Little Black Lies

by Tish Cohen

  “Biggest car-parts manufacturer in the country,” says Carling. “And my boyfriend’s going to run it one day.” She turns to Leo. “Tell Papa you need an advance on your allowance.”

  “Yeah, right,” says Leo. “My dad’s old school.”

  “Daddy Warbucks wants Leo to learn about life the hard way,” says Griff.

  “Since when?” asks Carling. “You’re always sufficiently loaded when we go out.”

  “Why do you think I work summers at the Manhattan office?” says Leo.

  “I don’t know,” she says with a dramatic pout. “I figured you were using that as an excuse to meet New York skanks. Which makes me lie in bed and cry.”

  Griff boffs Leo in the head. “See? Leo’s parents are smart. They’re not going to raise him all spoiled and lazy like Carling.”

  Carling pinches him. He shoves her off and says, “Seriously, you can’t sell the car, Reiser. She’s a legend. I plan to lose my virginity in the backseat. Just me, a six-pack of beer, Micheline Farber’s dim-witted sister, and a piece of shoestring licorice that will be framed after what she’ll do to it with her tongue. I’ve already stashed a few pieces under the seat.”

  Okay, even I can’t stand this one. “You’re going to feed a girl candy that’s been festering on the dirty carpet with the grimy quarters and rotting french fries? You really are porcine, Little Man.”

  Griff stares up at me, his mouth hanging open. “I do think our little Brit is settling in.” He slides his hand up my knee. “You’re some feisty kind of mystery chick, aren’t you, London?”

  I swat away his stubby fingers.

  What comes next shocks me to my socks. Leo grins wickedly, puts one arm around Griff’s neck, and yanks him away from me, grinding his knuckles into Griff’s wild hair. He says, “Leave her alone, asshole. She’s miles too good for you.”

  I have to bite down on my lips to keep my face from splitting into a big, dorky grin. It means nothing, I’m sure of it. He probably meant it as an insult to Griff rather than a compliment to me. Leo Reiser is wholly connected to Carling Burnack. She’s lying across his lap playing with his shirt buttons, and all I can think about are the scars on his chest. I wonder if Carling has touched them. Counted them. Kissed them. It’s clear these two are solid. It’s clear he’s hers. So why is my heart beating so fast?

  The moment that meant everything to me clearly means nothing to the others, and passes without a blip in the conversation, with Griff pulling away saying, “If you’re lucky, you might lose your own virginity in there one day, Reiser.”

  “Yeah, well. Not all of us can be as classy as you.”

  “Come on, don’t sell her,” says Griff, smoothing out his hair. “The girls love guys in Astons.”

  Carling, twirling Leo’s tie in her fingers, snorts. “All the more reason to ditch it. No one gets her hands on my guy.” She kisses her fingertips and presses them to Leo’s mouth. “No one.”

  It sounds like a threat.

  chapter 19

  by invitation only

  The following Thursday morning before school, Mandy finally calls me back. She’s sobbing so hard I barely recognize her voice.

  “He dumped me,” she says, taking in great hiccupping gulps of air.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yup. He found ‘real love.’”

  “Shit, Mand. Who is it?”

  “Some twenty-two-year-old wretch who works with him at the video store. But wait—it gets even better. Kristy Vance heard they’re engaged. He gave her a ring!”

  “What an asshole.”

  “It’s a sign that I am brainless. I really did think he’d wait for me.”

  “A year and a half. That’s a long time for an asshole to wait.”

  “And forget my birthday. He was going to take me out to the Terrace for steak and to a hotel room he booked. I bought a teddy with skulls on it.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “And still, he left?”

  “Shut up.” I can hear a tiny smile in her voice.

  “I’m kidding. It’s just so you.”

  “Now I get to lie in bed and bawl my eyes out while he takes her to my hotel room.”

  “You’re miles too good for him. Don’t you know that? It sucks that this happened, but one day you’re going to look back on this and think, Thank God I escaped.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You will. You’ll see. Now that you’re single, every guy in Lundon will be banging on your door.”

  “Dude, that just isn’t going to happen.”

