The Better Liar

by Tanen Jones

  “Huh.” Mary rubbed her lips together.

  “I meant anything about Robin. So you won’t slip up.”

  “I won’t slip up.” She gave me a facetious glance that did in fact look exactly like Robin, and I thought maybe she had forgiven me.

  We were in the parking lot. I felt strangely buoyed by Mary as we got out of the car. I had been alone with my secret for a long time. Now I had somebody in this with me, even if she was a stranger. I reached for her hand impulsively as we approached the building, and she let me take it, the surprise showing on her face, which was so much like my sister’s face. We looked mirrored in the mirrored doors, two of a kind, side by side.

  36

  Robin

  After the funeral, Leslie was allowed to stay in the living room with the adults, while my four-year-old cousin Tad and I were shut in the rec room. In Family Plot there was singing. I didn’t hear any singing.

  Tad rolled underneath one of the plastic chairs and began lifting it with his feet, like a parent playing airplane with a baby.

  I draped myself across the beanbag and decided to sing anyway. I didn’t really know the hymns so I sang “Un-Break My Heart” instead.

  In the middle of my song, my father’s friend Albert walked in. He was wearing a brown suit. I looked at him from upside down on the beanbag chair and kept singing. Albert folded his arms and waited for me to finish.

  “Very good,” he said when I’d run out of lyrics.

  “Oh, thank you,” I said, still upside down.

  “I didn’t see you around, so I thought I’d come check on you,” he told me. “How are you feeling?”

  I bounced up to face him. “My heart is broken.”

  He sucked his lips in and out. “I see.”

  “Can you reach the tapes? Tad wanted to watch Look Who’s Talking Too, but I didn’t want to stand on the beanbag.”

  “Probably wise,” Albert said, going to the cabinet and pulling out the VHS. I took it from him and loaded it into the player.

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes!” Tad said as soon as he recognized the music. He sat down on the rug in front of the TV so quickly that it was more like an incredibly confident fall.

  Albert regarded him. “It’s nice to see somebody cheerful today.”

  “Right?” I said conspiratorially, going back over to sit on the beanbag chair by the sunny window.

  Albert didn’t like that for some reason. He knelt beside me and took my hand. For a minute it seemed like he would say something. The longer this went on, the more horrible I thought the thing had to be.

  Over his shoulder, I saw that a car had slowed down in front of the neighbors’ house. A man in a Hawaiian shirt got out carrying a white box, the kind that store cakes came in. As I watched, he sat down on the curb and took out a large turtle. The turtle was at least the size of my head.

  “Your father will need help,” Albert said at last under the noise of Look Who’s Talking Too.

  The turtle’s legs windmilled as the man held it up by its shell, which I knew you were not supposed to do. He set the turtle down at the base of a kids’ slide that someone had left out in the yard. The door to the neighbors’ house opened and a woman stepped out. She called to the man and he got up to go talk to her, looking irritated.

  “Are you listening to me?” Albert asked.

  The turtle made its way painstakingly up the slide. The neighbors argued on the porch steps. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but I could tell from the set of his back that he was yelling. The woman slammed the door in the middle of his yell and he stomped back over to the slide, where the turtle had nearly made it to the top. The man picked the turtle up by its shell again and placed it at the bottom of the slide.

  “My father will need help,” I repeated.

  * * *

  —

  That night, back at our house, I climbed into Leslie’s bed and kneaded her belly. “Leslie, I have to tell you something,” I said.

  She was stiff as a board. Even her hair was cold.

  “I saw a man outside,” I whispered. “He had this turtle. A huge turtle. He let it climb the slide in his—”

  Leslie twisted a hand in my hair, sat up, and got out of bed. I went with her—I couldn’t help it. Boy did I make a lot of noise, though.

  She dragged me into the guest bedroom and loaded me in between the sheets. A really violent tucking-in. Then she said, her voice as good as a face in the dark, “I don’t want to speak to you again.”

  “Because of our secret?” I whispered.

