, eyes closed, flaccid and damp. The sight made her ill, and yet she didn’t know him well enough to cover it. She slipped out of bed and grabbed the chenille robe that had once been her mother’s.

  She poked his arm with a tentative finger. Then she tapped harder. She used two fingers.

  “Hey, hey . . . what?” He turned his head toward her, blinking bloodshot eyes.

  “Jeremy, you’ve got to go.” Her voice sounded flat.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and then shook his head. “Too tired.”

  “Sorry. It’s time.”

  “I don’t even have my car.”

  “The bus stops right on the corner, or you can walk down to the Orange line.”

  “Nah, I can walk home from here.”

  Idiot. Then why’d you bring up the car?

  “But it’s far,” he said. “And no bus goes from here to there.”

  “Then what’s the difference? You’ll have the same problem in the morning.” Tia itched with wanting him out.

  He tapped her nose. “You’ll drive me in the morning, right?”

  “I don’t have a car.”

  He screwed up his face with cute. “Hmm, problem. Lucky for you I do have a car. I guess I can walk home in the morning and bring my car back here. Then I can drive you to breakfast.”

  “I have to go to work,” Tia said.

  “So, I’ll drive you to work.”

  Tia pulled the robe tight up to her neck. “Jeremy, you got to go.”

  He looked hurt. “My name isn’t Jeremy. It’s David.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Juliette

  Juliette felt invisible in New York City. Too many people, too many cars, too little space between buildings. Boston was big enough for someone who grew up in Rhinebeck.

  Nathan drove toward his parents’ home with the expertise of the native he was. The boys were in the backseat. Brooklyn unfolded around them. Coney Island Avenue stretched out in its crazy-quilt spectrum. Gas stations, ethnic grocery stores, and real estate agencies bordered synagogues, mosques, and Pakistani restaurants.

  Juliette glanced in the mirror to check on the boys. Max had fallen asleep. Napping, his head lolling back, he seemed younger; his plump little boy face came back into focus.

  Savannah’s face. A little girl version of Max. Someone who’d enjoy stirring brownie batter, without feeling the need to deliberately make drips that resembled lumps of poop.

  Juliette clamped down on her thoughts, knowing that if she didn’t, she’d be in trouble. What if Nathan could read her mind? What would he think of her idea that if Savannah knew them, then they could be family? Juliette wouldn’t be the outsider. How could she tell anyone that she fantasized about including the girl in their lives?

  Juliette had to stop obsessing. Getting through this visit to Nathan’s parents required a dissociative state. She turned to look at the boys, hoping for distraction, but though Max had woken, he was as buried in electronics as his brother.

  Lucas concentrated on his iPhone as though studying the Torah. Juliette supposed that Lucas and Max, so expert at tapping and scrolling on miniature screens, would always have an advantage over her and Nathan. Neither of them managed to adopt new technology fast enough to catch up with their sons, although Nathan tried. Unless she needed it for work, Juliette resisted new gadgets. Smart phones made her feel stupid.

  Avraham and Gizi’s block seemed the same, although the colorful flags whipping in the wind announcing Easter looked new. She wondered if any sharp entrepreneur had yet designed a Passover banner. Perhaps next year silk-screened streamers heralding pastel matzos and bright silver Elijah cups would swing in the breeze.

  As they turned on Albemarle Road, Max stretched and then leaned forward, poking Juliette’s right shoulder for attention. “We’re here, right?”

  “We’re here,” she answered.

  “Why’s everyone so quiet?”

  “How did you know it was quiet if you were sleeping, dumbo?” Lucas asked.

  “I wasn’t really sleeping; I was only car sleeping, fecal breath,” Max said.

  “Language,” Juliette warned.

  “Hey, guys. We’re supposed to be in a meditative mood,” Nathan said. “It’s Passover.”

  “I thought Yom Kippur was the reflecting holiday, and Passover was the celebration of freedom,” Lucas said.

  “How would we know anything? We didn’t even have bar mitzvahs.” Max sounded accusatory. “Lucas and I aren’t even really Jewish anyway, right? Even though we’re three-quarters? Since Mamie Sondra isn’t Jewish. Benjamin Kaplan said it has to come through the mother.”

  Mamie Sondra indeed. Juliette’s mother insisted the boys call her Mamie instead of Grandma, in recognition of her French heritage about ten generations ago, but Juliette knew her mother chose the word because it sounded younger than Grandma. Had she chosen Grand-mère, a recognizable word in America? No. She chose a word that made her sound younger and exotic.

  “People only pay attention to those obscure rules in the most orthodox communities,” Nathan said.

  “Then how come Lucas and I didn’t have bar mitzvahs?”


  “Jesus, who cares?” Lucas said.

  “Is Hebrew school what you wanted, Max? More work every day after school?” Nathan made the sharp right into his parents’ driveway. “I remember having to schlep two different bags of books to school. Not fun, my son, not fun.”

  “You never even gave us the choice,” Max said.

  “What’s up with this?” Nathan looked to Juliette for support. She stared back with a deliberate blank face. You’re the full-fledged one, the real one; you answer them.

  “When Josh Simons had his bar mitzvah, he made three thousand dollars!” Max opened his arms, hands up, as though weighing the money. “Three thousand!”

  “Oh, so it’s about money.” Again, Nathan tried connecting to Juliette with his eyes. Again, she blank-eyed him. Now he sent another message, this time with his eyebrows and a small tilt of his head, which in husbandspeak translated to “What? What’s wrong?”

  His eyes were full of questions. Juliette turned away.

  • • •

  Juliette’s in-laws’ house smelled of thick Hungarian Jewish food. Smothered red peppers. Gizi’s Passover version of stuffed cabbage. Chocolate-walnut torte—a miracle of silky dark chocolate and matzo meal.

  Gizi took Max’s and Lucas’s faces between her hands in turn, studying each boy for a moment before kissing him, first on the right cheek and then the left. Then she turned her attention to Juliette.

  “Sweetheart.” Gizi smiled as though the sight of Juliette warmed her through and through. “Look at you. Szép. Gorgeous. My son is the luckiest man in the world.”

  Juliette bent down and kissed her mother-in-law’s downy cheek. Gizi’s skin was barely lined, despite using only Vaseline and a few concoctions, as Gizi called them, on her face. Juliette showered her with bottles of juliette&gwynne products, but Gizi simply lined them on the glass shelves in her bathroom as though they were sculptures.

  “Darling,” she’d say, “I love them. Look how beautiful!” Meanwhile, Gizi stuck to the wisdom passed down from her mother: Wear a hat outside in every season. Spread Vaseline on your skin when it’s damp. Gizi had been the inspiration for Juliette’s business: when money was tight for her and Nathan, Gizi counseled Juliette to use honey and avocado mixed with a little olive oil on her face.