  “You know what? My dad got me this free long-distance thing for my cell.”

  “So?”

  “We’ll spend your birthday together. We’ll stay on the phone and watch a movie together. Just like we used to do when you were grounded.”

  “Come for the weekend instead.”

  “I don’t know. Midterms are coming up. We’ll do the movie things, though. It’ll be fun, I promise.”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Perfect. Forget Eddie. I would never have let you marry a guy who looks like an animated baby.”

  “He doesn’t look like an animated baby.” Mandy blows her nose, then chokes out a laugh. “Okay, maybe he does a little. Geez, now I can never watch cartoons again.” She’s quiet for a moment and I can hear her drumming her fingers on her desk.

  “Mandy? I’m sorry about what I said before. It’s not what I meant.”

  “I know. No more battles. I need you in my life.”

  “Me too. From this moment forward I’m the model best friend.”

  “Honestly? I won’t be able to handle anything less.”

  Our math quizzes come back to us at school that morning. The results aren’t quite as abysmal as the first time, but there’s enough slumping and sighing in the room to make it clear that people are beginning to panic about what this class will do to their averages, their Ivy League dreams, and their futures, in that order.

  “The class average was disappointing,” says Mr. Curtis. “And I don’t mind telling you it would have been lower if not for three students. Mr. Hogan, Miss Burnack, and Miss Black, would you mind standing up?”

  Carling is up before the words tumble from his mouth. I stand up next, then Griff, but who can tell if he’s standing, really?

  “Mr. Hogan, your score was ninety-eight point-eight percent. A solid achievement. You may sit.” Griff sits but not before doing a pixie-sized touchdown dance with his arms in the air and his eyes closed.

  “Sara, your test was clean and completely error-free. An accomplishment never achieved on any pop quiz in my class, not in fourteen years at the school. You’ve restored my faith in your generation. Congratulations, you may sit.”

  I drop into my seat and bury my flushed face in my collar.

  The displeasure in the room is palpable. Vexation bounces about the room, ricochets off ceiling, blackboard, and walls, pinging me in the flushed cheeks. Isabella looks particularly miffed, as this comes awfully close to confirmation that she’s been replaced as top in the class. Here’s the thing about gifted kids. They’re territorial about their smarts and don’t like to be beaten. I’ve overstepped newbie laws, that much is clear, by having the audacity to come in here and, for the second time, beat their gifted faces off.

  “Miss Burnack,” says Mr. Curtis. “Your case is a bit more complicated.”

  Carling’s eyes widen. She shoots a look of terror my way. She’s thinking he knows. That he saw our identical answers, considered her lousy mark from the first quiz, and is about to call her a cheater in front of the entire class. I’m not sure what they do to cheaters in this school, but at Finmory it would mean an automatic zero, a meeting with your parents, and suspension. And from what I now know about Big Bad Brice, a meeting like this would mean serious clawing apart. Even if Carling pulled off straight As for the rest of the term, she could never land an A in the class. Bye-bye, Harvard.

  Carling knows exactly what is at stake. I can see from the
way the edge of her skirt is shaking.

  Mr. Curtis stares her down. “Due to the illegibility of your penmanship, I was unable to make out some of your answers. They may have been one hundred percent correct, but the world will never know. You wound up with a ninety-five out of sheer messiness.”

  Sloane and Willa shriek, both jumping up to hug Carling as if she’s just been crowned Miss Massachusetts. I’m surprised no one is crying. Once she’s been sufficiently embraced, Carling slides down into her seat. She scrawls something on a piece of paper, and when Mr. Curtis turns around to write a long formula on the board, she passes it back to me.

  Thx, u saved my sorry ass. Are u going to the party on Saturday?

  I look up. Party?

  Mr. Curtis clears his throat and I see he’s staring at me. “It’s not even nine thirty a.m., and already I’ve caught more people texting and passing notes than the whole of last term. In the halls, in the office, and now in class. I won’t embarrass you girls by confiscating the note and reading it out loud, but in the interest of furthering our collective mathematical educations, I’ll give Sara all the information I’ve gleaned so far about ‘the best party ever.’”

