by Rachel Cline
“Now?”
“Might as well get it over with,” said Jerry.
Annabeth wondered what they had in mind for her. She couldn’t bear any more guilt.
“How’s Linda?” she said, meaning, Look at the bright side: you’ve still got a daughter. Maybe she’ll give you Jewish grandchildren.
“Wonderful,” said Naomi. “They’re in Rome for the year. She got a residency.”
Gripping the beer bottle, Annabeth followed David’s mother up the banisterless wooden stairs and, for the first time in her life, consciously prayed for serenity, courage, and wisdom. David’s bedroom was on the third floor, the only place in the house that got any real sunlight, and though small, it felt spacious because it had a skylight and the desk and bureau were built in. There was nothing to sit on except the bed, and no sign of the cache of belongings Annabeth had expected to have to sort through.
“We thought you might like some privacy,” said Naomi. “Please, sit.”
Annabeth carefully lowered herself onto the edge of the neatly made bed, its worn blue bedspread obviously a relic from David’s childhood.
Naomi took an envelope from the windowsill and handed it to Annabeth. It was unsealed and bore no address but contained a sheet of folded paper that she did not need to be told had been written by David.
“We couldn’t help reading it,” said Naomi. “I hope you understand.” She almost succeeded in saying these words without betraying her grief.
The date on the letter was ten days before David’s death. They had spoken on the phone sometime that week and he had not sounded then like someone about to kill himself. This gave her the courage to read on. The letter said:
Dear Annabeth,
Happy anniversary. You don’t remember the date but it was my first tryout at KCRW. I will never forget how the sun looked on your back that afternoon. I want to tell you that I am grateful for everything, because you never pretended with me. You were real. I can’t say this kind of thing on the phone, it sounds pathetic, but I still love you and I don’t want to hurt you though I know I’m going to.
Laura said you are not an artist but what does she know? The artists are the ones who stay at it, who keep going. Please keep going. Please forgive me.
Love, David
Naomi had left the room. Annabeth finally began to weep.
36
She woke up sweating the next morning. Overnight, the Santa Anas had blown in, the inverted hot winds that suck the moisture from eyeballs, nostrils, flowers, and lawns on their way out to sea instead of in from it. Her new apartment, a bungalow with glass doorknobs and built-in bookshelves, was at the top of a courtyard in Los Feliz—it was much warmer than the west side of town, even when the weather was pleasant. Annabeth had no air conditioner, and she’d found that her beautiful sunny rooms were rapidly becoming unbearable. In the shower, she looked at the mermaid etched into the glass door panel and decided she would drive to the beach. La Piedra: David had always talked about taking her there, but they had never gone.
It was a long drive, practically to the Ventura County line, but when she finally got to the trailhead and looked down the steep incline at the rocky beach, she felt her chest relax for the first time in weeks, or maybe longer.
She’d only swum in the Pacific twice before, both times in Malibu with groups of drunk or stoned partygoers. Alone, at midday, on the mostly deserted beach, she found the prospect of immersion both frightening and appealing. There was no lifeguard present, but the sea looked calm. Her fear was not of bodily harm so much as of the extreme solitude of leaving dry land with no one on shore to wave back to. Nevertheless, she waded in. First to hip depth, then up to her chest, and finally she took a half dozen long strokes out past the shore break. When she surfaced and looked back, she couldn’t locate her white towel and black knapsack anywhere on the shore. Then she realized they were there, just much smaller than she’d expected. The current had been at her back. The water was cold but felt bouyant and tonic, and she dove under again just to feel its magic coolness on her scalp. Then she turned faceup and kicked for a while, traveling parallel to the beach. The sky was dense above her, a grayish-white screen on which she could project anything she wanted to. But she didn’t want to project; she just wanted to sway there in the water, dangling, suspended. Something would come.
What came was company. She suddenly had the unmistakable sense that she was being watched and began to look for her observer—first toward shore and then out to the horizon, where she saw it. Some ten feet off, a sea lion was gazing at her with equanimity. The creature’s round forehead and bright brown eyes were candid and familiar. Almost human, Annabeth thought, feeling a welling up of love for the creature. But the sea lion had seen enough. It slipped underwater and vanished, leaving a gleaming wake that Annabeth followed hungrily with her eyes.
Acknowledgments
The people in this story are fictional but their knowledge is not. Any technical skills displayed by Annabeth and Laura come from one of three sources: Walter Murch’s In the Blink of an Eye, Michael Ondaatje’s The Conversations, or Barbara Tulliver’s cutting room, where she was kind enough to let me look over her shoulder for a few days.
Brave Dan Menaker read so many versions of this story he can probably recite portions of it in his sleep, and I thank him for all his hard work on my behalf. Dan’s was a tough act to follow, but I was lucky to find Laura Ford, who has been wonderful in the crucial, final rounds of turning pages into book. Also at Random House, I have been helped and humored by Stephanie Higgs, Bonnie Thompson, and especially Evan Camfield, who seems to go above and beyond as a matter of course.
Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, Nina Collins has offered endless advice and support from the very beginning—more great luck on my part. And for making Nina’s trains run on time, I thank Matthew Elblonk, who does everything right, always, and with a sense of humor.
Other generous readers, near and far: Julie Applebaum, Lori Bongiorno, Sheila Colon, Gail Fath, Kara Lindstrom, Naomi Rand, Julia Schacter, Jane South, and Jenny Snider. No one has helped more, or more gracefully, perceptively, and thoroughly, however, than Joe Gioia, the smartest guy I know and the most unafraid of commas.
Which leaves only Patty Wolff, who coined the epithet “my liar” and lived to tell the tale. I’m relieved to say that I have appropriated it for use in this book with her permission.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A native and current resident of Brooklyn, New York, RACHEL CLINE lived in Los Angeles from 1990 to 1999. During that time she wrote screenplays and teleplays, designed interactive media, and taught screenwriting at USC. Her first novel, What to Keep, was published in 2004.
www.rachelcline.com
ALSO BY RACHEL CLINE
What to Keep
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Rachel Cline
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Cline, Rachel.
My liar: a novel / Rachel Cline.
p. cm.
1. Women motion picture editors—Fiction. 2. Women motion picture producers and directors—Fiction. 3. Female friendship—Fiction. 4. Motion picture industry—Fiction. 5. Power (Social sciences)—Fiction. 6. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3603.L555M9 2008
813'.6—dc22 2007019601
www.atrandom.com
eISBN: 978-1-58836-806-5
v3.0
>