The Perfect Liar

by Thomas Christopher Greene

  So they compromised. They got married in the park with a handful of people watching, a pop-up wedding, and Max wore a dark suit and sneakers and the bride wore a used gown that miraculously fit her like a glove that she’d found at a thrift shop, and a veil that was once white but that had gone to gray over the years covering her face. They laughed about this—the almost-white wedding. Fitting to who they were.

  Everyone they knew was ecstatic for them—“You guys are so perfect,” people said, “so beautiful,” which was how Susannah felt, blessed and lucky and perfect and beautiful. Everyone felt that way with the exception of her friend Rose. For some reason, she had never trusted Max, and it wasn’t something they had talked about, but Susannah could read the distrust in her. Best friends are like that. Sometimes without even talking they can speak worlds to each other.

  A couple of days before the ceremony, Susannah decided to call Rose on it. They were sitting outside at the Standard Grill, for a lunch neither of them could afford, but an indulgence they were trying to justify by the beauty of the day. “We’ll order cheap,” they said before they got seated, but then they were slurping oysters and drinking Prosecco and working through a large plate of thinly sliced Spanish ham and olives.

  Rose always dressed loudly and that day was no exception: she had on a dress covered with giant red hearts and big red plastic loop earrings, her long black hair piled high in a bun over her round face.

  Susannah brought it up almost casually. “You don’t like Max.”

  “What? No.” Rose dragged a piece of bread through the oil that had seeped out to the side of the plate of olives and ham. “I do like Max.”

  “I’m not sure I believe you.”

  “Susannah. Really.”

  “Come on, I know you. There’s something you’re not saying. I just want you to say it.”

  Rose sighed and looked out to the plaza in front of the hotel and below the High Line behind them. By looking north from their table they could see a slice of the plaza, full of people strolling on a beautiful day. Being in this section of Manhattan the two of them felt old. Everyone seemed so young and European and moneyed in their skinny jeans and the boys with the fade haircuts and their big white sneakers and the girls in skimpy sundresses and huge heels.

  “It’s just—” Rose stopped. “I don’t know.”

  “He’s kind to me.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what?”

  Rose leaned forward. “How well do you know him, Susannah?”

  “Max?”

  “Yes, Max.”

  “I know it hasn’t been that long. But I know his heart. You know what I mean? That doesn’t always take so long. You can tell who someone is.”

  “But it’s like he just appeared out of thin air, you know? Have you ever met any old friends of his? I mean, you haven’t even met his mother.”

  “They’re estranged. I, of all people, know what that’s like.”

  “But think of all the people you know just here in New York. Does Max have any buddies he hangs out with? Some guys he went to college with? It just feels a little weird, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “He was homeless as a teenager. He’s wary of people, he told me that. And then he went to art school and it turned his life around. He was there on scholarship and not to make friends. It doesn’t seem that weird to me.”

  “Okay. I am happy for you, you know that, right?”

  “I do.”

  But then a month after the wedding, something curious happened that made Susannah recall that conversation with Rose.

  It was Max’s big night, his debut with Lydia, a joint show she had put together with G Spot, her protégé. G Spot’s paintings were the headliner, big giant canvases with his primitive drawings and his graffiti and words etched across. They were already selling in the six figures before the show, and given the buzz around him, Lydia expected them to move.

  Against this backdrop Lydia planned to introduce Max to the art world. She dedicated one entire wall to his word paintings, including the one he had made of Susannah the night they met.

  Max was a natural at these things. Much more than G Spot, who looked the part but had the street artist’s disdain of people and barely left a corner of the gallery all night. Max could work a room, as he had that first night at Lydia’s. People were drawn to him the way they were to a good view. But not even Lydia knew that this was just the beginning, that the artist’s statement he used that evening, written in clear language that began with “You are the art,” would be the same simple words that would later launch him into the stratosphere.

