Two Truths and a Lie

by Meg Mitchell Moore

  “Whoa,” said Destiny. “This just took a turn.”

  “You failed your driver’s test?” said Caitlin.

  “I don’t know,” said Alexa savagely. “Did I?”

  “I think the game is supposed to be a little more lighthearted?” said Caitlin. She was clearly buzzed, because she had started ending every one of her sentences with a question mark. “Something along the lines of how Destiny did it? Here, I can go. Want me to go, Alexa? One. I have never been swimming on a beach where there’s been a shark sighting. Two—”

  She stopped and stared, because now Alexa was standing, almost quivering.

  “Well I’m sorry if I don’t feel like playing this game. I’m sorry I’m not lighthearted enough. I’m sorry that my dad died and I didn’t get over it immediately. I’m sorry if it’s been a little—complicated on my end.”

  Destiny glanced nervously at Caitlin. Alexa watched their eyes meet, watched a look pass between them that was definitely not meant for Alexa to share. It was the look an exasperated set of parents would pass back and forth over the head of a toddler in a tantrum, a look that said, Here we go again. Let’s just wait it out.

  “But it’s been a long time now, Alexa. And it’s not like—” Caitlin clapped a hand over her mouth as though she could keep the evil words inside.

  “It’s not like what? Say it, Caitlin.” The rage was rising, rising.

  “Nothing.”

  “Say what you were about to say.”

  “Nothing,” said Caitlin, around her hand.

  “You were about to say, it’s not like he was my real father, right?” Alexa could tell by Caitlin’s face that this was 100 percent correct.

  “No, I—”

  Alexa’s voice was steel. “Then what were you going to say?”

  Miserably, mutely, Caitlin caved. “That?” she whispered. “But I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Forget it,” said Alexa. “This game is stupid. I’m going home.” She started toward the kitchen, where her phone and car keys were.

  They both said things like, What? And Why? And We didn’t mean anything! And (this was the most infuriating one, the one that set her teeth on edge): Stop being so sensitive!

  “Are you mad at us?” Caitlin was pleading now. Good. Let her. “Alexa, please don’t be mad at us? We didn’t do anything?” She looked at Destiny for confirmation.

  “Big surprise,” said Destiny. “Alexa’s leaving.”

  Alexa turned around slowly. “Big surprise?” she repeated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You leave everything, if you even show up in the first place. You’re, like, totally disengaged. And it’s not just around us. Tyler told me the same thing.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Alexa. “Tyler told you the same thing?” Problem number one with this story was that Tyler was unlikely to use a word like disengaged. Problem number two: why was Tyler talking to Destiny about Alexa?

  “Yeah.” Caitlin looked like she used to in middle school, when she had an overbite and zits along her hairline, before she had a big glow-up and learned how to dress to flatter her skinny legs. “He talks to me sometimes too, you know. He’s allowed to have other friends.”

  “I know he’s allowed to have other friends!” Alexa snapped. “Caitlin, obviously I know that.” She wasn’t that kind of girlfriend. Tyler could have all the friends he wanted. But she didn’t think he should talk to her friends about her behind her back. That felt sneaky and mean.

  “He worries about you, Alexa. That’s all. Because he cares. But he said you can be prickly sometimes.” That was Destiny.

  Alexa let out a short, derisive laugh. She faced Destiny and spat, “Now you’re both turning on me? Now I’m prickly?”

  She and Destiny and Caitlin had existed as a threesome since Destiny moved to town in fourth grade, with a trace of Southern accent lingering from her early Tennessee years. Three had never been a crowd with them. But now Alexa felt like the loneliest person in the entire universe: lonelier than a hermit living in Siberia. She was a third wheel here, and if she went home she’d be a third wheel there too.

  “I’m going home,” she said anyway.

  “Don’t be mad?” said Caitlin. “I’m sorry for what I said?”

  Alexa’s head was aching and her heart was aching. “I’m not mad,” she said. “I’m tired. And I forgot I have to get up early tomorrow.”

  Two truths, one lie.

