The Good Liar

by Catherine McKenzie

  TJ: That sounds dangerous.

  FM: It wasn’t, until it was, you know? Like this one time, I was convincing this older guy, like maybe twenty-five, to buy me a bottle at Vic Pierce, this liquor store, and he was acting all nice, but then he expected me to do something for it. I grabbed the bottle, and he ran after me, but I was yelling at him, “I’m fourteen! My dad’s a cop! I’m fourteen!” And he let me go. [Laughter]

  TJ: What’s funny about that?

  FM: I was sixteen, and my dad wasn’t a cop.

  TJ: Still, that doesn’t sound like a funny story.

  FM: Nothing’s funny when it’s happening. But when it’s over, it can be sometimes.

  TJ: Perhaps.

  FM: Anyway, it was all mostly fun until my parents realized what I was doing and sent me to this teenager boot camp thing.

  TJ: What’s that?

  FM: You know, like one of the therapy places where they basically kidnap you and take you out into the wilderness until you straighten up and fly right.

  TJ: What was that like?

  FM: It was hell. Nothing funny about it at all. They made us get up at six and do drills and clean the latrines. And all that shit you see in the movies about people yelling in your face and making you climb walls and stuff? That’s exactly what it was like. Only worse. Because I was sixteen years old, and I hadn’t done anything to deserve it. Like, there were girls I knew who were doing way worse things than me.

  TJ: I’m sure your parents just wanted to help you.

  FM: Yeah, but that’s an extreme way of doing it. And it doesn’t work, you know. There’s no science behind those programs at all. You’re not more or less likely to succeed if you attend one.

  TJ: I’ve heard that.

  FM: I looked it up. After I got out of there and I had to do summer school to make up for the classes I missed. I researched these places, and I put together this big file to show my parents it doesn’t work. It can even make things worse.

  TJ: What did they say?

  FM: All the stuff you’d expect. They were sorry. They didn’t know what to do. Wah, wah, wah. And then they died. My sister told you about that, right? I bet she did.

  TJ: She did.

  FM: She’s the one who went to the police, you know. Can you believe it? She always had it in for me.

  33

  MY TURN

  CECILY

  When Tom and I got back from New York, we didn’t speak about what had happened. I’m not sure why. It wasn’t as if we came to an agreement or anything, only every time he tried to bring it up, I’d stop him. I couldn’t stand to hear about it. I almost couldn’t stand to be around him. So we made up some excuse to the kids about why we’d come home a day early, and then I concocted another story about how Tom had to go on a long business trip. Tom got the message and packed a bag and went to live in a hotel near his office.

  He stayed in that hotel for two weeks. Two weeks of nights where I cried myself to sleep and missed his body in the bed next to me and his help with the kids, and where I tried not to think about the fact that she was probably there with him every night, though he swore he’d broken things off and that he was just going to “think.”

  Like you’re in a time-out, I wrote. I couldn’t stand speaking to him on the phone, so we had taken to exchanging e-mails.

  Maybe that’s not a bad analogy, Tom wrote back. I haven’t been thinking much lately about what I’ve been doing. Maybe it’s time.

  And then I would go cry in the bathroom, worried the kids would hear me or see my reddened eyes. Before, they always seemed so oblivious to us, lost in their own worlds. But now, suddenly, they were both asking lots of questions about where was Dad and how come this trip was longer than the others and Dad would’ve loved this episode of whatever TV show we were watching.

  It was torture, like I was trapped in someone else’s dream, and until they woke up, there was no escape for me. I have never felt so out of control in my entire life.

  Talking to Kaitlyn helped. She was the one who told me it was okay to hate him. She was the one who told me it was okay to leave him. She was the one who told me that whatever I decided, to stay or to go, she’d support me. She was on Team Cecily, and Tom could go fuck himself.