  He knows?

  He continues with a smirk. “It’s called Crush and it’s by invitation only. It’s held on a Saturday night around Halloween in some undisclosed warehouse in the Central Square area. If there’s one sane person anywhere who knows where it is, they’ve chosen not to tell. It doesn’t usually end until the sun comes up Sunday morning. Lindsay Lohan had to be carried out of a bathroom stall last year. It promises to be the social event of your young lives. And, what our social hummingbird, Carling Burnack, is no doubt about to ask you is”—he raises his voice to a girly squeak—“‘Like, are you going?’”

  The entire class bursts out laughing. I look from Mr. Curtis to Carling and back again. Then I grin and say, “Like, totally.”

  I get to Ms. Solange’s class too early. The class before ours ran late and the kids take their time filing out. Poppy doesn’t seem to mind; she’s sitting on the floor across from the door, filming the students’ feet as they leave. The double standard works on her behalf. She’s a girl, so no one really cares. She’s just being artsy and weird. If she were male, she’d probably be hauled down to the office and accused of inappropriate camera angles.

  The class is doubly crowded with clusters of seniors lingering around desks juniors are trying to slip into, so I detour all the way around the back chairs to avoid the whole tangle. It isn’t until I’m almost upon it that I realize my desk is still occupied.

  By Leo Reiser.

  He gathers up his books and looks up, grinning right away. “Hey!”

  Thank God for the pile of books I have mashed against my chest. Gives me something to hide behind. I shift my weight onto my back foot and rock side to side. “Leo. Hi.”

  “Sorry, our class went a bit long.” He slips his books into an open backpack on the floor. “What class is this—American lit?”

  I shake my head. “Nineteenth century.”

  “Ah, right. I loved that class. Raskolnikov and his half-baked soul. Great book.”

  “We’re not that far along yet.” I bump my books against my chin. “Rascal’s soul could pretty much go either way at this point.”

  He looks surprised. “Wait, you call him Rascal?”

  I nod.

  “Me too. I mean, I did. Last year. When I was reading the book.” For a moment we stare at each other, smiley and dumb, then he breaks the spell of stupidity by standing up and stepping aside, motioning for me to sit. I slip past him and drop into my chair. It’s still warm and I try not to imagine I’m sitting on his lap.

  “Will you be at the party Saturday night?”

  Before I get the chance to answer, Poppy appears and pokes Leo in the back. “Uh, excuse me? I can’t exactly get to my seat.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry.” He backs up against another desk to allow her to pass, and as she does, she looks at me and rolls her eyes as if he’s a major annoyance.

  Slumping down into her chair, she mumbles, “Get a classroom.”

  Leo backs away with his head tilted to one side like a little boy who’s hiding a broken teacup behind his back. He raises two fingers in a wave. “Bye, Sara.”

  He’s forgotten his question about Saturday, and it takes everything I have not to jump out of my seat and tell him I’ll be there. Instead, I say, “Bye, Leo.”

  Ms. Solange claps her hands. “Clear your desks, ladies and gentlemen. All you need is a pen and one sheet of paper. We’re going to do an in-class essay on Raskolnikov’s dream about the old mare in part one of the novel. I want you to tell me what you believe is the dream’s significance to the story.”

  Willa’s hand shoots up into the air. “It’s to illustrate Raskolnikov actually has a heart before the murder. To show his personality is split. Between this cold-hearted guy who is able to plan out a murder, and the kind of human who feels something for an innocent creature who is being brutalized by a society full of heathens. It shows him to be extraordinary amongst all these lesser people.”

  I feel my pulse race. I didn’t see that at all. Just read the entire passage as a dream without any analysis whatsoever. And I thought I understood the book; how did I miss such a blatant metaphor? This unnerves me. I do well in lit classes. When my family isn’t falling apart, that is.

  Willa adds, “Is that the kind of thing you want to see, Ms. Solange?”

