True Love (and Other Lies)

by Whitney Gaskell

  “That’s perceptive of her,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Things have just been really stressful at work,” I said.

  “So who’s the guy?”

  “What guy?”

  “The one that you’re moping about,” Alice said.

  “I was seeing someone, and I’m not anymore, but I’m not moping about it. It wasn’t all that serious,” I lied.

  “Okay, okay, I get it. You’re not going to tell me, and that’s fine. But maybe you should talk to Mom. She’s stressed out, and was asking me if she should hide her sleeping pills from you just in case you’re suicidal or something.”

  “I’m not suicidal,” I said, laughing for the first time in days.

  “I know, but tell her that. You know how she can overreact.”

  After I got off the phone with Alice, I heard my mother talking to her in hushed tones, all the while peering out at me. I waved at her and smiled. Later that night, before she and Howard went out, I listened attentively while she told me all of the gossip from her bridge club, and that seemed to placate her temporarily. But the next day, Mom ventured out in the late afternoon, Sasha at her heels, and this time sat down at the side of the pool, dipping her bare, tan feet into the water. Her toenails had been carefully pedicured and were polished pale pink, like the inside of a seashell. With a fluttering tail, Sasha lay down behind my mother, careful to make sure she was out of the splash range of the pool.

  “Oh, the water feels nice,” Mother said.

  “Don’t you ever go swimming?”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes, although not often. It’s horrible for my hair—the chlorine makes the color brassy.”

  “Then why’d you put the pool in?” I asked.

  “I like to come out and look at the water. It’s peaceful out here, don’t you think?” she said.

  I nodded. My float hit the wall on the far side of the pool, and I pushed off against the edge, propelling myself back to the center of the pool. I leaned back and looked up at the breathtaking Florida sky.

  “The sky is so clear and so blue . . . it’s mesmerizing. I’d probably keep getting into car accidents if I lived here, because I’d always be looking up,” I said dreamily.

  “When did you get that necklace? It’s beautiful,” my mom said.

  I lifted my hand to touch the necklace that Jack had given me—and which I hadn’t yet been able to bring myself to take off—and a stab of pain poked at my heart.

  “Um, a friend gave it to me. Where’s Howard? Did he go golfing again?”

  “No, he’s inside, watching the news, having a Scotch. I’ve been trying to keep him down to one a night, and otherwise have him stick to beer, but it’s hard. He won’t admit he has a problem,” she said.

  This startled me. I’d known for a long time that Howard had a drinking problem, and a severe one at that. But I’d never heard my mother admit that he had a problem—she tended to shrug it off as boyish antics when he began singing off-key in the middle of the clubhouse, or exhaustion when he fell asleep in his armchair every night. I’d always thought that the fact that he was a genial drunk, never becoming hostile or unruly, kept her in denial.

  “So what’s going on, Claire?” my mother said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, because I love having you here, but you hardly ever visit, much less fly down at the last minute. And I am your mother, after all, I can tell you’re upset about something,” she said.

  She’d said the same thing to me when I was eleven, and one of the girls at school had invited everyone in our group of friends to sleep over at her house, except for me. I was devastated. When I told my mother about it, her nostrils had flared with anger, and a minute later she was on the phone with the girl’s mother, demanding to know why I’d been left out, and making sure that an invitation was extended to me. I could just see her doing something like that now, calling up Maddy to smooth over our falling out, or Jack to tear him to shreds for using me. Mom was elegant and chic on the outside, but underneath the salon-pampered exterior, she was a tough cookie.

  “I’ve just been having a rough time lately. I was seeing someone, and it didn’t work out, and it was kind of a big mess,” I said. Better to give half-truths than to lie outright. My mother was like a human lie-detector test when it came to Alice and me—we could never get away with anything.

  “What kind of a mess?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  My mother stretched out her legs, holding her feet out in front of her, and watched the water stream off them back into the pool. “That’s okay. I’m retired, I have time for a long story,” she said.

