Just then, on the tail of the word jail, Daddy walked in the front door.
And here’s the thing. Right then and there, I felt this overwhelming need to get out of there, because even if Daddy hadn’t heard what I said, he could surely see that Mama had been crying, and I had no idea what might happen next, but I was pretty sure something would. So this is what I did. I quickly turned down the corner of the page so I could find it again later, which as it turned out wasn’t too smart, put the catchall book back on the counter, all but ran up the stairs and into my room, shut and locked the door, found the messiest and therefore most obscure corner of my room, made myself as small as I possibly could, and prayed. Yes, prayed. Me. Picasso Lane. I prayed for God to deliver me from the evil that was about to come, the evil I couldn’t stop. And I prayed for God to save Mama from his wrath, and me from his disappointment.
The Wives
Stick to the plan.
Jewels’s words rang in Diana’s ears as she, Oliver, and Picasso drove to the beach house, and as she swam the following day. She had every intention of doing so.
Until she heard Bert’s voice message.
For weeks, Diana relived those final twenty-four hours in her mind. She remembers Oliver rubbing her neck and shoulders because they were sore from her swim. They sat on the sofa. The sliding glass doors were open, the sounds and smells of the ocean trailing inside. He’d lit candles.
“I brought some oil,” he said. “Why don’t you take off your shirt?”
It had been an hour since Picasso went to bed. Diana didn’t necessarily expect that the massage would lead to sex. Oliver would wait for a sign from her; he was respectful. Yes, sex had been part of the plan, but she didn’t intend to follow that part. She knew Oliver would watch her swim regardless.
Oliver pulled Diana’s shirt over her head, carefully folded it, placed it aside. “Lie down,” he said.
She rolled onto her stomach, pressed into him. It was a position they’d adopted many times before, a comfortable couple position. It came as natural as meeting his open hand with hers when they walked down a sidewalk, or moving with his step when he guided the small of her back to a restaurant table. She closed her eyes, heard him opening the bottle of oil. His wet palm rested on the nape of her neck for a moment, then squeezed her skin, moved toward one shoulder, squeezed again, and so on. She dozed off.
They were entwined when she woke, his cheek against hers. Their lips found each other’s. The kiss was soft, sweet. He ran his fingers through her hair, searched her eyes. Tears fell from his, and then he sobbed.
She embraced him, rocked him while he cried into her chest, until he calmed.
“I love you,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” she asked.
Oliver told her his story, and though she didn’t tell him this, it was a story Diana already knew. How he met Jewels and then Bert. The events that unfolded, the actions that led to the current situation. Two other wives. Two other lives. Wives and children he loved but knew he couldn’t keep because it wasn’t fair to anyone. He didn’t make excuses or ask for Diana’s forgiveness. He merely stated he didn’t want to do it anymore. He only wanted her, Diana, and their daughter. He understood if she didn’t want him anymore. Regardless, he planned to come clean with Jewels and Bert. Regardless, he planned to sever those relationships.
A tear fell from his eye, hit Diana’s cheek, then another, and another. He wiped them away with his thumbs, kissed her, and she kissed him back, hard.
A woman knew the difference between making love and having sex. When making love, she entered an alternate state of consciousness. The place she went was wet, slippery, mystical, warm. It was a place Diana had only gone with Oliver, the man she loved. It was a place where the two of them shared the same skin, the same heart, where their feet and hands intertwined, bodies merged, a place that felt as safe as she imagined her mother’s womb had. Where life and death ceased to exist.
Euphoria came later, after Diana walked on her own again, and although they had physically separated, the taste, smell, and feel of the man she loved still clung to her. And he, the object of her love, became the sole reason, sole purpose, for her existence.
