Never Tell a Lie

by Hallie Ephron

  Ivy hunched her back, struggling to make a safe hollow for the baby. She screamed as the knife cut into her skin. She tried to angle her body to keep the baby from being crushed inside her, trying to ease the pressure of the knifepoint. Phoebe cowered in the corner of the mudroom, mewling.

  “Why are you doing this?” Ivy cried.

  “Lock it.”

  “I can’t move. Not with you pressing against me so hard.”

  The woman eased up.

  “Then what are you going to do?” As she talked, Ivy turned the key right and immediately back to the left. “Kill me—like you killed your own mother?” She pulled the key from the lock.

  The woman had turned still. “I didn’t…kill…my mother,” she said, biting off the words.

  “That’s not what the police believe.”

  She snatched the key from Ivy. “You think I care? Just as long as they think I’m dead.”

  30

  Did you kill your sister, Ruth, too?” Ivy asked as she climbed the stairs, with the woman she now knew was Melinda right behind her.

  “Shut up,” Melinda said. “Keep moving.”

  Step after step after step to the second floor, Ivy could feel the knifepoint pressed against her back. Melinda had her hand wrapped so tightly around Ivy’s hair that her scalp stung and smarted as she climbed each tread.

  “My friends are checking on me,” Ivy said. “If I don’t answer the phone—”

  “They’re not going to worry.”

  “There’s a bail hearing Monday. If I’m not there—”

  “Monday?” Melinda laughed. “This will all be over long before then.”

  Over?

  “Keep going.” Melinda yanked Ivy’s head.

  Another flight up. Ivy’s sneakers tracked through sawdust that coated the attic landing. The door stood open—a sliding metal bolt had been screwed into it and a hole drilled into the doorjamb. Melinda released her hair, pushed her into the bedroom and down onto the bed.

  Ivy looked frantically about the room. The lamp was gone. The bed had been stripped. Even the wastebasket that had been in the corner had been removed. On the floor was a crumpled piece of yellowed canvas. Ivy’s heart lurched when she realized what it was—the straitjacket from the wicker trunk.

  Melinda picked it up and shook it out. “Wasn’t it just perfect, finding this in that old trunk? Talk about a sign from the Almighty. Like that swan at your yard sale. That’s what my mother always said she wanted me to do with her money after she died—turn myself into a swan.”

  Melinda held the straitjacket by the shoulders and lifted one of the sleeves. It tapered to a point, ending in a dangling leather strap. “Whether I have to use this is up to you.”

  Ivy gave an involuntary shudder. She held very still, but her mind was racing. She had to get out of here. The open bedroom door—Ivy shifted forward until she was perched at the edge of the bed.

  Melinda dropped the straitjacket onto the floor and backed up, slamming the door shut behind her. She leaned against it.

  “You’re not leaving.” She jerked her chin toward the bed. “Sit back. Relax.”

  Ivy slid back. “Why are you doing this to me? What do you want?”

  “I told you.” There was a manic gleam in Melinda’s eyes. “I want the baby David owes me.”

  “Owes you? Owes you?” Ivy voice was shrill. “That’s—”

  “Crazy?” Melinda gave Ivy a long look. “So David never told you about us?”

  Us? In all those photos from Melinda’s bedroom, there hadn’t been a single one of Melinda and David together. Any “us” had to have been in Melinda’s fantasy world. But that didn’t make it any less real to her.

  “David liked you,” Ivy said.

  “He told you that?” Melinda’s eyes widened with hope, and for a moment the new, slimmed-down version of Melinda with her straightened teeth and frosted hair merged with the pudgy, pudding-faced girl who’d worn white, frilly-edged ankle socks in fourth grade.

  Then her look hardened. “You’re lying.” She tightened her grip on the knife and held it out in front of her. “I’m not a complete idiot. David didn’t even know who I was when he saw me at the yard sale. Not at first.” She smiled. “Not until I reminded him about what happened.”

  “What happened?” The words leaked out before Ivy could stop them.

  “Right. Like you don’t know. Like you weren’t laughing your heads off—you and the rest of the popular kids.”

  Popular? Ivy was genuinely astonished. She’d had no illusions that she’d ever been part of the popular crowd. But envy was all about perspective, and Melinda had been the ultimate outsider.

