The Perfect Liar

by Thomas Christopher Greene

  “Of course. And, Susannah, here’s my card.” Dolores slid it across the table to her. “I know I gave it to you before. But call me anytime, okay? I enjoyed this.”

  Susannah nodded. She turned and walked away. She went to the door, the sliding doors, and through them and out into the parking lot and the summer day. She left her cart in the aisle and she knew Dolores would notice this but Susannah didn’t care. She needed to fly.

  WHEN SUSANNAH WENT TO PICK Freddy up at the skate park, he was with his friend Ivan, a skinny blond kid.

  “Ivan wants to know if I can sleep over,” Freddy said.

  Susannah looked at Ivan, his shorts cut-off cords below the knees, his T-shirt with a picture of Bob Marley holding a joint in his fingers. Ivan reminded her of boys she knew in high school and Susannah wondered if the shirt was just an affect or if the boys were already smoking pot. She had never smelled it, but kids were clever these days. She was about to say that tonight wasn’t a good night, that Freddy and she had plans, but she saw the pleading in Freddy’s eyes, and she knew Ivan’s parents both worked at the university, too, and this gave her some comfort, even though she didn’t know them. Ivan’s father taught biology or something and his mom was at the hospital.

  “Okay.” She nodded.

  “Can you give us a ride there?” Freddy asked.

  “Get in.”

  Ivan’s parents lived in the south end of town, a web of narrow streets and close-together small houses, and Susannah went to the door with them and Ivan’s mother was home, a tall slender woman wearing overalls. They talked on the porch for a moment, and Susannah felt better about Freddy’s staying over.

  “You know they’re just going to lock themselves upstairs and play video games,” Ivan’s mother said.

  Susannah laughed. “They would do the same at my place.”

  Back at home, Susannah was suddenly aware of the emptiness of the house. She wanted to be one of those people who loved being alone, but she was not. In the kitchen she heard the steady tick of the clock and she turned and looked at it: it was a few minutes past four. She went to the refrigerator and found a half-drunk bottle of chardonnay and pulled it out, slipped the cork out, and poured herself a full glass.

  She walked around the house with her wine, through the kitchen, into the wide hallway that led to the front living room, its white walls and bright light from the tall windows. She wondered what Max was doing right now, if he was done with his talk yet. She pictured him in the city, probably at some hotel bar, sipping a vodka tonic, the adrenaline coming off him in waves. That adrenaline he had after being onstage, when she knew he was all sex, an animal masculinity that could fill a room. An old tinge of jealousy came over her, and it was irrational but she couldn’t help it. Max had never strayed. It wasn’t his thing. But part of her was bothered he hadn’t suggested she join him.

  She drank her wine. It occurred to her, almost as an afterthought, that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. The wine was going to her head. She took out her phone and dialed Max. It went right to voice mail.

  “Hey, it’s me. I hope it went well. Okay, bye.”

  She drank her wine and waited for the call back. One glass turned into two, and the clock, when she went back into the kitchen, said it was past five.

  Susannah opened the fridge and peered into it. She moved some things around, pondering dinner. You should just go out, she told herself. Like you used to sometimes, like you did in New York.

  She put the empty glass of wine in the sink and went upstairs. She stripped off her clothes, dropped them on the floor, and took a hot shower. She blew her hair out and put on mascara and a subtle lipstick. In her closet she found a small black dress, slipped it over her head, went to the mirror, and surprised herself by how well it still fit, that it still hung in the right way and in the right places. Black heels completed the look, and when she was done, she admired herself in the mirror and maybe it was the wine but she liked what she saw looking back.

  “I’d fuck me,” she said out loud, then laughed.

  Susannah drove downtown. She parked in the garage on Cherry Street, then walked out and onto the street. In front of her was the lake, shimmering and blue in the early sunny evening. It had been a long time since she had done anything like this. She felt electric.