The next morning, as planned, Diana went for her swim. As she paddled her way toward shore, she saw Oliver and Picasso building their sand castle. There was nothing more beautiful, more right, in the world. Oliver smiled as she walked toward them. The smile she loved. He reached for her hand, followed her into the house. They took off their swimsuits as soon as they got inside, kissed and touched their way to the bedroom, and while Picasso studiously worked on her sand castle, they made love again. Afterward, they cuddled; Oliver wiped a tear from his wife’s eye. Took her into his arms. Held her.
“Why are you crying?” Oliver asked.
“I’m happy.”
“Me too,” he said as he wiped a tear from her cheek. “I’m going to take a shower. I won’t be long.”
When she heard the sound of the water, Diana walked out to the living room to gather their suits. There, sitting next to Oliver’s swim trunks, was his phone. She picked it up, saw the pop-up, a voice message.
“Hi, babe.” Bert’s voice startled her with its loudness; she quickly turned down the phone’s volume, listened for the sound of the shower. Still on. “I got your message from this morning, and all I can say is no matter what you say, whatever you feel you need to confess, of course I’ll still love you. Of course I won’t leave you. It is you and me and Isabelle against the world. Call me as soon as you get this. I love you.”
This morning? Diana checked the time of the outgoing call. Oliver had called Bert that morning while Diana was swimming, after Oliver had confessed to her the night before, after he’d so sincerely and fearfully apologized, after he’d sworn to end his relationships with Jewels and Bert, after he’d told her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and only her, after they’d made love, beautiful, attentive, and tender love, after he’d looked deep into her eyes and with such honesty, such humility, such vulnerability, told her that he loved her more than life itself.
Diana resaved the message so Oliver wouldn’t know she’d heard it and put the phone back exactly where she’d found it. For a moment, she wondered why she didn’t feel numb or devastated, why she felt clearer and more alive than she had in months, as if the lenses of her heart and mind had been polished to sharp, crystalline transparency, and then she simply accepted the inevitability of what was to come, what had to come, and she understood that she was the instrument of this inevitability. She returned to the bedroom, got dressed, retrieved the gun from the bureau, loaded it, and shoved it to the bottom of her purse.
Picasso
Lie: (noun) an intentionally false statement, or a situation involving deception or founded on a mistaken impression.
Lie: (verb) to get oneself into or out of a situation by providing an intentionally false statement, presenting a false impression, or being deceptive.
Lie: (ninth commandment) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Lie: (Pablo Picasso, my namesake and therefore my destiny) Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.
Lie: A lie told often enough becomes the truth.
Vladimir Lenin said that last thing. He was a mean and unpopular leader, who in 1917 led a revolution in Russia that started the form of government called Communism. We learned a little about him in fourth grade, but not what he said about lying. That came from Daddy, and whenever Daddy made a point of teaching me something I didn’t already know, it meant there was a good reason I should know it. We were sitting at my desk up in my bedroom; he was helping me with my history lesson. He’d pushed all the stuff on the chair to one side and pulled it up next to me.
“What do you think he meant by that, Pinion (the wing of a bird)?” he asked.
I took my time before I answered like he’d taught me to—You can always tell a stupid person by how fast they answer a questi
on they don’t know the answer to—and then I said, “Sometimes it’s easier for people to pretend what they said is true, because then they don’t have to feel bad about themselves?”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Daddy said. “But another might be that when you tell a lie, you have to make sure you stick to it.”
I remember being confused about that, because lying is supposed to be a sin and all, and I wanted to ask Daddy more about it, but I could tell that he was done with the subject, and when Daddy was done talking about something or doing something, he just got irritable if you kept on asking about it or doing it.
