The Liars

by Jennifer Mathieu

  “My pleasure,” I answer, smiling.

  J.C. squeezes my hand a little tighter. I might be imagining it, but I think he scoots a little closer, too. He’s still wearing those same orange-and-white board shorts from earlier today. It sounds ridiculous, but I can’t help but notice how much hair he has on his legs. I wonder if he has hair on his chest.

  I’m so weird.

  “What would you study if you went to school?” I ask.

  “I honestly have no clue,” J.C. answers. “I can’t really picture myself doing that. I keep agreeing to it so my uncle will relax. I mean, you wouldn’t think a guy who runs a beach rental outfit would be so uptight, but he fucking is, man.”

  “So come fall you might leave?” I ask. Just like Joaquin. It must be nice being a boy.

  “I guess I’ll have to see what the summer is like,” J.C. says, and I’m not so sixteen and naïve that I don’t notice a shift in the sound of his voice. I’m not so naïve that I don’t know the meaning behind those words. And soon, before I even have a chance to process that it’s happening, J.C.’s mouth is on mine and I’m trying to keep up. He is not without kissing experience, it’s obvious. He kisses with purpose. With focus.

  My whole body feels like it might implode. Or is it explode? I don’t know, but kissing J.C. is literally the best thing I’ve ever done with my lips in my whole entire life.

  “Is this okay?” J.C. says, his voice husky. He’s hovering right by my mouth when he asks, like he knows it is but he’s trying to be polite.

  “Yeah,” I say, barely able to get the word out. I feel a warmth spreading over my whole body, and suddenly, out of nowhere, my mind flashes on Mami dropping that soapy glass and it shattering all over the floor. This is what happens to ruined goods, Mami would argue. This is what happens when you trust boys.

  I shake my head a little in protest at the thought, enough that J.C. pulls away for a moment.

  “You okay?” he asks, breathless.

  “Yeah,” I say, and as if to prove it to myself, I lean back in, and soon thoughts of Mami fade away, thank God. J.C. and I kiss some more and the good feelings come back, and in my mind I wonder how two people even decide to stop kissing, but eventually we do, somehow, and J.C. grins.

  “That was nice,” he says, almost like he’s shy about it.

  “Yeah,” I say again. It’s the only word I can manage.

  “So this is obvious, probably, but it would be cool to hang out again,” J.C. says. His knee bounces up and down a bit, like maybe he’s nervous. It’s absurd to think he could ever be nervous around me.

  “Yeah, it would,” I say, finally able to say more than one word. “Just …” I hesitate. I don’t want to sound like I think we’re supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend now just because we kissed on a lifeguard chair.

  “What’s up?”

  “It’s just … it would be better if I call you. My mom doesn’t want boys calling the house.” Or anyone, really.

  “Damn,” J.C. says, his eyebrows raising briefly. “But yeah … I get it. No phone calls. I mean, you better call me. But nothing in reverse. I get it.” He winks and I die.

  A few moments later we are kissing again, and I think I could kiss all night, really, but finally, a little after ten, we both agree we should walk back, and I mention I should be heading home. I get my flip-flops from his apartment, and when we get to his car, J.C. digs around a bit until he finds a piece of paper and a pen, and he writes down his phone number. I slide the number deep into my back pocket, thinking about which hiding spot in my room is the best place for it.

  On the ride back up Esperanza Boulevard, I try to process everything that’s happened to me tonight, but it’s too overwhelming, so I just close my eyes briefly and allow myself the teeniest, tiniest smile.

  I make my way down the sidewalk, replaying J.C.’s goodbye kiss on my lips, but as I approach our house, the image fades. I climb our front steps and cross both sets of fingers and toes before I slide my key into the front door. I open it a crack and hold my breath.

  “It’s fine,” Joaquin’s voice says, and every molecule in my body relaxes.

  “She never came out?” I ask, my voice a half whisper as I step all the way inside and shut the door behind me.

  “Once,” says Joaquin, glancing up at me from his slumped position on the couch and then staring back at the television. “Just to go to the bathroom and then back to bed. I never even saw her. Just heard her.”

  “Okay, that’s good,” I say. I got away with it. I can hardly believe it.

  “Did you have fun?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I answer, sliding off my flip-flops.

