Lies of the Heart

by Michelle Boyajian

  When the lights came up and the professor resumed his droning lecture, Katie would focus on a spot on the wall, and in only a few seconds Nick would reemerge: straining above her, eyes closed tightly as he moved inside her, his hands gripping her hips. Katie, he would say in a dissonant whisper, and each time Katie’s body seemed to expand, to fill up with the sound of Nick speaking her name.

  Other times, when her professor scribbled on the board or sorted through his dusty collection of videotapes, other scenes pushed their way to the forefront, intruding into Katie’s blurry happiness: Nick, examining a callus on his hand, fingers splayed, and Katie’s own hand finding his—then waiting for his reaction, which always formed gradually, as if he needed time to remember how to assemble the smile that would eventually come. Or that humid Sunday afternoon when they were in the water at Potter’s Cove, Katie’s arms wrapped around Nick’s neck, ankles crossed around his middle. Blissful, the sun warming the tops of their heads, their limbs slippery and sliding while they looked into each other’s eyes. But then that diver surfaced a few yards away, pulling off his mask, walking to the beach: an old man, his white beard dripping into the water, a canvas sack roped around his torso and a heavy air tank in one hand.—Do you know him? Katie asked, but then instantly let go of Nick. The haunted look on his face scared her, made her turn back to the old man in an attempt to see what Nick saw in his grizzled, sun-worn features. She didn’t repeat her question or ask what he was thinking, afraid that she would be one of those girls who requested too much, who pushed away her lover with too many questions. But she collected those times, too, when Nick turned away from her, when he became quiet and distant, sequestering them to a corner of her mind for later inspection. And she watched him.

  She watched Nick all the time, how his body moved when he was close to her, how he looked at her, and away from her and at the world, and then the need would come to Katie in heavy, rolling waves. Because she wanted all of him, wanted to crawl inside him and know every single piece of him, to hold those pieces in her hand and examine them, inch by inch—wanted the confirmation that he understood her, that he knew about loneliness, too. She needed to know that somewhere in those prolonged silences between them, when his eyes would wander away from her to places she felt uninvited, his love for her was growing, was real. That she was the only girl for him, the only and exactly right girl, and this was just Nick’s way. So like Katie’s, but unnecessary now, finally, because they had found each other.

  One Thursday afternoon in class, Katie was dreaming of her escape to Rhode Island in just a few hours when her professor announced that they would review several short documentaries. Minutes later Katie was again startled out of her reverie by her professor, who spoke in an uncharacteristically animated voice.

  —Here, he said to the class, slapping the screen.—What do you see here?

  A black-and-white picture of a young soldier filled the screen, his face muddy and tired, the strap of his helmet hanging. Beside him, a man who could have been sleeping if the scene were different, if there weren’t the constant sounds of explosions and gunfire in the background. If he weren’t lying in a ditch, his gun sunk into the mud next to his body.

  —War, the students said.—Death.

  —But what does the camera capture? the professor asked impatiently.

  The camera zoomed in on the soldier’s face—a disturbing look because of the combination of vacancy and concentrated sadness, a young-old face, its deep lines embedded with blood and grime.

  Hands rose, hypotheses voiced.

  —The meaningless of life? someone said.

  —The acknowledgment of impending death?

  Each time the professor shook his head, sighed, and waited.

  The soldier patted his coat, and then an explosion only a few yards away rocked his body; he ducked down, sticks and clods of earth raining onto him and into the trench. He stood and scanned the scene before him, patted his coat again. A clump of dirt rested on the dead man’s chin, unnoticed.

  Katie, suddenly interested, said in a voice louder than the rest:

  —He’s thinking about love.

  Heads turned to the back of the room where she sat. Her professor quickly closed the distance between them, pointing.

  —Your name? he demanded.

  —Katie, she whispered.

  —Who?

  —Katie, she said in a louder voice to the professor, who stood too close now.

  —Love? the professor said.—But why, with a man dead or dying beside him?