  I don’t know if I was just too tired to keep deflecting the questions, and it seemed easier to have it all out in the open, or if it was because she herself had opened up to me by admitting that her husband had a drinking problem, but I found myself telling her about meeting Jack, and then finding out that he was Maddy’s ex, and continuing to see him anyway, and falling for him, and that Maddy had found out, and learning that Jack had lied to me. I told her all of it, except for the sex parts, of course, since it doesn’t matter how old I get, or how cynical I appear, there are just some subjects that I can never discuss with my mother. When I was finished, she was frowning, her forehead knitted in confusion.

  “I don’t understand . . . why do you think that Jack was only seeing you to get back at Madeline?” she asked.

  “Because he lied to me about not knowing who I was when I first met him,” I said.

  “But I don’t see why you’re assuming that he didn’t truly have feelings for you. Why would he come to see you in New York? And why ask you to spend the holidays with him in England? And didn’t you say that Maddy followed you and Jack to that restaurant, and that’s how she found out you were seeing him? If he truly wanted to hurt her through you, then why didn’t he just tell her straight out?” my mom asked.

  “Because . . . well. He encouraged me to tell Maddy about our relationship,” I said. “He wanted me to do it.”

  “Yes, but maybe he just wanted it to be all out in the open. Weren’t you the one who kept putting him off, saying that you didn’t want to hurt your friend?” Mother asked.

  “Yeah, but come on. You’ve seen Maddy. She’s gorgeous, and let’s face it, most of the men she dates are way out of my league. I thought it was strange all along that a guy as great as Jack would be interested in me, especially since Maddy was calling him the entire time, trying to get back together with him,” I said.

  “I thought you said Jack was a jerk who was perfectly capable of manipulating your feelings in order to hurt Madeline,” my mother pointed out. “Now you’re saying he’s a great guy.”

  “Yes, but . . . I didn’t know that at the time,” I said, starting to feel a little confused. “He seemed like a great guy. I guess he fooled us both.”

  My mother just shook her head, and looked at me. “It just amazes me. You’re thirty-two years old, and you’re a lovely, composed, accomplished woman, and yet you still have absolutely no self-confidence,” she said. “You’re completely incapable of looking in a mirror and truly seeing yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your entire theory of how Jack used you is based on your premise—or Maddy’s premise—that all rational men would immediately choose her over you. And that’s ridiculous. For one thing, Maddy’s an attractive girl, but compared to you, I’ve always thought she seemed a little washed out. She certainly doesn’t have your wit or style.”

  I shook my head. “That’s nice of you to say, but this has nothing to do with my level of self-confidence. I know that I’m not some sort of a great beauty, but I’m okay with that,” I said.

  “Not a great beauty? Claire, you’re absolutely stunning! You have beautiful hair, gorgeous eyes—my eyes, actually—perfect skin, and a figure like Liz Taylor had in her day. No, you don’t look like one of those scrawny little ac
tresses so popular today, who have no boobs and no hips, but that makes you even more of a standout,” my mother exclaimed.

  I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, but you’re my mother. You have to say things like that.”

  “I thought you always said I was too critical of you. Maybe I was. . . . It never occurred to me that you’d end up with such poor self-esteem. Maybe this is all my fault for not telling you often enough how truly beautiful and special you are, how much you’ve always stood out,” she said thoughtfully.

  This startled me. “Um, well. I don’t think you ever told me that before,” I ventured. I didn’t want to add that the only time she’d ever bothered to comment on my appearance was to tell me what was wrong with it.

  “You’re probably right,” my mother sighed, kicking her feet in the water. “I think I’ve always been a little intimidated by you—you’re so much more ambitious than I ever was, always have been. You’ve always seemed to be on the brink of something . . . big. You were so smart, and pretty, and clever, and I never had any doubt that you’d make a huge splash someday. You’ve always just needed a little more confidence, that’s all. And maybe . . . maybe what you really need to do is learn to let your defenses down.”

