“You couldn’t have known that would happen,” Megan breathed. “It’s not like you forced him to sell you the pot. It’s not like you stabbed him in the chest.”
I nodded, my throat tight. “That’s what I have to tell myself.”
We stayed out late, driving the grids of rural Connecticut, not wanting to return to Keale to face Holly and Bethany. Finally, I parked outside our dorm, looking up at our dark window on the second floor.
Megan cleared her throat. “Just for the record,” she told me, “I don’t think you’re a monster, either.”
I smiled. And then, although I thought I knew the answer, I asked, “You won’t tell anyone...?”
She shook her head. “You?”
“Of course not.”
It was dark inside the car, and at first I thought Megan was handing me something—there was the pale flash of her hand, her pinky finger crooked in front of me. We shook with all the solemnity of a blood oath.
Megan
I wasn’t kidding about not being Mabrey material—a fact that was obvious the farther we got from Keale and the closer to her family’s house, the two-hour trip made slower by a wet snowfall and slick country roads. At one point, Lauren overcorrected and the Saab spun out in the middle of an empty intersection, surrounded by nothing but trees. “Well, then,” she said after a moment, and we drove on. The landscape wasn’t that different from the outskirts of Scofield, but the homes we passed were set farther back from the road, the driveways longer and wider.
This is a mistake, I told myself. I didn’t belong here, in Lauren’s other life, where the contrasts between the Mabreys and the Mazeroses would be so obvious. I should have gone back to Woodstock and lived like a hermit in Gerry Tallant’s house, where my secondhand jeans and falling-apart boots wouldn’t be out of place.
We came around a bend and I was startled by a horse standing at a fence, its giant unblinking eyes studying us as we passed.
“Does your family have horses?” I asked as we passed acre after acre of fenced pastureland.
Lauren sighed. “Not anymore. When I was younger, we each had our own horse, but there’s no one there to ride them now, especially with Dad in Washington. The stables are still there, though, if you want to see them.”
We each had our own horse. Of course they did. “Are you kidding? I want to see everything.”
Eventually, Lauren slowed, put on her blinker, and we crept down one of those long driveways, the snow smartly cleared to the sides. In front of us, available only in small glimpses at first, was the Mabreys’ house. Lauren grew up here, I thought, taking in the three stories, the crisp black shutters against the white paint, the four towering columns that framed the front porch. On either side of the house, in perfect symmetry, were the type of balconies that seemed straight out of fairy tales, where women would wave their handkerchiefs or let down their hair or simply wait to be rescued. I pointed to a smaller building off to one side, still three or four times the size of the house where I’d grown up. “Is that another house?”
Lauren followed my gesture. “Oh, no. That’s mostly storage, although I guess Hildy does live out there.”
“Is Hildy a horse?”
Lauren laughed, killing the engine. “No, the housekeeper. You’ll meet her.”
In front of the house, the driveway looped into a circle around a towering stone fountain, stilled for winter. “Behind the house is the lake,” Lauren said. “If the snow lets up, we can walk out there later.”
I gaped. “You have a freaking lake? Of your own?”
Lauren said, “It’s Connecticut. There are lakes everywhere.”
I glanced around. There were no neighbors visible in any direction. Everything I could see belonged to the Mabreys. “Oh, sure. Everyone has one.” I unbuckled my seat belt and hopped out, my boots sinking into an inch of snow that seemed somehow softer and more lovely than any snow I’d ever seen in Kansas. Lauren followed, less enthusiastic. Why not? She was used to all of this.
I paused on the porch in front of glossy red doors hung with matching wreaths and framed with massive topiaries. A bronze plaque near the front door read Holmes House, 1852. I turned to Lauren, who was coming up behind me. “The next time you’re in Kansas, remind me to show you my favorite farmhouse turned meth lab.”
