Lies We Tell Ourselves

by Robin Talley

  She’s not. She never expected me to help in the first place.

  “Tell me something, Linda.” Sarah gives me that look again. The one that makes me feel about six inches tall. “What do you think it is we do every day? You think a few people call us names? You think no one ever gets knocked down the stairs? You think no one ever gets hit with a rock, or a stick or a dictionary?”

  “Shoot, Mr. McDonald is here early,” Judy says, peering out the cracked door. “I have to go up front.”

  Sarah and I ignore her.

  “Do you even know how frustrating it is, talking to you about this?” Sarah crosses her arms in front of her chest, staring me down. “You think it’s not your fault because you aren’t the one throwing baseballs, but I read the things you print in the school paper. You’re as bad as your father, egging the others on.”

  “Don’t talk about my father!”

  “I have to go,” Judy says again. She slips out, closing the door behind her.

  “I read the one you didn’t print, too,” Sarah goes on. “The one you threw in the toilet. For a second I believed that was what you really thought. Not that what you wrote yesterday was so great, mind you, but it was a step above your usual thoughtless claptrap about—what do you call it?—Southern pride.”

  Her words leave a hole in my chest. It’s like she’s peeling me open.

  I told her so much yesterday. Soon I’ll be laid completely bare in front of her. She’ll know every thought I’ve ever had. Every weakness I’ve tried to hide.

  “What happened to the boy today wasn’t my fault,” I say, my voice trembling.

  Even though we both know I could’ve done something.

  I could’ve walked up to Bo and snatched that baseball out of his hand.

  So much has happened this year that I could’ve stopped, if I’d tried.

  “Paulie,” Sarah says. “The boy’s name is Paulie.”

  I nod, but I’m shaking.

  “You’re worse than Bo. Worse than all of them.” Sarah’s shaking, too. “You make me so angry. They’re all too dumb to know why they’re wrong, but you understand it. Or you could, if you’d bother trying.”

  I want to answer her, but there aren’t any words.

  “I get so furious every time I think about you.” She looks like she might cry. “You’re nothing but a spoiled girl who’s too busy worrying about what everybody thinks of you to actually think about anything. So you just do what your daddy tells you. Your daddy who you say you hate so much. I keep thinking I see this other part of you, this part that knows better, but then every time I do you turn around and say something stupid, and it just makes me so angry, Linda. You make me so...” She tilts her head down, closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose with her fingers. Her voice drops to a whisper. “Angry!”

  So Sarah does think about me.

  I wonder how much. I wonder if she thinks about me at night when she can’t fall asleep.

  My thoughts are spinning around too fast for me to understand them.

  “It’s all I can think about anymore.” She looks up. Her arms are stiff at her sides. She stares straight into my eyes. “Sometimes at night I can’t even sleep because all I can think about is how frustrating you are.”

  That wasn’t what I meant.

  “Tell me one thing.” Her voice is low. I have to lean in to hear her. “You said in your editorial, the one you threw away, that you’ll never stop being a segregationist. I want you to tell me why.”

  That’s an easy question. I don’t even have to think.

  “It’s tradition,” I say. My voice cracks. “It’s protecting our heritage.”

  Sarah nods. “And why do you want to protect your heritage so badly? Because it makes you better than us?”

  “Nobody’s better than anybody else.” I sound desperate even to my own ears. “It’s about maintaining our Southern way of life.”

  “Your way of life is keeping other people down.” Her chin quivers. “You saw what they did to Paulie today. Do you want to know the things they’ve done to me?”

  No. I don’t.

  I want to hurt anyone who ever did anything to Sarah.

  I think about the first day of school. About moving my seat away from hers in Math class.

  I bite my cheek. I will not cry. Not in front of her.

  “That’s why you’re so much worse than the others.” Her voice shakes. “Because you could do something about this if you tried. Instead you say the same thing over and over again. Even though it doesn’t make any sense. And you know it doesn’t make sense, Linda. I know you know better. I can see it in you. You’re so close to understanding it, if you’d only try.”

  She’s lying. She doesn’t know me.

  She’s trying to confuse me. It’s all part of her scheme.

  “You don’t know anything about me,” I whisper.

  I hate Sarah. I hate her.

  “But instead you go on, publishing your little articles and giving your little speeches.” She shakes her head. “You’re such a hypocrite.”

  “Stop it!” She’s looking right at me. I try to turn my head to avoid her gaze, the frightening look in her eyes, but she’s everywhere. “Leave me alone!”

  I try to push past her but she steps into my way. Our faces are only inches apart.

  “Why were you so eager to know how Paulie was doing?” A tear slides down her cheek, leaving a shiny brown path behind it. “You were just sitting there. Would you have just sat there if it had been me instead of Paulie?”

  She did know I was there.

  She does pay attention to me.

  “No.” My face feels hot. “I mean, I don’t know. Please, just leave me alone.”

  “No. I won’t. I’ve had enough of doing what people like you tell me.”

  I swallow. My throat feels like it’s closing up.