  Lydia priced his paintings low, very low for her gallery. They started at ten thousand dollars and the larger ones were closer to twenty thousand. Of the seventeen she chose to hang that night, eight of them sold, which was a huge opening for an unknown artist. Lydia was hustling as only she could—“This is going to be worth a quarter of a million in a year, Charles,” Susannah overheard her saying to one well-known collector. “Get in now and think about it as an investment.”

  Susannah’s life had never been more perfect than it was that night. She was in a beautiful wide white room in the middle of Manhattan, a room full of beautiful people high on champagne, and in the middle of it all was her beautiful, smart, charismatic husband. In less than an hour, they had made a good year’s salary for the two of them.

  Fucking pinch yourself, Susannah, she thought.

  Afterward, a whole group went out to celebrate. With Susannah and Max was Rose and her man of the moment, Sid, an emergency-room doctor she had met on Tinder who was tall and thin and shy, and Nils, the squat Norwegian guy who had hung the show. They walked to the Breslin in the Ace Hotel. Rose ordered everyone mojitos and the bar was crowded and so was the restaurant and Susannah remembered how loud and happy they were.

  They had one round of drinks and had ordered another and were standing crowded in a circle in the middle of the bar. Suddenly this guy with stringy long hair moved into their circle, bobbing like a drunk, moving from foot to foot, as if by standing still he would just fall over. He pushed Rose aside to get in front of Max, and he was shorter than Max, and stocky, and he looked up at Max, and he slurred when he spoke but he said, “Holy shit, Phil. I almost didn’t recognize you. You got no hair. What the fuck happened to you?”

  Max smiled at him. “My name is Max. Sorry.”

  The guy’s face went blank for a minute, as if someone had just told him he was adopted. “Phil. What the fuck? It’s me, Todd. I know you.”

  “I must have a doppelgänger.” Max laughed. “Sorry, buddy.”

  Max turned his back on the guy and he walked away shaking his head and they all laughed about it. “I wish my name was Phil,” Max said.

  “Can you imagine?” Susannah said. “You as a Phil?” Everyone laughed at this, too.

  But then they left the bar and were out on the street and starting to walk toward Madison and the guy was there again, this time grabbing Max on the shoulder to try to spin him around toward him.

  “Phil,” Susannah heard him say. “It’s me, man.”

  They all tried to keep walking, the way you do when a homeless man confronts you.

  Max did, too, for a moment. But then he turned quickly and Susannah didn’t see it, but she somehow knew that Max had punched the guy in the face. The guy fell backward onto the sidewalk and Susannah heard someone else who just happened to be walking by say, “Oh, shit.”

  Max was by her side again, shaking his right hand now and grimacing.

  Next to Susannah, Rose looked stricken and said, “Jesus, why did you hit him?”

  “He had a knife,” Max said. “Let’s keep walking, please.”

  Right then to their left was a young black guy, walking alongside Max and waving his finger in his face. “Yo, man, you can’t just punch a dude and keep going. I saw that shit, man.”

  “Back off me,” Max growled, and all of them kept walking briskly.

 
When they rounded the corner, Susannah felt her heart starting to race, the motor starting up, and she hoped she could stop it. So much energy was in the city. The streets were packed with people on a warm night. All around them—the lights and the stream of cars and the buildings—things felt suddenly as if they were closing in on her. Her new husband had just punched a man in the face in front of all of their friends. The man had a knife, Max had said. The man had a knife.

  She didn’t know if that was true, because no one else saw it. What she did know was that her husband was the kind of man who punched other men in the face and knocked them to the pavement. That was both terrifying but also strangely comforting. She wondered if it was okay to think that.

  MAX RETURNED FROM CHICAGO A little after eight. It was no longer raining and Freddy was upstairs doing who knew what in his room, and while Susannah hoped it was homework, he was far more likely back on his video games or on his phone Snapchatting with his friends. But tonight she didn’t care, and when Max keyed the door—for she still had it locked—she went to him and he smiled at her that smile that made her forget everything and he looked tired and she leaned up and kissed him and he took her in his arms.

