The Good Liar

by Catherine McKenzie

  “Sorry. It was in your background info . . . I guess it’s weird that I know all these things about you without even having to ask.”

  “No, it’s fine. The restaurant’s not a secret.” I look up and smile. “I managed Knife & Fork for fifteen years, and I loved every minute of it.”

  “I ate there a couple times.”

  “You did?”

  “Yup. Great food.”

  “Funny to think of us being there at the same time and not even knowing it.”

  “Life’s often like that. It’s closed now, isn’t it? What happened?”

  “We were shaky after the last recession and never quite recovered. The owners were getting close to retirement and had the opportunity to sell for a lot of money. For the location. The buyers didn’t want the restaurant. There’s some Italian franchise there now.”

  “You didn’t want to stay on?”

  “No. I . . . We’d actually tried to buy it ourselves, but it didn’t work out.”

  We’d scraped together everything we had to put up the earnest money. And then I’d stupidly assumed that fifteen years of loyalty would win me the space, the chance to make it my own. I’d gotten way ahead of myself, commissioning architectural plans that cost the earth and signing a contract with an up-and-coming chef. When the owners “went another way,” I was left holding the bag. Jobless, in debt, heartbroken.

  I sincerely hope this information isn’t in his file, or anyone else’s, either.

  “That must’ve been tough,” Teo says.

  “It was. But life moves on.”

  “When did all this happen?”

  “A few years ago. I was sad for a while, but I’m over it.”

  Tom had never gotten over it. Not the betrayal by the Urbans, who we’d always thought of as family. Not the bad judgment he thought I’d shown in putting all that money down before things were a certainty, even though we’d decided to do it together. When I’d run into Seth Urban a couple weeks before Tom died and made the mistake of telling Tom about it, he flew into a rage, just as angry, angrier, even, as he’d been when it had all fallen apart.

  “I like that about you,” Teo says.

  “What’s that?”

  “Your forgiving nature.”

  “Does it say that in your background info? Because that would be wrong.”

  “You sure? I’m usually a good judge of character.”

  I stuff some seafood in my mouth, then chase it down with beer. “So what do you think of Franny, then? You keep asking me about her, but you never say what you think.”

  “I think she’s interesting.”

  “She talks about you a lot. I think she might have a crush.”

  “Oh?”

  “ ‘When I was speaking with Teo the other day,’ or ‘Teo was asking me in our last interview.’ Things like that. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “No, I hate when I do that.”

  “What?”

  “Rat other people out. Not that she’s said anything, I wouldn’t betray a confidence, but . . . God, I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “No, I do. I just . . . When I’ve figured something out about someone, I usually end up telling other people. It’s this weird form of showing off. I hate it. But I can’t seem to stop myself from doing it.”

  “I think you’re making a bigger deal of it than it is.”

  “If you say so.”

  I watch him for a moment across the table. He’s a careful eater, even with this messy food. Sometimes Tom would eat so quickly, his face would get covered with sauce like when the kids were little. But I should stop this, comparing these two. They have nothing in common but me, and maybe not even that.

  “I am curious, though,” I say. “What do you think of Franny?”

  He winks at me. “I guess you’ll have to watch the film to find out.”

  “Well, that’s completely unfair.”

  “It is rather, isn’t it?”

  “So forget Franny, then; what’s your story?”

  “My story?”

  “Yeah, the story of Teo Jackson. Illegitimate love child of Michael?”

  He nearly spits out his beer. “What? The singer?”

  “Sure.”

  “Um, no.”

  “Not a fan?”

  “Elvis Costello’s more my style.”

  “I never got him. But I do love his wife’s stuff. Diana Krall.”

  Teo thinks about it for a moment. “The jazz singer?”

  “Yep, she’s great. My friend Kaitlyn met her once.”

  “When?”

  “She used to go to Vancouver a lot for business. Anyway, she was in some store, not Target but something like it, and there was Diana Krall with her twins at the cash register. And Kaitlyn was this huge fan. She’s the one who introduced me to her music.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Stood there like an idiot until Diana came up and asked her if there was something wrong. She actually thought Kaitlyn was having a stroke or something because she was standing there with her mouth hanging open and she couldn’t talk. I guess she’s not used to having people react to her that way.”

  “That’s refreshing.”

  “Right? Kaitlyn said she was super-nice and normal. They talked for a bit in the store and then Kaitlyn embarrassed herself by asking Diana Krall to go for coffee and . . .”

  Teo has an odd look on his face.

  “Have I been speaking very fast?” I ask.

  “Kind of.”

  “I do that sometimes, get kind of manic in my speech. But I’m not actually manic—I just sound that way occasionally.”

  “When you’re upset?”

  “I guess that’s why. I miss Kaitlyn.” I push my plastic bag of food away.

  “Tell me about her,” Teo says.

  “Just for us, right?”

  “I’m not taking notes here.”

