All the Beautiful Lies

by Peter Swanson

  Alice, by senior year, was almost as pretty as Gina. Despite her aloofness, boys occasionally flirted with her, sometimes asking her out, but she had no interest. She’d learned her lesson from Scott. She knew what teenage boys were like, and she’d decided that she preferred the company of men. What she really preferred was the company of Jake Richter, her stepfather. Edith’s afternoon drinking had gotten worse, and, more often than not, she’d either forget to prepare dinner for her husband, or she was already passed out by the time he’d gotten home. One Friday night, Alice and Jake had arrived back at the condo at the same time, finding Edith asleep on the recliner, one of her vodka strawberry smoothies tucked between her legs. They found a chicken in the oven but the oven hadn’t been turned on. Jake laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” Alice said.

  “No, it’s not, Ali.” He was the only one who called her that. “Tell you what. Your mother isn’t going anywhere. How about you and I go out for dinner?”

  “Okay.”

  “Good. I’ll have a quick drink while you change, and then we’ll go out.”

  Alice assumed that they’d be going to the Papa Gino’s on 1A—it was where they usually went out to eat when Edith hadn’t managed to get dinner ready—and she asked Jake why she needed to change.

  “We’re going somewhere special,” he said. “Wear your nicest dress.”

  They drove all the way to Kennebunkport and ate at a waterfront restaurant that was attached to a hotel. Jake was still wearing his suit from work, although he’d loosened his paisley tie, and she was in a pale pink, sleeveless dress, the one she’d worn to her uncle’s third wedding over the summer.

  “Have you had French food before?” Jake asked, after they were seated at a corner table.

  “Do French fries count?”

  Jake smiled at her joke, his lips spreading wide while his teeth remained together. “No. Not tonight. Can I order for you?”

  “Sure.”

  Jake ordered escargot as a starter, which turned out to be snails in their shells. Alice agreed to try them and they were not bad. For dinner they each had steak with béarnaise sauce. Jake drank wine, and Alice drank sparkling water. It was clear that their waitress thought that they were father and daughter, but Alice pretended, in her mind, that they were a sophisticated couple out for a casual dinner at the end of a busy week. She tried not to think about her mother at home in the recliner, and whether she’d wake up and wonder where her husband and daughter were. Instead, she made her mother disappear into nonexistence, and shrunk the world so that it was a perfect bubble that only contained her and Jake.

  “Save room for dessert,” Jake said. She’d been using some of the still-warm bread to sop up all the amazing sauce that was left on her plate.

  After the chocolate mousse for her and just a cappuccino for Jake, they drove back in Jake’s BMW, listening to one of his Roxy Music tapes. It was early fall, but still warm enough to have the windows open, and Jake was driving along the coastal route. Alice kept pretending her mother didn’t exist, imagining that they were going back to the condo they lived in together, and alone. The song was “Avalon,” Alice’s favorite. When they got home, Edith was there, although she was now stretched out on the couch instead of the recliner, and the television was on, the volume turned up way too high.

  “Where’d you two go?” she said, as Jake turned the television down. She had propped herself halfway up on an elbow, and was pulling a strand of hair away from her mouth.

  Jake said, “Out to dinner, Ed. You forgot about our reservation, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “What? Where?” Her voice was thick and sleepy.

  “The Brasserie. In Kennebunkport.”

  “Oh yeah. I’m so sorry, honey. I completely forgot.”

  Alice went to her own room as Jake bent and kissed Edith on the forehead. Alice shut her door, and sat on the edge of her bed, wondering if Jake and Edith really had had plans to go to the restaurant and her mom had forgotten. Or had Jake just made that up? She remembered the chicken, her mom’s attempt at cooking dinner, but that didn’t mean much of anything. Her mother was forgetful, and even if they’d had dinner reservations, that didn’t mean she’d have remembered them. Thinking about it was starting to give Alice one of her headaches, like fingers jabbing into her temples, so she took four ibuprofen, changed into her pajamas, and got into bed. She lay there awake for a long time, staring up at the textured ceiling, so similar to the apartment ceiling from back in Biddeford, although that ceiling had had glitter in it. She took deep, regular breaths, trying to get back inside the bubble, the one in which Jake took her to French restaurants all the time, and they traveled to Europe, and her mother no longer existed. She could feel the headache start to go away, like poison seeping out into her pillow, and then her limbs got heavy, and her eyes closed, and she was asleep.

  Chapter 5

  Now

  The funeral was Sunday afternoon, the same time as the graduation that Harry was missing. Despite Harry telling him not to, Paul Roman skipped the graduation ceremony as well, and drove up to Maine. He arrived just before noon. Harry was in his bedroom, the window open, and heard the car brake sharply on the driveway. He met Paul at the doorway. Alice was out back, cutting flowers, and Harry desperately wanted a little time alone with Paul before he had to change into his suit and attend his father’s service. He took him straight to his room.

  “You have any idea what happened?” Paul asked, as soon as the door was shut.

  “You mean, how did he die?”