  “Where’s Freddy?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “I need a drink.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  “Let me fix you something.” Susannah was aware of the dance they were doing. In her mind she saw the note again, and it was as if those words hung in the air between them, big fat letters that were daring both of them to reach up and pull them down until they stood in front of them and they had to talk about them.

  But for the moment it was nice not to. It was nice to have Max back, his quiet strength filling the room. He followed her into the kitchen and sat at the stool at the counter while first she made him a simple Manhattan, the way he liked it, mostly bourbon, and a splash of sweet vermouth, on the rocks.

  While he sipped it, they made small talk, and she took a strip steak out of the fridge and salted it and heated a cast-iron pan on the stove. For years now Max had been pretty much carb-free in his eating, and this was what he liked: seared meat and some vegetables. Sometimes fish. Susannah liked to cook for him. She trimmed some asparagus and tossed them with olive oil. He talked about his trip. She half listened. A good crowd and his speech well received. Easier than talking about the weather, he said. The asparagus went into the hot oven, and with the cast-iron pan now hot Susannah laid the steak in there and it smoked good and fast but the fan sucked it out.

  Something about her taking care of him this way was sexual. She found it empowering. Lie back for me, honey, let me do the work.

  Susannah plated the steak and the asparagus and placed them in front of Max.

  Max looked to the stairs and to where Freddy had not yet emerged. Then he looked down to his plate and sliced himself a piece of the meat.

  “Show it to me.”

  “What?”

  “The note.”

  Susannah went to the cabinet above the fridge and opened it. She reached up and grabbed that piece of paper and brought it over and placed it to the left of Max’s plate. It was still folded. With his long fingers, Max opened it and studied it for what felt like a long time, as if somehow by just staring at that simple declarative sentence he would know what it meant.

  He sighed. “I bet it’s nothing.”

  “What could it be? I didn’t want to drive myself crazy by trying to figure it out. But it’s creepy, right?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “It just felt like everything was going so well here.”

  “Everything is. This is some academic bullshit, that’s all. I had some time to think on the plane. There’s so much jealousy at the university—at every university. People who don’t like how I am getting paid. Some who don’t like what I do. Most of them are tired and old and no longer current. Fucking dinosaurs everywhere.”

  “So you think it was someone you work with?”

  “Most likely.”

  Susannah walked behind Max and massaged his neck. “Why would they write that? ‘I know who you are’?”

  “I thought about that, too. Think about it. The title of my talk is ‘You Are the Art.’ They’re trying to say I’m not an artist or something. It’s an attempt to intimidate. Cowardly.”

  Suddenly, Susannah felt silly for being so afraid. Of course it was something like that. She kneaded his neck. Freddy swept into the kitchen, and seeing Max, Freddy smiled and Susannah found herself happy for the ease of the two of them, father, not father, friend. They fist-bumped.

  “What’s up, kid?” Max said, as if there were no worries at all.

  Freddy shook his head, the teenager playing cool. “Nothing.”

  Max sipped his drink. Susannah felt the air of the day go out of her and all was well for now. Where there were once two, there were now three. It was only a note on the door. No one had a thing on them. This was how they loved, she told herself. A small tribe, they were. No one was getting in.

  THE THING ABOUT THE TWO of them, Max felt, was that marriage had never dulled their edges. Even when Susannah was having a bad day and she became flighty like a songbird, he could always ground her in sex. He never lost his desire for her. Years in, he wanted her just as much as on that first night when she dropped her clothes in his apartment and stood there golden and nude in front of him. They had chemistry, and when people asked Max about it, he would joke that despite what they say in school, you can’t really teach chemistry.

