I made her repeat the details three times, sure I wasn’t understanding.
She passed a folded letter across her desk, and I read “Dear Ms. Stenholz, Based in part on your generous recommendation, we are thrilled to offer Megan Mazeros a position in our summer pregraduate study program.”
“This is just the beginning for you,” Miriam said, her eyes brighter than normal behind her green frames. She was crying, I realized. She was so happy for me, she was actually crying. When I sprang out of my chair to hug her, she didn’t resist.
* * *
I told anyone who would listen, from the Sisters to my professors to the cafeteria workers to my mother. I’m going to be studying at Harvard this summer. It didn’t seem real, even when correspondence from the PEW committee began to arrive on thick, creamy letterhead.
“My little girl,” Mom said, when I called to tell her the news. “Harvard! I can’t even imagine. It’s like a movie.”
It did feel that way, like I was on the set of Megan Goes to Cambridge, or some documentary where a small-town girl went from waitressing at the local diner to an Ivy League school. Of course, I wasn’t attending Harvard itself, but a program on its campus—a technicality that was lost on my mother.
“What about the rest of the summer?” she asked next, her enthusiasm deflating. “You’ll be coming home, right? If you only need to be at Harvard for four weeks, you could spend the rest of the time with us. There’s an indoor pool in the new health club, isn’t there, Gerry?” In the background, I heard the sounds of Jeopardy!, the rise and fall of cheers from the studio audience. Gerry’s muffled response might have been an answer to Mom or one of the game show questions. Lauren entered the room, tossing her backpack on the ground and plopping on my bed next to me. I gestured that I was wrapping up the conversation and she smiled, resting her head against my pillow.
“I don’t know,” I told Mom, thinking of Gerry’s beige house and the windowless room in the tax office, not to mention the chance encounters I didn’t want to have with Becky Babcock or Kurt Haschke. I pointed out the expense of airfare, the fact that I would need to buckle down in order to prepare for the seminar.
“Well, you’ll have to study somewhere,” Mom pointed out. “It might as well be here.”
“Or maybe you and Gerry could take a vacation out here. We could even rent one of the cabins on the lake in Scofield, and I could show you around.”
“But we’ll be out next summer, for your graduation,” Mom pointed out. “I don’t know. I’ll have to talk about it with Gerry.”
“Yeah, ask him,” I said.
When I returned the phone to its cradle, Lauren was looking at me.
I laughed. “What’s up?”
Sometimes it seemed like we hardly saw each other anymore, between our classes and Lauren’s job at the Sentinel. At least a few nights a week, she returned so late that the sound of her key in the lock woke me up. “I lost track of time,” she would whisper, kicking off her shoes and her jeans and sliding half-clothed into her bed. We were too busy to make grand plans for the future, like we used to do; instead, we talked about things that were happening at that moment—the papers due or past due, the regular Keale gossip about who had done what and with whom, and how Mrs. Mabrey was faring after her latest chemo treatment.
She grinned. “What if you came with me to The Island? It’s only a few hours from Boston by train.”
I laughed. “Seriously? We’re talking about six weeks.”
“Why not? There’s plenty of room.”
I reached out to retrieve one of my notebooks, the pages bent backward under Lauren’s thigh. “Your mom is sick, though. She’s not going to want a guest hanging around for the whole summer.”
Lauren considered this. “Well, if you feel bad about it, you can help me handle her. I think mostly she’s going to be resting.”
I stared at her, half smiling.
“What?”
“I’m just trying to figure out if you’re serious.”
“Why wouldn’t I be serious? You came home with me for Christmas, and we all survived, didn’t we?”
I shrugged. We had all survived, but the trip wasn’t without its awkwardness—the sniping between family members, the feeling that around any corner I might intrude on someone’s private moment.
“It’ll be perfect,” she continued. “I want to take about a million pictures, and you can bring all your books and get ready for the seminar. I promise you uninterrupted hours of study, except when we’re swimming and sailing and clamming and having bonfires on the beach...”