The front door swung open before we could knock, and I recognized Lauren’s sister from the framed family picture on her desk at Keale. She had the same dark hair and blue eyes, although hers were pinched closer together, her lips settling naturally into a frown. I remembered what Lauren had told me: Kat’s the good one, the responsible one. And then, in the next breath: you’re so lucky you’re an only child. Balanced on Kat’s hip was a toddler, her mouth rimmed with a purple juice stain. “Do you realize how late you are? Mom held dinner for you, and she’s probably alerted the highway patrol to keep an eye out for your car.”
“Hello to you, too, Kat,” Lauren said, stepping past her and shrugging out of her coat. “There’s a bit of snow on the roads, in case you didn’t notice.”
I followed Lauren’s lead, stepping out of my boots and regretting the crenellated chunks of snow that fell onto the rug in the entryway. I also regretted the socks I’d chosen that morning, feeling festive—red with a jolly Santa on top of each foot, a yawning hole in one of the toes. Lauren hadn’t mentioned that we were in any rush. We’d even stopped for coffee, killing an extra half-hour along the way. When Lauren didn’t introduce me and her sister didn’t acknowledge my presence, I held out a hand. “Hi. I’m Megan.”
“I’m Katherine.” Her skin was cool, the diamond of her wedding ring winking under the light of the overhead chandelier. “This monster is Lizzie.”
“Nice to meet you. Hey, sweetie.” I reached out a finger, and Lizzie hooked it with her stubby baby fingers, showing surprising baby strength.
“Watch out,” Katherine warned. “Once she latches on, she never lets go.” She adjusted Lizzie on her hip and the two of them wandered off, Lizzie’s hand reaching forlornly over her mom’s shoulder.
I looked up, breath caught in my throat. Mom would never believe this. The chandelier was like a tiered wedding cake, a thousand tiny prisms catching the light. Two curved staircases led to the next floor, their banisters dripping with green branches. It was like stepping into a Christmas carol—the “boughs of holly” and all that. In front of us was a tree that was easily fifteen feet tall, glistening with gold lights, its branches tied with gold bows—large on the bottom and tiny on the top. I tried to imagine someone standing on a fifteen-foot ladder, tying the bows with such precision.
“That tree is amazing,” I said, which was every kind of understatement.
“My mom tends to go a bit overboard with Christmas,” Lauren said. “There’s probably a tree in every room.”
I laughed, thinking it was some kind of joke. Only later, when Mrs. Mabrey gave me the grand tour, did I realize it wasn’t an exaggeration. Every room of the house had a tree, each decorated with its own theme—tartan ribbons in one, pink and white hearts in another. Even the guest bathroom on the second floor had a three-foot tree next to the vanity, with the faces of dozens of owl ornaments watching me as I peed.
“Ready?” Lauren asked. “It’s time to run the gauntlet.”
“Your sister seems nice,” I said, my voice echoing off the marble floor.
Lauren grabbed my arm, the suddenness of her movement nearly knocking me off balance. “Don’t fall for it,” she whispered. “We all seem nice at first.”
* * *
Lauren’s mom appeared in winter-white pants and a matching sweater with tiny pink pearls sewn into the collar. Her handshake was businesslike. “I’ve heard so much about you,” she said.
I glanced at Lauren, wondering which of my stories were appropriate for someone who looked like a queen. And if this were a fairy tale, I understood my
role—the poor urchin in from the cold, who had to sing for her supper. “Your house is beautiful,” I said.
Mrs. Mabrey nodded. “Would you like to see the rest?”
I followed her carefully, placing my feet exactly where hers had been, in order not to intrude any more than necessary. Mrs. Mabrey had no doubt given this tour dozens of times before, and I was one of the least important people to be on its receiving end. Lauren trailed behind us, inserting comments that vaguely contradicted whatever her mother said. There were multiple living areas on the first floor, although I couldn’t tell what they were for, exactly, or when they were used—rooms with white couches, rooms with stiff chairs angled toward each other for conversation, a room with a grand piano, another with a few love seats facing a bay window. It reminded me of touring a mansion on my fifth-grade field trip, where my class had traipsed obediently through the rooms, careful to stay behind the rope boundary. Everything in the Mabreys’ house had the same sterile quality—there were no shoes kicked off by the couch, no stacks of unopened mail, no mugs of coffee growing cold. We passed the kitchen and an informal dining room, then a formal dining room, then separate offices for Mr. and Mrs. Mabrey. A woman wearing black pants and a black sweater came out of one of the offices carrying a wastepaper basket that held a single crumpled sheet of paper.