  “They keep me from being hurt,” I said. “Look what happened when I did let my guard down.”

  “I don’t think I agree with your take on things. The only thing I can see that Jack clearly did wrong was to not be up front with you in the beginning. And although he used poor judgment, I can actually see why he lied, particularly if he wanted a chance to get to know you. As for the rest of it, this idea that it was all a scheme to get revenge on Maddy, well, frankly, honey, I think it sounds a little far-fetched. If that’s what he wanted, if he was that cruel and coldhearted, then why wouldn’t he have admitted it when you confronted him? But instead he told you he loved you, and wanted you to stay and talk things out with him. What would be the point of saying that if it wasn’t true?” Mom asked, sounding so reasonable I began to wonder if I had overreacted, and in doing so, misjudged everything.

  Was Maddy’s version of events completely off the wall? We’d been friends for a long time, and I’d valued her opinion in the past. Max had always insisted that Maddy was self-centered and vain . . . maybe it was just a side of her I’d never really wanted to acknowledge. Everyone has his or her faults, after all, and although a little narcissism might not be the worst thing in the world, it certainly might have colored Maddy’s view of why Jack was interested in me. And if she was wrong about that, then maybe it meant that I’d judged Jack unfairly.

  “But what do I do? Even if I was wrong about Jack—and maybe you’re right, maybe I was—what about Maddy? I know that she said some shitty things to me, and maybe it was crappy of her to assume that Jack would never go for me . . . but God, I really hurt her. I honestly don’t think she would have ever said any of those things to me, ever have been so unkind, if I hadn’t been sneaking around behind her back,” I said. “So what do I do about that? How do I make this right?”

  But this time my mother, who had always in the past had the answers to these types of moral dilemmas, simply shrugged. “Let me think about it. I’m sure we can figure something out,” she promised.

  Had I known what my mother’s solution would be, I would have fled the state. The next day, after I’d showered and dressed—I’d finally agreed to leave the house, my mom and I had plans for lunch and manicures—my mother knocked softly on the guest room door, and when I opened it, she was standing there, dressed in periwinkle blue capri pants and a coordinated sleeveless sweater, holding the cordless phone.

  “Don’t be mad,” she said, handing me the phone. And then she turned on her heel and practically ran down the hall away from me. I stared after her, and then down at the phone in my hand, and for some unknown reason, I lifted it to my ear and said, “Hello?”

  Why I did this, I don’t know. Perhaps it’s a lifetime of training that teaches us we should talk into a phone that’s handed to us. Maybe for just a second I’d had the asinine thought that she’d somehow tracked down Maddy and Jack, talked everything out with them (the way she had done with the sleepover mom, all those years ago), and now the two of them were both on the phone, ready to tell me that all was fine, all was forgiven. Maybe I was just curious, and it simply got the better of me.

  “Hello, is this Claire?” a familiar woman’s voice said on the other end.

  “Yes, it is,” I said, trying to place the voice. A distant relative? One of my mom’s friends? Someone I should know?

  “Hello, Claire, this is Dr. Deirdre Blum from Relationship Radio. Your mother called us today because she knew you were struggling with something, and thought that you could use our help,” the woman said.

  Relationship Radio . . . as in the national radio show where people called in for guidance on moral dilemmas. I’d actually heard it a few times. Dr. Blum—the host and owner of the voice on the other end of the line that I’d thought sounded so familiar—was known for ripping into people when they had the temerity to call in with really stupid questions, like “I’m thinking of having an affair with the teenage boy who cleans our pool. Should I go through with it?” or “Is it wrong for me to go on a camping trip with the guys when my wife’s nine months pregnant and set to go into labor at any time?” Some people thought she was unduly harsh—and it was true, when she really got upset, her screech could shatter glass—but to be fair, after listening to dumb questions like that day in and out, I’d probably be snappy, too.

  “I’m sorry, but . . . am I . . . am I on the air right now?” I whispered.

