The Better Liar

by Tanen Jones

  Now I understood what the problem had been with the boys I’d slept with before. They were too aware of their own desires; their knowledge made them feel entitled to me, as if, having seen me, they already owned me. When I gave in, it was nothing more than what they had expected. Giving myself to Nancy was so much more rewarding. She had never allowed herself to want any girl, so I could not be just any girl. To her I was the only girl, or the only one who mattered.

  This was how easy it was with Nancy: a few weeks later, I saw her in the girls’ bathroom, washing her hands. “Hi,” I said, going over to her, leaning on the next-door sink.

  “Hi.” Nancy shrank a little as she reached for a paper towel, too conscious of our reflections in the mirror above the sink. She was barely five feet, bony, with a boyish quality that caused her church-issue khaki skirt to sink oddly on her slim hips. Beside her I looked titanic. Even my teeth were bigger.

  “I’m Robin.” I stuck out my hand.

  “Nancy,” she said, trying to shake, but I only held her hand in mine, looking at our fingers wrapped around each other as if it were the nicest thing that I had ever seen. The air changed around us. When I looked up, I saw that Nancy’s face had changed too. She wasn’t afraid of me any longer. She was afraid for me—for us. In half a second we had become conspirators, keepers of the same secret.

  Nancy gave me everything I wanted. We kissed in the girls’ bathroom at lunch, shoved into a single stall. I stopped her in the middle, brushed her bangs back from her face. “Wait,” I said. She froze, her eyes focused on mine, tracking every minuscule change in expression. I thought: If I blink, she’ll cry. I imagined myself licking off her tears.

  Her sisters didn’t know at first. No one knew. We fucked with our hands over each other’s mouths. She called me almost every night, compulsively. For my part I couldn’t get enough of how badly Nancy wanted me—me, specifically—not the girlness of me, the headless story I became in boys’ mouths. In Nancy’s mouth I only ever tasted myself.

  I was the first person Nancy had ever slept with, but she was the first partner I’d ever fought with—really fought. In a way it was the same thing, a means to stick your fingers in. You never knew exactly what someone was like in bed or in a fight until you were in it with them, and once you had the feel of them, they were yours forever, yours in a deep secret way. They kept their peace of mind at your pleasure; you had only to stroke them correctly and they became your little animal again, purring or scratching.

  After a while I think she hated me for knowing her like that. I wasn’t careful with her, I can see that now. Still—she made herself naked for me, again and again, told me she loved me, let me lick the salt from her. There was something insubstantial to me; I felt I didn’t exist until I could see my effect on her. Did she know that?

  Maybe it’s only my memory. I’m getting dimmer, as ghosts do.

  26

  Mary

  Nancy agreed to meet me at the Pop-Pop’s around the corner. I was sitting cross-legged on the wooden bench outside, burning the insides of my thighs in the sun, when she pulled up in an old green Nissan.

  For some reason I hadn’t expected her to look like she did. Maybe it was the way she sounded on the phone, or her sister’s round-cheeked face and button nose. She wasn’t especially tall, but she swung out of the car like a cop in her collared shirt and flat-fronts. Her black hair was almost crew cut short, and dimples appeared in her tanned cheeks when she smiled nervously. She came up to the bench and did an awkward little dance as she tried to figure out whether to shake my hand or hug me.

  Ten years and she was still nervous. I decided to experiment: I leapt up and threw myself at her like I was still her girlfriend, Italian ice dripping off one of my hands. When I touched her a jolt rippled through her body into mine. We fit together too familiarly, her hands sliding around my waist, then slipping away just as quickly. Like she still expected to know my body.

  “Oh, wow,” Nancy said, laughing a little as we separated. “Robin…I mean…this is a trip, isn’t it? What are you doing here?”

  “I’m visiting my sister,” I said. “She had a baby. Isn’t that wild?”

  “Is it? I thought everybody we knew had babies now.”

  I widened my eyes. “You had a baby?”