  “What’d you do?”

  “Went to the Cinemark.”

  Joaquin nods. I realize the trap I’ve just walked into, but he doesn’t even ask what movie we saw. I’ve got to get my head back on straight.

  “Hey, I didn’t need the ten bucks you gave me,” I say, sliding his El Mirador tip money out of my pocket. “He paid for everything.”

  “Wow, a real gentleman,” answers Joaquin.

  “Are you being a dick or serious?” I ask, irritated. “He was actually very nice.” I toss Joaquin’s money onto the coffee table.

  “You think you’re going to go out with him again?” he asks, ignoring my question.

  “Yeah, probably,” I say. Talking about me and boys is more than uncharted territory for me and my brother. It’s an entirely new universe.

  “Okay,” says Joaquin.

  “Don’t worry, I already told him he can’t call here,” I say. I think about the slip of paper with J.C.’s phone number on it. Just picturing it makes me feel giddy again.

  “Elena, it’s your life,” Joaquin says, and he really looks at me at last, his face set and serious, his words filling this weird space between us.

  “Okay, I’ll try to remember that,” I say, half rolling my eyes but not really because, hell, he’s the reason I was even able to go out tonight. My irritation softens a little. “Anyway, thanks for covering for me. I’m going to bed.”

  I don’t make it three steps before Joaquin calls me back. He picks up the two crumpled five-dollar bills and hands them to me.

  “Keep it,” he says, his eyes back on the screen. “For next time. For an emergency. For whatever.”

  “Joaquin, you don’t …” I start.

  “Just take it,” he says.

  “Seriously?”

  “Elena, take the money.”

  I do.

  “Thanks. You didn’t have to.”

  “I know,” says my big brother. “Now get to bed.”

  “I thought it was my life,” I say, my smirk breaking into a full-blown smile.

  “Good night, hermanita.”

  “You know that nickname is so annoying,” I say, my smile turning into a fake pout. But my brother just laughs softly and I do, too, and it feels okay again between us. And once inside the safety of my room, I hide J.C.’s phone number in the good hiding spot in the closet and I put Joaquin’s money in the back of my nightstand drawer and I pull out my Gum Drop lipstick and paint my lips as dark as I can before blowing sexy kisses at my reflection in the bedroom mirror. And when I finally slide under the covers, I find myself pressing my fingers to my lips as if my fingertips could somehow find proof there that finally, at last, my life had started for real.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I’M GIDDY WITH RULE-BREAKING, AND I EVEN HAVE A car to do it in.

  Mami almost never lets me borrow our old Honda—I’m still sort of stunned she even let me get my driver’s license. But it helps for the times she’s too tired or too angry or too something to do whatever errand she has on her list. Then I’m sent into the land of the living all by myself, and I don’t even have to have a job lined up with the Callahans to do it.

  This morning when she asked me to spend the better part of Saturday running by Kroger and Walgreens, I jumped at the chance, rushing to finish the breakfast dishes and get rea
dy.

  “You can pick up your brother at the end of his shift,” Mami says from her position on the couch, her feet up on a pillow, a mint-green wet washcloth on her forehead. Maybe too much rum last night. Or maybe just an opportunity to get the house to herself.

  “I’ll call and tell him I’m coming,” I say.

  “That’s good,” she says, pulling the washcloth down over her eyes. In a minute I can hear light snoring.

  As I pull out onto Esperanza Boulevard, all I can think about is J.C. It’s still early, so I’m not sure he’ll be at the beach, but there’s a chance. He was there the last time I showed up unannounced after a morning spent taking the Callahan kids to the Mariposa Island library for story hour, which Jennifer is really getting a little too big for but Matthew seems to like. When I arrived at the place where Michelle rents umbrellas, there he was, smoking a cigarette and talking to her. I hesitated for a minute. It had been only two days since our date, and I hadn’t worked up the guts to call him. But when he saw me making my way across the parking lot, he grinned at me so widely I knew it wasn’t a mistake that I had shown up out of nowhere, and I was even more sure of it later when we walked down the coastline and he pulled me under the boardwalk and kissed me and everything fell away until it was just the two of us pressing into each other. When we crept out from under the boardwalk and my eyes adjusted to the brightness of the sun and my ears to the piercing tweets of the lifeguards’ whistles, it was as if I was landing back on Earth after a trip to some other universe. My legs had even felt a little wobbly.

