All the Beautiful Lies

by Peter Swanson

  “Gross, Mom,” she said, and left the kitchen. Her mom’s happiness since the settlement money had come in had been kind of nauseating. The boiler explosion had nearly killed her, but when the check arrived, she’d danced around their apartment like she was a teenager, then gone out and bought a carton of her favorite cigarettes, plus a big bottle of Absolut vodka. Alice had panicked that her mom would spend all the money right away, doing something stupid like taking her girlfriends on a cruise, or getting a brand-new sports car, but after the fancy vodka and the cigarettes, she only bought a bunch of new clothes, then told Alice how they were moving out of Biddeford to a real nice town called Kennewick. Alice pretended to be dismayed, but she was okay with it, especially when she found out that the house they were renting had her own bedroom and bathroom in it. That made up for leaving her friends behind and having to start over at a new high school. And the house was pretty nice, with big windows and wooden floors instead of stained wall-to-wall carpeting that smelled like cigarettes.

  They moved at the end of May, and Alice had the whole summer to herself. Back in Biddeford there was nowhere to go but Earl’s Famous Roast Beef and the roller skating rink, but here she could walk to Kennewick Beach, a long, sandy stretch packed with tourists all summer. And even though she had privately conceded that she’d seen the ocean before, it still felt like the first time. When the sun was out, the clear, cold water would sparkle, almost looking like pictures she’d seen of tropical places. The first time she walked down to the water by herself was Memorial Day. The beach was crawling with people, mostly families, but lots of teenagers as well, muscular boys and skinny girls in bikinis. Underneath her high-waisted jean shorts and Ocean Pacific T-shirt, Alice was wearing a dark red one-piece that was a little too snug. She’d bought it the previous summer to swim at her friend Lauren’s aboveground pool, but her mom had rarely washed it, and it had faded at the seams from all the chlorine in the pool water.

  That first day at the beach, she walked along the water’s edge, carrying her sandals, liking the way the wet sand felt, sucking at her toes. But she never swam. Later that week Alice bought herself two new bathing suits with her own money at a gift store on Route 1A. One was a black bikini she wasn’t sure she would ever wear and one was a green one-piece, kind of boring, but with high slits up the sides. She also bought a straw bag, a towel, and a bottle of Coppertone sun oil. She began to go to the beach daily, developing a strict routine. She quickly learned that she hated getting too much sun. It made her itch, and she didn’t tan; her white skin just burned, or broke out in hideous heat rashes. She swapped out the sun oil for sunblock—the highest number she could find—and each morning of the summer, after showering, she would thickly spread the sunblock over her entire body. It made her feel impervious. Then she would pack her bag with a tuna fish sandwich, a thermos of Country Time lemonade, and one of her mom’s romance novels, and set out for a day at the beach. There, she would spread her large towel out, making sure to put small rocks on all the corners so that it would stay flat. She would sit and read the romance novel, occasionally taking a break to watch other beachgoers play Frisbee or dart in and out of the water. No one ever approached her, but occasionally she caught boys or even sometimes older men taking surreptitious glances in her direction. It didn’t matter if she was only in her bathing suit, or if it was a cooler day and she was still wearing shorts and a T-shirt, but it did seem to happen more when she was in her black bikini.

  Before lunch every day on the beach she would take one swim, forcing herself to walk straight into the bone-chilling water without hesitation. She learned that if you stayed in the water, swimming back and forth, for at least two minutes, your skin would turn numb and it would no longer feel cold. The salt in the ocean made the water so much more buoyant than the water in Lauren’s pool, and if she put her arms back over her head she could float on the surface and look up at the sky.

  She swam only once during each beach trip because of how long it took her to dry off, making sure that not a single grain of sand got onto her towel. Then she would eat her sandwich, drink her lemonade, and go back to her book.

  Her mother came to the beach with Alice only once during the summer. It was a Saturday in late July. Edith had gotten up early, taken a shower, and put on makeup, all because she was expecting her friend Jackie from Biddeford to come visit for the day. But Jackie called and canceled. “You’d think I’d asked her to drive halfway across the state,” Edith said after the call. “It’s two fucking towns over. What are you doing today, Al?”