  Now Alexa heard someone saying her name, and she looked up. It was Cam Hartwell, smiling that giant, goofy smile. She felt herself flush. She remembered the cup of tea he’d put by her bed. Something about this memory made her feel happier than she had in a while.

  Next to Cam was a reddish golden retriever attached to a navy blue leash. “This is Sammy,” he said. “You didn’t meet him the other day because he was at the lake with my parents.” Sammy looked like a dog in an L.L.Bean advertisement. He was sporting a navy blue bandanna to match the leash and a collar with anchors on it. Very nautical. Sammy licked Alexa’s hand and then did a thing where he pulled back his gums and really looked like he was smiling. It was hard not to smile back.

  “What are you up to?” asked Cam.

  “Headed up to Portsmouth a little while later,” Alexa said.

  Cam nodded. “Good day for Portsmouth.” Sammy let out a little whine and started to pull at the leash and Cam said, “Sorry, boy, we’re going now. We really are.” To Alexa he said, “Duty calls! But I’ll be in touch soon.”

  Who was he, Alexa wondered, to be so confident that she wanted him to be in touch? She remembered the kiss in his driveway. He had definitely kissed her back.

  Alexa Thornhill, will you rate your experience with Cam Hartwell?

  She’d give him a four and three-quarters out of five. Could be a little less earnest, she’d put in the comments. Then she pictured Cam reading that and becoming sad. He’d say something like, I’m not that earnest, am I? He would say that very earnestly, of course.

  Alexa Thornhill, how likely would you be to see Cam Hartwell again? On a scale of one to ten, one being not at all likely and ten being very likely.

  She brought her cup back inside and placed it carefully in the dish bin, noticing as she saw her reflection in the glass that she was grinning. Yeah, okay, sure, she’d go see Caitlin up in Portsmouth. She could feel herself getting nicer by the minute. Must be the Cam Effect.

  20.

  The Squad

  We were not obsessed with Alexa Thornhill, if that’s what you’re thinking. We were grown women, with husbands and children and jobs, some full-time, some part-time, and many, many appointments. It would have been unseemly to take an interest in a seventeen-year-old.

  But when we found out that Alexa posted videos on YouTube of course we took a quick look. We’re not sure what we were expecting. Something salacious, maybe. Alexa Thornhill is a very pretty girl. We’ve always wondered about her biological father because Alexa and Rebecca do not look that much alike. The hair, maybe. Not that Rebecca isn’t pretty enough. But Alexa is drop-dead: another league.

  We were hoping for information that would give us a little something to talk about on the beach, or on our early morning walks, which some of us took three days a week, rain or shine.

  We were not expecting to watch a video on cryptocurrency.

  Serious walking is one of the best ways to lose weight, you know. We try to walk five miles at a stretch. The New England summer humidity sweats everything right off you. Some of us were eating Keto that summer too. Keto is very effective.

  It was on one of these early morning walks a couple of weeks after Esther’s birthday dinner at Plum Island Grille that Michelle posited that there was something “off” about Sherri Griffin.

  “What do you mean, ‘off’?” we said. Most of us knew that Michelle was at work writing some sort of psychological domestic thriller set in our town. She called it “Girl on the Train-esque” but honestly we didn’t think it would amount
to much. She wasn’t even a writer. But that was Michelle for you, always taking up something new, throwing pasta at the wall to see if it would stick. There was the scented candle business, a few years ago. The shares she bought in an ice hotel up in Montreal, then sold again after the warm winter. The alternative preschool that she thought up to compete with the Montessori school on Inn Street. Nothing came from any of those endeavors.

  “She seems like someone who’s got some grit in her oyster,” said Michelle. She told us this was a phrase she’d picked up from one of the writing blogs she was always reading. She explained that it meant that somebody had something dark in their past. Something they were trying to escape, or something they were trying to figure out. Obviously we already knew what the phrase meant, but we let Michelle have her moment. “Definite grit,” she repeated.

  Our route took us from Cashman Park down the boardwalk along the river, past the new harbormaster’s hut, and onto the new section of the rail trail, which is really something. We had to break into smaller groups when we hit the rail trail, so that we weren’t taking up the whole thing. In the past we have been accused by some of the town’s old-timers of “traveling in a horde.”