When I first started telling lies, I thought a lot about them. That’s not too surprising, I guess. It’s probably similar to when you buy something new, like shoes or a backpack, and you start seeing the exact same ones everywhere, on other kids, in magazine pictures, on mannequins at the mall, whereas before you bought them, you never even knew they existed. Well that’s kind of how it was with me and lies. I saw and heard them everywhere. All kinds of them: intentional, unintentional, big, small, mammoth. It seemed like lies were such a part of our society that they were practically acceptable. Daddy used to say that lawyers lied all the time. Mama, Jewels, and Bert not only lied to everyone else, including the police, they obviously lied to themselves. My teacher lies about everything, not only about minor stuff like what’s going to be on a math test but about his past accomplishments (like I’m betting he didn’t play football for Alabama and wasn’t a DEA agent). Mrs. Jesswein lies about her age; Mama says she’s in her seventies, not sixties. And God lies too. Maybe not with words, but putting Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden with those apples he told them not to eat, and then acting all surprised and mad when they did, seems dishonest.
The point is, there are obviously many, many shades to lying, and I figure every living person has told at least one, which might mean Daddy wasn’t such a bad person after all.
Sometimes I wish I could ask Daddy why he lied to Mama and me, and why he needed to have three families. I wouldn’t get mad about his answer. I just want to know. But mostly, I guess I just miss talking to Daddy. I miss his stories. He took me to the heavens. I drank wine with Zeus, fought battles with Ares, and played the harp with Aphrodite. When Daddy was alive, I lived in the sky. I bounced from cloud to cloud. Earth was far away. I also miss Daddy’s pragmatism. When I came to him with a predicament, he analyzed, reasoned, and asked me the exact right questions to enable me to solve my own problem. Just like he did with Ryan Anderson’s Valentine’s Day gift.
There are a lot of things I miss about Daddy, but I especially miss our secrets. I miss him always saying “Don’t tell your mama,” like when we got ice cream before dinner, or when he and I went to the bookstore and read mythology books together. I asked him once why he didn’t just buy one of the books, and he said, “I don’t need to. The stories live inside me.” I miss telling him about things that bother me, like when Ryan Anderson didn’t like me back or the All That Girls were bullying me. Now that he’s gone, I keep secrets bottled inside me.
But I think what I miss the most is looking at Daddy. Mama always said he was handsome, and I guess he was, but I never really thought about him that way. He was just my daddy. The longer he’s gone, the harder it is for me to remember what he looked like. That bothers me a lot. Mama threw out most of his pictures, but I hid a few. Sometimes I just stare at the pictures, try to memorize his face and recall its different smiles. I try to remember the way his hair moved in the breeze, what he felt like, or what he smelled like. I try to drown the Daddy dying memories by making movie memories. I pretend I’m watching a movie in my mind, and as if I’m holding an imaginary remote, I push the Pause button to freeze Daddy in time.
In one of my movie memories, I’ve gone on a picnic with Mama and Daddy to a park very much like Rainy Cove Park. We’re playing hide-and-go-seek. While Daddy counts, I run from tree to tree, bush to bush, looking for the perfect hiding place. He is almost to ten when I find the perfect bush. I duck behind it and hold my breath. It seems like it’s taking forever for him to find me. I hear him calling his usual variations of my name. One time, he gets very close. I fixate on the toe of his hunting boot. The dull brown leather is cracked in places; a hole has worn through. I remember thinking those boots were Daddy, just like the Red Sox baseball cap he wore whenever he didn’t feel like taking a shower or dressing nice.
“Hey, Pip-squeak (one that is small or insignificant),” he says. “I know you’re here somewhere.”
His shoes disappear from my view. I hear them crunching the leaves near me. Stop. Crunching again. Moving away. I wait a little while, then another little while, just to be sure he is far enough away, and jump from the bush.
“Olly olly oxen free,” I cry as I run. I’m out of breath by the time I get to the tree we designated as the safety zone, but I manage to add, “You didn’t catch me, so I won.”
Daddy laughs. “You sure did.” He comes to me, hikes me up onto his shoulders, and holding my ankles against his chest, runs and runs.
I hit the Pause button.