  That always made me laugh. “Tom can go fuck himself.” She always said it so emphatically. Was that all an act? Or was she mad at Tom, too, mad for letting whatever there was between them turn into deceit and sneaking around and . . . I don’t want to know.

  When I told Kaitlyn I was letting Tom move back home for a trial run, she brought over two bottles of our favorite wine, and we sat up till midnight drinking it.

  “Am I an idiot to be letting him come back?” I asked.

  “ ’Course not. He’s your husband. The father of your children. And you love him.”

  “But do I? Do I love him? Or am I just so used to having him around that it feels like love?”

  Kaitlyn bit the rim of her glass. “I think you’d know the difference.”

  “Maybe. I just hate him right now.”

  “I know.”

  “What’s he like at work?”

  “I haven’t been talking to him.”

  “But do people know? Does anyone suspect?”

  “I haven’t heard anyone say anything.”

  “But they wouldn’t to you, would they? They know we’re friends.”

  Kaitlyn poured herself another glass, emptying the bottle. “I should’ve brought three.”

  “I’m going to be so sick tomorrow.”

  “Drink lots of water. Take some aspirin. Or Tylenol. Or whatever.”

  “We’re so drunk.”

  Kaitlyn laughed. “We’re not drunk enough.”

  I agreed with her and went to find another bottle in the fridge, and we drank on, and on, until the wine made me turn nasty, bitter, a person I didn’t like or recognize living inside me, speaking through me about what I’d like to do to the woman who’d slept with my husband. Kaitlyn tried to reason with me, to talk me down. She reminded me that Tom was the one who’d hurt me, who’d broken his promises. He was the one who I should be directing my righteous anger at.

  Even though she was right, I couldn’t help feeling a surge of hatred toward this unknown person who’d come into my perfectly okay life and turned it into a mess. And all the while she was sitting across from me, or rubbing my back, filling my glass, supporting me. I can have some sympathy for the cognitive dissonance she must’ve been living through. She was right that Tom was the one I had to decide if I could forgive and move on with, that this other woman, whoever she was, was nothing to that decision.

  But I can’t forgive the act in the first place. Whatever it was between them, that betrayal isn’t something I can move past. Just like I couldn’t move past it with Tom.

  • • •

  “Okay, I’ll do it,” I tell Teo the next morning, back in the coffee shop. We’re sitting at the same table with the same drinks before us, and of course Teo’s wearing the same thing, or its sibling.

  “That’s great.”

  “But I want you to tell me something first. How did you know I was holding back? Was it just a good guess, or do you actually know something you haven’t been telling me?”

  Teo takes a bite of his muffin. “I know some things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Tell me what you wanted to tell me yesterday, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  “This is like the prisoner’s dilemma.”

  “How so?”

  “Neither of us trusts the other, even though acting together is clearly in our best interests.”

  He smiles at me. I feel a tug at my heart, but I try to ignore it. This man’s already left me behind once. I don’t need to be chasing after him.

  “You’re right,” Teo says. “Though I’m not sure why that is.”

  “I have every reason not to trust you. I’m not sure why you don’t trust me.”<
br />
  “It’s this narrator thing. I have to bring a level of distrust to my subjects. You can get caught out if you don’t.”

  “How so?”

  “It happened to me on my first film. I was hired to do a documentary about a historic football team that was going for its twenty-fifth championship. It had all the elements you’d want. Kids from two neighborhoods, so all the racial tension and overcoming circumstances and stuff, but the twist was that in this case, the black kids came from the more affluent neighborhood and the white kids were the ones being bused in to keep up the diversity. The quarterback’s dad had been the quarterback when they’d won the first championship. The coach was about to retire. It was all teed up.”

  “So what happened?”

  “It was bullshit. After the documentary came out, a reporter did this hatchet job about how I’d been snowed. Half the team was taking steroids, and I never knew. And the coach had this deal with the rival team to let them win. The whole thing was corrupt, and I’d made this puff-piece promo film. It nearly cost me my career. It took five years before someone would finance one of my films again. And even then, my reputation’s never fully recovered.”

