Perfect Lies

by Liza Bennett

  The party started at four o’clock; it didn’t start to wind down until after six.

  “That’s okay, I can finish up,” Meg told Oliver after he’d helped her collect empty cans and bottles and bag the trash. “I’m staying for a while longer anyway.”

  “What for?”

  “Oh, just a lot of catching up to do.”

  In truth, she had nowhere else to go. For the last dozen years, she’s spent Christmas up in Red River. The traditions of those long, snow-laden weekends were now so much a part of her thinking and memories, that the idea of being anywhere else for the holidays seemed impossible to her. After she finished cleaning up, she went back to her office and tried to concentrate on the files in front of her. Instead, her thoughts drifted … up to the town that now despised her.

  The front porch of Yoder’s store would be stacked with Christmas trees and hung with holly wreaths for sale, the gas lights on Main Street wrapped with red ribbons to look like enormous candy canes. The old blue spruce next to the War Memorial would be decorated by the VFW, and in front of the Congregational Church a nearly life-size crèche would be set up, all the principal papier-mâché players dressed in real clothes hand-sewn by the ladies auxiliary. Last year, parishioners arriving for Christmas morning services had been outraged to see Joseph wearing a Montville High football helmet.

  Though it hadn’t snowed for a week or two, a heavy storm was forecast. By Christmas Eve, Red River would be adrift, voices and footsteps muffled, the town seemingly cut off from the rest of the world for a time, and yet utterly safe. On Christmas Eve night, Francine held a family service. The last carol was always “Silent Night” and Clint would lower the lights, and the candles surrounding the altar would glow and flicker as the high, reedy voices of excited children filled the small church. It was a moment that never failed to send a shiver up Meg’s normally straight and cynical spine. And this year she wouldn’t be there to see it—to see Brook and Phoebe in the new dresses that Lark sewed for them each Christmas, their faces full of innocence and wonder, singing the familiar words.

  Around seven-thirty Meg heard a noise in the front of the office. The cleaning service never got to Meg’s floor until eight o’clock most nights and, though the building was generally considered safe, she often found the night security guard nodding off when she left past regular working hours. Meg was accustomed to living alone, her mental radar highly attuned to the constant warning signals of urban danger. Hers were the only overhead office lights still on, and they could easily be spotted from the reception area. So when she heard someone coming toward her down the hall, she felt an adrenaline rush of fear.

  “Abe.”

  He was dressed for the office: black cashmere overcoat open at the front, tailored dark blue suit, custom-made shirt, preppy scarf draped like a mantle over his shoulders. His hair was slightly damp, and it occurred to Meg that it had started to snow. She also realized, in much the same carefully detached way, that she was very glad to see him. Too glad. She took a step back.

  “You scared the hell out of me.”

  “Sorry.” He was carrying a canvas tote, which he set down by the door. There were three packages in it, identical in size and gift wrapping. “I should have called, but I didn’t get back into the city this morning. Been trying to catch up ever since … I was dropping off presents and got tied up at the Spellman party.” He glanced around her office: the papers waiting for her on the desk and, next to them, the half-filled plastic glass of cola and little pile of pretzels left over from the earlier festivities. She taken off her heels and had on the reading glasses her vanity allowed her to wear only when she was alone. She thought she saw pity in the look he gave her.

  “You all alone?” he asked.

  “We’ve been so busy,” she said, hoping to appear casual as she removed the glasses. “I’m trying to catch up on some of this damned paperwork.” She hadn’t actually seen him face-to-face since the afternoon he had kissed her in the park and it struck her how self-contained he seemed—not relaxed, but utterly in control of himself and aware of his surroundings. Ethan had been so expansive and dramatic in his movements—all muscle mass and brute force—often unaware of his own strength. Abe knew where he was every second. His gestures were formed by understatement. The raised eyebrow in the courtroom that could seed doubt in the most reluctant juror’s mind. The hand, half-raised, framing the question to come—then dropped again to his side: questions too big to answer.

  She realized how much she longed to feel those hands on her body, and she protectively folded her arms across her chest. Where had he been these last two weeks—a time when she’d needed him more than she ever had anyone before in her life? She wasn’t accustomed to wanting something beyond her grasp, to being dependent on another person—and it made her feel vulnerable and confused. She wanted to demand an explanation from him—a full accounting of his unreliable behavior. At the same time, she wanted simply to be taken into the warm, comforting shelter of his arms.

  He pulled out one of the wrapped gifts. Meg knew from other years past that it was going to be a very good champagne.

  “Boardman told me about Lucinda a few hours ago,” he said, handing her the gift. “I‘m sorry.”

  “But you can’t say you didn’t warn me.” Meg tried to smile, but suspected that she didn’t look particularly convincing.

  “How are you holding up?”

  “Fine,” Meg turned and put the gift on her desk. She didn’t want him to see her face as she lied to him. “And you? Did you win the case in LA?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” Abe said, taking a step closer to her. “But with no thanks to me. My heart wasn’t in it. Thank God, the opposing counsel was such a moron.”

  “Where …” Meg kept her back to him as she fiddled with the plastic bow on the top of the package. “Was your heart?”