  Michelle was still on the oyster and the grit. Those of us who were walking with her suspected that she preferred talking about the elements of a psychological thriller to actually writing a psychological thriller. “Mark my words,” she said ominously.

  Some of us went back to talking about Alexa Thornhill’s YouTube videos, and whether or not Rebecca knew that Alexa had decided not to go to college to focus on her “career.” We can’t tell you where we heard that—it was told to us in confidence. But we can say that the information came from more than one source, and that the sources were reliable.

  Rebecca didn’t join us on the walks anymore. We didn’t blame her! She was still adjusting to the new normal. But without the walking and without the barre class, we weren’t sure how she was staying so thin.

  Of course we were there for her, when it happened. It was a shock to the community too. Peter had been so healthy, so vibrant. He ran in the Yankee Homecoming ten-mile race every summer. He was on the school committee and the board of Our Neighbors’ Table. He was not yet fifty! There one day, and then gone. We set up a Meal Train for an entire month after the funeral. We took Morgan whenever we could, to give Rebecca a break. Believe us, we were there.

  “I don’t think we mention it to Rebecca,” Dawn said finally. “It’s not our business.”

  “Agreed,” said Gina. “Let’s keep our noses out of Rebecca’s business. She’s still mad at me about that thing with the sleeping bag, and I didn’t even tell a soul.”

  We refrained from mentioning that if we all knew what Gina was talking about, it was literally impossible that she hadn’t told a soul. We just kept walking.

  “Sherri came here from out of nowhere, right? Isn’t that sort of strange? I mean, why Newburyport? Does she even have any ties here? It seems random, that’s all. Kind of funny,” said Michelle.

  We were certain Michelle was creating a mountain out of a molehill. But sometimes we can all be prone to that tendency. In a town like ours, not a lot happens, and sometimes we look for the excitement where we can get it.

  21.

  Alexa

  Caitlin, who had a summer job peddling jewelry at Bobbles and Lace in Portsmouth, had suggested they meet at Popovers on Congress Street. Alexa, cautiously optimistic, arrived first and saved them a table. When Caitlin slid in across from her she said, “Hey,” breathlessly, followed by, “I’ve only got twenty minutes. It’s crazy at the store today. I’m super stressed.” She was wearing a simple pink sundress and a beaded knot necklace—a bobble, no doubt bought with her employee discount.

  Alexa wanted to tell Caitlin she was selling earrings and sandals, not performing open-heart surgery on premature babies, but she bit her tongue. It was the first time she’d hung out with Caitlin since March, and Alexa wanted to see where this might go.

  They took turns holding the table and going up to the counter to order their salads. (Alexa had the Wedge and Caitlin the Caesar; each came with a popover, hence the name of the restaurant.)

  “Hey, so listen. I’ve been feeling so bad about what happened. That night at Destiny’s, that stupid game, the whole thing. We really didn’t mean to upset you. We feel terrible about it. We talk about it all the time. We never thought we’d go this long without hanging out with you.”

  Alexa felt herself softening. “I know I overreacted,” she acknowledged. She’d been just as angry at—felt just as excluded from—her mother and Morgan as she did from Destiny and Caitlin that night, to be fair. “There were a bunch of things bugging me that night, I don’t know, I didn’t mean to take it all out on you guys.”

  You can be a little prickly sometimes, Alexa.

  One thing she remembered learning about porcupines for a school project in seventh grade was that their quills lay flat until they were threatened. And then, bing, they came out, and victim beware.

  Caitlin was looking at her beseechingly. “We wanted to hang out with you so many times, Dest and I. Around graduation and everything? It wasn’t the same without you? But we still felt like you were mad at us. And you were always—busy. With Tyler, I guess? Or whatever. You just weren’t around.”

  “Yeah,” said Alexa. “Thanks. I appreciate that. I’ve been pretty busy with a whole bunch of stuff.”

  Caitlin glanced at her phone, probably checking the time; she wanted to get back to her hugely taxing job at Bobbles and Lace.

