Nobody Knows But You

by Anica Mrose Rissi

  “Yeah. It’s a better story that way,” you said. And of course you were right.

  The first time I was in on it happened a few days later, in week two. You didn’t warn me in advance, but I think it was spur-of-the-moment. Most of your lies weren’t premeditated.

  The night before, we’d snuck out for the fourth or fifth time. Our escapes happened regularly, but not every night, and not on a schedule I could predict. It was all according to your whims. I didn’t mind. The uncertainty was part of the excitement.

  That night I expected to follow you down the hill, onto the dock, where we’d always gone before. I already thought of the dock as Our Place, even though a hundred people or more used it in daytime. But you turned left out our cabin door and went up the path toward the road. I hustled after you.

  “Where are we going?” I whispered once we’d gotten a safe distance away. The moon was full, low, and bright. The brightness felt dangerous, like a spotlight was on us.

  You weren’t worried about hiding. You walked down the center of the empty dirt road and opened your arms to the galaxy. You twirled before acknowledging my question. “To town,” you said.

  “How?” Town was a few miles away, and neither of us was dressed for civilization. We’d look like fugitives in our pajamas, even if it weren’t clearly past our bedtime. (It was past everyone in Jaspertown’s bedtime. Early bedtime’s the whole point of rural life.)

  You shrugged. “We’ll hitchhike. Find a bar where we can dance with the locals.”

  I stared at you. “Are you serious?”

  You grinned and held out your hand. “If I am, will you go with me?”

  I took the offered hand. You spun me like the road was our dance hall. “It’s one a.m. I highly doubt anything is open around here at this hour,” I said.

  You released me and kept walking. “Maybe not. But I was kidding. I don’t need townies. I’ve got you.”

  “Thanks?”

  “It’s a compliment,” you confirmed. “I choose your company above all others. You’re welcome, dah-ling.” I glowed. You tipped your head at me. “I just wanted to go for a stroll. I get restless stuck in one place. Is that cool?”

  “It’s cool.”

  We walked to the end of the road and back, sometimes talking, sometimes not, and went back to the cabin and slept. That was it.

  The next morning, Maddie interrogated us at breakfast. “I saw you guys sneak back in last night. Where’d you go?”

  I made my eyes round with innocence, but you didn’t try to deny it. Instead, straight-faced, you said, “We hitchhiked into town.”

  Maddie’s face was pure shock. A few other people turned to listen. You hadn’t kept your voice down. “Are you serious?” she asked.

  You lifted your eyebrows with mild surprise. “Of course,” you said.

  Maddie looked to me for confirmation. I shrugged. I was curious to hear where you might take this.

  “You went along with that?” Maddie pushed.

  You answered for me. “Actually, it was Kayla’s idea.”

  I shoved a forkful of egg in my mouth to stop my face from reacting.

  “Wow,” Maddie said. She looked at me with new respect.

  Another camper leaned across the table. (Is it possible that was Emma? She wasn’t relevant yet, so there’s no reason for me to have noticed her. This was long before we met Jackson. But when I replay this memory, I picture her strongly—already lurking around, just waiting for you to acknowledge her, or whatever the fuck her deal was.)

  “Weren’t you scared? Especially out so late?” Emma or Not-Emma asked. (Do I only remember her there and at other weird moments because of the shit that came later? I don’t know. I’m clearly biased, so perhaps my memory can’t be trusted. But I’d bet you anything it’s right.)

  “Yeah. What if you got picked up by an ax murderer?” Maddie said.

  You shook your head. “I had Kayla there to protect me. The odds of two ax murderers on one country road have got to be very slim.”

  Everyone laughed and you told them about the night we’d had. The bar’s old-fashioned jukebox with no songs from after 1992. The sawdust on the floor. The college guys we ignored to dance only with each other. The pixieish bartender with a unicorn tattoo who gave us a ride at the end of her shift. We told her we lived on Landon Lane, so she dropped us off there and we walked the rest of the way.

