Twelve Truths and a Lie

by Christina Lee

  Cameron

  I stepped out of the bathroom at Flanagan’s and decided to head straight to the parking lot. No reason to stick around when Aurora wasn’t even here. She probably thought I had groped her the other night in the doorway. Besides, we had only been messing around about the mock club.

  When I saw the flash of red hair near the front entrance, my stomach jolted. Aurora had actually shown up; it wasn’t just me reading into our conversation. I stepped up my pace, calling out her name, but she didn’t hear me above the din of the crowd.

  I grasped for her arm before she made it through the door.

  Her shoulders stiffened and she spun toward me. Her mouth curved into a scowl as if ready to curse some poor guy out.

  “My bad,” I said, throwing my hands up and backing away. Wanting her to know that I respected her space and wasn’t attempting to touch her for the second time in a row. “I just didn’t want you to leave before I got your attention.”

  She looked over my shoulder as if attempting to catalogue where I might’ve come from. “I was using the restroom.”

  “Well, that makes sense.” Suddenly she seemed to shrink in shyness. A direct contrast to the fierceness she had exhibited just moments before.

  “Do you…” I pointed behind me. “Do you want to grab a couple of seats at the bar? Unless you…”

  “No, I’d love to,” she said, standing to her full height. “I’m here and wouldn’t mind a drink.”

  I allowed her to walk ahead of me and nearly placed my hand on her lower back like an idiot. What in the hell was wrong with me? She might kick me in the balls if I tried to touch all that smooth skin again. This wasn’t a date. But I couldn’t help admiring the view from behind. Those shapely legs in those slim jeans.

  We grabbed two bar stools at the end of the row and ordered a couple of local ales. As her gaze continued flitting back to me and then around the space, I could tell she was wondering what in the hell we were doing there. But the God’s honest truth was that I had had a rough week with my kids at school, and I was thankful for the company.

  Besides, my roommate had a girl over, they were watching a movie, and I wanted to get the hell out of the house. I was invited to a standing weekly happy hour with the other teachers from school, but I wanted to get away from work, not rehash it, which usually happened when I showed up.

  And invariably one of the more outspoken regular education teachers would refer to my students in a disparaging manner, disguised as concern. I saw one of your kids taking extra-long in the bathroom or some stupid shit like that. It was as frustrating as it was exhausting and did not make me feel part of any team. My aid in the classroom stayed far away from those gatherings, as well.

  “So, what made you decide to come?” I asked, sipping at my beer.

  “Well, at first,” she said, licking her lips of the foam, “I actually wasn’t sure if what we had said was a joke or not.”

  “So you took pity on me in case I had taken it seriously?” I asked around a chuckle as I adjusted myself on the stool.

  “Maybe.” She smiled, and it somehow lit up her whole face. “But you took pity on me, as well.”

  We stared at each other a bit awkwardly until I thought she might shrink into the floor. Maybe this had been a bad idea. We had mutual friends, big deal. But I didn’t want to throw in the towel so easily, so I struggled for something to say. “So, how was your week?”

  “Busy and draining,” she said in a show of honesty, and I appreciated the hell out of it. “I think it’s hard to explain to people how much this kind of work takes out of you mentally and emotionally.”

  “For sure,” I concurred. “Basically you spend all day as the keeper of everybody’s stuff. And then you have to decide where to dump that load that you take in every day.”

  “Right.” Her eyes widened as if amazed by my description. “It feels pretty raw sometimes.”

  “By the end of the week,” I said, brushing my hand over my hair, “I can always use some comic relief.”

  “So that’s why teachers party so hard,” she said, smirking. “I mean, seriously. Don’t they frequent that bar over on Pine Street?”

  “Every Friday,” I said, thinking about how my co-workers were probably three sheets to the wind by now. “But, being one of the only self-contained classrooms, I find even they can’t understand my shit. Their problems are different than mine. They complain about students not handing in homework, and I’m just trying to get them to make it through a lesson without an emotional breakdown.”

  Her eyes were focused solely on me, and I could tell she really got what I was saying. It felt so damn good. “Do you have an aid in the classroom?”

  “Yeah, Sandy’s great,” I said. “Today one of my new students had a meltdown and while I held him and talked him down in the corner of the room, she took over the lesson.”

  She sipped more of her beer, considered what I’d told her. “So you guys are taught restraint methods?”

  “That’s the old-school term. They don’t call it that anymore,” I said, reaching for a pretzel from the bowl on the bar top. They were salty, just like I liked them. “But yeah.”

  We were trained to hold a kid in a couple of different ways if they became a danger to themselves or others. Sometimes these kids just needed somebody to grab onto them, ground them, and give them critical attention. To actually physically suppress them.

  Because if we could help shut out the world—the stimuli around them—they could finally relax. Once you got your arms around them, they almost always fought you at first and eventually they just melted into your embrace.

  “Have you ever gotten injured?” she asked, looking me up and down. I wondered what she saw, not that it should matter.

  “My ribs have taken a couple of shots,” I said, my hand rubbing my stomach and her gaze skirted down my chest. “My shins get bruised when they kick.”

