Friends and Liars

by Kaela Coble

  He shakes his head.

  “Oh, Murph. You really don’t know?”

  “What?” he asks, his voice edged with irritation. “What the hell else don’t I know?”

  I ponder how to word this thing that has always been so obvious to everyone but him. “It was a competition.”

  “For what? They never dated any of the same girls.”

  “Not over a girl. Over you.”

  It’s true. Murphy’s mother, who was no great fan of Danny Deuso’s, once confided in me while we watched Murphy pitch a no-hitter that she blamed herself for Danny’s presence in Murphy’s life. She and Emmett’s mother were in the same birthing class—so Emmett and Murphy really were, as Danny so bitterly articulated, “friends since the womb.” Their moms decided to separate them in kindergarten to allow them to develop more on their own. This didn’t phase the affable Murphy, but painfully shy Emmett was miserable. At the end of their first day of school, Emmett’s mother called Cecile to report Emmett coming home in tears. Apparently at recess time, he looked all over for Murphy and found him up the highest branch of the tallest tree, Danny by his side, both boys hanging from their knees and grinning like Cheshire cats. I don’t think Emmett ever recovered from Danny’s abrupt and unwelcome entrance into his life. He spent the remainder of Danny’s life competing for Murphy’s love.

  “The thought never even occurred to you?” I ask.

  “I guess I never really thought about it like that. I just thought they rubbed each other the wrong way.”

  “They are very different. Were.” Truth is, the two couldn’t have been more different. Where Emmett was well-behaved and liked to be in control, Danny was a troublemaker who went with the flow. Where Emmett was smart and liked by the teachers (despite his occasional smart mouth), Danny battled with paying attention and was constantly lectured by even the nicest of our instructors. What neither of them realized was that they balanced each other out perfectly, and that Murphy needed them both. They were like the angel and the devil, one on each shoulder. The good and the bad, the boring and the adventurous.

  “We should probably talk about the other thing. You know, the secrets.”

  Surprised by the change of subject, I don’t have enough warning to stop myself from tensing slightly, which I’m sure Murphy notices. He leans forward to reach into his back pocket and pulls out his envelope, already creased at the midpoint, and the ink spelling his name already faded, as if he’s been carrying it around with him for years.

  Just remember that all things done in the dark have a way of coming to light.

  “All right. What’s your secret?” I dare.

  “What’s yours?” he asks.

  Simultaneously we shout over each other, “I asked you first!” which makes us laugh.

  When it gets quiet again, I feel my heart seize with panic. How reckless of me to play Chicken with something this serious. If Murphy does tell me his secret, it’s only fair I tell him mine, and, as I mentioned, that is not an option. If my suspicion is correct, Murphy thinks my envelope matches his. He thinks all he covered up yesterday with the crew was a simple indiscretion between two consenting, horny teenagers, and I want to keep it that way, without having to lie to his face. “We don’t have to talk about it, Murph. I mean, let’s not.”

  He seems relieved, and I wonder briefly if I’m wrong. Does the paper in that envelope say what I think it says? Or is Murphy’s secret some other twisted, dark thing? Maybe it’s something that doesn’t have anything to do with me. It’s been ten years. It could be anything. But no. It’s about me. It has to be. Why else would he be pressing the point, now that we’re alone?

  “What about what Danny said?” he asks. “If we don’t tell each other—”

  “Oh, Murph,” I say, smiling in that pitying way I know he hates. “Do you really think Danny Deuso—the guy who wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro but wouldn’t even go for a walk on the Rec trail, the one who was going to find the cure for AIDS but failed science, the King of Big Ideas with no follow-through—do you really think he would have actually taken the initiative, as his last act, to pre-arrange some big, public reveal of all our deepest, darkest secrets?”

  “Danny was a lot smarter than people gave him credit for,” he says.