  “Why do you have to be this way?” I say. “Why do you have to get inside my head and mix everything up?”

  “Why do you have to be this way?” She scrubs at her cheek with her hand, wiping the tear away. The patch of skin there looks red and raw. I want to run my fingers over it. I want to stop her from hurting. “Every time I start to hope you might—every time I let myself think—every time, you turn around and do something even more hateful than the time before.”

  She hates me.

  I knew it. I’d hate me, too.

  The door to the back room is still cracked open. Far off at the front of the store I can hear Judy laughing with Mr. McDonald, coffee cups tinkling on saucers, Mr. Fairfax ringing up an order at the register.

  But the whole world might as well be me and Sarah.

  “Please don’t feel like that,” I whisper.

  “I can’t help it,” she whispers back. “I’ve tried and tried. I can’t make it stop.”

  And then she kisses me.

  And the whole world goes black.

  I’m dreaming.

  I’ve had this dream before.

  When the light fades back in, I don’t know how much time has passed, but I’m kissing her back. Something is dancing in my chest. Sizzling. Sarah feels soft, and light, like silk. She tastes like fresh, clear water, the kind that only runs in the springtime.

  Then I remember.

  This is wrong.

  It doesn’t matter if it feels right. It’s wrong.

  I break away from Sarah and step backward.

  I half hope she’ll come with me. I half hope we’ll keep kissing and kissing, the way boys and girls do in the movies. That a sunset backdrop will fall down behind us and carry us off to happily ever after.

  Even though she’s a girl. Even though she’s colored.

  I want to keep kissing Sarah forever.

&n
bsp; Sarah steps back, too. She’s clapped her hand over her face. Tears are streaming down her cheeks.

  She knows this is wrong as well as I do.

  “Sarah—” I start to say. Then I stop.

  Just behind her, the door to the back room is open.

  Judy’s in the door frame.

  I start to ask how long she’s been there, but I can tell from the look on her face.

  Sarah’s out the door before Judy’s even started to scream.

  Lie #15

  MY HOUSE IS ten blocks from Bailey’s. I run the whole way.

  When I get there I’m sweating under my jacket. I’m still chanting the same prayer I’ve been saying ever since I made it out into the crisp April air.

  Please, God. Please, please, please, God. Let this be a dream. Let me wake up and have it be morning.

  A lot of horrible things have happened since we came to Jefferson, but this is the worst.

  I fumble to open the front door. Mama is on the couch working on her lesson plan. I run upstairs without saying hello and fling open the door to my room.

  Ruth is there.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she says.

  I turn around and rush down the hall to the bathroom. I lock the door behind me and stare at my face in the mirror.

  I know what’s wrong with me. I’ve known for years.

  I thought if I ignored it, it would go away.

  I should’ve known that’s not how the Devil works. Sin doesn’t go away simply because you wish it gone.

  I’m just as bad as the white people say I am. Dirty. Low. Unnatural.

  I’ve never even imagined doing anything like that. I never let myself.

  But I know why I did it.

  It’s been going on for months now. The more I saw of her, the more I lost my head.

  I’ve been thinking the worst kind of sinful thoughts. About her. About what it would be like to be with her. In the sinful way boys want to be with girls.

  I lost control. I can never lose control.

  I let myself get carried away imagining who she really was. I listened to everything she said, and I still told myself she wasn’t really like that. I thought about how she saved Ruth in the hall, and about that confused look in her eyes every time I challenged her, and I built it up into something that wasn’t really there. I refused to see what was right in front of me.

  I thought I’d finally met someone I could talk to. Someone who might understand.

  I’d started looking forward to those afternoons. Even when we argued, there was something there. Some spark under my skin that made me want to keep arguing.

  I’d rather have been with her than at home, or school or anywhere else. Without her, I’d just be alone again.

  I thought she was different from the others. But it was all a trick. A sick joke.

  She’s a true segregationist all right. And she figured out the truth about me, too. She even has proof.

  Plus, Judy saw it. She knows everything, too.

  Maybe Judy’s not the only one. There were other people in Bailey’s this afternoon. Anyone could’ve—

  Wait.

  Can people see it on me just from looking? Is that what Ruth meant when she asked what was wrong with me?

  I take cautious steps down the hall and push open the door to my room.

  Ruth hasn’t moved. She’s lying on her bed doing her homework. There’s a Frankie Avalon song playing on the radio. I hate Frankie Avalon.

  Ruth glances up at me, then looks back down, a bored expression on her face.

  I wait to see if she’ll do something else. She keeps writing, then finally drops her pencil and lifts her head. “What? I can’t concentrate with you squinting at me like that.”

  I step inside the room and close the door.

  “Is everything—all right?” My voice comes out high-pitched. Unnatural. Like the rest of me.

  “What are you talking about?” She looks back at her homework.

  “You know. Everything.”

  “No, I don’t know. You’re the one who’s acting strange.”

