Lie to Me

by J. T. Ellison

  And famished, an alien sensation these past few months.

  She rose, drank a glass of water, straightened the pencils on top of the desk. Pulled on a pair of tights and a tunic, slid her feet into clogs. Careful to make sure she had the key to the flat, she walked down the four flights to the street below, then up one block to the patisserie, where she bought a long, crusty baguette, then next door to the grocer, where she loaded up on fruit and vegetables, and finally, the cheese shop, where she purchased three varieties without looking at the labels. Ethan had allergies, so many of them, intolerances and sensitivities, so in order to coddle him and his bizarre issues she rarely bought food that she loved. Grabbing whatever struck her at the moment felt wildly indulgent.

  She didn’t know exactly when she’d stopped loving him. Wasn’t completely sure she ever had.

  They’d met at a book festival. Ethan was a writer, too, from London. A very celebrated novelist who had managed one brilliant book, gotten famous for it, and spent all his time now traveling the circuit, guest lecturing, and teaching the odd workshop, being paid exorbitant amounts of money to look fabulous at New York and London parties and appear frequently on Page Six with gorgeous women draped all over him like a bespoke suit.

  He thought her books were trite, though he’d never said that. He’d never had to. It was in the way he smiled at her over the breakfast table, all indulgent, condescending benevolence, when she told him she was going into her office to work for the morning, and to please not interrupt unless he was bleeding or otherwise dying. She said it jokingly, but was dead serious. He had the most annoying ability to step inside her space at the most inopportune times. And lo, one hour later, just as she would be hitting her stride (the first thirty minutes being spent cruising the social networks, of course) here he would come, whistling.

  “Ready for a break, darling? I thought we could have an early lunch.”

  “I have an article due for the New Yorker, would you mind giving it a polish?”

  “This chapter is giving me fits, could you help?”

  And she’d always acquiesce, because that’s what good wives did. She fed and watered and laid herself down for sex at all hours and wrote and rewrote and polished his words till they shone, so he would stay happy, stay with her, and could continue getting the accolades that kept them in the heavily renovated Franklin Victorian McMansion they lived in, kept the adulation of the literati high.

  Back in the flat, Sutton broke off a piece of the crusty bread, spread it with the soft, creamy cheese. Stared out her window at the Tour, smelled the smoke of a nearby fireplace. She was no longer a good wife. She no longer belonged to him. It was such a relief.

  How had they arrived at this point, she and Ethan, as strangers again? Once, they were inseparable. They were horizontal as often as they were vertical. They had fun, laughs, joy, desires. Now, desire for Ethan was as foreign to her as this food she was buying, this city she had fled to. But that was why she came, to find a new life among the marble and grass and flowers. To escape. To start again. To start over. For herself.

  Somehow, some way, she was going to eradicate the past half decade of her life.

  And so she worked. And she ate again. And then she took a walk. Because that’s what writers living in Paris did.

  There was something so wildly freeing about being able to step out onto the sidewalks and garner no attention. She was one woman among thousands here. An anonymous creature, with no past, no worries. To anyone who noticed, she was a Parisian, through and through—the clothes she’d bought were current continental fashion and very lovely; she’d had her hair cut in the loose, natural style favored here. She bought neutral makeup, stopped coloring her nails, had them buffed till they shone. She carried a black Longchamp bag with thin brown leather handles, wore large black sunglasses, and double wrapped a well-loved Hermès scarf around her slender neck. Her French sounded native, was exceptionally fluent, with a local accent. There were so many strangers in Paris now, no one gave her a second thought. She’d overheard two women complaining that 30 percent of the people living in Paris didn’t even speak French. They were becoming a city of immigrants, and the natives resented this, but if your French was excellent, all doors opened.

  There was nothing—nothing—to give her away. She fit in like a grain of sand on an endless stretch of beach.

  As she rambled through the fine Parisian air, she allowed herself the indulgence of a memory. She needed to wean herself off her past, slowly, carefully, so she could leave it entirely behind. But one memory wouldn’t hurt.

  A BIT OF BACKSTORY

  Then

  When she’d first met Ethan, at the requisite Friday night cocktail party for the talent, with his smooth smile and too-long, devil-may-care hair (expertly highlighted, she found out later), all she could think about was his skin. Seeing more of it. Touching it while lying next to him in the bed on a Sunday morning. Running her hands along his sides, across his broad back, and down, farther, to the silk she knew waited for her.

  The desire for him, for their life to come, was sharp and immediate and she’d never felt anything like it before, with anyone. She watched his lips, full and laughing, and his teeth, shiny and slightly crooked, the front right overlapping the edge of its twin. And she just wanted to get him naked and see all of him.

  It disturbed her, this reaction. Especially when she threw everything away and followed through on her urges. If only she’d resisted. Would she be here now?

  He was beautiful in the way of hypermasculine men; he knew he was attractive, knew every woman in the room was imagining what it would be like to have him looking at, talking to, being with her.

  Somehow, she was the one who caught his attention. She’d been drinking; these events always made her nervous and uncomfortable, so by the time she ran into him she was loose and downright flirty. There were two lines for the bar, and he was to her right. She tried not to stare, truly she did. Not only was he stunning, he was being lauded as one of the best literary minds of a generation, and the idea that she was within arm’s reach of such genius made her giddy.

