Little Lies

by Cherie Bennett

  “You don’t know? It’s a medical marijuana shop. Which is good if you have cancer. My mother used it during chemo. But it’s beyond easy to get a scrip and sell what you buy on the street. It’s all over my high school. This ‘kush’ and that ‘kush.’ Yuck.”

  Huh. I’d known they had medical marijuana here in Los Angeles. I just hadn’t realized that they sold it across the street from frozen yogurt joints.

  “What about the sex?” Mia asked me.

  Crap.

  “What about it?”

  “I guess you’re a virgin, like me.” Mia answered her question for me. “That was always a big deal with my mom. It wasn’t hard for me. My boyfriend, Trent, who’s away at music camp for the summer? I kinda picked him so I wouldn’t be tempted. What about you? You haven’t talked much about that guy back in Minnesota. What’s his name? Seamus?”

  “Sean.”

  I’d almost finished my cup of frozen yogurt, and toyed momentarily with the idea of getting another one. The Los Angeles Fat Police, though, probably had a fat-cam inside to bust people who wanted seconds.

  Just kidding. Probably.

  Mia threw her head back and laughed. “Girl, you are not exactly a font of information here. Is it that you’re just not that into him, he’s not that into you, or both?”

  I had to give her something. “We were into each other.”

  “The word ‘were’ indicates past tense.”

  “It’s complicated,” I told her. “You almost met him. He was supposed to come out next Monday. But he canceled.”

  Mia looked down at her cup. “I’m done. Want to go again?”

  I stuffed my thoughts of the fatty-cam and told the truth. “Are you kidding? I am dying to try the New York cheesecake.”

  “Good. Because I need to be fully fueled to continue this.”

  We went inside and got slightly smaller second cups. No arrest by the LAFP. They had to be busy at In-N-Out Burger.

  When we went back outside, I told Mia a bit more about Sean. How he wasn’t exactly as safe a choice as Trent. How Sean was cute, and Sean was hot, and Sean was talented, but I felt like he wouldn’t talk to me. Really and truly talk to me.

  “Can you talk with Trent?” I asked, and then tasted my new frozen yogurt. I’d added crumbled Oreo cookies and rainbow sprinkles. Fantastic.

  “Talk is what Trent does best,” Mia said flatly. “Which is why he’s a perfect boyfriend. Yeah, we kiss and stuff, but if you don’t really want a boy, it’s easy to keep yourself safe.”

  Huh. That was one approach. It actually made sense, in a way. But I had to ask.

  “What does Trent think about this, um, arrangement?”

  “He’s thrilled I want to be his girlfriend. It works out perfectly.”

  Mia smiled wryly. “Have you met any new guys out here?”

  “Actually, yes. This guy Brett Goldstein.”

  Mia sputtered. “Brett Goldstein? The Brett Goldstein?”

  “You know him?” I was surprised.

  “From Working Stiff. I love that show. It’s, like, my only appointment TV. He’s a great actor. How’d you meet him?”

  “He’s a friend of Alex Samuels. He was actually driving the night of the crash. Sober,” I hastened to add. “We had dinner yesterday. That sounds a lot more official than it is.”

  “I guess Sean doesn’t know yet.”

  I shook my head slowly. “No. Not yet.”

  “That’s okay. You’ve had what, one date?”

  “Officially, yeah.”

  Mia nodded. “That figures. He must be really busy with the show. What does he think about your mother being a minister?”

  I was in the middle of a bite of my frozen yogurt. I swallowed it, had a minor brain freeze, and then frowned. “I have no idea. Why would he care?”

  A convoy of tough-looking women on matching Harleys rolled by on Laurel Canyon. Mia put her fingers in her ears and waited for the decibel level to subside before she continued.

  “I’m gonna get me one of those someday,” she declared. “Why would he care? I don’t think he’d care so much. But his parents? They might care a lot.”

  I swung my chair around to face Mia more directly. “How could it possibly make a difference?”

  Mia shook a finger at me. “Your Minnesota is showing. How many Jewish kids are there in Mankato? Three?”

