Liar

by Francine Pascal

  “I know you’ve suffered,” he said, as if reading her mind. “But know this, Gaia: I’m here for you. Remember when I saw you here the first time? I promised I wouldn’t be far. I promised I’d come back for you. And here I am. I never break my promises, Gaia. Never.”

  I guess that’s another difference between you and Dad, Gaia thought bitterly. She felt the wetness on her cheeks even before she realized she was crying. She sniffed and wiped her face with her coat sleeve, clenching her jaw. This was great. Way to make an impression. Now her uncle probably thought she was a blubbering little baby.

  “I’ll talk to you again soon, Gaia,” he whispered. He reached over and patted her shoulder, then abruptly stood and hurried from the table.

  “Wait!” Gaia called.

  He paused and glanced over his shoulder.

  “What—what’s your name?” she stammered.

  A smile crossed his face. “Oliver,” he answered.

  And with that, he turned—not walking, not running … but seemingly gliding, moving with an effortless economy of motion that astounded her. He vanished around the corner of Waverly Place in seconds.

  Gaia exhaled deeply.

  Her body quivered. Tears still flowed freely down her cheeks. Her eyes fell back to the card. A single ten-digit phone number was printed there, with no other information. That was it. This flimsy little thing was the only evidence that she’d even seen her uncle—that the mysterious encounter had even taken place. She shook her head and forced herself to take it.

  Oliver. Oliver Moore, she supposed.

  Why had he chosen to contact her in this way, by sneaking up on her on a Saturday morning in the park? Why hadn’t he just called the Nivens? There must be a good reason … or was there? “We live in a dangerous world” he’d said, “and time is short.” The words were so vague. Almost trite. Yeah … now that she thought about it, they sounded like the kind of thing somebody would say in a grade-D action flick. He was obviously a smart guy, but he chose to speak to her in clichés. It wasn’t exactly intimate family conversation. She couldn’t help but get a little pissed. Was he trying to hint that she was in danger? And if so, why didn’t he just come out and say it?

  One thing was for certain. She needed to be alone, to think. She was in no condition to talk to Sam Moon. No way. Taking a deep breath, she jumped up and ran from the park as fast as her legs would carry her.

  Three of the Major Food Groups

  I’VE JUMPED THIS STAIRCASE A thousand times. Get up some speed, hop up onto the railing—then whoosh … it’s all gravy. This is gonna be a breeze.

  But Heather’s scared.

  Heather’s always scared. I can see her down there, way at the bottom. She looks so small. She’s yelling something to me. But I can’t hear what it is. It doesn’t matter, though. I gotta do this.

  The skateboard feels good under my feet. I glance back down the staircase. It’s much longer than it was before. And Heather isn’t alone down there. No, Phoebe is with her, too. And so is my sister. And Gaia. They’re all screaming at me.

  “Don’t do it, Ed! Don’t do it. Ed! Ed!”

  But it’s too late. I’m already on my way—

  Ed flinched. His eyelids popped open. He was gasping for breath.

  Heather was standing over him, gently shaking his shoulder.

  “Ed?” she whispered. “Ed? Are you okay?”

  “Uh …” He blinked. His voice sounded like a frog’s. He shook his head. Jesus. Gradually his breathing slowed. His surroundings began to take shape around him. He wasn’t standing at the top of a forty-story staircase. No. He was sitting. In his wheelchair. In the hallway outside the emergency room of St. Vincent’s Hospital.

  Heather crouched beside him so their eyes were at the same level. Her face was creased with concern. “I think you were having a nightmare,” she said.

  “I guess,” he croaked.

  The dark fog of the dream lifted, melting away into the nothingness. Ed’s shoulders slumped. He wouldn’t have called it a nightmare. No. Because no matter how bad his dreams got—even if he was being chased by an ax-wielding maniac through a shark-filled swamp—he was always upright. He could run. He could walk. He could freaking dance if he wanted to. The wheel-chair had no place in the enchanted world of Ed Fargo’s subconscious. So, no, he didn’t have nightmares. Only dreams—dreams that were like warm embraces, slipping away in an instant when he came back to the real world and leaving him in solitude.