  And there was the skin, that luscious forearm peeking out from his rolled-up sleeve.

  And so she’d touched him. Stroked the fine, lightly furred skin of his arm. She didn’t understand the impetus, but she’d done it. He’d smiled down at her, widely, the imperfect front teeth charming, and offered to buy her a drink.

  At that point, Sutton was a foregone conclusion.

  Later, they were both drunk, pleasantly so. They left the party and went to the elevator. She thought her heart would burst from her chest waiting for the doors to slide open. She knew exactly what was about to happen. The last little bit of rational thought she possessed screamed, Don’t! But the naughty party girl in her, the one she’d so carefully excised when she’d gotten out of college, massaged her skin, slid down between her thighs, and said, You know you want him.

  Then they were inside the elevator. The doors whisked closed. There were mirrors. They were alone.

  “Here’s my key,” Ethan had said, rubbing up against her like an itchy cat. “Come to my room in ten minutes.”

  “Why can’t I come now?” Too much Scotch was making her bold, so bold. “What are you going to be doing for all that time?”

  “Trust me,” he’d whispered in her ear, licking her earlobe, sending delicious shivers down her spine. “Ten minutes.”

  Trust me. Two words better off never spoken among strangers.

  She’d gone to her room, brushed her teeth, her hair, put on deodorant. Glanced in the mirror, ran a finger under her eyes so the mascara wouldn’t run. Took off her panties.

  The party-girl lust was making her act completely out of character, and the excitement of it was overwhelming. She couldn’t wait ten minutes, stalked the hall until her watch said it had been eig
ht, knocked lightly. He’d opened the door and swept her inside with a laugh.

  “I just wanted to see how good you were at following instructions,” he’d said, and kissed her, long and deep. The sex had been better than anything she’d ever experienced. He looked like he’d be amazing in bed; he lived up to his promise. Those hands. Those long, gorgeous hands.

  They’d married three short months later, the flush of their love driving them to promises best not made, self-written vows about lifelong fidelity and never-ending support for one another’s careers, come thick or thin.

  Thin came too quickly.

  Soon after their marriage, they’d been at a conference together—just once, she’d never do that again—and the moderator asked what their life was like. Two creatives in one house. It must be amazing. You probably share an office, each tapping away.

  Ethan laughed, and there was something in that offhand gust of amused breath that made a hand go up in the crowd. A man, of course it was a man, in a voice as pompous and bombastic as Sutton had ever heard, stood and shot an arrow through her heart.

  “Don’t you feel, Mr. Montclair, that your books are more important than your wife’s? That you, as a literary author, are creating significant, essential work, and your wife, the genre writer, is simply generating entertainment for the masses?”

  Her husband, the literary star, the Author with a capital A, had grinned and waved his hand toward Sutton. “But she’s such a pretty writer.”

  The whole crowd had laughed, and Ethan laughed, and Sutton had to smile along, all the while feeling small and insignificant. She knew she was less in his mind, and in the minds of many of his peers. Ethan was God’s gift to literature; Sutton was a second-class citizen. Every time she thought of that moment, the words came unbidden. The words she’d heard when Ethan had dismissed her work, catering to the crowd. You are no one. You are nothing.

  That her first award would drive a small but workable wedge between them was understandable. It was the second award, a truly prestigious one, that created the real problem. Oh, on the surface, things looked okay. Ethan claimed far and wide how very proud he was of his wonderful, talented wife. What an amazing writer she was. Never an author. No, never that.

  All the while, at home, their happy life was withering away, those beautiful hands no longer touching her or the laptop keys or anything important. He went on long walks in the afternoons, came home smelling of bourbon and other women.

  She was failing him. Failing their marriage. And then came the surprise of all surprises.

  They named him Dashiell.

  THE GHOST OF PAPA

  Now

  Paris was warm today, and Sutton was done with the indulgences. Her walk took her past the École Militaire, full of screaming, laughing children on some sort of recess break—she wondered how they ever learned anything, as they seemed to always be outside throughout the school day, shouting with glee at the singular fact of being children. Parisian mothers seemed to know something American mothers didn’t, some key that Sutton had always been missing.

  She did not allow their voices to remind her of Dashiell. Dashiell, like Ethan, was no longer, and she, Sutton Montclair, was a new woman without them. She had no past. She had no trials or travails. She was a mystery unto herself.

  The Seine was only a seven-minute walk from her flat. She took the Left Bank by storm, arms practically swinging as she strolled along the sinuous water toward Notre-Dame, her chin up. A grain of sand she may be, but she was a Parisian grain now, and the tourists enjoying the day watched her walk by with admiration. She was their cliché—the gorgeous Parisian woman in the elegant clothes walking along the Seine. If only, they’d think. If only we could be so glamorous. There truly is nothing more beguiling than a Parisian woman.

  The colors. The colors of Paris. So overwhelming. Soft pinks and vibrant yellows, inky blacks and musty greens, the creamy white marble, the sunlit golds. Sutton couldn’t stop her eyes from roving, caressing each new sight, her ears attuned to every squeak of bicycle wheel, honk of horn, squawk of birds, all borne to her on whispers of the wind.