  “She’s . . . Oh, I don’t know. I could tell you all these things about her, what she looks like, or how she throws her head back when she laughs, or her weakness for cheese Pringles, or a million things, but that wouldn’t explain her. You wouldn’t know her. She’s someone who got a famous person to talk to her because she was in awe.”

  “She sounds great.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “But don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

  “What?”

  “That you still haven’t told me anything about you. I’ve got your number, buddy.”

  “I guess there’ll have to be a next time, then. If you want to learn more about me.”

  I don’t say anything, just finish my beer and wait for him to finish his. There’s a line of people waiting for tables like there often is, so we don’t linger. We clean ourselves up as best we can with wet wipes and get ready to go. I know from experience that my hands will still smell like seafood in the morning, no matter how thoroughly I wash them.

  Teo helps me with my coat, and I catch a look from a couple in line. They’re watching us. I hear one of them say distinctly, “It’s her.”

  I duck my head. “Can we get out of here?”

  “You bet,” Teo says, taking me by the elbow and pulling me through the line and out into the frosty night. We stop half a block away on North Lincoln. The traffic’s light, the sky a cloudy black. I can feel the cool breeze coming off the lake and taste a tang of it in the air.

  “Sorry about that,” Teo says.

  “For what?”

  “Those people in the restaurant. That’s my fault. Because of the picture.”

  “You didn’t know it would be like that. Everywhere.”

  “But I kind of did. You know that feeling you get when you’re doing something and it’s turning out great . . . I had it that entire day. I’d taken these amazing shots of the building before, and during, and when I saw you standing there, I could see right away what an incredible photograph it would be. And I stopped
and I took it. I took it, and I sold it, and even though you agreed, I stole something from you. So I’m sorry. I’ve been wanting to say that for a while.”

  I reach a cold hand up and stroke his soft beard. “I forgive you.”

  He looks pleased. “You do?”

  “You said I was a forgiving person. Maybe you were right. Maybe I am.”

  “See, I told you I was a good judge of character.”

  And maybe he is, but his timing and mine, it’s always been skewed. Because he leans down to kiss me, and as his lips meet mine, I hear the click of a mechanical shutter.

  I’ve been caught on film.

  Again.

  14

  HOW A PERSON RUNS AWAY

  KATE

  Once she turned off the TV, Kate got through the rest of the day without incident. After the twins’ nap, she spent the requisite hour teaching them the alphabet and working through their flip-book so they’d be on track for the preschool they were already enrolled in for January. Then they played with their LEGOs scattered on the kitchen floor while Kate cooked. She ate dinner with the family—Andrea and, surprisingly, Rick, who looked tired and distracted, dark smudges emphasizing his light-blue eyes. She watched him as Andrea talked brightly about what she’d been up to that day. How the twins were progressing and, of course, Chicago. How sad it all was, and what it must be like for the families who still didn’t know for sure if they’d lost someone because they hadn’t found their r-e-m-a-i-n-s.

  Rick nodded occasionally, not even always in the right places. He shoved the roasted chicken Kate had made into his mouth like he was starving. Maybe Andrea was right to worry. Rick had a look about him that Kate recognized. As if he was calculating the distance to the door. Whether he could simply get in his car and drive away.

  Kate knew that look. She’d seen it on her own face more than once. Caught in the bathroom mirror in the morning or in her reflection in the glass behind the barista counter.

  Could she escape? Was such a thing possible?

  “And there was such a touching story about the people from that company,” Andrea said. “Oh, you know, the one that lost so many employees. Anyway, what an amazing group of people they were . . .”

  As Andrea droned on about the virtues of the dead, Kate couldn’t help thinking that whenever more than five hundred people die together, odds are that at least some of them were assholes. It was the law of averages. And also: deep down, at least one person was probably glad when their wife, husband, lover, friend didn’t come home that day.

  That was the law of averages, too.

  Kate thought she was that person for a long time. The person no one would mind was gone. The one whose kids would be happier without her. The one whose hassled husband would sigh in relief when he was alone. It wasn’t that she blamed them. She’d done a lot of things she regretted over the course of her life, not the least of which was how she’d handled motherhood, her marriage—all the things that shouldn’t have been so challenging but somehow were. They’d be better off if she disappeared. Wouldn’t they?

  Kate had fantasized about leaving off and on throughout her life. Whenever a tragedy occurred, she couldn’t help but wonder if someone had used the event as cover to escape, to start over. She thought about how she’d do it. Where she’d go. What she’d call herself. What would her new life look like? Racked with guilt or set free?

  There were so many endless possibilities. So many new beginnings to contemplate. It became a constant she returned to. When things were bleak, mostly during those black autumns, she’d pick it up again. Modifying her plan, updating the technology involved, working through the details until she felt calm again.

  She had it all planned out. If an opportunity arose, she was ready. And yet, she still couldn’t fully explain the way she’d acted on October tenth. How panicked she’d been feeling all morning. How she’d felt in the elevator as it raced toward the ground. The screech of the explosion, the sense of flying, then nothing. She’d woken moments later, thrown from the building as if it were as disgusted with her as her life. She’d stood on the shaking ground and then started jogging as fast as she could in her heels, joining the terrified crowd.

