Tell Me No Lies

by Adele Griffin

  The dynamic never really changed. Gage and Mimi in front and in charge, me in the back, mostly listening. But tonight, it had shifted slightly.

  At Boston Chicken, a den of plastic chairs and ugly fluorescent lights that bounced off the tabletop laminate, we ordered the usual—herb-roasted chicken, creamed spinach, buttered corn, and biscuits with honey butter.

  Gage was staring at me. She blinked a long, deliberate blink.

  “Happy Halloween to you, too, Lizzy.”

  “Sorry?”

  “What’s up with the eye makeup? You look like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.”

  “Oh!” I laughed, feeling slightly stupid. “Yeah, I probably didn’t do as good a job as Claire. She showed me how.”

  “I like it,” said Mimi. “It’s kind of dramatic, but yeah.”

  Gage shook her head. “My vote’s no.”

  “Don’t listen to Home Perm.” This was Mimi’s favorite tease, since the summer between ninth and tenth grade, Gage’s short, wavy chestnut hair inexplicably had changed to frizzled ringlets.

  “You keep using that term home perm. I do not think it means what you think it means,” said Gage. But she looked upset. “Meems, it’s been years. Let it die. I’ve never gotten a home perm in my life.”

  “One day you’ll admit it. I know you.” Mimi shifted her full attention to me. “Lizzy, do you still need a ride to the library tomorrow? I was planning to study there all day. If you stay over with me tonight, you can borrow some clothes, and we’ll go in together.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  It was rare that Gage was on the outs, and I was in. As if to underscore her point, Mimi passed me the rest of her apple pie. “Fair warning, the great returning Theo is home from Yale this weekend.”

  She meant it as a joke, but Mimi’s older brother, Theo, was kind of heroic. As senior tennis captain, Theo had taken Lincoln all the way to the state championships. He was also a globally ranked chess player, and had traveled to Russia and Iceland for matches. As if that wasn’t enough, he occasionally worked as a model, so you never knew when you’d see Theo staring back at you from the pages of Philadelphia magazine or newspaper ads. Right this minute, there was a poster of him in golf gear in the window of the Tog Shop in Berwyn.

  While Mimi jokingly called him “the Korean James Bond,” Theo’s trophies and jawline had been tough on her. The one time, his junior year, when he got an ugly buzz cut was near the happiest couple of months in Mimi’s life.

  After Gage dropped us off, we found Theo in the Kims’ kitchen, leaning back against the counter and using a soupspoon to excavate Ben & Jerry’s Rainforest Crunch straight from the carton.

  “Blizzard, how’s it going?” Theo was the only person who called me that.

  “Not bad.” I was always a little more on alert when Theo was around, even if I could remember him from elementary school days, when he walked around in a Darth Vader cape.

  He looked up, and it was as close to a double take as Theo had ever given me. His attention shot through my body.

  “What?”

  “What?”

  “What?” I stuck out my tongue at him.

  He laughed and gave a shrug, then went back to his digging. “Nothing, goober. Just look who’s growing up.”

  “You’re such a dog, Theo,” said Mimi. “One month in college and now you think you can perv on all my friends.”

  “Calm down, Meems.”

  Later that night, tucked up in one of the two ice-blue-quilted twin beds where I’d spent my very first sleepover back in first grade, I replayed the moment of Theo’s stare. Relishing that little jolt of surprise in his face.

  Mimi had acted as if Theo had been the one who’d changed, but I knew it wasn’t true. My eye makeup. My black cardigan. My trip into Philly. All the changes were mine. Theo had noticed the difference in me.

  eight

  I’d snagged the job at Ludington Public Library after I’d helped Lenora Blitz pass Organic Chemistry. My tutoring skills had hoisted her grade from a D to a C, and so this summer, before she’d taken off for college, Lenora had bequeathed her position to me.

  At Ludington, I earned $3.35 an hour, working nine hours on Sunday and six hours on Monday. Twice a month I collected a check (after taxes) of $76.30. My parents referred to this money as my “allowance.”

  As in, Lizzy, please pay for new jeans out of your allowance?