  “You’re sure you’re all right?” Heather asked.

  He nodded quickly, forcing himself to smile. He refused to let his usual morning grouchiness intrude here. He was the last person Heather should be worrying about. “Any word on Phoebe?” he asked.

  “Yeah, actually, the doctor says she’s really improving,” Heather said with false cheerfulness. She stood up straight. “They upgraded her condition from critical to stable. Soon they’re gonna move her out of intensive care and into a different wing.” Her voice sounded strained, high-pitched. “The biggest problem was the dehydration, so they’ve been flooding her body with fluids….” She trailed off.

  “Can we go in and see her?” Ed asked.

  Heather shook her head. “Not until later.”

  “Oh. Okay.” He chewed his lip and glanced at the vinyl couch. “Where’s your mom?”

  “She went home.” Heather managed a shaky grin and shrugged. She had obviously been crying. Recently. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she’d scrubbed all the makeup off her face. Her skin looked dry, colorless. “Which I take as a good sign. She wouldn’t have left if she was really worried. So things are looking up.”

  Nice try, Heather, Ed thought sadly. Maybe if she said those words out loud, she would Start to believe them herself. She deserved to believe them. Any comfort was enough.

  Heather drew in a sharp breath. “Look, Ed … I want to tell you, I really think it’s amazing what you’re doing.”

  “What?” he asked nonchalantly. “Sleeping in a wheelchair? It’s nothing. I do it all the time.”

  “No … you know…. Oh, Jesus.” She shook her head and laughed. “Why do you always make a joke out of everything?”

  He shrugged. “Hey, I make people laugh, don’t I?”

  “Yeah.” She looked down at him, her face softening. “Yeah, you do.”

  Ed stared up at her.

  She held his gaze. Neither of them moved. Neither of them even blinked. He swallowed. It had been so long since he’d looked into her eyes like this—just looked, without saying anything … without having to say anything. But he knew the moment couldn’t last forever. And the longer he prolonged it, the more he would torture himself with memories of the past. Their past. He turned away toward the candy machine.

  “You know, I’m kind of hungry,” he remarked. “A rousing breakfast of potato chips and chocolate sounds like just the thing.”

  He released the brakes on his chair, but Heather planted herself firmly in front of him, blocking his path.

  “No way,” she said with a smirk.

  Ed cocked his eyebrow. “No way what?”

  “No way am I going to let you eat potato chips and chocolate for breakfast”

  “Oh, no?” He had to laugh. “Why? Are you concerned about my health? Let me tell you, Heather—potato chips get a really bad rap. They actually contain three of the major food groups. The grease group, the salt group, and the fat group—”

  “I don’t give a shit about your health, Ed,” Heather interrupted, grinning tiredly. “I just want to take you out for breakfast. Okay?”

  He sighed. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know I don’t,” she stated. “But I’m going to do it, anyway.”

  Ed smiled. “Now, that’s the Heather Gannis I know and love. The one who won’t take no for an answer.”

  “You got that right. Let’s go.” She stepped aside and waved toward the exit with a flourish, as if she’d just laid out a red carpet. “And don’t worry. I
’ll make sure you get plenty of grease, salt, and fat.”

  Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell

  AFTER WANDERING THE STREETS aimlessly for a few hours, Gaia looked up to find herself standing right outside Ed’s building on First Avenue.

  Not a big shocker. She kind of knew she’d end up here. Her feet just seemed to be naturally drawn toward the place—like a couple of moths toward a big lightbulb. Besides, she was freezing cold. She could stand to be inside for a while. Her nose was completely numb. And she didn’t exactly relish the thought of going back to Ella Central. Or sitting alone in a coffee shop.

  No. Right now the “alone” part of her life was starting to wear pretty thin.

  The fact of the matter was that the more she walked around, going over what had happened with her uncle … Oliver, again and again, the more she started to get creeped out. She wasn’t scared, obviously. She was just … confused. The whole exchange had been so weird.