  “What secret?”

  She waited for an answer, or seemed to. Then my understanding changed. She was waiting for me to realize that she’d already given me the answer: What secret?

  I lay there, straitjacketed in the bedclothes, as Leslie went out of the room and closed the door, shutting me in.

  37

  Leslie

  We took an elevator to the fifth floor. In a fit of coincidence that made me unaccountably nervous, “Bésame Mucho” was playing in the elevator too. It was a jazz version.

  The doors opened onto a hallway lined with confetti-print carpeting. Plain wooden doors marked each twenty-foot stretch. I led Mary down the hall until we reached the little plaque for GRUNDMAN, JAMES & RODRIGUEZ.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She patted my cheek. I flinched.

  “Let’s go inside, sis,” she said, sounding Texan again.

  I pushed open the door. The firm was fairly small, just a tiny front room preceding a series of cubelike offices assembled with floor-to-ceiling room dividers. At the front desk, presiding over a truly astonishing number of framed family photographs, sat Mrs. Guzmán.

  “Mrs. Flores!” she said. “Nice to see you again.”

  “Nice to see you too,” I said, and was about to check in when Mary came up to the desk.

  “I’m Robin, Leslie’s sister,” she said, holding out her hand. Mrs. Guzmán shook it, showing off clawlike red nails. “Are these your children?” Mary asked, pointing at the photographs with her other hand.

  “They are,” Mrs. Guzmán said, smiling.

  “Oh my God, you all must be raising the average height of the state of New Mexico all by yourselves,” Mary exclaimed. “I love it.”

  “That’s my husband’s influence,” Mrs. Guzmán said. “If I stood up, you’d see.”

  Mary laughed. “Your grandkids are super cute.”

  “Well, thank you.” Mrs. Guzmán pointed at one in particular that showed a little girl with her hair in box braids, folding her arms on a pedestal for the school photo. “This one’s twelve now. But I like to keep the photos of them as babies. Makes me feel younger.” She tapped the frame with a nail and turned back to us. “How can I help you ladies?”

  “We have an appointment with Albert,” Mary said before I could open my mouth.

  “Perfect. I’ll let Mr. Grundman know you’re here. You can take a seat just over there.” She picked up the receiver on the desk phone and pressed a button with the flat of her thumb.

  “You remembered his name?” I asked Mary in an undertone as we sat down in the wooden chairs.

  She made a face at me. “It’s like you have no confidence in me, Leslie. I swear.” Then she took out the burner phone I’d bought her and stared at it. “I miss Fruit Ninja.”

  I shifted position several times, listening to Mrs. Guzmán talk to someone on the phone about the weather. “Put that away.”

  “I was on level two hundred twenty-three,” she said, stuffing the phone in her bag.

  “Leslie!” Albert walked out from behind one of the room dividers, his arms outspread, one holding a black wooden cane. I got up to hug him. “I see you brought Robin,” he said over my shoulder.

  “I did, finally,” I said as he moved to hug her as well. Ma
ry threw her arms around him with the abandon of a toddler, which annoyed me. It wasn’t as if she actually knew him.

  “Long time no see,” he said, patting her on the back. “You are beautiful,” he added as they pulled away. “Just lovely. Leslie never said.”

  I pulled my lips into a smile. “She’s hard to warn people about.”

  Mary’s eyebrows pinched together for a second. “Wow, thank you, Albert. It’s so nice to see you again.”

  “Come on back.” Albert began his slow hustle to his office. He’d told me last time we visited that the doctor wanted him to use a walker, but he didn’t want any clients to see him looking like an old man, so he stuck to the cane at work. It shortened his steps to a few inches at a time so that he didn’t fall over. “Inner ear problems,” he’d said, tapping his head. “Vertigo and bad knees at the same time. A NASA scientist said, ‘We can lick gravity, but the paperwork is overwhelming.’ That’s me, I’m at the doctor every other week these days.”

  He held the door open for us despite his cane. Mary went in first, and I heard her little noise of surprise.