  She went into the lobby of the swanky new Hotel Vermont, which had gone up in the last year. The people who worked there all wore flannel shirts and jeans, some touristy idea of Vermont, and she made her way through the lobby to the bar.

  The bar was half full, and at tables behind it people were having dinner. The doors were open to the outside, and through them she could see a slice of lake. She made her way down the copper-topped bar and took a seat with room on either side of her.

  “Something to drink?” asked the handsome young bartender, also in flannel, despite the warmth.

  “A martini, dirty as you can make it. And a burger. Fries.”

  “Preference on gin?”

  “You choose.”

  “How do you like your burger?”

  “Medium rare.”

  The drink came. Susannah looked down the bar, young couples mostly, and she was waiting for her food when her phone started to buzz. It was Max. She looked down at it, the vibrating pulse of it like something trying to lure her out of a dream. She ignored it, saw the voice-mail message light up, and ignored that, too.

  The food arrived and Susannah knew she needed to eat, but something happened to her sometimes when she drank. She just wanted more of the martini and didn’t want to eat, which was a terrible idea. She picked at the fries and forced herself to take a few bites of the burger.

  A text from Max lit up her phone. Where are u?

  Susannah ordered another drink. A few seats down the bar sat a pretty couple, and after a few minutes of eavesdropping she realized they were on a first date. They had met for a drink and it was going well. They were now ordering food. Susannah watched the woman lean forward as he spoke, all her body language saying, You can have me. Susannah remembered that feeling, what it was like to be new with someone, the electric excitement of the unknown. She remembered how in those moments you don’t know each other at all, and that is part of it, too. An undertone of fear comes from two people each giving themselves up, becoming vulnerable.

  Susannah thought of Dolores Scott today, sitting at the table at the co-op, handing her the business card and saying, “Imagine what Joanie feels.”

  So maybe fear didn’t only reside in new love. Could you ever really know someone?

  “Anyone sitting here?” a voice next to Susannah said, bringing her back to the moment. She looked up to see a man a little older than her, a handsome head of hair and a dark beard, white button-down shirt, crisp jeans, and an expensive watch.

  “All yours,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  Susannah looked straight ahead as he slid in next to her. She sipped her martini. She could smell him, the man next to her, deodorant maybe, not cologne, but pleasant, like leather. The bartender arrived and the man ordered a rye old-fashioned, and Susannah pushed her half-eaten meal toward the bartender, who swept it up wordlessly and with one hand.

  Susannah leaned back on her barstool, allowing the man next to her to see her, the curve of her under her dress. She liked being watched. She didn’t even have to look at him to know his eyes were on her. She came forward again, reached for her martini glass, and snuck a glance at him from the side of her eye.

  “Do you live here?”

  She looked up at him, as if surprised. “Yes, I do.”

  “It’s a beautiful town. The lake is magnificent.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m just here for meetings. I live in New York. First time here. Quick flight. I should come more often.”

  His old-fashioned arrived, the bartender placing it in front of him.

  “I used to live in New York,” Susannah said. “West Village.”

  “I’m downtown. Tri
beca.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I work in tech. How about you?”

  “I’m an artist,” Susannah found herself saying, though it had been a long time since she had thought of herself that way.

  “Do you paint? Teach?”

  “Both. I paint. And I teach at the university.” She surprised herself with how easily this lie rolled off her tongue, what it felt like to pretend to be someone else, if only for a moment.

  “Well, I’m impressed. I’m Michael.”

  “Susannah.”

  They talked, and as they did, Susannah found herself creating a whole new her. She wasn’t a housewife, she wasn’t a mom; she had never had a child, wasn’t for her, you know? Instead the commitment to her practice was so complete, she had hardly had time for men, other than for those important needs, if he knew what she meant. (He nodded and smiled, as if to say he did.) The portrait she drew for him was of a powerful woman who had made her way through the scrappy art world of New York, had traveled much, risen up through academia, all while leaving a trail of broken hearts behind her.

