Tell Me Lies

by Carola Lovering

  “You don’t need any more of those chips,” Helen scowled, grabbing the bag from Lydia and taking her own handful. I stared at Helen’s flabby upper arms and thought about telling her she didn’t need any more chips, either.

  “I think our point is,” Lydia continued, her expression semiwounded from Helen’s harsh comment. “This could be your fresh start with him, Luce. Let him see you for what you really are—a smart, funny, gorgeous, skinny, amazing girl, and not his always-available mistress.”

  Skinny. I smiled at Lydia, who, like Georgia, like Bree, was unconditionally kind.

  “Speaking of skinny.” Helen threw the bag of chips onto my lap. “You finish these. I feel like a beluga whale next to you, and I really don’t need these—I had a bagel for breakfast.”

  “It was scooped out,” Lydia said.

  “True.” Helen crossed her arms, frowning. Helen is the kind of girl who orders scooped-out bagels and then complains that she’s not losing weight. She doesn’t understand that you don’t get skinny by ordering scooped-out bagels. You order no bagels.

  Helen kept at me. “I mean really, Lucy. You’ve always been thin, but this is slightly horrifying.”

  “What she means is”—Lydia frowned at Helen—“are you sure you don’t have a problem? It’s okay if you do. A lot of girls at Amherst have eating issues.”

  “Oh my God, everyone in Ivy is ano,” Helen said. “I’ve tried the not-eating thing, but I just can’t do it. If I skip breakfast and lunch I pound, like, six sandwiches for dinner. Is it the coke, Lucy? Tell me honestly.”

  “No! I’m not addicted to cocaine, Helen. I’ll only do it on the weekends.”

  “But every weekend, right? Like every Friday and Saturday? I’m not judging you. I practically do it every weekend at this point. It’s like, seeping out the walls at Ivy.”

  “It’s around most weekends, I guess. Although I didn’t really go out much last semester,” I said honestly, very conscious of Lydia, who had only tried cocaine once that I knew of.

  I glanced down at my phone, the rush of Stephen’s text message coursing a new wave of excitement through me.

  “Don’t respond yet,” Helen said, watching me.

  “Twenty-four hours.” I nodded.

  I unrolled the bag of Lay’s and selected three of the smallest chips, even though my stomach growled from the five ounces of plain yogurt I’d eaten for breakfast hours earlier after my five-mile run, and I wanted to inhale the entire package.

  Bailing on France turned out to be the smartest decision I ever made, I thought six days later as I got dressed for dinner with Stephen, even though CJ had threatened to call the school on account of my rejection from Writers on the Riviera (I’d made the mistake of telling her my GPA).

  I was in a trance as I blew-dry my hair, thinking about Stephen. I was already imagining our dinner—a busy restaurant, a bottle of red, the flirty, possessive way he’d engage with me. What it would be like to kiss him again. I pictured the details of his face as I slipped into a pale yellow Ella Moss dress—the outfit I’d chosen on Monday when (after twenty-four hours of waiting) I’d texted Stephen back and he’d called me to make dinner plans. I was so excited I’d barely slept all week, and I’d spent the days sunbathing with Lydia by her pool, getting as tan as possible.

  Stephen suggested we do dinner near his house in Bayville, because he was going to be home from the city for the weekend anyway, and there was a restaurant he wanted us to try. He insisted on picking me up in Cold Spring Harbor, and though I did everything in my power to get CJ out of the house, she refused. I’d told her I was going to dinner with a friend, but CJ always figures everything out.

  “The one you liked freshman year? The one you were involved with? He’s older, isn’t he?” She was watching me put on makeup in my bathroom, standing with her arms folded, her blond bob fresh with $500 Serge Normant highlights. The way she spent my dad’s money was nauseating.

  “He’s a little older. Not much.”

  “Is he the one from Bayville?” CJ was always saying that Bayville was absurdly tacky.

  “Yes, CJ.”

  “Jeez, you’re so tan,” she said, staring at me. “Is that just from this week at the Montgomerys’? Did you even wear sunblock?”

  The doorbell rang and CJ ran out of the bathroom and down the stairs to answer it before I could finish applying mascara.