  “Yeah. Did he just trip?” Harry had met Paul their freshman year, when they both had single dorm rooms on the same hall. Paul’s second question to Harry, after asking his name, had been: “You sleep with boys or girls or both?”

  Harry, flustered into honesty, replied, “Girls. In theory, though, not in reality. Yet.”

  “All right. Let’s go find some. Girls for you, and boys for me.”

  They’d stayed best friends through four years of college, building a group around them. Well, Paul had built the group, being one of those people who attract friends as easily as a flower draws bees. Harry felt privileged to be in his company, and sometimes overshadowed. Paul was funny and gregarious, filterless at times, but always knowing what to say and what to do. Privately, Harry pictured Paul as a fellow soldier of the social realm who would draw enemy fire in his direction so that Harry could make small incremental advances, trench by trench.

  “There’s going to be an autopsy,” Harry said to Paul, now sitting on the edge of the bedroom’s one chair. “But he probably just fell. Just a freak accident.”

  “You don’t think anyone else was involved?”

  “What do you mean? Like someone pushed him?”

  “I don’t know, I’m just wondering.”

  “I think it’s more likely that maybe he had some sort of heart attack, or a stroke, and that caused him to fall off the path and hit his head. It was a pretty steep drop.”

  “What does Alice say?”

  “I think she thinks it was a medical condition. She thought it would be good to find out. For me, that is, in case it’s something that’s genetic.”

  “Oh, right,” Paul said, then added, “So what are you going to do? I mean, you going to stay here?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’ll stay for the summer. I can’t just up and leave Alice, and she’s already asked me to help out in the store. Honestly, I have no idea.”

  “Don’t figure it out today.” Paul unzipped the backpack he’d brought up from his car. “You want a drink?”

  They drank gin and tonics (Paul had brought the ingredients, plus glassware, and even a ziplock bag of half-melted ice) while Harry dressed in his only dark suit, a Ludlow from J.Crew that was a little short in the sleeves. Then together they went downstairs and found Alice, who was in the kitchen, meticulously arranging the flowers she’d cut. Harry thought of the ragged bouquet on the footpath and wondered again who had left
it there. He’d forgotten to ask Alice if it was her.

  Paul had probably met Alice three times at most, but he hugged her as though she was related, holding on until she let out a small, sniffly sob. “Paul, are you staying? I didn’t make up the guest room.”

  “I’m not. Just for the service, then I’m going back to Mather. I’m missing the graduation but I’m not missing the graduation party. Unless, Harry . . .” Paul turned toward Harry, a questioning look on his face.

  “No, no, no. Please go back. I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll come and visit this summer,” Paul said, as Alice wiped tears from her face with an index finger. Her blond hair was swept back in a French braid that went down her back. She wore a dark grey dress, low cut in the front, but with a black shawl over her shoulders. Her face was chalky white, more startling because of the bright crimson lipstick she’d put on. Harry tried to remember if he’d ever seen her with lipstick, and decided that the last time had probably been when she had married his father, at a low-key ceremony at a hotel in Ogunquit. It seemed a long time ago, but it was less than four years.

  The service was held at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist, a white wooden church with a high steeple that was on the Old Post Road. Harry, Alice, and Paul arrived early, and Harry and Alice spoke to the minister, a grey-haired woman over six feet tall, who went over what she planned on saying. Harry knew most of it already. It was going to be a short service; two hymns, a eulogy, a reading by Carl Ridley, Bill’s cousin from Sanford. Alice had already met with the minister to go over some of the details of Bill’s life, and the minister briefly recounted them now. Harry was glad that there was significant mention of his mother, and how devoted Bill had been to her. It was his only concern, worried that Alice had only seen Bill’s life as beginning when she had come into it. But the words the minister planned on saying comprised all of Bill’s life, including both his marriages, his son, his lifelong affair with books, even his infamous cooking. As Harry, Alice, and the minister talked, a few early-arriving guests filtered slowly into the church. Harry wondered how many there’d be, and how many he would know. The interior of the church was cool, but Harry’s palms were sweating, and he could feel a trickle of sweat along his rib cage. He’d only ever been to two funerals in his life. His mother’s, and now his father’s. He’d never known his grandparents on his father’s side, since they’d both died before Harry was born. His maternal grandparents were both alive, but they hadn’t left their retirement community in Florida in many years.

  “And how about you, Harry?” The minister was speaking to him, and he wasn’t sure what she was asking.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, aware he was blinking his eyes rapidly.

  “Did you want the opportunity to say a few words?”

  “Oh . . . Oh, no. Alice already asked me. Thank you, though.”

  “Why don’t you two take a seat, up here in front.”

  It was a relief to sit, to hear the murmur of people behind him, and know that he didn’t have to acknowledge them, at least not yet. He felt guilty that he wasn’t saying anything at his father’s funeral, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t trust himself to speak in public, worried that he’d be overtaken by either anger or grief, or a combination of both. He even still worried about his lisp, long eradicated except in his mind, where he often heard the echoes of how he used to speak. There’d be a receiving line after the service, and he’d have to speak then, of course, but just to people one-on-one. Still, the thought of it made his skin feel prickly, and his breathing shallow.