  “Beach.”

  “Of course, the beach. I should go along with you just to find out if you really go. How is it you go to the beach every day and your skin is like chalk?”

  “I wear sunblock.”

  “When I was your age I went to the beach all the time and I was practically black. Well, maybe I will come with you, unless you’d rather I didn’t.”

  “You should come. I’ll make another sandwich.”

  It took Edith forever to get ready. Half of her stuff was still in boxes and she puttered back and forth looking for just the right bathing suit, one that turned out to be a leopard-skin one-piece that exposed a lot of her chest, her skin leathery and darkly freckled. The bathing suit also exposed her left arm, puckered and scarred from the accident at the paper mill.

  “I think I’m ready, Al. Can I bring a bottle of wine to the beach or is that a no-no?”

  “I can put some in a thermos for you,” Alice said, already swinging open the refrigerator where her mother kept her bottles of Mateus rosé.

  It was almost noon by the time they had settled on the sand, each on their own towel. It was a perfect day, the only visible clouds thin ragged wisps on the horizon line. The air smelled of the ocean, but also suntan lotion, and the occasional trace of someone’s cigarette smoke clinging to the light breeze. Alice started reading; she was halfway through Lace again, by Shirley Conran. Her mother cracked her own book, but wasn’t looking at it. She was twitchy and unsettled, and she began to drink from her thermos of wine. “Wanna walk?” she asked after a while.

  “Sure,” Alice said.

  They walked the length of the beach and back, Edith keeping the shawl over her shoulders. “Look out, Al, it’s a gull,” she kept saying, prodding Alice’s shoulder.

  “I’m not scared of gulls anymore,” Alice said.

  “So you do remember the gulls.”

  “No. You told me I was scared of them. I don’t remember those trips, if we ever went on them.”

  When they got back to their beach towels, Alice was hot, the back of her neck damp with sweat. “Do you want to swim?” she asked her mother.

  “God, no, it’s freezing.”

  Alice went alone, swimming out past where the waves were breaking so that she could lie on her back and rise and fall with the swells. She closed her eyes and watched the small explosions of color behind her lids, and if she leaned far enough back, and submerged her ears, all she could hear was the blank roar of the ocean.

  When she returned to her mother there was an older man standing above her, his feet spaced apart and his hands on his hips. He wore black swim trunks, cut high up on his thighs. His hair was parted on the side and greying at the temples. Even though he was in good shape, it was clear that he was standing extra rigid, pulling in his stomach a little.

  “Alice, this is Jake,” Edith said, squinting up into the sun.

  “Hi, Alice,” the man said, transferring a lit cigarette from his right hand to his left to shake her hand. He wore aviator sunglasses with reflective lenses. Alice wondered if he was looking at her body from behind them. When he released her hand, she bent and picked up the towel she used to dry herself, wrapping it around her.

  “Your mother here—” Jake started.

  “Jake helped me open up an account at the local bank. That’s where I got the new clock radio from, the one that’s in the kitchen.”

  “Oh,” Alice said. She’d dried he
r hair and sat down on the edge of her towel, being careful to keep her wet feet firmly in the sand.

  The man called Jake crouched down. Edith propped herself up on an elbow. She had a lit cigarette as well, perched between her fingers, the heat from its tip causing the already warm air to ripple.

  “I was just telling your mother,” the man said, “how I’d be happy to show you two around Kennewick. Give you the real local’s point of view. Best clam roll, et cetera.”

  Alice must have made a face, because he laughed. “Okay, then. Best ice cream place.”

  “Sure,” Alice said, and scooched a little farther back on her towel. The man turned his attention back to Edith. Alice lay back, and concentrated on the way the hot sun was drying the droplets of water on her face. She could almost feel them evaporating, leaving behind tiny deposits of salt.

  “Okay, then. It’s a date,” the man said, and Alice opened her eyes. He was standing again, blocking the sun. He wasn’t actually bad looking, Alice thought. He looked like a man who should be in a Newport cigarettes commercial.