  “No, no,” she said. “You?”

  “I’m the baby,” I told her.

  She smiled. “I mean, you still look the same.”

  “You look like a cop,” I told her. I wondered how good of a cop she was.

  She scrubbed a hand over the back of her neck. “You like it? I cut it not too long after you left, actually.”

  My Italian ice sloshed red onto my hand. “Oh, fuck,” I said, licking it off.

  “What flavor is that?” Nancy asked.

  I grinned. “Tiger’s blood.”

  “Oh, you got the good stuff. Hold on, I’m going to get one of those.”

  I finished off the syrup-soup while she was inside. A breath of chilled air hit me as she came back out. I didn’t move over when she sat down on the bench, and my bare thigh pressed against her slacks. “So, um…” I said, shifting my weight so that our legs rubbed together. “How did you get into that?” I gestured at the cop car.

  She dug her spoon into the ice. “I, uh, did a couple tours in the army. I wanted to get out, after…But my roots were here. I came back and ended up staying.”

  “Yeah, I met your roots in the gas station.” I pointed over my shoulder. “I don’t think she likes me.”

  “Lindy?” Nancy snorted. “No.”

  “Because we dated?”

  She cast a short look at me. “Because I dated anyone, probably.”

  “But it was me who gave you the idea to date girls.”

  Nancy laughed. “Is that what she said?”

  “I was really flattered.” I tipped my head from side to side. “I never converted someone before.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she answered, meeting my eyes. Hers had faint cheerful crow’s feet at the corners. I loved them immediately.

  “Well,” I said, looking away, feigning demure.

  Nancy went back to her tiger’s blood, but there was a certain agreeability to her posture now; I was getting somewhere. “What about you, what do you do?” she asked after a minute.

  “I don’t do anything right now,” I said, mirroring her body language, lowering my shoulders. “I’m still kind of figuring things out. I was a waitress until this week.”

  “What happened?”

  “I had to leave my job,” I said. “Leslie offered to let me stay with her, and I needed a change of scenery, so…here we are again.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nancy told me, sounding sincere.

  I hadn’t meant to make myself seem pathetic. I lost track of my attempt to mirror her and couldn’t think what to do with my hands. “It’s just for a week,” I said. “Did you know you have pink teeth?”

  Nancy ran her tongue over her teeth. “Is it gone?”

  “No.” I grinned.

  “You’re pink too,” she said, peering at me.

  I bared my teeth at her. “It looks sort of ghoulish.”

  “Not on you.” She brought her napkin to her mouth to try to scrub the stains off.

  A family came out of the Pop-Pop’s, ringing the bell on the door. The two children were babbling loudly to each other about somebody’s birthday.

  “How come you could come meet me?” I asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

  “I’m only doing paperwork today. I took a break.” Red crept up her neck. “Why are you free? Is your sister working?”

  “Yeah. She left me at home. I got creeped out stuck in their big old house. Have you been down there since I left?”

  Nancy licked her spoon. “To Leslie’s house? No. I don’t even know what
neighborhood she’s in these days.”

  “Is there…Do you hear anything about her? About how she’s doing?” I tried not to seem like I was digging.

  Nancy frowned. “What do you mean?”

  I shifted on the bench. “I just think there’s something weird going on with her. Maybe it has to do with Dave. Her husband. I think maybe he’s having an affair.”

  “Well, I mean, you would know better than I would,” Nancy said, crumpling up her plastic cup and tossing it in a perfect overhand arc into the trash can nearby. “I’ve only run into her a few times at the grocery store, places like that. We don’t really talk.” She gave me a sidelong look. “I thought you guys didn’t really talk either. After you took off. You told me you weren’t going to come back here.”

  “I wasn’t,” I said, my heart pounding. “But it’s been a long time. People get over things, don’t they?”

  “Sometimes,” Nancy said. “But I didn’t think you would.”

  “Yeah?” I rested my head against my arm on the back of the bench, giving her space, so she wouldn’t feel pressured. “How come?”