  “Yes, you are. Your mother was telling us that you’ve recently had a problem with a friend, and that you needed some help sorting it through,” Dr. Blum said. She sounded nice, helpful even. Not at all like the shrill, shrieking harridan who’d sounded ready to reach through the phone and strangle the caller who’d insisted that getting a blow job from his co-worker was not technically cheating on his wife.

  I didn’t know what to do. I’m a private person, and so was not keen on sharing the complexities of my love life with Dr. Blum’s nationwide audience. But just hanging up on her seemed rude, especially when she did seem so eager to help. I sat on my bed and took a deep breath.

  “What exactly did my mother tell you?” I asked.

  “She said that you began dating the ex-boyfriend of one of your friends, a relationship that she was still grieving over, but that you didn’t tell the friend. And that when your friend did find out about the relationship—how exactly did she find out? Did you eventually tell her?” Dr. Blum asked.

  “N-No,” I faltered. “She saw us out together.”

  “Oh dear. Well, as I understand it, your friend is now quite angry with you, and understandably so, and you want to know how to make it up to her. Have you apologized?”

  “Yes . . . well, I tried to, but she didn’t really want to hear it. She was pretty upset when we talked,” I said.

  “And do you understand why she was upset? What I mean is, you’re not trying to justify your deceitful behavior, are you?”

  There was a slight edge to Dr. Blum’s voice as she asked this question, and I had a feeling that if I did make any attempt to justify my actions, she’d rip into me.

  “No, no,” I hastened to say. “I know I screwed up. And I know she might never . . . never forgive me for what I did. But I’d like to do what I can to set things right.”

  “Let me ask you this: Are you still dating this man, the one that your friend used to date?” The nice Dr. Blum was back, her tone warm, inviting me to share.

  “I . . . well. Not at the moment, but I’d like to continue seeing him. It’s a little complicated but . . . I . . . I care about him,” I gulped.

  “Are you in love with him?” she coaxed.

  “Yes,” I whispered. “I am.”

  “Well, there’s only one thing you can do to set things right,” Dr. Blum announced in a brisk, getting-down-to-busin
ess voice.

  I perked up. Everything had seemed so hopeless, so bleak, that the very idea that there was one clear solution to the problem was encouraging. Maybe when Dr. Blum was done sorting out my problems with Jack and Maddy, she’d be willing to tackle the debacle with Max, my dead-end career, and my distant relationship with my father. I could call in every day with a new issue, she’d reveal the solution to the problem, and in a few short weeks, everything in my life would be fixed. It would be like therapy, only better, faster, and free.

  “What’s that?” I asked eagerly.

  “You have to do what you should have done in the beginning. You have to call your friend and ask her for her blessing to continue seeing this man,” Dr. Blum said.

  My hopes plummeted. “But there’s no way she’d give me her blessing. Especially now. She hates me,” I wailed.

  “Yes, I’m sure she’s angry at you. She was deceived and lied to by someone she trusted, while you were pretending to console her over her breakup—”

  “I wasn’t pretending. I really was trying to console her,” I interjected.

  “But the point is,” Dr. Blum continued, her tone considerably sharper. She didn’t seem to appreciate being interrupted. “You contributed to her pain by lying, and now you have to make that up to her.”

  “But how will asking for her blessing make it up? And what if she says no?” I asked.

  “Asking her for her permission will give your friend her dignity back. As I wrote in my best-selling book, Modern Women, Dumb Choices, oftentimes when a relationship ends, the resulting pain has more to do with loss of self-worth than the actual loss of the partner. So by giving her back some control, you’ll also be helping to restore her self-esteem. And you have to mean it when you ask her, or else it won’t count. If she says no, then you have to respect her wishes and not see this man anymore. So call her up, apologize again, and ask her for her permission to continue seeing him,” Dr. Blum pronounced.

  This was a topic I wanted to explore in greater depth, but as I started to fire off another question, I realized that she had muted my voice.