  Man it felt good to talk to somebody about all of this shit. No lie. My ex-girlfriend, Dessa, never seemed interested in talking about any of it, and eventually I stopped telling her all but pertinent stuff about my day.

  She’d ask me why I continued to torture myself in a job with kids who didn’t give a crap about anything. But they did care, quite a bit, if only you could get down to the core of them. Through all the defensive and painful layers. See what they’re really made of. Sometimes that’s all a person needs. For you to hang in there with them.

  “What about you?” I asked, curious to hear about her work. “Anybody have a freak-out moment during a session?”

  “Oh yeah, I’ve had my office trashed before,” she said, twirling her hand like it was no big thing. “I’ve never had anything happen on a home visit before except being privy to some suspicious corner drug deals and introduced to some interesting family members.”

  “I’ll bet. How often do you visit clients’ homes?” I said, tightening my hold on my glass. Why I was suddenly concerned for her well-being I didn’t quite comprehend. But anybody who regularly went into people’s homes to discuss emotional and behavioral issues needed to take some safety precautions.

  “Not that often. I understand the importance of it, though. When you engage the family where they live, you sort of understand them better,” she said, looking out the window into traffic as if picturing it. “They’re not coming to a sterile office.”

  “Makes a lot of sense,” I said and then lifted my hand to alert the bartender. “Want another one?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation before she nodded. I wasn’t sure what that was about, and it made me feel fleetingly uncertain of whether she was truly enjoying herself. But the feeling quickly passed when she smiled and asked me another question about my classroom.

  We spent the remainder of the evening talking about our careers, and I couldn’t believe how the time had flown. After we both ordered water as our final drink, I walked her out in the chilly night air to her car. It was a newer model sedan, so my worries abo
ut her breaking down while driving to clients’ homes were lessened by a degree. And there I was again, concerned about her welfare.

  She turned to me once she reached the driver’s side door. “You have a…thingy on your chin…” she said, motioning to my jawline.

  “A thingy?” I swiped at whatever imaginary object she was attempting to point out, heat washing across my neck. “Did I get it?”

  “Here,” she said, her fingertips swiping across the scruff on my chin. “It’s…I have no idea what this is, maybe a stubborn pretzel crumb?”

  “Well, this is embarrassing,” I muttered, as her hand remained for a moment longer on my jaw. It felt soft and delicate and instantly warmed me from the inside. “You’re not going to wet your thumb like my mom used to do to clean my face in public, are you?”

  Laughter burst from her lips, and her eyes crinkled in the corners. “Nicole always says she can’t believe the things she does to her twins that she swore she’d never do as a mom.”

  “I bet that’s one of them,” I said. “See, you couldn’t even help yourself.”

  “You should be thanking me,” she said, biting her lip and averting her eyes. “You wouldn’t want to go all the way home with snack crumbs on your face.”

  “Right,” I replied, making my eyes comically wide. “Because the person next to me at the stoplight might poke fun at me.”

  She erupted into giggles and held onto my arm as she doubled over. I found it infectious, my chest rumbling with a snicker. “Next thing you know, you end up on some girl’s Instagram page, with the header: This guy would be even hotter if he wasn’t such a slob.”

  My grin faltered as I realized what she’d said, that she considered me attractive. My eyes met hers as her cheeks colored into a rosy tint.

  “I, uh,” she stammered and then pointed behind her to her car. “I should…”

  “This was nice,” I said, helping her out of the awkward moment.

  Thing was, I hadn’t felt any pressure from her tonight, to act a certain way or say what she wanted to hear, and that was really cool.

  “Glad you showed up,” she said, her eyes finally meeting my gaze.

  “Me, too,” I replied, blowing out a breath of relief before working up the nerve to ask something else. “Do you think we can…”

  She looked at me expectantly as she held her car door open.

  “Exchange phone numbers?” I said, shrugging. “No pressure to show up again for our club but just in case something else comes up.”

  “Absolutely,” she said, her cheeks flushing pink again, either from the cold or the mention of keeping in contact. “That would be great.”

  Was it pathetic that I was already looking forward to next week?

  We pulled out our phones and while she programmed my number, I took the opportunity to stare at her under the glow of the streetlamp. A few red ringlets of hair fell over her shoulder, and she kept pinning them back behind her ear. She also had a smattering of light freckles on her cheeks and even some on her neck that made her more appealing.

  We were just friends. But friends could still admire each other, as long as no lines were crossed and nobody felt uncomfortable, right?

  “Okay,” she said, tossing her phone on her passenger side seat. “I’m freezing my butt off. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Have a good week,” I said, backing away to head to my car parked clear across the lot. I waited until she pulled out of her parking space before driving away.

  5

  Aurora

  It had been a busy workweek, and I couldn’t help wondering how Cameron was doing. He was so easy to talk to and I deliberated if I would get over the hump of my blinding attraction to him so we could simply be friends. No pretenses or pressures. That would be fantastic and refreshingly cool.

  He hadn’t gone overboard on cocktails at the bar the other night either, and that made me even more comfortable. I wasn’t certain whether he had a true dependency on alcohol or not—some people abused drinking, used it as an escape—but I reminded myself that it wasn’t my problem to solve. And that felt good.