  “Is that why you were shooting a commercial on October tenth?”

  “One of the reasons. Not that documentary filmmakers usually lead glamorous lives.”

  “And that’s why you sold my picture? You needed the money.”

  “I did.”

  “You should’ve said something.”

  “Perhaps. But maybe you’ve noticed? I’m not big on sharing.”

  “No, I haven’t noticed that at all.”

  We smile at each other, and a shadow lifts.

  “Franny isn’t Kaitlyn’s daughter,” I say. “That’s what I came to tell you yesterday. She’s a fraud.”

  “Yeah, I thought so.”

  “What?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “You think I’m going to get caught out like that again?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I have a very good investigator I work with now. And Franny didn’t cover her tracks all that well. For starters, Franny Maycombe’s not her real name.”

  “That makes sense. We . . . I looked for her online and couldn’t find any trace of her. It occurred to me that she’d probably changed her name along the way.”

  “But what made you start looking in the first place?”

  “Nuh-uh. I told you that was off-limits, remember?”

  “Can you at least tell me if it’s something that would ruin me if it came out?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone would assume you should’ve known this.”

  Teo doesn’t look like he believes me, and I suspect he’ll be making a call to his investigator when we finish up. I’m going to have to move Kaitlyn. It’s already dangerous enough having her in my house.

  “But I can’t tell you either way, and I hope you leave it at that, okay?”

  “I’ll try. You mentioned wanting my help with something.”

  “We need to expose Franny.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s supposed to marry Joshua, and those kids have been through enough.”

  “Why don’t you simply tell him?”

  “Why would he believe me? I don’t have any proof. He’ll just think I’m upset about . . . Wait, what is it you know about me? All’s fair.”

  “In love and war? Which one is this?”

  “You tell me what you know, and maybe I’ll clarify that.”

  He reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out a file folder. Unlike the ones from the Compensation Committee meetings, this one’s plain blue, purchased at a dollar store. He flips it open. Inside is a credit card statement. He points to an item that’s highlighted in yellow.

  “What were you consulting a divorce lawyer for?”

  34

  CORNER PIECE

  KAITLYN

  Kaitlyn had received the first e-mail from Franny when she was pregnant with Emily. Only Franny was calling herself Eileen then. Eileen Warner.

  Kaitlyn was working at an architectural firm that did midlevel housing projects. She’d been carrying her pregnancy around like a secret. Knowing that when she announced it, everything at work would change. Not overtly but gradually. Her bosses were old-school men, even the women. They’d come up hard, not seeing their families. Parenting was the responsibility of their stay-at-home wives or nannies. Maternity leave was for sissies. They’d pretend to be happy for her, but they’d be plotting her exit. And she loved her job. The late-night camaraderie. The site visits. The sense of knowing she’d contributed to something tangible in the world, someone’s dream come true.

  Kaitlyn almost hadn’t opened the e-mail. They’d been getting a lot of spam at the time, and it had an odd subject line: Inquiry. The content wasn’t much less mysterious. She felt certain as she read it that she was going to be asked to wire money to a Nigerian bank account. Rambling lines about a search. A discovery. Kaitlyn read the words but couldn’t grasp the meaning. And then, there it was: I think you’re my mother.

  An odd sound escaped her before she could stop it. The woman in the cubby next to her looked up.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. I just got the strangest e-mail.”

  “Delete it.”

  Mary was always full of such practical advice. It was like having a mother in the office.

  Kaitlyn had looked at the e-mail again. Could she simply delete it? Would that be cruel? It would be better to write her back, and tell her she’d made a mistake. But something about the e-mail made Kaitlyn uneasy. She wasn’t sure what it was. Had she detected a threat in there? She read it again. It seemed less confused this time. Suffused with emotion, as one would expect. She’d had trouble concentrating since the pregnancy began. Pregnancy brain, she’d heard it referred to. All those extra hormones rushing around her body. Turning her brain back into a teenager’s. There wasn’t anything to fear here. Only a girl in pain.

