Tell Me Lies

by Carola Lovering

  It happened so fast, and I was too numb to react. Stephen and Diana climbed inside Safety Van and sat down in the middle row, in front of Pippa and me.

  “Corner of Logan and Grove, please,” Diana said in her voice, which I didn’t recognize, because I’d never heard her speak.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but my vocal cords had hardened again, and no sound came out. Safety Van started moving.

  The way Pippa’s temples were pulsing I could tell she was going to do something—she had a bad temper when it came to this kind of stuff.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Pippa’s voice was so loud, she was almost yelling.

  The driver glanced at us in the rearview mirror. Diana shot Pippa a glare, but Stephen kept his head forward. I held my breath, too stunned to move a muscle. How was this possible? Not two hours earlier Stephen and I had been in the bathroom together. He’d put a key up my nose and his tongue in my mouth and his hand—the same hand that was in this van—inside me. Not fifteen hours before that I’d lounged in Stephen’s bed after morning sex, our bare legs intertwined under the sheets while he’d told me about his friend Carl’s boat, the Kiss Me Kate, a center console anchored in Long Island Sound. Carl never uses his boat; I know where he keeps the keys. I’ll take you out for a spin and a waterski and some East Coast beer—first weekend we’re both back in Strong Island, it’s on.

  Safety Van stopped in front of Diana’s house. She slid the door open and climbed out first, her tawny nest of hair flashing in front of my face. As Stephen climbed out behind her, Pippa leaned forward over the seat and started punching his back with everything she had. She shoved his head into the passenger seat and clawed at his neck. “Fuck you. Fuck you!” she screamed. “You fucking creep.”

  The driver was yelling at Pippa to calm the hell down. Stephen said nothing, averting his eyes as he ducked Pippa’s punches and climbed out of the van.

  You better wear your black bikini, but I’m serious, Luce, it’s a date. The first of many summer dates, I hope.

  I looped my index finger through the strap of my black bikini, which I’d worn to Hawaiian Luau for Stephen. A lot can change in fifteen hours, I learned that night. I watched him follow Diana into her house, closing the door behind him.

  18

  STEPHEN

  JULY 2011

  My aunt Amy—my father’s sister—insisted on throwing an unnecessarily extravagant lunch for my father’s fifty-eighth birthday. It wasn’t like it was his sixtieth or some big Hallmark occasion, but according to Amy we all needed to make a very big effort because “your dad is having a rough time,” even though it’s been a damn decade since the divorce and continuing to enable my father’s grief is wildly counterproductive and downright pathetic. But I’ve learned it’s safer to keep such opinions to myself when it comes to my family, so I didn’t make a peep when Amy announced she’d invited twenty-five people to our house for lunch, without bothering to ask my father beforehand, when her own house is ten minutes down the road.

  I’d been living with my cousin Vivian—Amy’s daughter—and her fiancé, Rod, in Washington, DC, for the summer, sticking it out at my internship at Steptoe & Johnson that I’d gotten via Vivian via the help of Rod’s lawyer friend at the firm. It was bitch work, but Steptoe was résumé gold.

  So Rod, Vivian, and I barreled up to Long Island from DC for the weekend in absurd traffic, and I spent the entire time listening to them discuss their wedding registry. Six hours of hearing about different types of candlesticks was enough to make me want to jump out of Rod’s Mitsubishi. It was so late by the time they dropped me off at home in Bayville and I’d absorbed so much information about china patterns that I could barely keep my eyes open.

  When I woke up the next morning it was that perfect, sun-drenched kind of summer morning where before you even open your eyes you see red glow, and you hear birds singing, and you know it’s going to be nice weather that day. I lay awake for a while propped up on pillows and had a look around my childhood bedroom. Everything was exactly the same as it had been since I was nine: the gold plastic soccer trophies on top of the dusty wooden bookshelf, the blue-and-white-striped New York Yankees curtains, and the framed poster of Eli Manning above my headboard. I told my dad he could get rid of it all, to turn my room into a gym or an office or something of some use, but he refused, and so it still looks like a prepubescent sports-obsessed kid lives here. I think it makes him happy to try and freeze time, to pretend that the three of us are still tucked in our beds, that my mother is still downstairs in the den blasting jazz, applying to be a contestant on Jeopardy! and drinking Tanqueray, ignoring him. Having that woman in this house made him feel complete, even though he was all the more unhappy for it. It’s funny how so many people end up finding such comfort, even contentment, in their misery.