  I heard CJ answer the door. I pictured her examining Stephen from head to toe. I felt her judgment leaching into my subconscious. Stephen was the anti-Parker, and CJ thought Parker was the reincarnation of Jesus.

  I looked in the mirror one more time and decided I looked pretty enough. I was practically sick I was so nervous-excited. My whole body prickled as I skipped downstairs.

  Stephen DeMarco is standing in my front doorway, talking to my mother.

  “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” The words stopped my breath. His demeanor toward me didn’t shift in the presence of CJ, which made me smile. She cocked her head at him, sort of glaring.

  “It’s a nickname I have for Lucy,” he explained.

  “The Beatles song. I know it.” She looked unimpressed.

  He looked nice in a white oxford button-down and green shorts that matched his eyes, his face clean-shaven. Unusually preppy for Stephen, but I could tell by the twitch in her cheek that CJ didn’t approve—I knew her facial expressions by heart. She was polite anyway, because WASPs are always polite, and even though CJ isn’t a born WASP she won’t let you forget that she’s married to one of the Waspiest ones.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Stephen.” She flashed a white-toothed smile. Dentist-bleached.

  I watched them shake hands. His eye contact was excellent, as always.

  “You have a beautiful house, Mrs. Albright. I love the limestone.” Wow. CJ is obsessed with the fact that our house is limestone.

  “Thank you.” Her smile was plastic, regardless. I knew she really didn’t like him. Whatever.

  “Bye, CJ,” I said, cutting the encounter before CJ could find another way to elusively reproach Stephen.

  “Have fun, guys.”

  I made sure to avoid eye contact with CJ as she closed the front door. Finally, I was alone with Stephen. He looked at me, with the eyes, and I thought he was going to lean down and kiss me on the cheek, but he didn’t. He opened the passenger door for me. He seemed a little nervous, too. Maybe it was because, now that we were outside of Baird’s walls, our dynamic was different. He could no longer rely on the private world we’d created inside his bedroom at Slug. We were out in the open again.

  “You look really good,” he said as he pulled his Ford Explorer out of the driveway.

  I suppressed my smile. I couldn’t believe I was actually in the car with him, driving down the Long Island Expressway.

  He sped west on the highway, windows down. My hair whipped around my face. I felt like I’d escaped from a cage and was soaring free.

  “You didn’t have to pick me up,” I said. “I could’ve driven to Bayville.”

  “No sweat. I like driving.”

  He held the steering wheel with one hand, but he didn’t reach for my hand with his idle one. I suddenly wondered if I had misinterpreted this whole evening—maybe Stephen was just trying to be friendly. Maybe he felt bad about what had happened at school and wanted to apologize in person. The thought made me nervous, but then the car slowed to a stop and he turned to smile at me. We were parked in a driveway.

  “I have a surprise for you. We’re not going to the restaurant for dinner.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you. But we have to make a quick stop here. I forgot something.” He opened his door and climbed out of the car. “Come on.”

  “Where are we?” I squinted in the fading light.

  “My house. I have to grab something, but come inside. You can meet my dad.”

  Meet his dad.

  Summer crickets chirped loudly as we
tiptoed up the slate steps. The white-shingled house wasn’t big, but it was homey. A small foyer led back to the kitchen, where framed family photographs littered the walls in even arrangements. Stacks of overflowing papers piled the countertops. Alphabet magnets and more photographs cluttered the refrigerator. CJ thought it looked messy when people stuck stuff all over their refrigerator, and our own kitchen was sterile, like something out of a catalog. The DeMarcos’ kitchen felt lived in.

  Stephen’s father was rinsing dishes.

  “Dad, this is Lucy.” Stephen patted his father on the shoulder.

  Mr. DeMarco turned off the faucet and grabbed a dish towel before shaking my hand. He looked a lot like Stephen except heavier-set, and not as tall.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “I’m a mess, and so is my house.”

  “I love your house,” I offered.

  “Well, it’s normally in better shape, but my daughter had friends over last night and didn’t clean up. That’s what my kids do now, trash my house and drink my beer.”