  So she wrote back. I’m so sorry to tell you this, but I’m not your mother. I wish you the best of luck with your search.

  She should’ve listened to Mary.

  • • •

  Back in Cecily’s basement, Kaitlyn couldn’t sleep. It was one thing being thousands of miles away from her family. But knowing they were only a few streets away, that was a different challenge. Cecily had explained to her that Kaitlyn would have to go in the morning. She wasn’t sure where, but she’d figure something out. The help she’d enlisted couldn’t be entirely trusted, Cecily had said.

  “So I took a risk.”

  “You could’ve asked me first,” Kaitlyn said.

  “I believe the words you meant to say were ‘thank you.’ ”

  Kaitlyn wanted to bite back but didn’t. This was how things had to be now. She had to take it. Whatever there was, she had to swallow it and say thank you. Because she’d chosen this. The leaving and the coming back. She’d been free and clear. Even in her own life, she could’ve made different choices. Every step she’d taken had led her here. There was no point in wishing things were different. There would only be more of the same.

  “Thank you.”

  Cecily had suggested they go to bed. Figure things out in the morning. Kaitlyn agreed, thanked her again. Went to the basement to pack up her meager belongings. Assumed the familiar position of staring at the ceiling.

  But her daughters called to her like a siren’s song. She could almost smell them in the room with her. That mix of baby powder and tearless shampoo that was all their own. She couldn’t do this. Be this close to them and not see them.

  Kaitlyn crept from bed and dressed in the darkest clothes she had. She pulled on her coat and tucked her hair up into her hat. Wrapped a scarf around her face. She left by the basement exit after disabling the alarm. Cecily hadn’t changed the passcode in years. She hugged the side of the house, letting the wind whip against her. Winter in Montreal was cold, but not like
this. That sharp bite of damp that penetrated whatever you wore. Her bones hurt. But she wasn’t going to turn back now.

  There was a car parked in front of Cecily’s house with two figures in it. There was a flash of light, an incoming text. Kaitlyn could see Cassie and a man. No, a boy. Cassie was kissing a boy. Kaitlyn watched for a moment, wondering if Cecily knew. Whether she should interrupt them, though that would be foolish. It was fine. Innocent. Just kissing.

  Kaitlyn turned away and walked in the opposite direction toward Church Street. She still remembered her one and only kiss with Tom with frightening precision. Two years ago, give or take a month. The office Christmas party. A few months into their e-mail exchanges. Things had progressed slowly, but in the past few weeks, they’d become graphic. Detailed. Tom had been worried the IT guy might find them, so they’d switched to Gmail. That must’ve been the account Franny found. How, Kaitlyn had no idea. Had she written her from that account once by accident? Had she somehow stayed signed in on an errant laptop?

  It was snowing. She’d had too much to drink and had been avoiding Tom. His e-mails stalked her around the party. She shook her head at him when they made eye contact. Made a show of turning her phone off. Tried to dance to some silly song with some of her coworkers. When it was time to go, he suggested they take a cab together. She knew it was a bad idea. Knew her defenses were down. That if he tried something, she wouldn’t be able to resist. But he read her mind and told her not to worry. And she trusted him. She had to, didn’t she? She’d placed her whole life in his hands.

  The roads had been slippery. The cabdriver drove slowly. At some point, Kaitlyn found her fingers entwined with Tom’s. His hand was rough, chapped from winter. He traced a small circle over and over on the back of hers with his thumb. Even that small point of contact felt dangerous.

  A few blocks from her house, the cab swerved on the ice. She was thrown against Tom. Into his arms. She closed her eyes and let it happen. His lips on hers. Hungry, but gentler than she’d expected. Slower. An agonizing kiss that they ended as the cab pulled up to her house.