  I finally got out of bed, took a lukewarm shower, and trotted into the kitchen to find my father bent over the stove, sizzling strips of bacon that made the whole downstairs smell sensational. My dad is a wide, sturdy man. Big-boned, my mother would say when she was feeling manic and honest, usually curling her lips in my direction and adding, like you, Stephen.

  Aunt Amy was in the kitchen, too, already starting on lunch. I hugged both of them and wished my father a happy birthday, then poured myself a cup of coffee and walked out onto the back porch, warm rays of sunlight hitting my face.

  Skipper, our old golden retriever, sniffed around my ankles.

  “Go on, Skip.” I shooed the dog away. I don’t like dogs all that much, to be honest, and I don’t see why people go so crazy over them. Skipper is more of an attention-seeking nuisance than anything else.

  I turned my face back toward the sun. God, it was warm out. I suddenly craved a spin in Carl’s boat, like the good old days when we’d take the Kiss Me Kate out on the sound, have a few beers.

  Lucy popped into my head then, probably because I have this fantasy of having sex with her on a boat. I’m not sure why; I think it’s because she’s the kind of girl who would look very sexy on a boat. Lucy’s hometown, Cold Spring Harbor, is only twenty minutes from my house in Bayville. I wondered if she was home. I thought about texting her, saying something about this nice weather, maybe adding a flattering comment. Maybe something about the boat. Lucy was a sucker for the flattering comments. But I hadn’t talked to her since Hawaiian Luau, since the unfortunate Safety Van incident, and for all I knew she could hate my guts. I didn’t need to be stirring things up with her over the summer—better to wait until school started to evaluate the damage.

  I sipped my coffee, always black, and gazed up at the cloudless sky. My train of thought was disrupted by the sound of Luke’s voice as he walked through the front door with his bombshell girlfriend, Kathleen.

  “Wanna take Carl’s boat out?” I asked my little sister, Sadie, who lay on the chaise next to mine.

  “There isn’t time!” Amy yelled from inside—she’s like God; she hears fucking everything.

  “It’s eleven thirty,” I called back.

  “The guests will be here in two hours, Stephen. You can make yourself useful by helping in the kitchen, not taking Carl’s boat out for a joyride.”

  Aunt Amy can be a real cunt when she’s stressed, and it’s only gotten worse since my mom went off the deep end. There was absolutely no reason for her to invite two dozen people to her brother’s fifty-eighth birthday, when what my father actually needs is to get laid.

  Apparently the fact that this month marks ten years since my mother left is something we are all supposed to be very sensitive toward, according to Amy, though I don’t see how drawing attention to the fact that my father is still miserable helps in the slightest.

  My mother was never any good at being a parent—her symptoms were always prevalent. A few years before she was even diagnosed, she “accidentally” left one-year-old Luke at the playground in Bayville. Just left him there. My mom got in her car and took off down the street because she swore she saw some childho
od friend who’d supposedly died years earlier. She was gone twenty-four hours. Some lady found Luke sitting in his stroller in the park and called the police.

  My father knew what he was getting into when they decided to try for a third kid, and I don’t feel sorry for him. The crazy shit kept happening. I don’t know if it would’ve been different if my mom had taken her meds, but she didn’t—she claimed they made her feel “off.” When she disappeared with Sadie for a week, something in my father snapped, and he finally listened to everyone who’d been telling him to file for divorce. But ever since then he’s lived in a fantasy world, one where my mother is going to morph back into the nonbipolar green-eyed secretary he fell for in 1982 and return our college savings, and every night when reality reminds him that this won’t ever happen, that my mother is a clinical madwoman with no interest in managing her illness, and that he’s overweight, past middle age, and stuck working his dead-end accounting job, he slides a little deeper into his depression. With that in mind, family functions are often a drag. I’d better start drinking.

