House Without Lies (Lily’s House Book 1)

by Rachel Branton

  His grin melted my resolve to a warm puddle of contentment. “I’d love to,” he said, “but I have to grab a shower before I head to South Mountain. A Teen Nature group went out this morning, and I’m doing a campfire activity for them.” He laughed. “Actually, it’s more of making an idiot of myself. The kids get a real kick out of it.”

  “Oh, I can imagine. So do you always help out with Teen Nature?”

  “Yeah, at least one day a week, but I’ve asked to switch to Fridays.” He gave me a wink that made me wish for Elsie’s ice pack. Guess my asking him to stay had smoothed over the awkwardness between us.

  The doorbell ringing saved me from responding. Ruth jumped up from the table where she was examining the repaired hole in the cupboard and hurried to the door. Everyone else froze. Elsie grabbed my hand.

  “It’s okay,” I murmured.

  “It’s that woman again,” Ruth said in a whisper that carried through the apartment.

  “Do we need to go up on the roof?” Elsie asked, pressing herself against me.

  “No.” I glanced at Jameson and saw him frowning at Elsie, and I knew her fear bothered him. I hated it too.

  Ruth stepped back as I hurried to look through the peephole. The older woman standing there was blond and beautiful and well-dressed. Her hair swept up into a stylish twist in the back, and her trim suit and high heels looked completely out of place here.

  I had no idea how she’d found me.

  “It’s my mother,” I said. A collective sigh of relief ran through the room. Only I remained tense.

  Ruth snapped her fingers. “Right, she looks like you! That’s why she’s familiar.”

  There might be a family resemblance, but after working at the factory and being up since four, I looked more like her scraggly stepchild. For a moment, I was tempted to not open the door at all, but if she’d tracked me here, she’d be back. Nothing left to do but face her.

  Taking a breath, I opened the door six inches, placing myself in the space so she didn’t have much of a view inside. Ruth started to come around the door to peer out, but I shook my head, and she retreated into the kitchen.

  “Mother! What a surprise.”

  She gave a delicate snort. “I’ll bet. Why didn’t you tell me you were moving? I went to your old place, and your roommate, that nice dark-haired girl—Brette, I think she said her name was—told me you’d moved here.” Her lips pursed as she tried to see past me, where everything was still quiet.

  “She knew the apartment number? That’s good.” And unlikely. Brette Silvan had been my only supportive roommate, and she’d helped us move, but I hadn’t seen her since, and I doubted she remembered which apartment I was in.

  “Well, I did have to knock on the manager’s door here and talk with him.” Her nose wrinkled. “He told me the number.”

  “Haven’t you heard of texting?” I kept my tone light because that was the best way to deal with my mother.

  “Oh, darling, texting is so . . . so tedious. I called but you didn’t answer. I left a message.”

  Now that she mentioned it, I vaguely remembered seeing my message light blinking, but the calls had come when I was at work on the line, and it was impossible to answer then. Once I’d seen Jameson’s text, I’d forgotten everything else. Not very smart since the call could have come from the girls.

  She gazed around the outdoor hallway, and for a moment I saw the chipped and stained cement, the dusty old brick, and the flimsy black railing that was scraped in more than a few spots. “You live here? This really isn’t—”

  “It’s not so bad,” I said brightly. “Was there something you wanted to tell me? Or were you just in town?”

  “Lily.” Her voice showed disapproval. “The management at your previous apartment told me you had unauthorized visitors. That your roommates complained.” Each statement was an accusation. “What’s going on? I talked to Tessa only a few days ago, and she didn’t mention you’d moved.”

  “Yeah, it happened so fast. I didn’t have the chance to tell her.” No way was I dragging Tessa into this. Next, our mother would be asking her to keep an eye on me and report any bad behavior.

  “Well, aren’t you going to invite me in? It’s getting dark, and I don’t think it’s quite safe out here.”

  “Now isn’t really a good time.”

  “Lily, I’ve driven all this way.”

  Now that she was here, there was no stopping her. I sighed internally and stepped away from the door. Inside, everyone watched my mother uneasily, except Elsie, who was probably hiding in the bedroom again.

  “Oh, I didn’t know you had company.” My mother’s eyes fell over the girls and stopped on Jameson.

  He nodded at her and then looked expectantly at me. I so did not want to introduce him. Not in a million years. Especially with that tool belt on. I knew my mother would never think him worthy of my notice with that tool belt. “This is my mother,” I announced unnecessarily. “Mom, these are my roommates.”

  Her eyes widened and went to Jameson again. I felt a sneaking gratification at her reaction.

  “Not me,” Jameson said quickly. He checked his hand and came toward us as he extended it, “Hi, I’m Mario Perez, Lily’s friend. Nice to meet you.”

  My mother shook his hand gingerly. “You too.” If her voice was any stiffer, it’d break.

  To me, he added, “I’d better go.”

  “Thanks for fixing the cupboard.”

  At that, my mother relaxed, and the little girl inside me who had seen her drop my rescued cat off at the pound felt both saddened and angry. I liked Jameson, and I didn’t care if my mother thought he was a blue-collar worker with no future. Money could help dreams come true, but it couldn’t create them, and there was a whole lot more out there that was more important than rich friends and the right silverware.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow night?” I asked Jameson. Or maybe the little girl inside me asked.