  “Not me,” Stephen said.

  “Oh, sure.” Mr. DeMarco smiled softly. A golden retriever sprang around his feet. He tossed a piece of raw carrot on the floor, and the dog ground it up with his molars.

  “That’s Skipper,” Mr. DeMarco said when I rubbed the dog’s ears. “So you guys are headed out?”

  “Yup,” Stephen said. “We’re going to get some dinner.”

  “That’s fun.” When Mr. DeMarco smiled, his eyes glazed over absently.

  “I’m going to grab something from the garage. Luce, meet me in the car?”

  I nodded. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. DeMarco.”

  “You too, Lucy.”

  Outside, the dusky air covered me in a velvety breeze. An afternoon rainstorm had burned off the excess heat, but it was still warm enough that I didn’t need a sweater over my dress. I’d forgotten how much I loved June—June is the best month. It’s the promise, I think, of what the summer can bring.

  Stephen emerged from the garage with a tank of gasoline and two paper bags.

  “Okay, what’s happening here? Are you going to murder me and burn the evidence?” Being around him made me feel my sense of humor again.

  “Goddammit, what gave me away?”

  “Tell me the surprise.”

  “It’s a surprise. C’mon.”

  Stephen drove us through town, where the streetlights danced in yellow ribbons on the pavement. We headed toward the water, past a sign marked GOOSE POINT MARINA—PRIVATE. The air was thick and pungent, scented with heavy aromas of motor oil and salt. I followed him out of the car, along the shore, and down to the end of a wide white dock. The moon shimmered over the glossy black water.

  A bearded man sat slumped in a dinghy marked Launch, reading a book with a flashlight.

  “Hey, man.” Stephen waved. “Can we get a lift out? Last name’s Hardman. It’s the center console Kiss Me Kate.”

  “We’re going on your boat?” I asked.

  “I’ve told you about Carl’s boat, haven’t I?” he whispered. “It’s practically mine; he never uses it. I’ve always wanted to take you out on the old girl.”

  His eyes rested softly on mine. He was so adorable I thought I might burst with affection. Every time another swell of happiness surged through me I reminded myself that I was supposed to hate him for the way he’d treated me, that any self-respecting girl would instinctively loathe him. Except I didn’t hate him at all. I loved him, I knew now more than ever, and it wasn’t a choice. It was just the truth.

  Stephen pressed his palm against the small of my back as the dinghy sped out into the black night of the Long Island Sound, the engine buzzing like a hornet, blasts of warm wind gulping past our faces. His hand was low enough on my back for me to know that this night was about more than him feeling sorry. He hadn’t brought me out here to apologize.

  The harbormaster dropped us at the mooring, speeding back toward shore in his dinghy. It was dark except for the moon and stars, and quiet except for the water lapping. Stephen and I were completely alone. We had never been this alone.

  “Why Kiss Me Kate?”

  “Carl’s grandparents gave him the boat for his middle school graduation—his grandparents live on Centre Island and are crazy loaded—and Carl had a ginormous crush on this girl Ashley who played Kate in Kiss Me Kate, the eighth-grade play that year,” Stephen explained as he unscrewed the red plastic tub of gasoline and poured it into the tank. “So that’s what he named it, to impress her. Kid’s a moron.”

  “So it worked?”

  “Absolutely not. He barely knew Ashley, and when she found out about the boat I think she was more freaked out than anything else.” Stephen shook his head, chuckling. “Poor Carl.”

  Stephen put the engine in gear and salt water sprayed my bare legs as the Kiss Me Kate zoomed through the sea. The lights of the houses along the shoreline shrank and the stars popped brighter as we made our way farther out into the sound. When he brought the center console to a halt, there were no other boats or moorings in sight. The sky full of stars formed a huge dome around us.

  “So, almost birthday girl, what do you think of your surprise?” Stephen scooted close to me on the white leather bench, which was damp with salty spray.

  “What?” I couldn’t not laugh, my heart dancing inside my chest. My twentieth birthday was in four days, the tenth of June, and I’d barely been thinking about it. I was secretly dreading it, hoping it would pass quickly and quietly. “How do you know my birthday?”