  I purse my lips against the frosty mood that is suddenly in the air. “I know Danny was smart. Don’t talk to me like I didn’t know him.” Murphy looks away. “I’m just saying,” I continue, realizing I’m using one of Nancy’s famous introductory clauses that Coral and I always mocked, “he wasn’t much of a ‘do-er.’ He was smart about people, and, I hate to say it, about how to get them to do what he wanted. He’s pissed at us and blaming us for everything that went wrong with his life, and in some drug-induced haze he wanted to get back at us. He’s just saying he arranged for everything to come out because he wants to force our hands.”

  “Then why wouldn’t he just put them all in his letter?” Murphy asks.

  I sigh. “I’m guessing he liked the idea of us all squirming to figure out how to cover up whatever we didn’t want the rest of the crew to know. I mean, how would it even work? Say he picked someone to reveal our secrets out in public, announce them at Margie’s, or whatever he felt appropriate. What’s the trigger button? How would that person know whether we already told each other or not?”

  “You’ve given this a lot of thought,” Murphy says. “And you sound a little panicked.”

  He’s right. I sound like Nancy when she’s manic. I take a deep breath, counting to ten before continuing. “I just think I knew Danny pretty well.”

  “And I didn’t?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But that’s what you meant. You always mean what I think you mean, but you say, ‘I didn’t say that,’ because you think I’m stupid and can’t read between the lines.” Murphy’s words snap like a whip, and I look at him in shock. As much as he and I have bickered in the course of our friendship, I don’t remember ever feeling such blatant hostility from him. There was a hint of it in Charlene’s driveway, but last night with the crew he was . . . that’s it. He’s fine when we’re in a group, but when we’re alone the real feelings come out.

  “You’re angry with me,” I say.

  He snorts and folds his arms. “I see the great New York education has paid off.”

  “YOU’RE angry with ME?” I launch myself off the tailgate, spinning around on him.

  “Well, I know that’s impossible to believe, isn’t it? That I, the asshole, the villain of every story, could be mad at the Almighty Ruby St. James, who is so high above everyone else that she thinks she knows everything about them. Even though she hasn’t bothered to so much as pick up a phone in ten goddamn years!”

  Well, that shuts me up.

  I march around to the passenger side of the truck, slamming the door after hopping inside. I glance in the side-view mirror and see Murphy kick at a clump of dirt and storm off toward the water. I sit with my arms crossed, fingers tapping on opposite elbows, lips pursed. I know I look like Nancy when I do this, but I’m angry, and I can’t help it.

  A few minutes later, he wordlessly opens the driver’s side door and climbs in, slamming it closed behind him. He looks over at me, and I look out the window. He sighs, starts the truck, and we rumble out of the parking lot. I remain in the defensive position, cursing Danny for dying and Emmett for having a heart condition, and Ally for looking at me at the funeral as if we were strangers for a millisecond before she hugged me. Most of all, I curse Murphy. It’s because of him this is all so much harder.

  When we pull into his apartment parking lot, I jump out of the truck practically before he even comes to a complete stop. As he bounds up the flights of stairs to his apartment, I rummage through my purse for my keys, coming up empty. “Shit,” I whisper as I increase the intensity of my search. “Shit shit shit!” I go back to the truck, whose door is mercifully unlocked, hoping my keys fell out in one of Murphy’s angry sharp turns on the
drive back from the bay. Nothing on the floor, in the glove box, in the cup holders. Not between the cushions, or under the seat, or in the side panel.

  I get out and dump the contents of my purse onto Blue’s hood, but my search is futile. When I look up, Murphy is at the top of the stairs, dangling my keys over the banister. “Missing something?” he shouts.

  “All right, Murphy, drop ’em.” He raises his arm, and for one horrifying moment I’m sure he is about to throw them with his pitcher’s arm into the woods beyond the parking lot. I get a mental image of how demeaning it would be to crawl on my hands and knees through the bushes to find them, especially as the sun sinks below the horizon and I, like many years ago in Danny’s field, do not have a flashlight. Perhaps he gets the same image, because he lowers his arm and turns around to go back inside.

  “Come get ’em,” he calls over his shoulder.