  My allowance money also bought my lunch tickets, school supplies, and extras like leotards and tights for dance squad.

  But it was a pretty cushy job. Dealing with the actual books didn’t eat up that much time, leaving me hours to study at the circulation desk. Mimi liked studying at Ludington, too, which was always nice for work breaks, when I wanted to feel more like a kid and less like a librarian—especially since Mrs. Binswanger often sent me out to tell people to lower their voices or put away their snacks. Today, though, Mimi had disappeared to the periodicals section to look up some old articles on microfiche. Scanning the main room, I saw Wendy and Kreo, along with a few core Nectarine hangers-on, all holding court at a round center table. The small, private back tables were crowded mostly with whispering couples, and the stacks were thick with loner freshmen.

  I spent my first hours on the floor, reshelving, and then on the dot of three, I replaced Mrs. Binswanger at the desk so that she could punch out. This was my key study time, broken only if someone needed a book stamped.

  Soon I’d sunk into my favorite subject after art, Ancient Civ. I was strolling around the city of Ur when an exaggerated male cough interrupted me. I looked up.

  “Oh!”

  The solid block of Tommy Powers loomed over the desk, a pile of books in his arms. Right behind him was Matt Ashley.

  Matt’s smile was as warm as afternoon sunshine. “Stripes?”

  Stripes? What did that mean? My body was melting into jelly.

  “Freshman mixer,” Matt clarified, his eyes like twin dark blue torches. “You wore that striped jacket. We talked about cheese fries versus . . . something else. Then it was last song. Remember?”

  “Oh. Yes. Uh-huh. I do.” Of course I remembered our conversation about cheese fries. I’d actually been wearing Theo’s windbreaker, which I’d found in the back seat of the Kims’ car and put on last minute. Black with electric-green stripes at the elbows, and obviously too big, but with the sleeves pushed up, I’d thought it looked the right kind of different.

  I could feel myself blankly staring at Matt. I couldn’t think of any words. I was just so shocked that he remembered that night, a night I’d thought about thousands of times, every detail magnified by my overplayed memory.

  Tommy made an impatient gesture. Quickly I reached for his books and stamped them. Then I took Matt’s. Could Matt see my hands shaking? I needed to say something, right? All those years and we’d never crossed paths, never had reason to speak to each other again. Until now.

  Matt broke the silence. “Hey, were you at my party the other night?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.” Such a stupid lie—but I didn’t want to be the one single senior at Ludington Library who hadn’t been at Matt’s house Friday night.

  “Really? I didn’t see you.”

  “I didn’t see you, either.”

  “It was a mob scene.”

  “We left early, too,” I said. “My friend Claire wanted to go to Hinata.” This was my one card to play—the only glamorous, glittery thing I’d done since school started.

  Matt looked interested. “What’s that?”

  “A sushi restaurant in West Philly. Since there’s nothing good around here. You have to go to the city for it.”

  “Ah.” His laugh was low in his throat—like the rest of him, it had become older since freshman year. “You missed a hot party. I heard Matt Ashley was there.” He winked.

  I laughed. T
he very first time I’d seen Matt Ashley under the dim lights of the Lincoln gym mixer, he’d reminded me of Glynnorin, a favorite character Gage invented from her brief but passionate sixth-grade fixation with Dungeons & Dragons. She’d stopped playing D&D years ago, and in that time, Matt Ashley also had aged out of that boyish elf self. But his long-lashed navy-blues still had a touch of the wild, as if he might just as easily be peering out at me from the depths of some dark fantastical woods.

  I couldn’t stop staring at him, the ways he was familiar and the ways he seemed so much older. All my same Matt Ashley feelings were churning inside me with a giddy new force.

  “Next time I come to your house, I’ll say hi,” I told him. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “Deal.” He tipped his head back and looked around as if assessing the library’s space for the very first time. “So you work here?”

  “Of course she works here, dumbass,” growled Tommy in his sleepy baritone. “You think she just likes to sit at the teacher’s desk?”

  “It’s a librarian’s desk, dumbass,” said Matt.