  “The day after it happened, all the kids were talking about it. Not even whispering. Not bothering to hide their stares and snickers.” Melinda’s mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. “Fat, pathetic Melinda White went down on the football team. Only that’s not what happened. But it didn’t matter, because everyone wanted to believe that it did. You remember that, don’t you?”

  “I…” Ivy didn’t know what to say. She did remember some talk, but she’d had no idea that Melinda was that girl, or which boys had been involved. It had been before she and David had started seeing each other, back in the days when she seemed as likely to get abducted by aliens as she was to date Brush Hills High’s star quarterback.

  “Later, when they voted me Friendliest?” Melinda said. “Like I wouldn’t get the joke.”

  Ivy remembered the kids on the yearbook committee laughing and winking at one another when the vote came in.

  “They thought if you were homely, you were stupid, too.” A tear squeezed from the corner of Melinda’s eye, and she lowered the knife. But just for a moment. “They didn’t know what really happened.”

  “The truth never came out, did it?” Ivy said, her words dropping into an anguished silence. “You’re the only one who knows.” She realized that Melinda wanted to tell, needed to tell. She shifted forward, bit by bit, until her feet touched the floor.

  “You want to hear exactly what your precious husband and his friends did to me?” Melinda raised the knife and pointed it at Ivy. “I’ve thought of it every day of every week of every year. When I’m awake. It’s even in my dreams. I remember every detail. I can still hear them, thumping down the stairs, hollering.” She stood very still, her eyes unfocused, for the moment rooted in the past. “Strutting and preening in their football jackets. Coming in all at once, the way they always did.”

  What Ivy wanted to do was hum, barricade herself from these lies. These crazy lies. They had to be lies.

  Melinda’s gaze floated to the ceiling. “Aretha. That’s who was playing on that radio station Mr. Kezey liked. David was singing along, off-key. Moonwalking.” Melinda smiled at the memory. “He comes over and leans across the counter. ‘Hey, pretty girl, whatchoo want?’” Melinda’s cheeks flushed. “‘Pretty girl.’ That’s what he called me. And he wants to know, where is everybody? Because the only other people there are getting ready to leave.

  “He goes, ‘So where’s the Bowling Nazi?’

  “I know he’s joking around, but I pretend I don’t. I pick up the phone and ask if he wants me to call Mr. Kezey. He goes—” Melinda leaned forward and put her hand over her mouth. “‘Neg-a-tive.’ Like he’s all cool.

  “I set them up in a couple of lanes. Then David comes back over with his friend. Moussed hair. Dark eyes. Thinks he’s God’s gift. And I see that they’ve got open beer bottles. If Kezey’d been there, he’d have been apoplectic.

  “His friend, the lounge lizard, slides his tongue between his lips, like that’s supposed to turn me on. ‘I want a…pair. Size elevens.’” Melinda raised her hand and smoothed the side of her head with her palm, a perfect imitation of Theo’s characteristic gesture.

  “And I remember. This guy’s a world-class jerk. He’s one of those dudes who sit on a table at the entrance to the cafeteria every day, rating girls. They even hold up scorecards. But
when I go by, it’s like I’m not there.

  “So I tell them, ‘You’re not supposed to bring your own beverages.’

  “His friend moves in real close and drags the bottom of his beer bottle along the inside of my arm. And he says something like, ‘But you’re cool with it, right?’ And he offers me a drink.

  “And I don’t know why”—Melinda put out her hand for the phantom bottle, her eyes unfocused again—“but I take it. I drink. It’s not bad. Not nearly as nasty-tasting as I expect it to be. I take another drink, and I’m handing it back when I realize that the rest of the guys aren’t bowling. They’re watching me and cracking up. One of them holds up his arms and screams, ‘SCORE!’”

  Tears crawled down Melinda’s face. “I feel like such a complete fool. David says, ‘Don’t pay any attention to those assholes.’ He gives me his beer and takes my hand and leads me over to the scorekeeper’s chair.