  It was so much, so overwhelming, it brought tears to her eyes, so she fixed her gaze straight ahead on the gentle blue sky beyond the satiny gray bridges, looking neither right nor left until she could get her emotions under control. A breath later, or maybe it was two, the idea came to her. She rarely had to search for ideas—they had a tendency to show up unannounced, with fully formed characters, in vivid mental images, the scenes unfolding before her very eyes.

  She saw a woman, with long, flowing red hair. Her clothing said eighteenth century, the skirts in layers of cream with a heavily ruched green velvet overlay, embroidered russet-and-gold leaves on the bodice. She was on a horse, approaching a large castle. There was some sort of celebration—yes, a marriage. She was arriving at the castle walls; all hail the new Queen. But it wasn’t in the past, it was set in the future. A future where the world had collapsed, and a marriage between warring factions would help arrest the coming apocalypse.

  Sutton smiled to herself.

  It didn’t matter the time period, nor the end result of the story. Was there a woman on earth who didn’t want to dress in heavy silks and ride a horse sidesaddle through a portcullis while rose petals rained down on her upturned face and throngs of people cried her name with joy?

  The story poured into her mind like water off a rocky ledge, unending, consistent, sparkling in the sunlight. The raining rose petals became torrents of blood and the triumphant scene turned dark, the sky melting into blackness, fires shooting into the sky, the screams of those behind the castle walls growing insistent in her ears; her Queen, her lovely Queen, lying deathly still, shrouded in a gauzy wrap.

  She needed to get home right away—home, after only two days she already thought of the flat as home, how very strange—and write it all down. Her mind was sharp; the scenes would linger long enough for her to off-load them. But she never wanted to take chances. The first rule of creativity: never squander a gift from the muses.

  She turned, started back. More ideas now, scenes crashing into her brain, sharp and vivid. She decided she couldn’t wait the thirty minutes it would take to get back to her laptop. She stopped at the nearest café, the entrance a garden wonderland, took a table in the sunlight, signaled imperiously for a coffee, like she’d seen the other women in her neighborhood do, pulled out her Clairefontaine notebook, and began to write.

  It couldn’t have been five minutes before the clouds opened and rain began to fall. She scrambled inside with her coffee, laughing, shaking the raindrops from her hair.

  The rest of the diners fled to the covered patio with greenhouse windows. Sutton headed into the bar.

  It was then, the café garden giving way to the dim wooden interior of the restaurant, that she realized where she was. La Closerie des Lilas. One of Hemingway’s haunts. She’d wandered into Montparnasse. How very apropos.

  Excited now, she took a seat in the bar. She glanced around, trying not to look too much like a tourist. There was the stool with the plaque commemorating Hemingway’s favorite spot, yes, but she was also surrounded by the ghosts of Montparnasse. All the great creatives of the time had come here.

  The energy in the space was palpable. She’d always been sensitive to energies; usually overwhelmed in crowds, but this place, this empty, dark bar with the picture of Papa hidden on the wall above the lights that looked like antlers with red tips to the left of the bar, this place filled her with its emptiness, with its history-steeped walls. They must have left behind so much of themselves, so much of their spirits disgorged here, for her to feel their presence in an empty room. The conversations they must have had. The loving and hating and creating that took place, it had left a mark.

  It was just her, and a black-haired barkeep she hadn’t noticed until now, who’d stayed si
lent while she experienced the magic, and the sweating silver ice bucket full of open magnums of champagne.

  She stayed there for hours.

  The locals were in the brasserie eating mussels from the shell, so she was left alone, nodded at a few times by the maître d’, who seemed to enjoy catching her eye, and once even pointed over his shoulder toward her. Stupid Americans and their obsessions, she thought she heard, but he was smiling, and perhaps she heard wrong, or he was talking about a family outside the walls with their bright white sneakers and expensive cameras slung around their skinny necks.

  She took a sip of champagne—she had to have at least one drink with Montparnasse’s ghosts—and went back to admiring the room. She liked it here. It was very quiet, the only real noises the clinking of dishes, the swish of the kitchen door, and the muted voices of the staff as they hurried from dining room to kitchen and back, their footsteps occasionally squeaking on the tiled floor. The floor itself was a masterpiece; she had to stifle the urge to lie down on it and watch the ceiling fan spin round and round in lazy circles. Incongruously, the soft French jazz on the radio ended and a favorite song came on, Jason Mraz, and a strum of ukulele got stuck in her brain. I’m yours...

  Ethan.

  Shit. Shit. Merde, damn, hell. It was their song. And now Ethan was here with her.

  She hid a small sob in her champagne. He would have loved it here. She’d spent three hours writing in his hero’s space and Ethan would be crushed if he had any idea where she was right now, what she was doing.

  They were supposed to take this trip together.

  They were supposed to do a lot of things together.

  She realized her notebook was covered in drips from her tears. She blotted the words with a napkin, finished her champagne, and left. There were no more reasons to torture herself with ghosts from the past, recent or otherwise.