  I was sure they would know it was bullshit, but they ate it up, staring at us with awe.

  “Did they serve you?” someone asked.

  “Just a Sprite,” you said. “And Kayla had a virgin daiquiri.” You winked, but no one else caught it.

  It’s funny: As you told that story, I almost believed it. I started feeling kind of jealous of this adventure you’d had without me. But that wink was a reminder we were in on this together.

  “I still wish I’d kept the paper umbrella,” I said with a sigh. I’ve always been a terrible liar, but it came out smooth. People believed my embellishment. I felt a thrill of power.

  I get why you told those stories. It was fun. You enjoyed the rush. You liked being the center of attention, and pulling one over on everyone else. The power trip of making people laugh—making them believe you—was addictive. You were interested in seeing how much you could get away with, how far you could push the truth. It was a way of protecting yourself too. A version of the Teflon.

  Your stories were a shield. They kept anyone else from knowing you in ways you didn’t want them to.

  I didn’t mind. I played along. And I loved being the only one who knew the truth. It made our nighttime escapes all the more ours. It made the secrets you confided seem all the more intimate.

  Once, when I reacted with “I can’t believe you told them that. I can’t believe they believed it,” I remember what you said.

  “Look. They want to believe I’m outrageous. They want life to be as interesting as I make it sound. They don’t want a girl like me to be just like everyone else. They want excitement. So I let them have it. I’m giving the people what they want! And I’m less bored this way. Everyone’s happier in the end.”

  That seemed true. The one or two times your embellishments got called out, you didn’t dig in or get embarrassed. You gave the kind of smile that invited others in on the joke, and said, “But it makes a better story that way, doesn’t it?” And it only made people like you more.

  I wasn’t there when you lied to the cops the morning after Jackson died, but I know why you did that too. You were scared. No one really knew what had happened yet—only that Jackson was dead and everyone was freaking out and the police had questions, especially for those who knew him best. You. Me. Nitin. His counselors. The other guys in his cabin. Anyone who might be able to shed light on what appeared to be a tragic accident.

  There was a rumor he’d dived off the dock into a rock, though there were “No Diving” signs all over and everyone knew it was shallow in places. Jackson was a decent swimmer, but not with a head wound.

  It was all so shocking and impossible to comprehend, and you especially were in a daze. Only alone with me did you let yourself get hysterical. I couldn’t do anything to ground you. You just weren’t thinking straight.

  It was the first time I’d seen you truly panic.

  No one had said the word murder yet. People weren’t thinking of his death as suspicious. Not even the police. So it makes perfect sense to me: Of course you lied. The third rule of crime is Don’t Get Caught, and we’d been covering our tracks expertly all summer. We had been in that mode for eight weeks by that point. It wasn’t easy to just switch out of it.

  You probably told those lies on autopilot, out of habit and fear of getting caught. Not caught for killing him—caught sneaking out of our cabin after lights-out. There wasn’t any use confessing that and stirring up more trouble.

  You told the cops you’d kissed him goodnight outside our cabin before curfew. And you had. (The best lies are built on truth, even if those aren�
�t the most entertaining ones.) You just didn’t mention kissing him again—and more—when you met up again later as planned.

  That omission, when they discovered it, turned the cops’ full suspicions on you. They had a lot more questions after that, and a lot more trouble believing you.

  When they asked around, they learned you’d been stretching the truth all summer. Things really snowballed from there.

  It was shit luck. Telling stories isn’t a crime—or it shouldn’t be. And even if you’re a liar, that doesn’t make you a murderer. Though from the way some people are talking, it’s practically hard, admissible evidence. (I can see you rolling your eyes and saying, “Of course they are.” The perfect dismissal.)

  For some reason that morning I asked you, “Was he alive the last time you saw him?” You looked stunned and said, “Are you kidding? Yes.” I believed you.

  I still do.

  Love,

  Kayla

  Camper and Counselor Interviews, Statements, and Posts

  August 14–November 24

  “I don’t think it could have happened the way everyone says it happened. Like, why would you kill someone over something like that? I think it must have been an accident or, like, bears or something, I don’t know.”