  “I finish that beer, then another. They’re bowling. A spare. A gutter ball. A strike. Another strike,” Melinda said, her voice a singsong. Ivy could almost feel the bowling balls thundering down the lanes, hear the clatter of the pins getting cleared. “And they’re high-fiving me.

  “Then David’s friend lifts me up out of the chair and gives me a ball. I tell him I don’t know how to bowl. He thinks that’s hysterical—I work in a bowling alley and I can’t bowl?

  “He sets his hands on my hips, like he’s going to teach me. He untucks my shirt. And I know I should make him stop, but it feels nice, the way he’s touching my skin, his fingers dipping down. And Cyndi Lauper is on the radio singing ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun.’” Melinda pulsed, as if she could hear the music. “And I am. Having a great time. I really am.

  “Then, before I know what’s happening, there’s beer everywhere. All over me. All over the lounge lizard. And David’s standing there with the others, doubled over laughing with their dripping beer bottles.

  “David’s friend grabs a fresh bottle, opens it, and gives it to me. He tells me, ‘Go ahead. Let ’em have it.’ And I think, why the hell not?

  “I plug the opening with my thumb and shake the bottle. Hard. Then I let go.” Melinda moved her hand, the knife aloft, in a wide arc. “David looks stunned, like he just swallowed a hamster.” Melinda staggered sideways, hooting laughter. She dropped the knife but quickly picked it up again, then leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath.

  “After that it’s all-out war. Beer’s in my hair, dripping from my nose. Little pools of beer are in the molded orange plastic seats. And—”

  Melinda stopped, emotion draining from her face. She took a deep inhale and folded her arms. “Then it gets really quiet. They’re all staring at me. At my chest. That stupid yellow polyester bowling shirt that Mr. Cheesey makes me wear is soaking wet.

  “I can feel David behind me. He whispers how sexy I am. He reaches around and unbuttons the top button of the shirt, and his breath is hot on my neck. He starts on the next button. Stop!” Melinda screamed. The word caromed off the attic walls. “He holds my arms behind my back, and buttons pop off.

  “The boys are in a circle, all around me.” The words came in a rush. “Their faces red. Looking at me. I know I should cover up. I should run home, and to hell with Mr. Kezey’s stupid bowling alley.”

  Melinda pushed her tongue to the corner of her mouth, as if she were tasting beer. Sweet. Bitter.

  “James Brown is on the radio now, and music is pulsing and throbbing, like it’s inside me, and the boys are standing around me, all of them watching, all of them.

  “Like I’m finally someone who rates a number.” Melinda raised the knife, her fingers tightening around the handle as she stared directly at Ivy. “That’s when David pulled me into the closet. He closed the door, and it’s pitch black in there. He holds me. Touches me. He tastes of salt and beer, and I remember he’s wearing a chain around his neck. And then…and then…” A momentary look of confusion crossed Melinda’s face and quickly cleared. “He made love to me.”

  Made love? The unexpected words singed the air, even more shocking than if Melinda had said she was raped.

  “Later I wake up, and I’m there on the floor of the closet, all alone. I open the door. The bowling alley’s empty. My shirt’s unbuttoned and my bra unhooked. My panties are gone. I rush to the girls’ room and throw up. I look at myself in the mirror.” Melinda ran her fingers through her hair. “My hair is stiff and grotesque. Vomit’s caked all over me.

  “I try to clean myself up. Then I mop with pine cleaner. But even after that, the place still stinks of beer and puke. And all the time I’m mopping and scrubbing, I’m crying and I can barely see, and I’m terrified that any minute Mr. Kezey’s going to come back and find me, and he’ll know what happened.” Melinda’s face contorted, and tears flowed down her cheeks. “And then everyone will know what I did.” Melinda’s look challenged Ivy to respond.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ivy said. It felt pathetically inadequate.

  Melinda sniffed in derision. “Sure you are. Now. Back then no one said ‘Sorry.’ No one called me after to see if I was all right.” Melinda wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Turned out I was pregnant. When I lost the baby, my mother said God was punishing me.

  “Meanwhile you and David are dating, going to the senior prom, hearing from colleges, graduating. The perfect couple. The perfect home.” Melinda pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes at Ivy. “The perfect life.”

  “Why didn’t you tell someone what happened?” Ivy asked. “Did you go to the police?”