  The man crouched again, his bathing suit tightening around his crotch so that Alice could see the bulge of his genitals. She looked instead at his sunglasses, a silvery blue in the bright sunshine. “Alice, so nice meeting you. If you grow up any more the opposite sex won’t stand a chance.”

  “That’s what I tell her,” Edith said. “All the time. Don’t grow up. It’s not worth it.”

  The man stood, both he and her mother now laughing in that obviously fake way that older people did. He said good-bye and wandered off, still holding his body stiffly as though it might collapse if he fully let a breath out.

  Edith stubbed her cigarette—the man’s brand, not her own—out in the sand, and said, “What did you think of Jake?”

  She said it expectantly, her voice pitched a little too high, and Alice suddenly realized that this meeting had been at least partly arranged, that the man and her mother had not simply bumped into each other at the beach, or if they had, they’d seen each other before. And not just at the bank.

  “He seemed nice,” Alice said.

  “He’s very successful,” Edith replied, digging out one of her own cigarettes from the purse she’d brought.

  Alice lay back down. She was worried she hadn’t put enough sunblock on her face that morning, and so she draped the towel over her head. It felt nice on her face, damp and cool. She thought about the man her mother had met. He was old and a little cheesy, but not that bad. When her mother was a mill worker at a paper factory and a single mother, she had to date a building manager who wore sleeveless T-shirts and had thick moles all over his shoulders and neck. Now that she didn’t have to work, and lived in a nice town like Kennewick, Edith could date men who worked in banks and cared about how they looked. It was the way the world worked. She knew that much from the books she read. Rich girls married rich boys, and their lives were better. It was simple.

  She couldn’t see it, but a cloud must have crossed the sun because she could feel a sudden coolness on her skin. She sat up too fast, becoming a little dizzy. She realized she must have fallen asleep. There were fewer people on the beach now, and her mom was packing up.

  “Ready to go, Al?” she asked.

  Chapter 3

  Now

  Harry couldn’t sleep that afternoon. He kept thinking back to the time after his mother had finally succumbed to cancer, and the immense anger that he, then a moody and truculent teen, had felt.

  “We have each other now,” Bill had said, after the funeral, “it’s important to remember what we have, and not what we’ve lost.”

  “Whatever you say,” Harry had replied, not making eye contact, and his father had let him get away with it. But what his father had said had stuck with Harry through the following years. He missed his mother constantly, but he did feel close to his bookish, low-key dad. It was a family of two. Not nearly enough, but it was what it was.

  And now he was a family of one, Harry thought.

  The vacuuming had stopped, and Harry stepped out of his room, went down the stairs, coughing purposefully when he reached the first floor so that he wouldn’t startle Alice. He entered the large front living room, spotted her lying on one of the sofas, the crook of her arm across her eyes as though she had a headache. He began to turn away when she said, “Harry, come in. Talk with me.”

  “That’s okay. Keep sleeping.”

  “No, no. Come here.”

  Harry sat on the edge of the oldest upholstered chair in the room, a transplant from the Manhattan apartment, and said, “Have the police told you anything more?”

  “They haven’t, but they’ll be doing a full autopsy.”

  “It seems strange that he would fall.”

  “Something else might have happened. He could have had a heart attack.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “It makes more sense to me than him suddenly slipping off the path and—”

  “Had it rained?” Harry asked.

  “Um, a few days ago, I think, but I don’t think the path would have been slippery. We’ll learn more from the autopsy. It’ll be important for you, too, Harry, in case, for instance, he had a weak heart.”

  “Oh, right,” Harry said. The thought hadn’t occurred to him, that his father’s death at an early age might be a harbinger for him, as well, if it had been a natural death. He bit at the inside of his cheek, an old habit that was suddenly resurfacing, and wondered if he’d care if a doctor told him that his father had a weak heart that he’d inherited. He tried to feel something—some fear for his own future—but couldn’t. What would it matter?

  Alice pushed forward a little on the sofa. “Your father was really looking forward to you coming here for the summer. He talked about it a lot.”