  “My first week at camp I was totally scared to walk back to the cabin or to the bathrooms alone after dark. I always made someone go with me. People told all these stories at campfire one night, and it freaked me out.

  “There’s a counselor who drowned in the lake a long time ago, and his ghost still haunts the boathouse. When he cries, it sounds like the loons at night. You can hear them across the lake. Not to mention ax murderers.

  “I heard a noise the first week, and I really thought there might be someone or something hiding in the woods, waiting to kill us. I never thought to be scared of other campers, though.

  “I don’t think my parents will send me back next year. This kind of ruined camp for a lot of us, you know?”

  “How come nobody’s talking about Nitin? Where was he that night? He and Jackson seemed tight for the first part of camp, but I never saw them together toward the end. If they had some kind of falling-out, that might be relevant. I don’t know. Nitin always seemed nice, but that’s suspicious too. Like, he almost was too nice for Jackson. I don’t know what they had in common, besides being in the same cabin.

  “It’s always the quiet ones you have to look out for.”

  “The night we hooked up, Jackson told me about Lainie’s temper. We didn’t talk about her much because we were . . . you know . . . but that’s one thing he said. ‘That girl has a major temper,’ or something like that.

  “He wasn’t afraid of her or anything but, like, maybe he should have been. All these people talking about ‘maybe it was an accident’ or ‘maybe it was Nitin’ or maybe it was me, even, need to face the facts. She had a temper. She had a temper and she killed him. End of story.

  “I can’t believe I hooked up with him a few weeks ago and now he’s dead.”

  “I thought their relationship seemed really passionate. To be honest, I was kind of jealous. I wanted to have a summer romance that interesting and dramatic.

  “Now I don’t know what to think.”

  September 13

  Dear Lainie,

  I’m supposed to be writing a persuasive essay, due tomorrow, on whether cell phones should be allowed in school, but I’ll most definitely be asking for an extension and telling Mr. Rabbani it’s been hard for me to focus on anything but you.

  So far my teachers have been very understanding about the “extenuating circumstances” affecting my academic performance. I’ve been doing less work, yet making better grades, than at any other point in my high school career. So, thanks for that, I guess?

  I would much rather still be a plain old, regular slacker and have my best friend back. No lie.

  Ugh.

  Here’s something you told us that still makes me laugh, even if it’s fake: the kid you went to school with whose name is Groovy Nipples.

  We were out on the dock—a warm night. I remember you had your feet in the water and it splashed if you kicked when Jackson tickled you now and then. Nitin and I were commiserating about our teachers’ faces lighting up when they realized we were related to our exceptional older siblings, and that sinking feeling we’d get, knowing the bar had been raised too high and we were guaranteed to fall—splat!—on our asses right below it.

  You lifted your head off Jackson’s shoulder. “It could be worse,” you said. “Your parents could have named you Groovy Nipples.”

  No one pointed out the non sequitur. “Groovy Nipples is not a name,” I said, looking away from Jackson’s fingers sliding up your back, under the tank top, as though Nitin and I weren’t right there, less than three feet away.

  “It absolutely is,” you said, “unfortunately for Groovy Nipples Eaton.” You told us about the girl at your school whose parents were total hippies and probably high off the birth meds and who knows what else when they named her.

  “Is Nipples, like, a middle name? And Groovy is her first name?” Nitin asked, squinting like that would bring the answers into focus.

  “No, it’s one name, like Mary Kate or Wilma Sue.”

  “Okay, no one is named Wilma Sue,” I said. You shrugged.

  Jackson nuzzled your neck. Nitin shot me a quick eye-roll and I liked him more than ever, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be handed off on him. If we were grouping off in twos, that wasn’t the correct pairing. Everyone except me seemed to have missed or forgotten that. (Though Nitin might have preferred you or Jackson at that point; who knows.)

  “Does she have siblings?” I asked, to pull you back to us.