  I stand at the bottom for a minute, contemplating alternative solutions that don’t involve spending one more second in this man’s—scratch that, this boy’s—company. I could walk home, but there’s no spare key for Blue, so I’d have to come back anyway. I actually consider having Nancy call Cecile. That would serve him right, but I can’t bring myself to sink to the same tactics I used when we were ten and he wouldn’t stop yelling “mushroom!” every time I walked in the room for six weeks after I cut my hair short.

  Finally, I give up. I take a deep breath and bang my way up the five flights again. By the time I reach the top, I’m huffing and puffing from the effort and the anger. Murphy has disappeared into his apartment, leaving the door open for me to storm through. I grab my keys from the counter where he’s tossed them. I should just leave. I know that. I should leave right now and that would be the end of it. But I can’t help myself.

  “You know,” I say, “you all think I’m some pretentious city snob, that I think I’m better than you. But it’s not true.” I’m so angry my voice breaks, and hot tears sting the corners of my eyes. “The reason I haven’t been home, haven’t kept in touch, haven’t been here for friends who have needed me? It’s too hard, Murphy! It’s too hard because everything is associated with you.”

  His face changes then, understanding dawning on him. The thought actually hasn’t occurred to him before, the idiot, and it’s only in this emotionally collapsed state that I could ever admit it. He charges toward me, arms outstretched, and I know what he’s going to do, and I know I should stop him, but instead I move to meet him halfway. We are like two freight trains about to collide. We know it will be messy, but there’s not much we can do to stop it now.

  He plants his hands firmly on my face and kisses me. A jolt goes all the way through me and back up again, and everything I’ve ever felt for or about Murphy Leblanc comes over me like a flash flood. I stop him from kissing me only long enough to lift his shirt off over his head, and he gives me the look I know well; he knows what’s going to happen, but he can’t quite believe how lucky he is. He takes my shirt off, kisses my neck and cups my breasts, and then he consumes me in a bear hug and lifts me so I can wrap my legs around him. He walks us to his bedroom, our lips never leaving each other, and we fall onto the bed, clumsily fumbling off the rest of our clothes until there’s no more to remove. He looks into my eyes; his are pools of black. I nod and he reaches into his nightstand for a condom.

  They’re both really good at ignoring problems.

  CHAPTER NINE

  RUBY

  Back then

  Murphy fake-gasps and clutches his heart dramatically when I emerge from my kitchen, freshly made up and styled by Shawna, the queen of all things girly. He knows a big reaction is expected of him, from all the cheesy teen movies and TV shows where prom is like the be-all and end-all of life. Of course, instead of doing the genuine jaw-dropping thing (which I well deserve, I might add, with 300 bobby pins, a can of hairspray, a gallon of makeup, and four-inch heels), he makes it into a joke. Would a moment of stunned silence be too much to ask? I guess with Murphy, it would be.

  It doesn’t matter anyway, because he’s somebody else’s boyfriend. It’s amazing how quickly Murphy and Taylor became a couple. All I did was point her out to him in the cafeteria, initiate a mutual wave, and pass along her number to him. It seemed like a nanosecond after that they were going out. It’s not really like Murphy to rush into things, so she must be one hell of a girl. I mean, she seemed to be completely fine with us sticking with our original pact to go to prom together, so she’s either awesome or a really good liar. I gave him an “out,” told him if it made things awkward he could take Taylor and I would find someone else, but he insisted that we made plans long before Taylor was in the picture, and he wasn’t going to go back on his word. I was secretly relieved, because there’s no way I would have found an acceptable replacement on this short notice (even Eddie Rodowski has a date this late in the game), and after all the planning Shawna and Donna did, I would hate to disappoint them.

  My parents take about a thousand pictures, in the foyer, on the porch, in the driveway. They’re smiling and being all cheesy, and I go along with it because I know they so desperately want to forget that my father wasn’t here for junior prom, and my mother was sleeping off a depression crash inside and was not even aware when Eddie picked me up on the back of his motorcycle. I’m sure neither of them would have approved, had either been present. To be honest, I didn’t really approve, either. I had to put a helmet over my up-do and by the time we got there my hair was flat and I was covered in bugs that had met their death on my skin. To top it all off, Hardy Crane was the first person I saw before I got a chance to straighten myself out, and the way he smirked at me made my bug-splattered skin crawl. Later, he and Brandy McCallister were crowned prom King & Queen, which Ally complained shouldn’t be allowed, since Hardy was a second-year senior by that time.