  His dark eyes actually gleamed, completely blotting out my mother’s disapproval. “Of course. Looking forward to it.”

  Our gazes caught and held, and I knew that if my mother and the girls weren’t around, we’d be doing a whole lot more kissing and a lot less staring. I wet my lip with my tongue and saw his eyes follow the motion. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to be alone with him. “I’ll walk you down.”

  His grin widened. “That’s okay. I wouldn’t want to interrupt your chat with your mother.” With another nod to her and the girls, he strode through the door, radiating so much power and confidence that even my mother stared, and leaving me feeling . . . what, I didn’t know for sure, but it might be a little bit of pride.

  When I turned from shutting the door, I found my mother watching me, her arms folded. That was how it was with her—hands not on her hips but tucked under her arms as if holding herself apart from the world. From me and Tessa.

  “I was just about to make some dinner,” I said. “Want to help?”

  “Are you dating him?” There it was, the condescension I’d heard her use when talking about the boy at the car wash who’d hit on me senior year, or whenever she signed a package for the UPS guy.

  “Yes,” I said. One date didn’t mean we were dating, but I wanted it to.

  “Is he Mexican?”

  How did I know that was coming? She had him weighed and judged, if not in the instant she’d stepped into the room, then certainly from the moment he told her his name. I glanced at the girls in the living room, but they didn’t appear to be paying attention to either of us. Only Ruth was close enough to hear the intended slur, but she was deep in a book.

  “I’m not sure his nationality matters. Look, Mom, he’s a nice guy, and I like him.” I wanted to tell her about his family coming from Spain, about his plans for an MBA, and how he worked at Teen Remake, but at the last second, I couldn’t force the words past my lips. She’d already made up her mind, and my answers to her inevitable questions about his roots and his father’s employment would likely
send us both over the top.

  She sighed. “You need to come home.”

  A sudden intake of breath told me Ruth wasn’t as occupied with her book as she pretended.

  “Actually, what I need is to make dinner. It’s my night.” I forced a bit of apology into my voice. “But I’d love to get together another day.”

  My mother looked from me to Ruth, to the other girls in the living room. She was smart enough to notice that most of them weren’t anywhere near eighteen. But she didn’t call me on it.

  Instead, she cracked a partial smile. “Your father is thinking about opening an overseas factory. You were always good at languages, so that might be right up your alley. If you could work in some French classes next semester.”

  There it was, as I’d known it would be. It always came down to my mother placing me to her advantage, or in this case the factory’s. And of course, French would be the language of her choice, because in her mind it represented romance, society, and culture.

  The exhaustion I’d been fighting came rushing back like water closing over my head. “That’s a good idea. Thanks for letting me know.”

  Her smile was real this time because she’d said what she’d come here to say, and I’d listened. “You will be coming for the Fourth, right? It’s just around the corner. We’ll stake out a place for the parade, of course. I’m inviting some friends. I’m so excited to show you and Tessa off.”

  “I’ll be there.” Oddly enough, the event was the one thing we did that gave me a sense of family. I didn’t know if that was because I loved the park where we picnicked after the parade, or because my mom would always invite some other family and I enjoyed the peek into their lives, especially if they seemed more normal than our family. At any rate, my parents were always on their best behavior for the day. No arguing or irritation or isolating silences. We played at being the average family.

  “Well, I’ll be going.” She held out her arms for a hug, which I allowed. “You really should do something with your hair,” she whispered, fluffing it as she drew away. “I have some deep conditioning I’ll send you.”

  “It’s just from the hairnets at work.” But I didn’t refuse her offer. The conditioner might be good for Ruth or even Elsie, if the child would ever let me fix her hair. I opened the door. “Thanks for the visit, Mom. I’ll walk you out.”

  She smiled. “Thank you, dear.”

  On the way down the stairs, we passed my second-floor neighbor with his ever-present cigarette between two fingers, his unshaven face contrasting with his new-looking jeans and black dress shirt. He had dark eyes most women would call sexy, but I thought they were calculating, and the way his long hair fell into his face made me think of a teenager. He watched us unblinking as we passed, with no emotion and not even the barest nod of his head. He’d hit on me the first week we’d been here, and since I’d refused a date, he hadn’t so much as cracked a smile.

  My mother glanced back at him after we had passed. “I don’t like you being here with his kind.”

  She was right about him, so I couldn’t object, but she had to add as we arrived at her white Lexus, “It was good to see you, but please remember what I said about that man in your apartment. He isn’t from our circle. You need to look for men who have a similar status to your own.”

  The ridiculousness of it made me laugh. “I don’t have any status. I haven’t even graduated from college. I work part-time at a cereal factory, and I live in a dump.” Not to mention that Jameson’s major was the exact same one my parents had tried to push on me. I didn’t fool myself that even a finished MBA would be enough to endear him to them, unless he had a rich relative I didn’t know about.