  “An older brother. Paul.”

  I shook my head. “Is that true?”

  You pulled your feet from the water and swiveled to face me. Jackson turned too. He looked bored now that he wasn’t groping you. “Do you want it to be?” you asked.

  “That’s not an answer,” I said.

  You wiggled your toes. “Truth is stranger than fiction, Randy.”

  Jackson poked you in the side and you dodged his fingers and giggled, gasping for breath when he went for the full tickle.

  It was fake. You weren’t ticklish. I knew that was true. We’d had a whole conversation about “mind over matter” and your conviction that ticklishness is all in one’s head . . . though I’m still hopelessly ticklish and haven’t been able to train myself out of it, even with your best attempts at coaching me. I’m weaker-willed than you, I guess.

  I’d tested you, though, and you were a woman of steel through all my little pokes and jabs and scuttles and soft touches. Never breaking, no matter where I ran my fingers. You were faking it for him, to stroke his ego or keep his attention, and that was annoying to watch, like all PDA—but it also made me a bit smug. He thought he could control you, but I knew you were the one manipulating him.

  “Why do you call her that?” Jackson asked when the tickles had stopped and you’d tucked yourself against him.

  “What?” you said.

  “Randy.”

  You sneak-attacked with a nudge of tickles in his side. His giggle was high-pitched. That form of excuse to touch each other was getting old, fast. “Why do you think?” you teased.

  Jackson grinned. “Because she’s so randy? Like, horny all the time?”

  I wanted to vomit. You rolled your eyes. “Yes, it’s a comment on the perpetual wetness of Kayla’s vagina,” you said, your voice dry. I would have been okay, I think, if you’d stopped there, but you went on. “Randy is uncommonly lascivious,” you added. “She whacks off so hard our whole bunk bed shakes. And you should hear the moaning. It lasts all through the night.” Nitin shifted uncomfortably and I shot daggers that bounced right off you as you and Jackson laughed.

  Guys like Jackson love it when a girl talks about sex, no matter what she’s saying. It fogs their brains and stimulates their salivary glands
and distracts them from anything else that’s happening. You knew that and played it to your full advantage. You used me in that moment to draw Jackson to you.

  I hated it. I had to look up the word lascivious later (I’m certain Jackson didn’t know it either), but even without a dictionary on hand, the gist—and your intentions—were clear. It took my breath away. I’d never been the butt of your jokes before. You were thoughtless with plenty of people, but you’d never been thoughtless toward me. And for what? To impress Jackson for five seconds? Was that worth humiliating your best friend?

  My cheeks burned in the dark and I considered getting up and leaving, but then you pulled away from Jackson. You reached for my hand and squeezed it. “Sorry to tell them your secret,” you said. “You know it’s that I live my life in truth.”

  Nitin snorted. Jackson looked confused. “It’s okay,” I said. I squeezed back. “People were bound to find out eventually. All that gushing. The randy waterfalls. The way I talk about sex twenty-four seven.”

  You shook your head solemnly. “You need help, Randy. But I still love you.”

  “I love you too. You and your groovy, groovy nipples.”

  Your laughter then was real.

  I looked for Groovy Nipples Eaton online today, wondering if she could possibly exist. I couldn’t find her through Google or on social media, but if I were named Groovy Nipples, I would use a nickname or go into hiding. I did find a real person named Gruvi Nipples Paulekas, who was born in 1967 and had a little brother named Freakus (or Phreekus), if the internet is to be believed. Maybe you’d heard about her and removed the degrees of separation. Not a complete lie, exactly.

  Like you said: Truth is stranger than fiction.

  At any rate, with that hand squeeze, you squashed my irritation. It was you and me versus them and everyone else again. Maybe you’d never meant to humiliate me, only to keep the others out of what was ours. It was none of Jackson’s or Nitin’s business why you called me Randy. You’d offered up a lie to protect our secret.

  You were under Jackson’s spell, but not completely—not yet. It wasn’t too late then to pull you back to me.