“Thank you, Hildy,” Mrs. Mabrey said, not missing a beat. “I did also notice a handprint on the door about knee height. I suppose that’s what life’s like with a toddler.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Hildy said, and disappeared down a hallway. I had a feeling—maybe not irrational at all—that I should be following Hildy.
There were five bedrooms on the second floor, and Mrs. Mabrey pointed to their closed doors one by one—Lauren’s room, Michael’s room, Katherine and Peter’s room, the guest room that had been commandeered by Lizzie and the double-door suite at the end of the hall leading to the Mabreys’ bedroom.
“There are more guest rooms on the third floor. Hildy has made up one of them for you,” Mrs. Mabrey said, starting for the next staircase.
“It’s okay,” Lauren said, and to me, “You can sleep on my daybed.”
“Are you sure? I mean, you probably get sick enough of me at school.”
“If you get annoying, I’ll kick you out,” Lauren assured me.
I grinned. “Thanks.”
Later, when some unseen hand had brought our bags from Lauren’s car, I flopped onto the daybed with its floral comforter and tried to imagine Lauren growing up here, in a house where a speck of dirt must have been cause for alarm. Even her room didn’t look like her—the bedspreads too childish, the dresser and vanity too fussy. On the wall, there was a framed cross-stitched monogram of Lauren’s initials, and one shelf held a few tiny knickknacks, relics from family vacations—snow globes, tiny models of the Eiffel Tower and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. They might have belonged to a stranger. Where was Lauren the teenager girl, with her posters of boy bands and snapshots of friends? I remembered what she told me about Marcus dying, and how her parents had kept her at home that semester. I couldn’t think of anything more depressing than spending months alone in this room.
Lauren was digging around in one of her bags for a hairbrush, and I watched her swipe the brush in even strokes until the ends of her hair fluttered with static.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Where do you hang out?”
She gestured with the hairbrush around the room. “You’re looking at it.”
“No, no, no. I mean, where do you hang out? Where do you lie around in your underwear eating out of a box of Wheat Thins? I can’t picture anyone actually sitting on all those white couches.”
Lauren tossed the brush on top of her bedspread. “Well, there is one place that my mother consistently leaves off the official tour. Come on, we’re going down to The Dungeon.”
I grinned. “Is that where your father tortures his political rivals?”
“Something like that.”
Lauren led me down a flight of stairs, across the house to the kitchen, then down another flight of stairs off the pantry. I was going to need a map to find my way back.
“MK and I used to call this The Dungeon,” she said, flipping on a light switch. Fluorescent bulbs hummed overhead, illuminating a cavernous space made gloomy with a lower ceiling and about an acre of dark wood paneling. I blinked, taking in a dated kitchenette with a polished wooden bar, large seating area and a pool table. The carpet beneath my feet was inch-and-a-half shag, much like the carpet I’d grown up with in Woodstock. There were two windows at the back of the house, but you had to be seven feet tall to see out of them. Light from a fading winter sunset filtered through.
“Whoa,” I said, taking in the three mounted deer heads, their antlers polished and menacing. Then I stooped to pet the rug on the floor, which appeared to be a massive bear pelt. “Is this thing real?”
Lauren shrugged. “I guess. My mom is always threatening to get rid of it. Actually, she’s been talking about remodeling this whole space as a guest suite. Can you imagine what this would look like covered in a million yards of white beadboard?”