  “I think maybe you know.”

  She felt his hands on her waist, the warmth of his lips on her neck. He pulled her back toward him and then slowly forced her to turn and face him. She felt as if she could see right through him—to the longing, the disappointment. Looking at him now—the eyes that were too knowing, too old for his mobile, boyish face—it occurred to her that what he’d given Becca was the brightness of his love, untainted and idealized—without letting her share any of the dark recesses of his psyche. He’d given Becca everything—and she had trashed it all in front of him, and in the eyes of the world.

  Maybe that was what he was afraid of now, why he had been holding back. Love, for Abe, had meant adoration. He’d put Becca on a pedestal—he’d revered her, but always at an arm’s length. For many years that was all Meg herself had wanted from a man. But Ethan’s murder had changed that. She could no longer be satisfied with just taking.

  She didn’t say anything as she pulled off his coat. She could hear his surprise—a quick intake of breath—when, holding his hand, she stepped to door and turned off the light. The reflected light from the reception area lit up certain objects in the room: the top of a stapler, the phone receiver, the metal handles on the filing cabinet. In the near darkness, the falling snow outside was now visible—soft flakes floating haphazardly in the darkness. Somewhere there was the distant sound of a vacuum cleaner, a muffled roar of traffic.

  “I need to know something, Abe,” she said, brushing his hair off his forehead. “Why didn’t you tell me about Ethan and Becca?”

  He looked at her for a long time. At first, just her eyes. Then her lips. It was a speculative gaze, troubled and probing.

  “I thought you’d heard,” he said at last. “I assumed Lark had told you. And when I realized you didn’t know about Ethan, I just couldn’t bring myself to go into it all. I wanted to escape it. Move on, Meg. With you.”

  She studied his face in the near darkness, hoping to find truth there. But this was a man who presented arguments for a living, who knew how to manipulate facts, how to shade reality for his own ends. Did he see the lingering doubt
in her eyes? He leaned over and kissed her, pulling her against him. There was something fierce and demanding in the way he ran his hands through her hair, down her back, cupping her buttocks to him.

  “Abe …” she pulled away, alarmed by the strength of his need. “What is it?”

  “I tried to stay away.”

  “Why?”

  “Because everything is just too complicated right now. Too intense.” He told her unhappily. “And I wanted us to take this slowly. I want so much … for this to work.”

  “And it can’t now?”

  “I don’t know. There are so many others things to think about. So many dangers—”

  But, before he could finish his thought, her lips hungrily found his again. And, despite the fact that he was right—this was the wrong time and place for what was happening to them—very soon they forgot everything but the here and now, touch and breath, of two people discovering and delighting in each other again.

  “It’s going to be lonely up there without you.”

  “It’s going to be lonely here. It’s been—I don’t know—years, since I’ve spent the holidays anywhere else. I need to stay around—in case Lucinda calls. Not that I’m welcome anywhere else at this point.

  “I’d stay in the city, Meg, but I promised Lark that I’d come for dinner—for Brook and Phoebe, you know. And then there’s the Lindberghs’ opening.” Meg knew from Hannah about the wine-and-cheese reception on Christmas Day that Clint and Janine were hosting in the renovated icehouse to celebrate their new workshop and small gallery. Hannah advised the couple on how best to display the studio’s wares and, in fact, had taken a real interest in their venture. Hannah herself was planning to attend the party. It occurred to Meg that everyone would be there but she and Lucinda and Matt.

  “How is everybody? I miss them all so much. I can’t begin to tell you.”

  They were sitting on her small, lumpy office couch, watching the thickening snowflakes. His arm was around her shoulders. He leaned over and kissed her temple. He kept his lips there as he said, “I’m sure they miss you, too.”

  “Francine told me the girls are not allowed even to mention my name.”

  “I’m not going to put myself in the middle of this. Between you two. Especially not now.”

  She knew that he was right to say that, but she had wanted to hear something else.

  “You know, I’m as much at fault about Lucinda taking off as—”

  “Don’t even say it,” Abe warned her. “Lucinda’s leaving was unconscionable.”

  “We had a fight,” Meg tried to explain. “I said some things I probably shouldn’t have.”

  “Please, Meg,” Abe laughed, but it was not a happy sound. “I know you’re worried sick about her, but don’t kid yourself. She screwed you over—and herself in the process.”

  Her head rested in the crook of his arm and she could hear his heart beating through his shirt front. The soreness between her legs felt good. He had surprised her with his lovemaking, and she had surprised herself. It seemed to her that once again something extraordinary had taken place between them, that sex had been just a minor part of it. She wondered what he was feeling, but wouldn’t ask him.

  Her body felt lighter than air. It seemed impossible considering how remarkably alive she felt, but she must have fallen asleep very briefly. She heard only the tail end of something he’d asked her.

  “What?”

  “We can leave my number up there on your machine in case she calls. We’ll take the dirt road in from Montville.”

  “To Red River?”

  “Why not? Nobody will even know you’re there.”

