The Better Liar

by Tanen Jones

  She smiled. “Maybe.” She looked out across the pool. “Thanks for coming out here with me.”

  “To the pool? Or to New Mexico?”

  “Both,” she said, lifting the bottle again. “It’s funny,” she went on, once she’d finished swigging. “I feel like I’m going to miss you.”

  “Aw, Leslie—” I said.

  She laughed, stifling herself, and pushed the wine bottle across the table at me. “Isn’t that crazy? I don’t even know you. Not really.” She put her hands in her lap. “Tell me something about you. Since you’re leaving tomorrow.”

  I thought about it. “I’ll trade you. One for one. Since I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  Leslie snorted. “You’re so mercenary.”

  I picked up the wine bottle and winked at her. “AMA.”

  She pulled her knees up to her chest. There was a long silence; someone’s dog barked over and over somewhere down the street. Finally she lifted her head. “Where do you go during the day?”

  My fingers twitched toward my hip, but I hadn’t brought my purse. No cigarettes. I took a deep chlorine-scented breath instead. “I met somebody. A police officer. We’ve been sleeping together. That’s what I’ve been doing when I leave the house.”

  Leslie’s mouth fell open. “A police officer? While we’re—while this—” She twisted in her chair. “Why would you do that?”

  I handed her the bottle. “I don’t know. It was fun. I didn’t have anything to do during the day. You left me while you went to work.”

  “I had to go to work,” Leslie hissed.

  I nodded. “I know.”

  I waited while she took another swig. Finally, her cheeks darker in the green light, she said, “He’s not suspicious, is he? I mean, does he think he’s sleeping with Mary or with Robin?”

  “She doesn’t know anything,” I said. “She’s more worried I’m going to tell her wife.”

  “Her wife?” Leslie set the bottle down hard enough that it made a sloshing noise. “I just— Mary, I just— It’s too dangerous. You have to stop.”

  “I am stopping,” I said. “I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ll ditch my phone. She’ll never hear from me again.”

  “Oh.” Leslie paused and sat back. She frowned. “Did you really like her, this, um, woman?”

  A breeze stirred my hair. I pushed it over one shoulder. “I don’t know.” I thought about making Paul tell me he loved me again and again. As if repetition would make it true. Nancy only had to look at me for me to know what she felt. It had satisfied something bone-deep in me to be looked at that way.

  Leslie sighed and watched a ripple drift over the surface of the pool. “It’s too cold to swim. I wish we could get in.”

  I took another long slug from the wine. “This is pretty good,” I told her. “Dave has good taste.” I slipped one foot out of its shoe and nudged her in the thigh with my toes. “Okay. Your turn.”

  She shut her eyes. “I’m not telling you about why I need the money. I can’t.”

  I touched her again with my foot. “I know. I’ll ask something else.”

  She hunched forward. “Okay. What do you want to know?”

  “What were you thinking about, on the bed earlier?”

  I saw her shoulders tighten. “My mom. Christine.” She twitched, like a shrug. “I never thought much about her until I had the baby. I keep thinking what it must have been like for her. Getting pregnant right away. Getting married. I guess that’s why he married her. She wasn’t like the other one. Yvonne.”

  I sipped from the bottle and handed it back to her. “Do you think they were in love, though?”

  She leaned from side to side, bending her elbows, like a full-body weighing of the scales. “I used to think so. Now…Maybe it was because of us. He thought he should have kids. He was so much older than her. And she’d never been in a relationship with anybody else. When I was a little girl I thought that was so romantic. Like they’d been waiting years and years for each other.”

  “Let’s go down to the water,” I said. “Let’s put our feet in, at least.”

  Leslie looked over her shoulder and picked up the bottle. “All right.”

  I stood up, my head a little lighter than it had been, and took off my heels. Leslie slipped her shoes off too, and the deck creaked under our bare feet as we left it to sit on the concrete next to the pool steps. “This is going to make my dress get those, like, little pills,” I said. “I can feel it already. It’s like I’m sitting on Velcro.”

  “Just on your rear end,” Leslie said, craning her neck to look at it. “You can shave those off, you know. With a razor.”

  “I’d rather throw this dress away than have to shave its ass.”

  Her cheeks bulged as she tried to swallow her wine while she laughed.

  I stuck my feet in the pool and had to bite my own arm to keep from shrieking. “Oh, fuck, that’s cold,” I whispered, sliding backward and ruining my dress for good.

  “It’s May,” Leslie said. “What did you expect?”

  “It’s the desert! It was hot yesterday.”

  She stretched her own legs out, skimming the water with the soles of her feet. “It’s not that bad. You’re a wimp.”

  I crossed my legs and put the wine bottle in my lap, watching her profile. “Tell me more stuff about your mom.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because you don’t like to talk about her. Feels like a secret.”

  Leslie shook her head and hunched her shoulders. “There’s no secret. She was my mom. She was tiny, like five two. She got a perm when I was ten or so. She liked music and cooking. She taught me how to make apricot pie and coq au vin. She could swim. I remember she smoked Gauloises because it was cool when she was a kid in the seventies, to be the kind of girl who smoked French cigarettes. She wouldn’t let me wear any eye shadow and I hated that. She was gone a lot, though, and I wore it whenever she was gone because Daddy couldn’t tell that I had it on. And then she died. And so I don’t like talking about her. It makes me uncomfortable.”