  “There’s one more thing,” she said. “To be honest, though? I’m only telling you this to be a good friend? You know that’s the only reason I would ever tell you something like this.”

  “What?” Alexa felt her quills rise.

  “I’m not mentioning any names but someone I know says they saw Zoe Butler-Gray getting out of Tyler’s car in the parking lot of Blue Inn on Plum Island. Recently.”

  Ah. Now Alexa saw why Caitlin asked her to cross state lines and brave the parking on Market Street on a perfect summer day to have lunch with her. It wasn’t to try to mend their friendship, or at least not entirely. It was for this.

  Blue Inn was a boutique luxury hotel whose most expensive room went for more than one thousand dollars a night in the summer. There was no way Tyler had either the cash or the desire to take Zoe Butler-Gray to Blue Inn for any sort of rendezvous.

  (But did he?)

  No! Tyler’s idea of romance, in Alexa’s experience, was limited to the three-for-twelve flower specials at Shaw’s and, on a special occasion, pre-boxed chocolates from one of the downtown stores. He had never bothered even to put together a custom box at Simply Sweet.

  She dignified this story with a raised eyebrow, no more, no less. Caitlin shifted in her seat and picked a crouton out of her salad, watching Alexa the whole time.

  Alexa’s phone rang with an unfamiliar, local number. Normally she’d decline a call from an unknown number, but she had the urge to show Caitlin that she was busy and important. She answered.

  “Alexa?” said the caller. “Hi, sorry, hi, my name is Sherri, my daughter Katie is friends with your sister. Morgan?”

  “Okay,” said Alexa. Her mother had mentioned something about a new mother and daughter.

  The woman, sounding flustered, went on to explain that she was looking for a babysitter for her daughter and someone on the Mom Squad group chat suggested that she try Alexa. Alexa thought, They let a newcomer on the Mom Squad group chat? As far as Alexa knew, the borders between the Mom Squad and the rest of the world were like those of Castro’s Cuba: closed until further notice.

  Alexa turned away from Caitlin and said, “I don’t really babysit.” She wondered which of her mother’s misinformed friends had put forth her name.

  “Oh, I see.” The woman sounded disappointed. “Okay, I’m sorry. It’s hard when you’re new to town, you know? To find all the stuff you had where you lived before.
Especially as a single mom. Do you have any friends who might be interested?”

  She could offer the babysitting job to Caitlin. Caitlin would probably take it, and she’d somehow make it look like she was doing Alexa a favor even as she got paid. Alexa thought about that and got mad. She thought about Tyler disembarking from his car in the parking lot of Blue Inn and got madder. She was even mad at the popover that came with her salad for being so good that without noticing she’d eaten the whole thing.

  So she did two things in a row. First, she asked for details. Second, she told Sherri she would be more than happy to babysit her daughter the Monday evening after the holiday weekend. And then she did something else, brought on by—oh, who knew. Brought on by Caitlin’s vainglorious posture, by the fake apology, or maybe by the very simple fact of being in a different city, over the state line, with the rest of the day spread out in front of her, as unfilled as a blank notebook. She kept her body turned away from Caitlin and she texted Cam Hartwell to see what he was up to that night.

  Immediately after she sent the text, three dots appeared, then the text itself.

  Got plans. Against her will—she didn’t care, truly she didn’t, why should she care about someone she hardly knew, and anyway that kiss in his driveway was just a kiss, nothing more—she deflated.

  Another text plopped onto the screen.

  The plans are with you, it said. I’ll call you later with the details.

  “What are you smiling about?” asked Caitlin.

  “Nothing,” said Alexa bitchily. Now she wasn’t even mad about what had happened in March; she was much more irritated about the ruse Caitlin used to draw her closer before inserting the knife. She put her phone down and said, “You’re missing an earring.”

  Caitlin’s panicked hand rose, found a hoop in each ear.

  “Not that one. Third hole up. The little diamonds? The ones you got for your birthday? One of those is gone.”

  Alexa rose from the table, deposited her dishes into the correct bin, and escorted herself out of the restaurant before Caitlin had a chance to find out if Alexa was lying.