My favorite dictionary says that happiness is a feeling or showing of pleasure or contentment. By this definition, happiness is banal (so lacking in originality as to be obvious or boring). That day, as I sat on my daddy’s shoulders, felt his neck between my thighs, his hands on my ankles, and cupped his sweaty forehead in my palms, I was beyond happy. I was ecstatic.
Sometimes one of those other memories pops into my head. Like there’s this one still life of a couple of old paint cans, a rusty hammer, and a beat-up kid’s sand pail, green with a yellow handle that randomly appears. When it shows up, instead of being ecstatic it’s there, or even happy, I feel scared and very sad. I try to get rid of it by shaking my head, but instead of finding its way out, the paint cans, hammer, and pail jump out of the still life and bang against my brain over and over, and all I can do to settle them down is turn off the lights in my room, close the curtains, crawl under my covers, curl into a ball, and lie there in the dark very, very still until the image, like Daddy, disappears. And right before I go to sleep, I lie to myself.
“I’ll be just fine,” I say.
THREE
Deception
(The Events Following the Murder)
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
—L. FRANK BAUM
Kyle
Beautiful, lucky, sorry, gun, motive, liar, dumb ass.
Those last two words were directed solely at me. Bottom line: I had fallen for Diana Lane. Hard. What the fuck was wrong with me? Hell, no one in their right mind would go looking for love or dead bodies on Cooper’s Island, and yet there I was, not even back two years and I had walked head-on into both.
Ironically, the Outer Banks used to be called “The Land of Beginnings” (prophetic?) because it was the place where England first attempted to colonize the Americas. These days, the chamber of commerce boasts of two main attractions: our lighthouses and the Wright brothers. In fact, we’re so proud of these boys that even our license plates bear the slogan “First in Flight.” But like most places we’ve chosen to forget our humbler roots. Cooper’s, for instance, was once a fisherman’s village, and it’s still the least inhabited of the barrier islands. A majority of folks on the island at any given time are tourists, there for a week or two, but in the off-season we’re left with a small, insular group of folks who rarely if ever nod to you on the street. But don’t be fooled; they know your name, people, and entire sordid history. For the most part, single residents fall into three categories: men, women over sixty-five, and children under eighteen. Most women worth a second glance are either married or not interested in the opposite sex. We actually have a decent gay and lesbian population. What’s left is a hodgepodge of folks, some who never left (Mack and his wife fall into this grouping), some who missed the place (Klide) even though they’d never admit it, and some who chose the place for personal reasons, misfits and outcas
ts looking to be left alone.
Instead, I met Diana Lane.
Although motive and opportunity, the two indicators we law enforcement types swear by, pointed in one solid direction, my cock pointed in another. Mack kept saying it was only a matter of time before we found that one fatal piece of evidence that would blow the case wide open. As it turned out, he was half right.
We were about four months into the investigation, and we weren’t any closer to catching our murderer. Diana Lane hadn’t tested positive for either blood splatter or gunshot residue, Julie Lane’s alibi appeared rock solid, and with the exception of a few untraceable cell numbers all their phone records were clean. The three of them had steadfastly stuck to their stories: They’d never met or even heard of one another; they had no idea their husband had other wives; they didn’t know anyone who’d want to hurt their husband. The only possible hole was Roberta Miles’s alibi. She said she was driving to a writing retreat at the time of the murder. The folks running the retreat verified that she arrived just before noon. Both a waitress and the cashier at the Woodlands confirmed that a woman fitting Roberta Miles’s description had been there for breakfast. Likewise, a waiter at the Little Switzerland Inn remembered serving her tea. She’d engaged him in a “delightful conversation about the lovely, smooth notes of our English breakfast tea, and how unfortunate it was that Americans seemed to prefer Earl Grey and its distasteful oil of bergamot.” She’d left a large tip at both establishments, but when pushed to verify the exact date or time she was there, neither could be absolutely sure. Likewise, though her mother verified that she left the house around seven that morning, she later admitted to having been asleep when her daughter left the house.
I Love You More Page 14