  Plants covered Albert’s office on every available surface. One bookshelf held, on top of all the casebooks, a series of bonsai trees, like a well-ordered miniature forest. From the ceiling near the window hung three shallow silver basins bursting with snowball plants, like beaded hair. The desk, a mess of paper in the middle, was bordered with tiny pots labeled BASIL, PARSLEY, THYME, and so on.

  Albert shuffled in behind us and shut the door. A corner of his mouth lifted. “You like my little garden?”

  “It’s amazing,” Mary breathed. “How did you do all this?”

  “Well, I get a nice bit of sun through the window, and I keep it open when it’s not too chilly,” Albert said. “Those are real herbs, you know. You want to taste?”

  “Oh, no,” she said.

  “Oh, come on.” He plucked a leaf from one plant and held it out in thick-knuckled fingers. “It’s mint. Just like toothpaste.”

  “It’s hairy,” she said, wrinkling her nose as she took it from him and chewed. I laughed and she shook her head at me.

  “I can’t believe he got you to eat his plants in less than ten seconds,” I said.

  She spat the leaf into her hand. “Are you not supposed to eat it? It really did taste like mint!”

  “No, no, you can eat it,” Albert insisted. “You can swallow it. It won’t hurt you.”

  “He tries to make everyone eat his plants,” I said. “Most people don’t do it.”

  She dropped the chewed leaf into the trash can. “I guess I’m politer than you, Leslie.”

  “No, Leslie ate it too,” Albert said. “Don’t you remember? I used to bring her mint leaves when I came over. You were probably too young.”

  “Probably,” Mary muttered, looking discomfited for the first time since we’d arrived.

  “How’s your son, Leslie?” Albert asked. “Doing okay?”

  “He’s fine,” I said. “How are your daughters?”

  “I think I’ve finally persuaded Ruth to move,” he said. “She’ll have to retake the bar, but her husband’s found a position in Santa Fe that will give them a little boost.”

  “That’s great.” I smiled and scooted my chair forward slightly.

  “I have to tell you, I’m glad to see you after all this time, Robin,” Albert said, leaning forward to cover her hand with his. “I know this business with the will is a pain in the behind, but Warren just wanted to get both of you girls in a room together again. It killed him when you moved so far away. Where’d you go anyway? Leslie said she was looking for you in Louisiana.”

  Mary stroked his hand with her thumb. “I was there for a while, but I moved to Nevada a little while back.”

  “Nevada,” he said, shifting away. “Las Vegas?”

  “Restaurant work,” she said, affecting a sheepish shrug.

  “I worked in restaurants many years myself,” Albert said, smiling at her. “When I was working my way through law school, I washed dishes and helped around the kitchen at a place that’s since been closed. El Cerdito Rojo. The Little Red Pig. The busboys used to watch for pretty girls, and when one came in they’d yell “Corazón!” into the back of house. We’d make sopapillas in the shape of hearts and send them out, complimentary.”

  “Did that work?”

  “It never worked.” He chuckled. “But it gave us hope.”

  I crossed and uncrossed my fingers beneath the chair, a nervous habit. “So today’s the day, huh?” I said, trying not to speak too fast. “Signing checks?”

  “Yes. Well, not today today.” He thumbed through the papers at his desk, humming to himself.

  Mary and I both froze.

  I shifted into a more natural pose, consciously relaxing my shoulders. “What do you mean? Is there some other step? Because”—I nearly said “Mary,” and saved it with a cough—“my sister has to go home soon.”

  Albert glanced up. “Oh, I thought I’d explained this. Before I can give you a check, we need to file a release and refunding bond with the county and pay the fee.”

  Mary’s fingers twitched on the arm of her chair. “What’s a release and refunding bond?”