  “Why was she gone a lot?”

  Leslie took the bottle from my lap and tipped it back again. At last she said, “I guess it doesn’t matter to tell you. Daddy didn’t want me to tell people, but he’s dead now.” She pulled her feet out of the water and crossed her legs, matching me. “She was in and out of hospitals. She was sad—depressed.”

  “How come?”

  The wine bottle was empty; Leslie rested her head drunkenly on her own shoulder. “You know, I thought it was just me blaming myself for the longest time? Because kids always blame themselves? But I— After hearing Albert today, I really do think—it was me. I think it was because she didn’t want me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Leslie sighed. “She got pregnant so fast, and he wanted the baby, and so they got married, but…” She shrugged. “I always felt like she didn’t really like me. Like we were so distant from each other. And maybe it was true. Maybe she just…didn’t want me.” She shook her hands out. “Is that good? Is that enough? No more secrets?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s good. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, and took my hand, holding it in both of hers. “I hope you have a good life,” she said, slurring a little. “I hope you make it as—as an actress. You’re a good actress.”

  “You’re drunk,” I said.

  “Am I?” She shook her head. As if prompted by her movement, a square of yellow light fell over both of us. We started, scrambling to our feet, the wine bottle rolling off Leslie’s lap into the shallow end of the pool. “Fuck,” she whispered. We both watched as it hit the bottom of the pool with a hard, sharp sound. Somehow, it didn’t break. Leslie exhaled and turned around to look at the house. “Somebody’s home,” she said.

  I could see a f
igure in a white T-shirt moving around in the upstairs bedroom. “I don’t think they saw us,” I whispered back. “Let’s go.”

  She pointed at the pool. “We have to get that.”

  The wine bottle stared up at us from under the waves. “You first,” I said.

  Leslie’s face was pink. “They’ll see me if I get in.”

  I retrieved our shoes from under the bistro table. “Let’s go,” I said.

  She followed me, and took her shoes from me blankly when I handed them to her. Above us, in the house, another person joined the first in the bathroom. “But they’ll see it,” she hissed. “In the morning. They’ll know we were here.”

  The two people in the house shuffled out of the bathroom, and the light shut off again. The pool lost its yellow square. I looked at Leslie, and she looked back, and then I watched her burst into silent laughter. She took my hand and we ducked through the gate together in the dark.

  47

  Robin

  I roll over in bed and Nancy’s there, long black hair, bangs cut sharply over her forehead. I’d forgotten she was in bed with me.

  She stares up at my ceiling, at the only poster I have that isn’t a face. Another Courbet. “I can’t believe your dad let you put that up.”

  “He never looks up.” I inch over to tilt my head next to hers, so our ears are pressed together, seashell to seashell. “It’s great, right?”

  “It’s gross.”

  “Beautiful and gross and beautiful.” I grab her shoulders and wrestle her under the comforter. “Don’t you love it?”

  “You’re disgusting,” she mumbles into my thigh.

  I twist my fingers in her hair, enjoying feeling like I could suffocate her in me. “You’re breathing in.”

  She struggles, and I press back for a second, just to fuck with her. I feel her throat move against my leg, about to make too loud a noise, and so I let her up. “Why did you do that?” she whispers when she’s out from under the comforter.

  She’s red-faced, stiff with irritation. “I don’t know,” I say. “Don’t be cross.” I’ve started saying cross now instead of mad. That’s what Bette Davis says in Jezebel.

  Nancy’s quiet for a minute. “Are you really running away?” she says finally. “I’ll miss you,” she adds, when I don’t answer.

  She’s a child.

  “Soon,” I say. “After that I’m never coming back.”

  “Why?” She rolls toward me, tucking her face into my neck. “I want you to stay.”

  “Because I want to be a ghost,” I say, eyes wide, staring at the ceiling. “Ghosts never get old. Everybody remembers them exactly as they were.” I stroke her dark hair. “Like you. You’ll remember me forever, won’t you, Nancy?”

  She doesn’t reply. I feel her chest rising and falling against mine.

  “Nancy?”

  48

  Mary

  I woke up with a start.

  The room was full of light, but Leslie’s voice was still in my ears, muffled through the door.

  What was she saying?

  “I love you—I love you.”

  To Dave. I twisted to look at the bedside clock—8:35.

  Footsteps on the stairs, his and hers.

  I levered myself out of bed and pulled the yellow dress down, stepping out of it. The strapless bodice had left wrinkled red lines across my chest. I found my leggings and jacket, and combed my hair with my fingers.

  I heard the jingle of her keys. The front door shut. Leaning closer to the mirror, I studied my face. I’d slept in my makeup; there was a red pimple forming next to my nose. I wiped the black from under my eyes and left the rest as it was.

  I opened the door to the guest room and stepped on something crumpled. ROBIN. Leslie had left me a note. I folded it twice more and put it in my pocket.