  “Shaduppah ya face, ya fag.” Tommy gave me a smile and Matt a push. “We’re out.”

  “In a sec.” Was Matt having a hard time looking away from me? I’d done my eyes smoky Claire-style, and styled my hair the way Claire had suggested, using some of Mimi’s mousse, a quick puff like scented whipped cream to add some texture to these bangs I was now, officially, growing out.

  My new look, I’d decided this morning in Mimi’s bathroom mirror. I felt defiant but also shy about it as Matt’s gaze frankly sized me up. “I’m glad I ran into you, Stripes. We should . . . I dunno . . . hang out or something.”

  “You know where to find me.” And I rolled my eyes to show I was stuck in this job (which was feeling like just about the most fantastic employment opportunity ever handed to me).

  His eyes were holding the moment.

  From the second I’d met Matt Ashley, I’d sensed such a zing of connection, and when it turned out he hadn’t felt the same, my disappointment had been an ache that never really healed. Our time together that night had been the closest I’d ever come to believing in something as mystic or ridiculous as “love at first sight,” and even when he didn’t call, I’d never imagined myself as the girl who spent years pining for the boy who didn’t want her. No, I wasn’t that girl. In my fantasies, Matt and I always connected again in some sophisticated future, at a summer music festival or on a European backpacking trip.

  But was the story of Matt and me actually restarting on a Sunday afternoon at Ludington Library? I’d dreamed of rekindling us for so long—was it really happening?

  Waving, watching him go, my heart felt like it might cartwheel straight out of my chest.

  nine

  Monday morning, I waited for Claire’s judgment. Were we friends now? Sorta kinda? But she wasn’t in homeroom in time for senior assembly—a school tradition, twice a week from September to May, when each senior took a turn delivering a speech to the upper schoolers in the theater on any topic she wanted.

  This morning, Pepper McDonald was talking about Amish people.

  Five minutes in, I saw Claire push through the theater door, slipping like smoke up the darkened aisle. After assembly, I never ran into her—was she avoiding me?

  The school day came and went. I wondered if she’d cut out early.

  That afternoon, I caught the Paoli local from school to Ludington. My nerves were jittery for Matt Ashley—only this time, hopefully, without Tommy Powers.

  But no. No Matt or Tommy.

  Shelving books from the cart, I eavesdropped on a couple of Argyll juniors talking about a party planned for this Saturday at Liz DeBatista’s house. At some point, Lizzy DeBatista had become Liz while I’d stayed Lizzy. Liz was captain of our varsity field hockey team, and you could hear her earsplitting, two-fingered whistle anywhere on the campus. She was also our school mascot, with no fears about pulling on the floppy-pawed Argyll lion costume and running around the field to pump up the bleachers before games.

  “Hey, I hear Liz is having a keg and some people over this weekend,” I said to Gage and Mimi at lunch the next day.

  “Yep,” said Gage. “She already invited the team for pregame. We play Beekman Hill this Saturday, so we’ll be near her house already.”

  “Oh, maybe we should all go? Not pregame, but to the party after?”

  “Not me,” said Mimi. “Noah’s coming home Halloween weekend. So this weekend I’m staying in and studying.”

  Gage swallowed the last bite of her toaster-oven pizza before she answered me. “Has your Hard Rock Café eyeliner leaked into your brain? Do you know how much I don’t want to hang out with girls on the team, after I’ve spent the whole entire week practicing with them? It’s the last thing I want to do. Wendy and Kreo and Liz and your so-called new pal, Claire, are not my friends—they’re my teammates, because I have no choice. I don’t party with them, and they are perfectly happy not to party with me.”

  “Gage, you’ve got it wrong. I forgot to say this, but Matt Ashley came by the library on Sunday, and we kind of reconnected, and Matt would be there most likely, and he’d be someone we—”

  “Hold up.” Mimi put up a palm. “I don’t remember seeing Matt Ashley.”

  “It was when you went down to the microfiche files.”

  “Then Matt Ashley can pick you up and give you a ride to the party.” Gage crumpled her napkin and dropped it onto her food tray. “Since that’s what you really need from Mimi and me. The ride.”