  Just thinking of it as I pull into the parking lot by Michelle’s stand makes my heart start racing. I check my lip gloss in the rearview mirror, squeeze my cheeks a bit to make them extra pink. But when I make my way toward Michelle’s chair, I realize J.C. isn’t there.

  “Hey, lady, surprise,” I say, approaching Michelle. I try to act like I’m not even looking for J.C. I don’t want to hurt her feelings.

  “He’s not here,” she says immediately, glancing up at me with her hand over her eyes to block out the sun. I drop down on the sand next to her, trying to act like I’m not crushed.

  “Who says I was here for him?” I answer, rolling my eyes.

  “Oh, please, you think I took moron pills this morning or something? Cut the bullshit.” But Michelle laughs when she says it, kicking a little sand at me at the same time.

  “Okay, fine, maybe I was hoping he’d be here,” I say, looking away so she can’t see my blush of embarrassment. “But you’re acting like I don’t want to see my best friend, too.”

  “Well, he still might show up,” Michelle answers, digging through her green-and-white-striped beach bag for her brown bottle of sunscreen. “So how come you’re out? Babysitting gig? The Callahans get home early?”

  “No,” I answer. “She actually let me out on my own to get some shopping done for her. I even have the car.”

  “No shit,” Michelle answers, squirting on the lotion and rubbing it in on her body. She holds an arm out and studies it. “I thought by this point in the summer I’d be browner.” She frowns.

  “You look good to me,” I tell her. “Next to you, I look like a ghost.”

  “And you’re supposed to be the ethnic one,” Michelle says with a snort.

  “Ay, chica, me estás volviendo loca,” I shoot back, arching one eyebrow. Michelle loves it when I break out my Spanish, even when I’m telling her she’s driving me bonkers.

  A family comes up and asks to rent some umbrellas, leaving me to sit alone and stare at the weak Gulf Coast waves that roll up lazily onto the sand. Just when I decide I have to start my errands, I feel a kiss on the back of my neck.

  “Hey!” I say, with a little shriek that I instantly hope sounds more cute than scared.

  “Hey, back,” J.C. answers, sitting down next to me on the sand. He offers me a lopsided grin. I notice the rims of his eyes are red, but I don’t have time to get a good look because he leans in and kisses me right on the mouth. I used to roll my eyes at PDA, but with J.C. it’s like nothing else exists when his mouth is on mine. When he pulls back, I have to catch my breath.

  “You’re so pretty,” he says. He’s giddy. Silly. And almost certainly high. It’s only ten in the morning, I remind myself. But whatever. It’s the summer. Isn’t he allowed to have some fun? Plus, he called me pretty. I play those words in my mind over and over. You’re so pretty.

  “So, you can hang out all day, right?” he asks, nuzzling my neck again.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, carefully watching his face for disappointment. “I have to do a bunch of errands for my mom.”

  “Shit,” he answers, and he reaches out and takes my hand in his. “But what if I never let you go? What if I just don’t let you get up from this beach?” He opens his mouth like some sort of Muppet and then shuts it before he starts cracking up. I’ve never seen him so wired, and I can’t decide if I like it or not. But it’s J.C., and he’s so cute, and he likes me—so I should like it, I think.

  “Well look what the tide washed in,” Michelle says, making her way back to us. “Are you actually here to, like, work for your uncle for once?”

  “I took an afternoon shift,” J.C. says. “And hello to you, too.”

  Michelle is looking us over carefully, eyeing my hand wrapped in J.C.’s, then letting her gaze rest on J.C.’s face. Finally, she plops down on the other side of him and glances sideways in J.C.’s direction. “A little wake and bake, huh?” she asks, not too loud but loud enough that I can hear it. My stomach knots up a bit. It’s one thing to suspect my boyfriend—or whatever he is—is high, but it’s different to have Michelle say it out loud. Riskier, somehow. And maybe even a little more exciting, too, which is probably absurd and definitely dangerous, but I find myself squeezing J.C.’s hand even tighter.