  It was only what Katie wanted the soldier to think about, what she hoped he was thinking about, despite everything around him. And now too many eyes were on her, so she turned back to the screen, watched the soldier pull out a small piece of rumpled cloth from inside his coat.

  He lifted it to his nose briefly but didn’t inhale; instead he swiped it angrily across his cheek and then looked at it, eyes flashing at the patch of dirt left across the bottom. In the corner of the cloth, partially hidden by the dirt: the top half of a looping, monogrammed letter, a B or a P. The soldier stuffed the cloth back into his coat.

  —You forget the camera is there, don’t you? the professor asked Katie quietly, and she nodded, realizing that there was a camera, that the young soldier didn’t seem to notice it hovering over his shoulder. Didn’t have time to hide the way he felt.

  The professor addressed the class.

  —Imagine, now, if this soldier turned to the camera, talked to us. Imagine what he would say with his eyes, with his body and limbs. He might talk about impending death, the meaningless of life, the professor said, shaking away the students’ words with his hand.—But we would know better, wouldn’t we? He turned back to Katie.—Yes?

  A voice-over in the film reported how this soldier died a week later, how this same piece of cloth had to be pried from his hand.

  —A little melodramatic, the professor said dryly.—But you get the point.

  And then to Katie, before he popped the tape out for a new one: —You have an eye for reading people, Katie. Keep both of them open.

  On the way home that afternoon, she held the excitement of her professor’s words close to her. Finally she had an eye for something, and her heart raced along with the car as she barreled toward Rhode Island, toward Nick. Just one simple sentence, and at last she understood: first Nick and now this, a hidden talent, a purpose—her life had begun in earnest. Not even the congested traffic on I-95 could take away her joy; she couldn’t wait to share her news with Nick and with her mother, to watch the cynical lines of doubt smooth away on her mother’s face. I’m going to make documentaries, she imagined telling her mother, because I have an eye for it.

  In Warwick she pulled in to the sandy parking lot at Sealark Marina, where Nick slipped his skiff. Before she reached the ramp to the dock, she saw him standing on the bow, hosing off the salt water. Three burlap bags overflowing with quahogs sat on the flaking wooden dock, and Katie giggled with happiness; Nick had waited for her before trading them in, knowing that she loved the sunburned old man at the shack, his gruff, bantering ways and how he tried to slip his hand underneath the scale to shortchange Nick. A simple, repetitive game just for Katie’s benefit. Nick waved, and she sprinted down the ramp, across the rickety dock.

  —I have an eye! Katie shouted to him. Nick laughed at her, shaking his head.

  He stuck his thumb over the spout of the hose, pointed it in her direction, and she ran straight into the mist, twirled underneath it on the dock until her clothes were drenched.

  —Get up here, Nick said in a deep voice she understood, and pointed to the bow in front of his feet. Katie scrambled over the side of the skiff, clothes dripping, and fell into him.

  —My professor said—she began, but Nick’s strong arms were crushing her, his mouth stopping her words.

  His fingers teased up under her wet T-shirt, exploring, his tongue licking at the back of her teeth. And then everything else melted away, became distant
and unimportant. Inside Nick’s arms it was always the same for Katie, dizzying, like flying in circles when she was standing still.

  A prayer rose up on its own accord, selfish and urgent. Please, God, please let it always be like this.

  —Now, what did this professor say about your eyes? Nick said in mock jealousy.

  But in his arms there was room for only this. Only Nick.

  In bed that night, Nick worked on her with tongue and teeth and nails, until her hair matted against the sweat on her face, until her neck and back muscles started a slow, raw hum. And she watched him above her, behind her, all around her, straining to see his love.

  —Katie.

  Her whispered name like a plea—and Katie’s body rose to meet his. She turned on her back, put her hands on each side of his face to hold him steady above—needing to see it, needing to see herself in him. You have the eye, she told herself. Keep looking.