  “Umm … there was one girl in my class,” I said sheepishly. “When I was in fifth grade.”

  “That’s what I thought. Anyway, some Jewish parents want their kids to marry Jewish girls or guys only, the same way my mom only wanted me to marry a black guy. Do your parents want you to marry a Christian boy?”

  “Umm … I have no idea. I’m seventeen.” We’d never really talked about that. “Way to rush things. I’m not getting married!” At least not while I was still a teenager.

  “What do you think they’d say?” Mia pressed.

  Once again, I had no idea. “I’ll have to find out.”

  Mia pushed a stray dreadlock off her forehead. “Let me know what happens.” Her cell chimed in with a text; she looked at it dispassionately. “I’ve got to go.”

  I was ready to head home, too, so no problem. We stood. Impulsively, Mia embraced me.

  “This was fun,” she said. “This was as much fun as I’ve had with a girlfriend in forever.”

  “I loved it,” I told her.

  We walked arm in arm across the street to Mia’s little blue Mazda Miata. Before she got inside, she had one more question for me. “Besides Brett Goldstein, how many guys have you dated here?”

  I made a goose egg with the thumb and forefinger of each hand and sheepishly displayed them. She made the same gesture to me and then turned it into a thumbs-down. “One guy. Can I make a suggestion, my new dear friend new-girl-in-town Natalie? You need to get out more. Lots more.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Sis? Can we—can we talk?”

  I turned around. Just behind me, at the bottom of the stairs, was Chad. He wore a Junior Olympics swim team T-shirt and gym shorts and had an Xbox-live headset wrapped around his neck. During his monthlong grounding, he’d been playing a ton of video games. My parents weren’t normally big on Call of Duty and Gears of War, but I guess they figured that the grounding was punishment enough.

  “Sure,” I told him. “What’s up?”

  He looked around quickly, as if to be sure that no one could overhear. “Let’s go into the living room, okay?” It was forty-five minutes after I’d left Mia. The drive back home over the hill had been blessedly traffic-free. I’d just been heading upstairs to fill out the job application when I’d heard my brother call for me.

  “Sounds good. When’s dinner?”

  “Late,” my brother reported. “After Mom gets home. Dad’s got a calico bass marinating in the fridge. What’s a calico bass, anyway? I thought they only came in smallmouth and largemouth.”

  I smiled. This was as civil as Chad had been since I’d busted him and Lisa at the party. I followed him into the living room, the room in our new home that I most disliked but that also had the most privacy. There were a burnt-sienna parquet floor and two huge picture windows that looked out toward the ocean, ten miles away. In the middle of all this open space, dwarfed by the emptiness, were a couple of marginally comfortable white leather couches with a mosaic coffee table between them. Still, Chad settled into one of them; I took the other.

  “Why the big hush-hush?” I asked.

  “Because I’ve been acting like a jerk,” he said bluntly. “And I don’t want anyone to think I’m apologizing to you for their benefit and my benefit, and not for your benefit.” He pursed his lips. “Nat? You weren’t the one who messed up by going to that party.”

  Oh yes I did, I said to myself.

  “You didn’t mess up like I messed up, is what I meant to say. Anyway, I’ve decided to stop being an asshole, and don’t correct my language, please. Being an asshole doesn’t help the time go faster.” Chad
shrugged. “That’s all I have to say.”

  Impressed by Chad’s maturity, I unconsciously stretched my legs to put my feet on the table and then withdrew them. What if I broke the table? It was probably worth enough to pay for a college education at USC.

  Chad laughed. “That table annoys the crap out of me. I make a point of putting my feet up on it.”

  To prove it, he swung his legs up, put his hands behind his head, and relaxed. Now, this was the brother I had known and loved back in Minnesota. I couldn’t help it: I had to ask him the question that he had so far refused to answer.

  “Chad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The night of the party? How’d you do it? How’d you get out of the house?”