  “Jeez, Michelle, relax,” J.C. answers, squeezing my hand back, which makes my heart race faster. “You’d think this was a real job and not just, like, chilling on the beach.”

  “Screw you,” Michelle says, her voice skating carefully along the line between being playful and being annoyed. “All I’m saying is don’t be late for your shift.” She hasn’t made eye contact with me since she sat down. We sit in silence for a bit, and I try to think of the right words to cut it, but all I can come up with is that I probably have to get going, which is the truth. I try to catch Michelle’s gaze. She doesn’t look mad or anything, but the way she’s staring straight ahead, I think maybe she is.

  “You know, I really gotta go and get started on this shopping for my mom,” I say, and J.C. lets go of my hand. Once I’m standing up, I’m reluctant to leave, even if Michelle might be mad at me and I don’t know what to make of J.C. when he’s high. I offer up a tentative smile in Michelle’s direction and she looks up and smiles back—a small smile, but a smile, at least—and then she says, “Hey, call me tonight? After your mom has locked herself in her cave or whatever?”

  “Yeah, of course,” I answer. My smile grows even bigger and I feel like a dork. But Michelle and I are best friends and we never get annoyed with each other. Not over anything major, anyway. Certainly not over a guy.

  J.C. takes my hand again and tugs me toward the parking lot. “I’ll walk you to your car,” he says.

  “Bye, Michelle,” I say in the general direction of her back as J.C. slides an arm around my waist. Michelle holds up her hand and waggles her fingers at me, but she doesn’t turn around.

  J.C. and I head toward the Honda, passing families straining under the weight of beach bags and towels and whining toddlers. When we get to my car, he pulls me toward him and says, “Can you get out tonight? Come over or something?”

  I say yes before I can stop myself. The last time I babysat for the Callahans, Mrs. Callahan mentioned they were heading back to Houston for the weekend for a family birthday party, so they won’t need me. But Mami doesn’t know this, so I could always tell Mami I ran into them on my errands or something, and they asked me to babysit.
I try to think of some frivolous thing they might go to at the last minute that would really make her feel superior to them as a parent.

  “Just come get me on the corner around eight? I’ll figure out a way to meet you.”

  “Awesome,” J.C. says, his voice soft, tender even, the giddiness from a few minutes before gone. He reaches up and runs his fingers through my hair and tucks some strands behind my ear and I melt right there, leaning against my Honda, careful not to burn the backs of my thighs against the hot metal. Before I know it, I feel his lips on mine, urgent, searching. I kiss him back, not caring who sees, until I hear a little boy’s voice say, “Ew, those teenagers are kissing!”

  I pull back and spot him, dressed in green swim trunks and matching flip-flops. He looks a little bit younger than Matthew Callahan. I blush a bit and glance down at my feet, but not before catching the boy’s mother grimace, obviously convinced I’ve corrupted her son’s innocence. I peek up at J.C. and grin, and he grins back. He kisses me again even though the little boy hasn’t gotten very far, and the kiss is even sweeter since we’re being a little bad.

  “Okay, okay, I’ve really got to go now,” I manage, pulling out of his arms and sliding into the driver’s seat.

  “Okay, okay, see you at eight,” he mimics, rapping on my windshield in farewell before I drive away. As I pull out of the parking lot and onto the street, I allow myself a scream worthy of a roller-coaster ride before I find my reflection in the rearview mirror and grin at the girl looking back. I hardly recognize her.

  El Mirador is trapped in some sort of time warp. In the sixteen years I’ve been alive, nothing has changed—not the red vinyl booths with the crooked tears in them or the twinkling Christmas lights hung in lazy loops over the bar. The same paintings of pueblo scenes—a dark-haired mother holding her chubby baby, a mustached rancher standing proudly next to his horse—hang on the bright orange walls, perpetually crooked. The smell of warm tortillas and salty chips and queso fills the air. Mami says it was all exactly the same way back in the sixties when she first moved to Mariposa Island with our father. El Mirador is pretty much the only restaurant on the island that Mami will go to, and one of the few places she goes to at all that’s not some sort of obligation, like her job or church. When I was in grade school, I asked Mami if it’s because our father used to take her here when they were young, and she got so mad she took all my Barbies and threw them away, but at least Joaquin fished out my favorite one when Mami wasn’t looking.