  Before the service began, his aunt Anne and her three silent, muscle-bound sons, all in high school now, sat in the pew directly behind Harry. He leaned back to kiss her, and she said: “I still don’t believe it, Harry,” genuine grief in her voice.

  “I know,” he said, “I don’t, either.”

  “I meant to call you, Harry, but I didn’t have your phone number. I spoke with Alice and she said you’d be coming home soon, but I want you to visit us as soon as you feel able to leave her alone.”

  Harry said he would.

  She was telling him again how she was still in shock when the service began. Harry turned back as the minister adjusted the microphone at the pulpit. He took a deep breath to prepare himself, but the service was relatively painless. The minister, except for the opening and closing prayers, kept the religion to a minimum, aware that Bill Ackerson was a twice-a-year churchgoer at most (Christmas Eve services and maybe Easter Sunday). For the eulogy she simply recounted his life story, his childhood in Maine, the Peace Corps service in the Pacific Islands, his years as a book scout and then a bookseller in Manhattan, meeting his first wife and having a son, his wife’s brave battle with cancer, then his return to Maine and his second marriage. She talked about his love of the coast of Maine. “Alice spoke to me about Bill’s need to see the ocean every day. How it grounded him. He found his true and spiritual home here in Kennewick, and for that we should all be grateful.”

  Alice dipped her head next to Harry, and covered her face with her hands. He slid toward her and put an arm around her narrow shoulders. Behind him he could hear stifled crying.

  After the eulogy, Carl Ridley walked gingerly to the pulpit, a trembling sheet of paper in his hand. Tears already streaked Carl’s papery cheeks before he even spread out the sheet of paper in front of him. There was a long pause, Carl smoothing back his thinning hair, but then he was speaking, saying how Bill’s office was decorated by two things: stacks and stacks of books, and one poem, tacked onto the wall. The poem was “If,” by Rudyard Kipling (he pronounced it “Kiplin’”). Harry had heard the poem before, or at least the line that went, “If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same,” but he’d forgotten that the poem was a message from a father to a son. Harry tensed his jaw. His aunt, from behind him, put a hand on his shoulder, making it worse. But then at the end of the recitation—“You’ll be a man, my son!”—Paul leaned close to his ear and said, “Jesus, salt in the wound,” and Harry quietly laughed, feeling better.

  When the final hymn was sung and the closing prayer spoken, Harry finally turned around to see a sizable crowd, much larger than he’d thought. In the receiving line, many of the people who shook his hand and muttered their sympathies were strangers, but some were cousins and second cousins whom he barely remembered. No one knew what to say, so everyone said how sorry they were, and Harry nodded and thanked them.

  While speaking to a man who referred to himself as Ackerson’s Books’ best customer, Harry noticed a dark-haired woman, probably in her twenties, who had remained seated in her pew, toward the back of the church. Harry thought she was staring at him but couldn’t be sure; maybe she was staring at the reception line in general, wondering whether she should join in. She was vaguely familiar to Harry, and he wondered what her connection was to his father. Was she the daughter of a friend? As though she felt Harry’s eyes on her, she suddenly tilted her head away, revealing a strong jawline and an upturned nose, and Harry remembered where he’d seen her before. She’d been walking along the road near his father’s house on the first night that Harry stayed there. She’d been wearing a headband and had been looking at the house, as though she knew what had happened there.

  “Are you also interested in books?” said the man still speaking with Harry.

  He was standing too close, his breath sharp with the bitter smell of coffee. Harry willed himself to not lean backward, said: “Not the way my father was, no. But I do like books.”

  “Not obsessed, eh?”

  “No. Not obsessed.”

  The man moved along, and so did the line. When Harry looked for the dark-haired woman again, he couldn’t spot her anywhere.

  Alice’s best friend, Chrissie Herrick, had skipped the service in order to set up food and drinks at Grey Lady for a small memorial gathering. There’d been talk back and forth on whether it should be at her house or a restaurant, but
Chrissie had talked Alice into the house option, saying she would take care of every detail.

  When Harry, Paul, and Alice got home, some guests had already arrived and were milling silently around the spread of cold cuts and salads on the dining room table. Chrissie had purchased a guest book for people to sign and had put together a slideshow of pictures of Bill on a laptop. “At least there’s beer,” Paul said, and pulled two bottles of Shipyard from a cooler filled with ice. Harry told himself that he should talk to his cousins, most of whom he hadn’t seen for two years. But before he could approach them, John Richards cornered him and asked if Alice had broached the subject of him helping out at the store this summer.

  “She did,” Harry said.

  “Oh, good. And you can, I hope?” John was a local widower, and a retiree, who had asked to volunteer at Bill’s store. Bill had taken him on just for a few hours a day, but John had made himself indispensable, both as an employee and as a late-in-life friend.

  “I can help for the summer. You want to keep the store open, then?”

  “I don’t know about that, but I do know I can’t just shut it down right away. We’ve got special orders to fill, and cataloguing. Even if we decide to close it, it’s still a lot of work.”