  He ran a hand through his short blond hair. “I wish I could say that I climbed out my window, rode a zip line across the arroyo, and then hopped in Kent’s private helicopter. But what really happened is I waited for Dad to go to the crapper. Lisa had a friend who drives waiting at the bottom of the hill.”

  “You went out the front door?” I was amazed.

  “Yep.”

  I stood. “Don’t do it again.”

  Chad stood, too, and stretched his arms overhead. He’d put on a few pounds of muscle training in the pool at UCLA. He looked great. What would it be like to be thirteen in an eighteen-year-old’s body, with gorgeous high school girls hitting on you? That had to be hard to resist.

  “I won’t,” he promised. “Anyway, from what I hear, Lisa’s moved on to another guy. He’s sixteen.”

  “Cool.” I started for the kitchen, then turned back to my brother. “I’m sure there are plenty of girls your age whose hearts you can break.”

  My brother stepped to a window to take in the late-day sun. “Yeah. But I’ve got two more weeks of house arrest till I can meet anyone. And, Natalie? This is between you and me.”

  “You got it.”

  I gave my new and improved brother a little wave and went to the kitchen, where my father was happily preparing the calico bass; he was going to bake it in aluminum foil with extra olive oil and sliced fennel in the belly, surrounded by new potatoes and sautéed leeks.

  “If the writing thing doesn’t work out?” I said, taking a seat at the table. “You can always open a restaurant.”

  “Actually, after today, maybe I’ll be a fisherman!” For the next ten minutes, as he worked on the fish, he regaled me with tales of his outing and showed off a bunch of cell phone pictures. My favorite was of him feeding some bait to a sea lion that had swum up to the boat.

  He had just put the fish into the oven when the front door opened and my mother swept in.

  “Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, I’m home before seven o’clock! Hello, Husband. Hello, Daughter. Hello hello!” She tossed her pocketbook onto the counter and collapsed ceremoniously onto one of the kitchen chairs.

  Marsha Shelton had never been afraid of a grand entrance.

  “What can I get you?” my dad asked solicitously.

  “New shoes. Wednesday is chaplaincy day. Hospital, senior home, homeless shelter, detention center.” She turned to me. “You know what, Nat? It’s the one day where I’m sure I’m doing what I was ordained to do. Where are your brother and sister?”

  “Gemma’s upstairs,” my father told her.

  “And I just talked to Chad,” I added.

  “How is the spawn of Satan doing?” My mom smiled broadly, taking any sting out of the appellation.

  “He’s okay, actually,” I told her.

  “And you?”

  I took the Menchie’s application out of my pocket to show them. “Your eldest daughter is planning to look for a job.”

  “Impressive,” my father said as he checked it out. “Menchie’s?”

  “It’s a frozen yogurt place. I went there today with Mia,” I explained.

  He went back to the oven and adjusted the temperature. “Twenty-five minutes to culinary bliss.” Then he turned back to me, his face serious. “Natalie—I think your mother will agree with me about this. If you want to work, you don’t have to work in a yogurt shop.”

  “I do agree.” My mom went to the refrigerator and found a bottle of cold mango juice; she’d discovered the stuff when we moved here, and had become something of an addict. “I’ve seen what other young people your age are doing. They’re building their college application resumes. You’ll be applying to schools next year, you know. I know we haven’t discussed it, but maybe we should start. Anyway, we’ve got members of the church who would be thrilled to give you a paid internship doing something interesting.” She cracked the juice open. “You’d get real experience and earn money at the same time. It’s a win-win.”

  I went and got my laptop and returned to the table, a bit frustrated. I didn’t want any kind of job that could smack of taking advantage of my mom’s position. I knew that internships were pretty coveted, but it just struck me as wrong to get one this way. “I’m sure you could do that for me. But I’m not so interested.”

  “I get it. You’re afraid that people will think you only got the job because of your dad and me.” My mother finished the juice and put the empty bottle in the recycling bin under the sink. “That won’t happen. But I see your mind is made up. I think your father and I should just let this go. Okay, Charlie?”

  My dad nodded. “Fine with me if it’s fine with you.”