  Murphy opens the door of his truck for me, which is a welcome change. Normally, if he’s driving, he’ll roll the car forward a little bit as I try to get in, laugh hysterically, promise he won’t do it again, and then do it again. One time he did it so many times I went back in the house and refused to go anywhere with him. He’s as stubborn as I am, so instead of apologizing he just left. When he called me later that night, we didn’t discuss it.

  We go to Emmett’s house and take more pictures with the rest of the crew. It’s weird not going to Danny’s, where we always meet up, but he can’t come to prom because he was suspended for smoking on school grounds. Again. Even if he wasn’t suspended, though, he probably wouldn’t have come. He and Jenny have been over since he caught her making out with Brad Lewis down by the tracks. After the dance we’ll all go to Tara’s house, because her parents are in Michigan taking care of her stepfather’s mother, who just broke her hip. We’re not allowed at Danny’s because Charlene is in one of her rare “putting my foot down” modes, and is disgusted with Danny’s smoking even though she herself smokes, and half the time buys extra because she knows Danny will steal them. Charlene must have attended the same School of Sporadic and Hypocritical Parenting that Nancy went to.

  Emmett and I get in a fight over who gets to ride shotgun. Emmett thinks “the boys” should ride up front together and I should sit in the back with Tara. I say it’s prom, and we should sit with our dates. Emmett says it’s not like Murphy and I are on a real date, and I blush as much with anger as embarrassment. To my surprise, Murphy tells Emmett to get his ass in the back or he’s going to have to beg a ride from Aaron and Ally, who have made it clear they want to have dinner alone, for once.

  We go to a restaurant in Drummond, for no other reason than it’s thirty minutes outside of Chatwick and it gives us more time in the car, more distance and independence. It gives us a one-up on the rest of our class, who are all congregating at one of the two restaurants in town, both of which have newsprint as placemats and coloring crayons as utensils. Our crew isn’t afraid to leave Chatwick. At least not for one meal.

  While we’re waiting to be seated, an older woma
n on her husband’s arm leans into Murphy and says, “Your girlfriend is stunning.” He doesn’t correct her about my title. He just nods, says, “I know,” and then loops his arm around my waist. I can’t help but smile.

  When we arrive at the school gym we mingle a little, the girls all comparing dresses. Mine is royal blue, with little silver sparkles woven into the fabric. It looks like the sky right after the sun sets and, not to sound cocky, but I like it the best. I should, considering the vetting process.

  Murphy drifts over to Taylor and starts dancing with her not long after we arrive. We talked before about this and I told him I didn’t mind, but he’s gone for so long everyone else starts to couple off and I’m left standing alone. I try to appear totally comfortable standing in the corner and watching, but I’m not. I feel lonely and stupid. I should just have gotten another date, or stayed home. He was the one who insisted we still go together. He said after all we’ve been through together, and after all I’ve been through in the past couple of years, I shouldn’t miss my senior prom. Thinking back on the conversation we had, his words sound more like pity than solidarity of friendship, and it makes my stomach turn. I rush into the bathroom but don’t throw up. I’m careful not to let the tears in my eyes actually fall, ruining Shawna’s hard work.

  I’m glad Ally didn’t see me rush off. She was supportive of the idea of Murphy and I keeping our date. A little too supportive. “Ruby, who cares about Taylor, she’s a sophomore. She doesn’t even belong at prom.” Ally is not so keen on Taylor yet; she doesn’t trust that she’ll be around for the long haul (the idea that the goal of most high-school relationships is not, in fact, to end up married is unfathomable to her). You wouldn’t sense the distrust, based on how they gossip together when Murphy actually brings her around. But if Ally saw me upset, it would lead to drama. She would give Murphy a talking to, and then everyone would be talking about it.