  “Those stories you told me about her,” she said. “About how awful she was to you. But she was just a kid then. And after everything with your guys’ mom…Anyway, you talked to Lindy, you saw. Sisters can be assholes.” She smiled. “I think Leslie knew about us. Just from the way she’s acted when I’ve seen her around. Did you tell her, or did she actually see me sneaking in?”

  I laughed. “You snuck in?”

  She blinked. “Of course. All the time. You don’t…?”

  “No, I do. I only…” I waved a hand at her, at her button-down open at the neck, her flat chest, her tanned hands. “It’s hard to picture it now.”

  She glanced down at herself and smiled. “I guess. But I did. I used to climb in your window.”

  “You did.” I grinned.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I was always so scared.”

  “You, scared?” I said. “The law enforcement officer?”

  “Terrified,” she told me, returning my gaze seriously. “You used to play jokes on me, you know. The first time I came in, do you remember?”

  I shook my head.

  Nancy cleared her throat. She smelled good—even her breath smelled good, sugary. “You barely knew me. You said, ‘Come here,’ and when I got in bed with you, you were naked. I thought you were trying to embarrass me.”

  “I didn’t,” I said, surprised.

  “Yeah. You grabbed my arm.” Nancy took my hand. “You said, ‘Don’t you want to?’ ”

  I stared at our intertwined fingers. We sat facing outward, toward a parking-lot audience, like actors in a stage play. Slowly I brought her hand up to my face. The next line appeared in my head, scrolling out in front of me as if it had been scripted. “Let me guess,” I said, tilting my head back as she cupped my cheek. “You did want to. Right?”

  “I did,” she said, watching me.

  Neither of us moved for a second. Then she drew her hand back. “I have to tell you something,” she said.

  “I know.” I looked at my thighs.

  “I should have said something,” she went on anyway. “I’m with someone.”

  “It’s okay.” I moved back on the bench. “You don’t have to—”

  “It only happened last year,” she said. “I mean…we got married so quickly.”

  “Nancy. It’s fine.”

  There was an awkward pause. “I should get going,” Nancy said at last. I still had my head down; I could feel her eyes on me. “I was only supposed to be out for a break.”

  I waited as she got up, patting herself for her keys, and turned toward her car. The right moment was almost there, pressing on my chest. When she touched her car door I called, “Nancy!”

  She turned around immediately, like she’d wanted me to stop her.

  I’d gotten it right, the way the play was supposed to go. A last glance, a final exchange—the part of the scene where people talked about secrets.

  “Do you think Leslie’s still upset? About what happened?” I swallowed.

  Twin vertical lines appeared between her eyebrows. For a moment I thought she could tell I had pushed the conversation here, that all the rest had been scaffolding. “Oh. I mean, it’s a hard thing, when somebody does that. Everyone wants to think they could have done something to prevent it. And when it’s a parent…But I don’t think Leslie blames you.” Nancy shook her head. “It’s no one’s fault.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I just—I don’t know that many people who knew both of us. So I thought you might…I’m sorry.” I lifted the corner of my mouth. “I just wanted to see you again.”

  Nancy gripped the top of the car. Her eyes were dark, and I felt she took all of me in at a single glance, as if she might not have the opportunity again. “Yeah. Bye, Robin.”

  “Bye,” I said, standing up.

  I watched the cop car disappear into traffic. She died when I was twelve, Leslie had said back in the motel bathroom. As if it had just happened. As if it had been an accident.

  The longer I stayed in Albuquerque, the more I understood how death ruptured its setting, leaving a kind of black hole where the person had been that the survivors had to take care not to be sucked into. There were a lot of black holes around Leslie now. There was a stickiness to being Robin. I didn’t know if it would be as easy as I’d thought it would to pull myself free when all this was over.