  I finished the last of my coffee in one gulp and walked inside to say hello to Luke and Kath. I’ve known Kathleen for five years—that’s how long she’s been dating my brother. It’s absurd; he’s never cheated on her.

  Kath kissed me on both cheeks—she thinks she’s French or something—and I tried not to stare down her low-cut top.

  I mixed myself a strong Bloody Mary before Aunt Amy forced me to arrange a bunch of tiny cucumber sandwiches that Kathleen had brought on a serving plate. I don’t understand the point of those things—they’re like air. I could eat a hundred and still be starving. I poured more vodka into the remnants of my Bloody and made another while Amy wasn’t looking.

  By two o’clock almost everyone had arrived. Most were relatives, some were still happily married Nassau County couples, and some were Aunt Amy’s divorced friends, whose kids were likely spending the weekend with their ex-husbands and new, younger stepmoms. These are the women Amy secretly hopes will hit it off with my father, and it’s easy to pick them out—they are late-fifties, sad-looking and washed-out; they’re wearing unflattering tent dresses and have stopped bothering to dye their frizzy, graying poofs of hair. It’s no wonder their husbands would rather fuck a hot thirty-five-year-old than pop Viagra and close their eyes. Even though my mom is crazy she’s better looking than any of these grandmas, and I knew my father wouldn’t be interested.

  We all squeezed into a long, perfectly set table that Amy had rented for the patio. I decided to switch to red wine. Even on the hottest days of summer, I’m a red guy.

  Sadie had made these dumb place cards on which she’d pasted various photographs of my father, and she’d wedged me between one of the divorcées and my uncle Daniel, Amy’s husband who always wants to have tediously long conversations about topics like the Civil War and why he sent his kids to charter schools.

  Luke and Kathleen sat across from me, under the shade of a leafy maple while I was sweating my balls off in the sun. Luke always makes it very clear that Kathleen needs to be seated next to him at family functions. He wants to make sure she feels comfortable. It’s so bizarre—he’s fucking hot-glued to that girl. He can’t make a single decision that doesn’t involve her. If you asked him how he wants his eggs cooked, he would probably need to ask Kathleen. He told me last summer that he wants to marry her. When I asked him how he was sure he said, verbatim, “Because I know I would die for her,” as if that were a perfectly normal thing to say. I’m all for having a girlfriend, but why would anyone in his or her right mind ever die for someone else? I would no more die for a girlfriend than sleep with the divorced grandma to my left. I know if I told Luke that he’d just clap me on the back and say, “Stephen, you just haven’t met the right girl yet.” To which I’d have to smile graciously and answer, “Yeah, you’re right, thanks, Luke.”

  The truth is, I’ll never feel about a girl the way Luke feels about Kathleen. Even with whomever I end up marrying. I bet half the people out there are like me, faking the whole love thing. But Luke’s not. I know Luke’s not faking it, and it’s both freaky and sad. It’s easy to find the emotional themes of a person’s life in the convictions they hold most blindly. Luke is the kind of guy who judges himself based on his feelings and what those feelings mean to him. His sense of self-worth comes from the validation of what he believes to be principled choices. He accepted a mediocre job in bond trading right out of college, a job he’ll probably stay in for the rest of his life while Kathleen waters the plants. They’ll have a few kids, and he’ll wipe their asses and clean SpaghettiOs off the floor. He won’t live a bigger life than that.

  While we all sat waiting to eat, I took the opportunity to observe Luke and Kathleen across from me, because God knows they barely knew anyone else was even in the room. It’s helpful for me to observe the way couples interact with each other.

  They’d each had a couple of glasses of wine before we sat down, and the two of them were all over each other at the table. Luke’s hand rested on the back of Kathleen’s thin neck, underneath her hair, while Kathleen nuzzled her nose and mouth around Luke’s ear, one hand on his thigh. Hand on back of neck—noted. I like that, Luke. Classy yet sexy. Understated yet affectionate. You two are clearly close. You love each other dearly and deeply.