  I leave, closing the door behind me. I ignore Ruth’s call of “Okay, now what?” and go back into the bathroom. The phone rings in the downstairs hallway, but it’s a faraway sound, like the audience’s laughter on a television show.

  Ruth can’t see it.

  I shut my eyes and send a quick prayer of thanks. Then I remember it isn’t right to pray about something like this.

  It’s only a matter of time before they all figure out the truth. Something this huge can’t stay a secret.

  I get down on my knees to pray, but this time the prayers won’t come.

  I should’ve stayed with Alvin. Then this wouldn’t have happened. I’d still be the same girl who walked around the park with him, listening to him drone on about his elocution instructor.

  Maybe I can still get Alvin back. Or some other boy.

  Maybe this is fixable.

  Yes. Of course it is. I’ll just pretend this never happened. I can just—

  I sit down on the toilet lid and sob.

  It’s the first time I’ve cried since that day at school, in the bathroom. The first time I really talked to her.

  I wonder when she figured it out. I bet it was that very first day, in the auditorium. I bet she saw it on me right away.

  All she needed was concrete evidence. And now she has that, too.

  I should go to a doctor. There’s got to be something they can do to make sure this doesn’t happen to me again. Some sort of treatment program.

  But I can’t go to see Dr. Augustus. I’d have to ask Mama to make the appointment for me. What would I tell her? That her daughter is a—

  Mama and Daddy can’t know. Not ever.

  I bend over and let the tears fall onto my knees.

  Aren’t things hard enough already? Why did this have to happen to me? Of all things? What kind of plan does God have for me?

  But God doesn’t do things like this. He doesn’t make people this way.

  This is the Devil’s doing.

  There’s a knock on the bathroom door.

  “Not now!” I call.

  “Sarah?” comes a small voice. Bobby. “Sarah, I have to go.”

  I want to tell him to wait, but Bobby can’t wait. If you make Bobby wait he’ll wet his pants. And guess whose job it’ll be to wash them.

  I dry my eyes on the hem of my skirt and stand up. I will the tears to stop.

  I open the door. Bobby rushes in past me, slamming it closed behind him.

  God will show me the way out of this. I have to pray harder, that’s all.

  I’ll pray at home. At school. Every second I don’t absolutely have to be doing something else, I’ll pray for God to fix me.

  I’ll work at it, too. I’ll dress more femininely. Mama is always after me to get one of those flowered dresses the pretty white girls show off in Seventeen’s Easter issue every year.

  I’ll get her to take me shopping. We can get all the flowered dresses she wants.

  Jewelry, too. I don’t like wearing jewelry because I don’t like the way it rubs against my skin, but I’ll get used to it. Daddy gave me a pearl necklace last Christmas to wear on special occasions. Maybe Mama will let me wear it on Sundays from now on.

  But the most important thing—more than the clothes or the jewelry, more important even than the praying—is that I can’t see her ever again.

  We’re almost finished with the French project. I can do the rest of the pages by myself and give them to Judy. Judy’s not going to want to be seen talking to me ever again—who would?—but I can stick them in her locker before school when no one’s around.

  In
class, I won’t look at her. At lunch I’ll sit with my back to her table. And in the halls I’ll just have to watch out for—

  I lean back against the bathroom door, my head thumping against the hard wood. Another reason to keep a watch out in the halls.

  But I don’t have a choice. This is important. I can’t risk anything like this ever happening again. I can’t risk being anywhere near her.

  It almost makes me sad.

  There was something about talking to her. Something that lit a fire inside me.

  And it wasn’t all anger. Talking to her made me feel like something was buzzing in my veins. Even if I’d spent the whole day up until then feeling empty and dull.

  With her I didn’t have to be polite. I didn’t have to think everything through before I said it. At the end of a long day of not talking back to anyone, I looked forward to the incredible feeling of saying whatever I wanted out loud.

  I thought someday, I might even have a real friend at this school.

  Tears prick at my eyes again.

  The bathroom door swings open. Bobby peers up at me. “Sarah? What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” I blink the tears away. I pick Bobby up and set him on my hip, even though he’s getting too big for that now. “What are you doing, silly?”

  I tickle his belly. He giggles and squeals.

  Usually I don’t bother talking to Bobby much. I have a lot on my mind. Too much for little brothers.

  But maybe spending more time with him will remind me how important it is to get married and have children of my own. I’m almost eighteen. It’s time I started thinking about those sorts of things.

  Past time, really. My friend Frances has had a hope chest since freshman year. Every Christmas her parents give her a new piece of silver for it. Her pattern is Chantilly.

  I need a silver pattern. I need a hope chest.

  I need to get Mama to teach me some more recipes, too. How can I expect to cook for my husband if all I can make is fried okra and pot roast?

  And I need a new boyfriend. Alvin won’t do. He’s barely taller than I am. When we went to the Harvest Dance last year and I wore high heels, I had to keep slumping down.

  “Sarah?” Mama’s voice on the stairs makes me jump. Bobby shrieks in my arms, thinking this is a new game. “Your father and I need to talk to you. Bobby, go play in your room.”