  Out the back door, around the corner. I sat in my rented car at the stop sign, waiting for Leslie’s car to cross the intersection. Dave’s car was first, the Jeep. I watched as he disappeared around the corner, heading for the highway. Leslie’s silver Honda arrived half a second later. I waited until the car behind her passed, then turned to follow.

  She was speeding a little, not using her turn signal enough. I fell three and then four car lengths behind, and lost her halfway through downtown. Which bank did she use? I’d thought she was heading toward BOA. Yes—there was her car, a quarter mile ahead, turning in to the lot for the largest branch in the city.

  I pulled in and sat in the car, slouching so that she wouldn’t see my face. But she wasn’t looking around. She walked quickly through the glass doors, clutching the envelope.

  It took her nearly an hour to emerge. I decided to watch her car instead of the doors, so that I wouldn’t miss her in the stream of people going in and out. At last she appeared again, divested of the check, carrying instead a thick manila envelope sealed with white-and-green tape. She was pale-cheeked, expressionless. I watched her start the car and glance over her shoulder as she backed out of her parking space.

  She followed the main boulevard for a few miles, and then she turned east. Now I knew where we were going. I settled back into the driver’s seat and angled the rearview mirror so that I could see my own face. I scraped flecks of mascara off my cheeks with a fingernail and reached into my duffel in the passenger seat, fishing until I found a tube of lipstick in the veladora.

  The Honda turned onto Riviera. I coasted in its wake. The sun turned the dust on the windshield solid, striping the landscape with sepia. Familiar houses slid past, one after another, as if counting down to our arrival.

  There it was: the painted gate. Leslie’s tires crunched over the gravel in the driveway. I stopped a few houses down, pulling up against the empty curb.

  I could only see the shape of her head beyond the headrest. She was still. Why wasn’t she getting out?

  I stared into my own eyes in the rearview mirror. I could start the car right now. Pull out, go to a different bank with my passport, sweat through the paperwork. I’d leave fifty thousand dollars richer, in a rented car on the way to LA. Wouldn’t that be enough for me?

  Leslie hadn’t moved.

  I shifted in my seat and felt the crackle of notebook paper in my pocket. Leslie’s note. I drew it out and smoothed it against the steering wheel, careful not to press the horn. ROBIN, said the front. The rest was in Leslie’s neat handwriting in black ink. The words were chosen deliberately, so that if Dave came across the note in the guest room, it wouldn’t raise any alarm.

  I’m heading out now. I didn’t want

  to wake you up to say goodbye.

  I hope you find your way on your own.

  I’m glad our time together is over.

  I can’t feel any other way.

  But I’ll think about you.

  —Leslie

  At the bottom of the note was a string of numbers. Robin’s Social Security number.

  I looked up. Leslie’s silhouette had disappeared from the Honda. The cracked teal gate hung open, drifting on its hinges.

  I thought about what Clery had told me about what Leslie had hired him to do. About Dave on the porch, telling me he only went over to Elaine’s house to buy weed, that he didn’t want to worry Leslie, Leslie with the junkie sister who had died alone in her bedroom. Leslie who had taken care of her father by herself, nursing him into his decline. And the way Dave looked at her when she was turned away from him, how it had never occurred to him to be afraid of her. I thought about Leslie leaning into me last night, slurring into my face, I hope you have a good life.

  I got out of my car, slammed the door, and headed toward the house on Riviera.

  49

  Leslie

  The house was almost packed up, except for Robin’s room. Before her death, I’d been putting it off; Daddy had kept it just the wa
y it was, as if she’d return at any moment and want her things back. After, it was like I was afraid of it. I’d ditched her there, hollowed-out and ugly, a City of Las Vegas burial under someone else’s name, and I’d brought back a stranger to stand in her place. If she knew, she’d be furious with me. So I left her room alone. A silent apology.

  And now it was too late. I wouldn’t have time to pack her things. Someone else—Dave, maybe—would be the one to put away her old belongings, clear the nail polish off the bureau, untack the posters from the walls.

  I hung my purse on the hook by the door and went into Daddy’s study. The blinds were down and it was dark. I walked to the secretary desk and searched through the keys on the ring. The little copper one. I slid it into the lock and it popped open.

  The burner cell was inside, on top of the old mail and candy wrappers. I reached for it and froze as I heard the front door open.

  Someone stepped inside.

  My heart pounded. I had no weapon. I grabbed the phone and moved around the desk into the far corner of the study. Maybe whoever it was wouldn’t see me in the shadow.

  The manila envelope with the fifty thousand was still in my purse by the door. My eyes flicked toward the front hall. I couldn’t go out to get it without giving myself away.

  The house was silent. I couldn’t hear the intruder anymore. Where were they?

  I watched the doorway into the hall.

  “Hi,” said a figure from across the room.

  I screamed.

  Mary laughed, coming through the second door. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

  I sat down heavily on the carpet, putting my forehead on my knees. “Why the fuck did you scare me like that?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t mean to. What are you doing in here?”

  “I thought you were leaving.” I pushed my hair out of my face.

  “I figured I’d stop by and see if you were smart enough to come back for the burner. Good for you. A lot of folks would have forgotten it after three months.”