  Kathleen is raven-haired and petite and wowza beautiful—the kind of beautiful that is almost unfair. It’s pathetic that some people get by on their looks and think they’re happy because of who they are, when they’re really only happy because people tell them they look like supermodels. Everybody wants to look like a supermodel.

  People are always telling Luke he hit the jackpot with Kathleen, which I guess is true. Luke is a good-looking guy, though. He’s better looking than me. He’s in better shape, too.

  Eventually Kathleen took a break from licking Luke’s neck and turned toward me, saving me from an awful conversation with Uncle Daniel about the Battle of Fredericksburg. I wasn’t kidding—he is always bringing up the fucking Civil War.

  “Excuse me,” I told Daniel. “Kathleen?”

  “Stevie, I want to know about your love life. Are you still dating . . . Diana, is it?” She batted her eyelashes. Kathleen is the kind of woman who knows she’s hot and goes out of her way to make sure everyone else knows it, too, even her boyfriend’s little brother.

  “Diana, yes,” I replied. “We’re together, basically.”

  “Basically?” Kathleen always pries.

  “I mean, we got back together a little over a month ago, but we had a rocky year. It’s one of those relationships, you know, where we both love each other but something always seems to get in the way.” I gave Kathleen a sad smile.

  “Like what gets in the way, Stevie?” she asked, looking legitimately intrigued. I have asked her not to call me Stevie about eighty times.

  “I’m not sure. It’s complicated.”

  “But you love her.”

  I felt my throat tighten and go dry; the wine residue around the back suddenly made me very thirsty. What business of Kathleen’s was my love life?

  “Yes, of course. I love her so much.”

  Kathleen beamed like I’d just told her I loved her.

  “Then do whatever it takes to make it work,” she said, her dark eyes shiny. She squeezed my brother’s hand and looked at him as if they were Romeo and Juliet, the trope for true love.

  “I’m sure as hell going to try.” I shifted in my seat and took another sip of wine.

  “Good.” She smiled, brushing a wave of black hair off her tan, defined collarbone.

  “You two seem so happy. It’s inspiring.” I said it to feed her ego and, in turn, heighten her affection for me. There’s no harm in having Kathleen think I’m the greatest.

  “Your brother is just so sweet, Lukey.”

  Luke gave me an appreciative grin.

  Thankfully we were interrupted by my grandfather, who can barely walk and had flown up from his retireme
nt community in Florida so as not to miss my father’s fucking fifty-eighth birthday party. He cleared his throat to say grace, even though this wasn’t a remotely religious event. After the old man finished reciting the Lord’s Prayer and blessing about fifty “absent friends” by name (aka my grandmother and a bunch of dead old geezers who no one had heard of), we were free to eat.

  I love eating the way I love sex. Even when I’m satisfied, I almost can’t stand when it’s over. My satisfaction isn’t satisfying. It’s an endless, insufferable cycle, and I crave it any way and always. Sometimes when I eat I get so immersed in eating that I forget my own name, lost in the pleasure. And with eating, there’s the added benefit of not having to appease anyone’s emotions in the aftermath.

  It was a typical DeMarco family-style Italian meal, and I’ll give it to Amy—the woman can cook. I helped myself to generous servings of the good stuff: spaghetti Bolognese, braciola, meatball lasagna, eggplant parm, caprese salad, and Amy’s famous buttery garlic bread. Kathleen went crazy over her cucumber sandwiches—by far the least appealing dish on the table—probably because they each contained about one calorie.

  We all sang “Happy Birthday” to my father, and Luke cut the double chocolate cake, homemade by one of the divorcées. It was quite a feast, combined with all the wine, and afterward I was so full I could barely move.

  As with postsex, I tend to feel a bit thwarted postmeal. I sipped my red, and, glancing around at the different people at the table, began to feel a bit funny. I get this same glum, slightly anxious feeling every so often, so I’m able to sense it coming on; it’s a kind of uncomfortable uneasiness with roots that are impossible to place. Today I felt especially bothered by the continuous sight of Luke and Kathleen in front of me. I glanced farther down the table at Vivian and Rod, their hands interlaced on the table, dumb grins plastered on both their faces. Vivian and Rod are another couple who’ve been together forever.