  Harry, not trusting his own voice, nodded his head, and Alice immediately asked, “How was your coffee? Was it the way you like it?”

  “Oh, it was fine,” Harry answered, then quickly added, “Better than fine. It was really good.”

  “Thank you,” Alice said, placing her palms on her knees as though she was about to stand, and Harry added, “Don’t get up. I didn’t mean to disturb you.” He stood. “Maybe I’ll take a walk or something.”

  “Okay, Harry, that sounds nice,” she said. “If John’s in the store, then maybe you’d drop by and say hello. We’re both hoping you can help out a little. John won’t be able to . . .”

  “Yeah, of course,” Harry said.

  Alice’s gaze settled on the bay windows. “It’s staying light for so long these days,” she said. “Go for your walk.”

  Outside, Harry exited the driveway and turned left onto York Street, walking down toward the few businesses that comprised Kennewick Village. His father’s store was flanked by a florist and an ice cream shop; all three shared a single-story brick building that had once been a lumber mill. Harry looked through the tinted plate-glass window stenciled with the words ackerson’s rare books. It was dark inside—no John Richards, his father’s elderly assistant—but there was enough light to see that the interior was cluttered with too much stock, stacks of books lining the edges of filled shelves. A flicker of movement made Harry jump. It was Lew, a Maine coon that lived in the store. Lew leapt onto the window’s display case, dipping his head and rubbing his tufted ears against a first edition of Peyton Place. Harry hoped the cat hadn’t been entirely forgotten since his father’s death. He’d ask Alice about it later.

  Harry walked east, passing in front of the Cumberland Farms convenience store, then took the Old Post Road toward Kennewick Beach. He knew he was walking along the same route his father had most likely taken to get down to the cliff walk, but it was the direction he felt compelled to go, toward the ocean. He hadn’t yet decided whether he wanted to walk along the footpath and see if there was any sign of where his father had fallen. For now, he just wanted to move his legs, and be away from the house.

  The Old Post Road took Harry to Sohier Road.
Kennewick comprised four distinct sections. There was Kennewick Center, now mainly dispersed along Route 1A; Kennewick Village, with the town’s oldest buildings; Kennewick Beach, with its affordable rentals and campsite; and Kennewick Harbor, the most exclusive section of Kennewick, studded with weathered mansions and the two biggest resort hotels.

  Harry stayed on Sohier Road and reached the three-quarter-mile beach, flanked by Micmac Road, metered parking along the narrow strip of sidewalk. The beach itself was half sandy and half rock strewn, expansive at low tide, but reduced to a sliver when the tide was high. He walked along the sidewalk and found the grey-shingled rental that his father and he had rented for an entire month the summer his father decided to open up another store in Maine. It looked empty now, but it was early in the season. Only some of the rentals had cars in front of them, and the beach was almost abandoned. There was one walker, a woman in a hoodie striding along the sidewalk that lined the beach, and one rock collector, idling along the tide line, occasionally crouching to pick up a find. It was a slack tide, the water as still and glassy as Harry had ever seen it. A truck rumbled by, its inhabitant glancing at Harry from underneath a sun-bleached Sea Dogs cap.

  He decided he’d walk all the way up to the Buxton Point Lighthouse. He kept thinking about that summer with his father, how he’d spent so much time with Alice Moss, the Realtor showing him commercial properties in the area. Harry had liked the idea of his father opening a new store, of taking the chance to leave New York City and settle closer to where he’d grown up. And he’d liked Alice. She was low-key for a Realtor, not flashy or loud. She might have been blond and leggy, but she didn’t wear too much makeup, she didn’t drive a white Lexus, and her fingernails were unvarnished and cut short. These weren’t necessarily attributes that Harry had noticed, but his father had, and he’d mentioned them on a number of occasions. In retrospect, it was clear that his father had already fallen hard for Alice Moss and was testing the waters with his son, nervous that Harry might not approve. It was only at the end of the summer, after they had packed up and were driving back to New York City so that Harry could start his senior year of high school, that Bill confessed his relationship with Alice had become romantic.