  “No one would have believed me,” Melinda said. She shivered, her look turning dark and cold. “Just like you don’t believe me now. Or they’d say it was nothing. And maybe to them that’s what it was.”

  But Ivy did believe her. Theo had been there, she was sure of that. This had been the “ancient history,” the “nothing happened” that he didn’t want dredged up.

  “You know,” Ivy said, “teenagers can do incredibly stupid things, especially when they’re drunk. Things that they come to regret later.”

  “It was no mistake. It was deliberate. Planned. They must have known that Mr. Kezey wouldn’t be there, because otherwise they wouldn’t have brought in beer. And where were all the other customers? It was never that empty on a Tuesday afternoon. When I left, the sign on the door had been turned to ‘Closed.’ I know David did that the minute they got there.” Her look challenged Ivy to come up with another explanation.

  But raising objections and rational observations wasn’t going to dissuade Melinda from what she believed.

  “I’ll go with you to the police,” Ivy said. “It’s not too late to tell them what David did to you. It wasn’t your fault. No one will blame you.”

  Melinda looked amused. “You think I care anymore what people think? I’m long past that. What I want is my baby.”

  “Please, please don’t. After that there’ll be no turning back. You’ll be on the run. Always looking over your shoulder.”

  “Who’s going to come after me? David? He’ll be in prison for my murder. You? Sorry.” Melinda gave a fake, pouty frown. “The police? If anything, they’ll be coming after you. Because it’s going to look like you ran off with your baby because you couldn’t face the truth, that your husband is a murderer.”

  31

  The door slammed shut behind Melinda. Moments later Ivy flew across the room. She grasped the doorknob, twisted it, and pulled. The door gave barely a hairsbreadth. It was bolted shut.

  Ivy pulled harder. Braced a foot against the doorjamb and tugged, straining as hard as she could. Then, suddenly, she found herself staggering back, the brass doorknob still in hand. She just managed to catch herself from falling.

  “Mrs. Rose?” Ivy jerked around at the woman’s voice. It was coming from the dumbwaiter and being broadcast through the shaft. “This is Phyllis Stone from the Norfolk County Crime Lab….” Melinda was in the kitchen replaying the message on the answering machine
.

  Ivy crossed to the dumbwaiter and quietly slid open the lower panel so she could hear more clearly. The message continued through to the end, with the woman giving her phone number and an address that was just across into the neighboring town.

  A short time later, Ivy heard Melinda’s voice. “Hello? I’m calling about coming in and giving a DNA sample? Phyllis Stone called me a little while ago from there…. Yes, this is Ivy Rose.”

  Ivy listened, too stunned to move.

  “Mm-hmm. Sure. Thanks so much.” There was a long pause. “Yes, I can come over this afternoon.” Another pause. “Sounds fine. Yes, I’ll remember. See you before five.”

  Then just the sound of rain, falling steadily on the roof and rushing through the metal gutters. Ivy stared into the dark shaft.

  It made no sense. The police didn’t need Melinda’s DNA. They already had it. Detective Blanchard had said they’d collected it from a toothbrush they picked up in Melinda’s apartment.

  A toothbrush… In a moment of cold clarity, Ivy realized what had happened—the switch Melinda had made. The toothbrush they’d collected from Melinda’s apartment was Ivy’s lost toothbrush—the one that had mysteriously disappeared weeks earlier. Melinda had somehow managed to break in and steal it, then leave it in her own bathroom as if it were hers.

  The DNA that the police now had labeled “Melinda White” was really Ivy’s. And the DNA sample Melinda was about to give at the crime lab would be labeled “Ivy Rose,” completing the swap.

  The photo ID was the only possible glitch. Melinda had to hope that the lab technician would give the picture on Ivy’s driver’s license no more than a cursory glance.

  But why go to all the trouble of swapping her own DNA for Ivy’s?

  The answer crashed into Ivy. The fetal tissue. The results of a DNA analysis hadn’t yet come back, but soon they would. David would be identified as the father. The mother’s DNA would match the DNA off that toothbrush from Melinda’s apartment. The police would think they had proof that David was the father of Melinda’s unborn child. A murder indictment would be on its way.