  “Well, let me ask you something then,” he said, finally stopping her in a way that made her realize she had been talking for a while, a mania she didn’t know she needed to exorcise.

  “Sure.” She nodded.

  “Then what’s with the wedding band?”

  Susannah looked down and she laughed. “I wear it to keep men like you from hitting on me.”

  He smiled. “Oh, is that what I’m doing?”

  “You know what you’re doing.” She touched his knee as she said it.

  This was what she wanted, all she wanted, that moment when she could feel the desire radiating off him, to know that she could summon it, that this man who had forty minutes before never seen her was now imagining her without her clothes, his hands moving over her, what it would be like to be inside her.

  By the time they left the bar together, Susannah realized she was drunk. The bar had filled up since she arrived, and he led her through the crowd that had gathered at the other end, and past the band setting up to play in the lobby, three long-haired young guys unpacking amplifiers and microphone stands.

  “Come upstairs with me,” he whispered in her ear as they walked.

  She shook her head and laughed. “You wish.”

  As they came around the lobby toward the elevators, she felt his hand on her back guiding her toward them. As they entered the empty foyer that housed the elevators, Susannah spun him around quickly, so that he was against the wall. She moved against him and he went for her mouth with his lips, but she moved her head away from him, and his lips fell on the side of her neck. She pushed into him and she felt his hands sliding down her back and he was pulling her tight. Susannah kicked her head back, felt his mouth hot on her neck. Then she pushed him in the chest, hard, and he said, “Hey,” but she didn’t care.

  She stepped away from him. She was quite drunk. She looked at his face. He was good-looking, so symmetrical, all those lines, a perfect nose, his even-shaped blue eyes, the line of his dark beard, sculpted. She laughed.

  “Why are you laughing?”

  Susannah laughed more. It was cartoonish laughing but she couldn’t help it. She twirled her finger toward his face, small circles, and turned around. She sashayed away from him, aware of his eyes on her ass.

  “Wait. What the fuck?”

  But she didn’t stop. She moved back out into the lobby and she didn’t look back. She went past the front desk and then out the front doors to the street. There was no way she should be driving but she was going to make it home.

  THE RIDE HOME WAS NOT long but, to Susannah, it might as well have been a safari. She gripped the wheel tightly with both hands and focused on keeping it straight, on stopping fully at the lights, on getting the car up the hill, which was what she repeated to herself: Up the hill and a right turn and you are safe. Just don’t fucking hit anything, please.

  By some miracle, she made it onto her street, then down it, and pulled in the driveway. Not until the following morning would she see that she’d left the car parked on a hard diagonal, the only evidence of the danger she had narrowly avoided.

  She barreled into the house, her legs suddenly unsteady, forward momentum taking her into the kitchen. She thought for a moment about smoking a cigarette, then felt the gin rising in her throat and just made it in time to the sink, where she emptied herself.

  Susannah stood for a while after, the sink against her back, in case more was to come. She took out her phone and had fifteen texts from Max, increasingly frantic, but she couldn’t get herself to do anything. All she needed was to take a moment and write him back and say something like I’m so sorry, I lost my phone. Or My phone died.

  But she couldn’t do even that. Her head spun. She was numb and felt terrible.

  She stumbled upstairs. She managed to brush her teeth, slide the dress off and onto the floor. She went to the bed and let the sleep come, not elusive this night, though she knew the morning would bring other problems.

  AFTER MAX LEFT GOLDMAN, HE was on such a high he eschewed the car they had waiting to whisk him back to the hotel. He wanted to walk. He wanted to be on the streets again, this old New York, the anonymity of it all, just another guy walking down the cobblestones of lower Manhattan. The day was pleasant and warm and even in the midafternoon the streets were full. The smells of the city were everywhere, cigarette smoke and garbage piled around streetlamps, truck exhaust, and the sounds, too, the beeping of horns, the grinding of brakes, the cacophony of voices as he passed people, different languages coming to him as music rather than as words.