I grimaced, thinking of my pale, out-of-shape body doing any of those things. “I’ll have to buy a new swimsuit. And some decent sandals.”
She nudged me, her elbow digging into my upper arm. “Those are not insurmountable odds.”
“And you know for a fact that it’s okay with your family?”
“Are you kidding? If they had a choice, they’d take you over me.”
I had to hand it to her; Lauren drove a hard bargain. From that moment on, I was picturing myself on The Island already, no matter that I’d never been there and could only gather a few details from the snapshots in Lauren’s photo album. I pictured myself with sand squishing through my toes, a lick of wind tousling my hair. I would be the perfect guest, I promised myself. The Mabreys wouldn’t even know I was there, unless they needed my help.
In the end, I convinced Mom to start looking for hotels in or around Boston, for a weeklong, last-hurrah-of-summer vacation before school started. “We’ll see,” she said, and I knew in general what that meant. She’d said we’ll see when I’d wanted to have my birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese’s, and we’ll see when I asked for new soccer cleats and we’ll see when I asked if Dad’s doctors might be wrong, if there was any way he might outlive his prognosis. None of those conjectures had ever become reality.
“Really see, though,” I said. “We should do this.”
She laughed. “We’ll see.”
* * *
When I wasn’t studying for finals, I sorted through my closet, deciding what to pack in the giant box I would keep in Keale’s long-term storage for next fall, and what to bring with me to The Island and later to Harvard. If there was any doubt that our lives were entangled, it was obvious when I tried to separate my things from Lauren’s, which had spread to every corner of our room like a creeping vine—socks under my bed, shoes in my closet. Digging in her drawers, I found a shirt I’d been missing for a month. She returned one afternoon when I was agonizing over my packing decisions and flopped onto the bed with her backpack still strapped to her back.
“I’m just going to throw my swimsuits and shorts and tank tops into the car, and shove the rest into a box,” she yawned. “It’s very casual on The Island. You won’t need much.”
I stared at my clothes, most of them faded and threadbare—shorts of the athletic variety that made rare appearances at one of the treadmills in the rec center, stretched-out two-for-$10 tank tops. Somehow I suspected that the Mabreys’ brand of casual would include bright sundresses and lots of linen and wedge-heel espadrilles.
“Hey,” I said, tossing a pair of warm socks into the Keale box. “What are you doing later?”
She sighed. “Studying, so I don’t fail my freaking art history class. I’ll probably go to the library. Why?”
“Some of the Sisters are getting together for dinner one last time before we all head out. You’re welcome to come.”
“Thanks, but I’d better not,” she said, sliding her backpack off her shoulder.
“Well, if you change your mind, I think we’re trying that new Thai place.”
“Cool,” Lauren said. In a minute she was curled up on her side, eyes closed, and I suspected she wouldn’t be doing much studying after all.
* * *
There was a twenty-
minute wait at the Thai restaurant, so the Sisters and I met at Slice of Heaven, where we devoured two vegetarian pizzas and talked about our summer plans and final exams. Marley, one of the more outspoken members of our group, had written a paper about the latest Updike novel, which she dissected for us with feverish glee. Allison got up to refill her Diet Coke and came back to the table, announcing in her best imitation of Miriam, “What do we think of Updike, ladies? Mommy issues? Daddy issues? Penile penetration issues?”
A couple at the next table looked over at us, and we collapsed into giggles. I excused myself to hurry to the bathroom, my full bladder threatening public embarrassment. As usual, the paper towel dispenser was empty, and I was still wiping my wet hands on my jeans when I came out of the bathroom and found myself face-to-face with Joe Natolo.
We’d bumped into each other in January on the night of Lauren’s opening at the gallery. At first, I’d thought it couldn’t possibly be him, that I was seeing some kind of Joe-shaped mirage. He’d smiled when he saw me, cornering me for a chat as if nothing had ever happened between us. Shaking, I told him about that night with Ariana, my bottle of pills. He’d grimaced, offering a weak explanation. When you didn’t come down, I thought maybe you’d changed your mind, that the whole thing was a mistake. The next week, he’d taken his friend up on the job offer in Michigan. He didn’t mention that he’d missed me or that he’d thought about me—probably because he hadn’t. Apparently, I’d done all the missing for both of us, scanning the coffeeshop and squinting to make out every driver of a black Honda for months afterward.