  27

  Leslie

  When Dave got home Eli was in his bouncer on the kitchen floor as I made boeuf bourguignon. “Hello, my favorite Winona,” he said as I was pouring red wine into the sauce. He kissed me and I closed my eyes, dropping the spoon, setting down the wine bottle to hold his face with my hands.

  “I love you,” I said, not pulling away.

  “I love you too,” he mumbled against my mouth. He slid one hand inside my shirt and felt me up a little, out of habit. Then he froze. “Is your sister home?”

  “No,” I said, certain he could feel my heartbeat against his palm. I twitched away from him and he withdrew his hand. “She wasn’t here when I got home. I left her a dozen messages. She’s not picking up.”

  “Oh. Good.” He caught the look on my face and amended that with “Not that she’s not answering your calls, just that she didn’t catch me getting to second base with you in the kitchen.” Dave went over and lifted Eli out of his bouncer, inhaling the smell of his smudgy hair. “Our baby’s head is delicious to me. Is that normal?”

  When I grabbed the spoon and went back to stirring the pot, he added, “I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”

  I didn’t look up. “You know, the last time someone said that to me about Robin, I didn’t see her for ten years.”

  He paused mid-lift, leaving Eli stranded in midair, giggling. “Okay. That’s fair.” Eli shrieked and Dave resumed doing the Simba dance. “Let’s just worry about it later. I invited Elaine and the kids over for dinner, is that cool?”

  “What?”

  Dave’s expression dimmed. It was an old argument between us. My parents had never had anyone over to the house when I was growing up. When we’d started dating, I was happy to be invited to his family events, which happened at least once a month, with at least fifteen people squashed into his parents’ backyard every time. We want enough space to have everybody over for dinner, Dave said to the realtor when we bought this house. But when it was our house, it was different somehow; I went around the housewarming party making everybody nervous. Dave’s sister Cadence told me I looked like I thought people would spill things. I hadn’t known you could see it on my face. We’ll get better at it, Dave told me, meaning, You’ll get better at it, only I hadn’t, and people still gathered at his parents’ house instead of ours, and although Dave didn’t bring it up, I knew he could tell I prefe
rred it that way.

  “I don’t know if we have enough food,” I said, trying to sound neutral.

  “We have enough. You used the army pot,” Dave said. “I didn’t think it was a big deal. She’ll be here at eight.”

  “Next time you have to warn me,” I said. “This could get cold by the time she—”

  “Then put it in the oven,” he said. “That’s what the oven’s for.”

  “I don’t—”

  He put Eli down. “I’m sorry,” he said, touching my shoulder. “I should have warned you. I’ll warn you next time. It’s just when Eli and I went for a playdate last time I told her we’d have her over to say thank you. I mean, do you not want her here?”

  “No,” I said, hating the pitch of my own voice. “It’s fine. I’m just…I’m worried about Robin. I don’t know where she went. What if she comes back while we’re eating?”

  Dave stared at me. “Then she can join us.”

  I went to the refrigerator. “I don’t want Elaine to meet her.”

  “Why not? She seems—Eli, come back here—she seems fine.” Dave imprisoned Eli in his bouncer and gave him a couple of noodles from the pot to munch on.

  The noise of a car driving up made us pause, except for Eli, who was occupied with the strands of pasta. I stood motionless in front of the refrigerator as the car shut off and the doors slammed. Dave disappeared into the front hallway, throwing open the door before Elaine had the chance to knock. “You’re early,” I heard him say.

  “I know, I thought it would take longer, but I made margarita mix—and virgin, for the kids—”

  “For the kids?”

  “They love to be included.” Her voice got louder as they entered the kitchen. “Brody, Tanner, say hi to Dave.”

  Tanner shouted hello; Brody huddled silently behind him. They were each dressed in tiny denim jeans with plaid button-down shirts, Brody’s red, Tanner’s blue. Elaine stood over them, carrying two glass pitchers. She had her hair in twin fishtail braids tied off with what looked like twine, and she wore a brightly embroidered tunic and leggings. I was still holding the spoon I’d been using to stir the pot.