  He pulled out a manila folder from underneath a pot labeled CILANTRO and slid it toward us. “You can see there, it’s all in the language, but essentially it releases me of my duties as executor, and refunds any unpaid debts if there are no other assets to pay them. You don’t have to worry about that, since your father had us take the cost of probate out of his remaining savings, whereas your inheritance was held in a separate account. For your purposes, it states the amount you are both to receive—in this case, fifty thousand dollars each—and it requires you to sign in front of an attorney, saying you accept.”

  I stared at the paper. “How long does it take to file?”

  “Well, I can have Angela file it as soon as you leave. But they won’t acknowledge receipt until tomorrow morning at the earliest. My next available appointment is”—he squinted at his calendar—“Monday. You girls could come back in then and we’ll have the checks ready for you.”

  My stomach dropped. “I thought—I mean, is there any way we could do it faster than that?”

  “What’s the rush?” Albert turned back to me and frowned. “You had plans for the slots this weekend?”

  Mary interceded. “I have a flight on Friday, that’s all. I thought this would be a one-appointment kind of thing.”

  Albert sat back, his stomach rising and falling above his battered silver-buckled belt. “Well, I think that goes against the spirit of Warren’s will, if you want to know my opinion. He wanted you two to spend a bit of time together.”

  Mary touched my shoulder and assumed an expression of beatific concern on dramatic par with the Pietà. “We have been. Leslie drove me back, let me stay with her and her family. If you’d told me a year ago that that would happen, I’d never have believed it. But she’s been amazing.” She glanced down. “I’ve been here since Monday, though, and a whole week—” She gave a little laugh. “Well, I’ll be surprised if I’m not fired by the time I’m back. Jessica’s been covering my shifts, but…And without this I can’t—I can’t afford the plane ticket.”

  “You don’t have to tell him that,” I said quietly, picking up her thread. Her eyes flicked to me, startled, but then her face resettled.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I don’t care if people know I’m poor. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  Albert regarded us. The room had heated as soon as he closed the door, and it was as humid as a greenhouse in his office. I was sweating at my hairline and the places where my back met the chair.

  “What if we met for dinner,” I said, unable to stand the silence. Mary’s fingers whitened on her chair, and I saw a tilt of displeasure in her profile,
but I couldn’t stop talking. “Since you don’t have any appointments available until Monday. It would be a little more time for Robin and me to spend together, and you could tell us about Dad when he was younger and hand us the checks at dinner. We’ll go somewhere nice. My treat. How about Blue Roof?”

  “Well,” Albert said, then paused. I glanced at Mary and saw that she was giving me a wide-eyed look. “I think that would be very nice,” he said at last. “Very nice. I haven’t been to the Blue Roof in many years. They used to have a pretty good salmon dish there. I wonder if they still do that.”

  “They do,” I said, the words coming out in a relieved rush. “They do! Dave and I were just there a couple of months ago. He thought about getting it.”

  “Well, then, we’ll go ahead and get dinner,” Albert said.

  “Tomorrow night would be wonderful,” Mary said smoothly. “Then I’d have a little time to pack before my flight, if you don’t mind.”

  “Well, it is rushing things, but if the county notifies us of receipt, I could have Angela make the checks before the bank closes in the afternoon,” he said. “That’s an if, obviously.”

  “We understand,” I said. “Give me a call. I’ll make the reservation, just in case.”

  “I hope you can get a reservation,” he said. “That place used to be pretty stuffed.”

  “I don’t think it should be too hard for a Thursday. Not like a Friday or a—”

  Mary plucked a mint leaf from the plant and handed it to me. “Want some gum?” she said.

  I took it from her and, resigned, put it in my mouth and stopped talking.

  “Who knew I’d have fancy plans this week?” Albert said. “Ain’t I a lucky bastard. The James & Rodriguez will be gnashing their teeth in jealousy. Well, go ahead, since we’re in a rush; sign the form and I’ll get out of your hair.”

  “We really appreciate it,” Mary said, taking the pen.

  “Yes, we—” I began, and Mary tapped me on the underside of the chin.

  “Don’t talk and chew at the same time, sis,” she said. “You’ll spray me.”