Now he was in front of me, grinning, a bookend to my semester. “Megan! Are you here for dinner?”
I gave him an icy smile. “That is what people do in pizza parlors.”
He laughed. “So I’ve heard.”
“Okay, then,” I said, sidestepping him.
“So you’re going to stay?” he asked.
I stared at him, not comprehending. Was he delusional? Did he expect me to slide into a booth like we’d done once before, our knees deliberately bumping under the table?
A woman came down the hallway just then, pulling a toddler-aged girl by the hand. I used this as an opportunity to back away, putting more distance between Joe and me before I turned and headed back to the table. When I glanced once more in his direction, the door to the men’s room was swinging shut.
The Sisters were clearing up the last of our plates and napkins. I grabbed my denim jacket off the back of my chair, and Danielle fished her keys out of her jeans. “Riding back with me?”
I didn’t turn around, not wanting to see if Joe was finished in the bathroom, if he was watching me. Danielle’s Taurus was across the street, now crammed tightly between two other cars. I recognized one as Joe’s black Honda, a vanilla air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror.
Danielle began the navigation for a complicated seven-point turn, craning her head to see if she was blocking traffic. “Hey—isn’t that Lauren?”
I turned just in time to catch a glimpse of what was unmistakably Lauren—her dark hair brushed and glossy, hanging down to the middle of her back. Earlier, it had been up in her traditional messy ponytail. She’d changed clothes, too, and it looked like she was wearing lipstick. The last time I saw her, she’d been snoozing on her bed, an arm draped over her face to block out the light streaming through the window. The door to Slice of Heaven opened, and the woman from the hallway exited, holding her toddler with one hand and a pizza box in the other. I watched as Lauren slipped past them into the restaurant.
“Dude,” Danielle said. “She blew us off, didn’t she?”
“Whatever,” I said, fighting down the nausea rising inside me, propelled by a tidal wave of pepperoni and Diet Coke. She’d blown me off to meet him. I knew it. That explained his questions—you’re here for dinner? You’re going to stay? He’d thought I was joining them.
Them.
Joe and Lauren.
* * *
The first thing I’d done after dinner, once Danielle dropped me off, was to race up the stairs, wedge a chair under the door the way I used to do back at home when I wanted absolute privacy from my parents, and dig through Lauren’s stuff. At first, I found only her usual junk—books she didn’t open often enough, haphazard lecture notes, more clothes on the floor of her closet than on hangers. I looked through her desk drawer, finding only odd scraps of paper with photo assignments and withdrawal receipts from the ATM. I looked through the pictures in her giant art portfolio, marveling again at her talent. None of the prints seemed new, though—the most recent additions were copies from her art show in January. Then I went for the box of prints that she kept under her bed, and I thumbed through them quickly, careful not to disturb the original order. There were dozens of pictures of buildings at Keale, of the two of us, of her family at Holmes House. And there, on the bottom, the pictures slipped into an opaque paper sleeve, was Joe—laughing, smiling, goofing.
My hands shook as I sifted through the prints: Joe at a booth in a restaurant, a plate of pancakes in front of him. Joe in a plaid shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Joe in his leather jacket and Doc Martens, standing on the riverbank. Joe on a bench at a roller rink, lacing up his skates. Joe cooking at a stovetop, spatula in hand. Joe shirtless, a swath of dark hair trailing down his chest, a sheet bunched up near his waist. In each one, he was engaging with the camera—with Lauren, behind the camera—teasing her, talking to her, encouraging her.
This was what it had come to, then. Here we were, and where we were was full of lies.