  I headed out the door to meet Nicole at Sydney’s dance studio recital.

  Every year, Sydney reserved center stage seats for us, which we relished because the productions she worked so long and hard on were always impressive.

  She was an excellent dancer herself and darn could she teach kids—ballet, hip-hop, tap, and jazz, you name it. Parents lined up around the corner to sign up in the fall for her year-round studio classes.

  She’d make a good mother some day, if she ever decided to settle down with the right guy. I wish I had her free spirit when it came to relationships, but I was getting there. She always said she liked being alone best. I was beginning to see the lure.

  “So, what’s new?” Nicole whispered to me as the lights went down in the auditorium.

  “Not much.” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell Nicole about my night with Cameron. Except, I wanted to keep the information sacred for now, not to be analyzed by my friends.

  We dissected everything as it was and I didn’t want to think about why I had just made a new friend and met him out on a Friday night under the pretense of an imaginary club.

  Nor did I want to share that we began texting each other almost daily.

  The first message came through from Cameron the other day.

  Cameron: Talk about bruised ribs—my new kid is giving me a run for my money.

  Me: Sounds like he might be testing you.

  Cameron: Me, the rules, the boundaries in the classroom. He’s got a lot of anger in him. It’ll take some time to develop trust.

  Me: You okay?

  Cameron: For sure.

  Me: How about your aid?

  Cameron: Sandy is tough as nails.

  Me: Bet she is.

  Cameron: Would help if parents were consistent with the meds, though I’m sure money is an issue sometimes.

  Me: Meds get a bad rap but when they work they work.

  Cameron: They work brilliantly for impulsive behaviors.

  Me: And so they can concentrate and learn.

  Cameron: Social skills, too. Don’t forget about those. Middle-graders can be asshats.

  Me: I think we all probably were. LOL. Kids that age = brutal.

  Cameron: Tell me about it. So hey, is the club still meeting on Friday night?

  Me: Same time, same sandbox.

  Cameron: Looking forward to it.

  This was what I was thinking about during the first two opening numbers. How the communication between Cameron and me flowed so easily. How we seemed to be on the same page about many important values and beliefs.

  It wasn’t like talking to Phil, my last boyfriend, who thought kids were over-diagnosed and schools needed to bring back corporal punishment. I cringed every time I thought about that heated conversation, though I was always the one to back down, because I was too easy-going. I had learned that about myself. I dealt with so much conflict at work that I was afraid of rocking the boat in my personal life, too, I guess.

  I just wanted somebody to hang out with me, for everything to flow effortlessly. How did I think Phil and I or any other random boyfriend over the years could meet in the middle on certain topics when our integral values weren’t even lining up?

  “You seem distracted,” Nicole whispered in between dance numbers.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Work stuff on my mind.”

  “So, will you come to the twins’ birthday party?” she asked. “They’re turning three. They’d love to see their Auntie Rory.”

  “Of course,” I said, smiling at their nickname for me. “When is it?”

  “Next month on a Sunday,” she said, as if mentally flipping through a calendar in her head. The same way she juggled all she did already—work and motherhood, wife, home life, and friends. She was amazing, really.

  “Done,” I said. “Any gift ideas?” No way could I guess; I barely knew anything about toddlers. Ki
ds aged five to twelve were a different story. I could make decent predictions based on my frequent sessions with families.

  “I’ll text you some ideas in a couple of weeks,” she said as the next dance number began. These were Sydney’s older girls, who were required to audition to partake in special performances for the show. They were mesmerizing to watch. Their sequined outfits sparkled as they stood in formation and shook their booties to the popular melody. They finished to rousing applause from the audience.

  During intermission, Sydney rushed out briefly to greet us. “Thanks for coming, guys.” She looked distracted and overheated, probably from running around backstage. I was surprised she even had time to step into the audience.

  I’d been behind the scenes a couple of times, and it was sheer pandemonium. Girls and hair and glitter and clothes. And in the thick of it was Sydney, right where she belonged. She thrived on it, even. But maybe right now, she just needed a two-minute breather.

  “It’s an impressive show, and I love the carnival theme this year,” I said, hugging her.

  “Did you see the costumes you helped me bling for the tap number?” she asked as she looked over her shoulder and waved to a couple of parents in the row behind us.

  Sydney was always forcing work on us—in a good-natured way—and of course, we always helped. I’d be sitting up at night watching a Netflix show while gluing tiny purple rhinestones on a skirt. The amount of bling that wound up slipping between my couch cushions, I’ll never know.

  “So, what does your week look like?” she asked Nicole and me.

  “We’re driving down with the girls to visit Michael’s parents on Friday after work,” Nicole said.

  “Same old thing,” I replied when she turned to me, avoiding the question as best I could before they could tell I was holding something back, which would be soon enough.

  “How about you, Sydney?” I asked.

  “After all of this?” She fluttered her hands at the stage. “I’m getting pampered at some spa.”

  “Sounds perfect,” Nicole said, laughing.