I ran my hand over the green felt on the pool table, then stopped curiously in front of some built-in shelves that held not books but every board game imaginable—Clue and Risk and Monopoly and dozens of puzzles, some of the boxes never opened. Then I returned to the plaid couches, plopping down in front of the only modern touch in the entire space—a giant television. “This’ll do,” I announced. Lauren laughed, reaching for the remote.
* * *
Senator Mabrey and Michael arrived the following night just as we were sitting down to dinner at a massive table set for eight. I tried not to stare at Senator Mabrey, although he was as close as I’d come to royalty, dressed in a navy suit and striped tie, which he was unknotting as he came through the door. Michael was a younger version, sleeves rolled to his elbows, a swagger to his walk.
“Traffic,” Senator Mabrey apologized, planting a kiss on his wife’s temple. “What did we miss?”
“Dinner, almost,” Mrs. Mabrey said stiffly. Lauren had warned me about her mother’s sense of punctuality—five minutes early was still considered late; five minutes late was unconscionable.
He bent to kiss Lauren’s head, then Katherine’s, and shook hands with Peter. He took in the empty seat that would have been Lizzie’s. “Where’s my girl?”
Katherine sighed. “I had to put her to bed. She was exhausted. And she was exhausting me, too.” But Lizzie was still there in the form of a gray plastic receiver, which occasionally emitted a baby-sized gurgle or sigh transmitted from the upstairs monitor.
“And you must be Megan,” Senator Mabrey said, patting me on the shoulder. “I hear you’ve come along to keep Lauren in line. Welcome, welcome.”
“Well, it’s a tough job.” I winked at Lauren across the table.
Michael pulled out the chair next to me, finishing my thought. “...and it takes a team to do it.”
“Ha-ha,” Lauren said. “And this is my hysterical brother, MK.”
“Or you can call me Michael like everyone else in the world does,” he said, taking his seat and unfolding his napkin in one singular motion. I followed his lead, smoothing my napkin over my lap.
“What’s MK from?” I asked. “Are those initials?”
He grinned, revealing the same straight white teeth as Lauren’s. No money had been spared on dental hygiene in this family, that was for sure. “No—it’s just what Lauren called me when she was about two years old. She used to call herself Lolo. Did you know that?”
I raised an eyebrow in Lauren’s direction. “Lolo?”
At the end of the table, Mrs. Mabrey shifted, her impatience palpable. “Let’s get started, shall we?” I was already learning that her questions were never really questions, since she had already determined all the answers.<
br />
Senator Mabrey said, “Let’s say the blessing.” On cue, everyone joined hands, until we were a wide, connected circle, with my hands clasped by Michael on one side and the senator on the other. It was a brief, nonspecific prayer about food and family and country, but it was hard to follow, nonetheless, since I was actually touching a senator. He ended the prayer with an emphatic “Amen!” which was echoed less enthusiastically by two or three other voices. Across the table, the baby monitor emitted a sharp cry, and Peter adjusted the volume downward, so that Lizzie’s voice was only a thin wail.
Michael was still holding my hand, which he brought to his lips in a formal, courtly gesture. “Charmed, I’m sure.”
I laughed, disentangling myself.
“Could you please be less disgusting?” Lauren asked. “Some of us don’t want our appetites ruined.”
I watched them carefully as the meal progressed, looking for cues about what silverware to use, and when to reach for seconds. Michael’s left arm bumped against my right arm one or two times too many to be considered accidental. On my other side, Senator Mabrey was asking about my classes, my time at Keale.
I couldn’t imagine that my literary theory classes would sound that interesting, so I told him about the poli sci course I would be taking with a new professor, Dr. Miriam Stenholz.
He nodded. “I’ve heard that name. She’s an advocate for women in politics.”
Michael gave a little snort next to me.
“So you’re a political science major?” Senator Mabrey asked, turning a more interested face in my direction.
“No,” I corrected quickly. “English, actually. That’s just one of my required—”
“God, not another English major,” Michael groaned.
“Michael,” his mother said sharply.
“Well, what are you going to do with an English degree? Teach?” His eyebrows were raised, forming two points in the middle.
Here We Lie Page 14