  Fifty fucking thousand dollars and for what? Not that Goldman cared, since they probably paid Bon Jovi a cool million. Max had passed the band on his way out, the aging hair rockers, Jon Bon giving him a “Hey, man” as Max walked by them.

  Max had killed, though. They were better than a college audience. They were amped from the moment he got onstage. It was less about him and more about their energy. Audiences had their own ecosystems and sometimes it was simply a matter of holding up a mirror and reflecting their energy back. The great speakers all did this, harnessed that power that didn’t come from them but from the mass of the people in front of them. One of these days, Max thought, maybe he would teach people how to do this. Maybe he would tell them that the amazing thing about addressing a crowd was that they are never thinking about you, the person who they are all staring at, the person that they are listening to drop words like dimes, but they are, instead, thinking about themselves. Audiences are selfish, so give them a reason to be. He could make millions selling that idea.

  Meanwhile, folded in an envelope, was the check that had been handed him before he went on. It felt like precious cargo. It was all coming together now, he thought. Finally a way to deeply monetize this adventure that had started when Max W picked him up on the side of the highway in his Jeep all those years ago: Max’s words were the currency and he had truly become the art.

  Thinking this, Max smiled and laughed as he walked down the city streets. Jesus, even he was beginning to believe his own bullshit.

  It was a perfect day. Bright blue skies and no humidity, a light breeze blowing off the ocean. Max walked and he walked and soon he found himself approaching Union Square Park and he went in past the people playing chess at small tables and to a bench where he sat down.

  He thought about calling Susannah, telling her what a victory this all was, but he decided against it, not yet anyway. He wanted to keep it to himself for now. He wanted to savor it. The moment, the day, the fat check, the feeling of being in the city, the place he used to feel outside of it all, Tiny Tim looking through a window, and now he was not only inside it, but had also transcended it. A feeling of intense superiority came over him as he watched people moving through the park, hustling everywhere; the big, baggy hustle that was America and that he had figured out. It was all coming together now. He had fooled everyone, hadn�
�t he? Well, maybe not Detective Scott, but what was she going to do? There was no case. The coroner said so.

  Sitting in the park, a distant memory came to him, a time he had sat either on this bench or one like it. Across the way he had spotted a girl, a fellow traveler, and she saw him and his big bag and gave him a weak wave. Union Square Park was a common meeting place for crusty punks. He went over to her and they were instantly into it, talking a language only their kind understood. It was like being in a faraway country and spotting a fellow American. She was skinny and pretty with her hair, like his, falling down either side of her face in long brown dreadlocks. They smoked a joint she had and then Dumpster-dived for dinner behind the Union Square Café until they were chased off by someone coming out of the kitchen. That night, they fucked furtively on a bench in Battery Park, wrapped in blankets and looking out to the Statue of Liberty across the water. They slept curled up in the dark park, and when he woke, she was gone.

  Max tried to remember her name now. Lauren maybe?

  It didn’t matter. In a long life, people pass in and out. Funny, he thought, who it is we choose to have stay.

  MAX HAD DINNER THAT NIGHT at Marea, an expensive seafood place on Central Park South right next to his hotel. He was able to get a seat at the crowded bar and he ate things he knew he could never find in Vermont: an octopus grilled on a cedar plank; a sampling of different crudos; followed by a whole branzino that the bartender presented to him dead and uncooked, before returning it to the kitchen for roasting. He drank vodka martinis and he loved this kind of food. The freshest fish imaginable, prepared simply. It gave him a buzz.

  Afterward, Max walked out of the restaurant and took out his phone. He stood on the sidewalk, people walking by him, and dialed Susannah. It rang and went to voice mail. He looked at the time. Weird, he thought, though maybe she was in the shower. He waited and called again and it went straight to voice mail.

  Max sent her a text. Where are u?