  “It’s not about a ride. I’ll borrow my mom’s car.” I couldn’t even make a mental picture of me pulling up to Liz DeBatista’s house in Mom’s brown Corolla. “It’s about us having a good time together.”

  A frustrated silence held the table.

  “Lizzy, do you know what you are lately?” Gage said at last. She narrowed her eyes and sealed her lips tight for a moment, as if she was sneaking up on her answer. “You’re a claimer.”

  “A what?”

  “As in, you keep claiming that all this stuff is true—you and Claire Reynolds in Philly, and you and Matt at Ludington. But in the real world, from what Mimi and I see, Claire Reynolds barely knows you’re breathing. And now you’re claiming that the big romance you’ve been fantasizing about with Matt Ashley is true? There’s positive thinking—and then there’s claims.”

  Mimi laughed. “Claimer,” she repeated.

  I said nothing. We all teased one another from time to time, but it was embarrassing to think I was so dopey that I couldn’t even tell reality from wishful thinking.

  That afternoon in AP Art, I could feel Mimi and Gage hugely enjoying the fact that Claire ignored me, simply for the claimer joke of it. She was just in one of her preoccupied moods, but I felt too shy to approach her directly.

  And while I hadn’t expected a call from Matt, I hadn’t been not expecting the one that didn’t come all week.

  Maybe I really was a claimer. Maybe I was misreading situations, bending vague facts into the pretty shapes of my desires.

  Claire was absent from school the next couple of days, and by the time the phone rang Friday night, I figured it was one of my aunts hoping to tie up the line with Mom on family gossip. I hardly registered the sound.

  But the call was for me.

  ten

  “Hey, what’s going on?”

  “Claire! Hi! Nothing!”

  “I can hardly hear you.”

  I’d come down to the kitchen on Owen’s yell, loud enough so I could have heard it in any room of the house. A choice I immediately regretted. Owen and Peter were using the table to play paperclip hockey. Peter had a sports radio station on too loud, and the scorched haze in the air from whatever they were broiling in the oven stung my nose and was in danger of setting off the smoke detector.

  “Let
me go in another room.”

  “No, I don’t want to stay on that long, I’ve been sick—”

  “I know! Are you okay? Did you get your homework assignments or should I—”

  “I got them. I wanted to do something tomorrow night, and there’s a party—”

  “Yes! I know, at Liz’s!”

  “—and since that sounds really beat, I wondered if you’d be into hearing the Painted Bandits over at the Troc.”

  “Oh.” I’d grown up hearing radio DJs talk about the Trocadero, which sounded like some sketchy dive in Center City. Of course, a night out with Claire made all other details unimportant.

  “I could come get you and we’d drive in—you could stay over.”

  “Except I have to work at the library on Sunday.”

  “I’d give you a lift. How’s your ID?”

  “It’s okay.” I swallowed. “Not great.”

  “It doesn’t have to be great. It just has to get you in. I’ll pick you up tomorrow around three.”

  After I’d hung up, I wandered all around the house, feeling like a grenade waiting for someone to pull the pin.

  The problem wasn’t that I had a bad fake ID. I didn’t have any ID.

  I chewed my bottom lip, staring out my bedroom window to the view of our dark lawn. The streetlamp at the corner glowed over a chunk of sidewalk. I couldn’t quite see the Schrempf house, but my parents were over there, having dinner. Next weekend, on Friday or Saturday night, my parents and the Schrempfs would stroll the three blocks over to Chestnut Street, where the Midges lived. (“Are you eating with the Shrimps or the Midgets?” was Peter’s standard joke.) Were my parents partly to blame for my own habits? Their lives were boring. My brothers’ lives were boring. My friends’ lives were boring. When I got to Princeton next fall, how would I stop myself from defaulting straight to boring? Boring was my training! How would I ever find fun and excitement if I didn’t even know where to look?

  My eyes had gone very dry, and I saw sparks when I resurfaced. The light from the streetlamp was painful. I’d been staring into it for too long. My fingers had curled stiff on each side.