  That night when he returned from Chicago, Max was the one who needed her. Susannah was a mess: he could see it in her eyes, how they darted back and forth. She was acting like a caged squirrel. He had always tried to shield her from things, and if he had found the note, he probably wouldn’t have showed it to her. Max didn’t view this as dishonest. We can all handle what we can handle, he thought.

  After Freddy went to bed, Max brought Susannah upstairs, led her by the hand. When they reached the bedroom door, he presented the game. He turned and whispered to her, “Who are we tonight?”

  She looked up at him and smiled. “You’re the handyman in my building who has come to see why my shower doesn’t work.”

  “And who are you?”

  “I’m the terribly bored cliché of a housewife who is alone because her famous husband is always traveling to places like Chicago to give speeches.”

  Max laughed and took her into the room and closed the door behind them. “Ma’am,” he said, in a vaguely working-class New York accent, “I can fix your shower, but I need to get some parts first. Is there anything I can do to help you while we wait?”

  “Since my husband is away, would you mind helping me with this zipper? I’m afraid I can’t reach it myself.”

  They moved into each other, and for a moment, away from the rest of things. It’s amazing, thought Max, how powerfully the imagination, especially when you are pretending to be something you are not, becomes an escape from the trivia of life.

  SOMETIME IN THE BLUE OF that night Max woke with a start. Out the windows it was still dark. He leaned up on his elbows and looked at Susannah. She was facing away from him, curled up, her mouth open with the softest of snores, a little catch in her throat. Strands of red hair fell down the side of her face and across her cheek.

  Max stared at her for a while, then he slowly rose out of bed and pulled a T-shirt over his head, and wearing that and the pajama pants he slept in, he stepped outside the room and into the hallway. He walked past Freddy’s door and padded silently down the stairs. The house was quiet and still.

  In the kitchen he stepped into a pair of mud boots, then he opened the back door and stepped outside and onto the stone patio. The air was mild and the grass smelled sweet from the previous day’s rain. It was dark but gray, and looking up, Max couldn’t see any stars. He walked out into the yard and turned and looked back at his house. Upstairs was the window to their bedroom, where S
usannah slept oblivious to her being alone now. It was a stately house, and from this perspective, Max saw it with new eyes, as others might have seen it. Moments where it sank in that he actually lived here, that he had pulled this thing off. That in reality it wasn’t all that long ago that he sat down on Church Street in the summers, about a half mile down the hill from where he now stood, traveling through since Burlington was one of the cities they all knew about, a sanctuary for kids such as him. It was a place where he could huddle against the side of a building with some fellow travelers, a few ratty dogs, and a cup in his hand extended out to the straight world.

  Max walked around the house and through a break in the tall arborvitae that separated the driveway from the backyard. He walked into the driveway, past their one car, a Volkswagen wagon he’d bought when they left New York, and out to the street.

  For a while he just stood there, in the middle of the quiet neighborhood in the dark. If anyone had happened upon him, Max might have looked like any old suburban dad who had forgotten to take out the trash, standing in the road in pajamas and mud boots. He felt the damp warmth of the spring night on his skin. He looked down his street toward where it met Main Street, and he could only faintly hear the distant traffic. He looked around his sleeping neighborhood, all these grand homes, up here high on the hill. All of them had made it, hadn’t they? They had climbed the hill, and he meant to stay here. There was the tree-lined street, and the beautiful houses, and inside, like the steeples children make with their fingers, all the sleeping families. Just as it should be, thought Max.

  MAX NORMALLY LOVED HIS CLASSROOM. From it he could look out and see the town below and then beyond to the wide flat blue of the massive lake. He usually loved teaching. He had come to love the sound of his own voice, throwing pointed questions at the students, challenging them with the Socratic method, working without a net as he liked to say, no real lesson plan, just a set of images he projected with his computer onto the large screen and then go from there, see where the ideas took them, the collective consciousness of teacher and students coming together into something larger than themselves. This is what Max told himself on the good days when he believed his own bullshit.