  “I know lots of things.” His eyes scorched mine. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He unwrapped the paper bag and pulled out two slices of pizza wrapped in aluminum foil, and a Ziploc bag of weed. “Beats sitting in a restaurant, right?”

  “This is incredible.” I couldn’t stop my smile. “I’m relieved you’re not trying to murder me.”

  “You never know. The night is still young.”

  He handed me one of the pieces of pizza, which was still warm. I hadn’t eaten all day and was too jittery to be hungry, but I forced it down. I didn’t want Stephen to think I was one of those girls who didn’t eat, even though that’s who I’d become. One of those skinny bitches Lydia and I used to shit-talk as we stuffed our faces with chips and queso at the food court at the mall. Queso! Instead of salsa! Can you imagine?

  I hadn’t eaten pizza in months, and I’d almost forgotten how good it tasted. I savored each bite of oily cheese and bread and fresh tomato sauce, momentarily forgetting the existence of calories. Stephen opened the bag of weed, and I watched carefully as he rolled a joint. He did it firmly, licking the edge of the milky-white paper before sealing it closed. I’d never been able to roll a decent joint, though Pippa had tried to teach me several times. Stephen’s eyes glittered green as he flicked the lighter in one quick motion. The end of the joint burned and coiled.

  When he passed it to me I inhaled more than I meant to and that easy, sodden stoned feeling hit me at once. My body felt glued to the cushion seat of the boat.

  I looked up at the stars and couldn’t take my eyes away. “The stars are so beautiful.”

  “You know what else is so beautiful?”

  I laughed, and when I peeled my eyes down he was staring at me.

  “Good one,” I said.

  “It’s only the truth.”

  I rolled my eyes, radiating inside.

  “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” He spread his hands out in a panorama across the sky. “Just like you.”

  I felt paralyzed with bliss. Time had stopped. The pain had been worth it. All of it, for this.

  “How’s being home?” he asked. “How are things with CJ? She does seem a little prickly. Or maybe she just didn’t like me.”

  “It wasn’t you,” I lied.

  “So things aren’t better?”

  “Not really. They’re fine. The same as usual.” I was too stoned to form better answers. I couldn’t stop staring at the stars. I wished I knew more
about the constellations. Georgia knew basically all of them.

  “What about you?” I asked. “Tell me about your job. I didn’t even know you’d gotten one.”

  “Yeah.” He paused. “I know we didn’t . . . spend much time together before graduation. Things got hectic. I’m sorry about that. But the job was kind of last-minute. It’s a trading job at this smaller company downtown.”

  “That sounds cool.”

  “It should be okay. I need to make money.”

  “So you already have an apartment?”

  “I moved in with my brother,” he said. “But he’s always with his girlfriend, so I’m either alone or third-wheeling.”

  “Is that why you came out here for the weekend?”

  “Nah. I just wanted to get some fresh air and help my dad plan some stuff for the grad party next weekend. You’re coming, right?”

  “Stephen,” I started, nervous to ignite the conversation Lydia and Helen had insisted was imperative we have, especially now that I was stoned. “We need to talk.”

  “About what?” He inched closer to me on the leather bench. I kept my eyes forward but could feel his breath on the side of my face.

  “The elephant in the room.”

  “We’re not in a room. We’re on a boat. Are there still elephants on the boat?”

  “Yes, and they are going to sink it.”

  Stephen laughed wholeheartedly, which warmed the space behind my rib cage.

  “Fine, Lucy. Have it your way. Let’s talk about what an ass I am.”

  I knew he would say something defensive; he had to have some sort of plan for how this would all go, how he envisioned us proceeding outside the walls of Baird. He wasn’t spontaneous, not really, not like I’d thought in the beginning. His impulsiveness was feigned; it masked a deeper set of intentions. I’d spent months thinking about the way he operated, running a fine-tooth comb through the tangled mess of my feelings and his actions and claims. I understood that each of his choices was driven by an objective or a desire. His moves were calculated, slightly impetuous but always weighed against the consequences.

  “I know I did a lot of fucked-up shit,” he said finally. “A lot.”