  Gaia glanced at the building’s glass double doors, rubbing her sides with her arms for warmth, debating whether or not to buzz Ed’s apartment. He was probably up, wasn’t he? Yeah. It was almost ten. Anyway, this was kind of an emergency. For starters, she needed to apologize to him in person for blowing him off last night. And more important—much more important—she needed to spill her guts about her uncle.

  Strange how things change, isn’t it?

  She shook her head as she walked up to the buzzer. Here she was, going to confide in someone. Her. Gaia Moore. The girl with an armor of secrets as thick as the Great Wall of China. Until very recently her and Ed’s friendship had been defined by a simple rule: Don’t ask; don’t tell. Ed didn’t ask her about her life, and she didn’t tell him about it. And the coolest part of this rule (or so Gaia once thought) was that neither of them ever had to acknowledge it. It was unspoken. Understood.

  But after Mary died, the rule changed.

  It was Ed’s doing, of course. Gaia had resisted the change as stubbornly as she could—nearly killing herself and Ed in the process. But after an initial bout of pain she realized that she had to talk about some things. With somebody. If she didn’t, she would simply explode. Or go insane. Or worse.

  She pressed the button for the Fargos’ apartment.

  A few seconds later there was a burst of static.

  “Hello?” Mrs. Fargo answered.

  “Um … hi,” Gaia said awkwardly. “It’s Gaia Moore, Ed’s friend. I was just in the neighborhood, and I was wondering if Ed was home.” Good Lord. Did that sound as lame as she thought it did?

  “No, he’s not, Gaia,” Mrs. Fargo answered. She sounded harried, as if she were in a rush. “He spent the night at Heather’s.”

  Gaia stiffened. Her heart bounced in her chest. She must not have heard the woman correctly. “Excuse me? Did you say Heather’s?”

  “That’s right. Heather Gannis. She’s having some kind of crisis. Listen, I’m sorry, dear, but we’re in the middle of something. I’ll tell Ed you stopped by. You might try reaching him at the Gannises, though. Good-bye.”

  That was it.

  Conversation over. Gaia blinked. She stared at the buzzer through the tendrils of her frozen breath. Her heart pounded. Ed. At Heather’s. Impossible. The universe had flipped over and turned itself inside out. This wasn’t planet Earth. This was some bizarro, alternate planet. One where long-lost uncles jumped out and said, “Boo!” One where Ed’s parents let him spend the night at his ex-girlfriend’s house. One where Ed wanted to spend the night at his ex-girlfriend’s house. What kind of crisis could Heather be having, anyway? She was too shallow to have a crisis. Did she misplace her lip gloss or something?

  Gaia suddenly realized she was grinding her teeth. And clenching her fists at her sides. Whatever. There was no point in getting angry. This obviously wasn’t the optimum moment to pick for confiding.

  Monkey Suit City

  “SO I CAN REALLY ORDER WHATEVER I want?” Ed asked tentatively from behind his menu. “Everything here looks so expensive….”

  “Sky’s the limit,” Heather answered, leaning back in her chair. She’d picked The Half Moon on purpose—not only because it was down the block from the hospital, but precisely because it was so expensive. She’d read about the place in a very pretentious article in New York magazine a week or so ago. She remembered it word for word, in fact: “A hipper-than-thou twenty-four-hour diner in the new retro style: midcentury meets the millennium.” Whatever that meant. As far as Heather could tell, this place looked just like any other diner—except for all the hair gel and cell phones.

  Of course, another crucial difference was that a serving of pancakes cost twenty dollars. But Heather wanted Ed to feel pampered. He’d earned it.

  “I … uh, think I’m just going to have a fried egg sandwich,” he mumbled. He closed the menu and put it down.

  Heather frowned at him. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I figure an egg sandwich with lots of ketchup is the grossest thing I could possibly eat.” He glanced around the restaurant. “I want to see how the crowd reacts.”