  “It’s fine with me,” my mom declared.

  “Thanks,” I told them. “Okay, let me concentrate.”

  She drank more mango juice as I filled out the online application, tossing the wrinkled paper one I’d picked up at the store into the garbage. The application was very basic. Name, address, a couple of references, experience, when I could start. I’d worked part-time at the Christian coffeehouse in Mankato, and the owner there loved me. I wrote down his name and the number as a reference.

  When I looked up, both my parents were across the table from me. “Okay. We’re parents, we’re allowed to ask again,” my dad said. “Sure you don’t want our help?”

  “Yes, I’m … well …” My voice trailed off. I didn’t want my folks’ help with this job, but I remembered there was something else I definitely wanted their help with.

  “You changed your mind?” My father’s voice was eager.

  I shook my head. “Not about this.”

  “Then what?” my mother asked.

  My answer was one word. “Gemma.”

  Starting over puts the past behind

  Starting over means there’s stuff you lack

  Starting over clears your humble mind

  Starting over, so please don’t look back.

  No matter what your starting place, the future is the same

  As open as a book, as fleeting as a flame

  Don’t fear to tread on winding trails

  Don’t hurry through the mist

  The light that shines down from above will

  Touch you like a kiss.

  Yes! That was it.

  I scribbled the last verse in my lyric book and then played “Starting Over” all the way through. I was psyched. I hadn’t written a whole song in one day ever, but I’d just done it that day.

  I closed my lyric book with satisfaction and put my guitar back in its case before I checked the time on my iPhone. Just after midnight. I’d been working on the song for three hours without a break. Whoa. I’d been into it.

  There was a knock at my door.

  “Yeah?” I called.

  “It’s me. Can I come in?”

  Gemma.

  “Absolutely.”

  My sister stepped inside, looking happy in a pair of blue sweatpants and a white-and-gray burnout tank top. “You sound so great. I was in the upstairs den all this time, just listening. I love the new song.”

  Aww.

  “And I wanted to thank you again. For talking to Mom and Dad. About getting a driver for me, so I’m not so trapped here.”

  Before dinner, I had pled Gemma’s
case to my folks. How we’d never expected to be living up here in the hills. How the regular church parish house was within walking distance to everything in Beverly Hills. Not that anyone in Los Angeles walked anywhere, but that was beside the point. How I would be happy to drive her places but couldn’t because of my restricted license. How during the day, my mother had one car while my dad and I shared the other one.

  I knew Gemma could have pled the same case. But sometimes it’s better to have an advocate. What better advocate than your older sister?

  My folks’ reaction, bless their Minnesotan hearts, was immediate. Long term, they’d think about getting a car for me, especially after I turned eighteen. Short term? They’d adopt the Los Angeles solution: hire a car and driver for Gemma (and Chad, too, once his house arrest was over), as long as they didn’t abuse the privilege. It would be an additional expense, yes, but it wasn’t like carpooling was a possibility.

  When they’d told Gemma and Chad at dinner, both of them had hugged me. My mother often preached that one can’t say “thank you” too much. Gemma was now taking that lesson to heart.

  “You’re welcome,” I told her. “Sometimes you need someone in your corner.”

  “I’m glad it’s you.” She took my guitar and strummed it. She was no Jimi Hendrix. “You’re lucky you have talent,” she said wistfully.

  “Well, maybe you have talent, too, but you just haven’t found what that talent is.” I tried to be supportive.

  Gemma laughed. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. Here. Check this out.”

  She reached into the pocket of her sweats and took out a one-page flyer she’d printed from her computer.

  INTRO TO IMPROV! FREE INTRODUCTORY CLASS!

  SPECIAL TEEN RATES AGES 15–18!

  I scanned the sheet. A small theater in West Hollywood was running the class; if you liked the intro class, you could pay a flat monthly fee and attend as many regular improvisational comedy classes as you wanted. They were offered practically every day, at various times. As a special bonus, on occasional Saturday nights, the intro students—they called them the rookies—would perform a comedy showcase for an audience of friends and family.