  Nick, moving inside her, his eyes tracking her face so intently. She felt the lonely spaces within her leaving—finally, gloriously. Not a prayer any longer, not a fervent wish cast at the sky to God, but this: what could be, the hope of coming together in this world.

  6

  She’s waiting for Dana outside the women’s bathroom, across the hall from the courtroom. Dana’s probably perched at the edge of the toilet at this very moment, Katie thinks, taking two or three furtive puffs from a Merit 100; Katie can picture her sister perfectly, cigarette dangling out of her mouth, one hand waving away smoke while the other one mists the air around her with the slender tube of peach- or melon-burst spray she always keeps in her purse.

  After Carly was finally calmed and order restored, Judge Hwang had called for a fifteen-minute recess; she dismissed the jurors, barely waiting for the door to shut behind them before leveling her gavel at Richard, then Donna. She tossed it onto the bench, gathered up her robes, and stormed through the door at the back of the courtroom to her chambers.

  “Meet me on the second floor, conference room three,” Richard said to Katie, his face impossible to read. He snapped his briefcase shut, followed Donna to chambers. Across the room Jerry sat hunched over the defense table as Daniel Quinlin, the Warwick Center’s recreation assistant, sat beside him talking quietly. The bailiffs stood close by, trading glances and eyeing Jerry.

  “C’mon, Dana,” Katie whispers under her breath now, seeing exactly what she hoped to avoid: the Warwick Center people emerging from the courtroom, one after the other. Oh, great, Katie thinks, but is relieved to see them almost instinctively walk in the opposite direction from her, toward a long bench by the elevators. Sure enough, there’s Patricia Kuhlman, the acting director of the Warwick Center, a tall, older woman who has always intimidated Katie by her stern and officious manner. She converses with Veronica, the receptionist, their heads bent close together. And there is Daniel Quinlin again, this time with his arm around little Carly, and Jan Evers and Billy Zahn, and a few others Katie knows from both the work and recreation programs. Trailing behind them is Judith, the heavyset woman from the cafeteria, her bangs flapping on her forehead as she lets out short puffs of air.

  The last time Katie saw so many of them together was at Nick’s funeral in May. Watching them now, she replays their stubborn solidarity that day, the way they determinedly went through the receiving line as a group—some touching the top of her hand or arm briefly, some going in for quick, boxy hugs—all murmuring how sorry they were for her loss. That entire day Katie had waited vainly for one of them to pull her aside, to acknowledge the obvious complexity of her grief. Nick packing up and leaving their home, and then, before he could come back to resume their life together, leaving the world forever. Their entire future decided in a split second by Jerry. Did any of them even try to imagine how unfinished it all felt to Katie? All the unanswered questions and fears and every complicated little moment and gesture between Nick and her in the month they were separated adding up to exactly nothing now that he was gone for good? She had wanted someone, anyone, to ask her what it was like to stand in that receiving line, beside Nick’s impossibly polite mother: Nick’s wife, yet not his wife precisely for the past month—never his wife again. The anger and confusion that came with feeling like an impostor at her own husband’s funeral as she accepted their condolences next to a woman who acknowledged her presence with only a stiff smile.

  A couple of them did make an effort afterward—a card from Dottie Halverson, the cheerful and motherly nurse who lived only a few streets away from Katie; an apologetic, stilted phone call from Eddie Rodriguez, the athletic director at the recreation center. But now, as they slowly gather around the bench near the elevators, they transform from her friends once again, become that same dark, amorphous mass from the funeral, and Katie’s glad. It’s easier this way, easier not to want them near—easier to think of them instead as “those people.”

  Dana is just emerging from the bathroom when Carly’s insistent voice rings out in the hallway.

  “I can too if I want,” she says.

  “Uh-oh,” Dana says, stepping beside Katie.

  They watch Carly disentangle herself from underneath Daniel’s arm and push past the group, face unyielding. She stamps toward them, her pink dress hiked up high.

  “Remember, she doesn’t know any better,” Dana whispers in Katie’s ear.