  Ms. Solange gulps down what’s left of her coffee. She’s getting used to us. There’s no sign of fingers in her hair and no more pacing when she loses her place. These days she just looks at me, and I tell her. It’s a good system. She nods in Willa’s direction. “Well, it was until you gave everyone your analysis. Now we’ll need a different topic.” She looks out the window at the rain slapping against the glass, then back at us. “Okay, how about this? How does Raskolnikov’s tiny room, a room described as a cupboard, influence his actions? You have thirty minutes to make your point. Go.”

  Raskolnikov is influenced by his room? He should come on over to Brighton. Take a good look at mine. He’d probably take an ax to himself.

  chapter 20

  the beaded sweater

  Standing in front of my closet Saturday evening, wearing nothing but bra and panties, I’m faced with the ugly truth. Nothing I own is worthy of a party called Crush where Lindsay Lohan might pass out in a bathroom stall. Nothing. I’m keenly aware of this as I shower, dry my hair with a swooping side part, and flick on mascara and lip gloss. Eventually I settle on black boots, my denim mini, and a lacy black camisole under my mom’s green sweater.

  Carling calls on my cell. “Hey. So here’s the deal. There’s a party before the party and ours starts a bit earlier. In the back of the limo with a fully stocked bar.”

  Not good. With Carling’s car comes Carling’s driver. And Carling’s driver has no idea he lives one floor below the daughter of a brain surgeon. “You’re going in the Bentley?”

  “Are you kidding? My car doesn’t have liquor. Anyway, Noah has the weekend off to party in Manhattan. I swear my dad pays that guy way too much. Brice’s driver will take us.”

  “Cool. But won’t he tell your parents about Crush?”

  “Did I say he’s dropping us at the warehouse? Horace is dropping us at the Four Seasons, where we’ll head inside to attend the party Samantha Ross isn’t throwing in the ballroom, and wait until the car drives away. Then we’ll cross the Common and hop on the Red Line to get away from the party that isn’t and get ourselves to the party that is. Are your parents home?”

  “No.”

  “Perfect. We’re all coming to your place to get ready so we can have a little drinkipoo before Horace picks us up. Sloaney’s bringing wine, Izzy’s bringing makeup, and I’m bringing clothes. Where do you live?”

  Horrified, I picture the Carlingettes standing on the sidewalk in front of the hardware store and thinking the address must be a mistak
e because there’s nothing but paint cans and leaf blowers in the window. I see them stepping into our lobby with the chipped floor and the misspelled signage and the cobwebby chandelier. Walking up the groaning staircase and worrying they’ll get dust on their ballerina flats. Coming into my room to see my faded comforter. The tinfoil bits on my window. The stain on my ceiling. Oh God—the photo of Dad and me on my desk.

  “That would be great, but …” Glancing around my room, a small unpacked box catches my eye. “Our place is still revolting with boxes. Cartons and packing crap everywhere. I don’t mind coming to you in the interest of saving us from being forced to unpack the good china.”

  “Such a selfless little soldier. Then get your tail over here pronto.”

  I load up my purse with lip gloss, cash, and cell phone and rush down the hall to find Dad arrived home while I was changing and is now sitting at the dining room table flipping through the newspaper. “The VW broke down again,” he grunts when he sees me. “I had to leave her at the side of the road and walk home. I’m starting to believe she’s a lemon.”

  “No kidding.” I’ve been taking the bus in to school every day. There were only so many floor-level shoe situations I could fake.

  “That’s the last time. I cannot afford the parts needed to recondition her, even if Noah and I could get her running again. We’re getting a new vehicle.”

  Great news. Fantastic news. To be able to ride with Dad to school without the worry of metallic gunshots and hollow burps to give me away? Sublime. Especially during the winter months, when the only other option, traipsing to the bus through the snow with frostbitten thighs, might just kill me.

  “Cool,” I say. Could this day get any better? Perfect grade in math, we’re getting a new car, and I’m headed to the social event of the year with the coolest kids in school. “An actual new car?”

  He laughs. “Not in my lifetime. We’ll buy another vintage vehicle. But this one will be in better shape.”

  “Whatever. As long as I don’t have to car shop.”

  “You don’t have to car shop.”