  “I’d love to Abe … but—”

  “Why not?” Abe agreed. “It can’t be doing you a lot of good—sitting around your apartment worrying, all alone. You’ve been to my place. I rattle around in the damn thing these days. And I’ve that whole mountain where nobody goes in the winter. We can get some fresh air, maybe do some skiing, try to work out where Lucinda and Matt might have gotten to.”

  Though Meg tended to prefer older homes—farmhouses like Lark’s, or the big boxy Colonials that dotted the New England landscape—if she had to live in a modern structure, she would have chosen Abe’s. A series of rectangles composed of glass and wood, the house was set down on the portion of the mountaintop to offering the widest possible view of the river, the town, and the rising mountains beyond. Small rounded decks and screened porches skirted the north and south side of building, but the east side of the house was a glass wall two stories high, unobstructed by anything but the beckoning horizon. Meg remembered how clean the night air had smelled on the one occasion she’d been there with Lark and Ethan for a party, how close the stars had seemed.

  Taking her silence for hesitation, he continued, “It’s in the middle of nowhere, Meg, and no one has to know you’re there. I promise, you’ll be perfectly safe.”

  34

  The snow continued through the long drive up to Red River that Saturday morning, throughout the rest of the day after they arrived at Abe’s place, and into the night as they sat around the two-story fieldstone fireplace and played Scrabble. Meg had a hard time concentrating on the game. She was too busy trying to see Abe in a new, somehow surprising context—this showplace home with its gleaming hardwood floors and lush oriental carpets. Though he’d turned up the thermostat as soon as they walked in and though the fire had been blazing all evening, Meg felt a draft circulating through the airy, pristine rooms. At first she thought it was caused by the snow, piling up in drifts against the big windows in the living room. Then she realized that what she was sensing wasn’t a real chill. The house simply was cold—a beautiful shell, filled with lovely things, where nobody seemed to be living.

  She yearned for the comfortable disarray and noisiness of Lark’s living room. The books and magazines scattered across the beat-up coffee table. The throw pillows that were actually used for throwing when the mood overtook Brook and Phoebe. The couch that could double as a trampoline or transform itself into a sailing vessel depending on the needs of the moment. Abe’s long white leather sofa with its elegant lines and small tightly packed armrests was one thing and one thing only: a place to sit, preferably with back straight and a cocktail glass in one hand. Meg couldn’t imagine children careering through these rooms, and that thought made her sad.

  “I have a feeling you’re not very interested in the game,” Abe said at one point when he got up to put another log on the dying fire.

  “And I thought I was being so discreet,” Meg said. “How can you tell?” She enjoyed watching him move. He was wearing jeans, and a faded work shirt—though the toughest physical chore he probably faced was transporting logs in from the woodpile. Abe’s energy differed from Ethan’s. There was a sense of premeditation in everything he did. Abe seemed to be a man governed by his thinking. And it was a mind, Meg was beginning to realize, that never stopped working. Though they had kept the conversation light and humorous throughout the day, she had been aware of Abe’s intense, inward concentration. And even as they argued amicably enough through dinner about the political shenanigans in Washington, she sensed that his thoughts were really elsewhere.

  “That’s the second time you’ve made the word ‘rice.’ You could at least have opted for ‘icer.’ “ He sat back down beside her. “I keep my eye on the little things. They reveal a lot.”

  “Is that how you found out about Becca and Ethan?”

  She had meant to bring it up gracefully—or let it emerge on its own over the course of the weekend. Abe had given her the short answer to her question the night before. But the complicated circumstances of Becca’s betrayal had been haunting Meg ever since Lark had told her how Becca had thrown herself at Ethan. How could any husband handle such humiliation? Let alone someone as intelligent and observant as Abe. She realized now how much she wanted to hear his side of the story.

  “You don’t have to talk about it if—” Meg began to say.

>   “I don’t?” He turned to her, dark brows raised ironically. “Really? You’ll happily spend the weekend in the house that Becca helped design and decorate, that has her taste and personality stamped all over it—without really needing to learn what happened? You’ll sleep with me in the king-sized bed she picked out? The black designer sheets she had specially made?”

  “Lark told me you threw out everything that was hers—or that she gave to you.”

  “Well that’s the hard part, isn’t it?” Abe replied, getting up to tend the fire unnecessarily. “What was strictly Becca’s? And what was ours? Half mine. There’s never any clear division. This house?” He turned and raised his arms to the soaring cathedral ceiling. “We both had it built. Made decisions together about the bird’s-eye maple cabinetry, the Moravian tiling—I’d have to tear the whole damn thing down now to really get rid of her.”

  “So you kept the sheets.”

  “I’m not answering your question, am I?” he said, getting her point.

  She tilted her head and smiled.

  “You look so relaxed, so lovely right now,” he went on. “Do we really have to talk about such an ugly thing?”

  “I thought I made it clear to you. If we’re going to give this thing a try, I want it to be real. I’ve dealt with way too many lies and half-truths lately.”

  “Well, then, let me ask you something,” Abe said, folding his arms across his chest. “Do you like Becca?”

  “I hardly know her.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. I know what you’re like. You have instant reactions to most people. The first time you met Becca. What did you think?”