  Carly stops in front of Katie, lets the folds of her dress go. Plants both hands on her hips.

  “Katie,” Carly says in a huff, a statement. She stands in front of Katie, breathing hard, her small face fixed in an irritated glare, her hair sticking out at a dozen curling angles.

  “Hi, Carly,” Dana says, shifting into Carly’s line of sight. “Remember me?”

  Carly doesn’t even acknowledge her.

  “Hey there, Car,” Katie says softly, but that’s all Carly is really waiting for, all she needs. With a small whimper, the girl throws herself at Katie, her chubby arms circling Katie’s waist.

  “It’s okay,” Katie says, holding her close.

  Carly rubs her face into Katie’s shirt, and then the sobs come out, choking and long. Katie feels the wet tears through her shirt, strokes Carly’s hair and plants noisy kisses on top of her head.

  “Missing you, lady,” Carly manages some minutes later.

  “Me, too, honey.”

  “And . . . and that dumb . . . Nick.”

  “I know.”

  “Missing both of you tons now,” Carly says, squeezing her hard. “Too much, lady.”

  Daniel is by their side after a couple of minutes, looking sheepish and awkward.

  “Hey, Katie.”

  “Hi.”

  “We should go, sweetheart,” Daniel says, his hand on Carly’s back. She loosens her grip on Katie and turns to Daniel, glowering.

  “Hold on one minute, buster,” she says, wiping her nose across her sleeve. She sniffles loudly and tugs at Katie’s hand, pulling her a few feet away.

  Carly reaches down her dress and yanks out her string necklace with the metal whistle attached. She pulls it over her head.

  “Yup, I got tons of them at home, you bet,” she says, all business once again, so Katie leans down and lets Carly put the whistle around her neck. “Just in case, lady,” she says with serious eyes. “You never know round here.” Carly turns to Daniel.

  “Okay, let’s go, I’m hungry,” she commands, gathering up her dress. She marches off to the group by the elevator without looking back, Daniel trailing behind her.

  The conference room smells like the yellow, moldering pages of an old book, Katie thinks as she looks again at the clock above the door. Almost eleven-fifteen and still no Richard; there’s probably no chance they’ll resume before the lunch break now. She fingers the whistle around her neck, considers blowing it just to get Dana to say something to her.

  The floor-to-ceiling windows on the east side of the room let in big blocks of sand-speckled light that sparkle and illuminate the dark table in the center of the room, where Katie sit
s. Dana stands near the windows in the shadows, arms crossed, one knee bent with her foot pressed against the wall.

  “I thought you had clients all day,” Katie finally says. “I thought social workers didn’t have time for the extras.”

  “You’re not an extra, Kate.”

  Kate. Her sister and mother are the only ones who call her that, and only when they’re upset, or about to say something “important.” A long moment draws out between them, and then her sister finally breaks the silence.

  “You knew Richard might touch her,” Dana says. “You knew.”

  “I forgot to tell him,” Katie says. “But how could I know he’d do that?”

  “Because for some reason you always know,” Dana says. “You always know about people, the things they’ll do. Especially after you’ve spent some time with them.”

  She slides out the cushioned brown chair beside Katie and sits down, eyeing her. The red highlights in Dana’s hair bring out the amber-green flecks in her eyes, and for a moment Katie is suddenly amazed, once again, by her sister’s confident beauty.

  “Please don’t pull the therapy stuff with me, Dana,” she says, recovering quickly. “C’mon. I need some air, and you can have a cigarette.”

  Katie is halfway out of her chair when the door opens and Richard walks in. She sits back down, shoulders tense. Richard’s eyes fasten on the whistle around Katie’s neck. He carefully places his briefcase on the table, fingertips resting on top.

  “Look, I really don’t care at all what you think of me and what I do,” he says quietly. “I really don’t.”

  The trembling in his voice is unsettling, but Katie reminds herself that this emotion has nothing to do with Nick—with her losing Nick.