She’d been lying all semester—her busy class schedule, her hours in the darkroom, maybe even the weekend trips back to Holmes House. Had it been going on since the night of her opening in January, or even before then, the two of them planning and plotting and laughing behind my back?
I sat on my bed for the better part of an hour, trying to figure out what to do. Part of me wanted to get on my bike and pedal like mad back to Slice of Heaven, to catch them in the act of being together, to throw my realization in their faces. But of course—they already knew about each other, and I would be the one who looked foolish, the jealous roommate and jealous would-be lover, causing a scene.
In the end, I repackaged the photos of Joe and arranged everything as Lauren had left it, more or less. And then I waited.
* * *
Lauren’s hair was once again in her tangled ponytail when she entered just after eleven, the lipstick rubbed—kissed?—off her lips. “Hey,” she said, dropping her backpack to the floor. She hadn’t been wearing it when she met Joe. Of course not—the backpack was for my benefit. It was her alibi.
I closed my notebook, which had been open on my lap for the better part of the evening, although none of the terms had registered. “I couldn’t find you in the library,” I said, and watched as Lauren froze, a half second of hesitation, before recovering.
“Oh, sorry. It was too noisy, and I ended up reserving a private room on the second floor.” She kicked off her shoes, Lauren-style, and one of them ricocheted off the box I’d been packing earlier that day. “Why, did you need something? What’s up?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Just wanted to talk.”
I watched as she undressed, pulling her shirt over her head, unhooking her bra behind her back. She squinted at her reflection in the mirror, rubbing a dab of lotion on her arms, and reached for her pajamas. There were no physical signs of Joe Natolo—no hickies, no red blotches or impressions. A crime scene tech, dusting for fingerprints or swabbing for saliva, might have found him everywhere, but he wasn’t visible to me. Finally, she flopped down on the bed next to me, pulling a pillow onto her lap.
“You know what sucks?” she asked.
Being lied to? “What?”
She sighed. “All that studying, and I hardly feel like I know anything.”
* * *
La
uren was asleep before me that night, apparently unashamed, so used to her lie that it no longer caused her to lose sleep—if it ever had. I seethed in my bed, watching her breathe in and out, but eventually I reasoned myself into a type of calm. I had no claim on Joe. I wasn’t pining away for him; I’d moved on, and most of the time when I did think of him, it was to be embarrassed that I’d almost fallen for the first guy I’d met in Scofield, when I hadn’t allowed myself to settle for Kurt Haschke in Woodstock. It didn’t surprise me that Joe fell for Lauren. Any guy would go for her, given the chance. She was pretty and talented and funny; she was the kind of rich that people like Joe and me only saw from a distance. What Lauren saw in him was less clear—except that because she was a Mabrey, anything she wanted was hers for the taking.
I remembered that she’d once told me never to trust anyone in her family. At the time, I thought it was a flippant comment, unserious and self-deprecating, but now I wondered if she meant it after all. Maybe she’d even been warning me.
Lauren
I visited Joe the night after my last final, when I really should have been packing and eating one last pan of brownies with Megan and the girls from our dorm.
Joe and I had agreed to keep it like any other night—nothing fancy, no elaborate goodbyes. Still, he surprised me with an apartment that had definitely been cleaned at some point over the last forty-eight hours. I raised an eyebrow when he produced four cartons of Chinese food and two clean plates. “I thought you said nothing fancy.”
He grinned. “I even snagged us extra fortune cookies.”
“And we’re using a tablecloth,” I pointed out. “That’s a definite upgrade.”
“And eating before sex,” Joe countered. “Like perfectly civilized people.”
We smiled at each other, and Joe dished the fried rice and chicken chow mein from the cartons. I handed him a set of chopsticks, and he fumbled with them gamely before retrieving two forks from the dish rack. Watching Joe with a grain of rice stuck to his chin, I felt a yawning emptiness opening up inside me, as if I were standing in front of a giant canyon and Joe was so far away that he might not have been on the other side of it at all. Later, the sex felt desperate and sweaty, each touch wrong in a way that was impossible to quantify.
Here We Lie Page 21