  Two blocks later, she’d turned around and looked at the burning building. In an instant, she acknowledged the certain death of most of those within, though she was, somehow, alive. She loved some of those people; others she wished she’d never met. Some kind of miracle was at work here. Something that had let her walk away unscathed.

  Because that’s what she’d done. Walked away.

  No, that wasn’t quite right.

  What she’d done was run.

  INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

  TJ: I’d like to discuss the Compensation Initiative. What made you get involved?

  FM: It came up at one of the support groups I was attending. They were asking for volunteers.

  TJ: But you do more than volunteer. You’re the cochair.

  FM: That’s right.

  TJ: You actually ran for the position.

  FM: What are you getting at?

  TJ: Nothing, Franny, I’m just asking questions.

  FM: They feel a bit funny.

  TJ: I’m sorry about that. Do you want to stop for today? I know talking about all this can be difficult.

  FM: No, that’s fine. Why did Cecily say she joined?

  TJ: Why do you ask?

  FM: Just curious.

  TJ: Did something happen between you and Cecily?

  FM: What makes you think that?

  TJ: Your tone just now when you mentioned her.

  FM: What about my tone?

  TJ: I thought you were friends.

  FM: We are, but sometimes I think . . . Well, I feel like she blames me.

  TJ: Blames you for what?

  FM: For my mother. And it’s not my fault, you know.

  TJ: What’s not your fault?

  FM: That my mother . . . that Kaitlyn never told her about me. That’s not my fault at all.

  PART

  II

  CECILY

  One of the things I thought about on October tenth as paper and plastic and a wet, tacky substance I couldn’t think about the origins of rained down around me like confetti was that I didn’t know how to react.

  Maybe that seems obvious. Who knows how to react to watching life evaporate before your eyes, particularly when you’ve loved that life? And yet, all around me, people were reacting. Running, crying, screaming. I did none of those things. It wasn’t until Teo grabbed my hand and made me move that I did anything at all.

  Then, hand in hand, we ran several blocks—from the “L” station I’d come out of to the stop before. There, a police officer held us up, directed us to the platform, and told us we’d be safer underground. It was chaos down there, medieval, but I wasn’t making the decisions; Teo was making them for me, and he obeyed, pulling me this way and that but never letting me go. We walked through a sea of bodies, their legs pulled up to their chins, hugging, tearful, shaking, until he found us a patch of concrete that was big enough for me and him and the camera slung around his back.

  Teo pulled me down to the ground. It was cold, that concrete. Colder still because the cuts in my coat and the dress underneath meant my skin was in direct contact with it. In any other circumstance, I would’ve been horrified at the potential for a staph infection, but that never crossed my mind. The floor was dirty. I was sitting on a dirty, cold floor surrounded by people I didn’t know, still holding the hand of a strange man who hadn’t said a word to me in the hour we’d been together.

  And then he did.

  “What’s your name?”

  I tried to speak, but my throat was full of dust.

  “What’s your name?” he asked again.

  I pointed to my neck and made a slashing motion. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pad and pen. I took them, finally breaking contact to hold the pad steady against my bloody knee. My
left hand had a gash on it that was scabbed over with pebbles and grime. I wrote my name in block letters and handed the pad back to him.

  “Cecily?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m Teo.”

  I reached for the hand he held out to me. It was the only warm thing in the cold, cold world.

  “Do you want me to call anyone?”

  I shook my head and put my free hand in my coat pocket. My phone was still there, and when I pulled it out, it had service. This surprised me, something normal in a world askew. How had it never occurred to me until then to reach out to my children? How long had it been since I stepped into the street? Where were they? Did they even know anything had happened? What—oh my God, what if this was happening everywhere?

  I used my rattling thumb to text Cassie and Henry.

  I’m okay! Go to Grandma’s. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

  I listened to the text whoosh away from me. “Received” it said under it, and then, seconds later, “Read” by Cassie. “Read” by Henry. Okay, they wrote back almost simultaneously. We R okay!

  I started to shake. They were safe. Whatever was happening, whatever this was, they were where I’d left them, at school, surrounded by responsible adults and counselors and—

  My phone quivered with another text.

  It was Cassie, who’d written, Are you with Dad?

  15

  MEMORIES

  CECILY

  “Why, Cecily,” my mother says, opening the door in a dark-blue robe cinched tightly over her pajamas, “you’re here late.”

  “I’m sorry. I can come back tomorrow.”

  “Nonsense. Come in. I was watching the Netflix.”

  “Anything in particular?”

  “Oh, this and that. I’m not sure it’s working properly. It keeps asking me if I’m still watching. Do you think it’s judging me?”

  I take my coat off, hanging it on the hook that’s always waiting for me here. We go into the living room, where the television screen is frozen on an episode of season four of Orange Is the New Black. The room is actually overwhelmed by orange—my mother’s Halloween decoration box is open, much of its contents organized into piles on the thick beige carpet.