  They’ll probably ask you to leave. Heather thought, grinning ruefully. She already had noticed a couple of disapproving glances as they’d come in. Not that it was any big surprise. It was a miracle they’d even been seated. They both looked like derelicts—unbathed and unkempt. But a few customers had the gall to stare at Ed’s wheelchair, as if being disabled was somehow offensive. Uncouth. Gauche. Why was it that members of “polite society” were always the most rude? Actually, that wasn’t a tough one to answer. It was because people were goddamn hypocrites.

  “You know, it’s a good thing you brought me here,” Ed said, rolling his eyes. “This’ll be good training for tomorrow.”

  Heather blinked at him. “What’s tomorrow?”

  “My sister’s engagement party.” He groaned.

  “Oh, that’s right.” In all the miserable insanity of the past eighteen hours, she’d completely forgotten about Victoria. But she was secretly relieved Ed had brought it up. It meant they could talk about something other than Phoebe—at least for a while. “So where’s it gonna be?”

  Ed bowed his head. “You’re not gonna believe this,” he muttered. “The Plaza Hotel.”

  Heather’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?” she whispered. Jeez. Victoria’s fiancé must be loaded. There was no way the Fargos would ever throw a party at the Plaza. That was not their style.

  “Unfortunately, I am.” He sighed and slumped back in his chair. “It’s gonna suck so bad. I mean, it’s black tie and everything. Monkey suit city.”

  “Really?” She couldn’t help but smile. The thought of Ed’s being all decked out in a tuxedo was kind of … well, cute.

  Ed frowned. “What?”

  “I don’t know,” she remarked casually. “It might not be so bad”

  “Believe me, it is.” He shook his head. “I mean, it’s not just the fact that I’m gonna be surrounded by a bunch of multibillionaires. It’s also that I won’t know a single person … except my parents and my sister and a few of my sister’s friends—and all of them have a habit of saying really lame, stilted things that make me feel like crap. And what makes it even worse is that my mom said I could invite somebody, and I was going to—” He abruptly broke off in midsentence.

  Heather stared at him. “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s just …” He lowered his eyes. His face turned slightly pinkish.

  Hmmm. A thought dawned on Heather. Ed was embarrassed about something. Something that had just popped out of his mouth. Something having to do with her, obviously. And that probably meant that he had planned on asking her to go with him. But after last night, after Phoebe, he couldn’t ask her. Or so he thought.

  “Ed, were you going to ask me to go?” she asked him, point-blank.

  His head popped up. “No!” he exclaimed. “I mean, no—what I mean to say is … I just … Forget it.” His face was now beet red. He buried it in his hands.

  �
��Because I’d be honored to go,” she murmured.

  He froze. His arms fell to the table with a clumsy thud. He gaped at her as if she’d just offered to commit some horrible crime.“You would?”

  She laughed. “Sure. It would give me a chance to wear that black strapless thing you once loved so well,” she said breezily, suggestively.

  The words didn’t seem to register. “But … but what about …”

  “Phoebe?” she finished. She leaned across the table. “Phoebe’s not going to die, but her progress is going to be really slow. She’s not going to be all better anytime soon. Probably years. I’m going to do everything I can for her, but I’m not going to stop living my life in the meantime. Nobody’s going to fix Phoebe but Phoebe.”

  Slowly his face began to return to its normal color. He nodded. But he still seemed hesitant.

  “It’s okay, Ed,” she insisted. “Besides, I love the grand ballroom of the Plaza Hotel. I’ll take any excuse.”

  He laughed. “Well, in that case …”

  “Good. It’s settled.” She grinned at him, suddenly feeling very content. It was a good thing she was able to play the whole thing off so smoothly. Because the truth of the matter was that this party could have been in the back of some bar in Penn Station, and she still would have agreed to go.

  As long as she could be with Ed Fargo.

  ED

  Strange how fate works, isn’t it?

  I mean, there I was, totally freaking out, on the verge of having to admit to Heather that I was planning on asking Gaia out on a date (although technically this engagement party thing is not a date)—which, needless to say, would have ruined all those warm, fuzzy feelings that have built up between my ex and me during the past twenty-four hours.