  “You work as a line manager at your father’s successful factory.” Her voice was full of sharp points and angles. “And you had a perfectly respectable apartment—which, I might add, you paid for with the very generous wage we give you for your work at the factory. You would still have that nice apartment if you didn’t collect stray girls like cats. You also have a perfectly wonderful house to go home to.”

  “The girls aren’t strays. They have me.”

  “You know that I have always believed in charity work, but this is a little extreme, don’t you think? Organizations have been created to take care of these things, and the best thing we can do to help people in need is to support those organizations.”

  Organizations were my mother’s specialty. She was good at raising money for charities, being on committees, and talking about how to improve things for the less fortunate. Good at it as long as it didn’t sully her hands or her house—or, apparently, her daughters. We’d never even served dinner in a homeless shelter as a family.

  “Well, someone’s got to be in the trenches,” I said. “Foster parents are the solution the organizations use to help kids.”

  “You should be focusing on finishing your education and launching your career.”

  “I will finish, but I am also the girls’ guardian, and I need to make sure they finish out the school year.” I was hoping the half-truths would mollify her. Because the end of the school year wouldn’t mean the end of my involvement, and I was only guardian to two of the girls. Lies by omission were what Tessa and I called these half-truths. My parents’ house thrived on them.

  My mother heaved a sigh, one hand resting on her open car door. “Lily, you can’t help all of them. There are too many runaways and too many abuses in this world for one person to correct. You really aren’t doing those girls a favor.”

  As if the pressure in my head were suddenly released, my anger faded. This woman, this “pretend” mother, had no comprehension of what I was doing, no understanding of the girls’ needs, and she was separated from ever understanding by her money and her precious status. That meant she was forever excluded from knowing the joys of being involved. Not something to be angry over—it just made me very, very sad.

  “Thanks for coming, Mom. I’ll see you on the Fourth.”

  My neighbor was nowhere to be seen as I went back upstairs. The minute I walked into the apartment, Ruth popped out of the chair. “I don’t know why we haven’t met her before. She wasn’t so bad.”

  “If you like ice queens,” muttered Zoey from the couch.

  I couldn’t hide my smile.

  “So, you know that you and Mario don’t have plans tomorrow, right?” Halla added. “At least, you didn’t tell us anything about a date.”

  “No, not a date. We’ll both be at Teen Nature for my new work.”

  Ruth grinned. “I thought you said you don’t start until next week, and he’s going tonight. He only does one night a week, right?”

  “Yep,” Zoey said. “That means you made a date with him—we all heard you.”

  Now the gleam in Jameson’s eyes made sense. He’d thought I was asking him out! I crossed the room and sank down on the couch, uncertain how I felt about that. I mean, I wanted to go out with him, but I didn’t want to appear desperate or have him think I asked him because of my mother, which in a way, I guess I had.

  “So where are you going to take him?” Bianca asked.

  “I don’t know.” I could explain everything to him and he’d understand, but I hadn’t imagined the attraction between us, and that meant dating him was a good idea. Even if I’d done the asking. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out. For now, we need to finish your report.”

  Whatever I did with Jameson, I was sure there would be fireworks, and that made me all shivery inside. Shivery good.

  I might just be falling for him.

  Maybe.

  7

  Friday morning came early—probably because I’d been tossing and turning on the couch. Truthfully, I hadn’t slept well since I’d moved to this apartment and had to sleep on the couch, and I was seriously considering using a pillow and blanket in the bathtub, or squeezing in with the girls in the bedroom. If they were really my sisters, that’s what I’d do, but I didn’t know how that would go over with DCS.


  Halla took Zoey and Bianca to school, so I went back to sleep on Zoey and Bianca’s double mattress for a half hour. I still needed to go see Payden at the grocery store, but I didn’t have to work at the factory, which made me want to weep with joy. Just feeling that way made me depressed about going back on Monday.

  Sometime later, I opened my eyes to see Elsie standing over me, her hands behind her back. “Oh, is it time?” My phone alarm hadn’t buzzed yet.

  “No, but . . .” She trailed off. “I was just . . . well, maybe I’ll go with you to see Payden.”

  I smiled. “I’m sure he’d love that.” I was just as sure she had a crush on him. He was five years older, but he was socially a lot younger that most seventeen-year-olds, and I wasn’t concerned. He’d been a good friend to both of us.

  She brought out her hand and showed me a brush I recognized as mine from the bathroom. “I was going to ask . . . maybe could you comb my hair?”

  Trying not to act excited, I stretched and sat up. “Sure, but we should probably start with washing and conditioning it. That might help.” Ruth’s detangler should work on Elsie’s long hair.

  Twenty minutes later, I was on the couch, combing out the strands. It wasn’t as difficult as I’d expected, but still ten times more trying than my own. When we were finished, the difference was startling. She no longer looked like a street urchin. “You look beautiful,” I said.

  A darkness waved momentarily across her face, but she shook her head abruptly, as if shaking out an unwanted thought, and smiled shyly. “Thank you.”

  “Let’s go.”

  I had no time to shower, of course, or put on makeup, but I wasn’t trying to impress Payden. I dragged the brush through my hair as I waited at a traffic light.

  “So, did you decide where to take Mario?” Elsie asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Maybe a movie?”

  “Maybe.”